John Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: October 22

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John Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: October 22

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The Wise Fool

We have seen many strange sights in our time—many horrible sights; but none so strange, none so horrible, as that of a wise man making himself a fool. Solomon did that; and he was a wise man, even the wisest of men. If the deep sagacity of Solomon—if his keen discernment—if his strong reason—if his profound knowledge of human life and character—if even his intimate acquaintance with the law and counsels of the Lord—did not preserve his name from that stamp of “foolishness” which we find impressed upon so many of the great names and great acts of men, who is there that can hope to stand? Not one, as of himself; but there is without us and above us a power that can exalt even the lowly to high things, and can sustain them in all true wisdom, so long as they rest upon it, and think not that the light which shines upon their path and glorifies their way, shines out of themselves, and not into them. Solomon was wise: Solomon was foolish. Astonishing contradiction and contrast of terms! Yet it does not astonish. It may astonish angels, but not us. We are used to this kind of experience. We see it—the same in kind, if not in degree—every day; and that which would amaze us from any other point of view than that from which we look, becomes familiar to our thoughts. Look around. We see men who are foolish without being wise; but we see not one who is wise without being also foolish. It is “foolishness,” and not wisdom; that “is bound up in the heart of a child.” Foolishness, which every man certainly has, is his nature; wisdom, if he has it, is a gift bestowed upon him—bestowed as freely upon him as it was upon Solomon. The wisdom does not suppress or drive out the foolishness, but is a weapon—it may be a staff, it may be a glittering sword—given into his hands to fight against it, to keep it under; a weapon to be used with daily and ever-watchful vigilance, and not to rest idly in the scabbard. This was king Solomon’s fault. Having been victor in many a deadly fray, until victory became easy and habitual, he forgat that the enemy of his greatness and peace still lived—was not mortally wounded—did not even sleep. He suffered his weapon to rest until its keen edge was corroded—until it clung in rust to the scabbard, and could not be drawn forth.

If there be on earth one sight more sorrowful than that of wisdom become foolishness—or, rather, suffering foolishness to be victorious—it is that of the fall of an old man whose youth had been promising, and whose manhood glorious and beautiful. Yet this also was the case of Solomon, and the thought of it is enough to draw forth most bitter tears. The fall of an old tree, or of some noble old ruin, is beheld with some regret, but it occasions no rending of heart. It was their doom. Age ripened them but for their fall; and we wondered more that they stood so long, than that they fell so soon. But man is expected to ripen in moral and religious strength—to harden into rock-like fixedness as his age increases. He whom we have looked up to so long—he whose words were wise as oracles, and from whose lips we had so long gathered wisdom—he who had borne noble testimonies for the truth—he who had labored for the glory of God, who had withstood many storms of human passion and many temptations of human glory, and in whose capacious mind are garnered up the fruits of a life’s knowledge and experience—for such a man to fall from his high place fills the most firm of heart with dread, and makes the moral universe tremble. It is altogether terrible. It is a calamity to mankind: it is more than that—it is a shame, a wrong, and a dishonor. The righteous hide their heads, and the perverse exult—hell laughs.

There is something more: the grace of God is blasphemed. To see a man set forth as one specially gifted of God—as endowed with a surpassing measure of wisdom from above, to fit him to become a king and leader of men— for him to fall, is, with the unthinking, an awful scandal upon the gifts of God. If he who ascribes heaven-given powers to the influence of demons commits, as most suppose, the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost, of what sin, think you, is he guilty, who gives occasion to that blasphemy by his misconduct and his fall?

Yet amid this dreadful scene of wreck and ruin something profitable to our own souls may be gathered up.

Let it teach us not to rely too implicitly upon any past attainments or present convictions. Let us never think that the time of danger to our souls is past, or that the great troubler of spirits is wholly discomfited, and despairs of all advantage over us. There is no time wherein we can be safe, while we carry this body of sin about us. “Youth is impetuous, mid-age stubborn, old age weak—all dangerous.” In the conviction of this ever-present peril, and of the sleepless vigilance of the enemy, may we be led to look out of ourselves altogether for strength and sustainment. When we are the strongest, it is best to be weak in ourselves; and when at our weakest, strong in him in whom we can do all things. “If God uphold us not, we cannot stand; if God uphold its, we cannot fall.” Then, why did he not uphold Solomon, that he might not fall? There can be but one answer—Solomon did not want to be upheld. He thought he could stand alone—he relied upon his own strength—he trusted in his own heart; and we have Scripture and experience to tell us, that “he who trusteth in his own heart is a fool.” He, in the pride of his intellectual wealth, was like the rich man in the parable with his material goods—“I am rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing.” It was at that moment, when he had realized the conviction that he had need of nothing, that the word went forth against him—“Thou fool!” So also, assuredly, was it then—when Solomon thought himself perfect in wisdom, and that he had need of nothing—that the word went forth—“Thou fool!” and he became foolish indeed.

“So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn

Which once he wore!

The glory from his gray hairs gone

For evermore!

Of all we loved and honored, naught

Save power remains;

A fallen angel’s pride of thought,

Still strong in chains.

All else is gone; from those great eyes

The soul has fled:

When faith is lost, and honor dies,

The man is dead.

Then pay the reverence of old days

To his dead fame;

Walk backward with averted gaze,

And hide the shame.”—Whittier.

Did Solomon repent? Scripture says nothing positively but it may be hoped that he did. If the book of Ecclesiastes be correctly ascribed to Solomon—and we are of those who think that it is—it is most natural to suppose that it exhibits his maturest convictions and experiences; and although there are no such direct expressions of repentance as we find in the Psalms of David—no such lamenting cries for sin, it may be considered that the framework of the book did not well admit them. But there is much in the warnings against the vanity and vexation of spirit by which the wicked and profligate are deceived and tormented, to remind us of the sad and sorrowful experience which the history ascribes to the latter days of Solomon.