In this episode, we delve into an enlightening tale of a man wandering the desert granted three wishes by a genie, exploring the theme of wisdom vs. folly. Through this metaphor, we journey into the life of King Solomon, a king whose wisdom was unparalleled, and whose reign was marked by profound decisions and introspections. How did Solomon, when faced with the mysterious and all-powerful question from God—’What do you want?’—respond in a way that would define his reign and legacy? Join us as we explore the heart of Solomon’s request for wisdom over wealth, reflecting on how fear,
The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
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Once upon a time, there was a man who was lost in the desert. He’d been out there about three days. He’d gone up one sand dune and down the other, and there was no relief in sight. And finally, parched with thirst, he collapses down the side of one sand dune, and he sees buried in the sand ahead of him, half buried, a bottle with a cork in it. He can’t believe that there’s water or something to drink out here in the desert, but he crawls over to the bottle, pulls it out of the sand, and pulls the cork out of the bottle. Ah, but there’s no water that comes out, just smoke. But slowly the smoke begins to form itself into a shape. And what should he see but, behold, a genie. And the genie says, Oh, thank you, Master. I have been in that bottle for hundreds of years, and you have released me. As a reward, I want to give you three wishes. Whatever your heart’s desire, whatever you want, it is yours. Just say the word. And he thought for a moment, and he considered the terrible, aching, parched thirst. And he said, I want one cold beer. Now, there was no explosion, no poof, no noise like you normally think of in all the stories about genies. But suddenly, where there had been nothing, now there was a mahogany bar, a brass rail, the genie standing behind it dressed as a bartender, and on top of the bar, A tall, frosty glass of beer. So he steps up to the bar, takes the glass in his hand, drinks it down in one long draft, and then with a sigh coming up from the bottom of his feet says, Oh, that was good. And as he stood there, the genie says, Master, you have two more wishes, and I don’t have very much time. Please tell me what else you want. And he said, Well, I’ll tell you. I’ll have two more, just like that one. Now this is just a joke. It’s a joke about the folly. that leads a man with three wishes to ask for three beers. Why didn’t he ask to be taken out of the desert? Why not a seaside resort with plenty of money to buy his own hotel at the seaside resort and maybe a wish left over at the end of it for something just a little extra special? Why didn’t he do that? He didn’t do it because he was a fool. I suspect this old myth of the genie and the three wishes traces all the way back to something like what happened to King Solomon. King Solomon was the son of King David of Israel. He succeeded his father after a very, very long reign, popular reign. He was a young man succeeding a very old man who had been wildly popular, wildly loved among the people of Israel, respected in spite of all of his mistakes and his faults because he was a man of God. He was a man who was energetic and who did things, and even his mistakes he did in a very, very big way. So here comes King Solomon as a very young man and feeling very insecure, I suspect, about what was going to happen to him as king, trying to walk in the footsteps of King David. But he was a man who loved God. He worshipped God. He went through all the ceremonies, and he did them in larger numbers and sacrificed more animals than anybody ever before him, I think, had ever done. Well, there came a point in time when God, who looked upon Solomon, David’s son, and said, I really love this guy. I love David. This is David’s son. How could I not love him? And he loves me. And finally, one night, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream. And he said to Solomon, Ask what I shall give you. What do you want? God actually in this dream gave Solomon carte blanche. You want it? I’ll give it to you. Well, Solomon was kind of overwhelmed by that. And he said, O Lord my God. I’m just a little child. I don’t know how to go in or come out. And your servant is in the midst of your people, which you have chosen a great people that cannot be numbered or counted for multitude. And here I am. I don’t know how to go out the door in the morning, and I barely know how to find my way back in at night, and I’m supposed to govern this people? He then asked this. He said, He was in awe, frankly, of the size of the nation, of what his father had built and all of the things that had been done there. And he was very humble about himself and very realistic about what he thought he could do and what he could not do. And so he didn’t ask for a lot for himself. What he really asked for was right in the, it was his heart at the moment. He really wanted to succeed as the king of Israel. And it says the speech pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this thing. And God said to him, Because you have asked this, and you have not asked for yourself long life, you didn’t ask for riches for yourself, you didn’t ask for the life of your enemies, but you have asked for yourself understanding to discern judgment and to understand government. Behold, I’ve done what you asked. I have given you a wise and an understanding heart. so that there was none like you before you, and after you there won’t be anyone like you. And I have also, in addition to what you asked for, now first of all, this man had his goals straight to start with. And the goal arose from a deep and a profound need, and in a way, this is not unusual, I must add, his desire arose from fear. He was afraid of failure. The fact is that any worthwhile goal carries with it the risk of failure. If you can’t fail, if you can’t miss, well, what’s the value in that goal? So he didn’t have much choice. He was the king. He couldn’t decide not to be the king. And being the king, he was frightened by the level of responsibility. And his fear drove him, paradoxically, to ask for the thing that he needed the most. the ability, the wisdom, the knowledge, and the wisdom and understanding to govern these people. That’s what he asked for. Now, God said, because you asked for this, I have done according to your words. I’ve given you this. There’s not going to be anybody like you. And I have also given you what you did not ask for, riches and honor, so there will not be among the kings around anybody like you all your days. And if you will walk in my ways to keep my statutes and my commandments as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days. So you’re going to have wisdom and understanding. You’re also going to have wealth and honor. And if you’ll just obey me and walk according to my commandments, you’re going to have a long and a happy life. Now there are some really profound lessons in this statement. You know, you can think a lot about the goals and the things you want in life. What do you want? Well, I want a new house. What do you want? I’d like to have a Mercedes-Benz. What do you want? No, no, not a Mercedes. I want one of the fancy BMWs. I want – and the list of our wants can go on and on. But the truth is that the road to happiness, the road to success, the road to winning is in the goal of doing something worthwhile – out of which the other things followed. He asked for the right thing. He had the right goal. He said, I want to be able to govern these people effectively. God says, so be it. And out of that will flow the other things in your life that you would like to have. And if you’ll obey me, if you’ll keep my laws, my commandments, my statutes, my judgments, I’ll see to it that you live a long time. Now, how does this apply to you? Stick around.
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I’ll tell you when we come back. You were not born to lose. God has no intention of spending eternity with a loser. You can know what God is doing and why. Drop us a letter or give us a call, and we will send you a free CD introducing the series called Making Life Work. Our address is borntowin.com. Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE44.
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The core, the really core point about making your life work is figuring out what you want. I started to say it’s the hard part about it, but it isn’t so hard. It’s just something we don’t do. We never get around to thinking about it and maybe taking a cup of coffee and going sitting down somewhere and staring off into space and saying, what do I really want? What do I want to do the rest of this day? What do I want to do tomorrow? Where do I want to be a year from now? Where do I want to be 20 years from now? We just sort of go through life. We never sit down and think about it. Now, for Solomon, it was not so very hard to decide. He faced a frightening challenge for a young man. But he did know what he wanted. And I think he realized somehow intuitively that from where he sat, there was no way to get the good life. unless he went through this thing of being king and of being very good at what he needed to do, and he knew he just, frankly, didn’t have it. So his objective was to meet the challenges of being a new young king, following in the footsteps of a truly great and a much-loved king. One should never make the mistake, though, of assuming that because you know what you want today, that you will be just as clear-headed about what you want tomorrow. Solomon is a good example of that because here was a point in time when he was scared to death. He was afraid, and he knew what he had to have, and so he set his goal with that in mind. But you know, when the fear passes, when you’ve achieved a certain level of success, the vision is there, you know what you want, and you’ve made some pretty good progress along to it, and the fear is gone, it’s awfully easy to forget what you were doing. and to forget why you were doing it. And Solomon, with the passage of time and the accumulation of power and wealth, got a little confused about what he wanted. Now, fortunately for us, he wrote a book, and there’s a lot that you and I can learn about that book or from that book about ourselves. The book is the Book of Ecclesiastes, and there are times I’ve sat down and read it a few times. I remember once I was on a train going from London up to Birmingham in England, and I had a long train trip, and I rolled out the Book of Ecclesiastes, and I read it, and by the time I got very far down the line, I was depressed. It was a cloudy day and kind of gloomy outside, and I got through Ecclesiastes, and I thought, what’s the use? And yet, that was a pretty superficial reading on my part, because when I went back and I read it again, and I thought about what Solomon was saying here, I could see the enormous value in grappling with this along with the man who was the wisest of kings. a man whose wisdom was far surpassing that of anyone else, and a man who cherished wisdom, a man who put wisdom on a pedestal and said, this is the important thing wisdom is. Get wisdom. And so it’s important, I think, to learn the lessons that this man learned because, frankly, if you can’t learn from great teachers, then you’re going to have to go out and learn it yourself. And all that learning is a hard process. It hurts to fall down. It hurts to skin your knees and your elbows, and it hurts to go through these things. And really, there are a lot of things like this we don’t have to go through if we can just learn from the teacher. And so in Ecclesiastes, Solomon says this. These are the words of the teacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. Vanity of vanities, saith the teacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity. What profit does a man have of all his work that he takes unto the sun? One generation passes away, another generation comes, and the earth goes on. The sun also arises, and the sun goes down, and it hurries around and comes back up where it was. The wind goes toward the south, it turns around to the north, it whirls about continually, but it always goes back according to its circuits. All the rivers run down to the sea, and the sea isn’t full. To the place from whence the rivers came, they go back there again. All things, he says, are full of labor. Man cannot utter it. I mean, you can’t even describe the kind of labor that it is. The eye is not satisfied with seeing. The ear is not satisfied with hearing. The thing which has been, that’s what’s going to be. And that which is done is that which shall be done. And there is no new thing under the sun. Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new. Nah, it’s already been of old time. There was before us. Solomon is basically saying, Everything, folks, down here goes around in circles. There doesn’t seem to be a destination. There is no arrival. I mean, you can work and work and slave and sweat, and you think you’ve arrived at your destination, only to find that, no, there’s something beyond that. No, there’s another hill to climb. No, there’s another sand dune to get across. And no, there’s no oasis in sight yet. The wind goes around in circles and it winds up right where it was before. The rivers all run down to the sea. Water is evaporated from the sea. It rains up on the mountaintops and comes down the rivers again. It just goes round and round and round and around. Depressing, isn’t it? That’s how I felt when I read it on the train that day. And understanding that all this stuff just goes round and round. He said in verse 11, there is no remembrance of the former things. Neither shall there be any remembrance of the things that are to come with those that shall come afterward. What does he mean? He says everybody’s going to forget what you’ve done. You’ll work your fool head off. You’ll build an edifice. You’ll accomplish all this stuff. And you’re going to die and be gone. And people will say, who? Who is he? What did he do? I, the teacher, continues Solomon, was king over Israel and Jerusalem. I was a big man. And I gave my heart to seek and to search out my wisdom concerning everything that’s done under heaven. This, by the way, this sore travail has God given to the sons of man to keep ourselves busy. to find out all the things that are done under heaven. Now, I’ve seen all the works that are done under the sun, he said. I’ve looked at it all, and behold, it’s all vanity and a vexation of spirit, or it’s all futility and a striving after wind. You pursue it. You grasp for it. You reach out. Ah, there it is. I’ve got it. And you grab the bottle, and you pull the cork out, and all that comes out is smoke. That which is crooked, said Solomon, cannot be made straight, and that which is wanting cannot be numbered. Now, you know, I believe that it is in man. It’s written into our genes, into our genetic code. We are inveterate problem solvers. We see a jigsaw puzzle. We’ve got to stop and see if we can put a piece in it. We see a crossword puzzle. We’ve got to look at it and say, let’s see what’s 41 down and what’s 41 across, and we try to solve the puzzle. It is in us to solve puzzles. We are made to see problems and to try to find solution to them. But by the time you get to be an old man, if you’re like Solomon and if you’re like just about anybody else, By the time you get to be an old man, you realize that, yes, in my lifetime I have encountered problems and I have solved them. But in truth, when I look at the world, I look at the total supply of problems out there to be solved. I look at all the frustrations, difficulties, headaches, and what have you. I can’t tell any difference. I can’t tell that all my problem solving has really reduced the number of problems out there yet to be solved. In fact, I know in my own case that oftentimes it seems like the more I learn, the more I see that there is to be learned and so that the far horizon of learning, instead of getting closer, seems to get further away as I learn more. That which is crooked cannot be made straight. You’ll spend your lifetime trying to make it straight. We love to try to imagine that we can suddenly find somehow the great unifying principle, that we can somehow find the great key to truth, that we can somehow find the way that if we can just put the key in this lock and just turn this key, all of a sudden the whole world will be our oyster. It will open up before us and everything will be wonderful and fine. I’m sorry. It doesn’t work that way. It won’t happen. There is no key. That which is crooked cannot be made straight. That which is wanting cannot be numbered. And whenever you get through all the things that you have laid out for yourself to do, you will not really be able to look ahead and say, well, I have reduced the number of problems that there were to be solved. Are you frustrated yet? Are you getting discouraged yet? Are we having fun yet, as the old saying goes? Do you understand? Now, here’s what Solomon, I think, is trying to tell us. All you can do is to take care of the things of a day in a day. You’ve got today to tackle. You’ve got whatever time of day it is for you. As you hear this, you’ve got the rest of the day left in which to get a few things done. Someone said this. He said, “…a successful life is measured in a series of successful days.” You can have exalted goals. I hope you do. You can have lofty ideals. I really hope you do. I hope that you have them written down someplace. I hope you have them in needlepoint on the wall in a frame so you can go by them every day and say, this is what I’m supposed to be doing with my life. But you should salt your goals with realism every day, and you should consider what of your goals you can accomplish in this day. Solomon had more to say on this, but I’ll be back with that in just a moment.
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For a free copy of this radio program that you can share with friends and others, write or call this week only and request the program titled Making Life Work No. 2. Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE44. And tell us the call letters of this radio station. So King Solomon struggles with this idea.
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He said in verse 16, I communed with my own heart. That’s a poetic way of saying I sat down and I thought about this. And I said, look at me. I am come to great estate. I have gotten more wisdom than anybody who has ever been before me in this town. In fact, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge, and I gave my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I decided as long as I’m finding out about this thing, I ought to go down to the comedy club and see what these guys have got to say. I go to the house of laughter and watch these guys make fools of themselves. And I perceive that this also is a striving after wind. I mean, you get a laugh, and a laugh is a good thing. But after it’s all over and you’ve had a couple of drinks and laughed at the comic and laughed at his wife and laughed at his dad and laughed at whoever it is he wants you to laugh at and you go home, you still feel kind of empty. And he then says this, In much wisdom is much grief, and he that increases knowledge increases sorrow. Now, it’s hard to argue with that because as you know more about the world, You know more about the hurt. You know more about the frustrations. And the result of it is a feeling of sorrow that can settle on you like a blanket. And in much wisdom is much grief because, you know, it is to the wise man that we carry our griefs and carry our problems. And people, because of his wisdom, kept bringing stuff to Solomon all the time. And so all he heard was grief. You know, it’s a funny thing. In an organization, the higher it is you get up the pyramid, the more all the easy problems are all solved by somebody else. It’s nothing but the tough problems. It’s nothing but the heartbreaking, grievous problems that ever make it to you when you get up there. Are you sure you want to be there? Maybe you’d like to have a little more simple operation. Well, Solomon went back to the comedy club. He said, I said in my heart, go to now. I’ll prove you with mirth, and I’ll enjoy pleasure. But behold, this also is emptiness. I said of laughter, it’s mad. I said of mirth, what does it accomplish? Now, I tried in my heart to give myself unto wine. He said, I know what I’ll do. These jokes aren’t very funny. I’ll have something to drink and see if I can get a little bit more out of it that way. Or maybe, as some today would do, they’ll try drugs. Because I haven’t made it this way, maybe drugs will open up my mind, and maybe it will expand me so I can do some great thing. I saw it in my heart, he said, to give myself to wine, but I wanted to keep my wisdom with me all the way through this. I tried to lay hold on folly. I really tried to grasp the stupidity of men and understand why it was that way. Why do people do such stupid and hurtful things? I did this so I could see what was good for the sons of men, which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life. Well, there wasn’t much in that either. I made me some great works then, since I couldn’t make the rest of that work. I’ll make great works. I built houses. I planted vineyards. I made gardens and orchards. I planted trees in them of all fruits. I became a great landscape architect. I got the stuff everywhere. I made pools of water so that I’d have plenty to water with the wood that brought forth the trees. I wanted it all. And I didn’t want to have to do too much work myself, so he says, I got me servants and maidens. I had servants born in my house. I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me. So I got herds. I’ve got herefords and jerseys and different kinds of cattle all over the place out here. Nobody had it like me. Oh, and I gathered silver and gold. I had all kinds of silver on my table. I had goldware on my table. I ate off of gold plates. I had the peculiar treasure of kings in the provinces. I had all the unique little works of arts that a person could ever desire. I had all of it. And I had entertainers. I had men singers and women singers and the delights of sons of men, like musical instruments of all sorts. So I was great. And I increased more than anybody that was there before me in my town. But all through this, my wisdom remained with me. I went further. Anything my eyes desired, I did not keep from them. I wanted it. I had it. I withheld not my heart from any joy, for my heart rejoiced in my labor. In fact, I did enjoy my labor. In fact, that’s what I got out of it, he says. Then I looked at them. I looked on all the works that my hands had made. I looked on the labor I had labored to do, and behold, everything was just emptiness and a striving after a handful of wind, and there was no profit under the sun. Solomon can be a little discouraging, you know, but his point has to be considered. You have got to think about what it is this man has said. Because here is something very important to know. It is easy to forget your goals and objectives. It’s easy to forget why you are doing what you are doing. Write them down. Put them on the wall where they will catch your eye. Get someone to do it for you in needlepoint. Get your computer to print it out on something. Take it down to a print shop. Have it put up on a piece of paper. Have it burned into wood that your goal in life is this. And hang it up on the wall where you actually see it every time you walk by it. Oh, I know. After a while, you won’t even notice that it’s there anymore. But it’s still your goal. If it ever changes, if you ever wake up someday and realize that’s not my goal anymore, take it down, figure out what your goal is, write it down again, and put it back up. Because when you lose sight of where you are going and what you’re doing it for, you wind up going down through this long, frustrating road that Solomon went. Well, I’ll try this to see if it will make me happy. Well, that didn’t work. I’ll go try entertainment. Entertainment didn’t work. I’ll go try the arts. Arts didn’t work. Maybe I’ll try wine, women, and song. Solomon said, I’ve already been there. It doesn’t work either. The truth is, if you don’t write your goals down someplace, they will be as elusive as smoke They’ll be here today, gone tomorrow, and you’ll do like everyone else you know just about does. You’ll do what feels good today. You’ll take care of the urgent today. You will not take care of the important things. You will take care of the noisy things, the pushy things, the things that intrude into your life, and the truly important things will never get done at all. And so Solomon says, Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, all the labor I had labored to do, and it was all just vanity and a striving after win, and there was no profit. And I turned to behold wisdom and madness and folly, for what is the man going to do that comes after the king? Well, you’re only going to do what’s already been done. And I saw that wisdom excels folly as far as light excels darkness. Ah, yes. So whatever else there is that’s going on, all the foolishness, all the mirth, all the laughter, all the chasing after women or whatever it is that you think you’re going to do that’s going to make you happy. This man who did it all and says you can’t do anything beyond what I’ve done said, there’s nothing out there, fellow. Wisdom is the thing. Get wisdom. In the next program, I want to talk about how you get wisdom.
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Until then, this is Ronald Dart reminding you, you were born to win. at 1-888-BIBLE44 and visit us online at borntowin.net.
SPEAKER 01 :
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