In the sermon 'Begetting a Fool' by Peter Allison, the speaker reflects on Proverbs 17:21, which warns about the sorrow associated with raising a foolish child. The sermon emphasizes that foolishness is inherent in all children at birth, but through proper guidance, they can be led to wisdom. The speaker outlines six main steps that can lead to raising a fool: failing to teach obedience, not instilling the value of work and rest, neglecting to lead by example, failing to pray in faith for children, not recognizing the individual differences in children, and provoking children to wrath. Allison underscores the crucial role of parental example and consistent discipline, as well as the necessity of prayer and reliance on God's grace in nurturing wise and godly children. He contrasts the outcomes of a foolish child, such as perversion of justice and godless goals, with the joy a wise child brings. The sermon concludes with the hopeful message that God can save fools through faith in Jesus Christ, transforming hearts to love truth and embrace joy.

Our scripture reading is from Proverbs chapter 17. Verse 21. He who begets a scoffer does to his sorrow, and the father of a fool has no joy. A merry heart does good like medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones. A wicked man accepts a bribe behind the back to pervert the ways of justice.

Wisdom is in the sight of him who has understanding, but the eyes of a fool are on the ends of the earth. A foolish son is a grief to his father and bitterness to her who bore him. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Almighty Heavenly Father, ask that You would sanctify these sinful lips to proclaim Your truth, words of holiness. I ask, Father, that your Holy Spirit would enlighten us now as we look at your Word.

That you would strip away the scales that blind us, the deceptions that deceive our heart, the distractions of this, of the cares of this life that would turn us away from hearing your word to us this morning. I ask Father that you would come in the power of your Spirit and speak to us in Jesus name. Amen. He who begets a fool does it to his sorrow. Well we've heard a lot about fools as we have worked our way through the book of Proverbs.

It's a very prominent theme, a very prominent person. And once again, we see a fool presented to us this time. That fool is in the form of a son or a daughter, a child. A fool is somebody who fundamentally does not listen to instruction, specifically the instruction of his father or mother. A fool is somebody who hates correction.

They hate the process of discipline, the necessary component for all of us. He who begets a fool. We are all born as fools. Proverbs says that foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. That we are conceived in sin and born in iniquity.

So we are all born fools. But the promise of the Word of God is that He changes us. That He will make us wise. So this begetting a fool isn't just referring to the specific act of giving birth to somebody. It's not just referring to the narrowly begetting.

That's essentially what that means to procreate to produce to father someone it but it's it's really a synecdoche a Phrase that captures all of the process of what we would call having children certainly begins with their conception and then their birth. In verse 25 talks about bitterness to the mother who bore this child. So there's these two verses that are bracketing this section, dealing with a foolish child. But the beginning of full is speaking then broadly of the whole process of bearing and raising children. Such that when our children have grown up, the foolishness in which they were conceived and born is, instead of being by the grace of God, trained and taught and changed, is there to a greater degree.

And with their gifts, greater gifts and ability and strength as grown-ups they have set themselves to greater folly. And so what then are the steps in begetting a fool? What is this proverb speaking about when it says that he who begets a scoffer or a fool does so to his sorrow? It's the same, it's two different words for fool. They're in verse 21, but they both mean a fool.

How do we beget a fool? Because Proverbs also talks about wise sons being a great blessing to their parents, to those that raise them. So what is the difference between the son who is a fool and the son who is a blessing. The son who is a fool causing grief and sorrow and bitterness and the son or daughter who is a blessing. Because both were born in sin, both had foolishness bound up in their heart.

There is no one, there is no not one, there is no exception. We are all born in sin, we are all born as fools. Foolishness is bound up in us. Well, I have six thoughts here this morning on the steps of begetting a fool. And the first is to fail to teach our children to obey, to fail, to teach obedience.

Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction, the rod and reproof, will drive it from them. You see, if we can't obey God, who we can't see? If we can't obey our parents, who we can see? John says this is the true of love. He says if you claim to love God, but you hate your brother, you're a liar.

Because you cannot love God whom you can't see, if you can't love this person that's standing right in front of you. In other words, the one is necessary to the other. You can't do something that's harder and more difficult if you can't do something that's right in front of you. It's like somebody, it's like a child saying, well, I can do logarithms and exponents, but I can't add. Well, that's impossible.

Because, as I taught my children, multiplication is just compact addition. And logarithms and exponents is just compact multiplication. And one is necessary to the other. So the same is true of our obedience. We can't claim to obey God if we can't obey those who are standing in front of us, who come in God's name with God's authority.

And so our children can never obey the Lord. We can't expect them to obey the Lord, to grow up walking in the ways of the Lord, following His precepts, delighting in His ways, if they are not growing up obeying us and walking in the path that we have laid out for them. We can't expect our children when they reach 21 and God says, come for them to come or God says, go for them to go. If when they're three, two, and one and we tell them come, they don't come. If our children are like Jonah, when we say come, they say maybe, or not now.

I'll think about it. Then they're gonna be like Jonah when they grow up. And God says, go to Nineveh, they say, I'll go to Tarshish. I'll go the other way. I don't want to go that way.

Failure to teach obedience. It starts the day they're born. We expect them to walk in all of God's ways, then they have to know from an early age how to come when we call them. Without delay, without procrastination, without complaint, without bargaining. And this is learned through chastening.

Obedience is learned through chastening. It's chastening that brings the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. That's what Hebrews 12 says. Chastening brings the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Righteousness is obedience.

Righteousness is obedience. Christ's righteousness is imputed to us. What is that? It is His obedience. He is active in His passive obedience.

He has perfectly kept the law and that is imputed to us. We see that in the scriptures. Hebrews 1.9 says that Christ loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. It's putting those two as opposites. Loving righteousness, hating lawlessness.

Lawlessness is sin. Lawlessness is disobedience. Righteousness is obedience. In fact, I think it was even in the passage in Deuteronomy that we read this morning. It says that if The Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God for our good.

This obedience is always for our good. That He might preserve us alive, then it will be righteousness for us. This obedience is righteousness. So the first step to be getting a fool is to fail to teach our children to obey. To obey our voice.

To obey our commands. The second step is to fail to teach them to work and to rest. To fail to teach our children to work. We think of it that today, if you want to put that in modern terms, it's children playing video games all day long. Is the epitome of failing to teach children to work.

Work is a creation ordinance. That means it was what we've been called to do even before the fall, even before there was any sin. Work is not a judgment of the fall. Sorrow in work and the toil of work is, but work itself is not. Work is good.

Work is holy. We have been created to work. We've been created to work in the world that God made. We've been created to worship God as well. But it's the calling of every man to work.

Even the Ten Commandments, in their very abbreviated form, very clearly convey this. Six days shall you labor and Do all your work. That's a command. That's a that's a very clear direct command right in the fourth commandment Six days we're to labor and do our work No, it's ideal It is Beautiful often when when children can follow in the footsteps of their parents. But it's not always that way.

And even, it's not always that way. There are different gifts that God's given. And our children sometimes don't have the same gifts that we do. There are different opportunities in the providence of God. But they must, in whatever gifts and callings they have, they must be taught to work.

Those who will not work should not eat. It's not just that they won't and that's probably true, but it's that they should not eat. And our children need to understand that from an early age. To understand that work is a necessary part. It's not just for grown-ups.

That work is a necessary part of our calling. Work is a necessary part of our worship to God. To present our bodies as living sacrifices, wholly acceptable to Him, which is your reasonable service. And what are we presenting our bodies to do? We're presenting our bodies as instruments of righteousness to do what God has commanded us to do.

But this has to be a pattern that's established from very early on. That of working. And sometimes we have to slow down a little bit in order to teach our children to work with us. But the children can do a lot. If there are only one or two in the home, it is possible for them to grow up not having to work, because mom can do it all.

But it is not good for them to grow up like that. In larger families where there is more work than mom can do, you either have a disaster or the children learn to work. Children who are not taught to work six days every week and to rest one day will grow up with many problems. Lack of work is detrimental to our very health and well-being. It's interesting, you know, in these nations that have created welfare programs which are programs to help people not to work and subsidize people not working.

They find that people that aren't working have to go to the doctor a whole lot more. They have much higher prevalence of depression and suicide. And for people who are not working, who they can bring back to working, they find that it leads to improvements in their health. In other words, they're not working because they have bad health, they have bad health because they are not working. Even for people who are sick and disabled, Helping them to work can help their health.

People of all ages, very young to old, are helped when they are taught how to work. This is the thought from which that famous saying comes from, that an idle mind is the devil's playground. When we are not working, when the focus of our day is not disciplined work, it leads to many temptations that would otherwise be avoided. Many people die after they retire from a job that they have worked at all their life. Often times people can die very quickly because their life was taken up in that work.

And when that stops, their purpose for living stops and they die. It happens a lot, many times. Not in everybody, I'm not saying don't be afraid to retire from a job in that sense, but people that do well are those who work, who have a purpose, who are disciplined in their use of their time and don't just become undisciplined and passive. Work is the foundation of the Christian life. Work is simply doing what you have committed to do.

That's the difference between work and play. Work is doing what you have committed to do. It doesn't have to do with whether you're getting paid or not. It doesn't have to do with how good you are at it. The difference between work and play is a commitment.

It's doing what you have committed to do. And if you have no commitments, you have no work. You're playing all day. If you have no commitments, you're playing. That means we have to teach our children to work means that there must be commitments they have, responsibilities that they have.

Work can be a lot of fun. Play can be miserable sometimes, get hurt playing and so on. It's not whether you're having fun or not fun or doing what you want to do or not want to do. Work is doing what you've committed to do. And in the ideal case, work can be a lot of fun.

Work can be a great joy. Work can fit the abilities and talents that God has given to us. And work can bring great satisfaction, A godly satisfaction for what the Lord has enabled our mind and our hands to do. And children need to learn the success of labor like that. They need the experience of working to provide for themselves.

They need the experience of working to produce something. There is a satisfaction in working with your hands or your mind and producing something. And that's a good satisfaction. That's a good thing, a necessary thing for children to experience. They're a deprived child if they've grown up never experiencing that satisfaction of having done something with their hands, of having produced something useful and beneficial to their brothers and sisters, to their family.

And of course, they can really only experience that joy of producing something if there was a chance of failure. If the chance of failure was real, sometimes you have to fail to appreciate the joy of succeeding. So our children need those experiences. They need the lessons that work teaches. You know, if you help a...

And sometimes we want to, we think that we want to help our children by giving everything to them and not making them strive or work. And really that's detrimental to them. It's like the baby chicken. If you go in and think, well, I'm gonna help this baby chick hatch Let me just break open that egg and help it get out you often end up killing it It is necessary usually for that baby chicken for their life it's necessary for them that they work to get out of that shell. And it might take them hours, ten, maybe even twenty hours to get out of that shell.

And It might be tempting to come along and think, well, if I could just help them get out, let me just break it for them. Let me just help them out. When we do that, often you hurt them. It's the same with our children. If we think that we're going to help them By doing everything for them and not teaching them to work we end up hurting them Right after Paul told the Thessalonians that he that shouldn't work won't work should not eat he said For we hear that there are some among you which walk disorderly, not working at all.

Not working is equated to walking disorderly, But they are busy bodies. Busy bodies cause problems. Now them that are such, we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ that with all quietness they work and eat their own bread. Now all work without rest leads to weariness. And so there is, God commands us that not only are we to work, but we are also to rest.

We are to rest because the work is never done. That's something I had to learn. We want to rest when the work is done. And sometimes there's a place for that. But we have to also learn, I had to learn, that we have to rest because the work is never done.

God has given us one day in seven to rest from our work. And we are fools if we don't do that. There are works of necessity and there are works of mercy that sometimes encroach upon that day of rest. But we really need to, and Jesus even talked about when your ox falls in the ditch, you get it out even if it is on the day of rest. But this day of rest is important.

It is a foretaste of the rest that Christ is preparing for us in heaven. And we need to pause from our work and enjoy that rest and remember that rest that he is preparing. Our bodies also need that rest, one day in seven. Our children need that rest as well. Failing to teach obedience, failing to teach our children to work and rest, thirdly failing to lead by example.

Children learn by example. This was brought out in an experiment that was done with children and monkeys. They were both given a black box, And they were taught a certain sequence of steps to achieve a result. And the result was pleasurable. And interestingly, both the children and the monkeys were taught, could be taught, these steps.

These were young children, like three years of age or so. But here's what's, here was what was totally startling to the people doing this experiment, and this mother who had loaned her three-year-old for this experiment. When the box was, the black box, and nobody could see the children and the monkeys could not see what they were doing, they just did it by rote as they had been taught. But when they made the box a clear box, so that you could see what each action rotation movement was doing inside to achieve that result, then the monkeys realized that the 27 steps that they had been taught were really only, only four or five of them were necessary. So the monkeys did it in four or five steps because they saw that was all that was necessary to achieve the result that they wanted.

But guess about those three-year-old children. They continued to do all the steps like they had been shown by example. Even though it was obvious to the monkeys at least that they weren't necessary. Why? Because of this instinct that God has put in children to learn by example.

And that was the example that they had been given, and so that was the process that they continued to follow. Character is taught by example. Where do our children learn to pray? From hearing us pray. Where do they learn to confess their sins from hearing us confess their sins?

Where do they learn the scriptures? They learn as they see us learning the scriptures. Where do they learn to apply the scriptures to their lives? They learn to do that as they see us applying the scriptures in our lives and applying the Word of God to our situation. Where do they learn respect for authority?

They learn it as they see us respecting authority. Where do they learn to honor? They see they learn to honor as they see us rendering honor to those whom honor is due Where do they learn to love? They learn to love as they see us loving husbands and wives and children and one another and so forth. Where do they learn to trust God in all things?

They learn to trust God as they see us trusting God in all things. As they see us going to the Lord in prayer for our needs. They learn that. The Deuteronomy 6 passage that we read is actually very relevant to this point. And these words which I command you today should be in your heart and you shall teach them diligently to your children and talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up.

Now what is going on there? That is talking about example. That is talking about us talking to our children about the example that we are setting for them. It's not talking about some kind of formal instruction where we've prepared PowerPoint slides and lessons and objectives in the cognitive domain to give Instruction to our children if if we had to do that if we were busy doing that kind of formal Teaching If that's what that had in mind, and we were to do that all the day, there wouldn't be any time to do anything. Rather, this is describing all of life as you lie down, as you walk by the way, as you rise up, as you lie down, speaking about all of our life.

It's speaking about the example that we are setting for our children. It's the example, is the way character is taught. You cannot teach character by sitting somebody down in front of you and saying now this is how you love somebody and this is How you are kind to them it doesn't work? They're not going to learn anything that way they learn by example The extreme failure to lead by example would be the hypocrite, the one who says this is what you should do and does something else. That's extreme.

Extreme failure to lead by example. Fourthly, The fourth step to be getting a fool is failure to pray in faith for our children. Failure to pray faithfully and in faith for our children. Failure to pray faithfully, meaning praying regularly for them. Failing to pray in faith, meaning failing to believe the promises of God regarding our children.

He has said, I will be a God to you and to your children after you. He said the promise is to you and to your seed, to your children. Do we believe that? Or do we doubt God's promise? Do we doubt that God will bring saving faith and repentance to our children?

If we pray but don't think that God can do what He's promised to do, we're not praying in faith and The doubting mind doesn't receive what it asks for. It's unstable in all its ways. But also, see, prayers are the means that God has ordained through which he is pleased to work. The prayers of the saints are the means that God has ordained and through which He works and accomplishes His work. Without Me you can do nothing, Jesus said.

I am the vine, you are the branches. The same that abides in me and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit, for without me you can do nothing." If we think that we can raise our children in our own strength, we will fail. We must recognize our utter dependence upon God, upon Christ, in teaching our children, or we will raise a fool. Because without Him we can do nothing. So we need to recognize that we can't do this.

And we have to cry out to the Lord for His power to be shed abroad in our family, and for Him to work through our feeble efforts to teach our children wisdom, to sanctify our sinful example to a holy end. The prayers of the saints are the means that God has ordained. God acts as His saints pray. And where there is no prayer, don't expect God to do anything. Where we aren't asking in faith and earnestly and diligently for God to teach wisdom to our children, we can have no reason to expect that we in our own strength will do anything but raise a fool.

James says that you do not have because you do not ask. If we have not asked God to bless our labor and example and teaching and chastening, We have no reason whatsoever to ever expect that He would. Our chastening isn't any good. Our example isn't any good. It's a sinful example.

We can't teach them anything but how to be a fool unless God in His grace takes our labors and turns them and uses them as instruments of righteousness. Fifthly, we beget fools when we fail to know our children. Not all children are the same. In fact, I would say generally children are not the same. And Proverbs 22 6 teaches us that we should train up our children in the way they should go.

Now That has, I think, two possible meanings. And I think both are correct. Both are right. Both are taught in scripture elsewhere. First, we're to teach our children the way they should go, meaning to instruct them in the path of righteousness, to instruct them in the commandments of God, and to teach them and train them in what they should do.

In that case, we are acting like the gardener who is bending the tree to conform to the law of God. But it's also an understanding that our children are all different. They have different gifts and abilities. They have different natural strengths and inclinations and desires. Their wiring is maybe different in general.

And so to know our children means that we lead them in ways that are suited to their abilities. If you have some people learn from books, other people, other children, other adults, our kinesthetic learners, they learn with their hands. They need to do things. And if we treat all of our children exactly the same, we are asking for trouble. How many children have rebelled or failed because they were pushed into something that did not suit them?

They weren't given the freedom to go a different direction. They were pushed to being a doctor because dad or mom wanted a doctor in the family. And that wasn't their ability. That wasn't their desire. So we need to recognize these differences and allow our children the liberty, the ability to pursue other lines, to pursue work that is suited to them.

That means doing different things for different children. Setting different expectations before them. Sixthly, we beget fools when we provoke our children to wrath. There are lots of ways to do this. It can be unjust, it can be partial.

We can be ungrateful for their skills and their labor. One of the Easiest things that we can do is to be grateful for the work that our children do if we're teaching them to work and Leading them to work being grateful being understanding of that work and thankful for it We need to show our children the beauty of Christ, the love of their Heavenly Father. Because it's the kindness of God that leads us to repentance. The kindness of God. And if the picture that we present of our Heavenly Father is someone who is provoking to wrath, then we aren't showing to them the kindness and the beauty of our Savior Jesus Christ, which is what leads them to repentance.

Well those are six ways I think that are meant to be general foundation stones, general key pillars in raising children who are not fools. But the text goes on to speak about the fruits of foolish children who have grown up and there's two there are two fruits that are given here one is the Perversion of justice a foolish child is one who grows up Receiving bribes to pervert justice a child who can be bought a child who wants to be accepted you know Samuel's children were exactly this it's exactly what they were like his children were were wicked children and like his children were wicked children and. And the people of Israel came to Samuel and said, You know, your children, they take bribes, they pervert justice. We don't want to be under them. Because Samuel had not trained his children.

Eli is the same situation. His sons grew up and the Bible says that his sons were wicked because Eli had never chastened them. He had never taught them to obey. He maybe told them things but he had never taught them to obey. He had never required obedience of them.

He had never crossed them. David's son, Adonijah, the same thing is said of him. He was never taught to obey. And so here are children who have grown up and been a great grief to their parents by their folly, perverting justice. And the other fruit of a foolish child, a foolish son, is their godless goals.

Wisdom is in the sight of Him who has understanding, but the eyes of a fool are on the ends of the earth. The eyes of a fool, that is speaking of his direction, the goals of a fool. What he has his eye on. What is his objective? What is he seeking to do?

Well, the fool, it says, his eyes are on the ends of the earth. Now, that is another metaphor type of a phrase in the scripture, the ends of the earth. It refers to places that have ungodly ways. It refers to, often in the scriptures, all the nations that are outside of Israel. The ends of the earth, In the sense of here in Israel was truth and righteousness was the law of God and outside of that to the ends of the earth is folly and Ungodly goals and so the the eyes of the fool then his goals are on what is outside, away from the covenant home, unconnected from God's covenant people.

What is to the remotest ends of the earth. When God speaks about coming in judgment to Israel, He speaks about kings that would come from the ends of the earth, rulers that would come over them from the ends of the earth. In Deuteronomy 28, The Lord will scatter you among the peoples from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will serve other gods which neither you nor your fathers have known. It speaks about the Lord will bring a nation against you from afar from the ends of the earth this nation in judgment so This this fruit this fool is somebody who orients himself to godless and unattainable goals. Instead of seeking first the kingdom of God, instead of walking in God's ways, his eyes are on the ends of the earth, on other unrighteous goals.

And this is a great sorrow to parents he who begets a scoffer does so to his sorrow the father of a fool has no joy A merry heart does good like medicine, but a broken spirit drives the bones." These two verses are connected in many ways. They are connected in the thought here. They are connected in a chiasm. We see the sorrow is the theme in the first line and then in the last line. And then no joy or joy is connecting the two middle.

It's also in the Hebrew in the very sounds of the words, there is a particular sound that is throughout this second verse. So these verses are connected in subtle ways, some of which are lost to the English, but A broken spirit dries the bones The father of a fool has sorrow. He has no joy and And this anxiety this anxiety this sorrow can have a detrimental effect on our health. That's true in general. Sorrow has a detrimental effect on our whole body.

Anxiety in the heart of Man, the Proverbs says, brings depression. Sorrow in our spirit has an effect in our body. It says it dries the bones. The bones are the skeleton that hold us up. If we don't have life in our bones, we are not living.

Think about what we would be if we had no bones. Our very essence is gone. But a joyful heart, some texts might say a merry heart, a joyful heart does good like a medicine. I think this is the solution. This is the solution to those to our sorrow.

This is the solution to all of our sorrow, whether it's sorrow from our from the things that our children do, or sorrow of any other sort. A joyful heart does good like a medicine. And where does a joyful heart come from a joyful heart comes only from a heart that has been born from above a heart in which Christ dwells a heart in which the Holy Spirit is working the fruits of that spirit love and joy and peace and patience. This is the joy of a heart that has found peace with God. This is the joy of a heart that knows and has experienced the fact that there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

That's the only medicine for a foolish child as well. You don't have to live a hopeless, depressed life, unfulfilled. Call upon the Lord, the Holy Spirit, to come and to give you a new heart, to give you a heart of joy, a heart of rejoicing, a heart of peace. That is good news indeed. The only way to get rid of the foolishness is to believe the gospel, the good news.

That's the only medicine that can heal a broken heart. And that is good news, that God does save fools. Because we were all born in sin. We were all born with foolishness bound up in our heart. And the good news is that by faith in Jesus Christ, that folly, that disobedience, That hating of instruction and unwillingness to listen is replaced by a love of the truth, by a willingness to hear, and by joy.

So if there is sorrow in your life over anything, but especially over your children, remember that The good news is that God does save fools. And remember to pray for them, for as long as they are living. Let us pray. Let us pray. Our gracious Father in Heaven, You have begotten us to a lively hope.

And You are building of us as living stones, Your own temple, Your building. Your own temple, your building. Father, may we be to you a peculiar people who A peculiar people who are zealous for good works. And Father, we ask that as parents that you would Bless our labors that we offer to you in brokenness and tainted with sin. We look, Father, to Your power to be shed abroad in our life and in our families and in our children.

And to call us who were born as fools out of the darkness of our folly and into the marvelous light of your kingdom. Father may you shine into our hearts the light of the knowledge of God, that we may see that in the face of Jesus Christ. We ask this in Jesus' name, Amen.