“To be ignorant of one’s ignorance is the malady of ignorance.” (A. Bronson Alcott)
There is a narrow line between willful ignorance and stupidity. This is especially true when knowledge is so readily available to people and so easily accessible. In a society like that belonging to the USA, there really is no excuse for ignorance. We have libraries of books that people can use without any cost to them. We have free public education. We have churches on almost every corner of our cities. We have internet resources available at the click of a mouse. Granted, all of these venues of the information highway are interspersed with destructive information and very dangerous philosophies. There are many detours on the information highway that will waste our time and there is a lot of broken glass for us to fall on and injure ourselves. One resource has proven itself reliable for thousands of years. This resource is the inspired and infallible Word of God. God’s Word is to be read, published and proclaimed by every child of God. The central reason people do not study God’s Word is unbelief. If they believed the Bible came from God, they would make knowing it a priority.
This is what God means by the words “Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets: She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words . . .” (Proverbs 1:20-21). This refers to the message of the prophets of God. God sent His prophets everywhere. God revealed His Word to the prophets and they were to disseminate that message on the widest scale possible. There was no television or radio. There were no printing presses. The prophets of God would wander through the streets of the cities and countryside day after day from city to city proclaiming God’s message. They would go to the city gates and the market places within the cities and proclaim God’s Word. Wherever people gather, the prophets of God would be crying forth the wisdom of God. The prophets were just messenger boys. They simply gave a body and a voice to God’s wisdom. They were the means God used to put legs on His wisdom.
All Christians are Ambassadors for Christ in the Church Age. We are indwelled by the Holy Spirit of God and each of us become His, legs, mouth and hands. We have been give the “ministry of reconciliation” and the message of God’s “word of reconciliation” and told to “go . . . into all the world” just like the Old Testament prophets were commanded.
“14 For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: 15 And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. 16 Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. 17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 18 And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation” (II Corinthians 5:14-19).
Ezekiel was one of God’s major prophets. God sent him to the whole nation of Israel while they were in Babylonian captivity to remind them constantly of the reason for their captivity. When God sent Ezekiel into Babylon to speak God’s Word to the captive Jews, God told Ezekiel that they would ignore what he was going to tell them. Nonetheless, God told Ezekiel to be faithful to his commission with the hope that some might hear and repent.
“4 And he said unto me, Son of man, go, get thee unto the house of Israel, and speak with my words unto them. 5 For thou art not sent to a people of a strange speech and of an hard language, but to the house of Israel; 6 Not to many people of a strange speech and of an hard language, whose words thou canst not understand. Surely, had I sent thee to them, they would have hearkened unto thee. 7 But the house of Israel will not hearken unto thee; for they will not hearken unto me: for all the house of Israel are impudent and hardhearted. 8 Behold, I have made thy face strong against their faces, and thy forehead strong against their foreheads. 9 As an adamant harder than flint have I made thy forehead: fear them not, neither be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house. 10 Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, all my words that I shall speak unto thee receive in thine heart, and hear with thine ears. 11 And go, get thee to them of the captivity, unto the children of thy people, and speak unto them, and tell them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; whether they will hear {intending to obey}, or whether they will forbear {forsake}” (Ezekiel 3:4-11).
Although the Holy Bible is still the best selling book on the market every year, it is the least read book by the vast majority of those who purchase it. The wealth of God’s wisdom is readily available to almost everyone in this country in numerous translations. God has given us an instruction book for living a fulfilling life and we have reduced it to a coffee table novelty to be dusted off every now and then. The Bible must be read to be useful, but even that is not enough. The Bible is a living book that is invaluable when it is lived. That is God’s intent in giving the Bible to us. To those who have God’s Word but ignore it, God asks the question, “How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge” (Proverbs 1:22)? “Simple ones” is from the Hebrew word p@thiy (peth-ee'), referring to an easily seducible person.
Theological liberalism’s denial of Biblical absolutes has disemboweled the heart and soul of the Word of God by the denial of God’s verbal and plenary inspiration. This denial has equated the Bible as merely another of many books written by human authors of varying philosophies of life. Theological liberalism gives worldliness an equal platform for self-expression and self-fulfillment. We may go as far as saying that theological liberalism is ultimately the religion of self-actualization (deification). This is not wise.
Neo-evangelicalism enters this arena of through another, but equally destructive, doorway. Neo-evangelicalism takes God’s power away from churches by its denial of Biblical separation from worldliness and apostasy as an essential to God’s supernatural enabling. Like theological liberalism, neo-evangelicals rationalize the Word of God into a self-help book for group counseling. In doing so, the truths of Biblical wisdom that actually lead the believer into a supernatural union of synergism with the Holy Spirit of God are relegated into obscurity by labeling them as nonessentials. This is not wise.
To these two groups of professing believers (and every shade of gray in between) God says, “Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you” (Proverbs 1:24-27).
Even the poorest people in our nation are wealthy compared to those in poverty around the world. Most of these people (not all of them) are where they are in life because of willful choices that were very carnal and self-serving. Many are where they are in life because they chose to involve themselves with alcohol and other recreational drugs. Many are school dropouts. Many young people are living lives of self-destruction because they have had little or no parenting, having been seriously abused emotionally, physically and even sexually. We only need to look at the parents of these children to understand that their children live with little hope because they are being programmed for failure by a parent (or occasionally, two parents) more concerned with getting high than with their child’s welfare.
We look at all of this in amazement and wonder how such a great society could be reduced to such dismal and corrupted fruit when God has already plainly declared, “Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD: They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices” (Proverbs 1:28-31).
In most part, the American society has rejected the “counsel” of God. More and more each day it can be said, “They despised all my reproof.” As they shake their puny little fists of rebellion in the face of God, God says, “Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.” The word “filled here in the Hebrew means to be satiated to the point of weariness. God will let them have all they want, more than they want, and even more than they can stand. Their lives will get to be like an overflowing toilet spilling their sewage and stench into every life to which they come in contact.
This is a rapidly growing segment of our society. It seems we are so simple minded that we cannot grasp onto the fact that He Who created us really knows what is best for us and what will fulfill us as human beings. Worldliness is the opposite of wisdom. We might even say that worldliness is the result of the absence of wisdom. We just cannot seem to grasp onto the fact, that although worldliness is a choice that we can freely make, worldliness it is not a free choice. In other words, worldliness will consume our lives with empty promises of happiness of which it cannot fulfill.
A cynic once said, “Ignorance is not bliss. If ignorance was bliss, most of the people I know would not be so unhappy.” There is a connection to ignorance and unhappiness or, not finding fulfillment in life. Wisdom understands that there are few things in this life that are really fulfilling and the wise person selective gets involved in those things at the exclusion of all things that do not fulfill him. As I have said, there is a narrow line between ignorance and stupidity. Those that ignore God’s revelation of Biblical wisdom are living definitions of stupidity. God’s offers His wisdom to us as a gift of His grace for us to take and used at will and without limitation. To ignore that gift of grace is an outrageous act of stupidity.
What does God want us to learn from Proverbs chapter one? When do we have wisdom?
2. We must learn to be discerning regarding the world’s philosophies that pervert God’s wisdom. We must be very cautious about this lest we defile God’s wisdom with the integration of varying degrees of worldliness.
3. We must be faithful Ambassadors for Christ disseminating God’s wisdom and the message of reconciliation on the widest possible scale of our influence regardless if those to whom God sends us hear or reject the message from God. If we do not do this, we are not faithful no matter what else we do.
4. We must understand that our ministry of reconciliation is primarily to unbelievers and so, we should not be discouraged when the majority rejects the message God has given us to proclaim. This has been the historical norm for God’s prophets down through the centuries.
5. We must understand that the Christian life is not about pursuing happiness, but fulfillment through faithfulness to God. Our rewards are spiritual and eternal. There are no rewards for the unfaithful.
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