The Effects of Foolishness

The Bible has a lot to say about foolishness. Specifically, the Old Testament. The section of Scripture known as The Wisdom Literature is filled with warnings directed toward the fool. In the Bible foolishness is sin. It stands in contrast to wisdom. Wisdom= righteous living, Foolishness = sinful living.

In this chapter of we see the effects of foolishness in the life of a person. We have a choice. We can live by the wisdom of God or we can live by the foolishness of the world. If we choose to live by the foolishness of the world it’s going to take a toll on us. Let’s look at what the Word of God says about a person who allows foolishness to guide them.

1. Foolishness will ruin your testimony (1-4).

A. Foolishness does not belong in the life of the believer.

Solomon says dead flies ruin perfume.

He uses an illustration of one who makes perfume. Perfume was valuable. It was expensive. If a perfumer allows flies to drown in his perfume, they will rot away and ruin the perfume.

Solomon says in the same way foolishness will ruin wisdom and honor. A fly will land on anything. They’re gross.

Some facts about the common house fly:

It starts out as a maggot.

It defecates every three- five minutes. If it lands on you guess what it’s probably doing.

If you taste good it will vomit on you.

It enjoys manure. It’s probably been eating some before it landed on you.

The point is flies are gross. They don’t belong in anything valuable.

Christian:

We are filled with the Spirit of God.

We carry the name of Jesus with us.

We are supposed to be a sweet-smelling savor to the Lord.

It doesn’t take much for us to move from appealing to appalling. A few things about these flies.

1- They’re dead (been there a while)

2- There are more than one.

3- They haven’t been removed.

We live in the South. We battle flies. We swat them. Imagine in your mind a person sitting on the floor. Flies are buzzing all around them. They’re not swatting them. Before long they are covered in flies. How does that person look? They look pitiful. They’re not appealing at all.

What are we supposed to do to the flies? We are to swat them. We are to battle them! Battle foolishness like flies!

B. Foolishness is easily recognized (2-3).

It changes the direction of your life- Right to left.

Foolishness will say “Don’t go that way!” to the things of the Lord.

Look how easily recognized the fool is. Solomon says when the fool does something as simple as walking down the road people recognize he’s a fool. You can’t hide foolishness. It’s revealed in the simple everyday acts of life.

The way you speak

The way you interact with people

The way you carry yourself

C. Foolishness will cause you to make rash decisions (4).

Solomon says if the anger of the ruler rises against you, do not leave your place. He’s talking about conflict. Someone works for a King, he makes them mad, and they just quit.

The guy had a good job, he just quit!

Foolishness will make you walk away from things that benefit you.

A job

A relationship

An opportunity

Look at the end of verse 4:

“Calmness will lay great offenses to rest.”

Foolishness says “Blow up!”

Wisdom says “Calm down.”

Foolishness says “Fight!”

Wisdom says “Submit!”

Foolishness says, “Give up!”

Wisdom says, “Press on!”

There have been a lot of believers who ruined their testimony with foolishness:

David & Bathsheba

Peter & his denials

Thomas & his doubt

Paul & Barnabas and their fight

Look back at verse 1. Just a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.

It takes a long time to build a house. It takes only a moment to knock one down.

One fly can ruin a pot of soup.

Guard your testimony by resisting foolishness.

2. Foolishness will hinder your work (5-11).

A. There are people who have jobs they are not qualified to have.

Solomon says he has seen the rich in a low place and foolishness in a high place. He has seen slaves riding horses and princes walking.

In this illustration the rich and the princes represent the wise. The slaves and the foolish represent the undeserving. We’ve all seen people get promotions who did not deserve the promotion. This is just a part of life.

You can cry about it

You can complain about it

You can even quit

But I promise you, wherever you go you’ll find people in a position they aren’t qualified to be in. This is a part of life. If you let this keep you from being a good employee, you’ll only hurt yourself.

B. Solomon gives examples of jobs that require wisdom (8-11).

Soldiers- digging pits and breaking down walls are things soldiers did in battle.

Remember where you dug your pits

Be careful of what’s on the side of a wall you cannot see.

Builders- working in a quarry one must be careful a stone doesn’t roll back on them. Splitting logs you have to be careful you don’t chop into your leg or get wood splinters in your eye.

Snake charmer- If you are bitten by a snake before you charm it, you’re in trouble.

The key to understanding Solomon’s point is in verse 10. He says if an axe isn’t sharp you have to use more strength to cut. The more strength you use the more reckless you can be. Look at the end of verse 10. He says, “wisdom helps to succeed.”

Illustration: Learning to split wood is important. Most young men think you must hit the wood as hard as you can. They wear themselves out splitting wood. The wise person knows to hit the wood with a good axe in the right spot with good form. You can use little effort and split logs. You can split a lot more logs and it’s a lot safer.

Let me give you some wisdom from the Word of God on work.

Work- It’s a command.

Expect it to be hard- Genesis, thorns

Work as if you are working for the Lord (Col. 3:23)

Listen to me, especially the men. We are obligated to work. Get a job. Learn to do your job well.

It’s foolish to not work.

It’s foolish to work sloppily.

You don’t have to be a college graduate to be a good worker.

You can wash cars with the wisdom of God.

You can mow grass with the wisdom of God.

You can clean houses with the wisdom of God.

God will bless work done in the wisdom of God.

Here’s the bottom line: be a faithful Christian and you will be a good worker. If you live out your faith on your job you’ll be one of the best workers there.

3. Foolishness will compromise your speech (12-15).

A. Solomon contrasts the speech of the wise with the speech of the foolish (12).

The wise man benefits from his speech “wins him favor”

The foolish man is consumed by his speech. It hurts him.

Notice in verse 13 his speech goes from bad to worse. The beginning is foolishness, the end is madness.

When it comes to speech:

*Language is important. Corrupt communication is cursing. The person whose vocabulary is full of profanity reveals an unregenerate heart. Cussing is natural for them because their heart is evil.

*Content is important. What a person talks about reveals their heart. If someone is always speaking evil of others they do not have the love of God in them. As well, false teachers are revealed by the content of their speech. They spew false doctrine because they do not have the true gospel.

* Integrity is important. Whether or not a person tells the truth reveals if they have a relationship with God.

The lost will be judged for every word sinful word that came out of their mouth. The crude language they enjoyed, the gossip they spread, and the lies they told will swallow them up on that day.

B. Foolish people often talk a lot (14).

Solomon says no one knows everything. He says, “though no man knows what is to be, and who can tell what will be after him?”

Solomon was wise enough to know he didn’t know much. The foolish have something to say about everything. They can tell you just how it will be.

Some of us like to talk and for those of us who do we need to be careful. When you value your own opinion too much you will value others too little. People can sense that. People don’t like that. No matter how smart you are you may appear foolish.

There seems to be two extremes in a classroom:

You have students who will never talk.

You have students who won’t stop talking.

Listen, you don’t know the answer to every question. Even if you did it’s ok if someone else answers.

Incessant talking is also dangerous because you will inevitably say something you should not have said.

You will gossip.

You will give out information some should not have.

You will malign someone’s character.

Put yourself on a word count! Don’t talk too much!

C. Foolish people talk too much to learn anything (15).

Solomon says a fool talks so much he wears himself out but he knows so little he can’t even give you directions to the city.

In other words, he has a lot to say but none of it helps you. You just want to know how to get to the city and he gives you a lecture about all the problems in the city.

This can be a problem in Christianity.

We’re trying to tell folks how to get to the City! God’s City!!

Foolish speech will come in with:

Gossip

Criticism

Politics

By the time they get through talking you don’t know how to get to the City!

The Bible says our speech should be:

Seasoned with grace!

Respectful!

True!

More than anything our speech should point away from ourselves and to the Lord Jesus Christ.

4. Foolishness corrupts politics (16-20).

A. Foolish politicians are ruled by their appetite (16-17).

Solomon says a land is in trouble when the king is a chi8ld and the princes feast early in the morning.

What’s he saying? He is saying life is a party to these guys. They are in it for themselves. When they wake up the first thing they think about is gorging themselves. Anyone who starts feasting early in the morning will be useless by noon. Feasting involved, eating drinking, partying, etc.

Our country is ruled by children today. We see foolishness everywhere. Our leaders tell us ridiculous things that would have been preposterous twenty years ago but are policy today.

If a little boy wants to be a girl he can be.

Mutilate their body. Fill them with drugs. Dress them up.

We have politicians who live in a make believe world and won’t even define what a woman is.

You know why they do all of this? To quench their appetite.

Their appetite for power

Their appetite for money

Their appetite for attention

B. Foolish politicians lead a people to poverty (18-19).

When the politicians spend all their time partying and politicking the people suffer. Solomon says the roof caves in and the house leaks.

The bread, wine, and money of verse 19 represent prosperity. He says money answers everything. What does he mean? You have to have money to fix the roof, eat, and enjoy life.

Foolish politicians seem to think the answer to poverty is to tax people. I don’t know how they figure that. They will give higher taxes to the corporations which means the corporations will simply hire less people, give less raises and increase product costs. The average person can see how foolish it is but foolish politicians can’t.

One visit to the hospital at this point could cost a person a million dollars and that’s not an exaggeration.

My health insurance is 1400$ a month and none of us ever go to the doctor.

In 2020 gas was average $2.24 gallon. Average gas for this year is $4.32 a gallon. Yet we’re supposed to celebrate when it drops a nickel.

401ks are down big time.

But according to many politicians everything is fine.

I’m not a political preacher but it’s in the text. A sign of foolish politicians is when the people of a country begin to suffer financial ruin.

The politicians are in a company car and at a party in a big house with a roof that doesn’t leak. The common man is at home trying to figure out how he’s gonna fix his roof.

C. Foolish politicians are dangerous (20).

Solomon warns against cursing foolish political leaders. Even words said in private may reach them. And they reach them swiftly, as a bird flies.

Foolish politicians can’t take criticism. Think about Herod who killed John the Baptist because John criticized him.

Think about Nebuchadnezzar who tossed people in a fiery furnace because they would not bow to him.

Now, think about David who was criticized by a guy named Shimei. Shimei started throwing rocks at David and called him a murderer. David’s men wanted to kill Shimei. David said to leave him along. He said the man might be right and that God may be about to curse him (2 Samuel 16).

Shimei was blessed that David was wise. If he were not Shimei would have been killed.

Foolishness will ruin your testimony.

Foolishness will hinder your work.

Foolishness will compromise your speech.

Foolishness will corrupt politics.

There is a foolishness you need to embrace. It’s the foolishness of the gospel. Paul says the gospel is foolish to those who are perishing.

The world thinks it’s foolish to believe:

God became man and came to this earth

Jesus lived a perfect life

Christ was crucified for our sins

Jesus rose from the dead.

They think it’s foolish to believe:

The wages of sin death.

Hell is real.

Jesus is the only way to heaven.

What’s wise to the world is foolish to us and what’s foolish to the world is wise to us.

Have you embraced the foolishness of the gospel?

1 Corinthians 1:21 says:

For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

Billy Graham once said:

You can be a fool in God’s eyes or a fool in man’s eyes.

I’ll choose to be a fool in man’s eyes and I hope you will too.