The Proverbial Fool

We're continuing our look through the Proverbs this summer and we're going to look at the proverbial fool.

And I can assure you there's no significance to the fact that I'm teaching this subject this morning, though you might conclude otherwise.

I've been doing an exhaustive, I had intended to do an exhaustive study, treatment of it and it may mean multiple classes, but Solomon talks about the fool so frequently that it would be a marathon four -hour class if we actually touched upon every reference of the fool.

But before we look into it, let's open with a word of prayer. Our Father, we thank you for this day.

We thank you for the freedom to assemble and to look into your word. We thank you that you have not left us in the dark and that you've given us a complete revelation in the pages of scripture.

Lord, we ask your blessing now as we look upon your word. I pray that you would be with me as I teach and Lord, that you would superintend every word that I say.

We ask your blessing now on this time and on the service to follow. In Christ's name, amen. Now, as we look at the characteristics of a fool, the path of least resistance is to think about someone else.

Immediately, someone's going to pop into your mind who, in your estimation, is the classic fool.

But I think what we have to learn from these scriptures is that we ourselves can possess some of the attributes of fools or we can act foolishly in certain areas of our life.

It's sort of like, for those of you that like Dilbert, I read Dilbert a lot and Scott Adams, the man that writes that,

I think it's Scott Adams, right? He says the Dilbert principle is that no matter how much aptitude and education you have, that in one realm of everybody's life, they're a complete idiot.

We have areas of expertise and then we have areas where we just ought not to go there and we should know not to go there.

Well, similarly, with being a fool, we're all foolish at times in our lives and there are areas of our life in which we're a little bit more foolish than the areas that we have mastery over or at least competency.

No matter how learned and how sanctified and how godly we are, we all can slip into foolish thinking and that's what

I hope to focus us on this morning. Like I said, this is likely to be a multiple -type class.

You may hear from me in the fall or maybe next year. I don't know the next time they have the lack of discernment to allow me to teach again.

So, let's jump right into it and basically what I've done is sort of a fill -in -the -blank approach just to get you to think.

I want this to be very interactive, so feel free to shout things out. But let's go through the

Proverbs chronologically and let's see in Solomon's estimation what he considered was foolish behavior and boy,

I would, you know, if we start to look through these verses and several of these things are hitting home, that's a bad deal because Solomon didn't look too nicely upon people that he considered foolish and there's a lot of godly wisdom here.

So, let's jump right into it. The first one from Proverbs 1 .7 and 1 .22,

we read, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. And then also in Proverbs 1 .22,

How long, O naive ones, will you love being simple -minded? And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing, and fools hate knowledge.

So, the fool prefers ignorance. That's right, ignorance.

There are people that we know. I mean, you probably, everybody can conjure up in their mind someone who they know who you begin to reason with them over a subject and they just prefer their ignorance.

They just don't want to talk about it. Number two, Proverbs 1 .32, For the waywardness of the naive will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them.

So, the fool lacks what? Well, he certainly does lack wisdom, but the opposite of complacency, perhaps, is the fool lacks motivation.

He's not motivated. He'd rather just, you know, keep going the way he is.

Number three, Proverbs 3 .35, The wise will inherit honor, but the fool displays dishonor.

And the idea is he continually displays dishonor. So, a fool is easily, what?

He's easily recognized. It doesn't take long when you start interacting with people to perceive foolishness.

It kind of tips its hat very quickly. Now, some of these are very, you know, we're very familiar with the fear of the

Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but the neat thing is that as I went deeper and deeper, there are some really hysterical

Proverbs from Solomon about fools, and I actually laughed out loud a couple times. So, I always appreciate that.

Okay, number four, A fool causes blank to those who love him. Proverbs 10 .1,

A wise son makes a father glad, but a foolish son is a grief to his mother. So, you want to know, you know, how you're doing?

Look at how your parents regard you. A fool causes grief to those who love him.

Number five, from Proverbs 10 .8, The wise of heart will receive commands, but a babbling fool will be ruined.

Now, these are called, they're like parallelisms. Sometimes they can be the same thing, the positive statement in the first half of the proverb can be the teaching the same thing as the second half of the statement.

Sometimes it can be a contrast, and sometimes it can be further develop the first idea.

And so, you have to be able to discern whether it's a contrast or whether it's further developing the idea.

And in this one, so the wise of heart will receive commands, but a babbling fool will be ruined.

So, it's, we're looking at the opposite of receiving. So, a fool has an unteachable heart. Now, like I said in the introduction, we're quick to envision, you know, actual fools that we know or people who are characterized by foolish behavior.

But, when we're in a contentious situation and we sense in ourselves that we have an unteachable heart, we know and we should recall that we're beginning to act foolishly, right?

And we'll develop that idea in a second. And when you sense that, you should immediately try to, with the

Holy Spirit's help, try to constrain your behavior and try to change your, the way that you're operating to have a more godly response in each situation.

You may not even need to read the verse. The fool's worst enemy is his own blank. Well, let's read it.

Proverbs 1014, wise men store up knowledge, but with the mouth of the foolish, ruin is at hand.

The fool's worst enemy is his own mouth. I tell you,

I mean, it's like James, you know, what a, is it James? Where, what a fire can be started with the spark of the tongue, you know?

You can do a lot of damage with your tongue. Okay, number seven, Proverbs 1018, he who conceals hatred has lying lips and he who spreads slander is a fool.

So, what do you think number seven is? A fool elevates himself by, right, by tearing down others.

The only way a fool can garner any sort of esteem is by lowering others to elevate himself.

Now, this is where it gets really interesting, I find. Proverbs 1021, the lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for lack of understanding.

A fool is not a good, what do you think that is? The lips of the righteous feed many.

I don't know, I might be, I referred to a couple of commentaries, but a fool is not a good provider. You know someone who's not a good provider, in and out of jobs all the time, continually at odds with management, hates the people he works for.

It doesn't matter what job he has, the boss is always an idiot. Solomon would say, that person is a fool.

Young girls considering husbands, are they workers by nature?

You know, being a provider, while it doesn't constitute the entire role of a husband by any stretch of the imagination, it is a very important aspect.

And I know dear people who are plagued with husbands who just will not provide.

They're in and out of jobs, they're on, you know, this fictitious disability, then they go to this, they strain some muscle, they, you know, there's always some calamity that's preventing them from providing for their family.

And I think that angers the Lord. I know, I remember the verse that says, you know, he who does not provide for his family, even his immediate family, is worse than an unbeliever.

So, very important. Number nine, this one, this is, hopefully this will spur a little bit of conversation.

That's what I'm shooting for. Proverbs 10 .23, doing wickedness is like sport to a fool.

And so is wisdom to a man of understanding. OK. So, foolishness is often not merely an issue of intelligence, but it is slavery to one's sinful nature.

Have you known simple people that are wise? I know lots of people. Matter of fact, I think sometimes simpler people are less encumbered to be wise.

I think smart people can often be crafty and get themselves into trouble. But there's other verses that we'll look at that foolishness, this is not a condemnation of low intelligence.

Foolishness is a, I don't want to tip my hat to things that are coming later, but foolishness is something that it's being trapped in one sense to one's sinful nature.

And we'll talk about how one can escape from being foolish. Number 10, whoops, sorry.

Proverbs chapter 11, he who troubles his own house will inherit the wind and the foolish will be the servant to the wise hearted.

A fool will always be what to the wise? Subservient, that's right.

You know, just a little aside, in this day and age of political conventions and things like this, we hear a lot of talk about the poor and how the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and how a certain, people of a certain political persuasion try to vilify wealth.

And they talk about poverty as if it's this innocent oppression of the downtrodden.

And that does happen. I don't want to take away from that. But we do need to consider that, you know, the foolish will be subservient to the wise hearted.

People who lack motivation, people who are a grief to their parents, people who spout ignorance, who prefer ignorance, people who are poor providers who are not going to be good providers, it doesn't matter how many programs you put them on, they're going to find a way to mess it up.

You hear about people winning millions and millions of dollars and six months later they're declaring bankruptcy, right? So, unfortunately, money doesn't necessarily solve foolishness.

Yes? Oh, yeah, extreme makeover, yeah.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. A fool and his money are soon parted.

That's right. I have a relative whom none of you know, just to be clear, who was left a house and free and clear at the age of 24, a house free and clear in Worcester.

And a couple of years ago I read in the newspaper that his wages are being garnished and he is in trouble because he owes $70 ,000 in back taxes on the house.

All he had to do was pay the taxes and he had a house free and clear. But the reason why he had $70 ,000 due in back taxes was he couldn't be bothered to go through his mail.

He just considered everything junk mail and threw it away, including his tax bills. That is a fool, my friends.

Okay, here's one that I want to spend some time on. Number 11, Proverbs 12, 15. The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man is he who listens to counsel.

Okay, so a fool has only a what reference?

This is, yes, who said that? Internal. A fool has only an internal reference.

This is a form of, what is it when you're the lord of yourself?

It's a form of, well, that's good. Wow, I should have used that, pride. Yeah, it's a form of pride.

If you could boil all of the verses that Solomon wrote, actually there are several authors of Proverbs, but they're called the

Proverbs of Solomon. So they're a collection of wise sayings. If you could boil all of the verses about foolishness down to one axiom, and that is that a fool uses himself as his reference for what is good, what is right, what ought to be said, what ought to be done.

And the fool has made himself the lord of his life. And someone who exhibits chronic and dramatic foolishness needs to really evaluate themselves as to whether they belong to the lord or not, because it really is a self, a form of self -worship.

And I want to talk about this a little bit, and we'll look at this a little bit more. But we should, and I don't want to,

I know we don't espouse self -esteem at this church, right, because when we properly assess who we are, there's nothing really to esteem.

But we should be governed by a godly self -doubt, right?

You hear people say, I know my son's entering college, and he's had to take SATs. And what do they say in the

SATs? Your first inclination is usually right in a multiple choice question. Well, in life, that axiom is not good.

You should doubt your first inclination in every instance, especially when it comes to interpersonal relationships, making judgment calls, things like that.

Unless your conclusion springs immediately from the pages of scripture where you have a watertight, hermeneutic matters of opinion and gray matters, we should always step forward very carefully.

I think about the building program. You know, we're considering the parking lot project out there, and we had a great meeting the other day at Scott Goddard's house.

And the nice thing I like about this committee is that at every step, we continually stop and say, are we doing something silly here?

Is this the right thing? Remember we talked about having blinders on? There's a, in doing large projects, there's a propensity.

Once you get deep into the project, you put blinders on. And when things begin to not be feasible, you sort of emotionally dismiss them so that you can press on because you're so goal -oriented.

You can't do that in life. You need to continually have your hand on the ejection switch.

If this isn't going to work and there's anything that would deem it to be foolish, you ditch it, you get rid of it.

And the same is true in our lives. Of all the, from our study in 2

Peter, of all the people in this world not to trust, you top the list. And I top my own list, okay?

Our fallen nature, our emotions, any time we respond quickly and with great fervor to something, it's usually marred by our sinful nature.

So prudence and self -restraint and second looks at things is what

Solomon would have us to do. And that will help us live a life of least regrets. You'll do a lot less apologizing in your life if you move ahead slowly and calculatedly.

Is that a word, calculatedly? Okay. It should be, that's right. So a fool has only an internal reference, okay?

Number 12, a fool assumes everybody, we don't even need to read the verse on this one, do we?

A fool assumes everybody wants to know his opinion. And this too is a form of pride.

Proverbs 12 .6, a fool's anger is known at once. You offend me, I instantaneously walk over and slap you across the face.

Or I instantaneously start banging my spoon on my high chair because you've offended me, right?

Love overlooks a multitude of, I mean, yeah, sin, right? Okay, good. I don't want to do a spoonerism on that verse.

So a fool's anger is known at once. You know someone who's easily offended and they let you know about it all the time?

Solomon would say, that's foolish behavior. We ought not to be that way. But a prudent man conceals dishonor.

Okay, so I am a huge talk radio fan. And I've actually been known to call in once in a while.

Which I consider a weakness, not a strength. But talk radio and blogs and opinion polls and Zogby and all these things, their whole purpose is to collect people's opinions, right?

And I think sometimes we give our opinions too freely. Have you ever been at work, let's say, for those of you that work out of the home?

And ask your colleagues, what about this Iraq war? Have you ever had anyone say, you know what,

I'm not in the secret briefings that the president gets. I haven't interviewed the generals on the ground.

I haven't been in the triangle in Baghdad. I don't know how it's going.

I haven't interviewed the new Iraqi parliament. So I'm trusting my leaders to make the right call, because they know what's going on.

Have you ever heard anybody say that? No, well, I think we need to pull out in three months, you know.

We need a big F stamp, you know, fool. I mean, now granted, everybody's entitled to an opinion.

And watching these political conventions, which is not good for my blood pressure. Everybody gives their opinion so freely, and nobody defers anymore.

Nobody defers. Louis. That's right.

That's right, that's right. And as I've been known to say around our kitchen table, when I want your opinion, I'll give it to you.

OK. So this is very true, you know, when you bring this down to a day -to -day life type philosophy, you know, what do you think about such and such?

Well, I don't, you know, I don't know. I remember one person I knew got very frustrated, because when he asked Europeans a question, they would listen to the question, and then they would be quiet.

And he was like, didn't he hear me? Is this, the battery's dead in his hearing aid? What's the story? And what would happen is, 24 hours, the

European would seek out the American again and say, I think the answer is yes.

And the American would be like, what are you talking about? The European actually went away and thought about it for 24 hours and came back and gave an answer.

But Americans form their answer when the question is still being transmitted over the air.

That's how we operate. And I'm guilty of that. I know we all are. It's the culture that we live in.

So we used to do VBSs, and we'd start it by saying, keep your ears in gear and your mouth in neutral.

And how true is that for a lot of us? I know I still remember that. All right.

Now, number 13. Let's move on here. Proverbs 12 .23a. A prudent man conceals knowledge, but the heart of the fool proclaims folly.

So 13, a fool can't wait to tell you how he is, how smart he thinks he is.

Remember, being wise, the difference there, knowledge is the acquisition of facts, right?

And wisdom is the utilizing of knowledge to navigate life skillfully and with the least regrets.

So a fool gets a hold of a little kernel or a nugget of knowledge, and he's quick to spout it off.

Look how smart I am. And again, we might be picturing that fool in our head, but we need to picture ourselves.

How can we constrain our tongue? How can we act more in line with the wise person? Any questions so far?

Number 14, Proverbs 13 .16. Every prudent man acts with knowledge, but a fool displays folly.

So this is a contrasting parallel. And this may be a little bit of a twist, but a fool takes pride in his foolishness.

It's that MTV -ism that the young generation has adopted. Movies whose titles

I can't say because they're crass, where two hour long movies are people making fools of themselves, trying skateboard and BMX tricks and breaking bones and laughing and being arrested.

And the young generation says, isn't that cool? And if you showed that to a

Puritan, they would think that you had lost your mind. And I think many of the

Americans have lost their mind. A fool also, in regard to Proverbs 13 .16,

a fool often rushes ahead. They get information and they act. They never ponder anything.

They never mull anything over. When we act foolishly, we rush ahead on our instincts and our emotions.

And like Pastor Mike says, those should be the caboose, not the locomotive. Number 15,

Proverbs 13 .19, desire realized is sweet to the soul, but it is an abomination to fools to turn away from evil.

So a fool must what? His sinful nature. He must gratify.

He must gratify his sinful nature. He cannot resist his lusts.

Who was that that said the sinful have to sin before they go to sleep? I forget who wrote that. Some men couldn't go to sleep until they've sinned enough.

Some old commentator. All right, number 16,

Proverbs 13 .20, he who walks with the wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.

Having a fool for a friend might be entertaining. It is entertaining.

A fool can be a very fun person in one sense to be around, but you will suffer harm eventually.

My brother had a friend when he was high school, college age, who was the same age.

So that would make him 45 today. This kid had a lot going against him.

He was not the most attractive person. His parents took off at a young age and there was divorce and it was kind of a mess, but he ate,

I think he subsisted on Bob's hot dogs and sour cream and onion potato chips. He refused to go to the dentist, refused to go to the doctor.

He was one of those people, almost like you would think an old man, right? You know, if you keep doing this,

Drew, you're gonna do, this is gonna, ah, ah. He died at age 38 from plaque and arterial, they found him dead.

He had been alone dead in his house for a month when they found him at 38 years old and he ate himself and because of his personal hygiene, he killed himself.

And it's really sad, but he was Solomon's idea of a fool.

Very sad. And people went to him, you gotta go see a doctor.

It's not right when that hurts, you know? Okay, 17.

Proverbs 14, one, the wise woman builds her house, but the foolish tears it down with her own hands.

Foolishness is ultimately self -destructive. The only person that really gets,

I mean, the person who ultimately gets hurt is the fool. So again, how can we apply that to ourselves?

You know, we've dug our heels in an argument in our family or we've, you know, we've done something where, you know,

I'm not gonna be the first to apologize or, you know, it could be a myriad of situations. But when you dig in like that and you cling to a foolish position and you refuse to receive counsel, the only one that you really harm ultimately is yourself and you can destroy a lot of things by being foolish.

Proverbs 14, three, number 18. In the mouth of the foolish is a rod for his back, but the lips of the wise will protect them.

The fool cannot tame the tongue and brings punishment upon himself.

Actually, I was kind of disappointed. I had all 75 references to a fool in Proverbs and there was one later that I really wanted to get to, but it has to be part of part two.

And it says, where the fool's mouth calls for the rod. And I love that verse because the fill in the blank was the fool is asking for a beating.

And my brother used to say that to me all the time. You're asking for a beating. It's good to know that Solomon said the same thing.

But yeah, so the fool cannot tame the tongue and brings punishment upon himself.

Number 19, this is, I found this very interesting and hopefully this will spur a little bit of discussion.

Proverbs 14, seven, leave the presence of a fool or you will not discern words of knowledge.

Foolishness, the summary of it. Foolishness begets more foolishness. Foolishness can constitute a what?

What do you think? If foolishness is catching almost, a biohazard.

Yeah, I like that. Yeah, an epidemic, yeah, okay. Foolishness can constitute a worldview.

There are people who run life through their filter of foolishness. It is their worldview. And when you live with people like that, we all know people, hopefully not, but I can think of a couple people in high school and college.

They excelled at being a fool. They relished being a fool. And when you hung out with them for long periods of time, you knew how they were gonna react to certain things.

And sometimes you would almost be tempted to react in a similar way because it's an easy way to live, being a fool.

Absolutely. It's an absolute, these things as they are, we see them as we wish they were.

Mm -hmm, mm -hmm. And so, and function that way.

We have generations. That's right. That's not the way it works.

Yep. Unfortunately, we're foolish though. That's right. Sort of like the slightly modified joke, how many fools does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Just one. He holds the light bulb by the socket and waits for the world to revolve around him. Yeah, Steve.

Exactly. Okay, let's see.

We're at 20, 20. We're doing pretty good. I thought I was optimistic, but we might make it.

Have to do all 30. Proverbs 14, nine. Fools mock at sin, but among the upright, there is goodwill.

This one, actually, I had to turn to a couple of commentaries to figure. Oh, oh,

I skipped 20. I'm sorry. Oh, yes. This is very important, I think.

Proverbs 14, eight. The wisdom of the sensible is to understand his way, but the foolishness of fools is deceit.

Now, this is a contrasting parallel. So if the sensible understand their own way and the fool doesn't, the fool does not properly understand or assess himself, his condition.

He has a big blind spot, and the blind spot is called himself. That's right, that's right.

And foolishness is not a function of intelligence. Dave. Right, yeah.

Sure, yeah. And what you said about authority, just to take a little rabbit trail, and we kind of will summarize to this, but really, life is about recognizing the fact that you are the creature.

Life goes a lot more simply when you relinquish trying to be your own deity, and you recognize that you are the creature.

And that's really a process of dying to yourself whereby God has instituted all these authorities, a hierarchy of authority in our life as a form of protection.

He knows that we go wrong. You poke a human and they sin. That's really, the output of people basically is sin.

And God, through his mercy, has given us authority figures. Children have their parents.

Wives have husbands. Husbands have employers. The family has their elders and the pastors.

And then there's the civil magistrate and judges. You have the military. Ultimately, we have a whole civil government.

And then we have submission to the word of God is our authority. And then Christ himself is the head of the church.

Foolishness really is taking that equation and turning it around, and stepping out from underneath the umbrella of authority that God has ordained to be over you.

Making yourself your standard, making your thoughts the most important things in life, making what you think ought to be done, this is really my way or the highway.

It's turning that whole protective system on its head and putting yourself and elevating yourself to the

Lord of your life. And you're not the Lord of your life. And when you kick against the goads and try to act as the

Lord of your life, you have Jesus Christ himself to deal with. You know, it's a consequence of being a fool that that man was found dead in his house, unattended, unloved and uncared about for a month.

But you wanna kick against Christ and you wanna kick against the established order of his authority that he has lovingly put over you, you're gonna pay the price.

Foolishness, I mean, we don't, praise the Lord, we don't bear immediate ramification for every sin.

But if you're in a chronic pattern of sin, the Lord is gonna deal with you, you know?

And better to deal with the authority just above you than dealing with the

Almighty who is gonna correct you. So it's so important to understand your position.

I mean, it sounds terrible. It sounds like Victorian England, the servant speaks out of turn, remember your place.

We need to remember our place. When we remember our place, we act wise. You know, we hold back our tongue.

We wait to hear what everybody else thinks as we consider our opinion. We listen to, you know, we're ready to flame people out in a church meeting because their stupid opinion.

And we say, you know what? I'm just gonna listen for a while. And the sixth person to talk issues forth the fact that shows your position was absolutely illegitimate and wrong.

Well, you haven't said anything. Now you can quietly in your mind say, whew, it's a good thing I didn't open my big fat mouth and say that because I'd look like a real idiot, right?

Like Lewis said the other day, Abraham Lincoln said, better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

So it's important. Yeah, that's right.

Abe knew the book, didn't he? Yes, yes, yes, mm -hmm, mm -hmm, mm -hmm.

Sure, right, that's right.

Well, two things spring to mind and people may also wanna contribute to that answer. But one is that it's important to teach our children from the earliest age that authority and position does not necessarily equal being right.

That's number one. Number two is when those in authority are not right, it is not our

God -given right to correct them, right? We can respond foolishly to a fool.

We can be offended. We can watch someone espousing mistruths, half -truths.

And for those with pride like myself, I wanna jump up and I'll take that person.

I had a Western Civ class at Quinsigamond College that was not a history of Western civilization.

It was higher criticism where that's what it was called, but we dismantled the Bible for an entire year.

And I gave that guy fits. And in retrospect, I think

I should have probably kept my mouth quiet a little bit more than I did. So we have a desire to instantly set everybody straight.

But it's okay to let that person go on and folly as long as at home they are understanding, well, take this in for what it is.

This is the world's view. You're not studying this because it's right or wrong. This test is what does the world think?

That's how I want you to think about this while you're in that class. What does the world think? You're being tested on that, not what truly is right or wrong.

Yeah, Dan, exactly.

Sure. Yeah, Lewis. You've made some excellent, that's your objective here.

And so what he was saying was learn to answer the quiet answers. And what

Dan just suggested is an excellent approach because you are, your children are gonna put your children in a bubble because someday that bubble's gonna break.

And when it does, if they're not prepared, it's gonna be a traumatic experience. So if you want them to be able to deal, just say, this is what the text says, or this is what you have taught in class.

That's right. Lots of kids do that. And it's a good skill to learn to do that. Sure. But again, you have to keep it, you always have to have, it's not necessarily correct.

And we can benefit by knowing things well like the theory of evolution. We can, you know, the better you know the enemy's position, the easier it is to dismantle it.

Dave and Mark. Yeah. Right.

Exactly. Right, we shouldn't be surprised when we encounter error.

Mark. When to rescue a fool.

Yeah, I mean, when you're seeing the flicker of God doing a work and you're seeing they're being sensitized to things not of this world and interested in God, we can engage a fool.

That's the other thing too, we need not get frustrated when they aren't instantly sanctified because new believers will act like a fool for many years.

And it's, I mean, old believers act like fools. Hello. So yeah, but if a fool is just relishing and treading water in a sea of foolishness, you don't wanna cast your pearls before swine and you just say, you know what,

I'll pray for you, let the Holy Spirit work on you and maybe we'll touch base in a year. So yeah,

I'm like, oh, the quiz.

Right, right, right. The reason why some people believe evolution to be true is.

Right, exactly, that's right.

So basically you're saying you couch your answer. Right, exactly. Steve, not a good career move.

That's right. Yeah, yeah.

All right. All right, let's just do a couple more and then we're gonna have to wrap up.

But number 21, correct? Okay, 21. A fool, oh, let's see, Proverbs 14, nine.

Fools mock at sin, but among the upright, there is goodwill. This one isn't immediate, at least it wasn't immediately apparent to me, but from what the commentators say, this fools mock at sin.

Basically they're saying that a fool will mock that for which he himself will be judged. And that's so true.

I had a coworker send me an email about this. About how George Bush, the president, had DUIs while he was in college.

And the week before, this coworker admitted to me, 55 years old, that he smokes pot every weekend.

So I'm like, so the DUI is a problem for you? I thought maybe you'd congratulate him,

I don't know. So they mock at that, they're hypocrites basically. Okay, Proverbs 14, 16.

A wise man is cautious and turns away from evil, but a fool is arrogant and careless.

So a fool does not recognize, good, dangerous situations, because he has ill -placed trust in his own judgment.

That's that holy self -doubt that we wanna keep with us at all times. And let's see, 23,

Proverbs 14, 17. A quick -tempered man acts foolishly, and a man of evil devices is hated.

A fool is governed by his passions and not his mind. I like this next one,

Proverbs 14, 18. The naive inherit foolishness, but the sensible are crowned with knowledge.

So the naive inherit, that word inherit really struck me. And I summarized it by saying, our propensity is towards foolishness, or toward foolishness.

Being sensible requires effort. It doesn't come naturally.

It seems to come more naturally to some than to others, but all right, let's see.

Yes, Lord? No, no, I'm just kidding. Your voice has changed. All right, let me just see if there's a couple of, okay, just let's flip to 28, or no, you guys, it's on the same sheet,

I realize. Okay, Proverbs 15, 5. A fool rejects his father's discipline, but he who regards reproof is sensible.

And there, again, we're back to this whole authority thing. A fool does not see the value of discipline in pride.

A fool will not yield. You ever have a kid who you're lecturing, or rebuking, or giving them grief for doing something wrong, and they just will not, they have to say the last word.

They will not yield. And that's so true. A spirit of yieldedness is what should mark the

Christian life. That doesn't matter whether you get pulled over by the police, when your boss is wrongly or incorrectly disappointed in you, when you disagree with something, with the elders or with the leadership at church.

You know, there are people in this church who worship here who have different eschatologies. And those people who have different eschatologies but still worship here,

I hold them in higher esteem because they have displayed the godly attribute and the

God -given attribute of saying no to self and saying yes to unity.

That is such an earthly manifestation of a godly spirit, when you can disagree and no one can tell.

When you disagree and you're over there, you know, that's worthless, that's worthless.

That kind of agreement is nothing. In fact, it's passive aggression and God really doesn't like that.

And it's rebellion too, which God says is equal unto witchcraft. Let's see.

All right, number 30, Proverbs 15, 14. The mind of the intelligent seeks knowledge, but the mouth of fools feeds on folly.

The fool thinks with his mouth moving. And his mind follows his mouth, not the other way around.

And I actually know somebody who formulates their answer mid -sentence.

And it's easily observable that this is the case because you talk in these huge giant circles and then as the paragraph develops, the circles get smaller and they arrive at their conclusion, which is usually wrong.

So it's terrible. And one of the worst things we can do when we're interacting with fellow believers or with anybody is when we talk and we just monopolize the conversation.

We won't let them get a word in edgewise. You know, you should be fascinated in me.

We need to take the low seat at the banquet and when we're moved up, we'll be honored. When we walk in and sit at the dais and the emcee comes and moves us to the back of the hall, we're ashamed.

Yes, I'm glad that got a laugh, that's good. All right, so just some closing thoughts.

Christianity is all about understanding one's position in life. Authority is good, living under it is protection.

Yielding to parental instruction, civil authorities, employers, elders, pastors, they're all testing grounds for yielding to the

Lordship of Christ. The opinion that you have towards earthly authorities is a microcosm of your opinion towards your heavenly authority.

You get pulled over by a cop and you get a ticket and you say, I'm gonna contest this and do a 90 and a 45.

A cop, I was late, I'll find a way to get out of this. Well, that speaks to how you submit to Lordship and to authority.

That's terrible. You know, I was gonna teach it and this Sunday school was gonna be on authority and didn't I get pulled over for a ticket that very week?

I was putting my notes together. So be careful what you teach on. Okay, so conclusion.

Though some people can be classified as fools, we can all exhibit and should therefore guard against foolishness in blind spot areas of our life.

Saturating one's mind with scripture is the biblical prescription to avoiding folly and living a life of least regrets.

Roman 12 to the renewing of our minds. By continually doubting our internal fallen reference, we should maintain an attitude of humility in all areas of our lives to avoid being foolish.

So any final thoughts? No? All right, let's pray. Then we can go get some high fructose corn syrup.

Our heavenly father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for Solomon. We thank you for Proverbs Lord.

And we just ask father that you would help us to be slow to speak, quick to listen, help us to defer to others in humility, considering one another better than ourselves.

And father, we thank you that any humility or any victory over pride that we achieve is due to your work in our lives.

And we thank you for making us more Christ -like day by day. Bless us now, bless the service later.