Foolish Words – Motormouth
Ecc.10:12-14
12 Words from the mouth of the wise are gracious, but fools are consumed by their own lips.
13 At the beginning their words are folly; at the end they are wicked madness—
14 and fools multiply words. No one knows what is coming—who can tell someone else what will happen after them?
15 The toil of fools wearies them; they do not know the way to town.
I know it was wrong, but my brother and I would make jokes of a lady who talked so much and so fast we would watch to see if she took a breath. She'd be talking and we'd be giggling. She never knew what she was saying when she got going. We called it “diarrhea of the mouth”. She was an example of loving the sound of her own voice.
we call someone who doesn’t know what they are talking about “full of hot air”. There isn’t anything to what they are saying and it flies away and is gone. One of the foolishness of words is that there are so many of them. Some people are incessant talkers.
George Elliot said "Blessed is the man who having nothing to say abstains from giving wordy evidences of that fact. Another said, “Don't use a gallon of words to express a spoonful of thought.”
I am aware that preachers can be faulted in this area. One lady admired the affection shown between a pastor and his wife. She noticed at the beginning of a sermon she sweetly blew her husband a kiss. Finally, she remarked to the pastor and his wife about the thoughtfulness they demonstrated. Then the wife piped up and said, “KISS stands for Keep it Short, Stupid.”
Hot air can also illustrate ignorance. There is nothing wrong with someone who doesn't know something and is able to learn in the process. Likewise, it isn’t foolishness to be misinformed and willing to change, but there are people who believe they are authorities on just about every subject and display an impressive amount of ignorance. Solomon says they probably can't find their own way home back into town. Some of that may be an excuse for laziness which we will address tomorrow, but hot air is talk that is better to be without.
You know people who think they know absolutely everything about everything. An exciting evening for them is when they can monopolize the whole conversation and when it is someone else's turn to talk, they leave, or change the subject. After a while I kept quiet, as one minister chatted on about politics, about music, about philosophy, about cars, about Baptists, about education, about any topic that came up whether or not he had his facts right. I concluded he was a fool.
Unfortunately, one of the occupational hazards about being a pastor is that people expect you to know everything about all subjects. The temptation is to believe it for oneself. There is nothing wrong for someone to say, “I don’t know.” or “I’ll get back to you on that.” After a while people just stop listening. They know better.
When you find people no longer listening to you, take the hint. It may be you have nothing significant or new to say. Watch what you say and how much you talk. Take a time out and listen to others without interruption. Ask God to help tame your tongue.
