Wednesday, June 22, 2011

June 22nd – Proverbs 22: The Simple Keep Going and Going and Going…

“A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it.” – Proverbs 22:3

The simple or foolish are a lot like the Energizer bunny; they keep going and going and going. Even when the road ahead is clearly fraught with danger and destruction, they press in and press on their foolish course. It’s not that they don’t know which direction they are headed, they just keep going! I believe that many of us in our foolish idealism feel that “if only they knew” they would do something differently. Think of the political climate today. Our lawmakers honestly believe that if they give the American people more knowledge, they will stop doing stupid stuff like smoking, drinking to excess and having unprotected sex.

NOT TRUE!

The nature of sin is illogical. Think of Adam and the woman (she wasn’t given the name Eve until AFTER they had sinned), they had this idyllic environment and very few restrictions. In fact, they only had one “Don’t eat of the tree in the middle of the garden”. Having knowledge that eating the tree would lead to death, they still ate! Why? Because sin is deceptive! It’s confusing and it blinds us to simple truth:

“But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.” – Hebrews 3:13

In our culture, we worship knowledge. We believe that knowledge is power. In truth, having knowledge is much better than not having knowledge, but as this scripture describes, it’s not ignorance that leads the simple to destruction. They know that the road is dangerous but they don’t change course.

The prudent man on the other hand sees the danger ahead on the path he is taking and CHANGES COURSE. He does a little course correction and takes refuge from the impending disaster. This is his salvation. The wise application of knowledge is infinitely more powerful and effective than the gathering of knowledge. I would rather have one guy with a small amount of applied knowledge than an “expert” who has never applied one thing he learned! The church is fool/full of these kinds of people today! We have adopted so many of our wicked and depraved culture’s values that we truly exalt knowledge above action.

LIFE LESSON:
What we know is only as effective as what we do with what we know.

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