HIGHER FOOLS
Dr. D. K. Olukoya
The Bible says that “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like the eagle. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40: 31).
There is power to mount up and there is power to pull down, but the best power is the power from on high, which will make you to mount up like the eagle. That is the kind of power that we should ask for. There are some Christians whose names have been taken to the dark places by the evil ones and the evil ones succeeded. But some other names were taken there and the satanic agents said, “Sorry, we cannot touch these ones. It is impossible.”
There are fools and there are fools. When you say that somebody is a fool, perhaps you mean that he is silly and does not think very well or that he has a poor sense of judgment. The question is, who is the best person to describe a fool? If a fellow human being calls you a fool, you may have nothing to worry about, but if God calls you a fool, you must be really foolish.
WHO ARE FOOLS ACCORDING TO GOD?
This is the first thing we are going to look at before we see who the higher fools are. Psalm 107:17 says, “Fools because of their transgression and because of their iniquities are afflicted. Their soul abhoreth all manner of meat: and they draw near unto the gates of death.” Here, fools are people who are being afflicted because of their transgression and they do not even know that it is because of their transgression. They are unable to locate the fact that their problem started as a result of the sin in their lives. The Bible says that they are foolish because they refuse to know that the reason they are going through what they are going through is their transgression. Having failed to repent of their transgression, trouble started.
Proverbs 1:7 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” This means that the beginning of knowledge is not ‘A’ for Apple, ‘B’ for Ball and ‘C’ for Carrot, but the fear of the Lord. The Scripture goes ahead to say: “But fools despise wisdom and instructions.” When somebody who knows more than you is talking, who has passed through experiences and has the Spirit of God in him, you will be a fool not to listen to him.
Verse 22 says, “How long ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? And the scorners delight in their scorning and fools hate knowledge?” Here, fools are those who despise knowledge and correction, they are those who hate knowledge and follow their own opinions.
People all over the earth, no matter where they come from, have choice of three authorities to operate under.
1. Personal opinion: The first authority is your own opinion. If you begin to say things like, “Well, it’s my own opinion, it is my own opinion,” and you believe that your own opinion is right while other people’s opinions are wrong and that your own opinion about Christianity is the only correct one, then perhaps, you will be the only one to go to heaven and you will be very lonely there. You may say, “Preacher, what if what you are saying here is wrong too?” If it is wrong, it then means that Jesus is not the King of kings and the Lord of lords after all, because the word of God is straightforward. Everything having to do with the salvation of man is well spelt out. The Bible makes itself plain and clear. It says, “He that committeth sin is of the devil.” It does not put any middle class. It does not say, “Those who commit little or minor sins.” Pastor, apostle, evangelist or whatever you call yourself, once you commit sin, you are of the devil. Committing sin means that you are taking sides with the enemy of God. When Jesus came, He was not ready to listen to people’s opinions. He was not ready to listen to the truth of others, because He is the truth. You may also say, “What if you are wrong too?” Well, I still prefer my lifestyle to a lifestyle outside Christ. Someone may say, “Well, I don’t know whether Jesus is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. I don’t know whether there is hell or there is heaven.” Well, I don’t lose anything because I know that heaven and hell exist and that Jesus is the Kings of kings and the Lord of lords. Those who fail to believe this will lose because when they die they will discover that the same Jesus that they have rejected is the King of kings.
Sometime ago, two groups of people argued whether God exists or not. The first group says that He exists, while the second group says that He does not. The group that says that God does not exist always asks questions like, “If actually God exists, why does He permit motor accidents? Why does He permit people to die anyhow, and children to die in hospitals, and all kinds of evil things happening? There is definitely no God.” The second group who says that God does not exist would say, “Well, the things that we find in the world make it unreasonable to say or believe that God does not exist. It appears there is one intelligent brain behind all these things, and that intelligent brain is what people call God."
These two groups argued for a week and many Christians backslid during the debate. On the last day, their professor, a white man, who was to conclude the debate came and made the following statement: “It is more logical to believe that God exists because if you say that He does no exist, and you die and discover that He exists, He will deal with you.” That closed the debate. So, some people are labouring under their own opinions, and that is one authority.
2. Other people’s opinion: Another authority is other people’s opinion, which may be right or wrong. These are the things that control our lives. You may say, “No” but this is true. If everybody was blind and could not see, many of us would change our dressing. Some people who paint parts of their body like masquerades and do all kinds of things will stop when they discover that nobody admires them. They won’t even bother to wear bathroom slippers to work. So, people also labour under other people’s opinion.
3. God’s opinion: The highest opinion is that of the Almighty God and His Book.
The devil has no opinion. He has a mission and his mission is to destroy. Proverbs 12:15 says, “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise.” It means that a fool is a person who is always right in his own eyes, and immediately you begin to correct him, you hurt him, you hurt his feelings. Proverbs 28: 26 also says, “He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool: but whoso walketh wisely, he shall be delivered.”
So, one whose ways are right in his own heart, is a fool according to God. For example, the Bible’s order of marriage is just twofold. It says, “Wives, be subject to your husbands, and husbands, love your wives.” If people will just obey these two instructions, there will be no problem. “Wife be subject to your husband” means that if as a wife you are stating your opinion and your husband opens his mouth and says, “Shut up,” you should respect him and keep quiet. If you are not ready to do that, you shouldn’t have got married, your needn’t have dropped your father’s name to pick up another man’s own. If people will obey this, many homes will remain standing. If you say, “Well, I studied Biology in the university,” So what? Do you marry Biology? Your insistence that “I must talk, I am educated, I have my own opinions,” would only break the home into pieces. Most of the people asking you to talk and return fire for fire will later be laughing at you and saying, “He has thrown her out.” A fool is always right in his own heart. Drop your opinion and follow what God is saying. When there is no subjection, love does not follow. It is just like Christ and His church. If you refuse to subject yourself to the leadership of Christ, there will be problem for you.
Proverb 14:9 says, “Fools make a mock at sin: but among the righteous, there is favour.” It means that fools take sin lightly and forget the word of the Bible. If the Son of God, the ‘water of life’ could suffer so much for Him to say, “I thirst, give me water,” and instead of being given water, He was given vinegar, if He cried out in pain and God watched it happened, then woe unto that preacher or that Christian who would take sin lightly. This is why God is withdrawing His children from the dead churches. He shed His blood for them and will not allow them to perish in those dead places. His blood cannot go in vain, His children must be set free.
Proverb 16:5 says, “A fool despiseth his father’s instruction: but he that regardeth reproof is prudent.” Children who despise their fathers instructions are fools. The Bible says that their days will not be long.
I know a man who is a lawyer and his father too was a lawyer. He was very rude to his father. He thought he was a good match for his father because they were both in the same profession. One day, the father said to him, “What you are doing to me, your children will do to you in future.” The man replied and said, “That is rubbish, shut up.” The man later died.
After the death of the father, the young man started having problems. When he wanted to marry, he was manipulated into marrying the highest witch in the city. Right from the first night after the wedding, when both of them slept on the bed, the bed was turning around in circle and continued so until daybreak. He used to urinate once or twice at night, but with the circling around of the bed he began to bedwet. When they woke up, his wife would say to him, “Useless man, I didn’t know that you are like this. After messing up now, you will put on your suit and be
arguing in the courts. One day, I will go to the court and tell them that you are a bedwet.”
With this kind of manipulation, the wife became the husband and the man became the wife because he was afraid that they would find out that he was bedwetting. One day, he went to court to defend someone. It was as if the judge woke up on the wrong side and everything he said was termed rubbish. After sometime, everything went wrong in the court and he was ordered to be kicked out. And right from there, things ceased to work. One day, he met a preacher who said to him, “God said, you have offended somebody and you need to make a restitution.” He said, “The only person I know I quarrelled with was my father.” The preacher asked after the father and he told him that he had died. The preacher told him how serious the matter was and the man then begged God to forgive him. He went straight to the grave of his father and wept and wept for almost six hours asking for forgiveness. God saw him and said, “Ok, I forgive you.” But somebody does not have to pass through all that. Although he was a lawyer, learned men as they are called, as far as the Bible is concerned, he was a fool.
Knowledge is different from wisdom. Education is different from wisdom. The fact that you attended school and passed your examinations does not mean that you are wise. The Bible calls such people fools.
Proverbs 20:3 says, “It is an honour for a man to cease from strife: but every fool will be meddling.” It says that they will be meddling, they will be fighting until people would say, “Are those two people not Christians and we see them carrying the Bible.” The Bible calls them fools.
The Bible says, “Be quick to hear, but be slow to speak.” Most times, when you keep your mouth shut, people will not know that you are a fool, but it is when you start talking that they will know that you are foolish. You will expose yourself.
Sometime ago, two sisters were fighting and people ran to the mission house to call the pastor. The pastor came in his bicycle and said, “It ‘s okay.” One of them said to the pastor, “Oga, this is not church. This is a personal thing. I cannot, because I am born again, become a tablemat. So, Mr. Pastor, when I come to church, you can talk. This place is our house.” And she continued fighting. She is a fool, according to the Bible.
Psalm 92: 6 says, “A brutish man knoweth not; neither doth a fool understand this.” It is my earnest prayer that any fool reading this message will receive deliverance, in Jesus’ name. And all those whose eyes have been blinded to the truth of God’s word shall be set free, in Jesus’ name.
Proverb 18: 6 -7 says, “A fool’s lips enter into contention, and his mouth calleth for strokes. A fool’s mouth is his destruction and his lips are the snare of his soul.” All wrong users of the mouth are fools, according to the foregoing. Proverb 26:11 says, “As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.” All backsliders who have refused to slide back to Jesus are fools.
The next class of fools is in the book of Ecclesiastes 7: 9 which says, “Be not hasty in the spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools.” Angry people are regarded as fools by God. If you still get angry, then you are a student in the school of foolishness, and you must depart quickly from that school.
HIGHER FOOLS
Psalm 14: 1 says, “The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.” The Bible says that the fool says in his heart, and not that he speaks it out. He does not talk, he is just thinking it and yet the Bible says that he is a fool. If the Bible could call somebody who is thinking that there is no God a fool, how about the one who is saying it? That one must be a higher fool.
We have a lot of people today who keep saying that there is no God. It is not their fault. If they were to be alive before the gospel came into this land, they would understand better. Before the gospel came to this land nobody wore good clothes and came out. If they did, witches would eat them up the next day. Only a few people who were strong could do that. If you have not read about the darkness in this place before the gospel came, please, do so. Demons were walking in the streets in the daytime. They were not hiding in the night. In some places in this country, witches were flying in the afternoon. But now, they dare not try it. A small child of God can now point his little finger and command fire to come down. It was not so before, because in those days many people did not know that there was fire anywhere.
In Luke 24: 25 Jesus says, “O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory?” At a stage, Jesus described His own disciples as fools because of their sluggishness in understanding spiritual things.
Luke 12:16-21 says, “And he spake a parable unto them saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do, I will pull down my barns and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night, thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth treasure up for himself, and is not rich toward God.” These are the highest fools. The Bible also says, “O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end”(Deuteronomy 32: 29). This is saying that when a man is wise, he would not be thinking of the immediate profit. So, everyone who lives and dies without making adequate preparation about where he or she is going is a fool.
When last did you think about heaven? Where are now the rich men of yesterday? Where are the popular ones? Have you not forgotten them. In a few years to come, the children that will be born will not know some names that are popular now, unless they read about them. Sooner or later, many people who have been doing things will become “Ex this and Ex that.” You have to plan towards heaven. You have to be rich towards God. A lot of people are busy doing only what is convenient for them. Don’t do what is just convenient for you. If the service is not convenient for you, you don’t come. It is better not to have been born than to have been born and you fail to make sure of eternity, or you are unprepared for death.
Birth is your opportunity, it is your beginning from where there is no returning. Once you have been born, you cannot say, “Mummy, I don’t like the world. Oh, let me go back into your womb.” No, it is impossible.
Death, too, is a commitment from which there is no escape. At birth, we all commence the journey from this world to the next. You cannot turn back from the journey. Only the body is the creature of this earth. It is therefore utter foolishness for any man to presume that he can find his way to God on his deathbed. God gives no such guarantee to anybody.
Sometime ago, in England, I was made the head of a Bible study group in a particular hall. We held our Bible study on Tuesdays. The first day that I taught, I found that many people felt uncomfortable. The next time I was to talk, immediately I entered the study room, I found that somebody had ironed some clothes there. We didn’t know that the sister we were to hold the Bible study in her room was getting ready to go for a party with an unbeliever. She was just waiting for us to complete the Bible study. I started to talk by saying, “Well, God will meet you the way death meets you and there is no guarantee that in the next five minutes, you will still be here. Those who still patch their Christianity, who are not yet ready to stand out, are planning for destruction because when Jesus was around, He was very rigid. So, in case you are looking for somebody who will bend the rules, not the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ kept saying woe to the enemies of the gospel. He called the Scribes and Pharisees the sons of those who killed the prophets. But He spoke good words unto those who loved Him.
As we closed the Bible study, the sister said, “Daniel, wait, I want to talk with you. What you said today is just what I needed to shake me out of my slumber. But, you see, I am a young girl, you are old. How then do I enjoy myself. You can afford not to go to disco but me, a young girl, how will I get on.” Then I opened to Psalm 119: 9 which states how the young should live their lives. I made her to understand that what she called enjoyment was not enjoyment but destruction coated with sugar. When you finish eating the sugar, the bitterness would enter into your mouth. A lot of people are like that and we call them chameleon Christians. It is very risky not to be sure of heaven because an unexpected accident can suddenly throw someone into hell or heaven to spend eternity there. One man of God used to say, “Sudden death, sudden glory.” That was because he was ready for death. Someone who is not ready cannot say that. If you are not rich towards God, you cannot say that.
Nobody is born into the way of Christianity. The fact that you were born into a Christian home does not automatically make you a Christian. Christianity has to be sought. It is a way. The Bible says, “Seek and you shall find.” You have to find the way and move therein. Neglect of this opportunity that God presents to you is rejection of grace. If you persist in unbelief, and refuse to respond to God’s call, it is spiritual suicide. One of the most worrying verses in the Bible, which many people wish that it should be removed, is in I Peter 4: 17-18 which says, “For the hour is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear.” Consider the fact that the righteous shall scarcely be saved. Think about it. Ask questions like, “What am I doing here? Where am I going? When I die, what will happen?” If you have never thought about these, then you need serious prayers. When you are tied to the world, it will glue you down. When the trumpet sounds, it will glue you down. The church is in the world, but the world should not enter into the church. This deceptive world we are living in will sink one day and those who are not ready to separate from it, shall sink with it. Many Christians are too worldly-minded to be heavenly good. The world is constantly seeking to defile the child of God and if you allow it, it will have its way.
Today, I want you to think about it very well. There is a little thing in electricity called a fuse. The current passes through it. When God looks at you and sees that the fuse in your life has blown, no matter how powerful your environment may be and fire is coming out, it won’t enter you. Some people have inferior fuses and cannot carry any power. Such people should really cry unto the Lord. One of the greatest tragedies of Christianity is the re-arrangement of priorities. Many Christians are very active when they are praying against their enemies whereas the Bible says, “Seek you first the kingdom and all other things shall be added.” It means that those things will be pursuing you and not you pursuing them.
PRAYER POINTS
1. Lord, lay your hand upon my life and make my life a miracle, in the name of Jesus.
2. Lord, give me the power to mount up with wings like the eagles, in the name of Jesus.
3. I refuse to become the serpent’s meat, in Jesus’ name.
4. Lord, anywhere my name is called for evil, let fire and thunder fall there, in the name of Jesus.
5. I command the Red Sea to swallow all my Pharaohs, in the name of Jesus.
