Samurai Sam. It's ladies and gentlemen. Welcome, everybody, here today. Good morning, everyone. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome here today. I'm glad you are here. Good to see everybody. Glad you're having some good fellowship and singing and talking and. Well, you're not singing yet, are you? You're gonna. Maybe some of you are singing, I don't know. But anyway, welcome. Good to see you today on a nice full house here, except for the front row. We got some front rows up here if anybody's wanting to switch to front row people. But welcome, everybody. We have some guest musicians today. Isn't that nice? So the Taosnap Tabernacle. Well, why such a hearty amen? Yes, it is nice to have some guest musicians. So I gave the Taos Tabernacle Choir the day off, and so we're going to be out there singing. And we have two. Lou and Jane King came here about a year ago. Right. And I learned then that he plays piano and he's a composer. And normally I take a poll at the beginning of the service to see who plays piano. Okay. Somebody do it. If not, we got a computer. Right. But anyway, I found out, hey, Lou plays really good. So I said, lou, come back. And he did, and he brought a friend and Wiley and Linda. Thank you. Wiley and Linda came with Lou and Jane, and Lou is going to play the piano and Wiley is a worship leader. And I got to meet Wylie and Linda a little bit on Friday night and look forward to them. They're going to be here this Sunday and next Sunday and next Sunday. Maybe the choir will join them. Maybe not. We'll see. And we'll. We'll have some. Some. Some real piano. What would it take to get you to move? A lot. Okay. We're glad to have. Have Wiley here leading our music and Lou and you all have a hymnal and you know what to do with it and how to come. So I tell you what, Wiley, I'm gonna. I'm gonna turn it over to you and Lou and what are we going to sing, and then I'm going to come back and do announcements. Is that right? I just want to know when I'm supposed to come back up. You tell me, okay? Yeah. When you sit down, I'll stand up. Amen. Wiley Wilkerson. Lou David. Lou King. We're glad you're here. Thank you. Appreciate it. I'm glad you got the applause out of the way first. I'm not really a worship leader by profession or anything. I'm just a. Not even a singer. Actually, I'm a storyteller. More about that in a minute. Stand. We're going to sing together. 568. I'm so glad Jesus lifted me I'm so glad Jesus lifted me I'm so glad Jesus lifted me I'm so glad Jesus lifted me Singing glory hallelujah Jesus lifted me Time out. What you're saying and way you're looking are two different things. Gotta let a little of that verbiage leak out onto your face. Second verse says, I was sinking down Jesus lifted me I was sinking down Jesus lifted me I was sinking down Jesus lifted me I was sinking down Jesus lifted me Singing glory hallelujah Jesus lifted me Satan had me bound Jesus lifted me Satan had me bound Jesus lifted me Satan had be bound Jesus lifted me Singing glory all hallelujah Jesus lifted me I'm so glad Jesus lifted me I'm so glad Jesus lifted me I'm so glad Jesus lifted me Singing glory hallelujah Jesus lifted me oh, that was good. So good that you can now have a seat. You want to do announcements now? Sure, I'm good to do them now. That's the King James version. That's when you do them. Okay. Glad you're here, everybody. Thanks for leading us, Wiley. Wiley Coyote, right. Thank you for that. And I'm so glad Jesus lifted me and that he brought you here today and that we're all here to have a. A good time in the Lord and in the Word. And we've got a few announcements coming up for you here, like, hey, we're doing this summer. We're doing a homestyle dinner festival, Grandma's favorites, okay? And we got beef stroganoff on the menu this Wednesday night. And you can bring anything you want that goes with beef stroganoff. And we'll have a good time. Five o' clock, supper in the fellowship hall, and then we'll have Bible study here. I just started a new series of bible study on first Thessalonians. You only missed verses, I don't know, 1, 2, and 3 or something like that. So you can get up to speed if you missed that last week. And we'll have a good time with that. And I think the only other announcement, which is an important one, is that next Sunday is potluck Sunday. You don't want to miss that. Right. And we'll look forward to that. So you can just bring anything to eat and it'll be a. A blessing next Sunday after church. I do want to welcome our guests here. We're Always glad to have guests worshiping with us at America's greatest tiny church. That's what we are. It says so on the coaster. And so we're glad that you are here. You can already tell why it's America's greatest tiny church, can't you? Thank you. It was a little weak, but it's okay. Thank you. Thank you. We are very glad you're here. We're always glad to have guest worshiping with us. And we love to introduce you and make you feel at home and help you become part of the family. And I tell you what, I need my three grandkids to come up. First of all, because we got a. They. They get special. Oh, my Two grandkids. I guess I've lost one. Okay. They get some special recognition here, and we'll bring the other one in in a little bit, but come on down. Jackson and Layla, right? Here they are. They're visiting for the week. And here's Jackson. Tell them how old you are now. I am eight. Yeah, I'm eight. And where are you from? Florida. Florida. Where in Florida? Stuart. Stuart. This is Jackson from Stuart, Florida. He's eight. And this lovely young lady is Layla. You want to say hi, Layla? Not particularly. Layla's also from Stuart, Florida, and she's two. Right. She's three. They grow up. And her sister will come in in a minute. I'll. I'll introduce her later. Okay. Sophia? Because when I got up this morning, Sophia said, you're gonna have us up to the front to say hi, aren't you? So I said, yes, I am. I don't want to be in trouble with Sophia. She'll come here in a little bit. Aren't they wonderful? Yeah. There you go. And their mom and dad's back here, too. We're glad Jack and Hannah are visiting with us from Stuart, Florida. That's our daughter and son in law and delight to have them in town this week. Thank you. Now, let's see who's here. Well, I do want to introduce a special guest. One more. I'm not going to hold them up, but. Jack, come on up. You know, everybody online always asks me, where's Jack? Where's Jack? Where's Jack? Where's Jack? Here's Jack. Yeah, we're glad Jack's back. And Jack, our Irish cowboy, as we call them around here. Yeah, you can have one. You can have one. You want to say anything? I've been away for six months, and every day I've been away, I've been thinking of all of you individually and how important you are to me. And I missed you very much. And I love you all and regard you as my family. And I'm so happy to be back sitting down here with you and eating with you and fellowshipping and just everything again. So, so pretty. Happy to be back and I love you all. Amen. Amen. God bless you, Jack. We are. We're glad you're back. And he'll sing in the choir with us and all that kind of stuff. Jack, the singing cowboy from Ireland. Thanks for. Thanks for being here and we're glad you're back. He told me when he texted. He says, I can't wait to get back to. Oh, he. He changed it. He said the world's greatest tiny church. There it is. Might have to change our coasters next time you're around. Okay. I do want to get. Hey, Sophia, come here a second. Sophia is now back in the room and she'll come. Maybe her mom will bring her up. There we go. And Sophia, I just introduced your brother and your sister. And here's lovely Sophia. How old are you now, Sophia? Five. And you live in Stuart, Florida. Good. Say hi to everybody. We're glad she's here. And her mom, Hannah, glad she's here as well. And Hannah was raised right, I can tell you that. Now. We're glad to have the rest of our guests also. And we love. We do love to introduce our guests and just make them feel right at home. And let's see, we got from Roanoke, Virginia, right here, Steve and Deb and their family. But whoever would like to do the introductions, go for it. This is my beautiful granddaughter Ada, my grandson Everett, and my son Matthew. We are glad to have the Emersons from Roanoke here today. And I'm going to give you all a coaster to remember your visit here with us. And let's see, back from Beeville, Texas. It's been. Has it been a year? It hadn't been that long, has it? No, it's been Memorial Day. See, time flies in the summer around here. Reintroduce yourself from Beeville. We're glad you are here, back with us again. Always here when you're in town. Thanks for joining us. And Jesse, we're glad you're back, but you're not good to be back. You. You don't get a coaster. Already have one. That's what I thought. You already had one. Okay. Yeah. Sometimes people, you know, they leave like three weeks and then they come back and they want another coaster. It doesn't work that way. Matching set that's true. Okay. Christina, did we ever give you a coaster? Oh, you have one, too. Okay. I couldn't remember how long we've been doing those. But anyway, I thank the rest of us home folk. Hopefully, I didn't miss anybody out. Why don't you stand and greet someone? And then after that, I'm gonna have Lou and Wiley, before they lead music here in just a moment, I'm gonna have them give a formal introduction so that they can also earn a coaster. Okay. And maybe we'll even give the ladies one there. Stan. Greet someone, tell them hello, and then we'll come back together. It's. It's. I'm so glad Jesus lifted me I'm so glad Jesus lifted me I'm so glad Jesus lifted me Singing glory hallelujah Jesus lifted me Amen. Now you may be seated, and let's meet. Let's meet Wy and Lou and let them introduce themselves. Tell us a little more. Oh, I missed somebody. Yeah, I sure did. From San Antonio. Yeah. Okay. Sorry about that. You got to earn your coaster. Introduce yourselves to us, if you would. Excellent. We're glad y' all are here. From San Antonio. Traveling around and said they always find a church when they're here, and. And it's a perfect haircut, too. I. I just think we are glad. Glad you're. You're here. Thanks. I'm gonna bring you a coaster here, too. Wiley, Lou, whichever one of you wants to go first, introduce yourself. Good morning. I'm Lou King. This is my wife Jane. We're from Kerrville, and we met the Johnson's here last year and another couple, I think that's from there, and so got the opportunity to come back and play. I'm a retired minister of music, but you can see my voice is messed up. Down at Kerrville, we have cedars, and cedar fever just plays havoc with your sinuses almost all year, so. But I'm doing the best I can. Excited to be back in Taos. I was a minister of music. First Baptist, Bloomfield, up near Farmington and Aztec. I was there four and a half years before I retired in 2012. And so when I knew I was coming back here and your pastor Randy said, hey, you know, you could lead from the piano or whatever, I said, well, my voice is not the best, but I said, I have this great friend, Wiley Wilkerson, his wife Linda. Let's see him. I don't see. Where is she? She's over there. Okay. And Wiley's a retired educator. He'll tell you more but he's an incredible storyteller. He's a poet and just a fantastic person, a great bass singer. So I'll let him tell you more about him at this point. Well, three lies out of four isn't bad. Yeah, we're Linda and I originally from Houston, navigated up through East Texas and eventually found our way to Kerrville about 26 years ago. I'm not a singer. You probably already figured that out. But I am a storyteller. And interestingly enough, this morning's Bible or Bible study was about music and its morality or immorality. And there's more to follow in the weeks to come. But I'm thinking that all that time. I picked the wrong song to sing this morning because part of my. What I think part of my ministry is, is the redemption of secular songs. So the. And so I write lyrics because there's really some good music out there that just needs to have a redirection. So the song today, many of you will recognize, written by the Eagles about 50 years ago. And there is a story in Luke. I think it's Luke 15. Very familiar story about the prodigal son. And you've heard it probably from every perspective except from the viewpoint of the prodigal son. And so this is the story of the prodigal son from that perspective. It's called the embrace. Separation I've got no reason for staying I'm tired of obeying and toeing the line I want to live free no rules, just living life my way I'm off down the highway to spend all that's mine I got new friends flying the dozen strangers long lost cousins all helping me to have a good time A limitless procession of every world's obsession all paid for with my vanishing dime Desperation when will I come to my senses? They swine and their fences defining my days this life's a hard one but it looks so fine from a distance but at my insistence My own hell I praise my friends just turned and fled me as pennilessness led me to seek A warm and loving place to rest for all that blind rebellion this, this homeless empty hellion Made choices that betrayed what I possess Hesitation Could I go home again? I doubt it there's no two ways about it I've cut all my ties there's no good reason for him to pardon my actions My moral infractions so dark and unwise but this filthy world is not my home I want no more this stench to roam I'm going to my father Come watch Name if he'll just hire me as a slave this wasted life he could surely save I beg that he'll not turn this straight away Expectations I'm on my knees on the highway way now Wishing that my way had yielded to him Then I hear footsteps they're coming rapidly nearing I'm suddenly fearing my future sounds grim I try to utter my regret I've surely sinned and I owe a debt I'll serve you as a slave for all my days and all at once I'm being raised, embraced by him I'm so amazed into the eyes of the of grace my humbly gaze Restoration, he shouts My son now lives, forgiven, restored and he's been given a ring, robe and shoes Celebration Let all who join in this gladness he's released from the madness Let no one refuse Our Father waits to hold and heal when we are sin to him revealed no sin is greater than his endless grace so if your life is mired in waste Return to him so you may taste full healing from the Father's true embrace Desperado why don't you come to your senses? Come out from those fences and live life anew. It may be raining but he's the rainbow of you Won't you let your father love you? Won't you let your father love you? Won't you let your father father love you before it's too late and before you. You feel too bad about using that song in my music and morality and saying some music can't be redeemed. That's not one of them. That's in the form of a ballad. And a ballad is in harmony with nature which can be used to glorify God. And you did it very well. Thank you. Your turn. We are singing hymn number 616. I would ask how many people know this song, but let's just let it be a surprise. New name written down in glory yes. Stand please. I was once a sinner But I came parted to receive from my Lord this was freely given and I found that he always kept his word There's a new name written down in glory and it's mine oh yes, it's mine Sing the story. A sinner has come home for there's a new name written down in glory and it's mine oh yes, it's is mine. With my sins forgiven I am bound for heaven Never more to roam in the book tis written Saved by grace for the joy that came to my soul Now I am forgiven and I know by the blood I can and faithful there's a new name written down in glory and it's mine oh, yes, it's mine and it's working the story A sinner has come home for there's a new name written down in glory and it's mine oh, yes, it's mine with my sins forgiven I am bound for heaven Never more to rose for how many of you. Was that a new song? Oh, you did well. Thank you. All right. Last one we want to do while you're standing is 225. Should be a little more familiar. There is power in the blood Would you be free from the burden of sin? There's power in the blood Power in the blood Would you or evil a victory win? There's wonderful power in the blood There is power, wonder worship working power in the blood of the lamb There is power, power wonder working power in the precious blood of the lamb Would you do service for Jesus your king? There's power in the blood Power in the blood Would you diminish daily his praise as you sing? There's wonderful power in the flood There is power, wonder working power in the blood of the lamb There is sour power wonder working power in the precious blood of the lamb thank you. And our missionary of the month is Martha Corta. She is from Nicaragua right now, but she's headed to Mexico. She's going to be a missionary in Mexico with Kevin and Beatrice Christmaier, some of the missionaries we support. And we are supporting her this month and praying for her also. And if you give marked missions this month, it will go to her support. If you give unmarked, it goes, of course, right here to the work of our church. And so we pray for, encourage her as we do that. And we're going to take up a little offering here or pass the plates because we've got our distinguished ushers. Come on down, boys, and help us out. And let's see, we are going to need one more. So I need Jackson up here. Come on down, Jackson. And we are. It's my goal in life to train ushers because that's the. The future of the church depends on good ushers, right? Look, they all got a haircut. Don't they look good? Yeah, there we go. So don't go yet. We got to say the prayer, Jackson. This is the way it looks. So you stand here and you look really distinguished, okay? And poor. Look distinguished and poor. Okay? And then in just a moment. Let's see, Jackson, you're going to go to the far aisle over there and you're going to go to this aisle. And you're going to go this aisle right here. And you're going to go that far aisle over there. Okay? And you guys are in charge of making sure everybody gets the plate. Okay. And that they put big bucks in the plate. Okay? That's. That's your only job. Big bucks. You got it. Let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for these boys and the service that they get to the Lord. Thank you that we're able to lift up Marta and her work now in Nicaragua and soon to be in Mexico and pray that you'd encourage her as well as our service here today. Encourage us through this. And may the words of our mouth and the meditations of our heart be acceptable unto thee. Oh God, our rock and our redeemer. I pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Lou, lead us in an offer as these boys pass the plate here. Give me Jesus. You might have heard Fernando Ortega sing this on Christian radio and help us sing. There's three verses. It's a wonderful song. And I pray it'll bless our lives as we offer it to the Lord. Ra j ra sa Jesus. Amen. Amen. And that is a good prayer. We come now to Ecclesiastes, the 10th, 10th chapter. We've been working about three months now, working our way through the book of Ecclesiastes. And about three weeks ago we came to chapters seven, eight, nine and ten, which the author, of course you know, is King Solomon, who introduces himself as the preacher. By the way, those who'd like to go with the kids to their kids church, now is the time to follow Brianna. Thanks for taking care of them. And whoever would like to go is welcome to go. Whoever would like to stay is welcome to stay. Except Luca, you have to stay. Now we. About three weeks ago, we came to chapter seven through ten in which Solomon comes forth. And he does, like you would expect, Solomon at some point or another. That is, he gives para. Not parables, proverbs. He gives proverbs one after another after another. In chapter 7 through 10, some of them are a little longer than the book of Proverbs. The book of Proverbs. Rarely, in at least chapters 10 through 29, the middle chunk of it rarely has a proverb that goes more than one verse. And rarely do the one verse to another have any kind of connection. They're not thematically organized. It's just all over the map, this proverb to that proverb. Well, he comes here in seven through 10 and he does the same thing. The only difference is here. They're all kind of under one theme. And if I can put it this way, chapter seven through ten, the one theme is, a lot of things in life are really a bummer. How's that? A lot of things in life are really a bummer. And he talks about those things, but he talks about them in a way that provides a little bit of liberty, a little bit of hope, a way that says, hey, here's some things. As Solomon comes, he's an old man. He's. He calls himself the preacher, the gatherer, the assembler. He's sitting on his front porch, given good wise advice. And he. It's like he says to the young people out there, there are some things you're never going to be able to fix. You just as well figure out now you can't fix them because that'll provide you some freedom in life. If you go about fixing the unfixable, you're not going to make it. You're going to be so stressed out and so bummed out that life is not going to be any good for you. So recognize these things you can't fix. And so today we come to the last of this segment. Segment. Now, I have not preached verse by verse through chapter seven through ten, and there's a reason for that. It is again, one proverb after another after another. We would be here 15 years if we did all that. And so I use this little acrostic rush. We are rushing through chapter seven through ten. I'm giving you enough that you'll be able to use the acrostic that we're using, R U S h and say, hey, I can go anywhere in seven through 10 and I can put that R U s h onto this and kind of understand what he's saying. Now let me just give a warning. I probably said this before, but the, the rush acrostic doesn't work anywhere else. Okay? It's all it was made for this particular passage of scripture. Don't try to rush through first Thessalonians. It won't work. That's a whole different genre of scripture. But we want to look and see. Okay, what reality is he talking about? That is something that is just a fixed reality in this world, this fallen, groaning world that we can't figure out. So then that's the. Our reality, you understanding the limits. Where then am I limited s submitting myself to that truth? Which is not saying I give up. It is saying there are some things that I can't change. And H is the hope that is Embedded in that and saying, okay, if I can't fix this, then what can I fix? You remember the old prayer? I think it's used in Alcoholics Anonymous a lot. I want to say it might be originally attributed to Francis of Assisi. I could be wrong on all that, but it's the one that says, somebody helped me here, Lord. Thank you. Grant me the serenity. It's often called the serenity prayer. That's what it is. Grant me the serenity to accept. Accept the things I cannot change. Whatever you. You know, all that, figure out what I can change, what I can't, and accept it and move on. Okay, so when we come to chapter 10, what he brings up is. Now, this is my own little theme here, but he talks about the reality that we do have to live, pardon me, in a world of fools. There are fools all around us. How can we deal with that? And what do we do with that? And so we come here, and I'm gonna. I picked several. We'll just see how the time is on how far we go. But let's look at chapter 10, verse 1, where he says, dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savor. So doth a little folly in him that is in reputation for wisdom and honor. Okay, there we go. Pretty straightforward there. Dead flies cause the ointment in an apothecary to send forth a stinking savor. Don't you love that picture that he paints for us there? You can. You can catch that pretty well. I. This still happens, but I know it happens. Now, we. You know, up on top of the mountain, we don't have many mosquitoes, but we do have flies. The flies are a lot bigger than the mosquitoes, and they bother you during the daytime. So we put out this little fly trap. Well, a few years ago, I decided something is dead under the deck because it stinks. I looked. I couldn't find anything dead. It still stunk. It still stunk. Then I realized it was all the flies in the fly trap. They will make an ointment stink, I can tell you. And it doesn't take long to get enough flies in the fly trap to say, whoa, let's get out of here. That's not good. That is definitely the smell of death. Death. So dead flies, it's just this fact of life he brings up. They cause the ointment in an apothecary. You know, apothecary is just kind of a fun thing to say, isn't it? I looked up the word apothecary because I'm always a little interested in like, words, linguistics. It actually is a Greek word and we just, we just borrowed it into the English word. Apo means, means from basically. And the, the, the carry part of it comes from tithomai, which is to put some. Something. So originally an apothecary was a warehouse. It was, it was a place where you went and put something. And for probably a thousand years, apothecary was just. That's the storage room. That's the place to go put something. The French did come in and I guess leave it up to the French to turn us all to drugs or something like this. The French came and they changed it a little bit and they made it typically a place where a chemist or a medicine person would come and they would make an ointment for curative purposes or, you know, make it smell good or whatever, like. And it came to be used more in that sense. But here definitely, you've got this ointment that, you know, it makes you smell good, it makes you look pretty, it makes you feel good. Whatever it is, it's some sort of ointment. But put a little dead fly in there or put a few dead flies in there and nobody wants it anymore, right? I mean, you can go buy, I don't know, Chanel number five or whatever and fill it full of you probably. I, I would imagine for your wife, just one dead flies enough in the perfume, right? Saying, I don't want that. So it makes, gives it a stinking savor. A stinking saver. You could use that little phrase sometime. Is that a stinking savor I smell in here? Not a good thing. Okay, here's a reality that he tries to bring up is a small error. I don't know, maybe one that would take place at a Coldplay concert or something like that. A small error can ruin a lot of stuff, right? And it can cause that thing to stink real quick and real sudden. And that he brings that forth again in this series in which he's saying, here's some things you, you should just know. This is the way the world works. I'm not particularly sure and probably you either. Let's put it that, that Coldplay thing aside. But I'm not sure that you and I, if we were to vote on it, we might vote that small things shouldn't ruin things that took years to build. Because there's a lot of things we say, ah, you know, it was going along so well, and then that One little dumb thing here ruined the whole thing. And why not, you know, overlook it, get past it, whatever. In the thousand different scenes we could give, we would say, hey, let's be more balanced here. Let's stop. Let's figure it out. But the reality is small things do make the thing stink sometimes, right? And all that we have worked for can go away so quickly. And a number of passages of scripture there that you could look at, both Jesus and Paul talks about how a little leaven leavens the whole lump. And a little. I don't know, it only takes a little lemon, a little poison to ruin something that's otherwise good, right? Here's a reality that we have to deal with. And so understanding the limits, we ought to even say, hey, you know, there's plenty of foolish people that have taught us this, so I better be careful. I better watch to make sure that it's not just a dead fly that ruined everything. And it is a reality that we have to deal with and, and, and really to submit to in all of this. Now, let me jump ahead a little bit to the age of grace in which we live in. It is awfully nice to know that in terms of our being complete in Christ, in terms of our righteous standing in him, this is not describing that, at the way the Lord looks at us, honestly, we stand before him with his righteousness, the gift that he has given us, the gift of being complete in Christ, the gift of being clean. And so even if we mess up in our career, we mess up in our work or, you know, I'm sure any of you who have worked with just about anything, art, woodwork, you know, you come to the end and you've got it all perfect, and then all of a sudden, boom. You know, you just got that one little scratch in there that comes along and they bring it and. Are any of you married? And you ever painted a room so perfectly? Except for that one little tiny dot in the back corner behind the shelf. And then your wife comes in, says, oh, what's wrong with that? Like, look how beautiful it is. It's perfect. You do construction. You know how it works, right? So it's a fact of life we have to deal with, okay? Recognize that this is a fact of life we have to deal with. And then all of a sudden, we say to ourselves, hey, it's a world full of fools. I don't want to be one. It's the small stuff that really can mess up the big stuff. I want to be very careful in carrying this out. Let's go on to verse 2 where he says something kind of interesting. A wise man's heart. Heart is at his right hand, but a fool's heart at his left. Ah, a lot of things we could read into that. But I think you would have to agree with me that in and of itself that is a verse that says. I think I'm going to have to investigate this just a little bit more. I don't know, I don't understand what it says to have your, your heart at your right hand or at your left hand. What is going on here? Best we can tell from, from Scripture anyway. And the best thing to do is let scripture interpret scripture from Scripture. Things on the right side always seem to be the good side and the left side always seem to be the bad side. One example is the, the judgment of the sheep and the goats, and the sheep end up on the right and the goats on his left. And so there's a little bit that we have to go on in carrying that out. But we can also look back into that time period and we can see that in the ancient near east there is some other literature out there that tells us this was a, a figure of speech that was used. And the, the right was often considered. In fact, I think most often considered. And the right hand especially as being the hand of strength and the hand of honor. The left hand was seen as the hand of weakness. I don't know that this is true, but I've heard they don't shake hands with the left hand for some reasons in the, in the Middle east all the way to this day. But there's one considered weak, one considered strong. And so to take the heart and hold it in the strong hand, in the honorable hand, I think what it means is control the heart with some strength and some honor, not with weakness. Now another example from Scripture. You remember that Jesus is seated where, at the right hand of the Father. You remember who was it? James and John. Their mother said, you know, could one be at your right and one be at your left? Okay, so there, there's this idea of a, of a, of a, of a right hand being the position of honor. Now with, with that, let's take the heart. I think that we would find in Scripture, the heart obviously is not talking about the, the cardio within you. It's. It's your essence, it's your feelings, it's your emotions, it's the soul of who you are. It's, it's, it's that representative of more the invisible part of you. Let's Go with. With your. Your. Your feelings, your heart, as we would say, your emotion. I think you would agree with me. There are people out there who need to get a better grip on it, right? They are letting their heart dictate their actions, their mind, their thinking, their conclusion. I think what this says is, hey, your heart can lead you astray. You better hold it with your strong hand. Get hold of that thing. Otherwise you're likely to be carried off into a fantasy world that doesn't really exist. And that's not a good way to live, is what Solomon is saying to the people in the crowd out there. You know, I have. I have noticed, and you probably have too. But it's in our. In our political world, you know, we live in a. I don't know, a world that's divided politically. I don't really think. I don't think politics in America has ever been nice. And I say that because I study a lot of presidential history, and one of my favorite presidents is Grover Cleveland, by the way. And Grover Cleveland, the other side, he was a Democrat. This was in the 1800s. He was the last conservative Democrat. The other side, when Grover Cleveland was around, they would. They would shout, ma, Ma, where's my pa? That's not very nice. It was talking about some illegitimate child he had out there. And they wanted to focus on, you know, Grover Cleveland immorality back 35 years ago, whatever. It's always been kind of an ugly world in American politics all the way back to the beginning. Now, I say that to say also through American politics, one of the things that has happened, and you'll see it this week. You could see it last week. You'll see it next year. You could see it last year. You'll see it next decade. You could see it last decade. Every time the other side does something, the opponents to it get on the television to convince you it's the end of the world. People are gonna die. And when I see that, I want to say, oh, get over it. We're gonna ignore that law just like we did all the rest of the laws. You know, I mean, there's a balance. Things go back, back and forth. It's not really the end of the world world. It's just something for you all to talk to. Okay? Now, what gives you the ability not to panic? Take your heart in your right hand and hold it strong. What he's saying here, I think is, hey, here's a reality. My heart's kind of loose. It's kind of slippery. I need to grab hold of it. I need to keep control of it. Otherwise I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be panicking. I'm gonna live in this world of, you know, the sky is falling. The sky is falling. Well, wait a minute, Calm down. Hold on. Get a hold of your heart here a little bit and hold it on your right hand. Verse number two, let's jump down now to verse number 10 where he says, if the iron be blunt and he do not wet the edge, then he must put more put. He must, he must put to more strength. But wisdom is profitable to direct. Now obviously he's talking again a little, a little poetically. He's, he's got a, a message that he's giving there. But the, the, the, the truth is, hey, here's something you have to deal with. If you don't sharpen that ax every now and then you are going to be working hard, but you are not going to be working smart. Isn't that good for. I've got my grandson back here today. Isn't it good for an eight year old to figure out work smart, not hard? I got to figure out here, hey, I can chop more wood if I'll sharpen this thing and I can get this thing done and I can do it right. And so there is a way as, as it goes on to the end of the verse, he starts out, you know, if the iron be blunt, he do not wet the edge. It's all it's talking about sharpening and sharpening an axe. But at the end he says wisdom is profitable to direct. It's almost as if he's saying, hey, I do need to work with diligence, but I also need to work with some smarts. I need to back up. I need to think about things. I need to think it through to the end before I get it started here. And to bring this. And so hard work alone doesn't really necessarily bring results. I think of a friend I had a number of years ago. He got one of these above ground swimming pools and he decided he would just put it in himself. And the ground wasn't level, so he needed to dig out. About. I want to, I want to say it was about 6, 8 inches, something like that, that he needed to dig out. And he decided, I'll just do that. They were going to charge, I think this was a long time ago, they were going to charge 300 bucks to level that out. And so he said, I dug all day long and I got about an inch out. And after spending a day I Called them up and said, I'll pay the $300. Sometimes there's working smart, right? Saying, hey, I am. Hard work is not going to pay off here. I'm spending how many days to carry this out? Should have just hired you in the first place, right? Yeah. And so there's, there's the word that is given, you know, to, to use wisdom to multiply effectiveness, I think is what he's talking about. And I think that one of the things that would be good for all of us to learn, but certainly young people in the room, one of the things that would be very good to learn is to say, hey, wisdom is a multiplier. I can add a little wisdom to the scene and I can really multiply my effectiveness. I can multiply what I'm, what I'm doing. Like a, what is it, a fulcrum or a, what's a stick? Is that the word? Lever. Lever, yeah. A multiplier. I'll go with a multiplier. There, there's a lot of multipliers. You know, this is free. Okay, I don't have much time, but I'll give you this free one. I just finished studying the book of Proverbs. Did I mention I have a fabulous book? I just don't have one here to show you that just came out on the book of Proverbs. And I mentioned earlier the random nature to the proverbs, how they don't go together. I, I began to think, why didn't you organize those preachers, want them organized? We want them all, the ones about money, Put them together and then give us a chapter about love and then a chapter about nagging wives and then a chapter about, you know, put it all, put it all in some sort of order for us. And he didn't put it in some sort of order. I began to do a little research on that and found out that that was actually a, an ancient practice in ancient wisdom literature is it never goes together in any kind of pattern and that there was a belief. And I think there's probably something to this belief and a theory at least that you learn better when you learn randomly. You take a little here and then you switch and you do a little there. And your mind has a way of getting that and holding on to it. When it's just one little piece instead of, you know, a 30 minute sermon, I always prefer, usually 22 minutes, you switch topics, you learn something. Okay. It's a, it's a multiplier, A wisdom, Wisdom multiplier. Just say, hey, I'VE been on this for 10 minutes. I need to switch. Something else. I got to switch. I keep it. Keep it flowing in your mind is one of the things that perhaps we can learn. Okay, let's jump down to verse. I tell you what, I'm going to go down to verse 20. I might come back to verse 12, but let's go down to verse 20, where he says, curse not the king, not in thy thought, and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber. For a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter. That's kind of interesting. Remember, he is the king, and so he speaks with a little bit of knowledge and experience. And let me. Let me speak as if he was. As if I was the king here for a moment. Sometimes people think, oh, I can say this out here. There what not the king will never hear. I mean, he's way up there in his ivory tower. He's not going to know. And yet he always knows. Have you noticed that in your life, you know, what your kids are doing, you know, what they're thinking of, you know, your. Your grandkids, what they're thinking, where they're going, you know, what's going on in the. In the. In the world in which, you know, if you got employees, you got a pretty good pulse out there. There's very few surprises if you're the pastor of a church. You kind of know the. The tone, the direction, the who's happy, the who's not, whatever, all that. You. You know it. And here's this truth is that you and I can't have very many secrets. There's just really not much that we can talk about that the word doesn't spread out there and get communicated pretty quickly. And so this is his word again, there in verse 20. Curse not the king. Even in thy thought, the king's going to hear about it, and then you're going to have to speak about it. It's going to come up. It's going to. To be a part of. Of what you are. And so the. The word here, I guess the thing that we have to deal with is that private words really do travel farther than we think they ought to travel or that we think they're going to travel. The word ends up getting around. So what if you recognize that? What if, you know, the children in the room here, like Luca, what if they. They recognize, hey, you know, if I say something that I think is private and secret, it's probably going to get out. It's probably going to be spread around. Now, if you know that, you manage your mouth a little better, don't you? So in one sense, he talked about managing your heart. Hold on to that. With the. With the strong hand there is you. You manage your work. Add a little wisdom, a little thought. Think. Think this one through before you get started. Started. You manage your mouth. Now you put all these things together. And that is pretty liberating in life, isn't it? This morning in the Bible study hour, we talked about. It was a supportive case, but we talked about classical education and the things that. That build for the ability to be able to move on. And in the day that was called the liberal arts. Okay? Today there's still a little bit of liberal arts, by the way. Hey, let me go back and say one more thing about that. For music, for those of you who happen to listen to that Music was in the liberal arts, but the liberal arts was in the maths and sciences. It was all about math, science and physical nature. Later on, the problem came when music moved from the math department to the art department. Things were downhill from there on, okay? It became entertainment for entertainment value rather than the mathematical value of music, which might also be entertaining. Now back to the sermon. These things that he gives in this chapter are liberating. They will liberate you from a world of hurt, won't they? From a world of pain if we can take these and learn them. And one of the things again about proverbs and their random nature is they're. They're random and they're a little bit of a slap you in the face nature. You know, put one dead fly in there and that thing gonna stink. You can remember that a lot better than, you know, some nice way of saying it. And so he doesn't say it nice, he slaps you with it a little bit. He wakes you up with it a little bit and, you know, carries that out, you know, curse not the king, not in thy thoughts. Curse, curse not the rich in thy bedchamber. A bird will hear the matter and go and tell them. I'm sure that's where in the English language, you know, a little bird told me where I'm sure that's where it came from is Solomon's words right there 3,000 years ago. Well, if it was, if it's true now, if it was true 3,000 years ago, it's probably a principle. We ought to say, hey, chapter 10 really does tell me how not to be a fool in a world full of fools. Here's Some things that I can take, I can integrate them in my life. I can say, maybe it shouldn't be this way. Maybe I ought to be able to, you know, go to my bedchamber and say whatever I want about the rich and never gets out. But problem is, it always gets out. How many of you from time to time watch a crime show? I thought so. They must be cheap to produce because that's all that's on tv. That and singing shows, the crime show that they always have the perfect murder and they always get caught. Right? What's up with that? And I think verse 20 is what's up with that. You just thought about it, but it's recorded in the NSA and the FBI and everything else. I mean, it gets out there. How in the world did that get out there? That's the world we live in as it gets out there. So what if we. If we say something. This doesn't mean Disney theology. If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. What this means is if you're going to say something that's not nice, make sure you've got the ability to defend it, the ability to stand by it, the ability to argue, argue it. That you know, if it's a truth and needs to be said, go for it. But think through these things before you just come out and lay it out there and bring that through. So I skip 12 through 14. You can go through there. It also talks some about the wise man's mouth and the foolish man's mouth, and you can check that out. But as we see here, once again, it's. This is the reality of the world we live in. Earlier he had talked about some things that are. Are a little more of a. I'm going to use the word bummer again. That's those things in 7, 8, 9. They are a real bummer. You know, sometimes the righteous man gets kicked in the teeth is what he said in those earlier chapters. Now he comes to the things in verse 10 that, hey, that is still a bummer. But it's almost so subtle that we didn't recognize here is a bummer of a reality that is a reality nonetheless. There is a recording, so to speak. There is a bird listening. There is. All of this is out there and it can bring me down in a New York minute. And therefore I need to think wisely, act wisely, carry my feelings, my heart wisely, watch my mouth wisely. I think maybe is this a reason why we teach little kids to say things like. Or saying Things like, oh, be careful, little mouth, what you say. Oh, be careful, little mouth, what you say? Right? And we. We recognize, hey, this is a. This is foundational. We got to get this in to carry this out. Now, some of us are beyond kids, right? We're a little older, too late to learn it. No, probably on all these. We could go back. If we were to spend a few minutes, every one of us could go back and say, I can tell you where I kissed that principle and it came back and slapped me. And we can go through and say, hey, a lot of wisdom here that Solomon gives. Solomon's talking about life under the sun. It's not life as it should be. It's not the rule book we would want to write. It's just reality. There it is. We gotta live here until time comes. And better to live it with a little bit of wisdom and caution, as he teaches in chapter 10. Amen. Okay, we're done. That was a subtle conclusion, wasn't it? We're done. We had good singing, we had good preaching. We quit, and now we're ready to go on to the next thing. Let me just. In a word of prayer, I'll say just an announcement or two, and we'll be ready to go. Heavenly Father, thank you for the grace that is in Lord Jesus Christ. This is not a chapter about grace. It's a chapter about the realities of this world. But as we think of the realities of this world, we are glad that you are a God of second chances. You are a God who. Who extends grace time and time and time again as we see over and over in the pages of Scripture. And so, as people living in a world that really, in so many ways is ungracious, unhospitable, we are. Are grateful that we're able to find hope in coming to a God who understands, a God who recognizes the. The frailty. He remembers our frame. He knows we are but dust, the psalmist said. And we were joyful in that. And our ability to come unto the Lord, to find strength and encouragement and grace through difficult times. Difficult times that came maybe because of what someone else did, or difficult times that come because of some little. Little act that seemed harmless at the time, didn't seem all that bad, and yet then came to. To. To be dead flies in the ointment. And we pray that when we find others that have been been bitten by the reality of this world, that we would be gracious to them and kind to them and encouraging to them when we find ourselves in that place, that we would Just go back, add some wisdom, do the best we can to put the pieces back together again and build it all without word of our loss. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Thanks for being here today. And as I was praying there, I thought about Rudyard Kipling's poem if remember that one? It goes through all this, these if things. If you can do this and you can do that and you can do this. And I think Kipling and Solomon would like each other because a lot of that kind of the same thing. And I remember one line from the poem. It's not a very Baptist line, but it says if you can risk all your winnings in one game of pitch and toss and lose and pick up and start from the beginning and never speak a word of your loss, then you're a man, my son. There you go. Good point. You should go home and read that and you should come back Wednesday night. We'll have some. Some good food and all that. Thanks for being here. Thanks for musicians for being here. Those of you online, God bless you. You all are dismissed. See you Wednesday for supp Sam Ram Ram backside they go back again. It sat sa like well, I really sounded our most favor but our most favorite well, you know what we can go to. The nice thing about it is years always think of the problem from the brother standpoint. That's not fair but oh. Oh, that Yes, I think so. I think they wanted us to come to I don't know where where that place is under negotiations. You know, I saw some tennis shoes that look like they were hell a of.