The
wisest man ever lived, King Solomon, said in Proverbs 2:6,
“The Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and
understanding.”
Obviously he was speaking from experience because God gave him
wisdom through vision in a dream. Job ascertained that, “there is
a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them
understanding.” (Job 32:8) Wisdom cannot be bought with gold.
Its value cannot be compared with precious jewels.
We
are told in the Bible that the fear of God is the beginning of
wisdom. The author of a Christian literature, ‘Go to the Ant,’
defined the fear of God “as the scale that weighs our actions
and evaluates our thoughts. It is the control that bridles our
tongues from evil utterances. It is the divine molding mechanism
that shapes our lives in righteousness each day, according to the
will and expectations of God. It is also a self-examination question
that we ask ourselves before every decision: “Will God be happy with
what I am doing?” We tend to ask, “If fear of God is all about
application of control upon our life, what is the relevance of it as
the beginning of wisdom?”
It
is the intention of God that wisdom be used by man to improve upon
and effectively manage the planet earth. Bible says, “He that
hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down
and without walls.” (Proverbs 25:28) Control and wisdom must go
hand in hand. In order for wisdom to be used for any purpose, there
must be a measure of control. Wisdom is designed by merciful God to
benefit humanity. At the expense of humanity, this same wisdom can
be perverted when those who have it are motivated by greed and
selfishness. In essence, wisdom is a tool. It is used for evil or
good depending on the hands that wield her. Adam and Eve started
well in the Garden of Eden. They dwelled in the divine wisdom of the
Almighty until they set aside the fear of God for selfishness and
used their wisdom in according to the directive of Satan.
Conversely, Noah dwelt in the righteousness of God, feared Him and
obeyed His commandments. He was open to the divine wisdom and
understanding and was able to build the Ark, a boat of salvation.
Noah and his household were delivered from the destructive flood.
They formed the core of the generation that continues to the present
time. The great men of God in the Bible have something in common –
the fear of God. It is the fear of God in them that led them to live
righteous lives. The righteousness based on the fear of God made
them apply their wisdom on positive purposes.
This
scenario leads us to the second definition of wisdom because there
are situations where wisdom ceases to be wisdom. Wisdom that is not
based upon the fear of God is foolishness. Wisdom that is exercised
to hurt the feelings of other is cruelty. A diabolical wisdom that
makes you gain at the expenses of others is cheating. Wisdom that
makes man destroy what he did not create is a manifestation of evil
order.
Wisdom on other hand is like a child that is properly brought up in
a good family and in a good environment, adequately trained to be
good example in the society but when he grows up, disregards the
righteous ways of his parent, follows the ways of the worldly and
end up his career in life in confinement as a result of nefarious
activities he later deviated to in life. So also is the wisdom that
started off in godliness but later deviated or diverted to
wickedness.
The
wisdom that built the boat of salvation in the generation of Noah
has now been modified and transformed for selfish reasons to build
the warships that carry so many jet bombers and many navy crews and
at the same time provide take off and landing space for the air
craft. The same wisdom of Noah was transformed to submarines that
can launch missile equipped with both conventional warhead and
nuclear warhead to destroy humanity. Albert Einstein, one of the
geniuses of the nineteenth century, meant well when he came up with
the theory of relativity. What have we done with this equation since
then? Instead of perfecting it for positive purposes, the world used
this wisdom to manufacture nuclear bombs. The nations of the world
have produced enough nuclear bombs that can destroy the entire
inhabitants of the earth seventeen times over. Apart from an
electrical energy source, there is nothing about nuclear energy that
is useful to humanity. The bombs are destructive, so also are their
carcinogenic radioactive waste products. The maintenance of the
plant is unreasonably exorbitant. It is like diverting fifty percent
of the revenue of a nation to maintain a plant that is in most cases
useful for destructive purposes. Sadly, one of the yardsticks of
measuring the advancement of a country in our own time is nuclear
capability.
In
our world today, people use words such as ‘smart,’ ‘clever,’
‘nifty,’ etc., to express the effectiveness and abundance of wisdom
they possess. As much as these words seem to express their wisdom,
it also reveals some element of negative connotation and hurtful
executions. Whenever wisdom rides on the roller coaster of smart
ideas and clever executions the end result is not always positive.
Politicians can be ruthlessly clever, or crookedly smart. The wicked
people in the society may adore his wisdom. However, those who are
truly wise according to the intention of God will have great
reservations about him because he lacks the fear of God. What seems
to be a nifty idea to some might have destructive consequences for
others.
In
an attempt to resolve information problems, wisdom took mankind from
telegram to facsimile and telephone. In the computer age, wisdom
continues to solve information problem in the advent of the
Internet. The negative application of the computer wisdom led man to
design computer-guided air-to-air and ground-to-air missiles. As
sophisticated as the technology of information super-highway is, who
ever thought some evil-incarnated hackers can take the whole world
to a stand still by breaking into the information that they were not
authorized to access, or manufacture deadly computer viruses that
can destroy all the information that righteous people have been
building over a considerable period of time in order to exhibit
their negative wisdom? You will notice an inclination of evil
application of wisdom in this analysis. In our own time, the larger
portion of the wisdom that man possesses is being structured or
channeled towards evil. It goes along with the word of God that
described the heart as “deceitful above all things and
desperately wicked, who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9
On
June 26, 2000 Human Genome Project leaders announced the completion
of a working draft reference DNA sequence of the human genome. The
Project began in 1990 and it is said that more than $3 billion has
been spent worldwide on it.
The
Genome Project is one of the greatest breakthroughs of our time. In
this rare feat, the renowned genetic engineers of the world
succeeded in mapping out all the genes of man. It is certain that
there can be no breakthrough in the life of mankind unless God leads
the way. It is a special grace that God gave unto man to achieve
this feat in order to use the wisdom to solve various kinds of human
health problems. It is in our time that man experience kidney
failure, heart failure or heart attack and so many have passed away
because of the out break of many diseases that the medical experts
are yet to find a cure. Cancer and AID/HIV was not in the medical
dictionary in the past until the nineteenth century. The benign
Father in Heaven is not sleeping over the horrible problems of
mankind. He had opened His door of mercy unto mankind that the
medical break through may be perfected to confront the perennial
medical problems.
We
learnt that the genetic engineers are now cloning animals and
growing ears, kidneys, hearts and other parts of human organs in
their laboratories probably to experiment on how these medical
discoveries could be used to repair the ailing organs of mankind. It
is also learnt that the raw materials for these experimental human
organs farm are the aborted fetus harvested from abortion
procedures. It is not only how worrisome the raw materials are
obtained but the chains of unrighteousness that surrounded the act.
The fact that we must know is that, God will not give man a vision
without provision. A righteous God that gave a commandment, ‘Thou
shall not kill,’ to man, will not go around his own words and
channels the thought of man to harvest aborted fetus as a raw
materials to the genetic engineers to grow human organs in the
laboratories just two years after the break through of Genome
Project. There is no doubt that these genius of our time have good
intentions in applying their wisdom to solve human problems but it
is obvious that God want the technology of Genome Project to be
righteously applied to benefit the whole world. If the whole world
can wait for the moment of the revelation of the breakthrough, God
will also lead man to the discovery of righteous raw materials and
procedures in using the technology to benefit humanity.
The
Christians all over the world should at this time seek the face of
God that He may touch the hearts of the world leaders and
representatives of the world reputable organization like United
Nations that it may use its strength and power to create a body that
should introduce a stringent measure that will directly or
indirectly entrench the fear of God in the policy regulating the
application of the project world wide. The major problem of the
world in the 19th century was nuclear proliferation and
added to the already existing problem, the world populace cannot
afford to experience another nightmare of biological warfare.
Failure to introduce this measure as soon as possible will amount to
an indirect permission to the proliferation of biological warfare
through out the world in the 20th
century. The atmosphere of war is still tense and the activities of
the terrorist are well pronounced especially now. An unscrupulous
nation with a lot of money to throw around may buy the technological
know-how and apply it to the detriment of international community. I
am really concerned that, as time goes on in the century, the army
of the wicked nation may be designed on the computer and
manufactured in the laboratory to comprise of genetic modified human
being that is made of combination of genes of polar-bear for
ferocious attack, genes of lion for aggressiveness, genes of
elephant for awesome size and genes of human being for the purpose
of control. The bees or the wasps or other insects may be modified
to be so aggressive in the way it attacks and becomes an agent that
will be released to the wild to launch biological weapons.
Let
us look inward in the application of the wisdom that God has given
us. Are you cleverly applying your wisdom to cheat others and take
advantage of the weak around you to benefit yourself? Is your wisdom
used to benefit others or to manipulate them? The Bible says,
“the wisdom that is from above is pure, peaceable, gentle full of
mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisy.”
(James 3:17) This is the purpose of God in giving man wisdom.
Anything short of this is foolishness. “This is what the Lord
says: ‘Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest
for your souls.”’ (Jeremiah 6:16) The whole world will
find the peace and rest of God in this century if we apply our
wisdom in righteousness and in the fear of God.
Michael A. Eleyinafe
