Grace Thoughts

Guest (Male): Hello friends, welcome to Grace Thoughts, the radio ministry of Grace Connection Church with Pastor Tim Kelley. Grace Thoughts has been dedicated to preaching a clear gospel of grace for over 20 years. Here is Pastor Kelley.

Tim Kelley: In other words, Zodiates, who wrote the Hebrew-Greek Key Study Bible, says this fool, this *anoētos* fool, is one who will not—not cannot, but will not—govern their own moral lusts. That is a fool according to Zodiates. That is one of the strong nuances of this word. It is somebody who will not, not cannot, govern their own moral lusts. Sometimes we say it is cannot, but it is really will not govern our own moral lusts. We do not want to.

This is a fool. It says he will not govern our own moral lusts. Considering Romans 8:2, we all have the spirit of life in us, the new governing principle of the spirit of life. There are not a whole bunch of things I do not think that many Christians cannot get victory over. Some folks, my friends—and this is not my commentary, but somebody else's—are like the proverbial pig being led around by the nose. They cannot say no to temptation. Temptation hits them in the face and they fall. Another temptation, they go. Another temptation, they go. They cannot say no. It does not take much to hook them and bring them into something.

Probably a lot of reasons for that, but according to the definition of this word, the Bible calls that man, that woman, that child foolish. There is also a theological attachment to this word. Let me show you Galatians 3:1-3. It says, "Oh foolish Galatians, *anoētos*," there is that word again. "Who has bewitched you? Who has tricked you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, you are now perfected by the flesh?"

So he calls that person, again, foolish. These Galatians, you know the story of them. The background is important to understand. Paul comes through this area and preaches. Many people are converted. There is a group of pseudo-Christians—they could have been real Christians, but they were deceived and watered down the gospel as we know it. They came behind Paul and said, "Listen, Paul is a nice guy. His heart's well, he's good, his intentions are good. But you know, when Jesus died on the cross, he really didn't end all the law. We still have to be circumcised. We can't just throw Moses's stuff out the window. We can't do that. We're still Jews, right? So you still need to be circumcised. You still need to obey the Sabbath. You've still got to do all those things of the law."

Paul said to those people in Galatians 1:8, "Let them be cursed." That is pretty strong language. Here he rebukes them. He says, "Oh foolish Galatians." Senseless, thoughtless, mindless Galatians. Vincent says this indicates a folly which is the outgrowth of a moral defect. This folly of theirs came from something more than just an intellectual misdecision or intellectual deception. There was a moral defect inside the fabric of their makeup. This word brings it out. It is not just being tricked mentally. There is something morally and ethically in your heart that is not quite right that allows this foolishness to manifest itself.

Clarke says of the same verse, "Oh infatuated people. You make as little use of reason as those who have none. You have acted in the business as those who are fascinated. They are led blindly and unresistingly to their own destruction." They do not resist. Why don't they resist? Because this book was never first in their life. This was not their guide. This was not their restraint. This was not their conviction. This was not their moral code. This was a thing in their life, a picture on the wall, but it was not their everything. They were looking for something more. They were looking for something to fascinate them: one more thrill, one more excitement, one new doctrine, one more experience.

They could not say no to themselves. They were fools. The fool Paul is talking about departs from the heartbeat of the message of grace. He is saying to these folks, "You guys have departed from the message of grace and you've embraced this and you've embraced that. You've departed from the pure gospel of Jesus Christ. Oh foolish Galatians, who has fascinated you? Who has tricked you?"

There is a difference in messages, my friend. The law produces no fruit. The finished work of Christ and what he did on a cross does. Be discerning hearers. Anyone who adds something to the gospel that says, "Oh yeah, you're saved, but it's grace plus obedience, grace plus baptism, or grace plus the gifts," is adding something. As subtle as that is—and oftentimes it is very subtle—who has bewitched you?

God does not need our help and neither can he use our help in saving us, keeping us, or presenting us faultless before the Father on that day. He does not need our help. He cannot use our help. We will mess it up. It is all grace. Message matters. Learn to discern legalism. Learn to discern performance-based formula Christianity. Learn to discern it in your own heart. That is where I find most of it. I was talking with my wife last night and I was saying it is amazing. I have been teaching and preaching the gospel as clearly as I know how for 30 years next year, I think it is, full-time since 1989. I am still legalistic to myself. I still find myself living by a performance-based gospel, judging myself by how I am performing in any given moment. When am I ever going to really get it?

She said, "When you die." She is right. Probably when I die I will find, "Yeah, I was a fool." But in the meantime, my friends, I want to discern and smell legalism. When you hear a grace-plus-something message, listen for it. I listen on the radio now or I listen to preachers and I hear it. The formula comes out: if you just do this, you just do that, and you just do this, then this will happen. No, it will not. You cannot box God in. You cannot tell God he is going to act a certain way or perform a certain way. You cannot make a formula out of your Christian faith.

It does not work. You will end up frustrated, blaming God, and questioning everything. We are just simply recipients of divine favor, whatever happens in our life. We are adopted children of God. In tragedy or in blessing, we are adopted children of God. I have to move on to Matthew 7:26, the second usage of this word. "And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand." You know the parable that I am referring to here. The word foolish here is a different word. It is not *anoētos*. This word is *mōros*, where we get the English word "moron" from. It means to be mentally retired or to have the intellect of an adolescent, 10 to 12 years old.

That is actually in the lexicon. It says this person has the mental and emotional makeup of a 10 to 12-year-old person, *mōros*. It is used, as we have seen here, to illustrate the man who built his house upon the sand. He built his house on the sand because it looked like a better deal, but he had no wisdom behind it. You cannot separate foolishness and wisdom; they go together. It is also used in the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew chapter 25, where some of them filled their lamps and some of them did not. It said they were fools, those who did not.

It was used for the man who acquired his wealth his entire life and then stored up in barns and kept building new barns. What did God say? "You fool. Tonight your soul will be required of you, you fool. You made your whole life about security, temporal security. You made your whole life about gathering riches. You made your whole life about success in the world's system. You fool," Jesus said. "Tonight you're going to die and you won't realize any of it. You didn't live for anything eternal. Your whole life will be wood, hay, and stubble. No one will remember your life because you didn't live it for anything memorable."

The basic principle, my friends, is wisdom ordering one's life according to God's standard. Again, you cannot take the word fool and separate it from wisdom because they feed off one another; they are the opposite antithesis of one another. While foolishness is placing physical and material considerations above spiritual priorities, that is *mōros*. That is how this word is used. Every word is used a little differently. We have spiritual priorities, but my spiritual priorities are squashed if they even existed at all. They are kept way down and I put earthly priorities above it. I put my comfort, I put my success, I put career, or whatever that is. The things of the earth and the things of life are above the spiritual things. I have a spiritual side, but it is not high on my list. It is somewhere down, maybe in the top ten, but it is eight or nine. Other stuff is above it.

The Bible says in this particular word that this person is *mōros*. This person is a fool, in the English translation, a moron. From God's perspective, you can see why God would say that. Here is God in heaven and here is the man accumulating his riches and making his kingdom on earth and gaining fame and fortune or whatever it is he is after. He has got all these things, and there is God thinking, "Boy, you have no clue, do you? You have no clue what's really important." He looks at our lives scurrying about here on planet Earth, grabbing for everything that the cosmic diabolist has to give us, and God is like, "You have no clue. Don't you understand there's something so much bigger than all this? Fool, tonight your soul will be required of you."

The *mōros* person never sees eternity in their sight. They never really look at the eternal things. It never brings in their estimation. It never comes into their equation. It does not influence their decisions. It does not impact their relationships. It does not really touch their lifestyle. Everything is in the here and now and the acquisition of things in this life. Jesus is basically saying, "If you put anything from this earth in front of me, you're foolish." I do not think we disagree with that. I think we would all agree with that. We do not always live like that, but I think we would agree with that.

My prayer for myself tonight is that he will show me foolishness in my own heart: that he will show me areas where I have lost sight of eternity and have placed the things of time and space instead of them; where somehow I have taken the word of God and what I know to be true and I have kept it down there and kept my own wisdom, my own pursuits, my own needs, maybe above what I know God would have. I just want God to show me foolishness in my own heart because we all have it. This will be a good series, a very compelling series, and a very convicting series. The scriptures are very clear on what these words mean. Each word has a significance to it that will reveal things about the human heart and how we live our lives. You might have heard some of these things and said, "I know a guy like that or a girl like that," and you might, you probably do. But that is not why we are saying it—so we can label people. We are saying it so God can reveal things in our own heart.