The Folly and Shame of Hasty Conclusions

All right, Proverbs 18 13 if one gives an answer before he hears it is his folly and shame. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. Well, we thank you for the opportunity that we have to come to your word and to hear from you your expectations.

For us we thank you for Jesus. We thank you for what he's done for us on the cross. And we know that without him we have no hope of living up to Your commands. For us Lord, we thank you for all you do pray that you bless our time here today and give us great insight Into your word and your son's name.

I pray. Amen. Thank you. You may be seated. You know when I think about the book of Proverbs It's really difficult to think about a proverb that has more Relevance to the nature of my life and the decisions that I've made than this proverb itself.

You.

Know so much of my life has been devoted to the task of trying to figure out how to do this and At the risk of turning the pulpit into a confessional. I would say that the more that I look at this verse the more condemnation I actually feel.

When you think about this one of the things that Conley said this morning was he? Pointed our minds and our attention to the Bible where God says that God's commandments are exceedingly broad. And when I think about the nature of this verse Situation after situation after situation after situation comes to my mind immediately of Times where I've utterly violated this verse to my folly and to my shame.

One of the things that motivated me early on in life was the desire to be a better listener. I If you see the nature of the problems that you see around you see that very few people listen. They very few people know how to have the patience to listen.

Well. There's a great many people who are tempted to give answers very very quickly to problems. I mean in my own experience I was a young man who had a lot of questions and put a lot of thought into particular topics and one of the things I noticed is that people were to routinely come up to me and fix problems that They thought I had which I probably did have but they would try to fix those problems so quickly without doing the basic work of listening.

That in a lot of ways that those kinds of experience motivated me to try to learn how to be a better listener and part of going into biblical counseling is you're pursuing a field that is Supposed to excel at listening and one of the things that I've found is I pursued this field in general and then pursued these responsibilities the responsibility of giving counsel and the importance of listening is that You know, there's a lot of ways that by God's grace.

He's helped me to grow in these areas and become a better listener but then I see just as many at times areas in which I'm failing to listen as I should and I'm motivated to keep on going because I know that that honors him too.

You know, there's there's There's a sense when you look at a verse like this if a person gives an answer before he hears it's folly and shame. There's obviously a sense that we're never going to be perfect at this.

In this life like this this should be a Project that we're working on that we're growing and that we're getting better at Over the course of our life that God is at work in us behind the scenes helping us to do a better job at this.

But at the same time it's a task Will probably never be complete in this life will never be complete in this life. We're not omniscient. We're not God. We're not going to understand every situation perfectly.

We're gonna we're gonna be tempted throughout the scope of our life to jump in and give an answer in a premature way that doesn't Fit that's going to be characteristic of us in this life, but God by God's grace I hope we learn to grow in this and see See more clearly the nature of this kind of problem see the nature of the folly and the shame that results from our failures to Listen as we should and to give premature hasty Conclusions as I said, I mean you're living in a world obviously that Excels at listening poorly.

Like you're living in a world that excels at giving hasty Conclusions, you know a lot of that's related to the social media outrage cycle to where you have famous pastors and individuals Who feel like they have the need to comment on every new situation that happens in the moment?

You know without a without hardly any reflection without I mean having hardly any information there's almost a demand for Christians particularly those who are in the areas of content producing to Immediately offer thoughts and give their perspective on issues that are very distant and removed from them you know part of the internet encourages people to Metal in Affairs that don't really belong to them at times and the comment on things that really they have very little information about they don't know.

About then I mean as you look at the church's response to a variety of social issues over the past few years. You'll notice that we make the same mistakes along these lines Over and over and over again and with the prevalence of you know, AI technology like legitimate fake news.

You know.

Misinformation the rise of misinformation and all that. I mean there are real dangers that we face. Particularly in our online interactions and even in our in-person interactions where we're sharing things that we Are being told our facts.

I mean there's some there's so much danger that we have just to instantaneously Comment on things. So I mean you think about some of the major things that's happened over the past few years. Think about.

You know the summer of love with all the summer of love with all the writing and the looting that happened related to Michael Brown and Ferguson situations, I mean you have famous pastor after famous pastor.

Immediately parroting the stand up our hands up. Don't shoot narrative. Commenting on the systemic nature of racism in our country and the need for police reform. Knowing very little about those situations at all.

I Have the George Floyd situation, which is similar situation where certain facts were presented to the public that many pastors thought were irrefutable proof of the nature of guilt and issuing proclamations only to realize a year later that there's a lot of information that was withheld from that situation and maybe things weren't Quite the same as what we thought the COVID.

With the COVID situation you had.

Many many.

Pastors who are going on social media commenting about the responsibilities of church members to in a blind way trust the medical establishment as We're ignoring general protocols for the production of vaccines.

We're refusing to hold vaccine companies liable for whatever happens as a result of these vaccines even though they're very different kinds of vaccines and other vaccines and my purpose here today is not to comment on any of these situations other than just to say that.

You will note in situation after situation after situation. There is almost an expectation and a demand that is put on God's people to speak very quickly Very quickly about situations that may be a lot more complicated than we realize at first glance.

When you think about all the me-too accusations that have happened over the course of years every time no Republican Supreme Court nominee is put forward you can imagine there's going to be any number of me-too accusations that are going to Be leveled against that individual and we're told to rush to judgment almost as if it's a virtue.

We like we need to believe all women believe all accusations. I trust the victim believe the victim ignore due process, you know, you're living in a time right now where there's a great reversal of the expectations that we've always had as it relates to the presumption of innocence like we used to believe as a people that it would be better for a hundred guilty men to go free than to convict one innocent person and.

Because now you're living in a time that you know does not have a Christian worldview. We don't believe that there is a God who made the world who will judge the world and that one day everything will be set Right because we've rejected that basic worldview.

We demand perfect justice here and now so you're living in a time that it demands perfect justice here and now and we We really believe as a society that it would be better to convict a hundred innocent men.

And then to allow one guilty man to go free because we've lost track of God. The point of all this is just to say that we are living in an environment that certainly expects and demands For the sake of justice even right demands that you quickly come to conclusions with very little Information.

I think that's that's the society living right now. It's it demands that you come to very quick conclusions on the basis of You know often one side of the story and very limited kind of information that it's demanding that you give an answer before you hear almost as if that's a virtue in of itself and that should be troubling that should be troubling to us and if you don't If you only had the testimony of recent events.

You should realize that there's a lot of folly and shame that comes from quickly pontificating on a you know Recent event only to realize that you didn't have enough information to helpfully comment and a lot of the things that you're saying Really were unjust in the light of history.

But but God's Word speaks to us today About this topic and we should pay attention to what God has to say because the grass withers and the flower fades. But the Word of God will stand forever. And God's given us principles for how to listen in his Word that we would do well to pay attention to.

And we think about the nature of Proverbs 18 13 if one gives an answer before he hears it's folly and shame. You know, there's a sense in which It I need you to just hear me out on this. There's a sense in which it's impossible to be Christlike on this topic.

Okay.

Now just kind of think about what I'm saying for a second because I'm gonna I'm gonna qualify that significantly, but when you think about the nature of God's attributes God has God has what's called communicable attributes and he has what's called in communicable attributes omniscience.

Omniscience is an incommunicable attribute of God meaning I am no matter how much I Grow in my knowledge I'm not going to know things the way that God knows things. God knows things perfectly from the beginning.

God doesn't learn you understand. So God is not learning. God knows things perfectly exhaustively from the beginning. His knowledge isn't changing my knowledge. It grows over time. It starts out very limited it grows.

But it's never going to be infinite and perfect in every respect. That's that's not the way it actually is. And now when you think about the example of Christ on this Christ certainly was a man of understanding and we should be men and women of understanding certainly and.

And there's a certainly a sense in which Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man, that's Luke 252. But in the Gospels one of the things that's remarkable about Jesus is that Jesus?

Primarily interacts with people and you can test this out by reading the gospel. But Jesus primarily interacts with people not by asking questions to gain understanding. But by asking questions that reveal his already perfect understanding.

I mean so many of the gospel narratives are devoted to this very point if you understand what I mean so for instance.

When.

Jesus talks to the woman at the well in John 4 17. Jesus asked her to go get her husband, and she said well I have no husband and Jesus said to her well. You're right in saying that you have no husband for you've had five husbands.

And the one you now have is not your husband. What you said is true. She took from that that he must be a prophet sent from God because there's no way through the normal process of observation That Jesus could possibly know that she had five Husbands right.

So when we think about us Trying to learn how to give an answer before we hear and trying to follow Christ example at this point. Well, there's no way that you're going to be given supernatural knowledge about the nature of how many husbands a person has and in fact if you try to go about doing that and making dogmatic pronouncements about things that you Haven't empirically verified with your own eyes in that way. You really are going to be.

You know shooting in the dark and engaging something closer to divination another example of Jesus doing this Nathanael. When Jesus is calling Nathanael in John 1 48 Nathanael said to him how do you know me.

And Jesus answered before Philip called you when you were under the fig tree I saw Nathanael answered him rabbi you are the Son of God you are the King of Israel and Jesus answered because I said to you I Saw you under the fig tree.

Do you believe you will see greater things than these? So over and over again when Jesus is interacting with people Jesus seems to have access to knowledge that normal human beings Don't have access to.

Jesus.

Jesus in his encounters with human beings. Most of the encounters are demonstrating that he has the kind of understanding that is completely unnatural To normal human beings. He seems to know things that he shouldn't know.

Just if he were solely and simply a man and so as I'm trying to say here. There's a sense in which when we're pursuing Understanding we are pursuing being like Christ because Christ is the man of understanding.

We don't have the same means of arriving at understanding that Jesus did if you understand what I mean. So however, Jesus is figuring out that this woman had five husbands. It's not through the natural process of looking and seeing and verifying.

However, Jesus knows that Nathanael is under the fig tree. It's not by information that he's getting from his eyes. And so as creatures we are limited In our ability to be like Christ in this area and the way that we honor Christ in this area is Going to be devoting ourself to asking a lot more questions and gathering a lot more data Than what Jesus had to gather in his incarnation if you understand what I'm saying.

So what is our passage here to saying? to us today. Passage is saying that if a person gives an answer before he hears. It is folly and shame. And so it do well for us as we're to consider this topic to consider what is the nature of folly.

The foolishness is is a word that is kind of going out of style. I mean, it's it's not a word that we naturally use on a regular basis. It's I mean, it's it's kind of like like many words in the Bible.

This is the word foolish folly. Fool fool is like a pejorative and we're living in a society that has basically declared Both limits every form of pejorative that you can imagine and so the idea of foolishness.

It's an idea that we understand intuitively. But I've noticed in interacting with people that if I even bring up the word foolish. Often I notice that people kind of flinch away from that word because it's a word that in many ways is unfamiliar.

To us we don't use we don't speak this language anymore. We've lost a biblical anthropology at this point and we we do try to turn away from that but what is folly. Well folly is the state of a lack of prudence or good judgment foolishness lack of sense and Typically it comes in moral and intellectual varieties.

So.

Like meaning like there's a there's a category for what you might describe as moral folly. And then there's a category that you might describe as intellectual folly. Now because Elizabeth and I am our family are new visitors to this place in particular There might be a great many things that we do here.

That you could put in the category of intellectual foolishness. Like there might be areas that we walk. We shouldn't walk in like that are more dangerous than other areas and we have absolutely no idea that that's a foolish place to go.

Simply because we lack information to know the difference between like this is a good area. This is a bad area. I mean, in fact, one of the things that we've noticed in being here is a lot of our sense about what is a Like a dangerous area and what's a non dangerous area is triggering all in the wrong way.

You know, so if you take a lot of the landscape here and you import it back to where we're from. Like our spider our spider sense of danger is going off wrongly, right? It's like it's all it's all off.

We don't know what good area is what a bad area is. We don't we don't know that. Like there seems to be a lot more scams here online Than what we're used to like it back in Alabama. There's still kind of a situation of very very high trust in the areas that we're from.

And so here we see that there's a lot more scam dangers we don't know if we know the correct protocol at times in order to interact with Wisdom and safety procedures related to like shopping online and things like that.

But all I'm trying to say is a lot of that would you would put in the category not of moral foolishness but in intellectual foolishness. Like meaning we simply don't know what we simply don't know. There's no motive that we I there's it's not just that we don't know we don't know.

But there's a standard that we're violating that God has given us. It's just we don't know the difference between prudence at times and a lack of prudence. Just due to a lack of knowledge not due to moral considerations in general.

But then when you think about the nature of moral folly God's given us his word that describes what his expectations are for us and There are things in the Bible that are absolutely foolish right so like if a man refuses to work He may not know that he's supposed to work.

He may not know that. Like God made him to work, and he's not working and if a man doesn't work. Then God says don't let him eat he may not know that like no one may ever told him. Hey, you know that there's a God who made you and he created you for work, but that is a moral issue.

That's happening irrespective of his knowledge in other words. He has the law of God written on his heart. He should know like he should know that he was made for work, and he's rejecting that. And so there's a standard there that God has given that has.

That he is violating and so that would be the nature of moral foolishness over and against intellectual foolishness if you understand. And when you're talking about giving an answer before we hear. We're talking about the language not of intellectual foolishness.

You're talking about the language of moral foolishness you understand. Like this isn't just like some. Like the topic that we're talking about today. This is not just. Well, I don't know so therefore who could have possibly know that the Bible gives you a standard that tells you that You need to be very careful in Giving answers to anything.

Because there might be a great many things that you don't know and in God expects you to try to do The work to figure out those things right so the issue is like we're firmly in the language not of intellectual foolishness with it with the Subject matter today.

We're in the language of moral Foolishness now. Why is it foolish to give an answer before you hear? As I said the intro. I mean why is it foolish because you aren't God? You don't know everything exhaustively from the end like as God does.

You didn't come into the world with perfect knowledge, right? You don't you didn't come into the world with perfect knowledge. You grow in knowledge of the course of your life. You start out with a very limited set of facts that you know.

Painfully limited set of facts that you know as every parent in the room can attest. All of their children come with very limited knowledge. They don't know the difference between Foolish things to do and wise things to do.

Folly is bound up in the heart of a child. Every parent in the room knows that they can observe that from experience, but then the thing is as you get older. One of the temptations you're going to face is to think that you know more than what you do know so.

You know if you've had again if you've had kids for any length of time one of the things you'll realize is as they get A bigger vocabulary they may be absolutely convinced kids if you're in the room, and you're listening to this I'm talking to you right now, so pay attention like one of the temptations of being a child is to think that You know way more than what you do know right and to think that you know better than what your parents know and as parents.

We're looking at you thinking you don't know what you don't know okay? You don't know what you don't know, but there's but you're confident. You know I mean you're obviously confident in your knowledge.

But the thing is as you get older and older that temptation to think you know way more than what you what you actually know. It doesn't go away, and the more proud you are. The more you're going to you're going to double down on that on that temptation.

Then more that you're just going to double down on that perspective be filled with pride and arrogant and conceit and be completely and totally Unteachable and unwilling to listen and then what you're often going to be doing is giving Answers before you hear, but as I said, why is it foolish to give an answer before you hear because you're not God.

You don't know everything. If you think about the nature of the things you actually know it's very very limited. It's way more limited than what you think. I'm just to give you some analogies about how this works.

To go to go into seminary. I I I went to Bible college before I went to seminary when I went to Bible college. I devoted myself to learning Greek. So I I learned Greek and I learned Greek pretty well the problem was I had to learn Hebrew next.

That was the problem so then I learned Hebrew. What do you think happened? Greek gone the Greek was gone. Yeah, so I had to learn Hebrew very very well. So I learned Greek very well. I learned Hebrew very well.

Greek was totally gone. So then what I do. I learn Greek again, and what do you think happened to the Hebrew? It's gone. I mean we are limited human being you could only hold so much information in your mind at one time.

And there's some people who are savants at language, and you know they can learn 10 20 languages. I'm suspicious of how well they actually know those languages, but whatever you say about all that. I know that my brain can't hold.

You know multiple languages in in my mind at once particularly if you don't use them. So I mean I'm very limited and what I know I know a lot about a very narrow field of knowledge. You understand I'm growing up in school.

I learned I was very good at math. Do you know what today? I I don't know anything about math anymore. I have math intuition, but I I've it's gone. You know I Maybe can remember some geometry some trig.

The calculus. I there was a time in my life where I thought in calculus. It's all gone. I don't know it anymore. I don't know anything about it anything beyond that. I yeah I Don't remember the formulas.

I don't remember any of it right. It's all gone. It's all gone, but then you'll notice this in terms of like different Theologians who are experts in their field often. They're very narrow experts in their fields.

Like you get them outside of their Particular field of interest and they're almost bone ignorant of other fields, and I mean that's the way that life is. That's the way life is you understand. So you aren't God you you you can only hold so much information in your mind.

Have you ever tried to memorize the Bible?

And.

Maybe you've memorized a large section of it. And you've got to memorize something else and that section is gone like you know like the the issue is we? We are finite human beings. We don't know as much as we think we know and even you know even If you've been married for even a moment one of the things you'll realize is that you have a conversation With your spouse, and you don't see eye-to-eye in that kind of conversation and in it and at times It's often hard to remember the things that were said even ten seconds before right so here's the thing like we are very limited in Our capacity and for information.

We're not God, but yet. You know you we think like we're being told. That the way to be wise is to pretend like we are. Like if you think about a movie character who people put forward as like a person who's exceedingly wise you would think of someone like Sherlock Holmes right.

Sherlock Holmes that guy that's what it means to be wise. Is to be like Sherlock Holmes where you can look at the very you know? There's a speck of dust on his shoulder, and you can extrapolate from that like these remarkable and dramatic conclusions.

I don't know if you've seen the internet videos of people making fun of that kind of thing to where the guy is pretending to be Sherlock Holmes and. You know extrapolating all this big elaborate scenario on the basis of a few relevant details that he mentioned.

And then it's all wrong. It's you know the actual thing was just a very simple kind of thing it had nothing to do with. All that, but that's the way that we sound like the issue is like if you think in your mind the way to be wise is To extrapolate from very limited amounts of information these grand narratives that you're putting upon people.

They're just going to look at you as if you're you're kind of crazy for the most part. Because that isn't really the way life works, and that's not really the way wisdom works the way wisdom works. It's not that you take a very limited information and extrapolate grand conclusions from that the way that wisdom actually works.

Is that you get more information so you can better understand the situation that you're even talking about? I mean one of the things I do in counseling is I try to ask question after question after question after question I try to ask hours worth of questions so that I can understand the situation.

That I'm going to comment at and you know I mean there are times where I ask two hours worth of questions. Before I even offer a solution, and I still don't understand the situation well enough to comment, okay?

Because it's hard like it's hard like. Obviously, there's no temptation. It's overtaking you, but what is common to man God's faithful. He will not allow you to be tempted beyond your ability. But with that temptation will provide a way of escape that you may bear it.

Like the problems we have are common to life you understand we all have the same kind of problems, but they have unique wrinkles. Your temptation is going to be when you're talking to someone else you're going to see some kind of similarity with their experience in your experience.

And then you're going to fill in all the details with your background your experience your impulses. Like your personality even at times you're going to jump to grand conclusions and try to fix their problem.

And they're going to be looking at you thinking. That doesn't fit it does not fit. Because there's you know this little bit of information that if you just knew if you would just calm down for a second hold on.

Everything would make a little bit more sense. But then like the issue is we're not God. You're not like you're not Sherlock Holmes. God expects you to listen you know as preachers have often said God's given you two ears and one mouth.

So that means he wants you to listen twice as much as you speak and there's probably some truth to that isn't there. So why is it foolish to give an answer we're here because you're not God. To I mean you can't fix a problem.

You don't understand as I said, I mean there's a. One of the temptations that we have when we're trying to help other people is You think okay? Hey, I've been through grief. They're going through grief right.

I know what grief is like for me. Therefore I'm going to help you go through your grief. Well the issue is that no grief is exactly the same. No one handles their grief exactly the same. The relationship you have isn't the same kind of relationship that they have and even if it's the same kind of Relationship that they have it may not be for the same length.

Like they may have had a good relationship for that length, and you had a bad relationship with that length you know but then that relationship that they had is filtered by their background and by their experience and by their upbringing right and by Their personalities to some degree not that personalities are fixed and static and can't change over time, but the issue is.

There are other relationships filtering into that relationship that relationship had different struggles than your relationship might have had. Maybe they had financial struggles your relationship didn't really have financial struggles.

Maybe they had struggles with children in a way that you didn't have the same kind of struggles with your choice. So they had a different set of kids a different set of in-laws. They had different background.

They had different experiences that may be different socio-economic standing right they have different orientations. They have different ways. They handle conflict all of that makes it complex now that doesn't mean that you can't like you're just Isolated individuals who aren't expected to help because you can't ever truly put yourself in another person's shoes.

That's not what I'm trying to say. I'm just trying to say that you might make a lot of assumptions. Very quickly about the nature of the problem that a person is facing and then try to insert yourself into that problem.

Without having any of the information you need and then give answers to a problem that you don't understand, right? Do you know what they have done already to try to fix that problem that you're trying to fix.

Do you know the steps that they've taken already when they say hey, I've tried that before. What do they mean by that? What is I've tried that mean. You prayed about it before okay? What does that mean you prayed about it once.

You prayed about it every day you prayed about it every day with detailed notes. You prayed about it all day long every day. You need to stop praying about it like what situation are you in? You don't know just because they said they prayed about it.

Do you understand you have no like I assume. When I'm talking to people on my good days I try to assume that I have no idea what they're talking about half the time. Because I probably don't. You know I example I give from time to time as example with Gavin.

Gavin we're gonna talk about you since you're there. When he was young he would when he was young he Would look up at the fan. And he would kind of point at it. You know so one day.

I thought well.

I'm gonna pick him up and I'm gonna let him. Like he seems like he wants something up there so I picked him up and then he figured out what the fan he grabbed a fan string and he pulled on it right and Then it the light went off and he got excited and so he did that over and over and over and over again.

And that was fun. Okay. We had a fun encounter, so I put him down right, but then you know like the next day He comes into the room, and he starts fussing at the fan string right now. He said He can't talk yet.

This is pre pre verbal so I I looked at him, and I thought all right I'm gonna be a good parent here. Say please right say please. And so he says please I pick him up he grabs the fan string. And he goes please please please.

And it dawned on me what happened. Okay at that point I thought I was teaching him to be polite. What I actually taught him was the name of the fan string.

Right.

But that stuck with me that I mean the issue is that stuck with me because that's what Communication is like even with adults you understand. There are times in my marriage with a with Elizabeth where we are using the same words and We mean very very different things.

I mean this happened so frequently in the beginning of our marriage. That I was I was so baffled by what was happening that I thought we have to address this somehow. Because we I'm saying do this and then what's happening is so Remarkably different that you know I'm doing a judgment of charity.

I'm doing a judge I'm saying there must be an explanation for this. I don't know what it I don't know what it could possibly be. I thought I was so clear and what's happening is so different. We're gonna figure it out, so we would so when we made certain decisions.

We sat down and we say okay. Here's what we are agreeing on. I said all right you got to sign it. I got to sign it so that we go back from here. You know if there's a hiccup or something. We'll know what happened right.

It's I mean there was a time where I okay. We signed we signed like this is not just a time. This is the first time we did this. She signed it. I signed it, and then she went out to execute the plan and she came back and told me what she did.

I said we signed it. She's like yeah, we signed it, and then I pulled it out. I said, and I read it. I read it to her. I said see this is what we agreed on she said yes. That's what we agree on. I was like what do you mean?

This is what we agreed upon. When I said this I mean this and she said oh, I thought you were meaning this you know and it's like that. That's married communication. That's married communication for you, right?

Like the issue is you don't think this like you're using words, but you don't know what those words mean at times. And you here's the point. I mean you can't fix a problem. You don't understand. Okay, like we even we use words, and we think we know what we mean by those words.

But we may be meaning remarkably different things by the words that we're using. Similarly you can't fix the problem if you don't know what the real problem is. That's not to say that. The problem you think you're fixing might not be a problem, but it may not be the real problem.

Proverbs 25 20 verse 5 says the purpose in a man's heart is like deep water. But a man of understanding will draw it out. Let me say it again the purpose in a man's heart is like deep water. But a man of understanding will draw it out.