Happy in My Stupidity
Sometimes, knowledge makes you more depressed. Solomon wrote:
I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.” And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind. For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow (Ecclesiastes 1:16-18).
The more I learn about economics, the more worried I get about the direction of our country. Knowledge may be power, but it also brings some responsibility—or at least the feeling that you are responsible to do something.
Unfortunately, many people are “happy in their stupidity” relative to salvation in Christ. Their attitude is “ignorance is bliss.” But that’s simply not the way God views things.
The apostle Paul told a crowd of unbelievers in Athens: “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:30-31).
You see, no one can be saved “happy in their stupidity.” First, “without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists” (Hebrews 11:6). Secondly, “without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he rewards those who seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).
We simply cannot be saved being ignorant. We may be happy, but we’ll be “happy” in the devil’s presence. We should take the message of salvation to the lost.
Copyright © 2015 by Paul Holland, in Droplets of Living Water, February 5.