The Unteachable Fool and God's Nature

“Like the legs which are useless to the lame, so is a proverb in the mouth of a fool [who cannot learn from its wisdom]. Like one who [absurdly] binds a stone in a sling [making it impossible to throw], so is he who [absurdly] gives honor to a fool.

Like a thorn that goes [without being felt] into the hand of a drunken man, so is a proverb in the mouth of a fool [who remains unaffected by its wisdom]. Like a [careless] archer who [shoots arrows wildly and] wounds everyone, so is he who hires a fool or those who [by chance just] pass by. Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool who repeats his foolishness.

Do you see a man [who is unteachable and] wise in his own eyes and full of self-conceit?There is more hope for a fool than for him.” (Proverbs 26:7-12, AMP)

My husband is friends with an older gentleman, Bill, from our old church in North Carolina. When we first met Bill, he brought Sam a homemade slingshot he made at home. He explained that he played with them when he was younger, and wanted to teach Sam how to do it. 

Now, this was not a Y-shaped slingshot that you tend to see in cartoons and toy stores. This slingshot was the real deal. It was essentially one long cord with a cradle in the middle of the length for a stone. When it was loaded and you were holding both ends, it was easily an arms length long. He taught Sam how to hold it and demonstrated how it worked– slinging the rock like a lasso above his head before whipping it away. With a slingshot like this, a rock could easily launch the length of a football field. This thing was no toy. You could easily understand how a young King David could use it as a weapon with the velocity and distance Sam and Bill could shoot these rocks.

Now imagine the picture we get in verse 8: a fool who ties the rock to the cradle of the sling so that it stays. It might seem wise to do if you can’t keep the rock in the slingshot right, but the wisdom is shortsighted. It doesn’t think several steps beyond loading the slingshot so the rock doesn’t fall out. It may keep the stone seated right while you get just the right hold, or hoist it above your head to whip it, but once the cord drops, that stone would remain in the sling; and being an arms length away, that stone would follow the laws of physics. The stone would continue in the orbit of the sling and be perfectly positioned to swing right around and smack the fool on the head. 

It would hurt. And it would look worse than foolish… it would look outright stupid. 

All these analogies in the verses above paint a fool in several lights: as useless as a lame man’s legs, as absurd as the slingshotter who ties the stone to his sling, as careless as a drunk man handling a thornbush, and as dangerous as an archer who shoots his arrows without care. A fool cannot draw on wisdom he refuses to seek God for. A fool not only fails to consult God’s Word but he actively rejects God’s insight, trusting in his own limited experience and understanding.

And what’s worse, is that without God’s guidance and correction, a fool is doomed to repeat his foolishness. Not only is he incapable of living a life that glorifies God, but he lives a life that amounts to nothing– regardless of the recognition and honor he might happen to receive as he stumbles through life.

Yet, the fool believes himself to be smarter than others. He believes his foolish plans to be what puts him ahead. He mistakes his absurdity as ingenuity and innovation. But to the one who walks in the paths of righteousness, the fool in very frank terms only looks stupid. His folly leads to sin and instant gratification. It has the potential to do harm to not only the fool but to others in the process.

When we are saved by grace and walk by righteousness, we are not supposed to continue on in the foolish sin we came from. We are to turn away from it and put on Christ’s holiness. We are to live different lives, gaining wisdom and learning more about the God we serve so we can live at peace with God and be a good witness to others of the life-change God has led us into. 

Verse 11 gives us a very visceral image to illustrate the difference in lifestyle before and after salvation. “Like a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly.” So on top of everything else, a fool disgusts God in their nonsensical sin. Folly is not this cute, small, harmless sin. For a dog, its nature is to return to its vomit, sniffing, investigating, and ultimately eating it. For a sinner, their nature is very similar; they are doomed to repeat their folly and sin according to their nature. That is, unless the sovereign and almighty God reaches down to that sinner and gives him a new nature– a better nature belonging to that perfect, righteous, and holy God. 

We need God to break that cycle of turning and returning to our foolish sins. We need God to pluck us out of our absurd notions and ways of life and giving us His character, wisdom, and Spirit. It is only then that we, the hopeless sinner, can see the depravity of our vomitrocious sin and turn away from it in disgust.

In the way we would look away from the dog eating its vomit in repulsion, we should turn from the fool who happily returns to his sin believing himself to be wise in his own eyes. After seeing the good sense and prudence of God’s Word and the righteous life it produces, the hopeless folly of sin seems stupid and futile by comparison. 

For the fool who is untethered and has no source to turn to in the ebbs and flows of life, he has to depend on himself and his own devices. He is unteachable in the ways of true knowledge and wisdom; he will not hear it. When you look at the choices in his life, you will find that his motives are self-conceited. How could they not be, when he only has his own foolish nature to rely on? And as all sin does, his folly ends up swinging back to hit him smack in the face, just like the stone tied to the slingshot. How stupid the fool will feel when he stands before God at the end of his life, remembering all the times the Gospel was presented to Him, and yet he did not listen.

Yet, when we are beholding the Lord and living according to His Word, we are required to put Him at the center of who we are. He becomes our source and the One we look to for correction, knowledge, and advice. When the Lord is the One we look to, we begin to see how much better He is than anything else that we could rely on, including ourselves. The more we revere God, the more we search His Word and endeavor to submit our nature and will to His, the easier it is to turn from the lure of our sin and to see it for the vomit it is. It is there we find our hope and grab a hold of it, allowing it to lead us through this life, clinging to the goodness of our God.