Daily Program

A Foolish Woman's Focus

Series: Becoming a Woman of Discretion

Leslie Basham: Our choices don't affect just us. Here's Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Who we are in our daily living is not going to matter to just us, it matters to the people around us, the people we live with and the people we work with will be influenced by our wisdom or our foolishness.

Leslie Basham: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss. It's Monday, February 9.

When you think of a wise woman, who comes to mind? You might think of a doctor, a journalist or a political leader. Maybe you think of a teacher you had or your own mom. Today we'll join Nancy Leigh DeMoss as she shares what it truly means to be a wise woman. Let's join Nancy.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Throughout the Book of Proverbs, we read about two different kinds of people. These people are as different from each other as night is from day. We see over and over again references to people who are wise and the opposite of wise people are those who are foolish, wise people and foolish people.

When we speak of somebody being wise or being foolish, we're talking about the condition of their hearts. We're talking about an inner character, what they're like at the core of their being.

We find through the Book of Proverbs that whether a person is wise or is foolish in their hearts and in their characters will determine everything else about them: the way that they think, the way that they act, the way that they have relationships, the way that they talk, the way that they dress, everything about their lives, the way they spend money, the way they use their time. This is all going to be determined by whether they're wise or foolish.

A person who has a wise heart is going to live wisely. A person who has a foolish heart is going to live foolishly. What's on the inside is going to come out. And what comes out in our way of living, in every area of life, is invariably going to have an influence on the people around us.

So our character, our heart, is going to express itself, it's going to manifest itself and who we are in our daily living is not just going to matter to us. It matters to the people around us. The people we live with and the people we work with will be influenced by our wisdom or by our foolishness.

Now there's a verse in Proverbs, chapter 14, verse 1 that applies this matter of wisdom and foolishness to women, two kinds of women.

There are two kinds of women in this room and at any given moment in my life I'm living as one of these two kinds of women. Proverbs 14 says that, "Every wise woman builds her house, but every foolish woman tears it down with her hands."

There are two kinds of women, there are wise women and there are foolish women. And some days I'm acting very much like a wise woman and some days, more than I care to think about, I'm acting very much like a foolish woman because what's in my heart at any given moment is what's going to come out.

And we see here that the results or consequences of what's in our hearts are pretty serious. If a woman has a wise heart and she's living wisely, she's going to be a builder. She's going to be building up her home.

Now, we're not speaking here of just a literal home, although this certainly applies to our families. If you are a married woman, if you have a husband, if you have children, that's the first home where this all needs to be applied. That's where wisdom or foolishness comes out in the first place.

But your home may also be other aspects of your surroundings, your workplace, your church environment, your neighborhood, all that is around you, the sphere of influence that God has given you.

If you are a woman of wisdom, your life will be constructive. It will be building up the people around you. Now we would like to be wise women but we have a warning here, and that is that sometimes we can be foolish women. And what happens with the foolish woman? She doesn't just keep her foolishness in her heart, it comes out and it is highly destructive in its influence.

The foolish woman tears her house down with her hands. Now notice in this passage, we're not really given a middle ground. I'm either building up or I'm tearing down. Now ask yourself, what kind of influence am I having on the people around me? Am I having an influence that's the result of a heart of wisdom or am I having an influence that's the result of being a foolish woman?

I think we really underestimate the incredible influence that we have as women, for evil or for good. We have influence in our homes, in our churches, in our communities and in this nation. You may not think of yourself as a very influential woman, but I'm here to say that you are and I am.

John Adams who was the second President of the United States pointed that out in relation to women in this quote, he said, "From all that I have read of history and government, of human life and manners, I've drawn this conclusion: that the manners of women were the most infallible barometer to ascertain the degree of morality and virtue of a nation."

Do you hear what he's saying there? If you want to find out how moral and virtuous a nation is, go and look at the way that the women act. He goes on to say, "The Jews, the Greeks, the Romans, the Swiss, the Dutch, all of them lost their public spirit and their republican forms of government when they lost the modesty and domestic virtues of their women.

He's just affirming what God says in His Word. "The wise woman builds her house, but the foolish tears it down with her hands."

I have had a friend (who is an older man of God) for many years. He's been a speaker and an author. He told me recently that back in 1985, as he was praying, God pressed upon his heart with a strong sense that we were going to see in the years ahead a widespread increased wickedness and corruption among women. And he said that this was such a heaviness to him, such a strong sense, that he began to make it a matter of earnest prayer.

As we talked about this, just within the last several months, he shared this with me (now many years later). And we began to discuss how true this was. We began to name women. And some of the names will come to your mind, women who are well-known in our nation, who just epitomize this widespread evil influence of women.

But it's not just among the well-known women, it's among women broadly. There's been a great increase in these last few decades of corruption and wickedness. In recent years we've seen it in the highest places in our land--the powerful influence of ungodly women and the power these women have had to tear down, to destroy, to tear down, not just individual men, though they have certainly done that but also the moral sensitivities and fiber of the whole nation.

Now, I'm not saying in all of this that men are blameless. But God didn't call me to preach to men. God didn't give me the role of facing men with their need for change. God called me as the woman to challenge us as women to see what our is responsibility in this matter.

Let me go a step further. This problem of widespread wickedness and corruption among women, it's not just in our secular culture. I think you would probably agree with me that in our evangelical Christian world as well, there has been an increase, a great increase in ungodliness and foolishness among women.

In so many ways we have redefined what it means to be a woman or what it means to be a man and what the differences are between the two. It's not uncommon today in Christian settings, and even in ministry settings to hear women and men saying that there really aren't any differences between men and women, any differences of significance.

We've lost our moorings. We've lost our sense of what is. Think of some of these old-fashioned words--modest, chaste, discreet and pure. Many women today, many Christian women don't even know the meaning of those words.

A few years ago I became involved in a situation where there was a Christian leader who had been involved in inappropriate behavior with a female staff member. And when his wife faced him with this information, his response was, "Come on, this is the 90's." You see the thinking there? Things have changed, times have changed, well times certainly have changed but truth never changes.

As we move now into the twenty-first century, we find so few models of truly wise women and so many models of foolish women. There's such a widespread lack of teaching and understanding today.

One of the things that God has really put on my heart is the need for us as women to realize the power of our influence and to ask God to examine our hearts and our lives as Christian women to show us areas where we are foolish, that we may have been blind to it or ignorant of it. We need to get wise where we've been foolish so that we can repent and so that we can begin to model the heart of a wise woman.

Let me take it a step further. Not only do we need to see where we have been foolish so that we can change by God's grace, but what a need there is for us to teach our daughters and to teach younger women in this generation what it means to be a wise woman.

First we teach by our example. Then, we teach by our words and discipleship and our mentoring, taking these younger women under our wings and teaching them what it means to be pure, to be modest, to be chaste, to be a godly woman in a dark and ungodly day.

We not only need to teach our daughters and our younger women but mothers need to be teaching their sons, along with the father's teaching, but mothers, as a part of that, teaching their sons what it means to be a man of God--what qualities to admire in a woman and what qualities to avoid in a woman also need to be taught.

Leslie Basham: That's Nancy Leigh DeMoss challenging us to develop godly wisdom and to pass the wisdom on to another generation. Nancy will be back in just a minute. First, I want to make you aware of a free booklet she's written that will help you gain godly wisdom. It's called, Becoming a Woman of Discretion.

It'll help you understand the marks of a wise woman found in Proverbs 7. It will also take you through a series of questions to help you identify good and poor choices you might be making.

You can get a copy for free. Just ask for Becoming a Woman of Discretion when you call us at 1-800-569-5959. You can also find information on all Nancy's books on our Web site. The address is www.ReviveOurHearts.com.

Maybe Nancy's words have pointed out some areas of indiscretion in your life. If you would be willing to share, we would love to hear what you've learned.

We hope you can be here all this week for the series, "Becoming a Woman of Discretion." Here's Nancy Leigh DeMoss to give us an idea of what we can expect throughout the week.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Now, over the next several sessions, we're going to look at a passage that paints a portrait of a foolish woman and I just want to tell you from the outset that this is a matter of a deep personal burden in my own heart. I'll tell you from the start that much of what I will say is not politically correct. I expect letters and e-mails and phone calls from people who, perhaps, do not agree. I want to learn from them but I want to tell you, "The truth is powerful and it will set you free."

So much is at stake. So much is at stake in the lives of your children and their children and their children and the next generation.

So, Father, I pray that in these next sessions You would open our hearts, that You would shine the light of Your Word into our lives; show us where we are being foolish women and may not even realize it.

Would you, from Your heart, to the Lord in this moment, just say, "Lord, I want to be a wise woman. [Change me] where You need to change me or mold me or shape me so that my life can represent and reflect the wisdom and the grace and goodness of Jesus in this world." We pray it for Jesus' sake, Amen.

Leslie Basham:

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss is a ministry partnership of Life Action Ministry.

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