Ecclesiastes 10:12-15, 18 The words of a wise man’s mouth win him favor,
but the lips of a fool consume him.
13 The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness,
and the end of his talk is evil madness.
14 A fool multiplies words,
though no man knows what is to be,
and who can tell him what will be after him?
15 The toil of a fool wearies him,
for he does not know the way to the city.
18 Through sloth the roof sinks in,
and through indolence the house leaks.
INTRODUCTION
The Preacher addressed fools, folly, foolishness, and the like more than 40 times in Ecclesiastes. For context, vanity (~38) and under the sun (~30), the two terms Ecclesiastes is primarily known for, both occur less frequently than does the various forms of folly. In other words, if it seems like we’ve been hearing a lot about fools lately, that’s because we have. Evidently, it’s a topic God means us to consider carefully and thoroughly.
With that, welcome to the third and final sermon on the folly proverbs of Ecclesiastes 10. In fact, welcome to the last look at folly in the book (no more folly in Ecclesiastes after today).
One more time, then, we’ll consider the Preacher’s insight concerning the nature, experience, and results of the folly of fools. To that end, we get seven more poetic lines on the words of the foolish and four more to the work of the foolish.
In all of this we’ll see that the big idea of this passage is that God’s people are called to bless others through wisdom, but a fool’s words and works bring nothing but harm to himself and those around him. And from that, the main takeaways are to seek the Lord’s help in speaking graciously, being humble, and working excellently.
THE PREACHER’S PROVERBS CONCERNING THE WORDS OF THE FOOLISH (12-14)
Do you have any fools in your life; I’m talking a bona fide fool’s fool? If so, think for a minute about how they talk. What is different about the way they talk from non-fools? What are some of the primary characteristics of their words? The main thing that comes to my mind is significant and misplaced confidence in themselves. When the fools I know talk, they display the tragic combination of being constantly wrong and supremely confident.
In our passage, the Preacher notes five marks of the talk of fools. It is self-destructive, thoroughly foolish, evil madness, verbose, and ignorant. As is easy to see, those are not desirable traits. And as is easy to predict, they are not only annoying, but genuinely destructive as well.
Self-Destructive (12)
We read earlier in Ecclesiastes 10 that a fool can’t long hide his folly. One of the most common ways it is revealed is through his words. And the first revelatory aspect of a fool’s folly is that his speech is self-destructive. Look with me at v.12.
12 The words of a wise man’s mouth win him favor,
but the lips of a fool consume him.
When it comes to poetry like the kind we find in v.12, there are three main relationships between the lines. They are usually connected by comparison, continuation, or contrast. Each one is intended to function as a powerful tool designed to drive the poet’s point further home than would either line by itself (kind of a 1+1=3). In this case, as I imagine you can see, the lines are in contrast.
In this way, in order to most fully appreciate the self-destructive nature of a fool’s words, we need to most fully appreciate the contrast between the two lines of this verse. And in order to most fully appreciate the contrast, we need to begin with the effect of the words of the wise (12a).
12 The words of a wise man’s mouth win him favor…
The primary characteristic of a wise man’s words is that they “win him favor”. On the surface, that sounds like wise people are able to use their words to get what they want for themselves, from others.
If you are wise and you want ice cream, you can use your words to convince your parents that it’s a good idea.
If you are wise and you want to get a girl to be your girlfriend, you can use your words to convince her that you’re quite a catch.
If you are wise and want your husband to help out more around the house, you can use your words to convince him that it’s in his best interest.
If you are wise and you want to get a job, be elected to a political office, sell a product, win an argument, settle a dispute, get out of a parking ticket, get your kids to be quiet, or get the last dessert, you can use your words to win those favors.
That’s what it sounds like, and that’s certainly how some people use/misuse their wisdom, but it is not what the Preacher meant.
A more literal translation helps make that clear, “the words of a wise man’s mouth are gracious” (I imagine your Bible has a footnote in that regard). The words of the wise are a gift to the hearer. In that, he will under most circumstances win the affection (the favor) of those to whom he speaks. But the main point is that the speech of the wise is marked by benefitting the people he talks to.
Again then, rather than use his words to gain from others, the wise person uses his words to give to others. Rather than extract favors from his hearers, his kind, beneficent words cause favor to be bestowed upon them.
In other words, Ephesians 4:29 is an echo of Ecclesiastes 10:12 (which will become even clearer as we consider the contrasting second line of v.12).
Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths [second line], but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.
Grace, once again, if you are wise, if you are godly, you will pick your words with more care than you pick almost anything else in your life. Every word of the wise is sent out on to accomplish a particular, God-given purpose: graciously building up the person to whom you are speaking, along with everyone else within ear shot.
If you are about to say something, then, and you are wise, and you realize that it’s not intended as a gift for those who would hear you speak, and especially the primary person(s) you are speaking to, you should either change what you were going to say or keep silent…every time.
Words of encouragement, words of kindness, words of praise to God, words of intelligence, words of help, words of good counsel…the words of the wise always have the aim of giving grace. And in that, any sensible person is glad to hear them and is better for them.
Can you think of a recent time in which that was the case for you; where someone spoke words that were clearly intended to be a blessing to you and actually accomplished that purpose? I hope so. I hope it happens all the time (especially when you are around the saints of Grace Church).
And can you think of a recent time in which that was the case for you; where you intentionally spoke words intended to be a build someone up and it actually accomplished that purpose? I hope so. I hope it happens all the time.
Having seen how good, true, and helpful are the words of the wise, therefore, we’re in a better place to feel the truly grievous nature of the words of the foolish. Rather than being marked by grace, they are marked by self-destruction. Look again at v.12.
12 The words of a wise man’s mouth win him favor,
but the lips of a fool consume him.
Fools are constantly bickering and therein destroying relationships.
Fools are constantly bragging and therein bringing the disdain of others upon themselves.
Fools are constantly talking with misguided and inflated confidence and therein fostering mistrust and skepticism.
Fools are constantly clamoring on and on and therein causing others to tune out and avoid them.
Fools are constantly disparaging others and therein further isolating themselves.
Fools are constantly hurling insults and therein inviting violence to be inflicted upon them.
When a fool talks, others are torn down, beaten up, deceived, corrupted, insulted, confused, and summarily worse off. And the result is that the fool is despised, rejected, mistrusted, avoided, assaulted, and consumed. He destroys himself by his words. He is eaten up by his own mouth.
How do you recognize a fool? Listen to his words and consider whether they give grace and win favor or give corruption and produce destruction.
We are right, therefore, to repent of any unintentional, careless or misguided words we’ve spoken.
And even more so, we are right to repent of any words that have torn others down, mocked them, belittled them, gossiped about them, slandered them, or otherwise left them worse off.
As I just said, the first characteristic of a fool’s words is that they are self-destructive. They consume the fool. And that is best seen in contrast with the words of the wise which give up-building grace to those who hear.
Thoroughly Foolish (13)
V.12 shows the destructive power of the words of a fool by contrasting it with the grace-filled words of the wise. This next verse shows the thoroughness of the foolish words of the fool through two lines of continuation.
13 The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness,
and the end of his talk is evil madness.
From beginning to end, the fools’ words are foolish. He can’t help himself. Out of an overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks (Matthew 12:34). And since a fool’s heart is filled with folly, so is his mouth.
The fool’s first and last words, along with all of them in between, are folly.
Evil Madness (13)
The two lines of v.13 together help us to see the totality of the foolish words of the fool. The second line helps us to see something additional. There, the Preacher qualifies the nature of the fool’s final words. He calls them evil (or wicked) madness.
Of this, one of the commentators I read this week (Kidner, TMOE, 92) notes that all words, including the fools, are both moral and mental.
Every word we utter is moral in that it is either honoring to God or it is wicked. There is no in between. We like to think of our words as good, evil, or neutral, but there really are no neutral words. The Preacher, in all his under the sun wisdom, was able to recognize this.
In working through this section, I was convicted of this. I’ll often make comments (especially at home) like, “This is a different recipe, isn’t it?” or “You rearranged the furniture.” At times, that can cause people to assume a critical spirit in that kind of speech from me (that I don’t like the dinner or rearrangement). My response has often been to defend my words as simple observations. But the Preacher helps me/us to see that as a lie. Some motivation drove me to say what I said and it was either godly or wicked, for anything that does not proceed from faith is sin (Romans 14:23). If my aim wasn’t to glorify God by giving grace, then it was not neutral, but evil.
Likewise, every word we utter is mental in that it comes from something we believe. It might come from something thinly examined, but it comes from something we believe to be true nonetheless. And just as there are no morally neutral comments, there are no truth-neutral words either. They all result from a belief in us that is either true or false.
The fool’s words are characterized by being rooted in immorality and untruth.
As I mentioned last week, all sin is foolish, but not all foolishness is sin. A key for us to see here, however, is that words that begin as folly, often turn to sin. Tolerating folly in ourselves is inviting sin in ourselves.
Grace, as I mentioned before, the talk of fools is always self-destructive, thoroughly foolish, and evil madness. Ask the Spirit to help you see the corrosive nature of this kind of talk. Ask the Spirit to make your speech filled with grace and not destruction. Fight the foolish tendencies of your flesh. Take every word captive. Make them submit to Christ.
In Matthew 12:36, Jesus said, “But I tell you that men will give an account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken”.
Of course, none of us have or will do this perfectly. Every one of us has evil madness in our hearts, and therefore in our words. But that’s precisely why Jesus came to earth. To teach us how to speak properly and to die in our place as payment for our sins of improper speech (along with all the rest).
Look to Him, therefore, for how to speak in thoroughly righteous truth, in such a way as to give grace to all who hear, and in such a way as to win the favor of God. And look to Him, therefore, for forgiveness when you don’t.
Verbose (14)
There are two more defining characteristics of a fool’s speech mentioned by the Preacher here. First, a fool talks as if he is getting paid by the word—no matter what the words are or do. Like a pagan prayer, they believe that they will be heard (or believed or revered) by their many words (Matthew 6:7-8).
That is, as the first line of v.14 says…
14 A fool multiplies words…
While God’s Word tells us that…
Proverbs 10:19 When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent.
and
James 1:19 Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger.
…fools talk and talk and talk and talk. They go on and on and on. Their many words aren’t intended to add to their point, only to keep the floor. They enjoy the sound of their own voice and lack the sense to recognize the folly of that, much less to listen and learn from others.
Grace, pay attention to the proportion of your words to the words of others in your conversations. If it’s continually tilting heavily toward you, consider the words of the Preacher as a warning.
Ignorant (14)
Finally, in another few poetic lines of continuation, the Preacher helps us to see that the fool’s many words are rooted in ignorance. Not only does he not care about making a good point, he doesn’t have a good point to make.
14 A fool multiplies words,
though no man knows what is to be,
and who can tell him what will be after him?
The fool talks confidently about matters that cannot be known. He speaks of the future even though the future is not ours to know. He speaks of where he will be and what he will do, even though knowledge of those things belongs to God alone (James 4:13). He’s so confident that he knows what’s to come (even though he doesn’t) that he won’t stop talking about it.
A fool’s words are thoroughly foolish, evil madness, verbose, and ignorant, and those things lead to self-destruction and the destruction of others.
Let us learn from this, Grace Church. If nothing else, let us learn that every word we utter comes from somewhere in us and accomplishes something outside of us. May our words come from a heart that loves God above all and our neighbor as ourselves. And may our words accomplish the purposes that God has assigned to them—building up, giving grace, convicting sinners, giving hope to the humble, demolishing ungodly philosophies, calling all mankind to repent, etc.
On top of all of that, and far more significantly, let’s marvel at the fact that the fool’s words are, in every way, the opposite of God’s Words. While the fool’s words are thoroughly foolish, God’s words are thoroughly wise. While the fool’s words are evil and mad, God’s words are righteous and true. While the fool’s words are empty and excessive, God’s words are perfectly effective and efficient. While the fool’s words are ignorant, God’s words are filled with knowledge and insight. And while the fool’s words are destructive, God’s words create, sustain, rescue, and restore. Praise Him!
And on top of that still, while the fool’s words are thoroughly of the evil one, Jesus is the very Word of God. Our words not only effect ourselves and others, they are always of either the devil or the Son of God.
Again, Grace, the nature of God and His words and Word, shatters the notion that any word that comes from our mouth is insignificant. The nature of God and His words and Word explains the evil of treating them lightly and the reason we will have to give an account for every careless one. The nature of God and His words and Word forces us to handle our words with proper care, knowing the power they contain. And the nature of God and His words and Word help us to see why folly is so tied up in the misuse of words.
THE PREACHER’S PROVERBS CONCERNING THE WORK OF THE FOOLISH (15, 18)
The Preacher helps us to see that a fool is revealed not only by his words and their effect, but also by his work and its effect. The Preacher named five characteristics of a fool’s speech. He names four characteristics of a fool’s work. It is for him extraordinarily tiresome. And it is extraordinarily tiresome because he is extraordinarily inefficient, lazy and negligent.
Extraordinarily Tiresome (15)
The first defining characteristic of a fool’s relationship to his work is that it is extraordinarily tiresome for him.
15 The toil of a fool wearies him,
Have you ever seen this? Have you ever worked with someone who seemed to be ready to be done for the day—every day—by 10am or is twice as tired as everyone else at the end of the day (and not because he started early and accomplished more than was expected)? That’s one of the first ways to recognize that you are working with a fool.
Work is by definition tiring, but fools are always more tired by their work than they ought to be. The second (continuing) line of v.15 explains why and gives the second characteristic of a fool’s work.
Extraordinarily Inefficient (15)
Fools are extraordinarily tired by their work because they work extraordinarily inefficiently. They have to work exponentially harder or longer to do the same job as anyone else.
15 The toil of a fool wearies him,
for he does not know the way to the city.
The simple idea of the second line is something like this: A foolish man was charged to deliver a package to someone in a nearby city. He loads the delivery on a donkey’s back and heads out, walking alongside it. That’s hard work all by itself. But the fool doesn’t actually know where the city is. And rather than ask for directions, the fool heads out with misguided confidence in the direction he thinks the city is in. Because he is wrong, though, instead of the normal work involved in such a journey, the fool travels two or three times as far, wandering around until he eventually stumbles upon it. Not recognizing that all the extra work and frustration was his own doing, he expects to be appreciated and paid for his extra time and energy.
I thought just like this at a time when I was in peak folly. My best friend’s dad offered to pay us to stack wood in the barn for him. With nothing more than dollar signs in our minds, our priority was to get the work done as quickly as possible. We paid little attention to the quality of our work as we ripped through it.
As we got close to the end (or so we thought), the unstable wood pile we’d created in our haste came tumbling down. We went whining to my friend’s dad and he told us to take care of it. Reluctantly we did, but we did so fully expecting that he’d pay us extra for the “extra” work.
We were far more tired by having to stack the wood twice than we would have been had we done it properly the first time. And we were incensed when he paid us the amount he’d promised from the beginning. We genuinely couldn’t make sense of the “injustice.” We were fools.
Fools are extraordinarily inefficient at work and because of that, they’re tired even at the thought of work.
Extraordinarily Lazy (18)
You may have noticed that the scripture reading and the sermon text skips over vs.16-17 and jumps to v.18. That’s because, as we’ll seen next week, most of vs.16-20 contain proverbs concerning kings. Within that, the Preacher interjects another thought on the fool’s work in v.18. There we find the final two aspects of a fool’s relationship with his work—both of which continue to explain why the fool’s work is extraordinarily tiresome.
18 Through sloth the roof sinks in…
Or, as Proverbs 26:15 says, “The [foolish] sluggard buries his hand in the dish; it wears him out to bring it back to his mouth.”
Tending to sinking roofs or lifting hands full of food is just too much work for the slothful, lazy fool.
We were made by God to work hard and produce much according to His blessing. Work is good. Work is an essential aspect of being a divine image bearer and living a full life. But fools have no appetite for that which is good; only that which is easy.
We are finite, which means that we can’t always work. On top of that, God commands us to rest, which means that we must. But while godly men and women rest from work, for greater work, fools try to avoid work altogether. And, as with the rest of the characteristics of a fool’s work that we’ve considered, the amount of work fools put into avoiding work is exhausting.
Extraordinarily Negligent (18)
The fourth characteristic of a fool’s work, the third reason his work is so tiresome, and the final point of this sermon, is that a fool is extraordinarily indolent (negligent) in his work. We see that in the second line of v.18.
18 Through sloth the roof sinks in,
and through indolence the house leaks.
Laziness and negligence are related but also distinct. Laziness is an aversion to work and that often causes neglect. In other words, the fool’s roof didn’t sink in and eventually leak because he was lazy. It sank in and leaked because his laziness caused him to neglect the necessary repairs.
A lazy fool looks at his failing roof, he knows that if he continues to neglect it, it will continue to deteriorate until it eventually fails entirely, but he does nothing about it.
A fool looks at his failing marriage, he knows that if he continues to neglect it, it will fail entirely, but he does nothing about it.
A fool looks at his failing children, he knows that if he continues to neglect them, they will fail entirely, but he does nothing about them.
A fool looks at his failing church, community, and company, he knows that if he continues to neglect them, they will fail entirely, but he does nothing about them.
A fool looks at his failing spirit, he knows that if he continues to neglect it, it will fail entirely, but he does nothing about it.
A fool’s work is extraordinarily tiresome because he is extraordinarily inefficient, lazy, and negligent.
In stark contrast, wisdom works as unto the Lord; for His pleasure and glory. Wisdom works for the blessing of others; for their benefit and provision. Wisdom works at working with excellence (at continually getting better at your job). Wisdom works these ways at both under and above the sun matters; for the dominion of the things of earth and the salvation of the things above. Wisdom works as God designed, commands, and models. And wisdom rests for the proper purpose and in the proper way: for greater work and according to God’s example.
Further, as is the case with our words, our works are unimaginable significant because they too are rooted in God’s nature and work. Where’s the fool’s work is tiresome, God’s work is life giving and restoring. Where the fool’s work is inefficient, God’s work never fails to accomplish His purposes—and without a wasted fraction of a second or ounce of energy. Where the fool’s work is rooted in laziness, God’s work is rooted in unlimited power and unwavering determination. And where a fool’s work is filled with negligence, God’s is working at all times and in every thing for the highest good of all His people.
And further still, while the fool works the works of the evil one, God’s fullest work is in and through and for Jesus Christ. This is why it is by grace that we are saved through faith, not as a result of our works, but entirely owing to God’s work. O, praise Him!
CONCLUSION
In all of this we’ll see that the big idea of this passage is that God’s people are called to bless others through wisdom, but a fool’s words and works bring nothing but harm to himself and those around him. And from that, the main takeaways are to seek the Lord’s help in speaking graciously, being humble, and working excellently.
Wisdom calls us to speak words of grace, Grace Church. Intentional and sanctifying; every word spoken by us, every time.
It calls us to seek and receive words of grace (in every form) in humility. Thoughtfully and prayerfully; every word heard by us, every time.
And it calls us to work as unto the Lord. Excellence and diligence; every work, every time.
And the fact that none of us have acted perfectly in that kind of wisdom reminds us that grace calls us to confess our shortcomings in these areas and entrust them to Jesus in the certain knowledge that as we do, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and fill us with all that we lack.
It is for that reason that we turn now to one of the two primary reminders of His grace that God has given to His Church…