Two Paths to Ruin: The Fool and the Schemer Text: Proverbs 14:17
Introduction: The Hot Head and the Cold Heart
The book of Proverbs is intensely practical. It is God's inspired instruction manual for living skillfully in His world. It does not deal in vague spiritual abstractions; it gets right down to the grit and gristle of everyday life. It addresses the way a man manages his household, his business, his friendships, and, most importantly, the unruly commonwealth of his own soul. The wisdom of Proverbs is not about being clever, but about being godly. It is about conforming our lives, inside and out, to the grain of God's created reality.
In our text today, Solomon lays before us two character types who are traveling on two different roads to the same disastrous destination. These are two portraits of ungodliness, two ways to make a wreck of your life and the lives of those around you. On the one hand, we have the man of explosive, uncontrolled passion, the hot-headed fool. On the other, we have the man of calculating, malicious intent, the cold-hearted schemer. One is a volcano, the other is a viper. One destroys with loud, impulsive foolishness, the other with quiet, deliberate malice. Both are at war with God, and both reap the consequences assigned by His unblinking moral order.
We live in an age that celebrates both of these sins, provided they are dressed up in the right costumes. The quick-tempered man is lauded as "authentic" and "passionate," especially if his rage is directed toward some approved cultural enemy. The man of evil schemes is praised as "strategic" and "shrewd," a master of political chess, so long as his machinations serve the correct narrative. But God is not impressed with our rebranding efforts. He sees the heart. And in this verse, He gives us a concise and devastating diagnosis of these two kinds of fools.
The Text
A quick-tempered man acts in folly, And a man of evil schemes is hated.
(Proverbs 14:17 LSB)
The Folly of the Fuse (v. 17a)
The first half of the verse deals with the man whose temper has a short fuse.
"A quick-tempered man acts in folly..." (Proverbs 14:17a)
The Hebrew for "quick-tempered" paints a picture of someone with a "shortness of nostrils" or "shortness of breath." It is the opposite of being "long of nose" or "long of anger," which is a frequent description of God's patience. This is the man who gets hot under the collar in an instant. He is reactive, not responsive. An offense is given, real or imagined, and he detonates. There is no space between the stimulus and the explosion for wisdom to get a word in edgewise.
And what is the result? He "acts in folly." The word is clear. His anger does not produce the righteousness of God. It produces foolishness. This is not righteous indignation; it is petulant, self-centered rage. Think of Naaman the Syrian, who flew into a rage when Elisha told him to go dip in the muddy Jordan river. He had a whole script in his head for how his healing was supposed to go, and when reality didn't conform to his expectations, he blew up. "So he turned and went away in a rage" (2 Kings 5:12). That is the quick-tempered man. He is a slave to his passions, and his passions make him a fool.
This kind of anger is a public advertisement of a man's lack of self-control. Proverbs 29:11 says, "A fool gives full vent to his spirit, but a wise man quietly holds it back." The fool lets it all hang out. He thinks his unrestrained outburst is a sign of strength and authenticity. God says it is the mark of a fool. The man who cannot govern his own spirit is more vulnerable than a city without walls (Proverbs 25:28). He is easily conquered, easily manipulated, and utterly unreliable. His anger makes him stupid. He says things he shouldn't say, makes decisions he will later regret, and breaks relationships he cannot easily mend. His life is a series of self-inflicted wounds, followed by bewildered apologies.
This is a profoundly theological issue. A quick temper is a declaration of sovereignty. It is the creature puffing himself up to the size of the Creator and demanding that the universe bend to his will, now. It is practical atheism. The man who is slow to anger, on the other hand, demonstrates great understanding (Proverbs 14:29). He understands that God is on the throne, that he is not, and that he can therefore afford to be patient. He trusts in the Lord's timing and the Lord's justice. The hothead trusts in nothing but the immediate gratification of his own wounded pride.
The Odium of the Operator (v. 17b)
The second half of the proverb introduces us to a different, more sinister character.
"...And a man of evil schemes is hated." (Proverbs 14:17b)
If the first man is a fool because of his lack of control, this man is a villain because of his abundance of it. This is not the man of impulsive passion, but of cold, calculated malice. The Hebrew for "evil schemes" is mezimmah. It refers to a plan, a plot, a device. This is the man who thinks, who plots, who lays traps. His mind is always working, always calculating how to gain an advantage, ruin a rival, or advance his own cause through deceit and manipulation.
While the quick-tempered man's sin is immediately obvious to everyone, the schemer's sin is hidden. He is a whited sepulcher. He may be smooth, charming, and outwardly pious. But in his heart, he "devises wicked plans," which is one of the seven things the Lord hates (Proverbs 6:18). His evil is not a crime of passion; it is a premeditated strategy.
The classic biblical example is Haman the Agagite in the book of Esther. He was insulted by Mordecai's refusal to bow, but he didn't just lash out in the moment. No, he went home and devised a monstrous, wicked scheme to annihilate not just Mordecai, but his entire race (Esther 3:6). He was a man of mezimmah. He was a cold-hearted, calculating monster.
And what is the end of such a man? The text is plain: he "is hated." This is not just a statement of unfortunate social consequences. It is a verdict. It is the declaration of a moral reality. While the hothead is often pitied or dismissed as a fool, the schemer earns a deeper, more settled kind of contempt. When his plots are finally exposed, when the mask is pulled off, the reaction is not pity but revulsion. People hate him. They hate him for his treachery, his duplicity, his cold-blooded malice. Even the world, which often tolerates a loud-mouthed fool, has a special loathing for the traitor and the manipulator.
Ultimately, this hatred is a faint echo of God's own hatred for such wickedness. "A good man obtains favor from the LORD, but a man of evil devices He condemns" (Proverbs 12:2). The schemer may think he is clever, that he is ten steps ahead of everyone else. But he is playing checkers while God is playing chess. His every plot is known to the one from whom no secrets are hidden, and the very trap he sets for others will, in the end, be the instrument of his own destruction. Haman built a gallows for Mordecai, and he ended up swinging from it himself. That is the justice of God.
The Gospel for Hot Heads and Cold Hearts
So we have two sinners. The man ruled by his passions, and the man who uses his reason to plot evil. One sins with his heart on his sleeve, the other with a dagger up it. Both are alienated from God. Both are walking the path of destruction. What hope is there for them? What hope is there for us, when we see these same tendencies in our own hearts?
The hope, as always, is the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel is the only power that can transform both the hot head and the cold heart. To the quick-tempered man, the gospel says, "Behold the patience of God." God is the one who is truly "slow to anger." He endures our provocations, our rebellion, our constant foolishness with a patience that is staggering. And on the cross, Jesus, the Son of God, absorbed the full, unrestrained wrath of God against our sin. He took the ultimate explosion so that we could be offered peace. When a man sees this, when he understands the magnitude of the debt he has been forgiven, it begins to cool his own petty rages. What right have I to fly off the handle at some small slight, when my Lord endured the cross for me?
To the man of evil schemes, the gospel says, "Behold the wisdom of God." The greatest scheme ever devised was God's plan of redemption. Before the foundation of the world, God plotted to save a people for Himself. But His plan was not one of deceit or malice. It was a plan of sacrificial love. "But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory" (1 Corinthians 2:7-8). The cross was the master stroke, where God used the wickedest scheme of man to accomplish the most glorious purpose of heaven. When the schemer sees this, he sees the bankruptcy of his own pathetic plots. He is called to repent of his wicked imaginations and to submit to the grand, beautiful, and righteous plan of God.
The Holy Spirit is given to us to produce His fruit in our lives. And what is that fruit? It is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). The Spirit gives the hothead patience and self-control. The Spirit gives the cold-hearted schemer love and goodness. He takes fools and villains and makes them sons of God. He teaches us to hate our sin, whether it be the sin of the volcano or the sin of the viper, and to walk in the wisdom of Christ, who was both gentle in heart and wise in counsel, the perfect man.