The Fool and the Wise

Good morning, Mount Moriah Church Family. It is a great pleasure

and honor to be behind this pulpit this morning to be able to preach

the Word of God this morning. If you have your copy of God’s Word I

would ask that you would turn to Proverbs chapter 18, and I will be

reading starting in verse 1 and reading the first 9 verses. I will be

reading from the English Standard Version this morning. As you are

finding your place in the Scriptures, I want to read this article I found as

I was preparing this article. This passage, as much of the book of

Proverbs is, has to do with foolishness and wisdom. The stark contrast

between the two.

So let me read this article with that in mind.

OHIO COUNTY, IN (WCMH) — A man is facing multiple felony charges

after he was caught trying to steal from the Ohio County Sheriff’s Office.

Deputies say surveillance video shows Jack Steele Jr., 38, breaking into

the building around 6:40am. He rummaged around the officer for nine

minutes, stealing a jump pack starter for vehicle batteries, a digital

camera, a flashlight, and several other items.

Steele had been brought to another area of the Sheriff’s Office building

after an DWI investigation. He had been told to wait in the foyer for a ride.

When his ride arrived, Steele was seen trying to wipe his fingerprints off of

the counters before leaving.

“This has to rank up there as one of the world’s dumbest criminals,” Sheriff

Glen Potts stated. “If anyone from the show ‘World’s Dumbest…’ is

watching and needs a video for the criminals episode, I would be more

than happy to provide one for them.”

2This would fall under the category of the fool, or someone who possesses

no wisdom, let alone common sense to begin with.

With that in mind, let’s read our passage of Scripture.

Read Proverbs 18:1-9

Let’s Pray.

So as we have read here, we can gather an overarching theme about this

passage. That theme would be that one who is a fool is one who lacks

godly wisdom. Now, that isn’t to say they lack wisdom in general, but

there is a difference between worldly wisdom and godly wisdom. Worldly

wisdom is the type of wisdom that the world would adhere to and usually

is looking out for only one person’s interests. Your own. You have heard

the phrases more than a few times, “do whatever makes you happy,” or

“just follow your heart and it will guide you.” The only place the heart will

guide you is to hell if you follow it.

But godly wisdom is wisdom that comes from here. It is wisdom that

seeks to serve your brother or sister and honor your God as Lord and

Master. It doesn’t seek to serve self, but rather to Serve God. So with that I

would like to walk through these verses and make some points that I most

likely got from older and wiser men than I.

Point number 1 I want to make is that A Fool Lacks Wisdom. Looking at

verse 1, we see that a food isolates himself. Now, before we go too far, to

spend some time alone is not foolish. To have some alone time to spend

with the Lord, to do personal tasks or errands, and even to just get away

and gather yourself, is not foolish. In fact, I would say it’s important. It is

healthy to have a little alone time. But that is not what this verse is saying.

This verse is talking about the person who intentionally isolates

themselves for the cause of not being around others ever. This is foolish.

This is the route to lack of accountability. If you are never around others

who can sharpen you or hold you accountable will allow you to slip down

the slope of sin without any help back up.

Now, I will be the first one to tell you, confessing sin and being corrected,

rebuked even, isn’t fun. But it isn’t supposed to be fun, it is supposed to

be for the cause of edification. For correction. As Christians, we have two

responsibilities in this sense. One is to correct our brothers or sisters who

are practicing sin, whether intentional or not, and to do so in love, but also

we must be open to correction as well. When a fellow believer calls us out

in our sin, rather than putting the defense up and fighting back, we must

welcome the correction and understand that the person who is correcting

us wants to see us striving after Christ and the Cross, not the wind and

worldly gain.

But alone with this first point, we can also carry on into verse two and see

that the fool is opinionated. A fool takes no pleasure in understanding. We

see this a lot in our so called modern day Christianity, don’t we?

If I hear the phrase, “I don’t need the church, I just need Jesus,” one more

time I am going to pull my hair out! This is the perfect example of the willful

ignorance we see in todays culture. We see a lack of urgency to know who

God really is. Instead, the culture wants to create God in their own image

rather than recognizing Him as the one who created them!

It is a sad reality. It really is because we want to claim that we love God yet

we often don’t even know who He is. Show of hands, who in here is

married? Have children? And how many of you would say you love your

spouse or children? If your hand isn’t up I’ll direct you to Brother Joel after

this is over. But you would say you love them because you have spent the

last however many years getting to know them, sacrificing for them,

serving them, learning about them, right?

It is no different with our love for God. Once He comes into our lives

through salvation, we must then spend the rest of our days getting to

know Him, serving Him, dying to self for His glory. And How do we get to

know Him better? Through His revealed Word that He has so graciously

given us. This is God’s Word. He has given us what He has given us so

that we may know Him. So that we may love Him. But the fool says, “I

don’t need that. I am saved, and its between me and Jesus.”

For any of you country music fans, I call that Tom T Hall theology. Me and

Jesus got our own thing going on. Or Frank Sinatra theology. I want it my

way. Is it well intended? Maybe, but the road to hell is paved with good

intentions.

This leads to humiliation as we can see in verse 3. Looking back at the first

two verses, this is the result you see in verse 3. If you seek out isolation,

seek out to hear your own voice, this is eventually going to lead to

wickedness because you do not want any correction, but you are the

judge. Your ways become the final authority. You neglect to see the gift of

grace that humbles the spirit and tames the tongue.

Thomas Watson has a quote in his book, “The Godly Man’s Picture,” and it reads as such,

“How you should admire free grace, that God has not only brought the

light to you — but given you eyes to see it; that he has enabled you to

know the truth as it is in Jesus; that he has opened, not only the eye of

your understanding—but the eye of your conscience! It is a mercy you can

never be thankful enough for—that God has so enlightened you that you

should not sleep the sleep of death.”

The fool who isolated himself, doesn’t receive instruction, nor seek truth in

understanding, will sleep the sleep of death.

My second point this morning is that The Fool is Loose with His Words.

When you go to the doctor for a regular check up, you can almost always

guarantee they are going to say, “open your mouth and say ahh.” What

they are dong is examining your tongue. The tongue is a great indicator of

your physical health. If it is a normal pink color, then you are doing alright.

If it is more red, it could be a sign of inflamed blood vessels leading to

some harmful diseases. A very smooth tongue, smoother than normal, can

be an indication of celiac disease. Mind you, I found all of this on WebMD

which also indicated that my stomach ache could be a root sign of the

plague so who knows, but the point is that the tongue is a giant indicator

of your overall health.

In the same way, your tongue is also a giant indicator of your spiritual

health too. The way you speak, what you speak about, and who you speak

it to will tell many of those around you what is in your heart. As they say,

what goes in the well, comes up in the bucket. That is what we are seeing

in these next few verses. And even as we look forward at James chapter 3,

we see in verse 8 that apart fro Jesus, it is impossible to tame the tongue.

“But no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of

deadly poison.”

Moving on through these verses, we see that the fall does not see the

delight of his words. In verse 4, the words of the fool are being contrasted

to the words of the wise. The idea here is that the words of a wise man are

a continuous supply of blessing and wise counsel. The deep waters

mentioned, are cool. How many of us here have swam in a pond? In July,

it may be warm on the surface, but as soon as you jump in from that rope

swing you realize just how cold it really is.

The words of the wise are a blessing, not a curse. They build up and do

not tear down. They are like a flowing river. It is appealing, attractive,

helpful. But the words of the fool are quite the opposite. They are stale,

bitter, and poisonous. I am sure we have all had situations where we have

been around someone who is constantly negative and bitter. Maybe just

flat out mean. Its tough, right? It makes for a dreadful time because of

what is coming out of their mouth. It’s like poison to the soul. That is who

Solomon is talking about.

These words cater to the wicked, verse 5, they stir up controversy unjustly,

verse 6 there, they ruin lives verse 7, and they find their home with others

who gossip like them. Gossip is, in my opinion, a very overlooked, and

even normalized sin within the church. I have found myself guilty at times

even of gossip. And it is one of the most dangerous things that can take

place inside the church.

I can assume most of you have heard the phrase, “Loose lips sink ships,”

right? That is because the gossip of one about another can have a very

harmful impact on that persons life. Solomon tells us here the dangers of

someone who is loose with their speech. We take every thought captive,

yes, but we also do not shoot with the most deadly weapon we have, the

tongue.

It is a dangerous game, because you don’t think it’s gossip if I just tell my

brother, or my sister, or my close friend, because they won’t tell anyone.

But then the fuse is lit and will eventually reach the dynamite before we

can blow it out. We’re all familiar with what dynamite does right? It causes

destruction. We must instead push for building up, not tearing down.

Cutting off gossip before it even reaches our ears, and taking captive our

desire to gossip before it ever passes our lips.

I read this from Robert G. Lee, who was not a general, but rather a pastor

in Memphis Tennessee from 1927-1960, and he came up with the 10

Commandments of Human Relations. And I would like to read them to

you.

1. Speak to people. There is nothing as nice as a cheerful word of

greeting.

2. Smile at people. It takes seventy two muscles to frown, only four to

smile.

3. Call people by name. The sweetest music to anyones ear is the sound

of ones own name.

4. Be friendly and helpful. If you would have friends, be friendly.

5. Be genuinely interested in people. You can like almost everybody, if you

try. (If you cannot like them, you can still love them through Jesus)

6. Be generous with praise— and cautions with criticism.

7. Be considerate with feelings of others. There are usually three sides to

a controversy: yours, the other person’, and the right one.

8. Be alert to give service. What counts most in life is what we do for

others.

9. Learn to trust people. That trust builds relationships.

10.Have a sense of humor. If you add to the above a good sense of humor,

a big dose of patience, and a dash of humility, you will be rewarded

manifold.

Amen? The hurtful words of another can be a disease within the church.

Hurtful words of a loved one can be a crushing weight for the one who it

was said about, but love and grace, and an I’m sorry can go a long way.

My third and final point is this: A Fool is Lazy concerning Work. Examine

verse 9 with me again. Theodore Roosevelt said, “Far and away the best

prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”

If you don’t work, you don’t eat is a very common phrase. The reason

being is because that was the reality in many years past. If you didn’t

work, you didn’t have money, which means you did not eat food because

you simply could not buy food.

9Take it back even before then, if you didn’t work, you didn’t eat because

the work was the food. Be it hunting, fishing, planting, or raising cattle, if

you didn’t work at these things, you would starve.

But I want to make some other points here too. The fool is poor in his

performance. A fool being slack in his work means that he is lazy at his

job. He is perfectly fine with doing the bare minimum of what is required of

him. As long as he can maintain the job, then he will do just that to keep it.

Nobody regards this fool as an honest worker, doesn’t care, and will never

be caught giving 110%. Once again, he is just that; a fool. But Colossians

3:23 tells us something quite contrary to the heart of the fool.

“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men,”

When this verse is understood and applied, it changes the heart and the

mind about work. Let’s face it, we all dread work at some point or another.

And Genesis 3 told us that we would face the pains of labor, but that

doesn’t mean we must do the bare minimum because of it.

The fool also keeps company with destructive partners. The second part

of verse 9 says that he is a brother to him who destroys. Laziness and

slothfulness are destructive. You wind up selling yourself short when you

try to cut corners at every turn. This is foolish and you are selling yourself

short. Again, to rest is good. That is what today is all about, but when you

are working, work will all you have because it is pleasing to the Lord when

you do it for His glory and His alone. He sees you. He knows your name.

And He sees your hard and diligent work and says, “well done.”

I want to make a few points of application before I close this out, and the

first one is to Seek Wisdom. This entire passage is about the fool and his

behavior. For those of you who have watched the office, think of Dwight

when he says, What would an idiot do, and then I do the opposite of that.

This is that! A poor application analogy, but still it rings true.

These verses are warnings for our life here as followers of Jesus Christ. We remove

gossip from our hearts, we remove slander from our lips, and we remove

laziness from our lives. But that begs the question, how do we seek

wisdom? Well my first encouragement would be to read the rest of this

book of Proverbs, as the word “proverb” translates to “a short pithy saying

in general use, stating a general truth or piece of advice.”

Read the rest of this book, and read the rest of the Bible too. You will never regret reading

the Bible. Even in times where you do not want to read it, the best thing

you can do in that moment is sit down, pray to your Heavenly Father and

ask Him to give you understanding for the Words He has given you in the

Bible. The fool waltzes through this life standing in the middle of the road

with his eyes covered like this. His thought is that since he hasn’t been hit

there must be no cars, but the wise person knows that there is a car

coming because his eyes have been opened to see the car coming. Keep

your eyes on Jesus if He has so graciously opened them up to you.

The Second point of application would be to Serve Others. My father-in-

law is one of the wisest men I know, and it is because he has spent the

last 3 decades or more waking up, seeking the wisdom of the Lord, and

letting it flow from his mind down into his heart. He told me something that

has stuck with me for the last 5 years. Relationships are not about you.

Now let me explain that. Relationships, of any kind, are a gift from the

Lord. Be it a marriage, your family, your children, your friends, or a church

family, seek to serve and make it about the other person. Because if both

parties do this, then it makes for a beautiful unity.

My third point would be Avoid Destruction, Seek Construction. We both

know what these words mean, and I mean them in such a way too. Do not

seek to tear others down for your own gain, nor for the gain of anything.

Speak truth in love, but do not be a gossip just because you don’t like

someone and want others to share that same feeling with you. That is

destructive behavior and leads to a long and lonely life. Rather, seek

construction. Seek to build others up with words that build up. Ephesians

4:29 says, “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such

as its good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to

those who hear.”

Pray with me.