Isaiah 3:4,5; Isaiah 3:8-12; Isaiah 29:10
And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them. And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable.
For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen: because their tongue and their doings are against the LORD, to provoke the eyes of his glory. The shew of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves. Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him. As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.
For the LORD hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): To show more clearly the source of this blindness, Isaiah attributes it to the judgment of God, who determined to punish in this manner the wickedness of the people. As it belongs to Him to give eyes to see, and to enlighten minds by the spirit of judgment and understanding, so He alone deprives us of all light, when He sees that by a wicked and depraved hatred of the truth we of our own accord wish for darkness. Isaiah adds that the people are deprived of those helps which ought to have imparted light to the understanding and given direction to others. Such was the office of the prophets, whom he describes by both of these names, “prophets” and “seers.” He means not only that men who are endued with reason and understanding will be deprived of common sense, but that their teachers also, whose duty it was to enlighten others, will be altogether senseless so as not to know the road, and, being covered with the darkness of ignorance, will shamefully go astray, and will be so far from directing others, that they will not even be able to guide themselves.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): The present generation has, for the most part, been reared not only in an atmosphere of negative unbelief but of hostile unbelief—Doubt as to moral and spiritual truth is distilled through a score of channels. Our seats of learning are hotbeds of agnosticism.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Some are learned fools. Unconverted men, whatever they know, are only educated fools. Between the ignorant man who cannot read a letter and the learned man who is apt in all knowledge, there is small difference if they are both ignorant of Christ! Indeed, the scholar’s folly is, in this case, the greater of the two! The learned fool generally proves himself the worst of fools, for he invents theories which would be ridiculed if they could be understood—he brings forth speculations which, if judged by common sense would be scouted from the universe with a hiss of derision!
D. L. MOODY (1837-1899): What is taught in the schools, that all the earth we see now, and everything upon it, came out of a ball of fire. It is a great deal easier to believe that man was made after the image of God, than to believe, as some young men and women are being taught now, that he is the offspring of a monkey.
A. W. PINK: Even those brought up in Christian homes are being corrupted by the paganism of modern education, are bewildered by the conflicting teachings they receive from parents and the school, and are harassed by doubts. The vast majority in the English-speaking world are totally ignorant of the contents of the Bible, know not that it is a Divine revelation, yea, question whether there be any God at all.
C. H. SPURGEON: There are fools of all sorts. There are fools in colleges.
THE EDITOR: What else can we call university students barely able to read and write, who think gender is an individual choice from a multi-option “spectrum,” however perverse that may be. These unruly children seek “safe spaces” where they hide from censure, and yet, determined to rule over what others may think, attempt to silence anyone daring to speak against their insanity. Knowing nothing of history, or the Bible, such evil unnatural nonsense is now taught even to elementary schoolchildren!
JOHN CALVIN: This notion is wholly inconsistent with common sense and experience.
A. W. PINK: Modern skepticism is rarely candid, but is rather a refuge in which multitudes are sheltering from an accusing conscience.
JOHN CALVIN: It is incontrovertible that God will not approve or excuse what the common sense of mankind declares to be obscene; for, although lewdness has everywhere been rampant in every age, still the opinion could never be utterly extinguished, that fornication is a scandal and a sin. Accordingly, when men are blind, and especially in things so plain and obvious, we perceive His righteous judgment—God is said sometimes to inebriate men when He stupifies them, and drives them at one time to madness, and at another time deprives them of common sense and understanding, so that they become like beasts.
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): Wicked men are mad upon their lusts, and mad against the saints, and all that is good.
THE EDITOR: From kindergarten to university, North American schools have become indoctrination centres, where not only absurdities, but anti-Christian and anti-Semitic political agendas are promoted. The evil triad of Feminism, Multiculturalism, and the Homosexual Rights Movement, is an unholy political alliance whose real agenda is not equality, but dominance. Whatever they disagree about between themselves, they are completely united in being anti-Christian: Feminists hate Christianity, because what the Bible says about the role of women, directly contradicts their lust to “empower” women; Multiculturalism hates Christianity, because their lie that ‘all cultures are equal, and other religions are just different paths to God,’ is absolutely refuted by Jesus Christ, who says, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me.” Homosexuals hate the Bible because it clearly condemns their perverse sexual lusts. Their insidious madness now permeates society—in the media, in governments, the courts and corporations.
D. L. MOODY: There is nothing at all in the Bible that does not conform to common sense; it is God’s truth. Let others reject, if they will, at their own peril, this imperishable truth.
WILLIAM GURNALL (1617-1679): As we deal with truth, so we deal with God Himself; he that despiseth that, despiseth Him. He that abandons the truth of God, renounces the God of truth.
MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): As the world grows older, it will grow more mad—very many that shall live in the world, yea, in the bosom of the church, “will not endure sound doctrine,” will not endure that preaching which hath any soundness in it, or is of any tendency, life, power, or efficacy, to recover their souls from the diseases of sin and lusts. “But after their own lusts,”—in favour of their own lusts, and to secure their satisfaction in them, “shall they heap to themselves teachers,” 2 Timothy 4:3,4; they will be finding out teachers, not according to God’s heart, but to their own hearts; and there will be plenty of them to be found.
THE EDITOR: Whenever nations depart from God, truth, and common sense—obviously, insanity prevails; without repentance, political, economic, and social chaos inevitably follows.
C. H. SPURGEON: That is common sense.
EDWARD PAYSON (1783-1827): Our republic, driven by the gales of faction, and hurried still faster by the secret current of luxury and vice, is following the same course, and fast approaching the same rocks which proved fatal to so many before us. In vain does experience offer us the wisdom of past ages for our direction: in vain does history point out the ruin towards which we are advancing…That blind accursed infatuation which ever appears to govern mankind when their most important interests are concerned, leads us, in defiance of reason, experience, and common sense, to flatter ourselves that the same causes which have proved fatal to all other governments, will lose their pernicious tendency when exerted on our own.
