The Fool in Proverbs, which ones am I?

Transcript

the fool in Proverbs, which one am I? But I put, which one am I? I thought it was kind of a funny title, but we'll get into that in a second. So thanks for, so just, we know what Proverbs is. Proverbs is God's wisdom given to us for navigating our lives. And it's really more of a compass than it is a map. If you have a map like we did in the olden days and you could see exactly where you have to go on that map. But so much of life isn't like that. We come up with decisions and choices we have to make all the time where there's not necessarily a right or a wrong. It's, you're trying to navigate those choices and you wanna do what's right. You wanna follow God's will and his plan and you wanna help your family and the Ecclesia and whatever it is. But there's not necessarily a right or wrong in a lot of the decisions. Who to marry, where to live, what job should I have? Should we move? And so the Proverbs is excellent for sort of helping us through those decisions and trying to find principles that we can live by and as I mentioned, it's sort of like a compass. And we find that when we read the Proverbs which we just did, if you do the daily readings we just finished Proverbs not that long ago. You notice that on that compass there's instead of North and South quite often there's wisdom and foolishness.

And they're just like North and South with their opposite directions. And Proverbs is filled with what wisdom is and what wise choices are and what foolishness is. And what I wanna do is study the fools. And you might ask, well, isn't it better to look at the wise and to look at wisdom? And absolutely that's true. But I think there's reasons to study the fools and why we can benefit from a study like this. And number one, foolishness is in our DNA. It seems to be a part of us.

In Proverbs 22, I'll just turn to that. Proverbs 22 verse 15, it says foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. The rod of correction will drive it far from him. So we have that example that foolishness is bound up. It's almost entwined in a child's heart and we need correction, we need direction, we need instruction to pull away from that foolishness that seems to be, we have leanings towards that.

And I just heard recently or read recently, someone who said, we can't start down the path to wisdom

until we see the foolishness that is in all of us. Okay, so number one on the path to wisdom is to recognize we're all fools and we all have parts of these types of fools that we'll see in us.

Another reason it's really important to recognize foolishness and the foolishness that is within us is that we live in a society that seems to elevate, it seems to celebrate foolishness.

It's all around us and I would argue it's contagious. When we're surrounded by fools, it seems like our IQ drops. Just put, I remember I was a pretty good driver as a teenager until you put my friends in the car and then I became an absolute fool. My IQ would literally drop.

And so I think we live in a society that is like I said, celebrating foolishness. It's all around us. And so we have to be really careful that we don't fall into that trap of wanting to be popular, wanting to be like other people, being caught up in some of the foolish ways, some of the foolish thinking that is all around us because we're swimming in it in the world we live in. And a third reason I think it's important to study what fools are and the types of fools that come out in proverbs is to know where it leads. And I came across this quote that I think captures it nicely. And if we continue to follow foolishness and be fools, it really does lead to wickedness. It might not be wickedness at the beginning, but if it becomes ingrained in the way we think and the way we act, it does turn into wickedness. And likewise, if we follow wisdom and if we start to live wisely, it will lead to righteousness. And this Bruce Waltke, he's a Old Testament writer scholar. I really like this quote. He said, the righteous, when you look at proverbs, he said the righteous are willing to disadvantage themselves

for the advantage of the community while the wicked or fools are willing to disadvantage the community for the advantage of themselves. And so there's this selflessness and this selfishness.

And so we have to know,

and that's a reason to study foolishness is to know where it's going to lead. If we don't do something about it, recognize it, try to change it, this is where it's going to lead. Just another quote about foolishness as I've begun to study proverbs is one from Tim Keller. He wrote, the fools in proverbs are people who are so habitually, so it's a habit. They're so habitually out of touch with reality that they make life miserable for themselves and all around them. And so it would be nice if we had done this before we got to the proverbs, but something to look for when you read for the proverbs is just the way they make life miserable for people around them and even for themselves, even though often they don't recognize it.

So our plan for,

let's go back one second. The plan for this class, I gave this in Guyana a couple of weeks ago and I tried to do too much. I was a fool and so I had to speed through everything. So I'm going to slow things down a little bit, but we're going to look at two types of fools. There's more than two in proverbs, but we're going to just try to cut it down to we'll look at two types of fools, sort of the essence of what they are. We'll look at scriptural examples of those fools. We'll consider it in the world we live in and then we'll ask the question,

am I, do I see a bit of that foolishness in myself? And then what can we do about it if we do? So there's lots of different types of fools that we come across in the proverbs. We're going to look at those first two, the simple and the scorner. And I continue to study this and there may be more.

I think there's some nuance, some things seem to cross over,

but these are the ones that I've sort of discovered so far and seem to have a pretty prominent place. And what I've tried to do is when I talk about the simple or the scorner, I looked for verses that link those sort of characteristics to foolishness. So that's sort of my mindset as I attack this. And the simple, the scorner, the sluggard, the perverse, all are linked to have verses that link them to foolishness. And then there's three Hebrew words that are translated fool. And there you see the, I'm not even going to try it. Well, I'll try to pronounce them. Kaseel, Eveel and Nabal. We know Nabal from the story of Nabal and Abigail. So we'll try to attack those first two, the simple and the scorner. And I think they're very relevant in the world we live in and some of the things that we might want to definitely avoid. So the first three types, well, three types of fools come up just in this one verse and Proverbs chapter one, verse 22. And I just like to read it in a little bit of context.

So if you have your Bibles, Proverbs one,

starting in verse 20, it says, "'Wisdom calls aloud outside.' She raises her voice in the open squares. She cries out in the chief concourses at the opening of the gates in the city. She speaks her words. So she's not trying to hide anything. Wisdom is out there. It's everywhere. Where there are people, there's wisdom. So what is she calling out? She says, verse 22, "'How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? For scorners delight in their scorning and fools hate knowledge.

Turn at my rebuke. Surely I will pour out my spirit on you. I will make my words known to you.'" So I'm just going to stop there, but there we have wisdom is calling out. And she says, "'How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity?' So this is the first type of fool that we're going to look at. And just look at that first question. She says, how long?

How long? It's like wisdom is saying you've had long enough to make up your mind. How much longer are you going to live like this?

Make a commitment. And so the word simple is this word pethi, or it's the Hebrew, or sounds probably something, nothing like that. But that's the word simple. And it comes up not just in Proverbs, in Psalm 19, verse seven, it says, "'The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.'" And so that sort of gives you a little bit of an idea of what the simple are. It's like an empty vessel. And I'll get to sort of the positive spin on this type of fool in a second. But this Hebrew word, it means people who are easily persuaded, people who will believe anything. So you think about it in the context of navigating through life. These are the type of people who probably take a lot of wrong turns in their life. They end up places and they're just like, well, how did I end up here? They follow a lot of different voices and a lot of different advice. The word gullible might be applicable. And I remember when GPS first started coming out and people would put their GPS in their car and they'd start driving. I think an idea of a simple person. And we heard stories of people who ended up on mountain passes that were, they had to bring in helicopters to get their vehicle down because they just kept following this path that got narrower and narrower and rockier and more dangerous. Some people ended up in lakes. There may have even been stories where people lost their lives. The people who survived, they say, what were you thinking? And they said, well, the machine told us it was the right way. And even though we sort of questioned things at certain points, we said, this doesn't feel right. This doesn't look right. They just kept following it. They were very gullible. There's no depth to their thinking, no depth of reasoning. But like I said, there's a good news. And the good news is there seems to be a hope for this type of fool. As we see in the Psalm 19 verse seven, the law of the Lord is perfect. It can convert the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure it makes wise the simple. So if the simple, this empty vessel, these people who will listen, if they will make a decision to listen to God, they can be filled with his testimonies and his law, and they can be made wise. Another passage, and there's a couple other passages that go along with that.

If you go to Proverbs, you have your Bible, Proverbs 8. Proverbs 8 verse four, it says, to you, O men, I call, oh, no, that's not it.

Proverbs, yes, I'll start at verse four. This is, once again, wisdom calling out. Verse four, to you, O men, I call, and my voice is to the sons of men. Oh, you simple ones, understand prudence, and you fools, be of an understanding heart. So there's this call to the simple. Also in chapter nine, verse four, whoever is simple, let him turn in here. As for him who lacks understanding, she says to him, come eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Forsake foolishness and live, and go in the way of understanding. So there's this call to leave simple ways, and to commit to, to anchor yourself in the word of God. Unfortunately, down in chapter, also in chapter nine, verse 13, a foolish woman is clamorous. She is simple and knows nothing. And she calls out in verse 16, whoever is simple, let him turn in here. So here we have the simple being called by different voices, and they have to make a decision instead of going back and forth between different things that they're hearing, just believing everything they hear. Proverbs seven, verse seven, I think is a good proverbs to help describe what the simple are like. It says, and they saw that among the simple, I perceived among the youths,

a young man devoid of understanding. And so I think when we all start out, when we're young, we're all simple. Just think about some of the things our parents may have told us about the tooth fairy. And my parents told me that until you're 18 years old, steak was illegal. You're not allowed to have steak. And we believe them, why not?

But we were devoid of understanding. There was no depth of thinking. There was no questioning. So it's an attribute of the young, but we have to mature. We have to grow out of that. And then I think the core of the issue with the simple is Proverbs 14, verse 15, where it says the simple believes every word, but the prudent considers well his steps. And I think that's the essence of the simple. They just simply believe every word. So let's go and let's look at maybe some scriptural examples. So in Exodus 32, verse four, Moses is up the mountain and the people think, oh, you know that Moses guy, he's gone now. Who's gonna lead us?

And they're coming after Aaron. So he says, take all your gold and he puts it in the fire and they create this golden calf. And all of a sudden, they're very simple. They go from everything that God has shown them and they simply turn and say, okay, this is our God now. In 1 Kings 18 is another example where Elijah brings together all the people who are following Baal. And they have that contest on Mount Carmel. And he says to them, if we go to 1 Kings 18, first Kings 18, verse 21, it says in Elijah came to the people and said, how long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God follow him, but if Baal follow him, but the people answered him not a word. And so he's calling to them, stop being so simple. Pick, choose, is it God or Baal? And they were faltering. Stop faltering between two opinions. You have to make up your mind. Another example, in Acts chapter 19, and this is remarkable. I think it's very common, might be the word. If we go to Acts chapter 19, where there was that riot in Ephesus and they were yelling great as Diana of the Ephesians. In verse 32, there's an interesting comment.

Acts 19, some therefore cried one thing and some another for the assembly was confused. And most of them did not know why they had come together. I mean, they're in this massive crowd and they're all excited and they're just following the crowd. And it says most of them didn't even know why they were there. They're just following the masses. And I think that shows a lack of depth of thinking and emptiness, a gullibility that they'll just follow people. And I think that's a good metaphor for our world. One more, and then I'm going to, after this one, I'm just gonna ask if anyone can think of any other examples, scriptural examples of the simple. But Ephesians four, verse 14, Paul is asking us, he's pleading with us not to be simple. Chapter four, verse 14, that we should no longer be children. So there's that connection to youth again. Tossed to and fro, carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting. So there's this toss to and fro by every wind of doctrine never planting ourselves, anchoring ourselves to the word of God. And so those are some examples of the simple in scripture. So in our cultural moment, I think we do see as Butch was just saying, people who are easily persuaded that they don't really wanna go to any depth of thinking on things. They don't wanna follow things through to the logical conclusion. They're fine with just maybe the excitement of what they're hearing, but they don't wanna go any further. And part of it might be that we live in an era where emotional reasoning is supreme. So it's always trust your feelings, create your own truth. And feelings are compelling. We all have emotions, but they're not reasonable. They're not something that you can sit down and say, let's reason this out. Well, you can, but people don't like to. They like, follow your heart. You be you, follow your dreams. And that can, feelings are so shifty. One minute you're angry, cause you're hungry. The next minute you're full and slothful. You're in love, the deepest love. And then there's hate and not something that we wanna sort of base our or rule our lives on feelings. We also live in an atmosphere of manipulation through and with AI, this is getting very dangerous. The world recognizes it. When the leaders say, we've got to slow this thing down,

the level of manipulation can be very high. And that can be governments, it can be social media, entertainment, marketing. There's a lot of charismatic, compelling characters out there and they can create a massive following. Like 20 years ago, you never heard a kid say, I wanna be a YouTuber. Now everyone wants to be an influencer, a YouTuber. And people can get really tricked by this. Very smart, people we would say very smart can be tricked. I was thinking about that CEO, Elizabeth Holmes, and she started that company called Theranos, which came out with a blood testing machine.

And she got millions and millions of investors. Some of the top investors of the world really believed in her and believed in her product, even when things just didn't sound right. And all the alarm bells were going off. She was still getting investment of millions and millions of dollars and people got in deep. And then the deeper you get into these things, the more afraid you are to sort of call it what it is. It's hard to turn back. And so we see this atmosphere of manipulation. And also there's an absence in our world of an external source of objective truth. So we as Christadelphians, we can hear something and we can say, okay, I'm going to not sort of assess it based on my feelings or something inside me. I'm going to base it on something outside of me, something that's solid and sure and time worthy on my heavenly father and his word. It doesn't change, it doesn't shift. And our society doesn't have that anymore. And so it can really be a world of simplicity. So I'm gonna stop there as well. And I don't know if anyone else has any cultural examples of how we are really swimming in a world where there's simplicity in the way people think. So taking this idea of the simple and asking ourselves, am I simple? And I came across this quote by Mark Twain that I thought was important where he said, it's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled. And so we really have to take on a position of humility when we ask ourselves these questions, because pride will really get in the way and say, oh, I've never been fooled. We like to put up those defenses. We don't like to think that we're a fool or have been fooled. And Augustine said something important that I've come to many times. And just the idea of, is simplicity a threat to our ecclesias?

We've been united in baptism. We share as a community, a love of God, a love of his son, a love of his word. But when we allow other things to usurp that relationship we have, if we allow those things to divide us, then I think we're demonstrating simplicity. We're, and as he put it, we're disordering our loves. So I tread carefully, but I think if vaccines separate brothers and sisters in Christ, we've disordered our loves. If we take masking rules or should we mask, shouldn't we mask and we say, this is a reason I don't wanna meet with you anymore, then we've disordered our loves. If politics comes in between our brothers and sisters, then we've disordered our loves. And so what he said was to love things, that is to say in the right order so that you do not love what is not to be loved or fail to love what is to be loved or have a greater love for what should be loved less or an equal love for things that should be loved less or more or a lesser or greater love for things that should be loved equally. And we could put in different things there, but we should love supremely our heavenly father, his son and our brothers and sisters. And that should be the supreme thing that holds us together, not, and we shouldn't be falling apart with these simple things that come and go

and put those as something that is loved too much. So just something to think about, we can discuss that later if you have. So here's the antidote, I think, and really it's turning to the word of God, but Proverbs 1 verse 23, which we read, after wisdom calls out the simple, there's this appeal, turn.

In the New Testament, it might say something like repent. Turn at my rebuke. Surely I will pour out my spirit on you. I will make my words known to you. And Proverbs 3 verse five through seven, here's that anchor that we can have. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord and depart from evil. And just one more, I was listening to a podcast with brother Colin Badger. I don't know if you listened to the Good Christadelphian podcast. There was a rather long one, but he was doing how sure are the foundations and appeal to Catholics. And he mentioned how the Bereans we know in, well, let me get up my notes to get the right passage.

I think I wrote it down. Yeah, Acts chapter 17 verse 11. It says the Bereans, they were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica in that they received the word with all readiness and searched the scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. So we hear things in the news. We hear things from charismatic people in the media. And we don't say, oh, let's analyze the word of God through that lens. We say, let's analyze what we're hearing through the lens of the scriptures. This is our anchor, it's our foundation. This is what we're filled with. And by doing that, we should be able to keep our loves in the right order. We should be able to demonstrate wisdom, not simplicity. All right, so time is moving on. We'll try to get through this one as well. And this is the second one. It says also in Proverbs 1 verse 22, it says, for scorners delight in their scorning,

scorners delight in their scorning. And so this is the word lutz in Hebrew. It means to deride, to mock, to scoff at.

Sort of comes from a word that means as if you're mocking somebody else's language. And there's this delight in it. There's this delight, like it's a big joke that you're ripping on other people and tearing down. I think that's an important word that you're, instead of building something up, you're destroying. In the context of navigating through life, these are the people who say the vehicle is the wrong vehicle, the path, the road that you're traveling is the wrong road. We're leaving at the wrong time.

Everything is wrong. The companions are annoying. They just rip on everything. And we have some passages. I don't have this one on the screen, but we know from Psalm 1 verse 1, it says, blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly nor stands in the path of sinners. And then the last but nor sits in the seat of the scornful. So it seems to be that final resting spot. We can start off simple, but if we're not careful, we can even end up being a scorner. From Proverbs 14 verse 9, it says, they mock. So fools, this is one of those verses that links fools to the scorners. The word mock is the loots. They mock at sin, but among the upright, there's favor. So they even laugh at sin. And I think we see that nowadays where people, what are you saying? I'm a sinner. They laugh at what we might call a sin. Proverbs 21 verse 24, it links those who scoff with arrogant pride.

And in Proverbs 22 verse 10, cast out the scoffer and contention will leave. Yes, strife and reproach will cease. So we see this as something that really affects those around them. See, there's somebody wrote this. They said, there is nothing worse than looking up to a mocker. They make it impossible for you to develop loyalty or reverence for anything, because when you constantly tear down everything, there's nothing left for you to love or to have loyalty to. Here's some scriptural examples. Job's friends, it says, my friends scorn me. My eyes pour out tears to God. In this next verse, I don't know if I've ever read it before, but what man is like Job who drinks scorn like water? That's a really telling passage about what Job was going through, the ridicule, the tearing down that he was going through on a daily basis. We know in Mark 15 verse 31, the chief priests also mocking among themselves with the scribes said, he saved others himself he cannot save. So they were tearing down, tearing at Christ with their words. And then we live in this world that Peter foretold of that there shall come in the last days scoffers,

who will scoff and laugh at Christianity, laugh at our hope. Ever since the beginning, you've been saying that Christ is coming back. Where is he? So cultural examples, I think the scorners in our world are celebrities in many, many cases. They're socially sought after online. They have great followings.

They're elevated. I'm not a late night TV guy, but occasionally you see a clip or whatever, but it's usually a mocking stance.

I had some names of some, some who seem particularly bad,

like John Oliver, Bill Maher, Seth Meyers. I don't know specifically, but you know, they'll get on and they never build anything up. It's just about tearing down and laughing at others and their stances they take and the things they're trying to do.

Online, I put it's a Petri dish of mockery. I was talking to some young people in their meeting and you know, they have a presence online and they say that if you put any, if you post anything, especially on, I think it was on Twitter or whatever they call it X now, be ready for the haters or those who will just mock. And there is no lines of decorum for many of them. If you have a disability, they will mock it. If you're slightly overweight or bald or whatever it might be, they will tear you down. And anonymity, I think fuels it because you're not face to face with somebody. If we hear it with neighbors, if we hear that sort of mocking, questioning, mocking that we believe that God is the creator, that his son is coming back. I think the strategy isn't to fight back, it's to ask questions and just say, well, you know, what alternatives are you providing? What are you building? Give me something other than what I have. Put them on the spot to see if there's anything because as I mentioned, the scorners are just there to tear down. They're not building anything. And so I'll just bring the class to a close in a couple of seconds, then we can discuss the scorners more at the end. But we have to sort of take that mirror and look at ourselves and say, am I a scorner? And I think personally, there are times when I am somebody who tears things down too readily with words.

But Proverbs, here's once again the advice for us, the antidote.

It says, turn at my rebuke. Once again, surely I will pour out my spirit on you. I will make my words known to you. So that idea of repentance turning. In Proverbs 30 verse 32, I think this is great advice. We probably heard it from our moms first.

In Proverbs, it says, if you have been foolish in exalting yourself or if you have devised evil, put your hand on your mouth, right? What did our moms would say? If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. You know, if you're not gonna build up, if you're just here to tear down, zip it. Romans 14 verse 19, we're told therefore, let us pursue the things which may make for peace and the things by which one may edify another. And that word edify means build up. So we really have to be aware of the words we're using and if we're building up or if we're tearing down.

So I'll just conclude with looking once again at Proverbs 1 verse 22 and 23. And then we're also gonna go to Ephesians chapter five

but how long you simple ones will you love simplicity for scorners delight in their scorning and fools hate knowledge. Turn at my rebuke. Surely I will pour out my spirit on you. I will make my words known to you. And if you turn to Ephesians chapter five,

I think it's sort of all encompassing verse and advice starting at verse 15, Paul tells us, see then that you walk circumspectly not as fools but as wise redeeming the time because the days are evil.