In my devotions yesterday I was struck with both the sadness and the hope of Proverbs 27:3. It says, “A stone is heavy and sand is weighty, but a fool’s wrath is heavier than both of them.” We have all witnessed the wrath that flows from fools (those not living by the wisdom of Scripture or the fear of God).
Jesus said that if such fools hated Him, they will hate His faithful followers (John 15:18-19). The godly are bound to suffer from the wrath of fools at some point in their lives. In my lifetime I have received thousands of death threats, hate mail, shouted insults, and other expressions of wrath from evolutionists, LGBTQ community, socialists, and other so-called “Progressives.” The reason for their wrath? I lovingly preach and apply the whole Bible to the whole of life and am not afraid to call what is an abomination to God to be an abomination. Mary Wagoner of Ontario, Canada has been arrested four times and spent four years in jail for peacefully protesting abortion and seeking to counsel abortion-bound women. Countless Christians have suffered under the wrath of fools.
And this passage likens such wrath to big bags of sand and heavy stones. It is frustrating to deal with because it is so irrational. The wrath of fools does not have a godly goal, is destructive rather than helpful, does not produce the righteousness of God, disregards Biblical law, and in many ways feels like a heavy stone that we would rather not have to deal with. The wrath of an ungodly divorce leaves one or both of the parties feeling heavy and sad, and it continues to fester and erupt for years. It is unleashed like a dump truck against the divorced spouse and against the church that lovingly rebukes or disciplines.
The wrath of Planned Parenthood is irrational (ignoring the facts) and it is viciously unleashed upon anyone who speaks the truth about that organization. The wrath of the LGBTQ agenda is meant to suffocate discussion and debate and to punish any who do not fully celebrate their fool’s errands. Anyone who is fully invested in advancing God’s kingdom and His righteousness has experienced the description of a fool’s wrath given in Proverbs 27:3.
But here comes the hope: Scripture says that God can cause even the wrath of man to praise Him (Psalm 76:10). How can a heavy and useless stone praise God? Sometimes this happens because the heavy stone of wrath discredits the fool who hurls it and it marginalizes him. Sometimes this happens because the stone of wrath falls on the fool and destroys him just as it destroyed Haman in the book of Esther. Sometimes it happens because the person suffering from the fool’s wrath gets sympathizers whose minds and hearts are changed. But certainly the wrath of fools makes them look like fools – devoid of any of the beauty of God’s wisdom and character. It is one of the primary ways that God exposes the foolishness of fools and makes them less attractive or influential.
So if God’s sovereignty extends to even a fool’s wrath (Psalm 76:10) and if God causes even a fool’s wrath to work together for God’s glory and for our good (Romans 8:28), then we ought to rejoice and count it a blessing (Matthew 5:11-12) when God makes us suffer under its weight. The wrath of fools is not just a heavy stone for us to endure; it becomes a heavy stone that crushes the fool himself and will eventually crush Satan’s kingdom.
May God cause the wrath of America’s fools to backfire and to expose the foolishness of life that is independent of God’s grace and His law. The book of Esther shows how God can easily do so by His providence.