I recently taught a message on wisdom as found in the book of Proverbs. I took a somewhat unusual approach by asking the participants, what is the opposite of wisdom? The response, of course, was “foolishness.”

In the Bible, there is a great deal taught about foolishness and being a fool. In fact, most commentators on the book of Proverbs believe that one of the best ways to grasp what real wisdom is all about, is to examine what Proverbs teaches us about being a fool.

One of the main characteristics of a fool is a person who is seriously out of touch with reality. Most often they are guided by their feelings and do not seem concerned with the consequences of their decisions.

Where I see so many people out of touch with reality is in the laws of sowing and reaping. The Apostle Paul describes this law in Galatians 6:7. I have written about this in previous blogs. It says, “Do not be deceived, God cannot be mocked, whatever a man sows, this he also shall reap.”

I believe there is a key word in this verse: “Whatever.” It is all inclusive. It applies to every area of life and to everyone. In recently teaching on this, I told the men in the audience that one of the most egregious violations of this law is the incredible debt the United States is piling up. Our budget deficit for fiscal year 2024 is $1.9 trillion dollars, which is a staggering amount. It took our country 206 years (1776 to 1982) to run our national debt up to 1.0 trillion dollars. It then took only 41 years (1983-2024) to get the deficit to $35 trillion. Almost all economists will tell you it is unsustainable. There will be a reaping someday. God has made it clear that He will not be mocked.

A number of years ago I wrote a blog titled, “Slow Motion Financial Collapse.” In that blog I shared the brilliant words of the great scholar Os Guiness, from an insightful essay he wrote titled, “This Too Shall Pass.” He addresses the problem of slow-motion cultural decline. He believes there is a simple reason why slow-motion decline is such a particular threat to our country. He says “Great civilizations and empires of the past have always been wrecked on two great reefs – the presence of sin in human society and the passing of time. No human success is forever.”

Guinness then makes this powerful observation:

“The year 1787 witnessed not only the ‘miracle’ of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia but also the completion of the last volume of Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. A fall beyond belief, Rome’s end – Gibbon wrote from Luasanne – was “the greatest, perhaps, and most awful scene in the history of mankind.” And the first of the four reasons given? “The injuries of time and nature.” In his Lyceum Address in 1837 Lincoln spoke similarly of “the silent artillery of time.”

John Cogan is a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He says:

“It is not so much a problem of having to run a deficit from time to time, it is that it has become a natural component of our government. However when those deficits grow year after year they will lead to slow-motion financial collapse. Governments who ignore ‘the injuries of time’ are those who expose themselves to its destructiveness.”

Author Jim Rickards provides some real insight into this with an article titled “Is this the Moment of Truth?” He quotes from Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises.

Bill Gorton, a friend of the protagonist, Jake Barnes, has just arrived from New York. Bill is in the café talking with Mike Campbell, an upper-crust Englishman, now fallen on hard times but keeping up appearances.

In the course of telling a story about his tailor, Mike casually mentions his bankruptcy. Here’s the dialogue:

“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.

“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”

“What brought it on?”

“Friends,” said Mike. “I had a lot of friends. False Friends. Then I had creditors, too. Probably had more creditors than anybody in England.”

Mike believes that he was helpless and that his descent into bankruptcy was beyond his control.

I believe Hemingway’s words “gradually and then suddenly” is a warning on the slow but steady accumulation of debt with no plan to stop it, nor to repay it. Though it can gradually continue over a long period of time, then suddenly there will be a full-blown financial disaster the likes of which no one has ever seen. The collapse itself will be swift as everyone races for the exits.

I believe the words that capture the essence of this blog were written over 200 years ago by Scottish historian Alexander Tyler. He said, “A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy.”

What bothers me most is that there is a significant problem yet not one of the current presidential candidates has ever mentioned this very real problem, nor what to do about it. Remember, a fool is a person who is out of touch with reality and that is what we have.

Do not be deceived, God will not be mocked!

Richard E Simmons III is the founder and Executive Director of The Center for Executive Leadership and a best-selling author.