(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

And so in Proverbs chapter 26, of course, we've entered this new section in the book of Proverbs, and it's a lot of just separate Proverbs. It's not really one thought in this whole chapter. And so we'll go through a bunch of these separate Proverbs one by one. In the first verse there, the Bible reads, as snow in summer and as rain in harvest, so honor is not seemly for a fool. Now what is this verse saying? These are things that don't really fit. It doesn't make any sense for it to be snowing in summer. It doesn't make any sense for it to be raining in a time of harvest. And in the same way, honor is not seemly for a fool. And what the Bible is telling us here is that we should not give honor unto fools. We should not promote people who are foolish. There's an attitude out there that basically says that we should just act like everyone's great, everyone's awesome, everyone's so smart, everyone's so wonderful, every church is so good, every religion is just so wonderful and nice, and that that somehow makes you a good person to just be super positive about everything and everyone all the time. This is how some people think, right? They think everything positive is good and everything negative is bad. But the Bible is telling us here that it's not appropriate to honor fools, to act like they're smart or to give honor unto someone who's a bozo or an idiot in some way. Also in the Bible, in the book of Proverbs specifically, it tells us that it's an abomination to condemn the innocent, but that it's also an abomination to basically say to the wicked that he's righteous or to basically hold the wicked as guiltless. Both of these things are an abomination to the Lord. And so the Bible is saying that honor is not seemingly for a fool. If you're a fool, don't expect to be honored for it. And we should not give honor unto foolish people, wicked people, et cetera. The Bible says in verse two, as the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come. Now, what is this saying? When bad things happen, there's a reason why they happened. They're not just happening randomly. Whenever I read this verse, I always think of computer programming, okay? And I know we have a lot of computer programmers at our church. Who's a computer programmer? Put up your hand if you're a computer programmer. We've got a whole bunch of computer programmers at our church, and I know even a lot of the people who listen to my sermons online are computer programmers. Probably just because we're living in the year 2023, but also I think because programmers like preaching that's logical, and I try to preach a logical sermon. And so whenever I read this verse, the curse causeless shall not come, I always think of computer programming because if your program is crashing, it's because there's some reason why. Even if you look at it and just think, I don't know why, it's just a glitch. It's just not working. My computer's not working, and I don't know why. Someone with enough computer knowledge would be able to find the reason why because the crash causeless shall not come, you know, when it comes to the computer. The fail causeless shall not come. And so what the Bible's telling us here is that a lot of times people will just have all these bad things happening in their life or just all this failure in their life, and they just act like it's just random. They don't really know why nothing ever works out, why everything that they do fails, why every relationship fails. But there's a reason. The curse causeless shall not come. This is what the Bible's saying. Again, remember that when we're reading the book of Proverbs, we're dealing in generalities. So obviously there could be exceptions to some of these things if you want to be real nitpicky. But in general, when things are going bad, there's a reason that they're going bad is what the Bible's telling us here. The curse causeless shall not come. He said, as the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come. What does that simile mean? I was thinking a little bit about this, and we probably look up at the sky and we see birds flying around, and we might think that their actions are kind of random, but actually their actions have meaning. Their flight has a pattern. They're going somewhere, right? They're flying south for the winter, and they're actually pretty predictable about where and when they're going to show up and their migrational movements throughout the year. Again, we may not understand the reason why the bird is flying where it is, but it has a reason for where it's going. And so the curse causeless shall not come. You say, well, what about in the book of Job? You know, Job went through all those horrible curses, and yet he was totally innocent. Right, but it wasn't causeless, was it? It was a specific testing of Job. So when I say that something bad happens for a reason, it doesn't necessarily mean it's because you deserve it, because you did something bad, but there's still a reason, isn't there? Maybe the reason is that you're being tested. Maybe the reason is that God is allowing you to go through that so that you can learn something, but these things do happen for a reason. And often people are just in denial about why bad things are happening in their life. They don't want to face up to maybe some of the mistakes that they're making. Obviously it's possible for bad things to happen when you're not making mistakes, because you're being tried and tested, but let's face it, a lot of the bad things that happen in our life, a lot of the curses that come upon us are due to our own actions. And so when bad things happen, we need to do some soul searching. We need to do some introspection and say, hey, am I doing something wrong here? Is there some sin in my life, or is there some foolishness that keeps leading me into this problem that I keep having? And if we search ourselves and find that we're not doing anything wrong, well then, okay, maybe it's a Job type situation. But I think most of the time when we do that kind of soul searching, we usually find things that we can fix on our end. And so it says the curse causeless shall not come. Verse three is quite a beautiful little poem here. I like it because there's no verb. It's kind of an interesting sentence, isn't it? It's very succinct. A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the fool's back. What a sentence. No verb needed. Message received loud and clear. So the Bible is obviously for corporal punishment. And of course, all throughout the book of Proverbs, we see references to corporal punishment. Specifically, sometimes these references are about children, right? About chastening our son and not sparing the rod when it comes to raising our children. But you know, the Bible also even talks about adults being disciplined as well because of the fact that in God's criminal code in the Mosaic law, one of the punishments that would be doled out was a beating. You know, that basically you would be whipped or scourged or caned. And again, to our modern sensibilities, this might seem cruel or harsh, but yet it is actually superior to our current criminal justice system. You say, well, how do you know that? Well, because the Bible is always superior to what man comes up with. God's word is supreme and God's wisdom is the ultimate wisdom. And so if God prescribed being whipped for certain crimes as a punishment, then it's obviously the way to go. And what's interesting is that if you study the books of Moses, you'll find that prison isn't really a thing in God's law, is it? There are no jail terms and, you know, 10 years in prison and five years in prison and all these things. What we'll find is typically that the punishments are either a beating or you pay a fine or exile or death. Those are pretty much the punishments. And I guarantee you that the people that are in prison right now would love it if they could just receive one whipping and be released. So saying that whipping is cruel and barbaric is foolish and it's against God's word. The right thing would be to say, well, I think that locking people in a cage is cruel and barbaric and that actually whipping people is more humane because you get it over with. Now obviously when it comes to punishing criminals with corporal punishment, we're not just talking about the type of spanking that you would give a child. Obviously when we give a child a spanking, we don't want to injure the child. We just want them to feel that pain and understand that what they've done is wrong and be disciplined and be chastised so that they can learn to do what's right. So obviously when you spank a child, you don't want to injure them whatsoever. You just want it to hurt. Just you want them to feel that stinging sensation. But when it comes to adults who've committed serious crimes, right? Like I'm talking about if this were to be applied in a criminal justice context where somebody has done something really bad and they need to be punished and it's not an offense that's worthy of death and paying money isn't necessarily appropriate, then the judges could prescribe them to be whipped, them to be scourged, them to be flogged. This is something that actually would leave an injury. This is something where they'd be whipped to the point where there's going to be bruising, there's going to be bleeding, and that's why the Bible talks about stripes are for the backs of fools, it says in the book of Proverbs, right? Stripes are for the backs of fools. What is that stripe referring to? It's referring to a bloody stripe that is left behind after they've been lashed with a whip. The Bible says that the blueness of the wound cleanses away evil, so do stripes, the innermost parts of the belly. So according to the Bible, corporal punishment would actually provide more rehabilitation for criminals than locking them in a prison cell because the rehabilitation is what the Bible says, stripes cleanse the innermost parts of the belly. So apparently the message somehow gets through when they get whipped. I don't understand why we got to where we are in the United States where we don't have corporal punishment. How did we get here? Who screwed up? Like who do I blame for our bizarre criminal justice system? Because I mean we're a country that was founded on the word of God and throughout our history most Americans have read the Bible. Even today in America, the vast majority of Americans at least have a Bible on the shelf and a huge proportion of Americans are evangelical Christians and so they would say that they believe the Bible is the word of God. I mean 50 million people in America are Baptist. So how did we get here? Since when do we just ignore everything that God says when it comes to politics and the criminal justice system? It's like well you know the Bible is great for church on Sunday and it's great for our religious lives but you know politics is over here. Criminal justice is over here. Folks, the Bible actually teaches us about all of life's subjects and so I don't know who ruined the criminal justice system. When did we get away from a good old whipping of a criminal instead of just this foolish system where we lock up so many people and by the way the United States has more people locked up per capita than any other country in the world at least last time I checked. Stop and think about that. Why do we have such a huge percentage of our population behind bars? It doesn't make any sense. Money exactly. There is a, I believe that there's a prison industrial complex you know. People are making money off the prison system and there are all kinds of judges and things involved with making money about feeding prisoners or handling their phone calls. You know have you ever tried to talk to somebody on the phone in prison because I have and you end up paying like a dollar a minute or some stupid amount. It's like hold on a second. We're living in 2023. Phone calls shouldn't cost a dollar a minute. I don't care if I'm talking to Timbuktu. It shouldn't be costing a dollar a minute. I mean I could talk to Timbuktu for free on WhatsApp or on Zoom or on Skype or whatever. Why in the world am I paying a dollar a minute to talk to somebody in prison because somebody is getting rich making money off providing a bad quality phone call to prison for a dollar a minute. Somebody is making money off selling them cigarettes or selling them food or selling them whatever and it's such a terrible system but it cracks me up though how Christians will often look at the Bible and act like it's outdated, it's archaic. Well this Old Testament stuff we don't really believe that stuff anymore because we're in the New Testament. We're under grace. Yeah I understand we're in the New Testament. I understand that we're not under law but under grace. Amen. But that has to do with salvation and our Christian walk with God spiritually but still the wisdom of God as far as his Old Testament criminal justice system is still timeless. I mean if God says that first degree murderers should get the death penalty that's timeless. If God says that somebody who steals should pay back fourfold that's timeless. If somebody robs me I want them to pay me back fourfold. That's what I want. I don't want them to go to some cage for years and I don't get any money. I get taxed to pay for them to be in that cage. I'd rather that they just give me the money and you say what if they don't have the money then you know what they should be enslaved and the work that they do should go to pay my fourfold and then as soon as they're done working off that debt they're free to go. They can either pay it or put them to work make them pay it off and the money goes to me not the government because I'm the one who got robbed. Pay me you know the one who was wrong. Pay you the one who was wrong. But you just you have to just scratch your head and say how did we get here to where our criminal justice system doesn't match anything we see in the Bible. Absolutely no one today in 2023 America gets the punishment that the Bible prescribes murderers don't get what the Bible says that they should get rapists don't get what the Bible says they should get thieves don't get what the Bible says they should get. And so so many things could be improved in our nation if we would just follow the Bible just follow the Bible and understand that all scripture is given by inspiration of God and that all scriptures profitable for doctrine including Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy not to say that we're spiritually under the law but to say that God's wisdom in his word is still the ultimate and that the law the Lord is still perfect. That's what the Bible says. And so a rod for the fool's back. Amen verse 4 answer not a fool according to his folly lest thou also be like unto him answer a fool according to his folly lest he be wise in his own conceit. It's always funny when somebody points this out as a contradiction in the Bible like you know the Bible contains contradiction show me one and then they'll point this out where he says in verse 4 answer not a fool in verse 5 he says answer a fool. Now first of all the Bible even from a worldly perspective is such a sophisticated piece of literature. You really think that this is the mistake that was accidentally made whoops just accidentally said opposite things right. Obviously this is done on purpose right. This is a poetic device. OK This is a poetic book. This is a literary device that's being used on purpose that people are just too foolish to understand. You see when people point out problems in the Bible contradictions in the Bible really they're just showing the limitations of their understanding. You know things that are really simple are easy for the simple minded to understand and they don't see any contradiction in it right. Like for example if I showed Joe Blow off the street who doesn't really know a lot about math if I showed him stuff like hey 2 plus 3 is 5. Hey 3 times 5 is 15. Hey 8 times 3 is 24. He's going to agree with all that. He's going to be like yeah it is. But then if I started showing him some things that are a little bit counterintuitive you know I start showing him some limits and things that you would learn in a calculus class. You know he might look at some of these things that are a little bit counterintuitive and say you know that doesn't make any sense. You know why that limit would be zero and you know my limits are failing me right now. Somebody give me a calculus equation that would not make sense to a person who doesn't know math. Anybody got any limits handy. I didn't think so. OK. All right. Let's just skip that part. But anyway I have one on the tip of my tongue I promise. But the point is that if I showed somebody some complicated math or complicated science they might just say like this doesn't make any sense. This is this is contradicting everything that I know about math or something right. You know one divided by infinity or something. You know what it you know it's you know the limit is zero or something you know huh. What is that. But the thing is that's not a good example but there are better examples. The point is though the reason that they would think it's wrong or it doesn't make sense is just because they lack the understanding to comprehend something on a different level and that's how it is with the Bible. You know if we look at the Bible and we see something that doesn't make sense on the surface it's probably just because we have a really rudimentary understanding or we don't quite understand what's going on. And so it's easy for people who know nothing about the Bible to just point out contradictions of the Bible. It's really just stuff that they don't understand stuff that's too deep for them that they can't comprehend it. Let me I'll give you a great example. You know the the time that's given regarding Jesus Christ crucifixion is totally different in the book of John than it is in Matthew Mark and Luke. So on the surface you look at OK where's Jesus at at the sixth hour. He's not in the same place in the book of John at the sixth hour as he is in the other books and you're wondering you know what's going on. Why is this different. Now it'd be easy for someone who lacks understanding to just say well that's a contradiction. Now when I was growing up I didn't understand why those numbers didn't jive. But instead of walking away and saying well the Bible is contradicting itself let me just lose faith in the Bible now. Here's what I said to myself as a young person. I just said you know I don't understand why these numbers aren't driving but I just believe that this is God's word and I trust that it's God's word and you know I just don't understand everything about what's happening here. And then later someone explained to me that the reason why is because of the fact that Matthew Mark and Luke are looking at things from the Hebrew perspective of time where the day starts at 6 a.m. And so you know the third hour of the day would be like 9 a.m. or something. You know because it's starting at dawn and then going three hours third hour of the day whereas the book of John it's more like our perspective of like you know starting at midnight or something where basically it's just it's just a different clock. It's a different author. The books intended for a different audience. It's written in a different geographical location. And so you can't sit there and take something from John and expect it to match up perfectly with Matthew because it's two different perspectives. Two different authors from two different areas that they're writing from different audience and so forth. Those are the type of things where somebody looks at the Bible and says it contradicts they just don't get it. Now to me this should be kind of a no brainer it's kind of simple here. Why he says answer not a fool and answer a fool. Here's what he's basically saying just right on the surface the first thing I would say is he's basically telling you when you're dealing with fools you can't really win with these people right. You're kind of damned if you do and damned if you don't because if you answer the fool according to his folly you end up being found to be like unto him because if I'm sitting here going back and forth with a fool I start to look stupid right. Let's say somebody comes in and starts espousing the flat earth you know and starts teaching that the earth is flat and I sit there and spend an hour arguing with a flat earth or eventually I start to look stupid for even giving this guy the time of day for even engaging in conversations about the fact that the earth is a sphere and not flat because at some point it starts to just be silly even for me to answer him according to his folly because I'm playing his game. But then the Bible says answer a fool according to his folly lest he be wise in his own conceit and what that's saying is that if I don't answer the fool according to his folly then he walks away thinking that he's right. If I don't answer the fool according to his folly he's wise in his own conceit. He's like yeah Pastor Anderson had nothing to say. He didn't even have an answer. So it's like OK if I argue with bozos I end up looking like a bozo. If I don't argue with bozos they end up thinking that they won the argument. So it's kind of a catch 22 isn't it. Well that's life. And so the Bible is kind of explaining to you the pros and cons of answering versus not answering the fool. You decide which is the lesser evil in a particular situation and you kind of just walk away with this knowledge of hey maybe I should just avoid foolish questions. See the New Testament says avoid foolish questions. Why because if I answer the fool according to his folly I end up being like unto him and if I don't answer him he's wise in his own conceit. So let's just avoid it. Avoid foolish questions right. I don't even want to get roped into these kind of arguments because if I walk away then it's like he thinks he won or something. I mean I'll be out soul winning sometimes and I'll knock on somebody's door and you'll have somebody who just wants to argue and I never want to argue with people out soul winning right. So somebody wants to argue with me I'm out like see you later bye. But I've had people follow me down the street they want to keep talking to me right. Who's ever had somebody follow you because you bow out. Yeah lots of people. So you know you knock on somebody's door they're just they're argumentative they're a professional time waster and so you're just like all right hey have a good day see you later. But I've had some people not follow me and want to argue with me. But I've had some people just be like yeah that's right walk away because you don't have an answer for that. You got nothing. Yeah. Who's ever had somebody say something like that. But here's the thing. I don't care because I don't want to be motivated by pride or ego when I'm out soul winning. So if somebody says that's right walk away because you don't have an answer. I'm just like yes I will walk away goodbye. It's not like my pride kicks in all right all right turn around you know got to go back and deal with this guy put him in his place like because I know that it's I'm not going to take the bait because it's a trap because it's a waste of time because somebody down the street might actually get saved. This person just wants to argue and he'll try to use your ego or your pride to get you sucked into that argument like well you're not you just won't answer me because you can't. So I'm just like you know what yeah you got me bye see you sucka. But the thing about that is that then that guy walks away wise in his own conceit the end of the day though that's on him isn't it. Too bad for him. But good news for the guy down the street who actually wants to hear the gospel. So we got to be careful not to get sucked into arguments like that with fools out soul winning. So we saw that the fools for the rods back or excuse me flip that over the rod for the fools back answer not a fool according to his folly lest thou be also like unto him answer a fool according to his folly lest he be wise in his own conceit. He that sendeth a message by the hand of a fool cutteth off the feet and drinketh damage. Now that's a pretty strong way of putting it cutting off the feet and drinking damage that sounds pretty bad. I don't know what all that entails but it sounds rough. Verse number seven is a great verse the legs of the lame are not equal. So is a parable in the mouth of fools. Now what does this mean the legs of the lame are not equal. Well the technical definition of a lame person is that one of their legs is longer than the other. OK. That's one type of lameness that's out there. And so the Bible is comparing a parable in the mouth of fools to this person whose legs are not equal length because their legs don't match and because their legs don't match. This is a handicap to them. They're not able to walk and run and stand the way that they should because their legs don't match. And so the parable in the mouth of fools is his interpretation and the true meaning of the parable don't match. So he's wrongly applying the parable and it doesn't match it doesn't compute. Now a lot of false doctrine is based on wrong interpretation of a parable. And this is why we should never base our doctrine primarily on a parable. Our doctrine should always be based on a clear statement from the Bible a statement of fact from the Bible not a question not a parable not a story. Now here's the thing questions stories and parables can support our doctrine. We can use those as supporting evidence or or they can help flesh out our doctrine and give us more of a feel for what we believe in and give us a better deeper understanding what we believe. And at the end of the day base the doctrine as a foundation on a statement right. So for example you know we have all these clear statements in the Bible that say that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life right really clear as Jesus said verily verily I say to you he that believeth on me hath everlasting life. You know he that believeth he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation but is passed from death to life. So he's really clear statements about salvation being by faith and how we have eternal life and Jesus says I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand and all these verses how we shall not come into condemnation we've been passed from death unto life we have everlasting life we shall never die. These are statements. This is Jesus making a statement in context about salvation. That's the kind of stuff you can really hang your hat on. But then you'll have somebody come along and say well look at this parable of the ten virgins. This proves you can lose your salvation. This parable about ten virgins. No wrong. You're interpreting that parable wrong. If you interpret some pair. Oh look the parable of the sower. This means you can lose. No you're interpreting the parable of the sower wrong because you could use parables to say pretty much whatever you want if you want to just start misusing parables and just saying well this represents this this represents that. I mean think about it. There's a there's a parable about the pearl of great price right. And there's a man and you know he finds this pearl of great price and you know he sells everything that he has so he can get this pearl of great price. Or what about the the the the the the parable of the treasure in the field. The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure in a field. The man finds the treasure in a field. So then he just he gets all his money together sells everything that he has to buy that field because he knows there's treasure in it. So I could misapply that parable if I wanted to and I could say well getting to heaven is like that treasure in a field where you've got to you've got to buy your way into heaven. Just like he had to buy the field to get the treasure of the kingdom of heaven. You have to buy your way into heaven. Just like he had to buy the pearl of great price. You have to pay your own way into heaven it's not a free gift. You got to pay for it. Now that would you're sitting there thinking that's garbage. Why because we have clear statements in the Bible that say that the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And we have all kinds of statements about how salvation is a free gift is paid for by Jesus. So apparently there's another interpretation to that treasure in the field or to that pearl of great price. It's not about getting saved. It's not about buying your way into heaven. Now you could apply it if you let's say you wanted to apply that to salvation. You know it's like treasure in a field and this guy sold everything he had so they could buy that field. A right way of interpreting this would be to say well it's like the treasure in the field in the sense that once you find out about it it really becomes the only thing that really matters and everything else in your life pales in comparison pales in importance. Once you find salvation through Christ once you realize that the kingdom of heaven exists once you realize that Jesus Christ is the son of God it just it becomes so important that like everything else loses importance with respect that that would be a valid interpretation because you know you could back that up with other scripture. And obviously there are more than one correct way there can be more than one correct way to interpret a parable. It's not like these parables only have one valid interpretation and lots of valid interpretations. But if your interpretation doesn't jive with the clear statements of the Bible you've got the wrong interpretation of the story or the allegory or the parable. The Bible is filled with stories parables allegories and they're wonderful things to help us understand the doctrines of the Bible on a more visceral level because we can relate to parables right. The parable is the earthly story with the heavenly meaning and so we can relate to those earthly examples about fishing or about farming or about making food in the kitchen. Those are everyday things that we relate to. And so then we say oh now I understand the spiritual truth. I get it. But that's not the basis for why we believe the doctrines that we believe the doctrines that we believe should ultimately have a firm foundation of statements in the Bible. And then the parables the stories are sort of like the icing on the cake. They're the decorations that we hang on the wall of our doctrinal house. They're the paint that we apply to our doctrinal house to make it more beautiful right. Our doctrinal house our beliefs as Christians are beautiful. And so we decorate and we put up curtains over here and we put up you know a piece of artwork on the wall over here and we have beautiful carpeting over here. But but we don't want to build a foundation of our house out of drapes. Like all right we're going to build a house. The first thing we're to do is lay down carpet. And then we're going to frame out the house on top of carpet. But the first thing we're going to do no concrete no slab no foundation. We're just going to start with paint. We're going to pour paint all over the ground and that's our foundation. Now paint is a wonderful thing. OK. Drywall. You know I'm glad that I live in a house with drywall. I wouldn't want to have a house where it's all just exposed two by fours and everything's exposed and you know I want to have some drywall. But it's not like all right let's build a house lay down the drywall on the dirt and we're going to build the house on top of a stack of drywall. This is ridiculous but it's just as ridiculous to build your doctrine on a parable. You know the parable is there to adorn the doctrine to decorate the doctrine to explain the doctrine to make it more comely or easily understood on a more visceral level. But it shouldn't be the foundation. And here's the big reason why because the parable can be misinterpreted a lot more easily than the statement. The statement has a one clear meaning for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. It's expressing a clear truth. There's no way to misunderstand that verse. You don't walk away saying I wonder what that means. Maybe we can get a more modern Bible version because for all have sinned sounds a little archaic. I can't figure it out. Everybody knows what for all have sinned means. OK. That's the kind of stuff that we want to base our core beliefs on. That's our bedrock of our faith. And then you know these parables and stories and everything they fill out the gap. But a parable in the mouth of fools is something that's not it doesn't match it doesn't fit. The Bible says in verse 8 as he that bindeth a stone in a sling. So is he that giveth honor to a fool. That brings it back to the first verse. You remember how it said honors not seemly for a fool and we said hey we don't want to honor people that are dishonorable people. What does the Bible mean when it says he that bindeth a stone in a sling. So is he that giveth honor to a fool. Basically when you honor the fool you're enabling the fool. You're loading his weapon. You're loading his foolishness gun so you can shoot more foolishness. You're basically you know it says he that bindeth a stone is like you're basically going up to the idiot and handing him a weapon. You're putting the stone in the sling and saying here's a slingshot here's a rock here you go bozo do what that thou doest do quickly or something. You know what it's like you don't want to enable idiots by acting like they're smart by giving them honor by giving them respect. We need to get back to telling idiots that they're idiots. You know when I was growing up if you if you said something stupid your parents would tell you like hey that's a stupid thing to say. Don't say such stupid things. Don't let that kind of foolishness come out of your mouth. I mean that's that's the kind of thing your parents your parents would stop you and say hey don't talk like that. That's fool don't say things that's a dumb thing to say. If you went to school and said something stupid to the teacher the teacher would tell you hey that's a foolish thing that you've said that's stupid don't say that. But now it's like well you know I mean every viewpoint is valid. And people will say the craziest most absurd things flat earth level stuff and it's just like okay well I mean that's that yeah that's a viewpoint that's out there you know that that could be valid. But you know children who grow up in this culture where nobody's ever told that they're wrong nobody's ever told that they're that they're not doing well at something. You know sometimes people need to be told hey you're not you're doing poorly. You need improvement. Work on this. But we live in a culture of too much affirmation. Now obviously we could go too far the other way too and discourage we don't want to discourage people who are trying. You know if people are trying and they're working we don't want to just be like oh man you're terrible you know you're a hopeless case. We want to give constructive criticism and help people grow and encourage people to do better but at the same time when somebody just comes up with something that's just way out in left field sometimes they need to be told bro that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. And just kind of nip that in the butt like maybe the Earth's flat it's just like no. That's stupid. You know what I mean just shut up. Certain ideas the door just needs to be slammed on that idea. But when you live in this time where no viewpoint is invalid and no there's no such thing as a stupid question but yet the Bible says avoid foolish questions. How can I avoid foolish questions if there's no such thing as a stupid question. Apparently the Bible doesn't agree with that adage. Apparently there is such thing as a stupid question or I would have nothing to avoid. And so in this culture where anything goes well then this ends up spilling over into morality where anything goes morally. And that's where we're at today in America where just kind of anything goes. Every lifestyle is valid. Everybody's viewpoint is valid. You know whatever you identify if you identify you're a man but you identify as a woman or something is just like OK. I mean that hey if that's how you feel you know. But yet we believe that there's absolute right and wrong truth and falsehood. You know there's men and women and they're not the same thing. And this whole transgender it's not even possible because trans means across right like a trans Atlantic flight is when you cross the Atlantic. You can't cross that gender boundary. You know there's a great gulf fixed between male and female so that they that would pass from there to here cannot. And those that would pass from here to there can't. It's a great gulf fixed. It's like the gulf between heaven and hell you know. It's like you can't cross it like that it's just not that easy. In fact it's impossible because you'd have to change the DNA in every cell of your body. Every biological cell in your body contains pretty much all of your DNA which is why the police you know are always so happy to give you something to drink all the time. You know it's not that the police just really feel that you're parched and they just really want to give you refreshments. The reason the police want to get your give you refreshments all the time is because they want to get your saliva on that cup not because your saliva necessarily contains the DNA but little cells from your cheek get into the saliva or you know there's going to they're going to find some DNA in there from you because you just have so many copies of your DNA and I've got just so many trillions of copies of DNA in my body right now and they're all male. Every single one of them is male. Okay so you know how are you going to change all that? You can't. You know my DNA can't be changed like that. You can't you know and so you know somebody can mutilate their body. They can chop something off or sew something on but at the end of the day a man is a man and a woman is a woman because of the because of DNA. They've either got that Y chromosome or they don't. They have that Y chromosome they're male. If they don't they're female. It's just that simple. And so but we're living in a day where you know everything's on the table because fools are being said in great honor. People who say stupid outrageous things are given doctorates. They're given PhDs and they're not even sure what a woman is. They can't define a woman but they have a PhD. You know that you know giving a PhD to stupid people I don't care how hard they worked. I don't care if they spent 50 years in school. If they never got to that level of learning they shouldn't be issued these titles of doctor and PhD and things. That's giving honor to a fool at that point. And we've all seen some doctors and PhDs and people and you think how did they get that degree because they're so dumb. And he gave honor to a fool at some point. And they're enabling them. They're putting the stone in the sling for them so that they can use it to do damage to our society. So in verse 7 he said the legs of the lame are not equal so is a parable in the mouth of the fool of fools. Then he talked about giving honor to a fool but then he comes back to the parable in verse 9. As a thorn goeth up into the hand of a drunkard so is a parable in the mouth of fools. What does this mean as a thorn goeth up into the hand of a drunkard? So is a parable in the mouth of fools. I would say that it's kind of hard to know exactly what this means. I'm not going to be dogmatic about this but I was thinking about this and I came up with some ideas. I thought about the fact that, you know, if the drunkard has a thorn going up into his hand how is that any different from anyone else having a thorn going up into their hand? And I thought about it and probably the drunkard is more likely to get the thorn stick in his hand because he's not in his right mind so he's probably being sloppy with his bodily movements. And so he just kind of puts his hand down on some sharp object or whatever. Not only that, I was thinking about how people that are drunk might also be somewhat insensitive to pain. Now can someone verify that? I've never been drunk. I've never been under the influence of alcohol. Is there a numbing effect? You drink to dull the pain. Pain tolerance. Okay, is there a doctor in the house? Here's a real doctor. He said pain tolerance goes up when you're inebriated, right? And so that makes sense. So therefore if pain tolerance goes up and the drunkard leans on the thorn he's not going to realize it right away and it's going to go in a lot deeper and do a lot more damage before he figures out what's happening. His reaction time is probably going to be slowed and things like that. So that's what I make of this, that basically the fool who tries to explain the parables of the Bible to support his false doctrine, he's basically harming himself and doesn't know it. He's doing damage to himself and he doesn't see how dumb what he's saying actually is. Whereas if another person leaned on that thorn they would go, ooh, that's kind of dumb. That's not what the Bible teaches. But the drunkard just kind of leans into that – or the fool leans into his false doctrine and says, well, yeah, yeah, you do have to stop sinning to be saved. And anybody else is just like, dude, who in the world has stopped sinning completely? No one. That doesn't even make any sense. But you'll run into these bozos. They've got a parable. They've got some Bible story. They've got something that they're twisting and taking out of context. And at the end of the day they're really damaging themselves more than anyone else. And they just lean into that false doctrine just like the drunkard would lean into that thorn and it just goes deeper and deeper and deeper into his flesh. You know, I like to run barefoot and when you run barefoot you're going to step on thorns from time to time. And it's just going to happen, especially if you live in Arizona. So you have those little goat heads, those little sharp things. And people ask, do you ever step on one of those when you're running barefoot? All the time. Frequently I'll be running barefoot and I step on one of those. But here's the thing. When I first started running barefoot and I would step on those things, I would step on them and it would be like a couple steps before I realized that I had stepped on it. It would hurt but then I would take a couple more steps and then I would stop and by then I had driven it in much deeper. And usually also it would break off. So then I would take a second step to drive it in, third step rips it off, and then I've got this super deep splinter and then I'd have to go home and do surgery on myself where I'm like digging with a needle and trying to pull this. I could spend like an hour and not even get it out is really annoying. But I noticed that after I had run barefoot for a while, my body learned the second that it steps on one of those things to just instantly stop, just the reaction time of just bam. And so I can't even remember the last time I had one of those thorns go up into my foot and actually break off. It must have been six years ago or something. Whereas it used to be something that would happen like a couple times a month or something where I'd get a splinter and then I'd have to dig out and it was a nightmare. Why? Because my body learned, hey, when you feel that sharp twinge on the bottom of your feet, you got to immediately react, stop immediately, and pull it out before it breaks off, before it goes deeper. And so you think that that's going to work when you're drunk? This is why you should never run barefoot when you're drunk, okay? Better yet, never get drunk. Because whatever activity you're doing when you're drunk, you're probably going to screw it up. You're going to get hurt when you're drunk because your pain tolerance is up. And guess what? Pain is our friend. What if we could just have a superpower where we don't feel pain? Folks, that's not a superpower. You'd probably accidentally kill yourself in some way because pain is a warning signal telling you you're doing something wrong. I mean, if you couldn't feel pain, you just kind of lean on something that's super hot or something. You'd just be like melting your flesh and just be like, what's that smell? So pain is our friend. Pain is there for a reason. That's why when I get a headache, sometimes I might use a painkiller or something, but sometimes just reaching for a painkiller could be just masking an actual problem. Sometimes it's better to try to address, am I dehydrated? Is there a reason why I have this headache that I could maybe fix the actual reason instead of just... I mean, I've seen people, they're just taking painkillers constantly and they're never addressing what's giving them a headache. And so when you're drunk, turning down those pain receptors, that's not good because then you don't realize what's happening. And the Bible, I think that's what he's getting at here with the parable in the mouth of fools. It's like the thorn going into the hand of a drunkard. He doesn't realize how dumb it is, so he leans into it and he doubles down on that false doctrine because he's stupid. Instead of having the wisdom to see, hey, I'm misinterpreting this parable, it's not equal, he leans into it instead. The Bible says in verse 10, the great God that formed all things both rewardeth the fool and rewardeth transgressors. And so that's kind of an interesting statement because you'd expect him to say like, well, he rewards the fool and the wise, or he rewards the righteous and the transgressors. It's kind of interesting that he rewards both the fool and the transgressors, meaning that they're not necessarily always the same thing. Does everybody see that? Because he's rewarding both the fool and he's rewarding transgressors. So what's the Bible mean by separating these two things out and saying, hey, they're both getting rewarded? I think what God's getting at here is that if you go out and do something sinful, you're going to receive a punishment for doing something sinful. That makes sense, right? If I go out and commit a bunch of sins, I'm going to reap what I've sown, bad things are going to happen to me and so forth. But I think what the Bible's saying, not only going out and doing something sinful is going to get you punished, but going out and doing something stupid will also get you punished even if it's not specifically a sin. God also punishes people just for being an idiot, right? Because he rewards both the fool and he rewards transgressors. So apparently it's possible to be a fool even though you're not transgressing and God still punishes you just for being stupid. Why? Because God wants us to be wise. God commands us to be wise. And by the way, Jesus, when he talks about all the evil things that proceed from the heart of man, blasphemy, pride, foolishness, right? And so we need to abhor foolishness. We need to seek wisdom and not just delight in stupidity, delight in foolishness, delight in silliness. You ever see how little kids, just any dumb thing will get them laughing and they'll just laugh hysterically for hours over just something stupid, right? I mean I could just say something, some crude thing right now that's not funny at all and I could just get all the kids laughing right now. Just start throwing out some bathroom humor and just wouldn't even have to be bathroom humor. I could just start saying bathroom stuff. Kids are already laughing and I haven't even started yet, right? So the point is, you know, simple things amuse simple minds, okay? But as we get older, we're supposed to grow up. And so we should not delight in stupidity, delight in foolishness, right? We should delight in things that are more intelligent, smarter, wiser things. Why? Because we don't want to be a person who delights in foolishness because next thing you know, we're out doing stupid things just for kicks and then God's punishing us for being an idiot, okay? So I thought that was a pretty interesting verse that God rewardeth the fool and rewardeth transgressors. The Bible says in verse 11, as a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly, okay? So humans, when they throw up, they want to clean it up, they want to get away from it. The last thing they want to do is get close to it or put it in their mouth, okay? But the dog will throw up and then who's seen a dog throw up and just start eating its own vomit? That's what they do. They puke and then you have to stop them because they, you know, the reason that they threw up is because they had something bad in their stomach. Sometimes they ate the wrong thing and then they throw up the bad thing that they ate and you have to stop them like, no, don't eat that. That's what made you sick and they just want to eat it again. We as humans, you know, we throw up and we feel better because it's like, oh, I got the bad thing out. Maybe I ate something bad and then I threw it up and there's that instant feeling of relief like, oh man, now I don't have that sour feeling in my stomach. But think about how foolish it would be to then turn around and start doing it again and say, well, let me re-eat what I just threw up because that was perfectly good food. It's not, let's just go to waste, I'm still hungry. So as the dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly. And so foolish people, they'll do something that hurts them, they'll do something that injures them, they'll do something that makes them sick. They'll go out and they'll get drunk and wreck their car and continue drinking. They'll go out and get drunk and break the law, end up in jail, continue drinking, right? They'll take drugs and have all these bad things, they'll go to the casino and lose all their money and then they go back. Why? Because as the dog returns to his vomit, so a fool returns to his folly. The Bible says in verse 12, seeest thou a man wise in his own conceit? There's more hope of a fool than of him. So we've just had a whole list of verses about how bad fools are, how God punishes fools, how much damage they do to themselves, how they keep going back and doing the same dumb things over and over again, but the Bible says, hey, there's somebody who's even worse than the fool, the guy who thinks he's smart and is a fool, right? There's more hope for a fool who at least knows that he's a fool than the guy who's wise in his own conceit, the guy who actually thinks that he's smart. And then we get into a whole bunch of verses on lazy people and how, you know, lazy people have all these excuses and how they're so lazy that it's, I love this part in verse 15, the slothful hideth his hand in his bosom, it grieveth him to bring it again to his mouth. Like the lazy man, the sloth man is so lazy that putting food in his mouth is too much work. Like just lifting the fork up to his mouth and putting, that's too much work. Now that might seem like a little bit of an extreme statement in the Bible. That might seem like hyperbole until you drive by the bum camps and what do you constantly find? Half eaten food, always, invariably. The people that are holding Zion hungry, if you go to their encampments, it's just a half a pizza. Who doesn't finish their pizza? I mean like you finish the whole pizza, but you know why? They're too tired to finish their pizza. They're too stoned. They're too messed up. It grieves them. It's too much work. They eat that pizza and they just think like, I just don't know if I have the energy to eat that pizza. Now look, who's ever worked so hard that eating was literally exhausting? I mean I've been there where like you work really hard and you're just like literally chewing makes you tired because you're that tired. I mean I've been there, but I've only been there very rarely in life and it was after working super hard where I was just too tired to even eat. Too tired to even lift my hand in my mouth, but the lazy man, he lives there without the hard work leading up to it. So I'm going to go ahead and end the sermon there, but tonight we got a lot of really attributes of the fool. Really this was just explaining to us all the problem with the fool. All the problems with the fool. He thinks he's smart. If somebody won't correct him, then he walks away wise in his own conceit. He is insensitive to the damage that he's doing to himself. He leans into his foolishness just like someone leaning into a thorn because they don't feel it because they're drunk or something. You know he leans into his stupid decisions. He thinks that the curse comes causeless. He thinks, well, you know, I'm homeless because, you know, that's just the way life is sometimes. That's why I'm out here homeless, you know, it's just, you know, I just drew the short straw in life. It's like, hmm, I wonder if it's because you're an alcoholic. I wonder if it's because you're a drug addict. Because I wonder how many people tonight in Phoenix, Arizona are homeless and they're a teetotaler. That's what I'd like to know. How many people tonight in Phoenix, Arizona are homeless and they're a teetotaler? They never touch alcohol and they never touch drugs. How many do you think there are? What do you think is the percent? It's gonna, it's for sure gonna round down to zero, okay? It's definitely, you know, if we take it to like three decimal places, we're rounding down to zero, buddy, okay? And so the curse causeless shall not come. But the fool, you say that to the fool, oh, how dare you? You don't know what I've been through. Hey, look, man, we all go through stuff. We all have challenges. We all have thorns in our life. The difference is we don't lean into them. We go, ouch, not gonna drink, not gonna snort cocaine, not gonna take methamphetamine, right? Not gonna shoot up heroin, oh, hopefully we don't even, even touch those thorns, okay. Oh, whoa, better not do that sin. Oh, oh, better honor my father and mother, oh, you know. But they just lean in like just, I hate you mom and dad, right? Oh, the boss at work is such a jerk, I'll show him, I'm just gonna walk out of the job. And it's my fifth job this week and I'm walking out cause I'm not getting any respect anywhere I go. I'll show them, I'll drop out of school and quit working and become a drug dealer and I can show them all the wealth that I can get, you know. They lean in to stupid decisions, don't they? And they ruin their lives, they hurt themselves, and so forth. This is why we're reading the book of Proverbs, folks, cause we don't wanna be this guy. We wanna learn from the fool's mistakes and be wise. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you for the book of Proverbs, Lord. Help us to glean its wisdom and to realize that the curse causeless shall not come, Lord. Help us to try to identify the sources of the curses in our lives and to try to be wise and to do right and most of all to honor you so that we could be blessed and so that we could be prosperous and have good success in our lives. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.