Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 174, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 August 1918 — Three Bible Fools [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Three Bible Fools

By REV. W. W. KETCHUM

Director of Practical Work Courw. Moody Bible Inatitute, Chicago

I. The Atheistic Fool. The one who says, “There Is no God.” Twice in the Bible, in the

Book of Psalms, we read: "The fool hath said tn his heart, there is no God.” It is interesting to note that this fool says this in his heart and not in his head. The reason his heart , prompts such a statement is because the heart is, as the Bible says, deceitful above all things, hopelessly wicked.

Now the Bible does not set out to prove that God is. It assumes that every intelligent man "will believe this, and so Its pages open with the sublime and stupendous statement: “In the beginning God.” The Bible, however, does tell us that “the heavens declare the glory of God,” and that “the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen.” So while the Bible does not try to prove that God is, it does tell us that God, whose existence it assumes, may be known. It tells us that nature is one of the books which God has given us, in which he tells us about himself. It tells us that another book in which God is revealed is the Bible itself, the written word of God, and that a third one is the living nr incarnate Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom it Is said: “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten. Son, which if in the bosom of thu Father, he hath declared him;” that is, “led him forth,” as Doctor Scofield says, “into full revelation.” No man, then, need be in Ignorance of God with three books making Him known, rind with such a threefold revelation of God, how can anyone deny that God is, or be Ignorant of him? * 11. The One Who Plays the Fool. He is the person who falls to take God into account; that is, he acts as if there were no God. Saul did this when he sought David’s life. He left God out of his reckoning-In his determination to slay David, and one night when he was encamped, surrounded by his soldiers and bodyguard, David stealthily made his way through the guard with one of his trusty followers, and removed the bolster from under Saul’s head, and the cruse of water and the spear that were by his side, without awakening him or any of the soldiers. Withdrawing In safety to the hillside, David shouted back to the captain of Saul’s army, “Abner! Abner!” and when this sleepy captain, with Saul and the encamped soldiers awakened", they saw David on the hillside, stretching forth his trophies that they might see that he could have taken Saul’s life if he had chosen. Then it was that Saul, realizing that he had left God out of his reckoning In his attempt to slay David, exclaimed: “I have played the fool.”

And so does every one who does not take God into account. The man or the woman who schemes or plans and lives as if there were no God in the world is as big a fool as the person who says in his heart: “There is no God.” Both are fools because they deny the existence of God; one by his words professes his atheism, while the other lives his. 111. The Rich Fool. He is the man whose ambition in life Is to accumulate wealth. Christ; portrays him in the parable of the man who. having a great harvest pulled down his barns and built greater and when they were filled said to himself, “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 bte required of thee; then whose shall these things be which thou hast provided?” How many folks there #re in the world xlth w’hom the supreme thing In life Is the getting of material things, their one ambition to accumulate wealth? They strain and scheme and work and worry to get gain, forgetting that a day Is coming when their souls shall be required of them, and then, if they have succeeded, like the rich man in the parable, it will be pertinent to ask them, “Whose shall these things be?” And if they die, having laid up treasures for themselves, and are not rich toward God, they have gone into the other world as paupers. One night in New York city a wealthy man lay dying. He had every material thing the heart could desire, but one thing he felt his need of, and that was prayer. Sending for his gardener, a godly soul, he asked him to pray for him, and when the gardener had finished his simple, fervent prayer, the dying millionaire said: “John, now sing for me.” “What shall I sing?” asked the gardener. And the man who was rich in houses and lands and bonds and mortgages replied: “Sing, John, the song, ’Come ye sinners, poor and needy, weak and wayward, sick and sore,’ ” and the gardener sang this blessed song of invitation to the millionaire who knew that with God his money did not count and that If ho was to be saved it must be u a poor and needy sinner.