In Peter Allison's sermon titled 'Dealing with Fools,' delivered at an unspecified church, the focus is on Proverbs—a book in the Bible rich with insights on fools. The sermon defines a fool not by mental capacity but by mental attitude, highlighting pride and a disdain for wisdom. Key principles for responding to fools are discussed, emphasizing the use of a chiasm—a literary device that highlights critical points. The dilemma of how to deal with fools is addressed with two seemingly contradictory principles: not answering a fool to avoid becoming like him, and answering a fool to prevent him from being wise in his own eyes. The sermon also examines the ineffectiveness of fools handling truth and cautions against hiring fools, as they bring harm to themselves and others. Using examples from biblical figures like David, Elijah, and Elisha, the speaker illustrates the real consequences of curses and folly. The importance of presuppositional apologetics is highlighted, urging believers to argue from a standpoint of God's existence rather than trying to prove it through logic alone. The sermon concludes with practical advice for raising children and avoiding being wise in one's own eyes by recognizing the wisdom and strengths of others, attributing all knowledge to divine providence, and embracing humility.

This section we back in Proverbs. After some weeks in the Gospel loop, we're back in Proverbs for a time. And this section deals with fools. You might think that all of Proverbs has a lot to say about fools, and it does. It certainly does.

Of all the books of the Bible, Proverbs has the most to say about fools. But of all the book of Proverbs, this chapter has almost a quarter of the references to the word fool. And they're right in our twelve verses this morning, almost every verse that we read. All but one talk about a fool. The Bible in talking about a fool is not talking about somebody's mental capacity, but it's speaking about their mental attitude.

Some of the very smartest people the world has ever known are fools in the Bible's definition. A fool is someone who is proud, who despises wisdom and instruction. This word for fool here is the word kassil. There's different types of fools. This is a fool who is not speaking of somebody who is naive, but rather somebody who is mocking the Word of God.

And there's a dilemma. There's a dilemma in how to deal with a fool. What do you say? Do you answer them, or do you ignore them? And this passage gives us, this section here, gives us the principles for how to deal with a fool.

It gives us some wisdom to answer those who despise wisdom. It gives us these principles of taking the foolishness of the fool and giving it back to him so that he is not wise in his own eyes, but also not answering the fool so that we do not become like him. We don't want to become like the fool. And that is a very significant danger in trying to answer a fool. So, I'd like to this morning look at these verses, each of which give to us an aspect of dealing with the fool.

They give to us these principles, And the culmination of those principles is in verses four and five. And so in your handout, you can see there is somewhat of a chiasm in the text. And I won't go into the detail about chias. And we've seen these a number of times before. They are throughout the Book of Proverbs.

And they tie all of the book together. They tie. They are often how we can tie these proverbs together in sections. They're not always so easily grouped together like our text is today by its single focus on a fool. But even here in this text there is, there are actually two chiasms that I think that interlock, both dealing with the fool.

But the first chiasm is in verses one through eight. You can see on your handout that the center of the chiasm is the emphasis. That's what the text is trying to emphasize. So it's just a literary device, chiasm, to emphasize a point. In this case, the point that's being emphasized are these two principles of how to answer a fool.

It's almost like they're a contradiction. Answer a fool and then don't answer a fool. But we'll see how those are not contradictions but rather two principles the Bible gives us to answer a fool. So the first principle is in verses 1 and 8. And that is that honor is not fitting for a fool.

And when the Bible says that something is not fitting, it's saying it should not be done. Honor should not be given to a fool. It's a bad thing. It's to take what is meant for the wise and to give it to those for whom it is not meant. And the Bible here has, the text has two very, very graphic figures of speech to show us what honor, what it's like to give honor to a fool.

It says, as snow in summer and rain in harvest, so honor is not fitting for a fool. Snow in summer is out of place. Rain in the harvest destroys the harvest. If you're out trying to cut the grain and it rains right at that moment, it can ruin a harvest. So it's not fitting.

The other figure that's given is like one who binds a stone in a sling. One who binds a sling is what David used to kill Goliath. Remember he took a stone and he put it in the sling and he swung it around and around and around and that swinging it around causes the stone to, gives the stone a lot of force to fly out of the sling and kill Goliath. But a fool, giving honor to a fool, would be, according to Proverbs, like somebody who binds, who attaches the stone in the sling so that it doesn't fly out. The whole sling becomes useless as a weapon.

It's ruined. If the stone is bound into the sling, if it's anchored in the sling, you can swing the sling around but the stone doesn't fly out. You don't have a very effective weapon anymore. And that's what the Bible says giving honor to a fool is like. Secondly, the next set in the chiasm tells us that the fools can't handle truth.

And it's the truth in two ways. The truth in a negative sense and the truth in a positive sense. So verse two speaks about like a flitting sparrow, like a flying swallow, so a curse without a cause, well not a light. And in verse 8, like the legs of the lame that hang limp is a proverb in the mouth of fools. You can give a proverb to a fool, you can give him truth, but he doesn't know what to do with it.

It's like legs on a lame person, they're not useful for anything. So You can give the truth to a fool, but it's useless to him. He doesn't know how to either use it for himself, and he doesn't know how to use it with somebody else. The truth to a fool are like the legs on a lame person that can't walk. They're also, in the negative sense in verse 2, like a flitting sparrow, like a flying swallow.

These are birds that just pop around. They're always hopping around. The Bible says, a curse spoken by a fool, a curse that has no cause, doesn't alight. It's not effective. There's no...

It doesn't do anything. It doesn't accomplish anything. When a fool gets frustrated, let's say, when they can't answer an insightful question, they start throwing curses around. If you don't know the answer, then curse. Then use profanity.

It punctuates. It creates force when you don't have any force in your words. But see, these things that they're throwing around, these curses, they're meaningless. It's like Goliath's curses on David. Remember Goliath said he was going to take David and he was going to feed him to the birds and so on.

Because David said, I come to you in the power of God. Goliath didn't know what to do with that. So he started throwing curses, but it didn't happen, did it? They were ineffective. There was nothing that came...

The curses that Goliath put on David actually came back on himself. Or the curses that Shimei put on David when David is fleeing from Absalom. Remember, he stood across the river cursing David. And David said, in that case, just let him. Maybe the Lord has called him to that.

Because David knew that If God had called him to give those curses, then they were in fact true, and there was no point in attacking Shimei for it. But if God hadn't given him those curses, and they were just the curses of a fool, then they weren't going to alight, and they weren't going to bring any harm on David. And so David wasn't concerned at all about doing anything with Shimei at that point in his life. But on the other hand, when Elijah cursed, called down fire from heaven on those men, soldiers that came to him, that actually happened. When Elisha put a curse on these people that were kids that were mocking him, that was affected.

A bearer, God sent a bear out of the woods that mauled those youths. Or when Jotham put a curse on Abimelek and the men of Shechem. That happened because that wasn't a cause baseless curse. Or there was a curse that was put on anybody who had rebuilt Jericho. Remember, Jericho was destroyed in a miraculous way.

The army of God marched around the city one time every day and then seven times on the last day and they blew the trumpets, they shouted and the walls fell down all of their own accord and they fell down in such a way that the Israelite army was able to walk right up into the city completely unopposed. So those walls were a very significant aspect of God's power that was displayed in Jericho. And there was a curse that was put on anyone who would rebuild those walls that God had torn down. So Joshua, Joshua 6.26, so Joshua charged him at that time saying, Cursed be the man before the Lord who rises up and builds the city of Jericho. He shall lay its foundation with his firstborn, and with his youngest he will set up the gates." Now, that wasn't a fool giving a curse without a cause.

That curse was real. And it alighted on those who rebuilt Jericho as a city. And the Bible records that a little later in our account, or as we're reading through a little later. It says that in the days of Ahab, Hiel of Bethel built Jericho, and he laid its foundation with the virum his firstborn, and with his youngest son, Saga, he set up its gates according to the word of the Lord, which he had spoken through Joshua, the son of Nun, that cursed that he would lose his firstborn and his youngest son. When he laid the foundation and we set the gates, the Bible says that happened.

But see, the curse of a fool, it doesn't alight. It doesn't, it's ineffective. It doesn't do anything. We don't have to be concerned with the curses of fools. We don't have to get worried when they start throwing out all their crazy things that they say at us.

Fools can't handle the truth. But the next principle is that fools and those who hire them bring harm on themselves. The rod is made for the back of a fool. A whip for the horse and a bridle for the donkey and a rod for the back of a fool. In verse 6, he who sends a message by the hand of fools cuts off his own feet and drinks violence.

So it's not just a fool who is harmed, who receives corporal punishment, but those who use fools, those who hire fools, those who try to get fools to do something useful, put their trust in fools. When you send a message by a fool, you are entrusting something of value to somebody who is not worthy, who is not able of holding that trust. And so the Bible says that when we do that, when we hire a fool, then we get our own feet cut off. Cuddle. A fool's lips walk into a fight, Proverbs says, and his mouth invites a beating.

Proverbs also says, whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. See, it's not enough just to not be a fool ourselves, but Bible says we have to not be willing, not be content to be in the company of fools, not try to useful to hire them or to walk with them, because the companion of fools will suffer harm. Now there's another verse here in verse 10 that also speaks of this same principle. And so we now begin to get into this second interlocking chiasm. But verse 10 needs a word of comment.

Verse 10 has been called the most obscure verse in Proverbs, and maybe the most obscure verse in all of the Bible. And the difficulty, so verse 10, just to read it, The King James and the New King James say, The great God who formed everything gives the fool his hire and the transgressor his wages. But in the text, you'll see that I put the translation like an archer who wounds indiscriminately, so is he who hires a fool or drunkard passing by. Now it doesn't sound at all like the same verse. And you might say, well how in the world can you get those two, Do they get those two translations out of this verse?

It's not a question of the text. Everybody is translating the same words. But the difficulty centers around this word, rob. King James translates it, the great God. But most people today agree that the word means archer in this verse.

And you might wonder, well how can that be? How can somebody translate the word great God and somebody else say, well that word means archer? Well, I'll say this. This word is used a lot in the Bible, maybe 450 times in the Old Testament. It has a very wide semantic range of meaning.

Most frequently it means many, many or great or much. That's how it's often translated. Many, great, much. But it's also translated time. It's translated as shipmaster in Jonah.

Remember when the shipmaster went down to Jonah to awaken him there in the middle of this storm and Jonah's sleeping down there and says this shipmaster went down to awaken him. That's the same word there in Jonah, shipmaster. It's translated captain in a number of places in the Bible as well. In places that refer to the Babylonian guard. Remember the captain of the guard that came in and carried off all the smart and bright youth to Babylon.

So my Hebrew lexicon does have an entry for archer in it for this word. And you might ask, well, wow, How can that be? Well, just think of this. Think of our word check, the word check. You ever think about how wide of a range of meaning that word has?

It's a statement of money owed, a bill. You ask for the check at a restaurant. Or you write a check, which is the opposite. It's a payment of money. Or you check a job off a list.

You deselect it. Or you check the correct answer, meaning you select something. Or you check your pride, meaning that you put a mental restraint on it. Or you check a hockey player. Or you check an army's advance, meaning that you put a physical restraint on it.

Or you put the king in check, if you're playing chess, it means it's a condition of danger. Or you check your coat, which is a temporary transfer of custody. Or you check into a flight, which is to register your presence. Or you check into a hotel, which means you assume liability for a temporary residence. Or you buy a blue check dress, which means it's a pattern on material.

Or you take a check ride, which is to take a test. Or you check the tire pressure, which is to inspect. And so checking a test is different from checking a house or checking an air conditioner, or checking the fire, which is to tend to it, which is different from checking your email. And so don't, don't laugh too hard about the Hebrews in this wide semantic range of this word. We have the same thing going on in our language and you can imagine somebody trying to translate our language and wondering What do you do with this word check?

So this is what we have going on here in verse 10. And I believe that if we look at the chiasm, that gives us a very significant clue as to how to translate this. And another thing to remember is that in Hebrew a lot of times verbs are missing. You just have a series of nouns and the verb is assumed. And so that's also happening in this case.

And so it can become legitimately a difficult question to translate. But you see there is a bit of a chiasm here with verse 10 and verse 6. If you look in your chart, you can see that they both say, don't hire a fool. One, you get hurt, and two, you hire a fool. Others get hurt.

And so this verse then becomes like an archer who wounds indiscriminately, so is he who hires a fool or a drunkard passing by. You hire a fool, that's like somebody just shooting random arrows, firing a gun indiscriminately around you, just going to hurt people. That's like hiring a fool. But that's paired up with hiring a fool to send a message is like cutting off your own hands and drinking violence. Okay, so people who hire fools hurt themselves and they hurt others.

Now the center of this is how to answer a fool. How to answer a fool. The Bible says don't answer a fool. Don't answer a fool lest you be like him. We don't want to answer a fool so that we don't become like him.

Fools frustrate, a curse when they get frustrated because they don't have good answers. They say stupid things when they are brought face to face with their folly. Proverbs says, the vexation of a fool is known at once, but the prudent ignores an insult. We don't want to answer a fool, lest we be like him. We don't want to respond in kind to him.

Facebook is a continual example of people trying to answer fools. And they fall in and you see these invectives just fly back and forth as people become like the fool that they are answering. Fools can also say stupid things. And so if you try and answer a scoffer, you can easily get sucked into that same foolish language that they are using. You can't reason with somebody who despises reason and instruction.

How do you reason with somebody who despises reason? You can't. So Proverbs says, Proverbs 23, 9, Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words. A fool's mouth is his destruction, and his lips are the snare of his soul. Let a man meet a bear robbed in her cubs rather than a fool in his folly." And so at the same time though, we are to answer fools.

There is a proper time and a manner to answer a fool. And the purpose though of answering a fool is so that he doesn't become wise in his own eyes. Because unanswered words might convey the impression that there is no answer and that would allow a fool to become arrogant in the mistaken belief that nobody can answer them. And so these two verses taken together are really a very powerful endorsement, or a powerful principle that is worked out in what we call presuppositional apologetics. Suppose somebody challenged you to prove that God exists in a logical and rational way, right?

That's what an atheist would love to do. They would just prove that the Bible, to prove to me God exists. If He is real, then prove it to me. As soon as we start to answer this fool, because that is what the Bible says they are, the fool that says there is no God, as soon as we start to answer this fool and prove that God exists, we become like Him. That is a significant point.

As soon as we try to answer the fool that way and prove that God exists, we become like Him. That is a significant point. As soon as we try to answer the fool that way and prove that God exists, we become like Him. Because the fool has said there is no God. And The moment that we start to accept the hypothesis and prove that God exists, we have become like the fool and have assumed that God does not exist.

See if we use the laws of logic to prove something, we are assuming that the laws of logic exist in our valley. And if we assume that the laws of logic exist, but we don't assume that God exists, then we become like the fool, assuming that the laws of logic can exist apart from God. That's what the fool assumes. He wants to use logic to prove that God exists. But where did his logic come from?

Ultimately, if you engage with somebody, they will ultimately have to say, well, they just assume they exist. And so how should we answer a fool? Or we don't answer him like, like, answer him lest we be like him. See, we have to begin, if we're going to answer a fool so that he's not wise in his own understanding and so that we don't become a fool like him, we must begin by presupposing the existence of God and evangelizing him with the Scriptures, just like he wants to presuppose the existence of logic. See, we have an explanation for where the laws of logic come from.

They come from a God who has always existed, who is the author of everything. And the laws of logic are simply then a reflection of the way God thinks, a reflection of his character, of his being. And So our worldview has an explanation for these laws. The atheist doesn't. He just has to assume that they exist with no basis for it.

So see, we must begin by presupposing the existence of God and evangelizing Him with the Scriptures. Now that doesn't mean we just quote John 3.16, but rather we want to show that without God he can't account for anything. He can't account for the laws of logic he wants to use. He can't account for laws of morality that he wants to abide by. He doesn't want us killing him or stealing from him.

But he can't account for these things. He just assumes they are valid. And so when we show him that he's just assuming that they are valid, we are showing him his folly. He's just assuming something with no basis for it, which he denies his very premise that he's going to prove all things by the laws of logic. See, by us, by the Christian presupposing the existence of God, we can demonstrate the folly of the fool.

But we have to begin with the scripture as the word of God. We have to make that our starting point. That is the true record. That is the eyewitness account of history. He claims that the Bible is not true.

Well, When he says that, it shows that he believes there is a truth. Where does he get his truth, we can ask him. He might say, well, truth is what corresponds to reality or scientific discovery that's provable by the laws of logic. But you see, to prove something by scientific discovery assumes inductive reasoning. That's how science works.

And there are assumptions in inductive reasoning. There is assumptions that things will work tomorrow just like they worked in the past that way. It assumes that we can understand reality. It's not an alternate universe out there. And so to claim science and the inductive principle in which it is based without any basis for it is to assume something to be true without any evidence.

And so you see we do we can show the folly of the fool. Now these principles about dealing with fools also relate to raising our children. There's a number of applications here for raising children because The Bible says that foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. And so, one, don't give honor to foolishness. Don't be entertained by the foolishness of children when they're disobedient, when they're not obeying.

Sometimes they can be very cute, but the Bible says they're a fool and it's not right. It's not fitting to give honor to a fool. And when we look at them and when we laugh at how cute their disobedience is, And they can be very cute when they're not disobedient too. But when they're disobedient, when they're not doing what's right, and they're very cute, then we don't want to give honor to them. We don't want to be entertained by their foolishness.

We don't want to take everything they say, especially things they say negatively about us seriously, right? Because verse two, the fool doesn't know how to handle the truth, doesn't know how to handle words, doesn't know how to handle truth negatively or positively. Verse three, the rod is made for the back of the fool. Children, our foolishness is bound up in them. And the Bible says the rod of correction will drive it from them.

They need to be disciplined. They are in their days as they are born, they are born in foolishness. We don't want to ignore the foolish things that a child says. A fool must be answered so that they are not wise in their own estimation. But we also don't want to answer a fool according to what he says, unless we are like him.

We do that when as parents we get into an argument or we get into a discussion with our children, a debate when we tell them to do something and they say why. See when we begin to engage in that discussion, that debate, we go down that road we are answering a fool and becoming like him. As parents we need to recognize that God has given us authority and they need to learn to obey first. And then after they've learned to obey, then we can have a discussion why, but not before. So it's very easy to get wrapped up into, as parents, to get caught up into those kinds of discussions and negotiations about things when our children aren't submitting.

They need to submit first and then have the discussion. Otherwise we are becoming like them. But I think one of the most important principles here is verse 7. And that is the principle that fools can't handle truth. Fools can't handle truth.

We can't teach a fool something if they have not acknowledged and repented of their foolishness. A fool despises, Proverbs says, a fool despises his father's instruction. And we're wasting our time when we try to reason with a child in their foolishness. The Bible has given to us means. And we need to use those means to bring children to a point of acknowledging their folly and repenting of it.

And it's then, it's then that they will receive our instruction. How many times have you seen a parent trying to reason with a two-year-old child? It's foolishness. It doesn't work. Because fools do not know how to handle the truth.

You also, another principle here is that we can't rescue fools from themselves. A dog returning to its own vomit, like a dog returning to its own vomit, a fool will repeat its folly and if you rescue them you only have to do it again. Sometimes fools need to experience the consequences of their folly. The underlying foolish behavior must be replaced by biblical obedience before it does any good. Otherwise they will continue to repeat their falling.

So a fool is a pretty desperate situation, a pretty desperate person. They return, they repeat their falling, they despise wisdom, they can't handle the truth, they don't know how to speak, they harm everybody that's around them and those that use them. But here I think is the primary focus of this whole passage. It says, do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.

After all the things that have been said about fools, that's a very strong statement. Why? Somebody who is wise in their own eyes, there is more hope for a fool than for him. The great hindrance to all true wisdom is that we have already attained wisdom that we are wise in our own eyes. A person who is wise in their own eyes is someone who doesn't receive counsel, Someone who doesn't listen, someone who thinks they are immune to temptation.

They're saying, I'm not tempted by this or that, I'm immune. I'm above that. That's somebody who's wise in their own eyes. There's more hope for a fool than for them. And someone who thinks that they can carry fire in their bosom and not be burned.

There's more hope for a fool than there is for that person who is wise in their own eyes. It's someone who doesn't listen to those who disagree because they think they are right in their own eyes. See these are all the characteristics of pride. So what are the remedies to not being wise in our own eyes? Well it's to meditate on what other believers know or do well that we don't know or do as well.

Maybe we can remember how easily they can recall what the Bible says, how quick they might be to stop and to pray, how bold they are in sharing the gospel with others, how generously they give of their time and money, how lovingly they exhort others, how they're able to suffer with joy. I mean, as we look around us and we begin to see what others do better than us and we begin to recognize that, then we will cease being so wise in our own eyes. Secondly, we need to remember that all that we have, we've been given. Anything we know about God, anything we know about sin, or holiness, or sanctification, or heaven, or hell, or about marriage, or raising children, or ministry, or anything, even farming. The Bible says even the farmer who knows how to plow, and when to stop plowing, and when to plant, and how to thresh and harvest this grain versus that grain, that basic knowledge Isaiah says the Lord gives us.

So when we recognize that anything we have, whether It's on any knowledge we have, the Lord has given it to us. Any wealth that we have, it's the Lord that has given us the power to get wealth, not our own ingenuity. You see, as we recognize that everything we have, God has given to us, that will lead us away from being wise in our own eyes. And third is to remember that God's strength is made perfect in our weakness. That we are only strong when we are weak.

When we are weak. Paul said, then I am strong. And so he was willing to glory in his weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon him. You see, when we recognize that it is in our weakness that we are strong, that it is in our weakness that the strength of God is made perfect complete, will help us to be less wise in our own eyes. May God so enable us to see His wisdom and the wisdom of others before our own, that we not be worse off than the fool.

Almighty Heavenly Father, we thank you for your Word that brings wisdom to us. We also thank you for your Holy Spirit that enables us to see and to understand the wisdom of your Word that can break down the pride of our own imagination. Father, we ask that you would grant to us grace to submit ourselves to one another, and to above all to be clothed with humility. For you resist the proud but give grace to the humble. Ask me for praying this in Jesus' name.

Amen.