Episode Transcript
Proverbs chapter 12 verse 15, the title of the message tonight is "2020 Vision."
Proverbs chapter 12 verse 15 tells us about the way of a fool.
The way of a fool.
Not the manner of a fool, but the road or the course of life that that fool is traveling.
That's what the way of the fool is.
Not his mannerisms, but the course of life that he is traveling.
Now the Hebrew word that's translated "fool" here has the idea of being perverse.
And sometimes when we look at English words and we don't understand their history, their etymology, then we tend to impose our understanding of the word, or rather our misunderstanding of the word upon what we're seeing in the Bible.
We may think of someone being a pervert or perverse and we think of some type of sexual perversion and we don't understand exactly what perversion is.
But the word, the Hebrew word translated "fool" means perverse and that literally means to turn aside from the right way.
So naturally if someone is sexually promiscuous, then that's not the right way and they have turned aside from it.
But you see that's what it means though, is the turning aside.
It's not limited to a pervert the way we would think.
But someone who, instead of being on God's course that he set for us in his word, they veer off of that course.
And you see that theme repeated over and over again in the book of Proverbs and I like it being repeated because that continued theme doesn't have to be relearned each time, it just has to be reminded.
Okay, so we're reminding you tonight of what the way of a fool is, the word fool meaning to turn aside.
So a fool is traveling a course in life that's headed in the wrong direction.
It may be going slightly in the correct direction, but it's veered off of that path, that course that God has given.
So it may not be immediately apparent that he's heading in the wrong direction, it's not like he's going the opposite direction, but he is traveling in the wrong direction and the Bible calls that the way of the fool because it belongs to the fool, it's not God's way.
So it's the way of the fool rather than the way of God.
And the road God gives us to travel, the Bible describes every time as a straight road.
A straight road, no crooks, just straight, direct from point A to point B, from where you are to where God wants you to be is the straight road that God's given you to travel.
If you veer from where you are to where God wants you to be, that's a perverse road.
So the road God has given us to travel is a straight road and when you depart from a straight road, you're no longer walking straight.
So depart from God is foolishness because it's no longer a straight direction that you're traveling, it's no longer a straight road.
Now the English word right literally means straight.
So if I were to say, "Is that right?"
And you said, "Yes, that's right."
I'm literally saying, "Is that straight?"
And you'd say, "Yes, that's straight."
You may say, "Well, that sounds silly, Brother Richard."
Well, what if Brother Shepherd told me something and I say, "Now, are you shooting straight with me?"
That wouldn't sound silly, would it?
But it's the same idea.
Is that crooked what you're telling me or is it straight?
God's way in the Bible is always described as a straight way and truth is always straight.
So it's just in character with God, something that's straight and our society also recognizes that by saying, "Well, he's straight-laced," or "He's very straight," you know, or "That man's crooked over there."
And so we have developed that ideology even into secular vocabulary, secular language.
But the Hebrew word translated right is straight as well.
If you look back here, it says in your text, "The way of a fool is right."
So the English word right means straight, literally, that's its history.
And the Hebrew word that's translated right here, it also means straight.
So in the Hebrew, the Hebrew is literally saying, "The way or the road of the fool is straight."
The road of the fool is straight.
But how is the road of the fool straight?
Look back in your text, "In his own eyes."
That's right, Sister Leslie, "In his own eyes."
Now this is fascinating to me.
It gives us so much understanding in the way things work in life and it helps us understand the behavior of mankind by understanding the Scripture.
The way of man, the way of this fool, the way of a person who's not walking straight in his eyes is straight.
So even though you're looking and you're saying, "Man, he's not walking straight."
In his eyes, he is walking straight.
So you may want to underscore the word "own" in this verse.
In his own eyes.
Not his God's eyes.
But his own eyes.
In the fool's eyes, his way is straight.
If two people, when we're talking about eyes here, in his own eyes, if two people shared different opinions about something, then one person may say, "Well, we just see differently on the matter."
Right?
"We just see things differently."
And so that's those two different opinions, but they use the word "see" there.
This is how we see it.
And if you try telling a fool that he's going the wrong way in life, you try to say, "Hey, you're heading in the wrong direction.
That fool is not going to agree with you."
And the reason is, is because he looks at that path that he's traveling with his own eyes and it looks straight to him.
I mean, it really does look straight to him.
And this is because his eyes are conditioned to seeing things the way he wants them to be instead of the way they really are.
He does not want to believe the truth.
He does not want to walk the way of truth.
He wants to walk his own crooked path and his mind is so perverted that the reason the feet are perverted is because the heart's perverted.
The mind's perverted.
So it doesn't start with the feet.
It starts with the heart and the feet follow.
And so because the heart is crooked, when it looks at the path the feet are going, then the feet look like they're going straight because they're both crooked, if that makes sense to you.
If you again try telling a fool he's going the wrong way, he's not going to believe you.
A fool sees his way is right, so if you condemn that fool, he is going to think that you are very wrong.
If a wise man condemns his lifestyle, the fool will justify his wrong lifestyle to the wise man.
A wise man will call homosexuality sin.
A fool will call it love.
Isn't that what they do?
They call it love.
It's amazing.
And you think, "Well, how do they do that?"
It's because their heart's perverse and so the perverse direction they're traveling matches up with their heart and they see it as going straight.
This is love.
They justify it.
Wise man see it as wrong, the fool sees it as he wants it to be right.
A politician will use a working man's money to buy votes from non-working people.
The wise man sees it as theft.
The fool sees it as charity.
It's amazing how that happens.
Politicians will shut down an oil and gas company from building a pipeline after that oil and gas company has invested millions of dollars into that project and then the government after shutting them down will then take the tax dollars generated from that oil and gas company and then they will take those tax dollars and subsidize the businesses of hostile nations and the wise man looks at that and he sees it as oppression.
The fool looks at it and he sees it as clean energy and job creation.
They teach young people to deny God and to abhor Christianity.
The wise man looks at it, he sees it as blasphemy.
The fool looks at it, he sees it as education and science.
You can't correct a fool in his way because a fool is looking with his own eyes instead of God's eyes and as long as he looks at it with his own eyes he will always see his way as right.
Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 18, Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 18, God told the children of Israel and thou shalt do that which is right or which is straight and good in the sight of the Lord that it may be well with thee and that thou mayest go in and possess the good land which the Lord swear unto thy fathers.
So God said you do that which is right, you walk that straight way but do that which is right in the sight of the Lord.
The way God sees it as right in his eyes not the way you see it as right in your own eyes.
I learned a long time ago that my spiritual eyesight needed to be corrected.
I learned that I needed to view life with God's eyes rather than my own and I thank God for that.
Oh thank God I was going the wrong direction but now I am going the straight and narrow way of the way of Jesus Christ.
When I get up in the morning the first thing I do unfortunately now, I didn't have to do it until I got a little older, but the first thing I do now is I slip on my corrective lenses because I know that my eyesight is no longer what it should be.
And that's what a wise man will do with his spiritual eyesight, he'll slip on God's word over his spiritual eyes and he'll use the Bible as corrective lenses.
And Godly counsel corrects our spiritual vision.
I'll repeat that again, Godly counsel corrects our spiritual vision.
And all people have vision that needs to be corrected.
When I see things through my glasses I see material things the way they are.
And when I see things through my Bible I see spiritual things the way they are.
But a fool won't allow his spiritual eyesight to be corrected.
He would rather his eyes be bad than his ways be changed.
The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, look back in your text, but he that hearkeneth unto counsel.
This is the opposite of a fool, is the person who hearkens unto counsel.
Now before we get too deep into that we need to understand there's all kinds of counsel.
So you can receive lots of counsel from different sources about different things in life, but a lot of that counsel is not worth listening to.
In Ezekiel chapter 11, Ezekiel chapter 11 verses 1 and 2, the prophet Ezekiel said, "Thereover the Spirit lifted me up and brought me into the east gate of the Lord's house, which looketh eastward.
And behold, at the door of the gate five and twenty men, among whom I saw Jazaniah the son of Azar, and Pelitiah the son of Benaiah, princes of the people.
Then said he that is the Spirit of God unto me, 'Son of man, these are the men that devise mischief and give wicked counsel in this city.'"
So it's not always wise to receive counsel unless you're receiving wise counsel.
A fool will always hearken to foolish counsel.
But remember Solomon isn't just talking about any old counsel here.
He is talking about godly counsel.
It's always to be presumed in the book of Proverbs that it's talking about godly counsel.
Why?
Because we learned from the very first chapter that the book of Proverbs is all about God's wisdom.
So when the Bible, especially the book of Proverbs, speaks of counsel, it is speaking about the wise counsel of our God.
Thank the Lord for that.
And that counsel is given in His Word and it's given through the teachers of His Word.
So a person who listens to godly counsel, they're just like a person who will take corrective lenses and just put that on here and say, "Oh, that looks so much clearer now.
I can see so much better seeing life through God's Word."
He allows godly counsel to correct his spiritual vision.
And listen to God's counsel causes us to see things the way God sees them.
And God sees them the way they really are.
Now listen to what the Bible says in the book of Psalms, chapter 33, verses 8 through 11.
Psalms 33, verses 8 through 11.
Listen to what it says about the counsel of God.
Let all the earth fear the Lord, let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him, for He spake and it was done.
Now this is talking about the creation.
Godly counsel is based on God's creative work.
You may not have thought of that before, but it is.
Godly counsel is based on God's creative work.
He spake and it was done.
He commanded and it stood fast.
It was established.
Verse 10, "The Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought."
Now isn't that amazing?
We're talking about counsel here in Psalm 33 and it begins by introducing counsel with the creation of the world.
And so the reason he says that the Lord brings the counsel of the heathen to nought, in verse 10, is because in verse 9 he was speaking about the counsel of God.
I'll repeat that again if that went over your head.
The reason he's talking about the counsel of the Lord in verse 10, the Lord brings the counsel of the heathen to nought, is because in verse 9 it was speaking about the counsel of God.
When he said, "Let there be light," there was light.
He commanded, it stood fast.
Let this happen, let that happen, and God saw that it was good.
All of that was the counsel of God.
So that is God's counsel in the creation.
However, the counsel of the heathen, God brings to nought, which we'll look at here in just a moment.
He goes on to say, "He that is the Lord maketh the devices of the people of none effect."
Verse 11, "The counsel of the Lord, however, standeth forever the thoughts of his heart to all generations."
Now so, verse 9 is speaking of God's counsel in the creation.
Verse 8 is speaking of, "You want something to really stand back and be in awe of?
Let me tell you about the counsel of God."
And so it tells you about the counsel of God in verse 9.
It then compares that and tells you what God's going to do with the counsel of the heathen.
And then it goes back and celebrates again the counsel of God in verse 11 and says, "The counsel of the Lord stands forever the thoughts of his heart to all generations."
So the first thing we learn from this passage is that God brings the counsel of the heathen to nought.
And the counsel of the heathen here means the counsel of the godless nations.
The counsel of the godless nations.
God brings the counsel of the godless nations to nought, which means he brings it to nothing.
He means he causes their counsel so that it won't come to pass.
Now here's the thing about the word "counsel."
The Hebrew word translated "counsel" here, it means two things.
It means both advice, "Give me your counsel."
It also means plans.
So the word "counsel" here means both the advice I give and the plans I make.
Counsel means both the advice I give and the plans I make.
That's the counsel of the heathen, that's also the counsel of God.
The advice we give and the plans we make.
So the counsel of the heathen is speaking about the godless plans that the godless nations make which in the end will come to nothing.
Now if you were to ask someone in those godless nations for advice, they would give you advice according to the godless plans that they imagined.
That's how it works.
For example, suppose you're talking to an atheist.
Now in that atheist's mind, as far as life goes, they plan to have as much fun as they can in life, enjoy themselves as much as they can in life, and then die, and then turn back to dirt, and be part of the life cycle again, and never have to answer to God about any of their conduct in life because there is none according to them.
So if you were to ask an atheist for advice in life, do you know what they're going to do?
They're going to give you counsel according to their plans.
Of course, the problem is God is going to bring their plans to nothing.
It's not going to work out the way they thought it would.
Their plans to have fun in life, to disregard God, to break all of his rules, and never have to give an account to him, that's not going to happen.
He's going to bring their counsel to naught, and any advice that they give, their plans are going to come to naught as well.
So their counsel is not worth listening to.
On the other hand, God's plans always come to pass.
That's why in verse 9 there in the book of Psalms, he spake what happened.
It stood fast.
See how that works?
See, so the plans of his heart was to create the world, to create man, to send a Redeemer for man.
He knew all of that.
And all of that was his counsel.
All of that was his plans.
All of that then is his advice to me and you.
And if we follow that advice as his word is established, so those who base their faith on his counsel are established as well.
Man, that gets me excited just thinking about it.
God's plans will always come to pass, so his word is always worth listening to.
In fact, God's plans can't fail because God's word can't fail.
And since God's word can't fail, then his counsel can't fail.
In the text we just read in Psalm 33 9, the Bible said, "For he spake, and it was done.
He commanded, and it stood fast."
God's word established God's plans.
So the psalmist says in Psalm 33 11, "The counsel of the Lord standeth forever."
Now the counsel of man can stand for a time, but God brings it to naught.
So it'll stand for a time.
When we're looking in the book of Daniel, and we're studying the book of Daniel, you'll see that the counsel of that godless nation will stand for a time.
Or they'll get thrown in the lion's den.
There'll be some punishment.
There'll be some reckoning.
Their counsel will stand for a time.
But then God brings it to naught.
But the counsel of the Lord stands forever, praise God.
The thoughts of his heart to all generations.
Kingdom truth.
God's counsel is unfailing advice because it's based on his unfailing plans.
God's counsel is unfailing advice because it's based on his unfailing plans.
If we could just wrap our minds of faith around that, it would make it so much easier to take the scriptures and say, "I am going to place my hope in God's word on this."
God's counsel is unfailing advice because it's based on unfailing plans.
And it's good advice to all generations.
That means it was good for my grandpa, it's good for his son, and it's good for me, it's good for my children, and it's good for my grandchildren.
It will never fail you because his plans will never fail.
Therefore whoever hearkens to God's counsel, look back in your text now as we begin to close, is wise.
They're wise.
Someone like the fool who strays from that straight road of God's word, God's counsel, those who take God's advice, they stay on the straight way.
They're wise, they're straight.
And their way will be right, not in their own eyes like the fool, but in God's eyes.
And it'll be right from where they are, and it'll take them right to where God wants them to be.
With that, we'll go ahead and close tonight.
Father, we thank you for your unfailing word, which when read, becomes your unfailing counsel to us.
And when we take heed to that unfailing counsel, then we won't fail because it's based on your unfailing plans.
And we thank you, Father, for giving us that great assurance.
Thank you, Lord, for helping us to understand why the fools walk in a crooked way because they have a crooked heart, and the way appears right to them, because they will not let your word correct their eyes.
We thank you, Father, for giving us this wisdom, and we pray that we'll always step in the way of God.
In Jesus' precious name we pray, amen.
