At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

Go from the presence of a foolish man, when thou perceivest not in him the lips of knowledge.

Proverbs 14:7

All sin is equally sinful, but not all sin is equally apparent. All folly is equally foolish, but not all folly is equally apparent. The Bible teaches us this plainly. 

“Some men’s sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after” (1 Tim. 5:24).

In this proverb, the one who would be wise is instructed to get out of the presence of a foolish man, just as soon as the folly becomes apparent. This assumes that the folly is not obvious from the start. Some who behave foolishly send off warning signals that enable others to avoid dealing with them entirely. It might be their bumper sticker or tee-shirt, or it might be something you heard them say at a Bible study. The subtext of whatever it was is “stay clear.”

But sometimes the danger that fools present is a danger with a long, slow fuse. There are some whose folly is not apparent until a particular kind of situation arises, or until you have been with them for a while. The instruction here is clear. As soon as you perceive that your acquaintance is not someone who speaks with the “lips of knowledge,” it is time to start preparing your exit.

Those who walk with the wise will be wise (Prov. 13:20), and those who consent to walk with fools have made the first fatal choice that will result in their descent into folly. That same proverb says that a companion of fools will be destroyed, which is kind of a strong way of putting it.

We are to love all men, whether they are wise or simple, godly or ungodly, friendly or hostile. We are under orders to love all men. But we are not to be friends or companions with fools. We are not to hang out with them. We may minister to them, we may witness to them. But if we settle in with them, the “evangelism” is running the other direction.  

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

Every wise woman buildeth her house: But the foolish plucketh it down with her hands.

Proverbs 14:1

We live in an era that does not want to acknowledge that women sin, and that when they sin, they sin in distinctively feminine ways. This is the teaching of Scripture, but we live in a time that does not want to admit this. It is also the case that when women are virtuous, they are virtuous in distinctively feminine ways. This is also the teaching of Scripture. But the secular androgynous imperative want us all to be bipedal carbon units.

But God created us, male and female, to reflect the image of God (Gen. 1:27). To throw everything into a blender, and to say that the resultant mess somehow represents “humanity” is the height of folly. It says here that foolish women tear down their houses with their own hands, and an acceptance of any kind of feminism is one of the ways this is done.

A wise woman has the grace to build her house. There really is something called “the woman’s touch.” Notice that is says that every wise woman knows how to do this. A woman who doesn’t know how to do this is, by definition, not a wise woman. Domesticity is an essential attribute of feminine wisdom. It is one of the glories of womanhood. 

And when a woman is foolish, she is abandoning her central glory, and consequently becomes a wrecking ball. When a woman accepts her calling before God, she can make the home a heaven on earth. When she rejects it, or twists her calling into something that serves her desires, she has the power to make the home a hell on earth. And both the glory that comes from a woman’s hands and the mayhem that comes from a woman’s hands share this distinctive feminine trait—that of being really powerful.   

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: But the hand of the diligent maketh rich.

Proverbs 10:4

This is a proverb that is proverbially true, and everybody knows it, and yet we live in a time where we somehow want to invert the meaning of the proverb, where we want to make the exception the rule. But laziness still leads to poverty, and diligence leads to wealth. A little sleep, a little slumber, and poverty is waiting for you just around the corner like an armed thug (Prov. 6:10). And I saw a poster once in a (very) industrious tire center which read, “Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.”

We live in an envious age, which wants to assume that wealth is a zero sum game, meaning that there is a certain amount of available goods, like a pie on the table, and if the rich guy gets a big piece of pie, then that is the reason why the poor guy has such a thin piece. And, because there are thieves in the world, that sometimes happens. Sometimes someone makes off with your piece of pie (James 5:1-6). But there are many other times when the truth of this proverb is on display, front and center. The poverty of many has more to do with their own behavior than it has to do with a systemic anything. The same goes for the diligent.

A slack hand is not your friend, and an industrious hand is.

As noted earlier, this proverb is proverbially true, not universally true. In other words, sometimes a lazy man wins the lottery, thus learning all the wrong life lessons. Sometimes an industrious man is plagued with a series of mishaps. But, as a general rule, money follows the one who works for it. 

Because it is not universally true, there are exceptions. Because there are exceptions, those egalitarians who do not want to live in biblical wisdom seize on the exceptions and try to make them the rule. They find one man who is poor because of the injustice of his employer, and then they use that fact to erase the wisdom of Scripture, and what pretty much everybody’s grandma knows about that boy.   

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

The poor useth intreaties; But the rich answereth roughly (KJV).
The poor man uses entreaties, But the rich answers roughly (NKJV).

Proverbs 18:23

The poor man is in the natural position of a supplicant, and the rich man is in the natural position of one who bestows. Not surprisingly, these two places give rise to two very different temptations.

The poor man is in a place where he must ask for things. This by itself is not dishonorable, but the entreaties must be watched carefully so that they do not turn into a wheedling, or complaining, or flattering kind of speech. The asking must also not be considered as a substitute for actual willingness to work (2 Thess. 3:10).

The rich man’s temptation is to be brusque and no-nonsense. “No, of course not. I don’t have time for this. We are burning daylight. Just get a job, man.” 

Too often the poor expect the whole world to extend sympathy. Too often the rich refuse to extend any kind of reasonable sympathy at all. 

The poor man’s temptation is to look to the rich man for his deliverance. The rich man’s temptation is to the look to the rich man for his deliverance. In both cases, they are looking at the wrong source. And what this means is that the poor man is looking to some fallible “god” who is himself tempted to be ill-tempered, short, harsh, brusque, sharp, blunt, gruff, and tart. Who wants to offer up requests to a god like that?

The rich man is in a position to remember the poor, which he ought to do. He should do this so that God will remember him. 

“Blessed is he that considereth the poor: The Lord will deliver him in time of trouble” (Psalm 41:1)  

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

Speak not in the ears of a fool: For he will despise the wisdom of thy words.

Proverbs 23:9

There are times, Scripture teaches us, when we should save our breath for cooling our porridge. There are occasions when it would be more fitting to save our breath for walking uphill. There are circumstances when we should save our breath for some future occasion, when we are no longer talking with a fool.

One of the common mistakes that reasonable people make is the error of attributing intelligence to anyone we may happen to meet. This is appropriate as a matter of good manners, but we should also be aware of the fact that it might not be the case, and when we get feedback indicating that it is not the case, we must be prepared to cut our losses and go.

The fact that a reasonable explanation would satisfy you does not mean that it will satisfy someone who has no intention of listening. 

Now remember that in Scripture a fool is not someone with an IQ deficiency, but rather someone who is morally bent. Folly is rebellious at the core. A very simple man can be pious and devout, and a very intelligent man can be a fool. What this proverb is telling us is that conversation won’t fix a fool. Argument won’t fix him. Wisdom cascades off his back and does not go down into the inward parts. 

This is a variation on what Jesus taught, when He said not to cast your pearls before swine. Wisdom is not appreciated by the fool. He does not want it. So once it becomes apparent that he has no interest, stop trying to capture his interest with words. Words won’t fix this problem. Until the Spirit of God has addressed the heart of the problem, which is the heart, it is not possible for the Word to get through. But when that happens, then real communication becomes possible. 

Or as the sage once put it, never try to teach a pig to whistle. It is a waste of your time, and it annoys the pig.

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