- 9 months ago
The Common Sense Bible Study crew undertake a deep dive into Proverbs 26, discussing the benefits of wisdom and the consequences of foolishness, the dangers of rewarding laziness, and the problems of woke culture.
Tackling and overcoming trials make us stronger and wiser.
Curses and negative predictions can become self-fulfilling prophecies.
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
This content is free, but I accept contributions via Paypal at https://jaycarper.com/paypal.
Follow me on X: https://jaycarper.com/twitter
Follow me on Facebook: https://jaycarper.com/fbat
Tackling and overcoming trials make us stronger and wiser.
Curses and negative predictions can become self-fulfilling prophecies.
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
This content is free, but I accept contributions via Paypal at https://jaycarper.com/paypal.
Follow me on X: https://jaycarper.com/twitter
Follow me on Facebook: https://jaycarper.com/fbat
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LearningTranscript
00:00:00whoever digs a pit will fall into it and a stone will come back on him who starts it rolling
00:00:08lots of cause and effect dealing with fools in this reading so from the beginning like snow
00:00:17and summer or rain and harvest so is honor not fitting for a fool and the thing i thought of
00:00:22immediately when i read that was participation trophies people being rewarded for putting in
00:00:30yep if you reward something you get more of it so if you reward non-participation
00:00:40then you get more non-participation that's not to say that everybody who gets a participation
00:00:45trophy didn't try hard but if you're going to reward them for not excelling then why should
00:00:51they try to excel in the future and you get the same exact thing with government welfare programs
00:00:57and letting men compete in women's sports it's all the same thing or at least it all has the same
00:01:05results it's communism yeah communism is a system of government run by fools for the sake of fools
00:01:13anything else to say about that one the woke culture would fit within that yeah the whole
00:01:21thing of people deserve everything that they want simply because they exist and people who have
00:01:29worked hard for it and gotten the things they want because they earned it they shouldn't have it whether
00:01:35it's because they're part of a privileged class or for some circumstance that's completely beyond
00:01:41people's control they should either be rewarded or punished and that's just ridiculous
00:01:47yeah it's evil i agree it's not just ridiculous it's evil um we became involved with the pyramid company
00:02:04and one of the things that they presented which makes perfect sense that's probably why they did so
00:02:15well is they make sense you just have no quantitative way of knowing if it's affecting you or not at least
00:02:21for most people you know take this supplement and you don't know if you're doing better because the
00:02:26supplement or because whatever the circumstances but one of the things they presented is an ingredient that
00:02:33they used was a maybe there's a root i don't remember the exact item but it drew in a very wild habitat
00:02:42and it was because of that wild habitat that it was hardy and thus would be effective in
00:02:53dealing with whatever your malady was you know so yeah sounds reasonable it makes perfect sense and i'm and
00:03:01and i'm not saying yay or nay or manatech i'm just saying that presentation it it suggests that when you
00:03:09have strife or when you have uh affliction or you have to deal with some sort of competition if you will
00:03:17it makes you stronger you know so something similar to that yeah that is exactly right and if you take away
00:03:27the competition like programs like affirmative action which i'm sure when it started was you know
00:03:33had the greatest of intentions um at least most of the people involved with it but it takes away
00:03:42competition and takes away all reason to become a better person to become more competent well many
00:03:49scripture says so many um i'm thinking it'd be in the proverbs might be in psalms where it references
00:03:57be thankful for affliction why i don't want to have i don't want to have a hard life well it's that
00:04:06affliction or that um it's that what makes you stronger you know wisdom is rooted in that you don't
00:04:15get wisdom unless you've gone through something yeah yeah that's that's something that we'll see
00:04:22this in a couple of proverbs later on but you can read the proverbs all day long and i'm sure it's
00:04:28going to tell you something but unless you put it into action somehow unless you're doing something
00:04:32then you know it's like studying golf by reading books and watching videos and not actually playing
00:04:39golf it's not real wisdom it's knowledge about wisdom all right let's move on to verse two
00:04:46like a sparrow in its flitting like a swallow in its flying a curse that is causeless does not alight
00:04:52you know and i don't want to say any names because you know people's personal business is
00:04:57not everybody else's business but you know i know somebody who was somebody told them that something
00:05:07bad was going to happen in their family that you know things were going to come apart in a certain
00:05:11way and that it was like a worm burrowing into his brain and it caused all kinds of problems
00:05:21not because it was true i mean it wasn't like a real curse that somebody could put on him this guy and his
00:05:28family but it was something that because he thought about it and he accepted that it might actually be real
00:05:36then he started behaving in ways that made it real right and other people in the family picked up on his
00:05:43attitude and then they started behaving in ways that made it real and it just becomes a self-fulfilling
00:05:49prophecy that way it's almost like voodoo yeah so i've seen the i've seen that applied in a
00:06:00different fashion and it's it's it's squirrely logic but it's it's almost relying upon this scripture and
00:06:08and that is making an assertion that is ridiculous and then saying you know what if it doesn't apply to
00:06:17why are you why are you getting mad so it's making um what does it say uh a curse it's doing a it's
00:06:29it's cursing somebody and then saying hey if this curse is not applicable to you then don't be bothered
00:06:37yeah yeah that that's actually like another proverb that we're going to get to later tonight
00:06:41like the the uh you know some it says a deceiver but you know i think bully is probably more to the
00:06:51point in our modern culture but you know somebody who who mocks or lies to you and then says oh i was
00:06:58just joking in part they're talking about practical jokers but really they're talking about people who
00:07:03are trying to bully and manipulate you and then pass off the blame like oh it's your fault you just
00:07:08misunderstood yeah another application of that is if you think about you know the episode with
00:07:14belom and balak and belom couldn't put a curse on israel as long as they were faithful to god
00:07:20and so he taught balak how to undermine israel's faith in god and therefore they were able to put
00:07:28a curse on them after that and essentially israel put a curse on themselves by their behavior
00:07:34and so that's when you get a curse deserved and you know all the curses are out there just waiting
00:07:40if you've committed yourself to god and obeying his commands and then you reject that well now you're
00:07:48just inviting all the curses of the law yeah and you know technically all those curses apply to the
00:07:54nation not to individual people but in order for it to affect the nation it has to affect individuals
00:07:59first well people make up the nation yeah exactly all right so in very related proverb to at least to
00:08:08verse one and verse two also a whip for the horse a bridle for the donkey and a rod for the back of
00:08:15fools so there's a curse that's deserved a rod for the back of fools and there's an interesting
00:08:22implication there that curses are frequently instructive especially the curses of the law
00:08:28you know when god says you know if you're faithful then you'll have all these blessings
00:08:32if you're not faithful then all these curses are going to come upon you but then it goes through this
00:08:37this process of seven levels of curses and each one is worse than the one before but in between god says
00:08:45if you refuse to repent it's going to get worse and here's what's going to happen and then if you
00:08:50refuse to repent it's going to get even worse and so each level of curses is meant to provoke repentance
00:08:57so you can get out of it by repenting a fool can stop the rod by stopping being a fool by learning
00:09:07wisdom or at least keeping his mouth shut right right okay so this is going to open up a can of worms
00:09:17and i'm going to use this example but it could be extrapolated in many different areas all right my
00:09:26my example is i overeat therefore i'm fat right but the example that i hopefully doesn't apply to me but
00:09:34venereal disease that's a curse as a result of an action
00:09:40um you know you can take a remedy if you will and continue to act out in that same fashion
00:09:52but it's still a curse so you may have stopped it for medical reasons but you know there's still
00:10:01the action with a resulting curse part of it i see ads lately it's uh for some sort of aids treatment
00:10:11i think it's like a lot of those ads yeah you only take this once a week or once a month something like
00:10:18that but it's it seems that the treatment is therefore there to well you want on one hand you
00:10:25want somebody to to recover and i understand that but it seems to to exist and maybe it's just me
00:10:31reading into it so that you can continue with the actions that you've been doing you know what i
00:10:36mean yeah and yeah that i get the same vibe from those commercials it's like they're selling their
00:10:44product as something that enables you to be promiscuous and the wording that they choose
00:10:52you can remain undetectable yes i i know technically i know what they're saying that your blood levels of
00:11:00the hiv or you know whatever it is they're measuring are going to be undetectable but the
00:11:05way that they're saying it it's like you can fool anybody nobody's going to know yeah i think that
00:11:11that really is what they're implying so sometimes the curse has to take place so that you realize
00:11:19certain actions are not desirable or should not be or you should stop you know the nature of curse
00:11:26is this a permanent or temporary that's unfortunately often it's permanent yeah that is true
00:11:32yeah curses are frequently just the natural consequences of what you're doing
00:11:37yeah what you're saying about you know permanent consequences you know i think it's what was it
00:11:43who said you know what doesn't kill you makes you stronger that's true to an extent but obviously
00:11:50it's not true all the time some disease that's going to kill you or drive you insane or something
00:11:55that cripples you it's not making you stronger so there are there are activities that will not make
00:12:02you stronger if you if the natural consequences hit you um on to verse four well four and five they go
00:12:11together excuse me answer not a fool fool according to his folly lest you be like him yourself answer a
00:12:19fool according to his folly lest he be wise in his own eyes yeah this this is uh i think about this
00:12:28proverb almost every day on social media because there are so many trolls out there and how do you
00:12:36respond to a troll well it depends on the troll it depends on who's watching most of the time you
00:12:42ignore them you know mute block whatever but sometimes you can use it as a teaching moment for
00:12:49people who might be paying attention who might be reading along or watching along and uh sometimes
00:12:55people need to be exposed so don't engage them on their own level but sometimes you need to engage
00:13:03them on another level disrupt their whatever game they're playing don't answer them the way that
00:13:09they expect but address their foolishness rather than the thing the argument or whatever it is they're
00:13:14actually saying it can be interpreted so many ways this week i had a uh the ceo of my stock
00:13:22engaged with somebody in a discussion on chinese drones that are entering the u.s
00:13:30and i loved it i'm thinking hey this is a discussion that needs to be had and yeah does the ceo have a
00:13:41vested interest to disc chinese drones yes he does there were some people that took the opposite approach
00:13:50and said that's not becoming for ceo to enter into this discussion so it's very interesting how
00:13:56engaging can be interpreted differently yeah well what about somebody that's wise in his own eyes
00:14:03that's yeah sometimes somebody needs to tell him i'm going through that right now on my training
00:14:12i i was the top of my business for knowing i i how to write certain estimates and and being proficient
00:14:24and so forth well now i'm relearning this job and um doing a different position and i'm bottom in the
00:14:32the totem pole in terms of knowledge and and uh it's quite uh it's quite humbling
00:14:40not necessarily knowledge i can i can do my job but when you realize that you're messing up left and
00:14:48right left and right like wow so trying not to get discouraged in that but still realizing
00:14:55hey these people are quote-unquote criticizing you for a purpose
00:15:00actually what they're doing is to your benefit it's humbling i tell you what
00:15:04yeah i imagine so yeah i think it it when you're engaging with people who
00:15:11you know that you don't know but you think they're acting like a fool
00:15:15there's really kind of an art to determining whether this is somebody who is teachable or
00:15:21somebody who is only there to disrupt things or there's an opportunity for other people to learn
00:15:30it takes a lot of experience interacting with those kind of people to to tell and you know in in
00:15:36certain areas you know online i think i usually have a pretty good feel for that sort of thing
00:15:41in real life person to person i'm not so good at that i don't i don't judge real life interactions
00:15:48as well and i think you know if someone in your in your shoes there who is has a lot of experience
00:15:56but knows that they're in a new area where their previous experience and knowledge doesn't really
00:16:02help as much as they would like it to you can kind of tell that that person might be coming on
00:16:08strong at first but then they react in ways that you can tell this is someone who who knows that
00:16:16there's something wrong or that they are willing to to be wrong willing to to learn something new
00:16:22and i really like those people online because you know i like people who ask hard questions and are
00:16:29willing to interact without name calling and getting angry those people engage them long enough so that
00:16:37anybody else observing knows what's really going on and then be done with them either screen capture
00:16:44the conversation and block them or just mute them and let them yell at themselves for a while
00:16:49it's a way to go yes and jay i agree with you what you're saying about someone that can disagree
00:16:57discuss something without name calling and unfortunately i i think we for some reason we've gotten away
00:17:06from that yeah it is a loss and part of the reason is that we interact with so many people that we
00:17:13don't have a real relationship with if we valued those relationships then we'd be a little more
00:17:20hesitant about calling names i think yeah that's why i don't call my names that's funny yeah i think i think
00:17:28that if you look at how we treat people that we do respect when we have something like delicate
00:17:34our topic that's delicate we want to talk about we spend a lot of energy and effort and time
00:17:40trying to figure out like how to approach it or you know how to approach the subject or
00:17:45all these things but when it's someone we don't know it's just so much easier
00:17:50to just go off you know half cocked and just say whatever it just it because you don't have anything
00:17:59to lose you know that's the way we look at it in our society it's just there's nothing to lose
00:18:05so we can just say whatever we want and i'm sure there's more to it than that just with the status
00:18:11of where we are how things are degrading but yeah this month we're yeah i'm i decided over the next
00:18:21from now on probably to kind of alternate our monthly themes between something i'm not sure
00:18:29what how to put this something more relational you know like we've done honoring parents and we did
00:18:36families in transition those kinds of things but i'm going to be alternating that with more technical
00:18:42ideas so this month our theme is bible translations and when we get into the more technical stuff
00:18:49ironically this is where people i think are going to be more offended
00:18:52and we're going to have expert guests for conversations and they're going to say things
00:19:00that are going to make people uncomfortable bible translations are a lot like sausage in that
00:19:06the end product is amazing but the process of creating a bible translation is messy yeah what goes
00:19:16into a real bible translation is going to make a lot of people really uncomfortable when they think
00:19:21about their how they their concept of divine inspiration and the infallibility of scripture you know those
00:19:29ideas for example apparently the textus receptus that the king james is based on is not a real set of
00:19:39manuscripts it's the king james translators used a bunch of different manuscripts for their
00:19:45to base their translation on and then somebody later took all of these different translations that
00:19:52the king james translators used and created a single manuscript sort of merged them all to make a
00:19:58a single contiguous text out of it so it's really an amalgamation of a bunch of different manuscripts
00:20:06to create the textus receptus but people have this idea that this is the original bible that goes all the
00:20:14way back to the apostles but it's not really necessarily so and so we're gonna we're gonna get
00:20:20some exercise this month on disagreeing with people and in still being happy to fellowship
00:20:28because that can be a touchy subject i went to a fellowship this saturday and saw people that i knew a few
00:20:37people it was good to do some fellowship i was not sure how it would have responded because there was
00:20:45one person in particular that i really did not want to see that he was not there and the reason i didn't
00:20:50want to see him is because the very first time i ever met him i considered it confrontational whereas
00:20:56i'm sure he was more or less just trying to figure out who i was and you know so you walk up to
00:21:03somebody and they say hey so was passover the 14th or the 15th day and i'm i'm just like good and you
00:21:11you know but it it did bother me because i did i wasn't prepared and i'm not still to this day
00:21:21opinionated on that i the conversations are interesting but they're not life-changing
00:21:27um so to have a difference of opinion and be respectful it's good but sometimes i don't have
00:21:35an opinion you know and i don't want to be forced to have an opinion yeah excuse me all right let's
00:21:42move on to verse seven like a lame man's legs which hang useless is a proverb in the mouth of fools
00:21:50there are several proverbs in this chapter that that speak on the same topic
00:21:55um like verse nine like a thorn that goes up into the hand of a drunkard is a proverb in the mouth
00:22:02of fools and yeah there was another one can't remember exactly where it is right now but
00:22:09yeah i want to hear your thoughts on this one i've been talking first but
00:22:12on seven and nine really i mean eight is they're all related but actually this is interesting i just
00:22:19noticed that seven and eight and then nine and ten are a parallelism first you've got
00:22:25how a proverb is either useless or harmful and then you've got someone talking about
00:22:31someone using a military weapon and you know using it as a metaphor of a fool so you've got that same
00:22:39pattern in four verses well isn't there a scene there that that you're using the proverbs to try to
00:22:46create a point maybe not necessarily appropriately applying it but you have a an axe to grind and
00:22:54you're trying to to grind it with the proverb yeah i think that's that is one of the main points that
00:23:03a uh a fool with a proverb is if he doesn't think that he's the super wise guy then he's being a wise guy
00:23:13you know he's using the proverb to try to make a fool of somebody else rather than using it to
00:23:17try to instruct or gain in wisdom you know it's it's doing he's trying to hurt other people with it
00:23:24i like the where it says you know the lame man's legs not that he doesn't have legs
00:23:31you're just useless and just like the proverb in the mouth of fools it's useless
00:23:37i think that's the thing that kind of uh you know goes back and forth you know sometimes you try and
00:23:45teach or show someone something and no matter how simple you put it it just it doesn't click with
00:23:55them yeah yeah that's right yeah and they can't grasp it and it's it's like having
00:24:04yeah it's like legs that don't work right yeah it's the same thing there you have in verse seven
00:24:12and nine you have two sides of that in verse seven the proverb is useless to the fool he doesn't
00:24:17understand it he doesn't know how to use it in verse nine it actually hurts him and you know one
00:24:24example of that is spare the rod spoil the child that's not word for word that's not in the bible
00:24:30it's he who spares the rod hates his child in some other verses that say similar things
00:24:37right but people like to use that as an excuse for abuse and they will one person will say this
00:24:46proverb mean doesn't isn't really talking about you know physical punishment at all it's not it's a
00:24:52metaphorical rod and so all you have to do is verbally correct your child and they will be
00:24:57healthier and happier and all that i'm sure there's some child out there in the world that that works
00:25:02for but yeah it really is talking about a rod it's talking about spanking or you know striking your
00:25:08child and there are other people in the other extreme who will say beat that child until he does what
00:25:15you want them to do you know break their spirits and that's wrong too and by by destroying your
00:25:22children's ability to behave or creating resentment with your children you're only hurting yourself i mean
00:25:30you're hurting them too of course but you're also hurting yourself yeah yeah i agree i always try to
00:25:38when i discipline my children i always try to make sure that they knew what it was about
00:25:44versus me just beating them when when you do it out of anger yeah it's no longer in my opinion it's no
00:25:54longer about the discipline or the correction you know it's it's a place of frustration you know you're
00:26:01you're angry and that's how you're doing it versus raising your child or just putting him in a proper
00:26:09way yeah that having been said that makes you you ponder when god disciplined basically the world
00:26:18through the flood that seems to be wow very angry but it must have been extremely bad for him to
00:26:26discipline in that fashion so as to have a reset if you will you know that is answering a fool according
00:26:36to his folly right you have to what do you think go ahead i was about to say that you have to tailor the
00:26:46response to the child or the fool or the you know employee or or whatever it is to make i mean you have to
00:26:53tailor it for their circumstances and their character and in the case of you know the
00:26:58antediluvian world apparently their character was pretty bad so it took a pretty heavy rod
00:27:04had to have been so what do you think eight means well binding the stone in the sling
00:27:10means that you're tying it in there instead of you know resting it in the pouch i mean i've never used
00:27:16the the kind of slings that they had in the bible you know that the two straps with the little pouch in
00:27:20the middle and you know apparently this can be a pretty deadly weapon but i've seen nunchucks used
00:27:28and i know that somebody who doesn't know what they're doing swing that thing around and break
00:27:34their knuckles open or hit themselves in the head i imagine that swinging a sling that has a stone bound
00:27:41up in it could be very similar that you're going to swing it around and cast it out there and then that
00:27:48stone is going to whip back around and knock you in the head or something yeah i didn't know what it
00:27:53was meaning by binding it yeah i didn't know if that was a a you know a means by which to sling or
00:28:01not so you're saying to basically gum up the works is foolish yeah and and gum it up in a way that's
00:28:09going to do harm right and it's not going to be released at the time you know yeah the point of
00:28:16releasing of a stone especially in a sling the way they use it was all important the timing
00:28:23when the you know just like when david uses with goliath the timing of that would meant everything
00:28:30yeah you'd have to be an expert yeah exactly yeah all right moving down to
00:28:37uh well let's talk about verse 10 i mean it's related same basic idea you've got somebody who's
00:28:43using a a projectile weapon and they're a fool that says like an archer who wounds everyone is
00:28:51one who hires a passing fool or drunkard and i think that uh i like the way the tlv puts this
00:28:58like an archer who wounds at random is one who hires a fool or any passerby so if you hire somebody
00:29:04to do a job and you don't know that they're actually qualified for the job you have no idea what's
00:29:10going to happen you could be creating a big problem wow that says a lot because i know of a few people
00:29:18that have under the guise of ministry hired some improperly qualified people i have a friend that
00:29:28was a mason that he did that regularly and it hurt his business you know but he he equated that with
00:29:36you know i'm ministering to these people so that's interesting it almost puts it upon you as a
00:29:44as a business owner to uh you get what you you deserve you know if you're you're going to be
00:29:50discerning and yeah and in this case it's not you it's not just you who's being hurt but other people
00:29:58you know the people that you're doing business with people who are just innocent bystanders i think
00:30:03you know in modern day terms a uh a good parallel would be you know hiring a truck driver if you
00:30:10don't verify that that truck driver knows what he's doing you know is not under the influence
00:30:15nothing like that you could be killing people because you have semi-truck is a big dangerous
00:30:23object and you know flying down the highways at 70 to 80 miles an hour you got to make sure that
00:30:28the guy behind the wheel is not a total fool yeah it's neat the way that comes to life
00:30:34because you know you just think if you need someone to work for you the person that passing by may work
00:30:43but it may not be a long-term answer and more than likely it's going to be a situation where it's
00:30:52going to do more harm than good i've experienced so you know because you sometimes you want to help
00:30:59people you want to kind of do your do basically help someone in a in a tough situation and a lot of
00:31:08times it's probably best not to hire them but maybe just help them out i did have one person that told
00:31:16me that you know you don't hire projects unless your business is the project yeah yeah well and it
00:31:23also it also points to the fact that like there are ways that we can hire people and build them up
00:31:31and promote them you know like we can hire people and start them at the bottom and give them opportunity
00:31:36and like you know help educate them or help train them or whatever and we can do that we can empower
00:31:43people and help them in that way and we can do those things as projects even within the context
00:31:50of our business if we understand what we're doing if we understand that like we're hiring them at like
00:31:57a lower more qualified level and trying to bring them up if that's if that's what they're in it for
00:32:02but that's very different than just putting somebody in a spot because you need a body and
00:32:08they need a job right it's definitely going to backfire it's definitely going to cause problems
00:32:14well also you you sometimes i mean i've seen it in my business i've seen people hired
00:32:24because they allegedly have a skill set but it it they may not be hired for character purposes
00:32:33it's it's it's almost like uh those that are hired with some innate characteristic are going to
00:32:43succeed and and you almost want to find that characteristic you know and i don't know how
00:32:48you quantify that but it's it's uh it's certainly i think it's a truth yeah if you got the time to
00:32:55train somebody hiring for character can pay off in the long run i did that a couple of times
00:33:02when i was at the hospital and it paid off and there were times where character wasn't good
00:33:10it went just as badly as i thought it would go but we were desperate and you know right now a lot
00:33:16of people are having this issue right because it's hard to find good people right now yeah sure is
00:33:22i don't think just because we have the right heart doesn't mean that situation is going to work out
00:33:31and that's a good point i think a lot of times and we have the right heart we you know we wanted to
00:33:39work out so badly we would even come to work for them we would do the job for them but it doesn't
00:33:47it ends up hurting them because they're not learning anything from it and i think sometimes
00:33:53the best thing that can happen to a person in this situation is that you tell them no and you tell them
00:34:00why yeah exactly this is a little off topic but my son asked me for a reference when he was about 17 or
00:34:0918 years old and i told him i said i couldn't give him a good reference oh and he replied to me
00:34:18he says but dad i'm your son and i said well that's exactly why i can't do it oh wow because
00:34:26it's it was important that he would get the understanding that a reference is not something
00:34:34that you know we do as a friend or hey it's because i can vouch for you now i would give him a
00:34:43rave a raving reference now because he is that person but and that's probably because you said
00:34:51something yeah you know what i always like to think that it that did resonate with him
00:34:58that he had to ask himself you know why would my dad give me a good reference you just said verse
00:35:06four ken what you said is exactly what verse four is answer not a fool according to his folly lest
00:35:12you like him yourself so if you had given him a reference and he had been a failure then that that
00:35:21reflects on you yeah exactly and that's what i i told the same thing i said because now my word is
00:35:28not good okay because i'm being tainted by oh it's my son it's my daughter it's a friend it's my cousin
00:35:39you know i think we have to all be sometimes it's hard just like you said uh earlier that sometimes
00:35:48it's hard to say things to people that we love you know how do we say it and that's the that's the
00:35:57problem how do we tell the ones that we love that you know that there are issues in their life
00:36:04yeah not doing him any favors if you give him that reference when he's not ready for it
00:36:10exactly yeah i had a very similar situation with my own son you know it wasn't a job reference
00:36:18but he was asking me to help him make some connections and i told him i i can't in good
00:36:26conscience do that you go give me something to sell and then come and talk to me again
00:36:29mean dad yeah yeah but that same situation same kind of situation where it's paying off
00:36:39we're seeing him work harder to become that person that he needs to be which is that's a blessing
00:36:49yeah my my story along those lines is uh my boy wanted to go for i think it was a scholarship or
00:36:57something um and he was seeking the scholarship not based upon merit but based upon the subgroup that
00:37:08he associates with and by presenting that as opposed to i'm deserving because of x y or z i didn't recommend
00:37:19that he do that because that was i did not feel that to be a righteous move just because i would say i'm
00:37:28i want to i want a scholarship because i am part of this oppressed group that was not merit based
00:37:35and therefore i didn't think it would was it was wise for him to do that yeah it might have worked
00:37:43though because i mean we do have things are set up a certain way now yeah yeah okay so ready to go on
00:37:52verse 11 it's a good one like a dog that returns yeah vomit so a fool yeah this goes back to the rod for
00:38:01the back of the back of fools too that's the purpose of the rod is to stop the fool from going back to
00:38:07his folly so if you're always enabling or ignoring he's just going to keep doing it somebody's got to
00:38:16intervene at some point but what makes us so surprised though when we see someone keep repeating
00:38:22the same thing you know it's like um we expect a different outcome you know they get another you
00:38:33give them another chance nothing has changed but we expect the outcome to change you know it's kind of
00:38:41like when you did experiments in science you put two chemicals together you're going to get the same reaction
00:38:48no matter no matter no matter what get the same reaction you get the same barn you use the same
00:38:55amount you're going to get the same reaction i think you know the fool don't repeat his folly
00:39:04and the dog's going to return to its vomit yep yeah if you go back to some of the other proverbs
00:39:12that we've even studied it's like a lot of the talk about correction is there and i think that the
00:39:20the only chance of who has is if somebody's going to speak truth or correction to them
00:39:28you know or point out where their their folly is like that's the only way they have that opportunity to
00:39:35grow and change so it just it comes back to like we're talking about like what's going to happen with
00:39:41this dog um who keeps doing the same things but it's really pointing to the obvious which is that
00:39:49something something needs to happen there's some kind of intervention that needs to happen
00:39:54why does a dog eat its own own vomit i have no idea i don't have animals so i have no i don't know i'm
00:40:01i'm asking the question i would well my thing is this isn't it food he just ate it a while ago right
00:40:08yeah maybe that's what it is it's like he's he's thinking like well this is food yeah this is good
00:40:16stuff here okay okay no no think about that though that that shows a lack of discernment on well it's
00:40:25instinct for them that they eat right like they don't have the capacity we have so there is okay so
00:40:31like if you're applying it if you're applying it to a human let's say why would somebody
00:40:38revisit what they've done that well there's going to be some sort of joy or some sort of
00:40:43like at least you have a an alcoholic that continually drinks well yeah you can get to
00:40:49the point where it's a physical craving or you know a cocaine addict or something like that but
00:40:55there is something that is desirous at some point in that process right that makes them want to get
00:41:02that high or or whatever i think that's possible but i also think that it's much more about lacking
00:41:11self-control and ability to the ability to think about it to put off maybe it's put off gratification
00:41:23it goes back to that animalistic instinct like we're humans we're animals but we're supposed to
00:41:30rule over that that animal nature we're supposed to use our minds and you know our obedience to god to
00:41:39like put aside our desires that are fleshly and go against what god says and go against wisdom even and
00:41:50be able to say okay i'm going to flip that aside and i'm going to do this thing that's wiser or do
00:41:55this thing that's better and animals can't do that i mean the dog returning to its vomit is just because
00:42:03yeah maybe it's i just threw up all the food i ate i'm still now i'm hungry again
00:42:09what's there you know like it's food but that's kind of based on instinct it's not there's not a whole
00:42:17lot of logic going on it's just it's just i'm hungry this is where they don't have a choice
00:42:23a lot of our our more base urges uh this is where they really warp our judgment you know drugs are
00:42:30especially bad about this because you know all the mundane things you know i want to say you know like
00:42:38sex or sports or you know whatever it is that gives you an endorphin rush those things are at least
00:42:43natural and they can enable you to ignore your bad choices or ignore the consequences of your
00:42:48bad choices for a short period of time but drugs that can make you ignore everything you can feel
00:42:55like everything is going right when everything is going wrong yeah and it is yeah it that's
00:43:03i think that is an especially bad trap for people because once you get to that point where
00:43:10it's all about the endorphins where you have to keep covering up the failures i mean you can't
00:43:15really face it you're kind of trapped because once you stop all those failures that have been
00:43:22you know piling up behind you they're all just going to run you over and you know they're going to run
00:43:27you over regardless but at least you won't feel it if you're high right not speaking from experience
00:43:34necessarily i'm just people who i who i know who have dealt with those problems and yeah and alcohol
00:43:41is the same to an extent maybe not not quite as severe but you know it enables people to ignore
00:43:47their problems just like other drugs do and you know i think a lot of the our social structures are now
00:43:54deliberately designed to do that same thing to help you ignore the cons the natural consequences of
00:44:01foolish decisions yeah you know a lot of our welfare programs that you know again began as probably
00:44:10with the best intentions on behalf of most people have grown far beyond anything useful and have become
00:44:18they've enabled pathologies instead and it's just one thing after another that lets us ignore foolish
00:44:26consequences until eventually they can't be ignored anymore and it all just blows up well yeah an
00:44:34overriding theme i'm seeing in proverbs that we've been doing the last few weeks probably all of proverbs
00:44:42it's admonitions to take you out of that base animal reaction and okay this is how humans react as
00:44:53opposed to you know your your animalistic nature i mean that that's a good example that that verse in
00:45:00and of itself yes indeed all right verse 12 you know we're probably not going to be able to get to
00:45:09talk about all of them but there's a lot of overlap between these proverbs so i think that's okay
00:45:13you see a man who is wise in his own eyes there is more hope for a fool than for him
00:45:18and that goes right back to the same thing about trolls if somebody seems like they are teachable
00:45:24and willing to be wrong then they're they may be worth engaging with but people who believe that
00:45:30they already know everything probably not worth your time except as an object lesson for other people
00:45:38it reminds me of the pharisees yeshua was constantly telling them that you know there's more hope for these
00:45:45all these sinners over here than for you guys because you guys think you got everything figured
00:45:49out already so how can i teach you anything you know i came for the you know the doctor comes for the
00:45:54sick people not the people who think that they're well because the pharisees weren't well they were sick
00:46:00and they just refused to admit it yeah and that this is exactly what he was essentially demonstrating
00:46:08well you can't put anything in a full glass that's a good point
00:46:12that's the proverb all right so the next one oh go ahead ken no no i was just going to say it was
00:46:21kind of it's just neat how many people know everything you know it just kind of amazes
00:46:28people that have all of this knowledge and i think it's partly responsible because of the internet
00:46:34yeah jay is one of those people yeah i don't know all the answers but i can google oh well i just think
00:46:45you know if we stay humble no matter how much we know we can continue to grow that's that's why i think
00:46:54it's so important once you've got people that know everything in the room it's just it's just going to
00:47:01in badly it's also no more fun if you really think about it it's like if if everybody knows everything
00:47:09like how much fun is there in life to not be discovering new things or like it takes all the
00:47:16joy out of life do you remember the song by mac davis lord it's hard to be humble oh yeah yeah
00:47:25that says it all lord it's hard to be humble when you're perfect in every way
00:47:28right i don't think i'm perfect all right let's go on to verse 13 the sluggard says there is a lion
00:47:35in the road there's a lion in the street oh there is what's going on here any excuse doesn't matter
00:47:45any excuse yeah yeah it might he might be actually afraid of something bad happening but this isn't
00:47:53it doesn't say the coward it says the sluggard it's just somebody who doesn't want to do anything
00:47:58yeah yeah jay i'm just i was just agreeing with i wasn't saying okay i was yeah you know i've heard
00:48:05people say that that there's a line in the road is a totally unreasonable thing to say because lions
00:48:13live in the jungle right it's not really true i mean we've got lions in texas and there were lions in
00:48:20ancient israel in the days of solomon they you know lions prowled in the in the hills around jerusalem
00:48:27so the sluggard here isn't saying something completely ridiculous it's not like he's saying
00:48:32there are martians outside he is saying something that he thinks somebody might believe
00:48:38you know if i don't want to go to work and i call my boss and say hey i'm sick oh boss i'm sick today
00:48:43i'm sorry i can't come in it's not because i'm sick it's just because that's an excuse that i think
00:48:48my boss might believe yeah and i think a person that doesn't want to do anything they will always
00:48:55find an excuse no no matter what they'll always find something that's gonna yeah if they were to have
00:49:05an escort there will be something wrong with the escort to go outside they'll all oh yeah i don't
00:49:13trust me something yeah yeah yeah and verse 14 goes along with verse 13 because i mean he's essentially
00:49:21saying that it doesn't matter what you do the sluggard's still going to be laying in his bed you can
00:49:26pave the way and you know put him in a wheelchair and he's still going to find some reason not to go
00:49:32all right uh verse 15 several of these are about the sluggard here verse 15 is a slightly different
00:49:42take on it though sluggard buries his hand in the dish it wears him out to bring it back to his mouth
00:49:48that's just so funny yeah i mean you can just picture that got a bowl of cereal or whatever
00:49:54sitting in front of you and you put your hand down and i'm too lazy to pick it back up again there's
00:49:59another side to this proverb in in the the plain meaning it's talking about eating food but it's
00:50:06also talking about everything starting anything and not finishing it and putting this in the context
00:50:12of other proverbs here you're talking about hiring people sending people on errands depending on people
00:50:20if somebody has a habit of not finishing a job then you don't want to hire that person
00:50:26because they're going to do the same thing for you you gotta people have need to have a track record
00:50:32of you know disciplining themselves even when they don't want to do something and i know we have paul
00:50:38and i have both been really busy on projects for the last six months just working constantly
00:50:46preparing notes writing articles creating videos all kinds of stuff and sometimes it just gets so tedious
00:50:54and you just want to quit and i've seen paula like i am so ready to be done with this i don't i've got
00:50:59to do this thing i don't want to do it i'm going to do anything except that and then she turns right
00:51:04around and goes and does it totally true kudos paula kudos yes i'm just ready to get this project done
00:51:14i'm like i'm probably five four or five four or five days away from launch you know like that's
00:51:21so close so it's just funny but he's right i like i'll be like i'm not gonna do this and then i go and
00:51:28i do it because it has to be done and then and being lazy about it or procrastinating or whatever like
00:51:37it's not helping it's not helping anybody right nope it's still there yeah and if you're the only
00:51:45one doing it that's the other thing is and that's what's interesting like the thing about bringing
00:51:49the food the slugger not bringing the food back to his mouth like being that you know lazy essentially
00:51:56like you're if you actually do that you're you're gonna starve like you're just gonna starve you're if
00:52:03you're that if you're so lazy that you can't be bothered to like bring the food to your mouth
00:52:08you will starve and that's i think that's a really important thing to understand is that
00:52:13that's what happens with laziness that is exactly what's going to happen if you let that take you over
00:52:22well paul you and ken both have your own businesses and you get to realize and enjoy this
00:52:29every day i mean you you realize the fruit of your labor or lack of labor so it's true you get to
00:52:38experience both yeah yeah nobody pays you to go on vacation you know all the things and you know no one
00:52:48pays you to work in essence because yeah if you don't get the job done oh yeah you don't get paid yeah
00:52:58yeah that's right you gotta have the results yep that's true yep verse 16 is related
00:53:09sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can answer sensibly
00:53:13and you know it goes back to the there's a line in the road a sluggard you know like you were saying ken
00:53:21a lazy person will come up with any excuse not to do what they have to do
00:53:25and you know a wise person will point out well if you don't do this then you know you're not going
00:53:31to have this benefit down the road you're not going to gain this this honor that you would have for you
00:53:36know accomplishment you're not going to have the self-respect all these things the fool is this lazy
00:53:44person is always going to have an answer and there's always another reason because they have decided what
00:53:52what they're going to do whether they know it or not they've decided what they're going to do
00:53:56and they're going to let their you know their evil inclination rationalize to come up with a
00:54:02justification for not doing what they need to do yeah exactly it makes me think about like armchair
00:54:09quarterbacks like just the whole idea of how our culture has become like that like everybody has an
00:54:15opinion everybody thinks they know but there are way less doers in our modern culture than there are
00:54:26spectators um and this to me yeah and this to me also speaks to that particular um pattern
00:54:36because you can talk all you want about what you think should happen in a situation but if you've never
00:54:44been in that situation personally you know just like running a business like being an entrepreneur
00:54:48versus like being a corporate i don't want to say slave but you know a corporate employee
00:54:55you don't know what it's like to take a vacation and not get paid you don't know what it's like to run
00:55:00a particular kind of business and what all the costs of that that business is but you have plenty of
00:55:07people willing to talk about like if that were me i would do this uh if that were me running this
00:55:12business i would make all my prices really cheap and it's like much easier said than done when you
00:55:18don't understand what the costs are yeah and if you tell that person well why don't you do it then
00:55:23they'll say well the system's against me yeah you know because this they want excuses yeah my my boss
00:55:31is you know he's he's a different religion and he's a bigot against me or uh he's a racist or a
00:55:39sexist or there's some reason and it's always somebody else's fault there's always some reason
00:55:44that they can't succeed other than that they just didn't have the discipline to do it yeah yeah and
00:55:50the critics are usually people who are critics are usually the ones doing um so you see that a lot too
00:55:55is people who are critics obviously think that they're wiser than the people who are actually doing all the
00:56:04things critics often do nothing though yeah that's exactly right that's exactly right if there are any
00:56:15specific proverbs that anybody wants to talk about that we haven't gotten to yet in this chapter
00:56:20bring them up now so we can address those before we do run out of time 22 the next i was gonna say the
00:56:27next one like one who takes a dog by the ears is this just because like it's a stupid thing to do
00:56:34yep okay yeah i've never tried to take a dog by the ears i'm assuming it wouldn't go well yeah well
00:56:42they like to have their ears scratched and pulled but this is talking about ancient israel where people
00:56:49didn't really have pet dogs if there's a dog running in the street then it's you know either a work
00:56:54dog or it's a feral dog and you don't want to go grabbing those kind of dogs by the ears because
00:57:01you're going to get bit yeah that makes sense you know i i used to there was a a popular blog that i
00:57:08read years ago and you know it i guess i just kind of outgrew it i guess but one of the things that the
00:57:16blogger talked about frequently was people who interfered in other people's business and he would
00:57:22frequently post a video that he found online and say here's an example of why not to why you don't
00:57:28get involved in strangers businesses and it would be you know some guy and his in his girlfriend or
00:57:34wife having a public fight you know they're hitting each other screaming at each other and some guy would
00:57:40intervene you know being a white knight and then he'd get the crap beat out of him or he'd be shot
00:57:45or something and it was because this couple these people that he didn't know this is just how they
00:57:50lived they were always behaving that way and you know it's certainly unhealthy it's certainly bad for
00:57:56them but it's also not not really a good idea to intervene in the business of strangers now if these
00:58:04are your friends that may be something different or if somebody's life is obviously in danger
00:58:09maybe there's a reason to intervene there depending on whether you actually have a chance to help anybody
00:58:13but just sticking your nose into somebody else's argument it's usually a bad idea yeah yeah
00:58:23how many times especially when you talk about tempers being high how many times have you seen the
00:58:27police go out on a domestic violence or domestic quarrel and the victim turns on the police
00:58:36yeah because realize that their significant other is probably going to go to jail or or something you
00:58:43know yeah and cops talk about how dangerous that situation is yeah when they can go in and all of a
00:58:52sudden they turn on them just because yep 22 seems to the patterns you know people's patterns they have
00:59:04patterns in their relationships they have patterns in their life yeah and we're foolish if we think
00:59:10we're going to just like change that kind of stuff and if you don't know what somebody's patterns are
00:59:16yeah how it could escalate all that yeah yeah all right so verse 22 it seems like it's unfinished
00:59:24the words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels they go down into the inner parts of the body
00:59:29where's the rest of the body where's the rest of it okay it kind of seems like that yeah yeah he's
00:59:36not really giving you a consequence no all right i would assume what i would assume that that means
00:59:43that they that it it goes like deep into them and like like it almost like it fills them up
00:59:52so is whispering bad being i assume whispering is um uh speaking uh deceptively i don't know
01:00:02yeah king james translates it as a tail bearer or a same word means the word is near gone and it means
01:00:11a murmur whisperer a backbiter tail bearer so this is somebody who is saying negative
01:00:18i guess somebody lashon or yeah okay yeah but that then that makes sense because like that stuff
01:00:24is going to stay with people like the idea that it goes down into their inmost parts it means it will
01:00:29not leave them well just like that curse we were talking about at the beginning of the chapter it
01:00:35gets into your head and then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy yeah well i guess 23 continues it though
01:00:43yeah yeah yeah it's it i think it's definitely comparing it yeah it's talking about somebody who
01:00:49is um it's another version of lashon hurrah i don't know if you're familiar with that term ken but it's
01:00:55it's a hebrew term that means the evil tongue okay and that encompasses slander or gossip curses anything
01:01:04that you're just saying bad things about people so in the first case in verse 22 this is somebody who's
01:01:11talking to you about somebody else's business tail bearing about other people in verse 23 it's
01:01:19somebody talking to you with deceit you know somebody with fervent lips so like they're saying things
01:01:25that are um that sound sincere maybe they're flattering maybe they're telling you things that you want to
01:01:34hear in order to manipulate you but they've got an evil intent so the glaze covering an earthen vessel that
01:01:41one really kind of puzzled me it's like what exactly does that mean how is that like somebody with
01:01:46fervent lips and an evil heart um but one of the commentaries i read yeah it looks like more than it
01:01:52is in one of the commentaries i read the actual hebrew words here are silver dross so covered with silver
01:02:03dross and that's literally what the this glazing is in keel in the i don't know german names i can't
01:02:14pronounce them anyways these guys k and d they were saying that one of the processes that used to be
01:02:21used for glazing earthenware pots was when they refined silver they would save the dross so it would
01:02:28essentially be a lead and tin mixture that you know you'd scrape off the silver and it would have
01:02:34all kinds of impurities and stuff in it but they would use that as a a thin glaze over an earthenware
01:02:40pot and then they'd bake it in so you'd get this nice silvery sheen on the outside of a pot but or on
01:02:47the inside depending but it would look kind of silvery and it would look fancy but it's actually trash
01:02:53trash and it was full of lead but like poison yeah they probably didn't know that that was poison
01:03:01i i don't know if solomon knew that or not but it's show it's picturing something that is that looks
01:03:08good on the outside but isn't really what it looks like yeah exactly so these verses are like the jerry
01:03:15springer verses we're very intrigued by all of somebody else's garbage and but we watch it right
01:03:23yeah yeah that's true all right so the rest of this chapter any other proverbs anybody wants to
01:03:30address or talk about so i'm curious about verse 25 it says when he speaks graciously do not believe
01:03:41him because there are seven abominations in his heart so there must be a significance about seven
01:03:47abominations but i i'm not getting the reference do you have any idea um well seven being perfect or
01:03:58complete other than that i'm not sure i like what dick says about it talks about his hatred being covered
01:04:07up with deception and his wickedness will be exposed in the assembly and i i think people sometimes they're
01:04:17you know when people are exposed it's kind of like you get to see i don't know if you remember watching
01:04:25scooby-doo yeah when they always caught the person it was always a person in disguise
01:04:33they tried to act as if they were not against someone but they were i just think of guys that
01:04:44they were hiding behind i think it's the same thing with people and i think especially now
01:04:51people may say you know they like you they may say this and they may say that but at the same time
01:04:58in their heart they know that they have those abominations again it made me think of
01:05:08when yeshua is talking about somebody who is uh set free from an unclean spirit but then they don't
01:05:17correct the problem that caused that that demonic influence in the first place and then the spirit comes
01:05:24back and brings a bunch of his friends with him kind of made me think of that and i was trying to see
01:05:29whether it actually says seven yeah it does in uh this is matthew chapter am i in matthew 12
01:05:38verse uh 40 43 to 45 uh let me bring this over on the screen okay show this one right here
01:05:48oh there's a great spirit when an impure spirit comes out of a person it goes through arid places
01:05:54seeking rest and does not find it then it says i will return to the house i left when it arrives it
01:06:00finds the house unoccupied swept clean and put in order then it goes and takes with it seven other
01:06:05spirits more wicked than itself and they go in and live there and the final condition of the person is
01:06:10worse than the first and i'm yeah i'm not sure probably proverbs obviously was written before uh
01:06:19man you so this is this may be the genesis of that yeah it could be a reference to it
01:06:26i think that the idea of seven is that total or perfect abominations yeah that's so bad there's no
01:06:35hope for him yeah unlimited in a sense and i think uh verse 25 25 okay thanks and i you know what i think
01:06:45about this you know when jesus tells peter how many times he should forgive his i think a brother
01:06:54he's at seven times 70
01:06:56yes which is obviously unlimited yeah yeah that's that's the intent it's not it's not like he was
01:07:05wanting us to count and keep track 90 okay whoever digs a pit will fall into it and a stone will come
01:07:13back on him who starts it rolling which is a lot like verse was it verse two that talks about the curse
01:07:19undeserved this is a curse that is deserved if you do something that causes bad results i mean don't be
01:07:27surprised and don't blame somebody else it's almost like a mordecai thing you know yeah that's a good
01:07:33example yeah and balam too you know balam taught balak how to curse israel and he ended up being killed by
01:07:42israel as a result of that i think in general you know people who spend a lot of time
01:07:50you know creating elaborate schemes trying to trap other people they kind of get caught up in
01:07:56the the complexity of their own schemes and can't keep track of it kind of like a liar who keeps having
01:08:02to add lies on top of lies in order to cover the old ones eventually it gets too complicated to keep
01:08:10track of and stay on top of and you get caught by it yep exactly getting caught on your own web
01:08:16that's where they say what a tangle where we weave when we try to lie