Folly, Its Fallout, and How to Fix It

The book of Proverbs is timeless. Thousands of years after it was written, its practical precepts are still relevant. Men and women continue to face the perplexities of human existence, trapped between the apparent futility of life as we know it and the promise of life as we long to know it. What we hope to be and what we actually are is separated by a large chasm.

This lack of understanding, the Bible asserts, is one of the great problems of humankind (Rom. 1:21–22; Eph. 4:18). Human beings are by nature fools, it says—and our foolishness has dire consequences. Yet the Bible also offers a solution to the problem.

If we wish not to succumb to the pitfalls of folly, it will be helpful for us to grasp its characteristics, its consequences, and what God has done about it.

Folly’s Characteristics

Proverbs 1 imagines wisdom as a woman standing at the head of a street, calling to all who walk by,

“How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?
How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing
 and fools hate knowledge?” (v. 22).

Those three terms, “simple ones,” “scoffers,” and “fools,” overlap in their meaning. They imply not only aimlessness on the path of life but also willful rebellion. Biblically speaking, foolishness is not mental deficiency; it is moral perversity. It is not fools’ intellectual capacity but their spiritual attitude that reveals their condition.

First, and chiefly, the fool rejects the Lord. God is the Creator, and He is the ruler of everything. He therefore knows what is right and good. To reject Him is to reject the moral and rational reference point of the universe. Thus the Bible defines wisdom in relation to the fear (that is, healthy respect for the rightful authority) of God: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (v. 7), while fools “did not choose the fear of the LORD” (v. 29). Fools will reject and deny God’s existence so that they might reject His claims (Ps. 14:1; 53:1). They will accept all kinds of varying notions, providing they need not consider their Creator.

The fool, moreover, refuses wisdom itself. “I have called,” Wisdom says, “and you refused to listen.” She adds, “You have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof” (Prov. 1:24–25). Fools walk through life with fingers stuck in their ears. It’s not that they don’t understand good counsel or loving reproof, whether it be from father, mother, pastor, prophet, or whoever; they simply reject it. So central is this quality that it stands in parallel to the fear of God: Whereas “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge,” we read that “fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

Fools will reject and deny God’s existence so that they might reject His claims.

Thirdly and finally, the fool revels in wrongdoing: “Doing wrong is like a joke to a fool” (Prov. 10:23). As the NIV puts it, he “finds pleasure in wicked schemes.” Fools rejoice in evil, and they earn the name “scoffers” by mocking those who do good. They have an upside-down assessment of right and wrong, good and evil, and they loudly make their error known.

Folly’s Consequences

Folly’s qualities in a person, as with all virtues and vices, lead to consequences in the course of life.

The fool, we read, is always stoking conflict: “A fool’s lips walk into a fight, and his mouth invites a beating” (Prov. 18:6). While “it is an honor for a man to keep aloof from strife, … every fool will be quarreling” (Prov. 20:3). This is reflected in the New Testament in the book of James: “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?” (4:1) James goes on to ask, “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?” (v. 4). The godlessness and the delight in evil that characterize the fool always lead to conflict.

With the fights come failures. Relationships will fail, because people, seeing fools for who they are, will begin to give them a wide berth: “Leave the presence of a fool, for there you do not meet words of knowledge” (Prov. 14:7). Those who stay will be those who want to share in folly and increase it.

Ultimately, such foolishness leads to futility and the awesome finality of death. Wisdom will turn the scoffing of scoffers back upon them:

Because you have ignored all my counsel
 and would have none of my reproof,
I also will laugh at your calamity;
 I will mock when terror strikes you,
when terror strikes you like a storm
 and your calamity comes like a whirlwind,
 when distress and anguish come upon you. (Prov. 1:25–27)

There will come a day when it is too late for wisdom (v. 28). There will come a day when it is too late to heed the voice of the Spirit of God in the heart. The consequences of folly will have caught up to the fool.

Folly’s Cure

The cure for folly lies in accepting what the fool rejects—that is, “the fear of the LORD.” To fear the Lord is to acknowledge that He made us. To fear the Lord is to listen to His instruction concerning life and concerning death. To fear the Lord is, ultimately, to acknowledge that in Christ, He has revealed Himself to us. It is to come to the cross of Christ and to acknowledge that the crucified Savior is risen and is Lord of all. He is the answer to our reckless, aimless, futile existence.

In the parable of the prodigal son, Jesus describes a critical point in the son’s life: “He came to himself” (Luke 15:17). In other words, he looked around himself at the mess of his life, at the waste of his resources, at the emptiness of his stomach—at his folly—and he said, “I have been a fool! The only way to get out of these circumstances is to go back to my father and seek his mercy.”

All of us have at one time or another resisted advice, refused reproof, rejected the fear of the Lord, and reveled in foolishness.

Men and women, in their sin, are fools. Yet God, like the father in the story, longs for them to return to Him and to His wisdom. The call of the Gospel is: For Jesus’ sake, do not be a fool any longer! Come to Christ, come to forgiveness, and come, therefore, to wisdom. Come to life, come to wholeness, and come to everything that God intended for you.

With God’s help, we can acknowledge that all of us have at one time or another resisted advice, refused reproof, rejected the fear of the Lord, and reveled in foolishness. We can know in our hearts, unmistakably, that the consequence of a life lived without God will be an eternity spent without God. So let us see in our mind’s eye a rugged hillside and a man who died on the cross to takes all the consequences of folly upon Himself. He calls out to us in the words of Lady Wisdom,

If you turn at my reproof,
behold, I will pour out my spirit to you;
 I will make my words known to you. (Prov. 1:23)

May we not refuse to listen!

This article was adapted from the sermon “Portrait of a Fool” by Alistair Begg.