Episode Transcript
All right, we're in Proverbs chapter 12 and verse 16 Proverbs 12 verse 16 and I want you also to mark James chapter 1 in your Bible James chapter 1 because we will turn there shortly Now last week our pastor taught on Proverbs 12 15 where we studied the way of a fool and Tonight in verse 16.
We'll look at the wrath of a fool and the wisdom of a fool And we learned that the fool's way or his course His path is crooked and his heart is crooked.
So his feet take the wrong way.
They follow his heart The fool was last week contrasted with the wise man the wise man hearkens unto counsel and that means wise counsel biblical counsel and Because he hearkened unto wise counsel.
He was wise and therefore not Foolish and I've actually put a title on this Message tonight there is no such thing as a prudent fool There is no such thing as a prudent fool And also, how about this a kingdom truth?
It's never foolish to hearken to wise counsel It's never foolish to hearken to wise counsel now, let's read verse 16 and then we'll see what we can learn from it tonight Proverbs 12 verse 16 if you're just joining us a fool's wrath is presently known but a prudent man covereth shame a fool's wrath and Here the word for fool is the same one.
We studied in the previous verse and it means perverse or crooked So let's look for a moment at the word wrath The Hebrew word for wrath is usually translated as the word grief Or it's also translated as the word provocation angry anger Ignation sore and spite now that's quite a Plethora of words if you will but these words give you an idea about the emotion behind wrath and It also teaches us that grief Isn't limited to the sad feelings that we have when a loved one dies And maybe you've never thought of that when the Holy Spirit of God is grieved Doesn't always mean he's just mourning in sadness.
He may in fact be angry and It certainly is the meaning of the word here in the Old Testament in Proverbs So let's take what we've learned about the fool's way and apply it to the fool's wrath Now because the fool uses his own eyes to decide his path he's already started from the wrong place and His standard is not correct Therefore everything that proceeds from this wrong standard will be incorrect Now here's an example.
I actually thought of this last week, but it certainly applies here When I build a fence, I'm not a great fence builder, but I am experienced because I've done a few of them I've had a few rotten fences in my life and I've built a few of them and every thing about building a fence has a starting point and once you get your fence your your Posts set in the ground and then you nail up your rails.
Those are the boards that run longitudinally there your There your anchors for the pickets which are what you think of a fence when you see the pickets lined up next to each other All the way down the fence.
Those are the boards that run up and down for those of you who've never built a fence and So when I want my pickets, I want my pickets to be the same distance from the ground All the way from one end to the other and in order for that to happen I have to make sure that when I nail my first picket up The rest of them are the same distance from the ground is that one now my yard is sloped So my fence isn't going to be level all the way across the top.
It's going to be The same distance from the ground across the bottom.
It's going to have a natural incline to it or decline depending on where you're looking So what I do is put a nail in the top of the first picket and tie a string around it And then I go all the way to the end of the fence and I put a nail up down there and I tie that String around it and I have a long straight hopefully string and that is my reference point And when I begin to nail my pickets into the rails I want to make sure that the top of each picket is the same distance from that string and so that keeps me on Line even with a crooked yard Now the first time I did this I Was ready to nail my first picket.
However, I Did not properly measure from the top of the picket to the string above it and I did not realize my error until I had fastened several pickets to the fence and I was going to make it taller than a Tower of Babel if I kept going at that rate, so I Had a choice to make Had I continued on by using that poor standard of the first picket?
I would have had a very uneven fence but I knew to remove the improperly placed pickets in other words to stop what I was doing right there to stop the damage and remove those pickets and start over using the wise counsel of The string as my guide like I intended to from the beginning and when I did that My project turned out as I had planned the problem with a fool is that he never accepts the fact that his fence is crooked and Because of his stubbornness He refuses to remove those improperly placed pickets and Start over using the wise counsel of the string now Let's apply this print this illustration to the wrath of a fool because that's what we're looking at here We will start with the correct standard now.
I asked you to turn to James chapter 1 and mark that so I hope you're able to Do that and I'm going to read verses 19 through 20 James chapter 1 verses 19 through 20 if you haven't found it just write it down in your notes wherefore my beloved brethren Let every man be swift to hear slow to speak slow to wrath For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God Now there are two things we learn about wrath in this verse in James number one every man should be slow to wrath and number two the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God so first Every man should be slow to wrath Now looking back at our original text in Proverbs 12 16 We read a fool's wrath is presently known Where the word presently is almost always translated as the word day now that doesn't make any sense at the outset Until you study it further, but the root of that word carries the idea of the heat of the day It's also translated as daily or Continually, that's the word presently One problem with the wrath of a fool is that his anger is always known now everybody hears how angry he is from day to day You may know somebody like that Hopefully you haven't been somebody like that, but if you have you'll say amen to the teaching of the lesson here Have you ever known somebody who was not only angry every day?
But wanted everyone else to know how angry he was And don't forget we're not talking about righteous anger here but the anger or the wrath of a fool and By looking at the second thing James taught in his epistle We see this about the wrath of man that it worketh not the righteousness of God Romans chapter 12 verse 19 Romans chapter 12 verse 19 Paul wrote dearly beloved now you speak into Christians avenge not yourselves, but rather give place under wrath For it is written vengeance is mine.
I will repay saith the Lord So who's supposed to be in the wrath business is God?
In Exodus chapter 32 Maybe a familiar passage to you Moses had just received the law of God on Mount Sinai he'd received the commandments on the tables and he had the tables of stone in his hands and He was ready to take them down to the people below and read the law to them But during that time God told Moses that the people had made themselves a golden calf in In verse 10 Exodus 32 10 God said this to Moses Now therefore let me alone that my wrath May wax hot against them and that I may consume them and I will make of thee a great nation And if you go down to verse 12 in the second part of verse 12 You can put the letter B there Exodus 32 12 little letter B as in boy Moses pleaded with God to turn he said turn from nigh fierce wrath and repent of this evil against thy people he interceded on behalf of the children of Israel that God would not destroy them and In that moment that he did that Moses was a type of Jesus Christ for whose sake God turned his wrath away From those who put their trust in him But listen to what Moses did right after that wonderful moment when he interceded on behalf of The children of Israel asking God to turn away his wrath down in verse 19 Exodus 32 19 And it came to pass as soon as he came nigh unto the camp that he saw the calf and the dancing and Moses anger waxed hot and He cast the tables out of his hands and break them beneath the mount Now whose anger waxed hot this time.
That was Moses Thank God Jesus anger did not wax hot against us or we would have been consumed in God's wrath Had God's said let it move aside.
Let me pour out my wrath upon this unbelieving people and Jesus said I'm mad at him to go ahead Now we have no hope for redemption and Jesus would have been perfectly righteous in doing that But he did not You know Moses Was not a fool But he acted foolishly on that mountain after asking God to turn his wrath Moses executed his own wrath and what did he have to do as a result go right back up the mountain and do it again Get the law again So we hopefully have learned that the wrath of a fool is Not only unrighteous, but it is also untimely Now let's look at the counterpart of the fool and that's the prudent man back in your text It says but a prudent man We're back in Proverbs 12 16 but a prudent man and of course the word but Tells us that this man is not like the man.
We just read about the fool prudent means crafty or subtle and the word the Hebrew word can be used in a good sense or it can be used in a bad sense as the serpent in the garden when he was described as subtle s u b t i l But where it's used in a good sense in our text and in other places That's what we want to learn from because that's what a prudent man a good prudent man is As we will see in a moment Do you know that the difference between an evil crafty man that is an evil prudent man and a good prudent man is Not his ability but his heart now we learned that last week When we law enforcement officers Have always been amazed.
I know I have at the level of craftiness that certain criminals have In our prisons, there are some very talented artists and mechanics and lawyers and other types of craftsmen professionals and They produce some of the most amazing works Yet their hearts were not right at the beginning.
That's how they ended up in the penitentiary I have two beautiful Western belts That were made by prisoners in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice And I bought those back in the 90s and they're still just as good today as they were back then very good craftsmanship But these men and women who are in the penitentiary acted as fools their prudence was Evil their subtlety was evil Just like the serpents in the garden Their paths were not straight yet There are also prudent men and women Who have those same skills the same skills as the ones who are locked up in the penitentiary and yet?
They're practicing their craft in the free world It's obvious to me that in our text in Proverbs this man who is described is crafty and subtle in a good sense Because he's contrasted with the fool Now what does this prudent man do back in your text?
It says he covereth shame but a prudent man covereth shame Now we see this Hebrew word used early in the Bible This is not the first time it was used, but it helps us understand a little bit about the prudent man in Proverbs It's found in Genesis chapter 9 and in that chapter Noah After the the ark found ground again and his family got out of the ark Noah got drunk and he was naked in his tent and If you listen to verse 23 Genesis 9 23 you're going to hear the word covered.
It's the same Hebrew word as the one in our text It says and Shem and Japheth now those were two of his sons took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father and Their faces were backward and they saw not their father's nakedness Now they could have done like him Who beheld his father's nakedness, which was a shame to him and he was cursed for that But these two sons were prudent They could have told the the rest of the family.
Hey, yeah, dad's drunk and he's naked in his tent Y'all come take a look at this But they didn't do that.
They were prudent They covered the shame And in our text that word shame is dishonor reproach in Fact in our study of the Proverbs we've come across this word several times Back in chapter 6 we learned that an Adulterer just like a thief.
In fact an adulterer is a thief in a way an adulterer gets a wound on the outside and dishonor or shame on the inside in Chapter 11 of Proverbs we learned that shame exposes a person for who he is So we may conclude here that the prudent man covers He hides he conceals these things When he conceals shame His wrath is not presently known as the fool's wrath is He keeps his tongue Even when he may be technically right in what he says, you know, it's not always necessary to embarrass someone I'm thankful for the times in my life when people who loved me showed me grace and Didn't just tell everything they knew about me and perhaps you are also Let's say your Boss did something that was a violation of your company's policy and you knew about it Now you have a few choices you could Wait until a bunch of people were around and call your boss out for his actions Throw him under the bus as we might say But if you were prudent You would cover his shame in the presence of others Now that doesn't mean you would dismiss what he did But rather than expose him rather than make your wrath against him presently known You would speak to him in private You'd respectfully tell him what you've done sir or ma'am is a violation of company policy Jesus taught that principle when he taught us as the church to Privately address a brother against whom you have on offense He gave a system for doing that.
He said you first go to that brother privately and I'm paraphrasing here But if you can make amends then it's over with you don't need to discuss it with anybody else now we're assuming this is not a crime here, but something that wouldn't have to be reported and Then if the brother doesn't hear you you take two or three witnesses with you That in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.
That's an Old Testament principle and that ought to be enough and Even there even though it is among the two or three witnesses The prudence the prudent man has covered the shame But if that man will not receive that correction, then you take the matter before the church That is still prudent If the brother doesn't repent after a private consultation after being confronted with two or three witnesses then You take it to the church now the purpose of a fool on the other hand Would be to embarrass that other person What a fool would do or even a Christian who's acting foolishly Would come up to the front of the church Before ever going to that brother and say hey, I just want to tell everybody here on Wednesday night I want y'all to pray for brother skip over here brother skip stole from me last week He took something from my driveway.
It didn't belong to him.
I want y'all to pray for him Why the purpose of that is not to make things right with skip that's not a prudent man that does that Ecclesiastes chapter 10 verses 2 through 3 Ecclesiastes chapter 10 verses 2 through 3 a Wise man's heart is at his right hand But a fool's heart at his left Yea, also When he that is a fool walketh by the way his wisdom Faileth him and he said to everyone that he is a fool Now I titled this lesson there is no such thing as a prudent fool and This passage from Ecclesiastes is where I got that it bears it out doesn't it?
It says that when the fool walketh by the way his wisdom faileth him.
He's not wise And as the Proverbs have taught us a fool despises wisdom It also says wisdom is too high for a fool and Here the wisdom of a fool Fails him it does not say wisdom fails the fool Because the scriptures never fail anyone wise or prudent It says his wisdom and that's the key for the fool his wisdom Faileth him and it's because he starts off with his heart in his left hand not in his right He starts off with a perverse and a crooked heart rather than one that is upright and By now the student of the Proverbs has surely recognized That the ways of a fool proceed from the heart of a fool and The wrath of a fool proceeds from the heart of a fool and the wisdom of a fool Proceeds from the heart of a fool and there is no such thing as a wise fool or a prudent fool His way is right in his own eyes His wrath is right according to his estimation his wisdom is right according to his own ego and Those are all errors that proceed From a crooked and perverse heart and well that will stop and a pastor will pick up Most likely with the next verse next week.
Let's pray Father you've been so good to us.
Thank you for teaching us through your word the simple but vital truths That we may know when our hearts are turned away from you that we're acting foolishly and that we would Hit the reset and make our standard the Word of God that we would see things as you see them and we won't know how you see them if we don't study your word and Lord, we pray that you would help each one who is struggling in this area That they may be victorious through the scriptures and Through yielding to the Holy Spirit help us to be doers of the word and not hearers only in Jesus name
