Rick Hughes navigates the intriguing contrasts between wisdom and foolishness as understood through biblical teachings. Delve into the types of foolishness outlined in scripture and gain insight into how wisdom, grounded in divine viewpoint and Bible doctrine, can transform one’s life. Discover practical, faith-based strategies to live a life free from the folly that pervades the cosmic system.
Welcome to The Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
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Good morning and welcome to The Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, I’ve been giving you a cordial invitation to stick around. It’ll just be a very short time of motivation, some inspiration, a little bit of education, and without any type of manipulation. We don’t con people. We’re not trying to appeal for money. We’re not trying to hustle you or sell you something. We just want to give you information, information that we pray would help you verify and identify the plan of God for your life. That’s why we have a show called the FLOT line, FLOT, F-L-O-T. It’s a military acronym for the Forward Line of Troops. What we’re trying to say is that by learning God’s Word, learning the Word of God, under a pastor that’s well-qualified and understands it, then he can teach you these wonderful problem-solving devices found in the Bible. There are at least 10 of them we’ve identified. And if you learn these 10 problem-solving devices, which these are nothing new, this is age-old biblical doctrine. If you learn them and use them, then you can glorify Jesus Christ to the maximum. You can keep the outside source of adversity from becoming the inside source of stress, and you can become a mature believer, which is maximum glorification of God the Father. So, of course, the 10 problem-solving devices always start out with rebound, and that’s the problem of sin. How do we solve that as a Christian? By the way, we have this in a book called Christian Problem Solving. We’ll be glad to send you free of charge if you just write to us, rick at rickhughesministries.org, rick at rickhughesministries.org. All our material is free. You can write and request any of it from our website, rickhughesministries.org. And anyhow, Rebound is the first problem-solving device that solves our problem of sin and failure. We learn how to get back in fellowship after we sin, after we quench and grieve the Holy Spirit. And then the second problem-solving device is always the filling of the Holy Spirit, and that tells us how to live our life not under control of the sin nature, but rather under the control of God the Holy Spirit, Ephesians 5.18, be filled with the Spirit. And then we learn problem-solving device number three, the faith rest drill, and that’s standing on the promises of God. We even have a book called Biblical Promises and Principles that my friends and I have put together for you. It’s free of charge. It’s nothing but no narrative in it, just a lot of Bible verses that apply to certain situations in your life about the size of a small telephone book. It’s free if you’d like to have it and get in touch with us. And all of our radio shows are transcribed, especially last year. We did 52 radio shows last year, all transcribed, all in print, all for you if you’d like to have it. Now, after the faith rest drill, we come to grace orientation. We have saving grace, living grace, dying grace, surpassing grace, and then we come to another problem-solving device called doctrinal orientation, and that’s learning with the mind of Christ, changing the way we think, learning to have divine viewpoint, not living by human viewpoint. That gives us a personal sense of destiny, which is a door that opens, and we go through that door, and maybe for the first time in our life, that’s an analogy, of course, but We go through that door and for the first time in our life, we’re on God’s plan and we begin to see God’s destiny for us. What is his will for our life? That’s the biggest question people ask me. How do I know God’s will for my life? There’s a definite way to know it. And when you have a personal sense of destiny, you understand what your spiritual gift is, you understand how you’re supposed to use it, you understand the protocol plan of God and how it functions in your life. And then from that, we move to our motivational virtue, which is a personal love for God, the greatest motivation any of us could have. As 1 John 5, 3 says, if you love me, you will obey me, and my mandates are not hard. And then we move into impersonal love for all other people, those that we get frustrated with, sometimes our spouse, sometimes our neighbor, sometimes someone we don’t even like, another race, we get frustrated. And we don’t understand impersonal love that Jesus Christ died for all mankind. And we’re commanded to love all mankind. And the Bible says if we say we love God and hate our neighbor, the truth is not in us. And then we go to sharing the happiness of God, which is plus H. And that’s the happiness that Jesus guaranteed the disciples, my joy I leave with you. And then there’s occupation with Christ, and that’s the mystery doctrine of the church age, Christ in you, the hope of glory. Now that just ran through those 10 real quick, but you should understand them. You should know them. They’re yours. They’re yours to… access and use in your life every day. 10 wonderful problem-solving devices. But on occasion, I say on occasion, we do run into people that are rather foolish. And I like to say fools commit foolish acts. In Proverbs 12, 25, the Bible says, “‘The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, “‘but he that listens unto counsel is wise.'” And this is something I learned a long time ago, and you might need to understand this also. A fool cannot be taught anything because he thinks he understands what’s right. He thinks he’s his own God. The fool is right in his own eyes. That’s unrealistic self-image. And when you have an unrealistic self-image, you always have unrealistic expectations. And it’s always a tragedy to run into people who think that they’re smarter than God. They don’t need the Bible. They have their own Bible, their own mind, their own humanistic viewpoint. Even though the Bible tells you stop thinking in terms of arrogance beyond what you should think, but think in terms of humility as God has given to us a standard of thinking from his word, Romans 12, 3. But the fool doesn’t do that. The fool thinks in terms of cosmic viewpoint, the cosmic system. He drinks the Kool-Aid of the devil’s world, and he’s a fool. But the Bible goes on to make the contrast in Proverbs 12, 25. He that listens to counsel, that’s Bible doctrine, the word of God, maybe from your own pastor, well, that person is wise or gains wisdom. There’s a great Irish poet in the 20th century named W.B. Yeats, and he wrote this. I like this saying. It says, rhetoric is fooling others. Sentimentality is fooling yourself. Rhetoric is fooling others, and sentimentality is fooling self. You know, a subjective person fools self all the time. Subjectivity is something you must stay away from. You must remain objective, objective from the Word of God, and not fool yourself into thinking you’re something you’re not. So he recognized the fool, the person who fools himself, In Proverbs 29, 11, another verse, a fool expresses all his emotions, but a wise person controls them. This is one of the traits of a foolish person, and that’s loss of emotional control. Maybe that’s never happened to you, but maybe you’ve been the victim of road rage or someone lost control of their emotions and tried to run you over and blow the horn, shoot the bird, want you to pull over and fight, road rage. And, you know, you can see a lot of loss of emotion in what’s going on in our country today. And some of the riots where people are destroying property and stealing and hurting and looting and killing. Even though they’re very frustrated over certain issues that are legitimate, it doesn’t ever give anybody the right to kill another person. And that’s when their emotions get out of control. And the wise person controls his emotions. The Bible says in Proverbs 29, 11, a wise person controls his emotions. That means that you can live one or two ways. You can live by what you think, which is mentality, or you can live by what you feel, which is emotion. If you live by what you feel, you’re always going to react to adverse circumstances. But if you live by what you think, if it’s divine viewpoint, if it’s the word of God, then you can respond to adverse circumstances. And you respond with forgiveness. You respond with temperance. You respond with tolerance. You respond with prayer. When most people don’t respond, they react. They get mad. They want to fight. They want to sue. They want to do something. That’s the fool expressing all his emotions. He can’t control his emotions. A mature believer can control his emotions and not get out of emotional control. If you’re a parent and you lose control of your emotions dealing with your kids where you yell at them, scream at them, or even beat them, you’re in trouble. You need to get help. You need to talk to somebody quickly before you ruin their life and your life. You know, someone once said it’s better to keep your mouth shut and look like a fool than to speak and remove all doubt. And that’s so very true. I’ve been in conversations with people that are much smarter than me, and I’ve learned one thing. Keep your mouth shut. Just listen. Take notes. Write something down that you can remember. But don’t try to jump in and give your human viewpoint that doesn’t contribute to the situation just so you can try to make yourself look good. So it’s better to keep your mouth shut and look like a fool than to speak and remove all doubt. You know, looking for wisdom among a fool is pointless. It leads to conclusions that nobody acts wisely. Fools don’t have any wisdom. Wisdom comes from Bible doctrine in your soul. When you have Bible doctrine in your soul, you have wisdom or the Greek word Sophia. But wisdom only comes from knowledge that’s first been learned. If you don’t learn anything, it’s impossible to have any wisdom because what you’ve learned has to be converted from knowledge into wisdom. and then from wisdom into insight and discernment. A fool doesn’t have that. So if you’re looking for wisdom among a fool, it’s not there. Maybe that’s why you see some politicians acting rather foolish because there is no wisdom. So a self-centered individual with an unrealistic self-image, that’s a fool. A self-centered individual with an unrealistic self-image that’s blinded blinded by his or her own arrogance. This person is indifferent and dogmatic and unconcerned about ethics or accountability. That’s what a fool does. Listen again as I give you a definition. It’s a self-centered individual with an unrealistic self-image. blinded by his or her own arrogance. They are usually indifferent and dogmatic and unconcerned about ethics or accountability. They just want their way, whatever their way happens to be, that’s what they want. And they think you must submit to their way or you’re the fool. In the Old Testament, the word fool is used and actually it’s a translation of five different words that reflect different types of fools. Maybe you didn’t know this, I found this on the internet. It’s not me, it’s not original, but I love it and I’m gonna give it to you. As I was searching around the word of God, searching through teachers through the internet, I ran into this and so I thought it was great. Because fools progress in rebellion. It’s a dead-end lifestyle. That’s the way the fool lives. It’s a dead-end lifestyle. If you think you know more than God or you think there is no God, that’s the fool, Proverbs 14, 7. If you think there is no God, you’re going to live a dead-end lifestyle. You’re going to come to your grave dead and empty and full of doubt and fear. So what kind of fools do we have, these five different words that reflect the difference in types of fools? Well, the first one, he’s called a selfish fool. That’s a person who has a bloated ego. He’s a narcissist. He’s a megalomaniac, that type of attitude. You can see that in Proverbs 18, verse 2. A fool finds no pleasure in understanding, but delights in airing their own opinion. Proverbs 18, 2. A fool finds no pleasure in understanding, but delights in airing their own opinion. In Jeremiah, God said, I’m looking for people that know me and understand me. Until you understand the protocol plan of God, you can never really begin to live because you only live based on your emotion and that driven mentality of arrogance. So you wind up being that bloated ego narcissist, the megalomaniac attitude that the fool who only wants to delight in airing his opinions. He’s a selfish fool. And we have a simple fool, a simple fool. The Hebrew word simple is a Hebrew word called pethah. Pathé, the Hebrew word, and it implies someone who’s extremely vulnerable, extreme vulnerability. Pathé means to be opened up or to open up your arms and your minds to passing thoughts and passing strangers, which is indication of a lack of discernment. Pathé is a person who has an oversimplified view of life, and fails to recognize cause and effect, and subsequent sequences that affect every area of their life. That’s a simple fool. He can’t think past his own nose. Proverbs 22, 3, the prudent man sees evil and hides himself from it. but the naive go on and are punished for it. The rewards of humility and the fear of the Lord are riches, honor, and life. The word prudent is the word we’re talking about here. The pathé, the prudent person, excuse me, the word naive I mean to say, prudent is you, the mature believer. The naive person, the naive person, the pathé goes on and is punished for his bad decisions. So the simple fool, the naive person, the pathé, is not discerning. That type of person is easily captivated by all kinds of enticement and deceptions, and that person is usually intensely curious, want to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong, figure out what’s going on. You know, you’ve been around people like that. They know everything. If something happens, they’re going to stop and find out what it is. And then there’s the silly fool. Yes, a simple fool. Yes, a selfish fool. And now a silly fool. And we get a Hebrew word here, evel. Evel for the silly fool. Proverbs 10, 14, wise men lay up knowledge, but the mouth of the evel, the mouth of the foolish, is near destruction. Their mouth is near destruction. So the silly fool, the Evel, believes his way of thinking is correct and your way of thinking is wrong. In Proverbs 12, 15, the way of a fool, Evel, is right in his own eyes, but he that hearkens unto the counsel of God is wise. So the fool’s not interested in what God has to say. He doesn’t believe there is a God. He thinks he doesn’t need God. He doesn’t believe in the plan of God. He’s a fool, and he lives a dead-end life. And he reacts to instruction when it’s offered to him. The silly fool can’t handle instruction. Proverbs 1, 7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Listen carefully now. But fools, Evel, despise wisdom and despise instruction. They don’t want it, not interested. Why? Because in their arrogant, unrealistic self-image, they already know the answer. They think that Christianity or the Bible is just simply a crutch for weak-minded people that can’t keep up with them. They’re silly fools. And then there is what the Bible describes as a sensual fool. The Hebrew word kesil, kesil, the sensual fool. In Proverbs 10, 23, it is as sport to a casio to do mischief, but a man of understanding has wisdom. So the casio, the sensual fool, has fun with his mischief. He thinks it’s funny. He thinks it’s great. This type of person is determined to make wrong choices, wrong decisions, because he has pure and simple negative volition. negative volition, not interested in the word of God. And if you hang out with this person, here’s what’s going to happen to you. Proverbs 13, 20, he who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of a casale will suffer harm. If you know someone like this in any of these categories, please disassociate with that person. please remove them from your social media page. Please don’t debate with them. Please don’t waste your time pleading with them. You’re not going to get anywhere. They’re a fool, and the world is full of them right now. So if you hang out with them, you’re going to suffer harm, the Bible says in Proverbs 13, verse 20. All right, let’s move on. Scripture gives more warning about this type of fool than any other one, the one I just mentioned to you. You don’t need me to go back and tell you one more time. It is the sensual fool, the cassio. The Bible warns about this one more than anybody else. Severe punishment is described for this type of guy, girl, the sensual fool. Here it is, Proverbs 26, verse 3. A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the cassiel’s back. There it is. A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, jackass, and a rod for the cassiel’s back, or the fool’s back. So, He’s mentioned with a horse and a jackass, and here he is. He can’t be controlled, and the only thing that can control him is pain and punishment. And that’s really how people learn. You can learn one of two ways. You can learn the easy way by putting something in your brain and responding to it, or you can learn the hard way. by having something put on you because you’re too stupid to do the right thing. You didn’t listen. You were smarter than God. You didn’t need God. You thought your lifestyle was okay. You thought your decisions were fine. Even though the Bible said don’t do this, don’t get involved in this, don’t be associated with people that do this. But you, oh, you didn’t listen. You didn’t pay any attention. So now we move into the scorning fool. The scorning fool. And the Hebrew word loots, L-O-O-T-S, loots. And this is a person who is a scorner, who makes fun of people. His facial expressions are usually a dead giveaway that he rejects all authority. He could be at work or class and room and the boss or the teacher could make a decision and they’ll roll their eyes and toss their head back and let everybody know that they disagree with that. He’s a scorner. Not only does this person reject truth, but they embrace those things that are abominable to God. He’s a scoffer. The Bible says found in Psalm one, one. Blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, doesn’t stand in the way of sinners, nor does he sit in the seat of the scorners, the fools, the loots. And Proverbs 13, 1, a wise son listens to his father’s instructions, but a loots or a scorner does not hear, nor is he rebuked. And Proverbs 14, 6, a loots or a scorner Seeketh wisdom and findeth it not, but knowledge is easy unto him that understands. The scorner looks in the wrong place, looking for wisdom in all the wrong places. And human viewpoint, usually the cosmic system, whatever it offers, that’s what he goes for since it’s not God’s word, it’s not the Bible, it’s not divine viewpoint. And he finds that much more palatable because it excuses his behavior. So Proverbs 15, 12, a scorner loveth not one that reproveth him, neither will he go to the wise person. So, I mean, it’s not your job to straighten these people out. If you try to straighten them out, they’ll just be bitter towards you. God didn’t send you or me to straighten anybody out. Our mission is to use those 10 problem-solving devices and to introduce people to the most powerful thing in the world, the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul said it’s the power of God unto salvation to anyone who believes it, to the Jew first, then to the Gentile. Talk about a heart transplant. The Bible mentions that. God said he’ll put a new heart in us, and that’s what happens when a person gets saved. He gets a new heart, a different way of thinking. So the Bible clearly says the scorner has to be punished in order to teach other people a lesson. It’s the scorner that has to be punished in order to teach other people a lesson. Listen to Proverbs 19.25. Smite a scorner, lutes, and the simple, that’s another word for fool, the pathil, will beware. Reprove one that hath understanding, and he will understand knowledge. So the loot has to be disciplined so the simple one will be afraid to do the same thing. This is exactly why we have police work. You make an example out of people. So if you have someone that’s an abominable criminal, you prosecute him, you make an example out of him so that perhaps no one else will do the same thing because they don’t want to wind up in jail or worse. Now we have the steadfast fool, and this is the most dangerous type. The Hebrew word Nabal, N-A-B-A-L, means stupid or wicked. Sometimes that word is translated as vile, V-I-L-E. In Proverbs 14, 1, the Nabal has said in his heart, there is no God but they are corrupt they have done abominable works and there is none that doeth good the nabal i think there’s nothing worse than saying there is no god you know that is the only unpardonable sin it’s rejection of jesus christ as savior when you reject god’s holy begotten son the anointed son of god there’s no hope for you If you are so foolish as to say there is no God, that Christ is not the Son of God, that God doesn’t exist, that we’re just floating in a universe full of stars and asteroids and planets, you’re crazy. You’re crazy. This Nabal is a self-confident, closed-minded person who freely gratifies his own lustful nature. Whatever his lust pattern may be, that’s exactly what he’s going to do. And whatever that lust pattern is, that’s what he uses to recruit others into his evil ways. So if he has a sex lust or power lust or alcohol lust or drug lust, that’s what he will use to recruit other people into his little circle of deviance. So the Bible clearly says in Proverbs 1, 22, how long will you simple ones, you fools, how long will you love simplicity? And the scorners, that’s another word for fool, the loots delight in their scorning, and the fools, the cassil, the sensual fools, hate knowledge. How long is this going to go on? It’s going to go on long enough to destroy this country if we don’t get some people wisdom. In Ephesians 5, 15, be very careful how you live your life, not as stupid people, but as wise people. making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. Don’t be foolish. Aphron, that means one without wisdom, without reason, lack of mental stability. Don’t be foolish, but understand what God’s will is for you. You know, that’s pretty clear. God has a plan for your life. In Ephesians 5, 17, these mandates from Paul, be very careful how you live your life because you can do more damage in 30 minutes that you can get rid of in a lifetime. Don’t live like a stupid person, but live as a wise person. What is a wise person? That’s a person that has wisdom from Bible doctrine, a person that’s heard the Word of God, believed the Word of God, applied the Word of God. Wise, making the most of every opportunity. That’s opportunity to glorify God, opportunity to lift up Christ. Because the days are evil, we are in a satanic war today. It’s always been that way. It’s called the angelic conflict. Satan doesn’t want to go to the lake of fire. He’d do his best to get out of going to the lake of fire. And if he can destroy your life and use you as evidence, he will. He wants to do everything he can to slow down the judgment of God that’s coming on him. So therefore, don’t be foolish, Ephron, Paul said. Don’t be a person without reason. Don’t be a person without mental stability in your life. But understand what God’s will is. And now we’re back to what is the will of God for me? What is the will of God for you? And I can tell you this. Jesus said, this is the will of the one who sent me, that you believe in me whom he has sent. That’s the first will of God. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you’ll be saved. The simplest act, the most powerful act, and you can do it. Until next week, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flotline.
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Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
