Folly

Folly

The opposite of folly is God’s wisdom. By paying heed to God’s Word and by doing it, we can get rid of folly and receive God’s wisdom as our permanent possession. All God’s Word is God’s wisdom, including everything that is written there about folly. Everything that is written in God’s Word is a help for everyone who takes it to heart—the evil and bad things as a warning, and the good and noble and pure and holy things as something to follow. Both these opposites work together in the right direction, the one just as much as the other!

Open up the Bible concordance under “folly” and “fools,” and let us read there in order to acquire wisdom! “For wrath kills a foolish man . . . .” Job 5:2. His own wrath kills him. “Anger rests in the bosom of fools.” Eccl. 7:9. It is fatal to have wrath dwelling in your bosom. “A fool vents all his anger.” Prov. 29:11. It always causes mischief and harm. How stupid it is to believe that anger is a help. It makes the matter even worse! And how disgraceful and foolish it is to be indifferent about getting rid of it permanently!

“The complacency of fools will destroy them . . . .” Prov. 1:32. What terribly great foolishness it is to think you are safe in the midst of your foolishness, even while it is dwelling inside your bosom! It is the same as feeling safe when you build and live on the edge of a volcano!

“A prating fool will fall.” Prov. 10:8. Here we see again that it is life-threatening! It is precisely with their mouths that fools sin so terribly!

“Whoever spreads slander is a fool.” Prov. 10:18. Yes, what despicable folly!!! How can he ever take it back again!!! It spreads further, even to the ends of the earth! How will he or she be able to make it wholly good again? Besides, you always have to reap what you have sown even if both God and men have forgiven you! Think! Think hard and long!

“The mouth of the fool threatens.” Prov. 10:14. It usually has the opposite effect of its intended purpose. How wise it is to abstain from threats. However, a fool is unable to do so.

“Fools die for lack of wisdom.” Prov. 10:21. “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes . . . .” Prov. 12:15. He is conceited and self-assured; he is so foolish that he thinks everything he says and does is right, and the others are obviously in the wrong.

“The heart of fools proclaims foolishness.” Prov. 12:23. “A fool lays open his folly.” Prov. 13:16. What a proliferation of harmful effects!

“The companion of fools will be destroyed.” Prov. 13:20. Of course! Birds of a feather flock together! Giving in because of weakness and cowardice leads to the same result.

“The folly of fools is deceit.” Prov. 14:8. What an enormous deception, believing that he is wise and in the right, while being full of foolishness and regularly trumpeting it on all his ways.

“A fool rages and is self-confident.” Prov. 14:16. What a meaningless combination! No one is less confident or less safe than a fool, because a fall has been determined for all those who are presumptuous, arrogant, proud, conceited, and puffed-up!

“The mouth of fools feeds on foolishness.” Prov. 15:14. If only there had been some periods with exceptions, but there are none.

“The punishment of fools is folly.” Prov. 16:22. What a terrible punishment! It is like a treadmill or a witch’s dance. Oh, that everyone might earnestly be afraid of his own folly instead of being a busybody in other people’s matters, because this is the very thing that every fool is occupied with!

And now we have a terribly powerful sentence: “Though you grind a fool with a mortar and a pestle along with crushed grain, yet his foolishness will not depart from him.” Prov. 27:22. And: “Reproof is more effective for a wise man than a hundred blows on a fool.” Prov. 17:10. It is dismal and hopeless trying to help such people if they have not radically repented from the heart. Then the person who wants to help is also rather foolish.

“Let a man meet a bear robbed of her cubs, rather than a fool in his folly.” Prov. 17:12. The bear can only kill the body, and not even that without God’s will, but you risk being damaged in your soul by the foolishness that flows out from a fool.

“The eyes of a fool are on the ends of the earth.” Prov. 17:24. In other words, they are where he cannot accomplish anything useful. The folly of fools is to judge and criticize instead of doing something good and useful. “A fool’s lips enter into contention . . . .” Prov. 18:6. Wherever folly rules, there is frequently strife and contention!

“Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words.” Prov. 23:9. An essential part of the folly of fools is that they are unreceptive. It is better to speak to a wall than to a fool, for the wall does not reply with folly and contempt. “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like him.” Prov. 26:4.

“He who trusts in his own understanding is a fool . . . .” Prov. 28:26. According to this word the world is crawling with fools, first of all in institutions of higher learning and universities, and, most of all among so-called theologians. They are terribly busy being judges of God’s Word instead of being doers of God’s Word. They do this in spite of what it says in 1 Corinthians 1:19-25: “‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.’ Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” This in addition to verses 26-28 and in spite of what it says in Proverbs 3:5: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.”

Folly abounds among so-called Christians, and even among real Christians there is, unfortunately, much of it: protests, objections, self-justifications, rationalizations, doubt and unbelief, as well as disobedience to many words of God, which in itself is utter foolishness and madness and the stupidest thing you can do!

“The fool walks in darkness.” Eccl. 2:14. This is certain and true in every way! He neither knows what he is saying nor what he is doing, making mistakes in almost everything, not knowing what he is stumbling over and not even knowing that he is a fool! Poor fellow!

“A fool also multiplies words.” “And he shows everyone that he is a fool.” Eccl. 10:14, 3. This is also one of the many signs of folly! It flows out.

“The foolish person . . . his heart will work iniquity . . . .” Isa. 32:6. What a demonic work that is! A fool is not just imperfect and sinful, he is evil!

“O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!” Luke 24:25. And now even more, everything that Jesus and the apostles have spoken and written. This is and remains the principal folly and the greatest madness!!! It is indescribable folly and madness not to believe from the heart, not to love and follow all God’s words which were exclusively written to us all for our very, very best!

“Fools and blind! For which is greater . . . ?” Matt. 23:17. All fools are blind! And yet they occupy themselves with reading and explaining liberally, criticizing almost everything and everyone.

“Professing to be wise, they became fools . . . .” Rom. 1:22. There are many such actors who confidently explain almost everything, who do not even understand what is for their own best. What immense foolishness!

“Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool [that is, in his own eyes; in other words, acknowledge it] that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, ‘He catches the wise in their own craftiness,’ and again, ‘The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.’” Rom. 3:18-20.

“Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” Eph. 5:17. In the Bible we can discover the Lord’s will for all situations. Then how can I understand what the Lord’s will is in every detail if I have not avidly and diligently read in the Scriptures and taken it to heart? That is impossible! It is typical folly. Then the words of the new covenant state that such a person is a fool. Be finished immediately with this fateful folly so you can become one of the wise virgins instead of being a fool!

“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” Jas. 1:22. Unfortunately, the usual thing is for this to repeat itself endlessly throughout the ages: Talk and talk, and very little of the only thing that weighs anything in the scales; namely, being a doer of the Word in all circumstances, in every detail. All such blabbermouths are completely lacking in God’s wisdom and are therefore fools in the biblical sense of the word.

“O God, You know my foolishness . . . .” Ps. 69:5. Yes, you can be certain of that! Therefore it is of the utmost importance to know and to acknowledge it ourselves and get rid of it!

“Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child . . . .” Prov. 22:15. Yet it is not bound up so firmly that he cannot be rid of it if he puts his trust in God and His Word, giving his all!

“The devising of foolishness is sin . . . .” Prov. 24:9. Of course! This is something that occupies him. Think how ominous it is to listen to fools!

“To know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness.” Eccl. 7:25. This is far from being innocent!

“A dumb donkey . . . restrained the madness of the prophet.” 2 Pet. 2:16. What a humiliation! What a shame! Unfortunately, madness, or foolishness, can cling to anyone, yet it does not need to cling to anyone for very long!

Glory to God and the Lamb whose innermost desire is to save us from it!

When a person has been in the church of the living God, having heard God’s word in truth and in spirit for many years, he ought to be a teacher, and an example in all the virtues of Christ and in everything that is good and profitable. And yet many people can still be ignorant of many things, committing big blunders and misunderstanding many things, even committing great acts of foolishness! What a shame!

If only a person was thoroughly ashamed, it could still go well. You cannot reckon on being among the five wise virgins if you are not passionately interested in God’s Word and fervently interested in becoming thoroughly acquainted with God’s Word, for by this great stupidity and great folly you are virtually a representative of folly itself!