Fools—Wise and Otherwise

I am going to ask your attention to two passages of Scripture, as I begin this message. We may turn to a number more as we go along. In the book of Proverbs, chapter ten, the last part of verse twenty-one, we read: “Fools die for want of wisdom.”

And then in First Corinthians, chapter 3, verse 18: “Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.”

These verses may seem almost paradoxical, but in the one instance God is speaking from the divine standpoint when He uses the word fools. “Fools die for the want of wisdom.” A fool is an unthinking, a thoughtless, a careless person, a person without true understanding—in plain English, a “simpleton.” And God says these fools die, die in their sins, die under the divine judgment for want of wisdom.