We continue the study we started last Tuesday when we considered how that man is born a fool and his heart is the fountain of folly.

This is the what the end-time Antichrist will manifest in its fulness.

1. Such folly produces great wickedness. Verse 3. This is the conclusion the Lord draws after inspecting mankind. “The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God,” verse 2.

There is no moral restraint or curtailment upon the person who believes there is no God. God said of the people who built the tower of Babel: “Now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do,” Genesis 11:6.

2. God intervenes in mercy to spare foolish men from self-destruction. Acts 16:27-3-28. “And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword, and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled. But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm: for we are all here.”

The message of the gospel seeks to block men from destroying themselves!

3. The last days are to be the days of the ‘fool’! The foolishness of man will reach its peak in the final days of his age. “And all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?” Revelation 13:3-4.

God in His mercy has ‘restrained’ man’s foolishness, otherwise man would have brought about his own destruction long ago.

The folly of the last days was seen to a great measure in the days of Noah and also in the days of Lot. Men were fools for ignoring the warnings of God’s servants of coming judgment. 1 Peter 3:19-20 - ‘disobedient’, ‘in prison’. Gen19:14 - ‘mocked’.

The future is referred to prophetically in the last verse. “Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion!”

This glorious day was ever in the mind of the believing Jew.

4. Little do men know that by rejecting the gospel, they hasten on to destruction. See Daniel 5:22-23, 26.