Ecclesiastes 12:11 Sermons: The words of the wise are like goads; and like nails well fastened are words from the masters of collections, which are given from one shepherd.

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The words of the wise are like goads, and the anthologies of the masters are like firmly embedded nails driven by a single Shepherd.

Sermons

A Wise Preacher Aims to Move His Hearers	N. Emmons, D. D.	Ecclesiastes 12:11
The Christian Ministry of Literary Men	J. H. Rylance, D. D.	Ecclesiastes 12:11
The Words of the Wise	Archdeacon Perowne.	Ecclesiastes 12:11
The Epilogue	J. Willcock	Ecclesiastes 12:8-12
The Religious Thinker and Teacher	D. Thomas	Ecclesiastes 12:9-11
The Function of the Teacher	W. Clarkson	Ecclesiastes 12:9-12

Pulpit Commentary Homiletics

The Religious Thinker And Teacher

Ecclesiastes 12:9-11

D. Thomas

The author of this book was himself a profound thinker and an earnest teacher, and it is evident that his great aim was to use his gifts of observation, meditation, and discourse for the enlightenment and the spiritual profit of all whom his words might reach. Taught in the quiet of his heart by the Spirit of the Eternal, he labored, by the presentation of truth and the inculcation of piety, to promote the religious life among his fellow-men. His aim as he himself conceived it, his methods as practiced by him in his literary productions, are deserving of the attentive consideration and the diligent imitation of those who are called upon to use thought and speech for the spiritual good of their fellow-creatures. Words are the utterance of the convictions and the desires of the inner nature, and when spoken deliberately and in public they involve a peculiar responsibility.

I. THE WORDS OF THE RELIGIOUS TEACHER SHOULD BE THE EXPRESSION OF WISDOM. They should not be thrown off carelessly, but should be the fruit of deep study and meditation. For the most part, they should embody either original thought, or thought which the teacher should have assimilated and made part of his own nature, and tested in his own individual experience. They should be the utterance of knowledge rather than of opinion; and they should be set forth in the order which comes from reflection, and not in an incoherent, desultory, and unconnected form.

II. THE WORDS OF THE RELIGIOUS TEACHER SHOULD BE WORDS OF UPRIGHTNESS. In order to this they must be the utterance of sincere conviction; they must harmonize with moral intuitions; they must be such as consequently appeal to the same conscience in the hearer or reader, which approves them in the speaker or writer. Crafty arguments, specious and sophistical appeals, sentimental absurdities, do not fulfill these conditions, and for them there is no place in the Christian preacher's discourses, in the volumes of the Christian author.

III. THE WORDS OF THE RELIGIOUS TEACHER SHOULD BE WORDS OF PERSUASIVENESS. The author of Ecclesiastes commends "proverbs" and "words of delight." Harshness, coldness, contemptuousness, severity, are unbecoming to the expositor of a religion of compassion and love. A winning manner., a sympathizing spirit, language and illustrations adapted to the intelligence, the habits, the circumstances of auditors, go far to open up a way to their hearts. No doubt there is a side of danger to this requirement; the pleasing word may be the substitute for the truth instead of its vehicle, and the preacher may simply be as one that playeth upon a very pleasant instrument. But the example of our Lord Jesus, "the great Teacher," abundantly shows how winning, gracious, condescending, and touching language is divinely adapted to reach the hearts of men.

IV. THE WORDS OF THE RELIGIOUS TEACHER SHOULD BE CONVINCING AND EFFECTIVE. The goads that pierce, the nails that penetrate and bind, are images of the language of him who beateth not the air. Let the aim be kept steadily before the eye, and the mark will not be missed. Let the blow be delivered strongly and decisively, and the work will be well done. The understanding has to be convinced, the conscience awakened, the heart touched, the evil passions stilled, the endeavor and determination aroused; and the Word is, by the accompanying energy of the Spirit of God, able to effect all this. "Who is sufficient for these things?"

V. THE WORDS OF THE RELIGIOUS TEACHER MAY BE THE MEANS OF RELIGIOUS, SPIRITUAL, IMPERISHABLE BLESSING. If his word be the Word of God, who commissions and strengthens every faithful herald and ambassador, then he may comfort himself with the promise, "My Word shall not return unto me void; it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." - T.

Biblical Illustrator

The words of the wise are as goads.

Ecclesiastes 12:11

A wise preacher aims to move his hearers

N. Emmons, D. D.

I. A WISE PREACHER WILL AIM TO IMPRESS THE MINDS OF HIS HEARERS.

1. Every wise preacher knows that unless he impresses the minds of his hearers, he can do them no good by his preaching. Hearers must feel what they hear, or what they hear will be like sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

2. Every wise preacher knows that his hearers will not feel the truth and importance of what he says unless he makes them feel it. Hearers look upon it as the part of the preacher to make them feel. They mean to be passive in hearing, unless he makes them active.

II. HOW HE WILL PREACH IN ORDER TO ATTAIN THIS DESIRABLE OBJECT. When any person proposes a certain end, the end which he proposes naturally suggests the proper means to accomplish it. This holds with respect to a wise preacher, who makes it his object to penetrate and impress the minds of his hearers.

1. This end will naturally lead him to use the most proper style in preaching. He will choose the best words, and place them in the best order, to enlighten the mind and affect the heart.

2. His design to penetrate and impress the minds of his. hearers will lead him to exhibit great and interesting truths. He will bring much of the character, perfections and designs of God into his public discourses. He will preach Christ in the greatness of His nature, and in the glory and grace of His mediatorial character and works. He will exhibit man in the dignity of his nature, and in the importance of his destination. And he will unfold the scenes of a general judgment, and of a boundless eternity, in their own native awful solemnity.

3. For the same purpose he will explain Divine truths and describe Divine objects.

4. The wise preacher, who intends to impress the minds of his hearers, will arrange Divine truths, and exhibit Divine objects, in such an order as to reach every power and faculty of the soul, in its proper turn. Instruction should always go before declamation. It can answer no valuable purpose to inflame the passions before light is thrown into the understanding and conscience; but rather serves, on the other hand, to produce the most fatal effects.

5. The wise preacher, who means to impress the minds of his hearers, will always apply his discourse according to their particular characters. What belongs to saints, he will apply to saints; and what belongs to sinners, he will apply to sinners.

III. IMPROVEMENT.

1. We learn from what has been said, the importance of ministers being good men. Piety is necessary, both to dispose and enable them to penetrate and impress the minds of their hearers.

2. We learn from what has been said, the importance of ministers giving themselves wholly to their work. If they mean to penetrate and impress the minds of their hearers, they must exhibit, in the course of their preaching, a rich variety of Divine truths. But they will soon lose a variety, and fall into a sameness in preaching, unless they constantly improve their minds in the knowledge of the doctrines and duties of religion by reading, meditation and prayer.

3. We learn from what has been said, the manner in which a minister should appear and speak in the pulpit. His voice, his looks, his gestures, and his whole deportment, should be wholly governed by his ultimate end, which is to penetrate and impress the minds of his hearers.

4. We learn from what has been said that it is not very material whether a minister preaches with notes, or without. If he aims to impress the minds of his hearers, he may attain his end by either of these modes of preaching.

5. We learn from what has been said, the great absurdity of those ministers who studiously avoid penetrating and impressing the minds of their hearers. Solomon and Christ, the prophets and apostles meant to penetrate and impress the minds of their hearers; and, by the manifestation of the truth, to commend themselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. These are examples, which it is wise in preachers to follow, though it Should give pain and even offence to their hearers.

6. If it be the wisdom and duty of ministers to penetrate and impress the minds of their hearers, then they have no reason to complain of the most close and pungent preaching. They always desire such plainness and fidelity in other men, whom they employ to promote their temporal good. They wish their attorney to examine their cause with care, dis. cover every flaw, and tell them the plain, naked truth. And they heartily desire their surgeon to probe their wounds to the bottom, and apply the moss effectual remedies, though ever so painful and distressing to endure. Why, then, should they complain of their minister for dealing plainly and faithfully with their souls? This is an absurdity in its own nature, an injury to their minister, and may be eternal destruction to themselves.

7. If it ought to be the aim of the minister to penetrate and impress the minds of his hearers, then there is blame somewhere if their minds are not penetrated and impressed. Either the minister does not aim to impress their minds, or they mean to resist the impressions of Divine truth.

(N. Emmons, D. D.)

The words of the wise

Archdeacon Perowne.

I. THEY ARE STIMULATING, "as goads." Wise teaching, however attractive (ver. 10), is never pointless. It is penetrating, incisive. It stimulates to —

1. Hatred and opposition. Ahab. (1 Kings 21:20; 1 Kings 22:8). The Pharisees (Mark 12:12).

2. Conversion. Saul of Tarsus (Acts 9:5. See also Psalm 45:2, 5).

3. Progress and effort (2 Peter 1:12 :l).

II. THEY ARE ABIDING, "as nails," etc. "Masters of assemblies," either those who assemble persons together to hear them, or perhaps "masters of collections," those who collect and arrange wise words. In either case they are teachers, by word of mouth or in writing. A nail "fastened" or "planted," not only penetrates, but abides. The impression made by wise teaching is lasting. It abides —

1. To be pondered. The Blessed Virgin (Luke 2:19, 51. See also Luke 1:66, and Genesis 37:11).

2. To be acted upon, as fixed principles, regulating the conduct. "Having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit," etc. (Luke 8:15; see Psalm 119:11).

3. To be added to; a nail (a "peg," as we say) on which to hang much else. Compare the promise to Eliakim (Isaiah 22:23-25).

III. THEY HAVE ESSENTIAL UNITY, "given from one shepherd."

1. The human teacher making his own (so giving harmony and unity to "words of the wise"), drawn from many sources.

2. God, the Author of all wisdom (Proverbs 2:6), the Great Prophet and Teacher of the Church (John 16:13; 1 Corinthians 2:9-13). Harmony and unity of truth, as taught by inspired writers, and those whose teaching accords with them.

IV. CONCLUSION. In this description we have a rule by which —

1. The teacher should guide himself.

2. The hearer should try himself.

(Archdeacon Perowne.)

The Christian ministry of literary men

J. H. Rylance, D. D.

There is a Christian ministry wider than that to which men are consecrated through ecclesiastical offices. They also belong to the "great company of preachers," or teachers, who explore the heavens, or who decipher the records graven on rocks, or who analyze material forms, or who trace the evolutions of life, with those who delineate or embody the beautiful in art; all these are co-workers with "the apostles and prophets" in the service and worship of God the Father. Some of God's servants stand nearer to the altar than others, but the sacrifice and service of these in the outermost range are ever and everywhere acceptable to Him when offered or done "in an honest and true heart." And among these diverse gifts of God's Spirit, who divides to men "severally as He will," we may surely count the gift of the genius which has enriched the world with so many sweet and inspiring thoughts in the varied forms of literature. Charles Lamb has said, in his own quiet, quaint way, "I am disposed to say grace upon twenty other occasions in the course of the day besides my dinner. I want a form for setting out upon a pleasant walk, for a moonlight ramble, for a friendly meeting, for a solved problem. Why have we none for books, those spiritual repasts — a grace before Milton, a grace before Shakespeare, a devotional exercise proper to be said before reading the 'Faery Queen'?" For literature, even in its lowlier forms, has been a ministry of comfort and help to millions. It has filled days in the lives of multitudes with solace or with sunshine which otherwise had been "dark and dreary." Many devout people have a horror, I know, of what they call works of "fiction": nor am I insensible of the demoralizing influence of the baser sort of such literature. But let us discriminate here, as we do in music and in painting and in poetry, nor condemn that which is wholesome with that which is vicious in books of amusement or recreation; for the greatest writers of so-called fiction have done good and blessed service often in the cause of morality and religion. There is more "pure gospel," in the substantial sense of that cant phrase, in the writings of Charles Dickens, for instance, than in seven-tenths of our prinked sermons. Think of the gentleness, the pathos, the Divine charity which pervade his books! while even the homely, the ludicrous and the seemingly profane are always friendly to virtue. What a power he has been in the regeneration of English manners! Then think of a similar service done by his great compeer in English letters; by him who lashed the follies and the vices of "Vanity Fair," doing a work which the pulpit was impotent or afraid to do in rebuking the fashionable extravagance and profligacy of the age; for literature could find audience in circles which were closed to homilies and Episcopal pastorals, insinuating truths which had been resented coming in dogmatic shape. And the results are marked in every sphere of English life, for it is not to an increase of ecclesiastical activity that the improved manners and morals of the English people are to be solely or chiefly traced. The influence of the press has become supreme; our greatest prophets speak through books. No man can estimate the debt which modern civilization owes to the men the weapon of whose warfare has been the pen. They have been ever forward to expose hypocrisy, to resist the tyranny of power, to plead the cause of the oppressed, and sometimes at a bitter cost. Of all powers merely human, poetry has been the most potent over the cultivated thought and feeling of the world. It holds more condensed wisdom, it speaks more directly to the primal affections, it incites the soul to grander aims, it is more nearly akin to the unction of the Divine Spirit than any other instrument or influence controlled by man. The art of making verses may be acquired, but the true poet is inspired, having deeper insight into men and things with finer faculties of interpretation: the teacher at whose feet all other men sit to catch the flow of harmonious wisdom. All gifts of genius are from heaven, but the brightest and the best is "the vision and the faculty Divine" of the poet. He is the teacher of teachers. The best thoughts of the cultivated world had birth in poetry. Every other species of intellectual power has been inspired by it. Religion, morals, government have all been penetrated and purified by it. Take one name and all it represents out of the literary annals of England, and what a void would be visible wherever the English tongue has gone! "Take the entire range of English literature," says the late Canon Wordsworth; "put together our best authors who have written upon subjects not professedly religious or theological, and we Shall not find, I believe, in them all united so much evidence of the Bible having been read and used as we have found in Shakespeare alone." Who can take his thoughts and reflections into the study or the closet without coming forth with deeper and diviner feelings in him — without a more awful estimate of life and its great issues?

(J. H. Rylance, D. D.)

People

Solomon

Places

Jerusalem

Topics

Assemblies, Collected, Collections, Composed, Embedded, Fastened, Fences, Firmly, Fixed, Goads, Grouped, Guide, Hammer, Masters, Nails, Planted, Pointed, Sayings, Shepherd, Well-driven, Wise

Outline

1. the Creator is to be remembered in due time
8. The preacher's care to edify
13. the fear of God is the chief antidote for vanity

Dictionary of Bible Themes

Ecclesiastes 12:11

     1180   God, wisdom of
     1220   God, as shepherd
     1651   numbers, 1-2
     4648   goad
     5627   word
     8365   wisdom, human

Ecclesiastes 12:9-11

5481 proverb

Ecclesiastes 12:9-12

5441 philosophy
8674 study

Ecclesiastes 12:11-12

5028 knowledge, God source of human
7797 teaching

Library

The Conclusion of the Matter
'Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; 2. While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain; 3. In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened, 4. And the doors shall be shut in …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Work of Our Sanctification.
How much more easily sanctity appears when regarded from this point of view. If the work of our sanctification presents, apparently, the most insurmountable difficulties, it is because we do not know how to form a just idea of it. In reality sanctity can be reduced to one single practice, fidelity to the duties appointed by God. Now this fidelity is equally within each one's power whether in its active practice, or passive exercise. The active practice of fidelity consists in accomplishing the duties …
Jean-Pierre de Caussade—Abandonment to Divine Providence

Circumstances and Consequences
And fears shall be in the way.' (Ecclesiastes xii. 5.) The man who wrote these words was specially emphasizing the importance of settling one's relationships to the great Creator before the coming of days when infirmities increase, and decay of natural powers sets in. The practical outcome of that thought is, that postponement only adds to one's difficulties when the battle really has to be fought. Amongst those difficulties the sacred writer places that natural foreboding, physical shrinking …
T. H. Howard—Standards of Life and Service

The Ancestral Home
John Van Nest Talmage was born at Somerville, New Jersey, August 18, 1819 He was the fourth son in a family of seven brothers and five sisters. The roots of the Talmage genealogical tree may be traced back to the year 1630, when Enos and Thomas Talmage, the progenitors of the Talmage family in North America, landed at Charlestown, Massachusetts, and afterwards settled at East Hampton, Long Island. Dr. Lyman Beecher represents the first settlers of East Hampton as "men resolute, enterprising, acquainted …
Rev. John Gerardus Fagg—Forty Years in South China

Letter cxxvi. To Marcellinus and Anapsychia.
Marcellinus, a Roman official of high rank, and Anapsychia his wife had written to Jerome from Africa to ask him his opinion on the vexed question of the origin of the soul. Jerome in his reply briefly enumerates the several views that have been held on the subject. For fuller information he refers his questioners to his treatise against Rufinus and also to their bishop Augustin who will, he says, explain the matter to them by word of mouth. Although it hardly appears in this letter Jerome is a decided …
St. Jerome—The Principal Works of St. Jerome

Obedience to God the Way to Faith in Christ.
"When Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, He said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God."--Mark xii. 34. The answer of the scribe, which our blessed Lord here commends, was occasioned by Christ's setting before him the two great commandments of the Law. When He had declared the love of God and of man to comprehend our whole duty, the scribe said, "Master, Thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but He: and to love Him with all the heart, and with …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII

The Abrogation of the Saybrook Platform
That house cannot stand.--Mark iii, 25. The times change and we change with them.--Proverb. The omission of all persecuting acts from the revision of the laws in 1750 was evidence that the worst features of the great schism were passing, that public opinion as a whole had grown averse to any great severity toward the Separatists as dissenters. But the continuance in the revised statutes of the Saybrook Platform as the legalized constitution of the "Presbyterian, Congregational or Consociated Church," …
M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.—The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut

A Treatise of the Fear of God;
SHOWING WHAT IT IS, AND HOW DISTINGUISHED FROM THAT WHICH IS NOT SO. ALSO, WHENCE IT COMES; WHO HAS IT; WHAT ARE THE EFFECTS; AND WHAT THE PRIVILEGES OF THOSE THAT HAVE IT IN THEIR HEARTS. London: Printed for N. Ponder, at the Peacock in the Poultry, over against the Stocks market: 1679. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," and "a fountain of life"--the foundation on which all wisdom rests, as well as the source from whence it emanates. Upon a principle …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

1 to Pray Does not Imply that Without Prayer God Would not Give us Anything...
1. To pray does not imply that without prayer God would not give us anything or that He would be unaware of our needs, but it has this great advantage, that in the attitude of prayer the soul is best fitted to receive the Giver of blessing as well as those blessings He desires to bestow. Thus it was that the fullness of the Spirit was not poured out upon the Apostles on the first day, but after ten days of special preparation. If a blessing were conferred upon one without a special readiness for …
Sadhu Sundar Singh—At The Master's Feet

The Fifth Commandment
Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.' Exod 20: 12. Having done with the first table, I am next to speak of the duties of the second table. The commandments may be likened to Jacob's ladder: the first table respects God, and is the top of the ladder that reaches to heaven; the second respects superiors and inferiors, and is the foot of the ladder that rests on the earth. By the first table, we walk religiously towards God; by …
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments

Appendix v. Rabbinic Theology and Literature
1. The Traditional Law. - The brief account given in vol. i. p. 100, of the character and authority claimed for the traditional law may here be supplemented by a chronological arrangement of the Halakhoth in the order of their supposed introduction or promulgation. In the first class, or Halakhoth of Moses from Sinai,' tradition enumerates fifty-five, [6370] which may be thus designated: religio-agrarian, four; [6371] ritual, including questions about clean and unclean,' twenty-three; [6372] concerning …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

A Prayer when one Begins to be Sick.
O most righteous Judge, yet in Jesus Christ my gracious Father! I, wretched sinner, do here return unto thee, though driven with pain and sickness, like the prodigal child with want and hunger. I acknowledge that this sickness and pain comes not by blind chance or fortune, but by thy divine providence and special appointment. It is the stroke of thy heavy hand, which my sins have justly deserved; and the things that I feared are now fallen upon me (Job iii. 25.) Yet do I well perceive that in wrath …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

The Christian Man
Scripture references: Genesis 1:26-28; 2:7; 9:6; Job 33:4; Psalm 100:3; 8:4-9; Ecclesiastes 7:29; Acts 17:26-28; 1 Corinthians 11:7; Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10; 1 Corinthians 15:45; Hebrews 2:6,7; Ephesians 6:10-18; 1 Corinthians 2:9. WHAT IS MAN? What Shall We Think of Man?--Who is he? What is his place on the earth and in the universe? What is his destiny? He is of necessity an object of thought. He is the subject of natural laws, instincts and passions. How far is he free; how far bound? …
Henry T. Sell—Studies in the Life of the Christian

The Heavenly Footman; Or, a Description of the Man that Gets to Heaven:
TOGETHER WITH THE WAY HE RUNS IN, THE MARKS HE GOES BY; ALSO, SOME DIRECTIONS HOW TO RUN SO AS TO OBTAIN. 'And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain: escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.'--Genesis 19:17. London: Printed for John Marshall, at the Bible in Gracechurch Street, 1698. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. About forty years ago a gentleman, in whose company I had commenced my …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Of the Effects of those Prerogatives.
From these prerogatives there will arise to the elect in heaven, five notable effects:-- 1. They shall know God with a perfect knowledge (1 Cor. i. 10), so far as creatures can possibly comprehend the Creator. For there we shall see the Word, the Creator; and in the Word, all creatures that by the Word were created; so that we shall not need to learn (of the things which were made) the knowledge of him by whom all things were made. The most excellent creatures in this life, are but as a dark veil …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

Ecclesiastes
It is not surprising that the book of Ecclesiastes had a struggle to maintain its place in the canon, and it was probably only its reputed Solomonic authorship and the last two verses of the book that permanently secured its position at the synod of Jamnia in 90 A.D. The Jewish scholars of the first century A.D. were struck by the manner in which it contradicted itself: e.g., "I praised the dead more than the living," iv. 2, "A living dog is better than a dead lion," ix. 4; but they were still more …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

Christ the King at his Table. Ss 1:2-5,12,13,17.
Christ the King at his table. SS 1:2-5,12,13,17. Let him embrace my soul, and prove Mine interest in his heav'nly love; The voice that tells me, "Thou art mine," Exceeds the blessings of the vine. On thee th' anointing Spirit came, And spreads the savor of thy name; That oil of gladness and of grace Draws virgin souls to meet thy face. Jesus, allure me by thy charms, My soul shall fly into thine arms! Our wand'ring feet thy favors bring To the fair chambers of the King. [Wonder and pleasure tune …
Isaac Watts—The Psalms and Hymns of Isaac Watts

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