“…the world through its wisdom did not
come to know God.” 1 Cor 1:21
“For the wisdom of this world is
foolishness before God”. 1 Cor 3:19
My message is to admonish believers to
beware of the wisdom of the world. There
is indeed a wisdom of the world.
First, what is wisdom? Wisdom, borrowing
from the Nelson's Illustrated Bible
Dictionary, is the ability to judge correctly
and to follow the best course of action,
based on knowledge and understanding. I
particularly like this definition because of
the focus on knowledge and
understanding. Notice from this definition
that wisdom is practical; it is the outward
expression of the inner attribute of
knowledge and understanding. Wisdom is
shown in how we decide our course of
action and how we make choices. When
we say there is a wisdom of the world, we
are saying there is a way the world says
things should be done and this is based on
its faith, or rather the lack of true faith,
and on the expectations people have of
the things.
I need to point out that the wisdom of the
world actually appears very wise to the
average person. It is reasonable, in
keeping with obvious facts and seems to
have an explainable way by which the
results being sought can be gotten. It is a
fact that the wisdom of the world will not
seem foolish at all, that is until you go
into the presence of God and see the
opinion of the Lord. It is only when you
see through the eyes of the Lord that you
discover the foolishness in what the world
calls wisdom. Now, the fact that the way
of the world often seems reasonable is
the trap for the people of God.
Let me just quickly add that the life of
faith requires us to take our bearing from
the word of God. We must be careful not
to lean on common sense understanding.
The counsel of the Lord must be our
guide. For example, if the Lord says not to
worry about tomorrow, it is because there
is no need about it. He knows the future,
He knows where the control of the future
is, and for that reason He knows that
worrying is useless. The world may send
people to university to learn how to worry
about tomorrow; they return with lots of
knowledge about how to take steps in
worrying, and these steps will appear
quite good to the eyes; however, the long
degrees and the experiences in the things
of the world cannot make anyone wiser
than the Ancient of Days.
The Lord is the very seat of wisdom; He
graciously gives us a word of His wisdom.
It is just a word, not an explanation.
Maybe this is why people do not often
feel comfortable with it. The Lord doesn’t
tell you how it will work out, unlike the
wisdom of the world which gives details
and systematic presentations of its logic.
The Lord just says, ‘don’t worry; I am
handling that.’ The world wants us to ask
Him how He will handle it, but that is
something He rarely obliges. He demands
we trust Him and not worry about it. We
only discover how after He has done what
He promised to do. It is always a case of
‘…that it might be fulfilled what which was
spoken by the Lord…’
There was a man who not only refused to
believe, but dared to make mockery of
the word of God from the mouth of His
prophet Elisha; the result was that the
man died just after witnessing the way of
the deliverance of the Lord (2 Kgs 7). No,
the Lord doesn’t like people who believe
only after they have understood how He
would do what He promised to do. He
rather delights in those who say simply,
‘He said it, I believe it, and that settles it.’
One important issue I like to point out is
that many of the prescriptions of the
world, which it calls wisdom, are derived
so as to solve a problem that was created
in the first place by its godlessness. When
people reject the counsel of God, they
create a set of problems, and then they
begin to invent a way to solve it. The
solution they invent may seem good, but
we must never forget where the problem
began from. Let us take examples from
the AIDS epidemic, and one from of the
leading cancers of women, that of the
cervix.
It is a medical fact that HIV/AIDS and this
cancer are problems of sexual
godlessness in a society. Both of them
result from the fact that the world
rejected the teachings of the Lord about
human sexuality. The result is that there
is now corruption in the world (which is
what diseases are), so much that even
those who didn’t sin directly, so as to be
blamed, are affected by it. Babies are
born with HIV/AIDS disease. The source of
all these problems is very simple – the
world refused the counsel of God and
went after its own lusts.
So what is the solution the world found?
Oh no, repentance is out of it, the world
rather prefers to solve it by teaching safe
sex. What is safe sex? Making condoms
available easily to teenagers and having
sex clinics in every corner. The words
fornication and adultery are out of the
window. Billions of dollars is spent trying
to get young girls vaccinated against HPV
(the causative virus for cancer of the
cervix) and to develop vaccines against
HIV (which has proven almost impossible).
They fight the Pope and the Catholic
Church for not advocating the use of
condoms as if the Church is saying we are
to go ahead and get STDs and unwanted
pregnancies. They refuse to acknowledge
that if the Pope and the Catholic Church
were to be listened to in all they say
about sexuality, there would be no need
for these things. After all the Church’s
statement on sex is not limited to the
matter of condoms but is also about
fornication and adultery; it only sees the
condom as an accessory after the fact of
iniquity and a barrier in a godly
relationship, and for these reasons
refuses to promote it. You may argue with
it but that is basically the logic of the
Catholic Church and I think it far better
than that of the world. Instead of seeing
this point, the world would rather say
sexual integrity is not normal or practical;
they expectedly refuse to accept that if
for just two generations we all observe
sexual purity, these diseases will all but
totally vanish. The word of God says, ‘keep
the standard up there and let people look
at it until they conform to it,’ but a
godless generation says, ‘no no, don’t
touch our sex; it is a sign of liberation.’
Liberation from what? From God. Sexual
freedom is a major sign of loss of
godliness. It is not possible to maintain
morality apart from godliness. Only God
can help us keep our desires from turning
to lusts that control us.
I am preaching this time to Christians to
be beware of the wisdom of the world.
We often buy it and live by it thinking we
are doing right.
I like to use a simple verse of scripture to
show how subtly we Christians get carried
away by the world. I will first present an
adulterated version, which I call Today's
Worldly Version, of the verse, and then
we will see the true word of God
afterwards.
Please read this:
"Children are a burden from the Lord,
and the fruit of the womb is extra load to
carry. Happy are the people who have a
small quiver so it fills up with just one or
two. That way they can give this burden
the Lord placed upon them the best in
life, like foreign education and holidays in
various parts of the globe. They can
quickly get done with it and have the joy
of having relieved themselves of the
burden. The fewer the arrows in the
quiver of a warrior, the better for him."
Ps 127:3-5, Today's Worldly Version.
Let’s face it, it is the usual thing these
days for ‘enlightened’ people to speak as if
a small nuclear family is better, and you
hear this kind of talk even among
Christians. You are looked at like you
came from Mars or more like out of West
Africa 1000AD if you say you love many
children. Someone actually said
something like this in my hearing: “what
would one want to do with them? You
want to sell them?” I replied to this end:
“No, it is a joy to love them.”
Unfortunately, the world has taught us
either directly or by keeping us occupied
with the cares of the world, the
deceitfulness of riches and the lust for the
vanities of the world, that a thing that the
Lord categorically said is good, is bad.
Please don’t even think about what my
personal likes or dislikes may be; this is
about the word of God. I am using this to
show how the world has led us away from
divine counsel.
Now let us see what the word of God says
on this matter.
“Behold, children are a gift of the Lord;
the fruit of the womb is a reward.
“Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so
are the children of one's youth.
“How blessed is the man whose quiver is
full of them;
“They shall not be ashamed, when they
speak with their enemies in the gate.” Ps
127:3-5 NASB
This is the true word of God, nothing
added. Instead of us arguing about
whether we all have the same size of
quiver, let us realize that in the context of
the scripture here, abundance was the
focus and not the size of individual
quivers. It is clear, if we are not trying to
justify the opinions of the world, that it
was likened to a man in battle having an
abundance of ammunition. The man with
a small quiver is definitely not a person to
envy.
Let us quickly see another genuine
version.
“Children are a gift from the Lord; they
are a real blessing.
“The sons a man has when he is young are
like arrows in a soldier's hand.
“Happy is the man who has many such
arrows.” GNT
One would have thought it so clear but
the world has so filled the thoughts of
Christians.
Woe to the world! They have rejected the
word of God and have invented their own
ideas. And the church is following them in
the blindness occasioned by their hatred
of God. Now, that is real carnality.
Please I am not at all here preaching on
whether you should have a large family or
not; I am just trying to say to Christians to
beware of the leaven of the world. Take
the word of God as it is lest you partake in
the woes of the world. Let the word of
God teach you what is good and what is
bad. Woe to those who overturn the word
of God (Is 5:20 KJV)
“How terrible it will be for people who
call good things bad and bad things good,
“who think darkness is light and light is
darkness,
“who think sour is sweet and sweet is
sour.” Isa 5:20 NCV
We are either Christians or we are not.
When people want to advocate for you
that a small family is good, all they ever
tell you are worldly things, and of course
they never forget to tell you that El-
Shaddai has gone on leave and so He is
not aware of the cost of education and
clothing. We are told to worry about what
the children will eat, and what they will
drink and with what will they be clothed.
Poor Jesus was not aware of what perilous
times we will have to live in when He was
speaking. People forget that we are
people of faith who are to invoke the will
of God unto the earth. It is to us according
to our faith, remember.
Let me get back to the matter of the
wisdom of the world.
The world emphasizes how we must save
up for retirement (and this is part of the
reason why they say that a large family is
bad since it reduces your ability to save).
The world says to lay up our treasures on
the earth even though we see the moths
destroy things again and again (one
appropriate word for moth and rust in our
modern day financial system would be
inflation).
“Do not store up riches for yourselves
here on earth, where moths and rust
destroy, and robbers break in and steal.
Instead, store up riches for yourselves in
heaven, where moths and rust cannot
destroy, and robbers cannot break in and
steal. For your heart will always be where
your riches are.” Matt 6:19-21 GNT
We are encouraged to ignore these words
of the Lord Jesus even though we see
thieves in the name of big banks and
financial institutions wizards breaking in
to steal again and again as they collapse
with depositors’ moneys. The world
teaches us how to worry and have anxiety
about tomorrow. And Christians follow
them. It appears like our faith is for
Sundays alone.
Now, remember what I explained earlier
about how they look for a solution to
problems they caused by disobeying
divine order. All this ‘wisdom’ is how to
live when the family structure of God has
been broken down. (Again that is part of
the problem we Christians often have; we
do not realize that we have to create a
fully encompassing life of faith, and not
jettison the word when we don’t like it
and then expect it to work for us in
certain areas when we need it).
The world liberated children from
families and created families without
structure. Single parents are all over the
place. This is because of sexual ‘liberation.’
People live in isolation here and there
with no extended families or
brotherhoods of love. In this kind of
system you have to make preparation for
your life by yourself. You need health
insurance, disability insurance, old-age
insurance, etc. You have to save up in a
decaying and unreliable world in case
things go south, like Americans would say.
I just thought about a godly system being
in place.
A man and a woman have a large family
and raise their children in true godliness
(Js 1:27). They don’t need a pension plan if
they are investing so much in their
children. Even if they don’t have
abundance of wealth to last them into old
age, their children are commanded by
God to be there for them (Ex 20:12, Pr
19:6, Mk 7:11, 1 Tim 5:. How blessed
will they be, and the children too, if they
indeed have a quiver full of them. I thank
God for my mum; she worked as a school
teacher for decades and retired. She has a
pension, but what I and my siblings do for
her far exceeds what any pension will
ever do. We are young, and it is our turn;
not a big deal. I know that many reading
this understand this from personal
experience. It is a joyful thing to do.
Some called it African culture but that is
so so untrue. It is the culture of God for
any human society. It vanishes only as
people modernize away from godliness,
when they start calling evil what the Lord
called good and calling good what the Lord
called evil. In a godly society, with
children that the Lord blessed, who needs
old people’s homes? The home of the old
people is to be provided by their quiver
of children. How blessed are they if that
quiver is full.
The system of God says the more we are
the better. Thank God for large families in
Christ where we are careful to bear one
another’s burdens. We are automatically
insured and have no fear of tomorrow. It
was so good at a time that the apostles
had to put in measures to prevent abuse.
So Paul said, ‘let the one who will not
work not eat.’ It had to be commanded
because the brethren would have ensured
that there was food for such. The purpose
of work, Paul also explained, is to have
something to contribute to help the lives
of others (Eph 4:28).
In summary, please don’t let the world
teach us its wisdom when we have the
word of God as the source of eternal
wisdom with us. Let us never reason away
the word of God but work hard to obey it
and prophesy it until it produces results
for us. If we are indeed people of faith,
we shouldn’t be the ones explaining away
the word of God. We must stick with it,
look up to it, and desire the hidden
wisdom in it; that is what it means to be a
believer. We are to put the word of God
up there and look up to it attentively, be
absorbed by it and contemplate it until we
become like it in our thoughts, and then
the experiences of blessing will follow.
Oh, by the way, the El-Shaddai is not on
leave; we are the ones that have been on
leave from making demands on His power
while we commit iniquity with the wisdom
of the world.
“For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro
throughout the whole earth, to show
Himself strong on behalf of those whose
heart is loyal to Him.” 2 Chron 16:9 NKJV. Source: www.pastor.ng for more materials

Summary biko, anyone?