Well, we'll come to the symptoms in a moment, but first of all, the cause. What makes a fool a fool? Last week, if you were here, we were thinking about what makes a wise man a wise man. And we were noting that as far as the Bible is concerned, it's not your intellect. Wisdom isn't a measure of your IQ. So you can have very, very brainy people who make an absolute mess of their lives and are a liability in other people's lives as well. Similarly, you can have people who don't have any kind of university degree or anything like that, and you wouldn't think, you know, we're enormously brainy, but they have a good life, they spread happiness around them, and they don't make stupid decisions in life, and they have a kind of a prudent approach to things like money and time and that kind of thing. So wisdom isn't a measure of your intellect, and it's the same with foolishness. It's not a measure of how clever you are. So, if you've got, you know, university degrees stacked up and all the rest of it, and you're known as the right brain box, that doesn't make you immune from being a fool. And academic institutions might have told you you're wonderful, but the jury's still out over your life and whether you're wise or a fool, and it cuts both ways with wisdom and foolishness. The wise person in the Bible is somebody who lives in a right relation to God, who views God in the right way, who responds to God in the right way, who lives their life before God in the right way. And so, in the book of Proverbs and elsewhere, we read that the beginning of wisdom is, ala Aberdeen University's motto, the fear of the Lord. It's the fear of the Lord that is the starting point. for a wise heart and mind and a wisely lived life. Why? Because the fear of the Lord has to do with seeing yourself as accountable to God. It has to do with seeing God knowing more about life than you do. It has to do with reckoning on the fact that God not only knows better, And not only do we have to give an account of ourselves to God, but that he has actually laid out a good path for us to live. So the wise person know, they sort of reckon on things, what would God think of this? Here's an opportunity to make some money. What would God think of this? Is it right? Is it wrong? You know, could it actually stand the light of day? You know, not only would my mother want me to do this, but would God? There's a sense of accountability. And the wise person says, well, if God says no to something, it's a fair bet that he knows more about it than I do, so I'll go that way. There's a sort of an inbuilt humility before God there. And the wise person says, well, God actually has mapped out a practical way to live. He's into sort of nice ideas, and we don't just sing hymns to him and visit him in that sort of home called a church every now and then, and then go away and get on with the rest of life. He has a way for me to live in the real world, and I better walk in it. Well, that's the beginning of wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Now, we see exactly the counterpart with foolishness. What makes a fool a fool? It's not that they didn't pass enough exams. It's they've got the wrong attitude to God. So as the wise begin their wisdom with a fear of God, so the fool is a fool because they've got the wrong attitude to God. Psalm 14, verse 1, the fool says in his heart, there is no God. Now notice what's going on there. Let's just sort of pause. First of all, the heart is the seat in Hebrew writing, in the Old Testament, the heart is the seat of the will. It's not the emotions. I mean, nowadays we talk about the heart as being where our emotions are. It's a seat of the will. So, the fool is the person who says, I will not believe in God. The fool is not the person who's trying to work it all out and wants some evidence but is honestly inquiring and seeking after God and, you know, has an open mind and really wants to know. The fool is the person who has said, I will not believe in God. I don't want to believe in God. It doesn't matter what the evidence is. It doesn't matter what the claims are. It doesn't matter how high the stakes might be. I just don't want to believe in God. It's from the heart. In Hebrew, the will. The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. I don't want God in my life. I don't want there to be a God, because the fool wants to do the things that God would say no to. In the heart there is a desire for making one's own choice, ruling one's own life. cutting one's own path, never mind whoever. Some of the Boffins described the age in which we live as an age of postmodernism. And by and large, you would reckon, if you trace some of the thinking of postmodernism back, you would reckon that sort of the grandfather of postmodernism was the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Now it's no accident that Nietzsche, two of Nietzsche's big ideas that have filtered all through our society are God is dead and the will to power. That is the human will has a will to gain and hold and keep hold and exercise power over, you know, whatever, over all choices in life. And that will to power is supposed to be given its freedom only when you've managed to kill God off. So you have deliberate anti-theism so that you can then live the life you want to live with nobody to give account to, nobody to call the shots, nobody to tell you that you're wrong. Nobody to patronizingly tell you that you're right. Basically, you just couldn't give a fig about what anybody else thinks. You're going to live your life. And you might take on some social customs and conventions about, you know, putting something in the tin when it's shaking in the street or, you know, trying to be nice to the neighbors or whatever it happens to be, but you're living your own life, ruling it. Now, you don't need Friedrich Nietzsche to come up with something like that, you just need Psalm 14. The fool says in his heart, there is no God. They, that is those who say this, are corrupt, their deeds are vile, there is no one who does good. They have turned aside, turned aside from God's ways and have together become corrupt. That is, they want to do their own thing. The fool wants to do his own thing. The fool will not listen. The fool thinks he knows best. The fool must get rid of, in his or her mind, the fool must get rid of God. who always otherwise is going to be lurking in the background cramping your style, spoiling your fun, dumping guilt on you, whatever. So the thing you must get rid of is any sense of accountability to a God. That is the fool. Now you don't need to be conscious and deliberately doing that every day. When we, we don't have the time, it's not printed for us to read, but if we were to take our Bibles and open them in the book of Romans in the New Testament, we would find the author there, the Apostle Paul, quoting this, not just to describe a particular class of people who we would all reckon are especially foolish, but in fact to describe all of us. Later on in the Old Testament, in the book of Isaiah, the same thing is a description of everyone, that we all, like sheep, have gone astray. We have all turned to our own way. It's not just the people that we would all socially recognize as the fool. Actually, we've all got this problem by nature. By default, that's where we all are. So what does foolishness look like in practice? What are the symptoms of this condition of the heart that refuses God and is determined to go its own way? What are the symptoms? Well, as we're going through these verses and psalms, which are, in the Proverbs, which are often like sort of strings of, a string of pearls. It's not that, you know, each individual pearl is necessarily connected to the next pearl. It's just that they're all in the same string. And that's often the best way to read most of the book of Proverbs from about, after the early chapters on. In the earlier chapters, there's sort of a point being made that runs like an argument through those chapters, thereafter you tend to get sort of strings of pearls. But in these strings of pearls, sometimes the fool is called the fool, sometimes he's referred to as the wicked, sometimes it's just whatever is contrasted with the wise. So you don't have to read the word fool to see what the symptoms of being a fool are. Well, let's launch in, shall we? Proverbs 10, verse 18, have a look at it with me. He who conceals his hatred has lying lips, and whoever spreads slander is a fool. So here are the symptoms of foolishness in society. In his own heart, the fool has said, there is no God, I don't want God, refuse God, I'm going my own way, thank you very much. What is that person like when they get out in society? They're an absolute liability. They spread slander. So they say stuff that isn't true. They say it in order to cause trouble. They do cause trouble. They're an absolute liability. Truth means nothing to them. The impact of their lies means nothing to them, unless, of course, it's an impact that they're wanting. So they spread slander, doing other people down, hinting, little innuendo here or there. A little comment, or it might be just an absolute pork pie that they're telling. But they're just spreading slander. And there's some sort of pleasure in spreading it around. If you ever have people like that in your workplace, you'll know the damage that they do. The damage they do to people's careers, people's reputations, the damage they do to people's health. If you've ever been in a situation where you're absolutely dreading going into work or into some particular, maybe a family situation, because of things that have been said about you, you'll know what a lethal person the fool is to have around. And this pouring out of words goes on in the next verse, when words are many, sin is not absent. No. Well, we know that's true, don't we? People say more than it's right to say. When words are many, sin is not absent. But he who holds his tongue is wise. And as we go through, we see more of that coming out. Verse 21, the lips of the righteous nourish many, but the fools, fools who spread slander, fools who come out with words, words, words, words, words, and sin is in them, words that come out of a wicked heart, little value, fools die for lack of judgment. So righteous people nourish others with their words. Fools starve themselves to death with their words through lack of judgment. So fools, what does that look like in practice? Fools come out with stuff that loses friends. Fools come out with stuff which cuts off the flow of goodwill towards them. Fools come out with stuff which turns people against them. Fools come out with stuff which gets them into one pickle after another. And the good life just dies. A fool, verse 23, finds pleasure in evil conduct, but of a man of understanding delights in wisdom. That is, a fool delights in that which God hates. A fool finds pleasure in evil conduct. You maybe come across people like that who just seem to get a perverse pleasure in making trouble for others. There's no financial benefit, doesn't do their career any good, they just enjoy it. Well, the Bible says that kind of person is a fool. And it goes on in the next chapter, Proverbs chapter 12. Of course, if the fool has said there's no God and I'm going to go my way, then the way of the fool will seem right to him. And once somebody's got it made up in their head that their way is right, then they're not going to listen to advice, are they? You can't tell a fool anything. And after a while you give up. The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice. I know best, says the fool. And very often there's a whole lot of personal insecurity wrapped up in that, isn't there? So the fool shows his annoyance at once. Temper flares up. No control. No just being able to take something and consider it and just let it drop. The fool can't let anything drop. The fool can't just, you know, turn aside The fool will always inflame a situation. The fool will escalate a row. The fool will take a comment the wrong way and go to war over it. The fool shows his annoyance at once. No self-control. And so, the description of a foolish life continues. The fool is a false witness who tells all. The fool pierces people with reckless words. The fool lies, and of course the lies are never consistent. You can tell the truth twice, but you can only tell a lie once. The next time there'll be something different in it. The fool in his heart plots evil. The fool, well here's the thing in verse 22, the Lord detests lying lips. And then in Proverbs 17 there, that one verse, the discerning man keeps wisdom in view, but a fool's eyes wander to the ends of the earth. Always looking around for some new novel thing. Always looking around for some new great word of wisdom from somewhere or another. always looking around for some fresh evil to do, fresh trouble to make. A discerning man keeps wisdom in view, but a fool's eyes wander to the ends of the earth. So the underlying cause, saying a refusal of God. I don't want God to rule my life, thank you. I know best. All those symptoms in a person's own heart and in society, the kind of damage that the fool does. Now here's the thing, that the Bible is so clear, we've mentioned already from Romans, from Isaiah chapter 53, that not one of us can delude ourselves, fool ourselves into thinking that we don't have some of this. The wonderful thing is, and this is what both Isaiah 53 and Romans talk about, is that there is a cure, there is a remedy, that the fool can be cured, the fool can become a wise man. And it's God who makes the change, because it's God who changes the heart. It's God who turns that person around. The guy who wrote Romans was incredibly clever, massive intellect, but he was a fool because that man was saying, I don't want Jesus Christ as Lord. I'm going to try and snuff his name out. And that man who wrote Romans was exactly like the fool of Proverbs 12, 15, his way seemed right to him. But God stepped into that man's life and God felled Saul of Tarsus and gave him a new heart, so that from then on Paul the apostle loved God and feared and honored God. and became a wise man. If you see anything of the character of the fool, if you spot any of the symptoms in yourself, then the answer is get the heart right with God. If there's something in your heart that's saying, I don't want God—it might not be totally, but I don't want him in this part of my life or that part of my then root that attitude out and get the heart right with God. Let's pray.