[297]. A MESSAGE FROM A POEM – THE WISDOM OF THE WORLD IS FOOLISHNESS WITH GOD
{{1 Corinthians 1:26-28 “Consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, but GOD HAS CHOSEN THE FOOLISH THINGS OF THE WORLD TO SHAME THE WISE, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are.”}}
My heart goes out to young Christians who are entering University because I know they will face extreme attack against their faith by the whole ethos of the University. These places in 2026 are hostile to Christians. They support all the anti-Christian philosophies – ALL WOKE garbage, homosexuality, evolution, rationalism, humanism. May I add RADICALISM. Many at this time support Hamas and condemn Israel and are open about it.
In Australia, the Government supports everything in Universities that is the enemy of Christians, but I just saw where President Trump has withdrawn funding for - Harvard I think?? One of the Universities anyway.
I now associate Universities with hotbeds of Satan. At the James Cook University near me, at the entrance and exit, you have to drive over broadly painted strips of the “rainbow colours” of homosexuality painted right across the road on either side of a speed bump. That is what this University stands for. In the academic field I helped prepare students on their way to University before I retired and counted that a privilege, BUT TODAY – it is like sending lambs to the slaughter.
All through the godless societies of the world (that is now also western nations), there is such departure from God, that everything God instituted has been overturned for what is now the opposite – creation, evolution, gender, marriage, priorities.
The world has its own boast of wisdom and if you do not ascribe to its philosophies, then you become an outcast. I knew rejection in the academic field because I disagreed with issues. My stand is based on the bible, not on the humanism of man.
The title of this poem comes from scripture – specifically from this verse – {{1 Corinthians 1:20 “Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? HAS NOT GOD MADE FOOLISH THE WISDOM OF THE WORLD?”}}
The wider passage here is this – 1 Corinthians 1:18-21 The word of the cross is to those who are perishing FOOLISHNESS, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God, for it is written, “I WILL DESTROY THE WISDOM OF THE WISE and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.” Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? Since in the wisdom of God THE WORLD THROUGH ITS WISDOM DID NOT COME TO KNOW GOD, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.}}
Although Paul was referencing the Roman and Greek cultures, the underlying philosophies have been true right down the ages. In the closing decades of the first century the Church began to battle Gnosticism which was an error Colossians addressed.
{{Colossians 2:20 If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!”}}
{{Colossians 2:6-8 “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude. SEE TO IT THAT NO ONE TAKES YOU CAPTIVE THROUGH PHILOSOPHY AND EMPTY DECEPTION, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.”}}
This poem uses a metre of 16, the only one I think that uses such a metre, though in 2026 I actually wrote one with a metre of 17. The poem is my way of standing against the wisdom of the world. I hope it is meaningful for you.
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THE WISDOM OF THE WORLD IS FOOLISHNESS WITH GOD
“A Creator? It stretches the mind,” they say, “to believe in that.”
Yet there’s no problem accepting life from a meteor, as fact.
As for a Master Designer founding the universe? Well, NO!
It came from a big bang, a sand grain size particle. That is SO!
When it comes to “life”, they get most vocal about their pet notion;
“A wonder,” they claim, “without any God,” such is their devotion.
Their desperately held belief – evolution – is a faith leap,
Which is so absurd, that life originated from a scrapheap -
A few chemicals, and a universe of chance for that great hoax,
Painted over millions of years with fantasy from broad, brush strokes.
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The sceptics’ denial is universal over time and place.
The truth they reject outright, but a fanciful lie, they embrace.
Sinful man will never change, and builds castles of humanism,
But its unchanging foundation is intellectualism.
Man parades his brilliance in wisdom’s self-absorbing arrogance,
Then expects the general populace to pay him false reverence.
But NO. Our devotion belongs to the God of precise wisdom,
Not to the false self-acclaimed misconception found in man’s system.
In all decisions that are made, God is dismissed as meaningless.
As blind men assessing an elephant, they show their prejudice.
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The wisdom of the world is foolishness with God, and is assessed
Against human philosophies, where God’s absolutes are suppressed.
Universities lead the way in delusion and deception,
Proud of their “wisdom” and dismissal of God, in their perception.
God winks at this, for one who negates God is right now deluded.
When one relies on his own props, then from wisdom, is excluded.
Foolishness is when one takes the wrong path, knowing the right is there.
It will lead to rejection in the end, when all things are laid bare.
Philosophy and vain deceit and human ingenuity,
Will count for nought when measured against God’s wise perpetuity.
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Christians are considered “simple people” and so we are – that’s fact.
The ones Jesus called were simple folk, but not many “wise” would react
To His wisdom, but against it. Foolish things of the world God chose,
To shame the wise, the mighty and the noble, that they’d be exposed.
Christians are weak in the world, but we will shame the strong, Paul explained,
But the ones who are truly wise in God, are those His name have claimed.
For God, I don’t mind being “foolish” in the eyes of the world’s wise;
Believe it when His word tells us that what comes, will be no surprise.
We will be judged by God, and His wisdom always, I love to know.
Get to know your Lord better and better, while we’re still here below.
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6-7 January 2022 R E Ferguson Metre = 16 throughout AA BB etc.
* The reference to blind men and an elephant ending the 2nd stanza comes from a well-known poem, “The Blind Men and the Elephant,” by John Godfrey Saxe. It is set in Hindustan.