Ecclesiastes 7:21 Also take no heed unto all words that are spoken; lest thou hear thy servant curse thee
Proverbs says that foolishness is bound in the heart of a child. All of us have been children. We don’t begin by having a clue about life. We begin with having foolishness bound in our hearts. Life should knock that out of us. I talked to a young friend here at the Ranch who just had a birthday. He said he was getting to be an old man. Well, he is not; he is only in his twenties. I told him, “You are old enough to know what needs to change and young enough to do something about it.” Some people are too old to change anything and some are too young to know they need to. We can gain wisdom in life if we will. We can improve and get better.
Ecclesiastes 7 is all about better. The first eight verses are about things that are better than others. For instance, verse 1 says, “A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one’s birth.” There are a lot of counterintuitive statements like that in the first eight verses. Basically, what he is saying is that you are born with the name your mom gives you, but you die with the name you give yourself. When good or bad things happen in our lives, we should be paying attention, considering them, and learning from life as we go.
When we read later in Ecclesiastes 7, the Bible tells us things to which we are to pay attention and things we are to ignore. The one comes from the other. For instance, verse 13 says, Consider the work of God.” Verse 14 says, “In the day of adversity consider.” In other words, see with the heart. In contrast perhaps, it says in verse 21, “Also, take no heed unto all words that are spoken; lest thou hear thy servant curse thee.” So, God is saying here consider, see, and don’t heed and listen. See; don’t hear.
Our attention is a limited commodity and there is no way you can pay attention to things you should pay attention to if you are absorbing things you should not. Wisdom rewards those who know what to pay attention to. Wisdom is profitable. So, to pay attention to the things that matter means you have to ignore the things that don’t. We live in a noisy world where we have a lot of input coming into our eyes, ears, and heads all the time. Wisdom is knowing what to ignore so we can know that to which we should be paying attention.
First, not all words are profitable. “Also take no heed to all words that are spoken.” The air you breathe right now is filled with words. If you have the right device, you can see and hear them, but sometimes we are so filled with words that don’t profit, that we don’t gain from the words that could profit us. Verse 5 says, “It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than for a man to hear the song of fools.” There is a time to hear things I don’t want to hear, maybe even things about myself, but there is a difference between hearing things that may be pleasant but may be profitable and hearing things that are unprofitable and also are unpleasant. If we want to hear all the things people are saying about us, it is easier now than ever before because our devices can pick them right out of the air and cram them into our heads, but not all words are profitable.
Second, I waste words or mis-aim them myself. Verse 22 says, “For oftentimes also thine own heart knoweth that thou thyself likewise hast cursed others.” Verse 20 says, “For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.” We all do the same thing. So, if we were to hear the words about ourselves that we sometimes say about others, they would sting. Don’t waste your ears. Spurgeon essentially said, “You can’t stop every tongue, but you can stop your ears when you should.”
So, not all words are profitable. I need to know what to ignore and I need to know what to hear. In the end, God knows and I can and should learn. The Bible tells us that wisdom is good with an inheritance. If I were to inherit a million dollars, it would do me no good if it I didn’t have the good sense to know how to use it. The things that happen in my life should gain for me wisdom and that comes from knowing what to ignore and what to hear.