In our journey to discover wisdom there are two steps. One is to relinquish foolishness and the other is the pursuit of wisdom. We shall see what foolishness is and how we can hack it off our life.
The Bible unveils a bewildering array of fools. Like a fashion parade they walk before us as we read the Bible through.
The number one fool is the one who says there is no God. He is the atheist fool. David sings, “The fool has said in his heart: There is no God” (14:1). There are millions of people who do not believe in the existence of a supreme being. Outwardly they may be no different from the God-believer. He may be Radhakrishnan, Mohammed Ali or Thomasraj, but in his ‘heart’ he denies the presence of God. The Bible says there is no excuse for anyone not to know God because God has revealed Himself in many ways. His invisible attributes are clearly seen in His creation. It is not that someone did not know God; they knew and yet did not acknowledge Him as God. What was the result of this self-deception? Their foolish hearts were darkened. They became blind and brainless (Rom 1:19-21).
There is the other type of person who is brought up to believe in religion and in God. But when trials come, when all is darkness, when it hurts, his heart asks the question, “Where is God?” When heaven is silent he says, “There is no God, no heaven, no hell” and gives up his faith.
Look at a blade of grass. It tells you there is a God. Man who makes so many things has not made life yet, not even an ant or a one celled amoeba. Should that not tell him there is a God? There is a joke that a Chinese said they can do all that God can do. So God told him to create a man. The Chinese bent down to pick up some dust. God said, “Wait, wait, dust is what I created. You can’t use my materials for your creation.” The Chinese was stumped.
There were two scientist. One was a believer and the other an atheist. The believer made an artificial celestial family in his room with wirings so that at the push of a button the sun would glow and the moon, earth, stars and all celestial bodies would circle around it. He invited his atheist friend to see it. The wonder struck atheist was eager to know who made it. The believer replied, “No one; its just there.” When the atheist laughed disbelievingly the believer said, “You believe there is someone who made this; yet you don’t believe the universe was created by someone.”
The Bible says that you can see God’s glory in the skies (Psa 19:1). Those who do not care to look for God will miss Him by a million miles. But He is close to those who call on Him. Let us not make ourselves fools. Let us call on His name. There is no way to proceed in the pursuit of wisdom except to bow down before the presence of a true and living God, because He is the source of all wisdom. Education gives us knowledge; it does not make us wise. Wisdom is practical application of knowledge which God alone can give.
The Psalmist gives the solution to the fool who says there is no God: “Call on the Lord” (Psa 14:4). Let’s fall prostrate before the great God of the universe, calling on Him.
The second kind of fool now swims into focus. He is the one who does not recognise God’s works in his life (Psa 92:5,6). David sings of God’s faithfulness and loving kindness in verses 1-4 and says, “O Lord, how great are your works! Your thoughts are very deep. A senseless man does not know, nor does a fool understand this.”
The word ‘flourish’ is used in this Psalm both for the wicked and for the righteous. The wicked flourish that they may be destroyed forever (v 7). The righteous flourish to bear fruit and to declare that the Lord is upright (vv 12-15). The fool does not understand the loving kindness of God or His faithfulness. He sees the wicked flourish and feels he is not rewarded for his righteousness. He constantly doubts God, blames Him and questions His judgements. He does not wait to see the end of the wicked. Any sickness, accident, failure or problem leads him to conclude that God has deserted him rather than trusting God and abandoning Himself in His bosom. He equals blessings to righteousness and sufferings to wickedness. So he is con-fused rather than confident. He fails to see that the flourishing of the righteous is more spiritual than physical, to declare the righteousness of God (v15).
In Psalm 73 David exposes his confusion when he saw the prosperous wicked and says, “I was so foolish and ignorant” (v 22).
Wisdom is understanding God’s dealings with us. To constantly declare that God is upright and there is no unrighteousness in Him is wisdom (92:15). If happenings in our life lead us to blame God that He has unjustly dealt with us we are fools. Life is full of ups and downs. While in a trough we are tempted to think that we don’t deserve it. Especially if the bad guys are hale and hearty while we are laid down we tend to believe that God has made a mistake. Let us assure ourselves today that God never makes a mistake. Let us, instead of dreading life’s minuses, simply enjoy its pluses.
Then the Bible brands a man a fool who gives more weight to the body and material things than to the soul and spiritual things.
Psalm 49 is a string of crystals of wisdom. It speaks of the people who trust in their riches and are proud because of their opulent life style. They do not realize that they cannot redeem their souls by their amassed wealth. Even though he keeps seeing the fools die leaving their wealth to others, it doesn’t get into him. He believes his possessions will last forever. The way he lives influences his children who adopt his foolish ways. The wise and foolish die the same death. But the Psalm says that God will redeem the wise man’s soul from the power of the grave. In other words the wise man is laughing at the man who thinks life is all about gathering riches in contrast to the man who puts his trust in God to redeem his soul. The Psalm points its fingers at the fate of the wicked and says, “This is the way of those who are foolish” (v 13).
Jesus spoke about such a fool in His sermons. When he had a bumper crop he wanted to store all and take a break. He told his ‘soul’ not to worry but to relax and enjoy life. He didn’t know he had a heart attack waiting to happen that night. God called him a fool and said, “This night your soul will be required of you. Then whose will those things be?” The conclusion of the parable is, “So is he (foolish) who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God” (Lk 12:16-21).
The fool is constantly engaged in earning and becoming rich in this world amassing wealth only to find himself cycling into a bottomless pit of unsatiable yearning. He has no time or very little time for God. He is a whirlwind of activity and enterpreneuring. By contrast, the wise man is always giving away, spending for the Kingdom of God and in the bargain becomes poorer and poorer. He spends time with God and His Word. For him soul comes first. Let us be wise. It will not create an international crisis if we spend an hour of prayer and an hour of Bible reading every day. Over committed schedules and exhausting life styles that cut across these cannot be God’s will for us. We need to gear down so we can hear His voice. Don’t succumb to the high-rev lifestyle.
The Hypocrite comes next in the queue of fools. He is an actor, He wears a mask. He projects himself as somebody who he is not. He shows himself chivalrous to the world. So he is polished in his manners, loving, kind, gentle, giving etc. But all these are done with an ulterior motive, to show himself a gentleman to the world. When Jesus went to dine with a Pharisee and sat down without washing his hands, the Pharisee was surprised. The Lord said to him, “You Pharisees make the outside of the cup and dish clean, but your inward part is full of greed and wickedness. Foolish ones! Did not He who made the outside make the inside also? But rather give alms of such things as you have, then indeed all things are clean to you” (Lk 11:37-41).
How often we are worried about what others will think about us? We are so concerned with our outside that our insides rot. How often we show ourselves spiritual in the Church but barbaric at home? How often we are good to outsiders but really mean to our own family? How often we are angels in the pulpit and devils in the kitchen? David prayed, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my thoughts” (Psa 139:23). He had rightly understood God that He likes you for what’s going on inside than what can be seen on the outside (1 Sam 16:7).
Quit praying for your outward man and start asking God to clean up your inside thoroughly. That will make you wise unlike the foolish charlatans. Pray that your attitudes be set right. Intercede that you may be filled with the knowledge of God and that your heart may not be wicked and corrupt and that you will know yourself. Allow the living and powerful Word of God to cut through your soul and spirit, joint and marrow, thoughts and intents of the heart. The cleaner you are inside the wiser you are outside.
There is another foolishness that is killing many, that is the unbelief in resurrection and end of the world. Many do not know what will happen after death or that the world will come to an end. This encourages them to lead a licentious life. We can read the apologetics of Paul in his first epistle to the Corinthians. “If the dead do not rise, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.’ Do not be deceived: ‘Evil company (of those who deceive you saying there is no resurrection) corrupts good habits’ (of fearing God and leading a clean life). Awake to righteousness and do not sin… But someone will say, ‘How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?’ Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies… so also is the resurrection of the dead” (1 Cor 15:32-43 Parenthesis mine).
We die once and then face the judgement at resurrection. We are not going to be born again as a cat or snake as some believe. Those who do not believe in the resurrection will waste their life pining over their lost loved ones. They will always live in fear of death. Eternal life will be a brutal truth to them when their life is done. By then it will be too late to choose their destiny. How sad. The wise prepare for their death and await their glorious resurrection. They mourn death but rejoice in the hope of meeting loved ones.
In the parade of fools, next comes the one who afflicts the underdogs, harasses widows, strangers and orphans, bull-dozing their way and thinks God does not see (Psa 94:5-10). He says, “The Lord does not see, nor does the God of Jacob understand.” What does the Bible say about such? “Understand, you senseless among the people and you fools, when will you be wise?” The Psalmist proceeds to say that God who made the ear, hears; He who formed the eyes, sees; He who teaches knowledge to man, knows. God keenly observes the way you treat others.
Ignoring, cheating, irking, abusing the helpless and bullying victims is a serious matter before God. Jezebel and Ahab killed Naboth and rejoiced in gaining the property. Was is gain? Think of their ear tingling end and be admonished. So many helpless students are ragged violently. May be he is a junior in your school or office or a servant in the house. May be it’s our own mother-in-law or daughter-in-law or a child who is powerless to fight against the angry blows of parents or a timid spouse or a beggar. How do we treat them? Politely or rudely? The indignities that people in power inflict on those who are less are heart breaking. Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge fitter to bruise than to polish,” says Anne Brodstreet. Let us not fall into the bracket of these fools. We underestimate the power of the God of the helpless. We put ourselves above God or try to sit in His chair. We think we can escape the scrutiny of the omniscient God.
One more silly fool is the one who despises wisdom and hates instruction (Prov 1:7). Still worse, he loves foolishness (1:22). It is not that wisdom is beyond him. Wisdom is for the asking. It stands on top of a hill and shouts, “Come, take me, I am for you. I speak excellent things in simple language. Don’t go after silver or gold or rubies, for I am costlier. I love those who love me and those who seek me diligently find me” (Prov 8). There lies the trouble. These folks neither love wisdom nor care to seek it. Even though they have the means to get it they have no heart for it. They are teetering near the abyss of self destruction.
Especially young people should understand this. Wisdom is not simply praying for wisdom. It is doing the wise things. One needs to look and labour for it. Wisdom is not for couch potatoes. The lazy blame their fate. The fool despises wise words and is brazen towards counsel (Prov 23:9). He is his own mentor. His ways are right in his own eyes (Prov 26:12). Whereas the wise have an unerring sense of direction. Never trust your heart which says you are wise enough rather do all that is possible to get wisdom. That will open the door to a less dismal future.
The fool of fools is the one who does not take sin seriously. Their foolishness cannot be whitewashed, it’s there for all to see. Sin is no big deal for him (Prov 14:9). He plays with sin as one plays with a snake (10:23). He has a cynical disregard for God and authorities. Right and wrong mean nothing to him. He doesn’t pick up God’s warning signals. He has never trained his conscience to hate sin and leave it (13: 19b). He shows the slightest twinge of conscience as he enjoys sin. Perhaps he is a Christian and a believer too who has silenced his conscience. He revels in sin with no thought of forsaking it. He may hear counsel, attend gospel meetings to hear about sin and its consequences yet never makes an effort to leave sin and lead a clean life. He strongly believes that holiness is an impossibility in this world.
We can call it a deception. Fools are deceived into thinking that sin is no big problem (Prov 14:8b). We all know the story of the monkey that applied for a job. The master gave him a banana to be kept safe till he returned after a short while. The monkey shut his eyes tightly so as not to be tempted. Then he thought it wasn’t a sin to look at the banana. So he opened his eyes. Then he said, surely it wasn’t a sin to smell it. Then he licked it and ended up gobbling the whole fruit. This buffoon is self-confident about his self control. He plays with sin and becomes enslaved by it. He thinks anytime he can stop it and soon discovers he is trapped. He tries to overcome his guilt by indulging in pleasures, drugs, drinks. He thinks God is too good to punish sinners. Take care. Take sin seriously. Even a tiny leak can sink a ship. Don’t even go near it. The Lord taught us to pray, “Lead us not into temptation.” Once you pray this prayer in the morning then you should not walk into temptation.
King Solomon set his heart to unlock the secrets of wisdom. God gave him wisdom. But he failed to act on it. He increased his knowledge but ended up in grief for the simple reason he could not control his passions. He went in the way of what he knew was foolishness. Then he turned around to see his bygone life and made a sage statement, “Wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness” (Eccl 2:13). He need not have gone into the depths of darkness to make this discovery. If he had stayed in the light he would today be the wisest man ever lived on earth. Let us take the lesson and extricate ourselves from the thicket of foolishness. Let’s stop kidding ourselves, reassuring one another, “God is good” without repenting of our sins.
There is a merry fool too for whom life is all enjoyment. “The heart of fools is in the house of mirth” (Eccl 7:4b). We need laughter and fun in life. But life isn’t all ha, ha, hee, hee. The other side is taking life seriously. Life is labour, hard work, sweating and coming up. The verses following the above quoted verse mention, ‘the song of fools’ and ‘the laughter of fools.’ Fools are pleasure loving and love to spend their time in cine theatres, dance rooms, video games and the like. Life should be balanced. We should neither take life too seriously nor too lightly. If we take it too seriously even small failures will crush and break us to the point of no return. If we take it too lightly we will not get much out of life but lie on a rubbish heap tomorrow. If you want to accomplish something in life you don’t rock in a chair and hope it will happen. You’ve got to make it happen.
The worst kind of fools are those who do not believe in Christ. Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 is rich in content. He explains clearly that the message of the cross is foolishness to the hell-bound but Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Some think it is idiotic to put your trust
in a man who hung on a despicable cross 2000 years ago. To a very few it makes sense. The Jews wanted Christ to work some miraculous demonstration and the philosophical minded Greeks expected some wise master plan for the salvation of man. The argument about redemption through the crucified Christ sounded
absurd to them.
Believers of Christ are looked down upon by the world as fools. But they are the wisest folk on earth. Unbelievers are the most foolish of all. Christ cannot be put in a test tube. It is believe, believe, only believe.
God made foolish the wise ones of the world by deliberately choosing the foolish nobodies. How? Christ Jesus became wisdom for those who are in Him! If you can believe this, Christ becomes your wisdom, removes your foolishness and makes you wise.
In conclusion; every child (everybody) is born with foolishness. “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of the child. The rod of correction will drive it far from him” (Prov 22:15). Great responsibility rests on the shoulder of parents, teachers, leaders and seniors in removing foolishness from children and growing people. And those who are growing (of any age) should take to heart the counsel of the wise, avoid the counsel of the ungodly (Psa 1:1) and clean up their lives of foolishness. Just a reading is not going to make you wise. Figure out what caused you to be foolish and redouble your efforts to become wise. The only way to cure the problem of foolishness is to roll up your sleeves and tackle it. That’s the way to win the war— one little battle after another! Then surely wisdom is yours!
Dr. Lilian Stanley
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Vellore 632006, India
+91 9843511943
lilianstanley@gmail.com
Blessing Youth Mission
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In our journey to discover wisdom there are two steps. One is to relinquish foolishness and the other is the pursuit of wisdom. We shall see what foolishness is and how we can hack it off our life.
The Bible unveils a bewildering array of fools. Like a fashion parade they walk before us as we read the Bible through.
The number one fool is the one who says there is no God. He is the atheist fool. David sings, “The fool has said in his heart: There is no God” (14:1). There are millions of people who do not believe in the existence of a supreme being. Outwardly they may be no different from the God-believer. He may be Radhakrishnan, Mohammed Ali or Thomasraj, but in his ‘heart’ he denies the presence of God. The Bible says there is no excuse for anyone not to know God because God has revealed Himself in many ways. His invisible attributes are clearly seen in His creation. It is not that someone did not know God; they knew and yet did not acknowledge Him as God. What was the result of this self-deception? Their foolish hearts were darkened. They became blind and brainless (Rom 1:19-21).
There is the other type of person who is brought up to believe in religion and in God. But when trials come, when all is darkness, when it hurts, his heart asks the question, “Where is God?” When heaven is silent he says, “There is no God, no heaven, no hell” and gives up his faith.
Look at a blade of grass. It tells you there is a God. Man who makes so many things has not made life yet, not even an ant or a one celled amoeba. Should that not tell him there is a God? There is a joke that a Chinese said they can do all that God can do. So God told him to create a man. The Chinese bent down to pick up some dust. God said, “Wait, wait, dust is what I created. You can’t use my materials for your creation.” The Chinese was stumped.
There were two scientist. One was a believer and the other an atheist. The believer made an artificial celestial family in his room with wirings so that at the push of a button the sun would glow and the moon, earth, stars and all celestial bodies would circle around it. He invited his atheist friend to see it. The wonder struck atheist was eager to know who made it. The believer replied, “No one; its just there.” When the atheist laughed disbelievingly the believer said, “You believe there is someone who made this; yet you don’t believe the universe was created by someone.”
The Bible says that you can see God’s glory in the skies (Psa 19:1). Those who do not care to look for God will miss Him by a million miles. But He is close to those who call on Him. Let us not make ourselves fools. Let us call on His name. There is no way to proceed in the pursuit of wisdom except to bow down before the presence of a true and living God, because He is the source of all wisdom. Education gives us knowledge; it does not make us wise. Wisdom is practical application of knowledge which God alone can give.
The Psalmist gives the solution to the fool who says there is no God: “Call on the Lord” (Psa 14:4). Let’s fall prostrate before the great God of the universe, calling on Him.
The second kind of fool now swims into focus. He is the one who does not recognise God’s works in his life (Psa 92:5,6). David sings of God’s faithfulness and loving kindness in verses 1-4 and says, “O Lord, how great are your works! Your thoughts are very deep. A senseless man does not know, nor does a fool understand this.”
The word ‘flourish’ is used in this Psalm both for the wicked and for the righteous. The wicked flourish that they may be destroyed forever (v 7). The righteous flourish to bear fruit and to declare that the Lord is upright (vv 12-15). The fool does not understand the loving kindness of God or His faithfulness. He sees the wicked flourish and feels he is not rewarded for his righteousness. He constantly doubts God, blames Him and questions His judgements. He does not wait to see the end of the wicked. Any sickness, accident, failure or problem leads him to conclude that God has deserted him rather than trusting God and abandoning Himself in His bosom. He equals blessings to righteousness and sufferings to wickedness. So he is con-fused rather than confident. He fails to see that the flourishing of the righteous is more spiritual than physical, to declare the righteousness of God (v15).
In Psalm 73 David exposes his confusion when he saw the prosperous wicked and says, “I was so foolish and ignorant” (v 22).
Wisdom is understanding God’s dealings with us. To constantly declare that God is upright and there is no unrighteousness in Him is wisdom (92:15). If happenings in our life lead us to blame God that He has unjustly dealt with us we are fools. Life is full of ups and downs. While in a trough we are tempted to think that we don’t deserve it. Especially if the bad guys are hale and hearty while we are laid down we tend to believe that God has made a mistake. Let us assure ourselves today that God never makes a mistake. Let us, instead of dreading life’s minuses, simply enjoy its pluses.
Then the Bible brands a man a fool who gives more weight to the body and material things than to the soul and spiritual things.
Psalm 49 is a string of crystals of wisdom. It speaks of the people who trust in their riches and are proud because of their opulent life style. They do not realize that they cannot redeem their souls by their amassed wealth. Even though he keeps seeing the fools die leaving their wealth to others, it doesn’t get into him. He believes his possessions will last forever. The way he lives influences his children who adopt his foolish ways. The wise and foolish die the same death. But the Psalm says that God will redeem the wise man’s soul from the power of the grave. In other words the wise man is laughing at the man who thinks life is all about gathering riches in contrast to the man who puts his trust in God to redeem his soul. The Psalm points its fingers at the fate of the wicked and says, “This is the way of those who are foolish” (v 13).
Jesus spoke about such a fool in His sermons. When he had a bumper crop he wanted to store all and take a break. He told his ‘soul’ not to worry but to relax and enjoy life. He didn’t know he had a heart attack waiting to happen that night. God called him a fool and said, “This night your soul will be required of you. Then whose will those things be?” The conclusion of the parable is, “So is he (foolish) who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God” (Lk 12:16-21).
The fool is constantly engaged in earning and becoming rich in this world amassing wealth only to find himself cycling into a bottomless pit of unsatiable yearning. He has no time or very little time for God. He is a whirlwind of activity and enterpreneuring. By contrast, the wise man is always giving away, spending for the Kingdom of God and in the bargain becomes poorer and poorer. He spends time with God and His Word. For him soul comes first. Let us be wise. It will not create an international crisis if we spend an hour of prayer and an hour of Bible reading every day. Over committed schedules and exhausting life styles that cut across these cannot be God’s will for us. We need to gear down so we can hear His voice. Don’t succumb to the high-rev lifestyle.
The Hypocrite comes next in the queue of fools. He is an actor, He wears a mask. He projects himself as somebody who he is not. He shows himself chivalrous to the world. So he is polished in his manners, loving, kind, gentle, giving etc. But all these are done with an ulterior motive, to show himself a gentleman to the world. When Jesus went to dine with a Pharisee and sat down without washing his hands, the Pharisee was surprised. The Lord said to him, “You Pharisees make the outside of the cup and dish clean, but your inward part is full of greed and wickedness. Foolish ones! Did not He who made the outside make the inside also? But rather give alms of such things as you have, then indeed all things are clean to you” (Lk 11:37-41).
How often we are worried about what others will think about us? We are so concerned with our outside that our insides rot. How often we show ourselves spiritual in the Church but barbaric at home? How often we are good to outsiders but really mean to our own family? How often we are angels in the pulpit and devils in the kitchen? David prayed, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my thoughts” (Psa 139:23). He had rightly understood God that He likes you for what’s going on inside than what can be seen on the outside (1 Sam 16:7).
Quit praying for your outward man and start asking God to clean up your inside thoroughly. That will make you wise unlike the foolish charlatans. Pray that your attitudes be set right. Intercede that you may be filled with the knowledge of God and that your heart may not be wicked and corrupt and that you will know yourself. Allow the living and powerful Word of God to cut through your soul and spirit, joint and marrow, thoughts and intents of the heart. The cleaner you are inside the wiser you are outside.
There is another foolishness that is killing many, that is the unbelief in resurrection and end of the world. Many do not know what will happen after death or that the world will come to an end. This encourages them to lead a licentious life. We can read the apologetics of Paul in his first epistle to the Corinthians. “If the dead do not rise, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.’ Do not be deceived: ‘Evil company (of those who deceive you saying there is no resurrection) corrupts good habits’ (of fearing God and leading a clean life). Awake to righteousness and do not sin… But someone will say, ‘How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?’ Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies… so also is the resurrection of the dead” (1 Cor 15:32-43 Parenthesis mine).
We die once and then face the judgement at resurrection. We are not going to be born again as a cat or snake as some believe. Those who do not believe in the resurrection will waste their life pining over their lost loved ones. They will always live in fear of death. Eternal life will be a brutal truth to them when their life is done. By then it will be too late to choose their destiny. How sad. The wise prepare for their death and await their glorious resurrection. They mourn death but rejoice in the hope of meeting loved ones.
In the parade of fools, next comes the one who afflicts the underdogs, harasses widows, strangers and orphans, bull-dozing their way and thinks God does not see (Psa 94:5-10). He says, “The Lord does not see, nor does the God of Jacob understand.” What does the Bible say about such? “Understand, you senseless among the people and you fools, when will you be wise?” The Psalmist proceeds to say that God who made the ear, hears; He who formed the eyes, sees; He who teaches knowledge to man, knows. God keenly observes the way you treat others.
Ignoring, cheating, irking, abusing the helpless and bullying victims is a serious matter before God. Jezebel and Ahab killed Naboth and rejoiced in gaining the property. Was is gain? Think of their ear tingling end and be admonished. So many helpless students are ragged violently. May be he is a junior in your school or office or a servant in the house. May be it’s our own mother-in-law or daughter-in-law or a child who is powerless to fight against the angry blows of parents or a timid spouse or a beggar. How do we treat them? Politely or rudely? The indignities that people in power inflict on those who are less are heart breaking. Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge fitter to bruise than to polish,” says Anne Brodstreet. Let us not fall into the bracket of these fools. We underestimate the power of the God of the helpless. We put ourselves above God or try to sit in His chair. We think we can escape the scrutiny of the omniscient God.
One more silly fool is the one who despises wisdom and hates instruction (Prov 1:7). Still worse, he loves foolishness (1:22). It is not that wisdom is beyond him. Wisdom is for the asking. It stands on top of a hill and shouts, “Come, take me, I am for you. I speak excellent things in simple language. Don’t go after silver or gold or rubies, for I am costlier. I love those who love me and those who seek me diligently find me” (Prov 8). There lies the trouble. These folks neither love wisdom nor care to seek it. Even though they have the means to get it they have no heart for it. They are teetering near the abyss of self destruction.
Especially young people should understand this. Wisdom is not simply praying for wisdom. It is doing the wise things. One needs to look and labour for it. Wisdom is not for couch potatoes. The lazy blame their fate. The fool despises wise words and is brazen towards counsel (Prov 23:9). He is his own mentor. His ways are right in his own eyes (Prov 26:12). Whereas the wise have an unerring sense of direction. Never trust your heart which says you are wise enough rather do all that is possible to get wisdom. That will open the door to a less dismal future.
The fool of fools is the one who does not take sin seriously. Their foolishness cannot be whitewashed, it’s there for all to see. Sin is no big deal for him (Prov 14:9). He plays with sin as one plays with a snake (10:23). He has a cynical disregard for God and authorities. Right and wrong mean nothing to him. He doesn’t pick up God’s warning signals. He has never trained his conscience to hate sin and leave it (13: 19b). He shows the slightest twinge of conscience as he enjoys sin. Perhaps he is a Christian and a believer too who has silenced his conscience. He revels in sin with no thought of forsaking it. He may hear counsel, attend gospel meetings to hear about sin and its consequences yet never makes an effort to leave sin and lead a clean life. He strongly believes that holiness is an impossibility in this world.
We can call it a deception. Fools are deceived into thinking that sin is no big problem (Prov 14:8b). We all know the story of the monkey that applied for a job. The master gave him a banana to be kept safe till he returned after a short while. The monkey shut his eyes tightly so as not to be tempted. Then he thought it wasn’t a sin to look at the banana. So he opened his eyes. Then he said, surely it wasn’t a sin to smell it. Then he licked it and ended up gobbling the whole fruit. This buffoon is self-confident about his self control. He plays with sin and becomes enslaved by it. He thinks anytime he can stop it and soon discovers he is trapped. He tries to overcome his guilt by indulging in pleasures, drugs, drinks. He thinks God is too good to punish sinners. Take care. Take sin seriously. Even a tiny leak can sink a ship. Don’t even go near it. The Lord taught us to pray, “Lead us not into temptation.” Once you pray this prayer in the morning then you should not walk into temptation.
King Solomon set his heart to unlock the secrets of wisdom. God gave him wisdom. But he failed to act on it. He increased his knowledge but ended up in grief for the simple reason he could not control his passions. He went in the way of what he knew was foolishness. Then he turned around to see his bygone life and made a sage statement, “Wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness” (Eccl 2:13). He need not have gone into the depths of darkness to make this discovery. If he had stayed in the light he would today be the wisest man ever lived on earth. Let us take the lesson and extricate ourselves from the thicket of foolishness. Let’s stop kidding ourselves, reassuring one another, “God is good” without repenting of our sins.
There is a merry fool too for whom life is all enjoyment. “The heart of fools is in the house of mirth” (Eccl 7:4b). We need laughter and fun in life. But life isn’t all ha, ha, hee, hee. The other side is taking life seriously. Life is labour, hard work, sweating and coming up. The verses following the above quoted verse mention, ‘the song of fools’ and ‘the laughter of fools.’ Fools are pleasure loving and love to spend their time in cine theatres, dance rooms, video games and the like. Life should be balanced. We should neither take life too seriously nor too lightly. If we take it too seriously even small failures will crush and break us to the point of no return. If we take it too lightly we will not get much out of life but lie on a rubbish heap tomorrow. If you want to accomplish something in life you don’t rock in a chair and hope it will happen. You’ve got to make it happen.
The worst kind of fools are those who do not believe in Christ. Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 is rich in content. He explains clearly that the message of the cross is foolishness to the hell-bound but Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Some think it is idiotic to put your trust
in a man who hung on a despicable cross 2000 years ago. To a very few it makes sense. The Jews wanted Christ to work some miraculous demonstration and the philosophical minded Greeks expected some wise master plan for the salvation of man. The argument about redemption through the crucified Christ sounded
absurd to them.
Believers of Christ are looked down upon by the world as fools. But they are the wisest folk on earth. Unbelievers are the most foolish of all. Christ cannot be put in a test tube. It is believe, believe, only believe.
God made foolish the wise ones of the world by deliberately choosing the foolish nobodies. How? Christ Jesus became wisdom for those who are in Him! If you can believe this, Christ becomes your wisdom, removes your foolishness and makes you wise.
In conclusion; every child (everybody) is born with foolishness. “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of the child. The rod of correction will drive it far from him” (Prov 22:15). Great responsibility rests on the shoulder of parents, teachers, leaders and seniors in removing foolishness from children and growing people. And those who are growing (of any age) should take to heart the counsel of the wise, avoid the counsel of the ungodly (Psa 1:1) and clean up their lives of foolishness. Just a reading is not going to make you wise. Figure out what caused you to be foolish and redouble your efforts to become wise. The only way to cure the problem of foolishness is to roll up your sleeves and tackle it. That’s the way to win the war— one little battle after another! Then surely wisdom is yours!
Dr. Lilian Stanley
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Vellore 632006, India
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lilianstanley@gmail.com
Blessing Youth Mission
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