Proverbs 18:2,  A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart may discover itself.

This proverb deals in absolutes. It talks about a fool, a bona-fide, full fledged card carrying fool.

It does not talk about the foolish from which all of us at times claim membership.

We all have our foolish moments and this proverb at times can be applied to believers.

When it does it would read thusly: The foolish at times do not delight in understanding but only wish and in fact delight to bare their soul with what is in their heart.

It may also read: Don't you dare confuse me with the facts, all I'm interested in is giving my opinion.

It may also read: Those who are rebellious don't care about the facts. All they want to do is yell.

Parents at times fit well into these clothes of foolish wear. We may not be a fool but we can play the fool.

Parents at times, assume things about their children too quickly without desiring to understand a situation and they immediately let all that is in their heart flow in great uncontrolled gushes.

There is no stopping the flow of words. Their heart is discovered!

Children should not be exempt from their day in court.

They too have a story to tell. Wise parents delay discovering their heart to them.

Wise parents have delight in understanding but we are told here in this proverb that the fool has no delight in understanding.

The disposition of fools is opposite to that of lovers of wisdom.

Their desire does not include understanding because that will require a yielding of themselves to another.

The fool that we are talking about here is the one who says in his heart that he has no room for God.

He says, No God for me. Don't complicate my life with true understanding.

He says: I desire to live in a world of my own making.

Any understanding or knowledge which he may seek or pursue is for the purpose of uplifting him in position or power in the world of his own making.

It is motivated by a desire to elevate himself instead of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He has no interest in the pre-imminence of our Savior.

His only interest is in the pre-imminence of himself, in the pre-imminence of his own fool-dom.

Otherwise true understanding, understanding of the holy, only gets in the way of his pursuits.

It complicates his life and in his mind threatens to cause the building blocks of his fool filled life to fall.

When Simon in the book of Acts, saw that through laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money,

Saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost.

Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.

Simon was not interested in understanding about that which is holy, but only interested in that which promoted his financial well-being, that which promoted fools.

He discovered that from his heart.

Also in the book of Acts, King Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.

The key word for a fool is the word almost.

His heart allows him to come to the gate called almost but at that point he must stop. For lack of a delight in understanding.

The fool who delights not in understanding is like the Pharisee:

Who stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.

I like to discover my own heart and I like others to discover it also.

No matter that the heart that he discovers is a heart of his own making.

The same heart that Jesus Christ calls whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.

As Rom 16:18 says,  For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.

God by his word gives us discernment.

He tells us that a mark of a fool is that he delights in having his heart discover itself.

A fool is an explorer of his heart.

A fool puts Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan to shame.

The astronauts are neophytes, at discovery compared to the fool.

He finds all he wants to know by exploring his own heart.

All his life is built on discovery of his heart.

This word discover in the Hebrew is from the word gaw-law' which means to denude.

It means to reveal, to advertise, to disclose, to publish, to uncover.

It does not necessarily mean that the heart is discovered to another, it simply means that the heart is discoved to itself.

It may be revealed to another by the practices of the fool but it also may be concealed to others but only revealed to the fool.

The fool hath no delight in true understanding because the only place he goes for understanding is his heart.

He builds all his systems of belief and understanding upon the foundation of a heart that God has pronounced deceitful and desperately wicked.

He goes to the same heart where Communism and Nazism and where evolution and abortion and humanism and self righteousness were hatched.

The heart that brought about the Holocaust and the heart that took men and women and burned them at the stake because of their love for the Lord Jesus Christ.

But this is his resource! The fool chooses to have no other.

He delights only in his heart. That is where all discovery takes place and he loves to dwell there.

Don't bother me with your understanding, he says.

I look to my heart and there I find no God for me.

My heart feeds me with plenty of understanding.

I can explore its hidden rooms and caverns for a lifetime and never know my heart.

The depths of my heart are past finding out.

My heart fills me with every imagination of thought.

You may think they are profane and vain babblings, oppositions of science falsely so called, but they come from my heart.

They are there for me to discover.

I can discover within the bowels of my heart the way of Cain.

I can run greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and the gainsaying of Core.

My heart reveals a section on murmuring, complaining, walking after lusts; and it teaches me to speak great swelling words.

I can discover within its depths the ability to have men's persons in admiration because of advantage.

My heart has a complete library of books in alphabetical order of adulteries, blasphemy, covetousness, deceit, the ability called the evil eye, evil thoughts, foolishness, fornications, lasciviousness, murders, pride, thefts, and wickedness.

There is no end to the volumes that I can check out of the library of the heart. There is no end to discovery.

This shows us that there is no hope for a fool for he rejects understanding that only God can provide through a new heart.

The old heart is declared dead by God. But that's where the fool lives.

It is a sepulcher only used to bury the dead and any discovery from it will result in dead men's bones.

David had the right understanding when he said in:

Psalm 51:10,  Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

Understanding can only come from a clean heart implanted by God.