1 Corinthians 4

A Fool's Cap

I have played the fool. 1 Samuel 26:21.

Fools for Christ's sake. 1 Corinthians 4:10.

Long ago, there used to hang in my bedroom prints of two pictures by the famous artist Sir David Wilkie. They were both pictures of a schoolroom, but they were very different pictures. In the first the schoolmaster was present and all the boys were looking exceedingly busy over their tasks. In the second the master was absent and the boys were having a high old time.

There was one boy who always used to attract my attention the boy with the fool's cap. He was the dunce of the class and he was sitting in the background wearing a tall cone-shaped paper cap and looking very cross. Nowadays boys are not punished in that way. If they don't know their lessons they get a caning, or are kept after hours, or have so many lines to write. But I'm not sure that the fool's cap wasn't rather a good idea after all; for the boy who won't learn his lessons is a bit of a fool. He is punishing himself more than anybody else and will have to pay for his laziness later. He well deserves to wear the fool's cap.

But what would you say supposing I told you that we all have to wear the fool's cap? And yet that is true. We can't get away from being fools however hard we try. The question is which kind of fool are we going to be?

The Bible has quite a lot to say about fools, but in the main there are just two kinds the unwise fool and the wise fool. The first is the man who lives for himself and who gives up everything for sin and selfish gratification; the second is the man who lives for others and who gives up everything for Christ and righteousness' sake.

I want to speak today about two men in the Bible who owned that they were fools. One of them was a foolish fool, the other was a wise fool. The first man's name was Saul Saul the first king of Israel.

Saul began life well. He was a fine man, head and shoulders above all the people. He was clever and brave and chivalrous, and seemed “every inch a king.” But he had one big fault he had no self-control. He allowed pride and self-will and envy to master him, and they led him on to ruin. It was because he lost control of himself that he forfeited his kingship. It was because he allowed the wicked passion of jealousy to master him that he tried to kill David and even his own son Jonathan. And near the end of his life, when he looked back in one of his better moments on the way sin had led him, he cried out in bitter remorse, “Behold, I have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly.”

Sooner or later sin makes fools of us all as it did of King Saul. Often it looks very fair and pleasant at first, but that is just a way it has. If we saw it in all its ugliness we should not be so ready to follow it. There is a proverb which says “Sin begins like a spider's web, and ends like a cart-rope.” It begins by binding us with a tiny thread which a baby could break, but it ends by making slaves of us.

And so any boy or girl who is allowing bad temper, or love of self, or love of ease, or any other fault to get the better of them is just playing the fool. Anyone who is allowing himself to be led away by bad companions is just playing the fool. And when sin has got us to play the fool it sits down and laughs at us and lets us pay the consequences.

The other man I want to talk about was also called Saul, though his name was afterwards changed to Paul. But he was a very different kind of man from King Saul.

Saul of Tarsus began life as a Pharisee. He, too, was a young man of brilliant gifts, and all his friends prophesied great things of him. He was likely to rise to great esteem among the Pharisees and already he was a zealous persecutor of the Christians. But one day, on the road to Damascus, Saul met Jesus of Nazareth, and from that day he became a “fool for Christ's sake.” He gave up his brilliant prospects. He gave up his comforts and his home to become a poor travelling missionary. Instead of persecuting he was persecuted. He had to work hard to keep himself.

Often he was hungry and thirsty, sometimes he was beaten, many times he was mocked at, and in the end he laid down his life for Christ's sake. Again and again his old friends among the Pharisees must have said, “What a fool that young Saul is!”

But I think if you were asked today which was the greater fool Saul of Tarsus, or Paul the Apostle you would have no hesitation in answering. If Paul had remained a Pharisee we should hardly have heard of him. As it is, he is known as the greatest Christian missionary. He did the grandest and noblest work that any man can do. He gave up much, but he gained things far more precious the love and fellowship of Christ and a crown everlasting.

I want to tell you about two men who, like Paul, became “fools for Christ's sake.”

The first is Antony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury. When he was a boy of fourteen or fifteen Shaftesbury was so impressed with the miseries of the poor that he resolved to devote his life to the cause of the poor and the friendless. When he grew up he entered Parliament, and from that time till the day of his death he espoused the cause of the oppressed, and especially of the poor children of England. Many a hard battle he fought in Parliament and out of it. Many an unpopular cause he took up. He fought for the over-worked factory hands, for the little children working in the mines, for the poor little boys who were sent up the chimneys to sweep them, and for many other oppressed people. He was often bitterly opposed but that did not seem to matter to him; he just held right on till people came round to his way of thinking.

But not only did he plead the cause of the poor; he gave his money and his time and himself to their service. In those days the slums of London were very terrible places, where many dark deeds were done. But Lord Shaftesbury had no fear. He went in and out among the people. He encouraged them and helped them and loved them, until they came to love him in return. They looked upon him as a father and called him “our Earl”; and when he died rich and poor alike mourned for him as for their dearest friend.

Perhaps some of his friends may have called Lord Shaftesbury a fool to trouble himself about these people, but Britain would have been a great deal worse off and a great deal more miserable today if it had not been for his folly.

The other man I want to speak of is Father Damien. Father Damien was a young Belgian priest who heard of the awful misery that existed among a colony of lepers on the island of Molokai and devoted his life to working among them. When he arrived at the island he found that not only were the lepers suffering from an awful and loathsome disease, but they were living as little better than beasts. The young priest set to work to improve things. Not only did he nurse the lepers, but he built them better houses, he gave them a better water-supply, he loved them and he told them of God's love. And so from being little better than criminals the people came to be a self- respecting colony and children of God.

Later Father Damien caught the terrible disease, and although he might have been cured by leaving the island, he would not desert the people he had loved and helped, and in the end he died. Some people might say that Father Damien was a fool, and that he could have found good work to do elsewhere. But surely he was a very grand kind of fool, the kind we might all wish to become.

One word more. When the great European War broke out, Lord Kitchener called for men, and from workshop and office and university men came at his call and at the call of duty and righteousness. Many of them gave up brilliant careers or good businesses; all of them took their lives in their hands. The world might call them fools. Yes, but they were glorious fools. Many of them laid down their lives that we who were too young or too old or too weak to fight might live.

Boys and girls what are you going to do with these lives of yours that they have paid for with their lives? The future of England lies with you, and Christ has need of His soldiers too. Are you just going to “play the fool” and squander your lives away; or will you, with all the noble soldiers of Jesus Christ, become “fools for Christ's sake”?