In this episode, delve into the wisdom of Solomon to gain a deeper understanding of the seasons of life. Dart discusses fundamental concepts of timing and purpose, illustrating how these principles apply to modern life. Learn about the importance of letting go, the necessity of embracing present moments, and how these ancient teachings offer practical guidance for achieving tranquility and fulfillment in today’s bustling world.
00:00:03 Introduction and Personal Reflection on Morning Ritual
The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
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It was on a morning about a year ago. I had made myself a cup of coffee and walked out on the covered portion of my deck. The sky was low overcast and the light rain was falling. To tell you the truth, it was a really dismal morning, and I felt, well, to tell the truth, I felt depressed. Then I don’t know why I did it. It’s just one of those times that things come upon you. I said to myself, self, smile. So I smiled, and I realized that the coffee I had in my hand was dark and rich and fragrant. I love a good cup of coffee. The air outside was cool and sweet to smell, the trees seemed especially green, and the sound of the falling rain, without my even realizing it, was beginning to soothe my nerves. So here I was, standing in the middle of a work of art that appealed to all the senses, a work of art that was beautiful in all of its parts and touched my sense of smell, my taste, my touch, my sight, my hearing. I was watching an age-old process of nourishment and renewal. And all I could do was feel sorry for myself. Now, I’m going to tell you, that was a transforming moment for me. It was such a simple truth. I felt better. I even felt a little cheerful, perhaps a little mellow. And I felt some healing take place in the inner man. But the only thing that had changed was the way I looked at the morning. Nothing in the environment has changed. It was still overcast and drizzly. What had changed was inside of me, and the most important thing of all, it was under my control. I just decided to smile. I just decided to enjoy the morning. I just decided that this was a part of life, and it was an important part of life. You know, the only way you can have sunshine all the time is to live in the desert. To have green things, you’ve got to have rain. To have rain, you have to have clouds, and sometimes lightning, and sometimes thunder, and once in a while, a real storm. And, of course, then there’s the snow which turns all of us into children again, or it ought to. There’s a terrible burden that lays upon man. The world around him can be working perfectly. Everything can be in the right place. There is no immediate tragedy stalking him. Everything can be beautiful, and a man can still be absolutely miserable. This is the man who can stand on green grass in the middle of beautiful flowers and shrubbery and sweet air and curse the rain. There was a very wise man once, he was supernaturally wise, to whom God granted the wisdom to experience life and to understand life and to be able to deal with it. And thankfully, this man wrote down the things that he learned about what makes life works and what doesn’t make life work. Much of what he wrote is in the book of Proverbs in your Bible. But less known, and just as important, is the book of Ecclesiastes. Here, he doesn’t just sit down and give us a bunch of Proverbs, rather disjointed, a collection that sometimes, as you’re reading through the book of Proverbs, you wonder, what in the world does this have to do with anything that came before it or anything that came after it? You don’t find much context there. But Ecclesiastes is one whole context of the reflections of an intelligent, wise, experienced man. And if you want to understand how life works, Or maybe more important, how your life works and what you can do to make your life work for you instead of against you like it seems to do so much. Maybe, just maybe, there’s something to learn from this. In the third chapter of Ecclesiastes, Solomon gives us one of the fundamental things to know about life. That there is a time for everything. To everything, says Solomon, there is a season. And a time to every purpose under the heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. There’s a time to plant and a time to pluck up what’s planted. There’s a time to kill and a time to heal. A time to break down and a time to build up. There’s a time to weep and a time to laugh. There’s a time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together. A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. As I read through these things, I find such simple truths. I find, for example, the simple truth is that so much of what clutters up our lives, so much of what makes a mess, so much of what keeps it disorganized, so much of what causes us to want to tear our hair out from time to time is because we do not know when the time is to throw something away. It is so simple. You have it in your hand. And there’s a trash can right over there. But some little niggling thing in the back of your mind says, I may want that someday. I may need it sometime. I may have a use for it somewhere along the line. And so you, instead of throwing it away, you save it. You keep it. And the longer you live, the more of that stuff you’ve got. And the more difficulty you have in finding places to keep your stuff. You have to build perhaps another closet or another storeroom or go rent some storage somewhere to keep all your stuff. And a lot of the stuff you’ve got, you could have thrown away and never known that it was gone. Now, I realize it’s a simple matter of life to say, you know, one of the best keys of organization is to have a good wastebasket. That, however, also is a metaphor for the rest of your life. Of knowing when there are things in your life you really need to just throw away. Don’t hang on to it. Don’t try to keep it. Don’t try to make something out of it. Don’t think someday I’ll need it and I’ll tie something together with this piece of string. Just throw it away because there is a time to throw away and there is a time to keep. The analogy here is stones. Why would you gather stones together? Well, you go out and gather stones because you can make a border for a flower bed out of them. You go out and gather stones because with a little mortar you can build a wall for your garden or for your house. That’s why you gather stones. In other words, you gather stones together when you’ve got something that you want to do with them. And the other part of this lesson is that just because you throw stones away today doesn’t mean you can’t find some stones tomorrow when you need them. So much of the stuff we hang on to, we can replace or we can get if we ever need it. And the chances are we never will. But the time to gather these things together is when you’re going to use them, when you have a goal in mind, a goal. Did you notice that? Well, here I am back at goals again. It seems that in the process of discussing making life work, you can never get very far away from that concept. That if you don’t know what you want, if you don’t know where you’re going, if you think maybe someday I’ll be able to use this, well, all you’re going to do is clutter up your life and waste your time. I could talk about every one of the things that are written here. There is a time to be born, and there’s a time to die. And we do fight that time to die, don’t we? We try to put it off as long as we can. We’ll go through the tortures of the damned and the hell to be able to stay alive for another year. We’ll endure medical treatments that would be deemed torture if they were done under any other circumstances at all, and yet we will go through it. To buy time. Three months. Six months. A year. And I don’t say that to criticize anybody because if I were dying of cancer and I could buy a year’s more time with a torturous treatment, I probably would do it like everybody else does. But for a little peace of mind, one does need to realize that there is a time to be born and there is a time to die. And when the time to die comes… Well, I pray that when my time to die comes, God will give me the grace to die well. Because so much of the time I think that we demean ourselves and we lose so much. Oh, I’m not advocating in this suicide or doctor-assisted suicide. What I’m simply saying is that when your time comes to go, that you grit your teeth, learn your lessons, develop the character that God gives you to develop through it, and go with grace, go with dignity, and go with style. There is a time to be born, and there is a time to die, and when the time to die comes, well, you might as well go. Stick around.
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I’ll be back in a moment on a more cheerful note. What do you do when life has dealt you a bad hand? Where do you turn when everything seems to have turned against you? Write for a free CD of a message entitled Beyond Adversity. Learn what lies on the other side of adversity. Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE-44.
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To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven. That’s what Solomon said. There’s a time for nearly every time. A time to be born, a time to die, a time to kill, a time to heal. a time to get, a time to lose, a time to keep, and a time to cast away. Oh, if we could learn that lesson, we’d be ahead of the game. A time to tear and a time to sew, a time to keep silence, and a time to speak. And you know, if I were to find one thing that I think we could do or could learn that would make our lives work, at least work better, It is to know when it’s time to shut up and when it’s time to speak. Because we manage to get ourselves in trouble a great deal. I’d say on the average, if you’re in doubt, you probably should keep your mouth shut. That seems the more sensible approach. But there’s a time. There’s a time when you do have to speak. There’s a time when you have to stand up for things that are right. And there’s a time when you really ought to keep your mouth shut and say nothing. Discerning the difference between those two simple principles is one of the most fundamental keys to making life work, knowing when to speak and when not to speak. I don’t know. Sometimes I get in conversations with people, and it seems like there are people who want to talk all the time, and that all I get to do is say, oh, really? Oh, I’m so sorry. Really? But what if? That’s about all sometimes that I find I even need in a conversation that just a raised eyebrow sometimes is good for another 10 minutes for some people in terms of response. They want some kind of response out of you. And if you give them anything at all, they will go on. And there are times in a conversation when I just yearn for someone to pause and take a deep breath and look at me and say, Ron, what do you think? Well, human relations are built very heavily on communication. And communication is a two-way process. I got you where I want you now. You can’t talk to me. All you can do is listen to me, and I’ve got my chance now. So I hope you will stay with me for a little while. But the truth is that a conversation is a two-way thing. So feel free to drop me a letter or give me a phone call, and let’s talk about this if I’m giving you a problem. But there is a time to speak and a time to keep silence. And one of the things you probably – I know I could. Why don’t we work on this together? Let’s consider the fact that the biggest lack maybe in our structure – is knowing when it’s time to shut up and listen. There’s also a time to love and a time to hate, a time of war and a time of peace. And there’s a real job for people to know when it is time. To everything, to every purpose under the heaven, there is a season and there is a time. So our problem is not so much deciding what to do, Sometimes it’s a question of deciding, is this the time to do it? Should I be doing this now, in this time, in this place, with this person, under these circumstances? So Solomon continues about man and asks, what profit does he have that works in that where which he labors? In other words, what am I getting out of my job? I have seen the travail which God has given to the sons of men to be exercised in it. He has made everything beautiful in his time. Also he has set the world in their hearts so that man cannot find out the work that God makes from the beginning to the end. He has made everything beautiful in his time. Now I will confess that there are times when the beauty is really hard to see. But on the other hand, if one understands that there is a time and a place for everything, and that even war to defeat evil can be justified, yes, I suppose there can even be beauty in battle. If the battle is for the Lord, if the battle is for justice, the battle is for truth, even beauty in war, although I don’t know how to describe it. He also says here that God has set the world in man’s heart so that no man can find out the work that God does from the beginning to the end. Now, I thought a long time about that. It suggests to us here that God has placed something in man that makes us look. that causes us to reach out and to try to grasp the world, the universe, everything that is around us, and yet he put it in there in such a way that none of us can find out the whole thing from the beginning to the end. So we will live in a little niche in time and place, and we will struggle to understand what took place from the beginning and what will happen at the end, but there’s no way we can. We’ve built giant telescopes. We’ve even launched telescopes into space. And we look out through what they say is 15 billion years of time, although I don’t think we see all the way out to that. And we think we see maybe even the very first parts of the beginning of the universe. But we don’t know that. And we don’t know what was before that. They tell us, well, there couldn’t have been anything before that. Well, if there wasn’t anything before that, then nothing could have come out of nothing. Well, at least that’s the way we look at it. So man tries, and yet we cannot really grasp it. The truth is that we live in chaos. There may be order in this chaos in the sense that God knows what he is doing, but the whole process is far too complicated for us to be able to grasp it from one end of it to the other. Now, what does all that mean? Well, I’ll tell you what I think it means. I think it means is that since you can’t find out the work that God makes from the beginning to end, you had better handle the day you are living in. It’s okay to look back and to look forward, but don’t forget to stay in focus on your time and your place and what you’re supposed to be doing right now. If you do, you’ll get lost. And so, since you can’t really know all this, Solomon puts it this way. He says, I know then that there’s no good in pursuing all that. There’s no good but for man to rejoice and to do good in his life. And also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all of his labor. It’s the gift of God. So, folks, you might as well enjoy the day. Live the day. Take the beauty. Look at it. Now, none of this relieves you of the responsibility toward your fellow man, and none of it relieves you of anything. What it does, it tells you to live the moment. Enjoy your work. Enjoy your food. Enjoy your drink. Don’t abuse it. Enjoy it. And he goes beyond to say, I know that. Whatsoever God does, it shall be forever. Nothing can be put to it, nor anything be taken from it. The message from Solomon is, God is sovereign. He can do what he wants to do. He can stop what he wants to stop. But he says the things that God does, because he is God, are forever. So people are fond of sometimes asking, well, why does God do that? Or why did God allow that? And then comes the answer. In this very verse, he says that God does all that. And God does it that men should fear before him. Okay, I have it. God is God. He can do what he wants to. And I really should fear before him. I don’t have to be afraid of him. His purpose is good for me. What he aims for ultimately is to my good. But I am fearful of ignoring him or turning my back on him or going away from him. That which has been, Solomon said, is now. And that which is to be has already been. And God searches out that which is past. It’s another way of saying there’s nothing new under the sun. Oh, you may get a new gimmick, a new technology, a new machine. But the things that really count that have to do with the character of man and the way man interacts with man, there hasn’t been a change in human nature in all the thousands of years of human history. And that’s what he’s talking about. That which has been is now. And that which is to be has already been. And moreover, I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that is the courts, and wickedness was there. And I saw the place of righteousness, the churches. And iniquity was there. Well, that’s discouraging, isn’t it? But it is the inevitable result of freedom. God has granted to man the freedom to do what he wants to do. He has at the same time revealed to man that there’s a way to make your life work and there’s a way to screw it up. And unfortunately, we have religiously chosen the wrong way, it seems, in our lives. But in this world, you have the place of judgment that has been corrupted and the place of righteousness where iniquity is found. Nothing’s perfect. Nothing’s perfect in this world. And you can pursue it if you wish. But it’s going to be an exercise in futility. I said in my heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every purpose and for every work. Stay with me. I’ll be back 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.
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4.
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Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791 or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE-44 and tell us the call letters of this radio station.
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I said in my heart concerning the estate of the sons of men that God might manifest them and that they might see that they themselves are animals. Now, I don’t like that. For God to tell me that I’m an animal that’s going to manifest to me that I’m an animal does not make me comfortable. For I would like to think that I’m more than that. I want to think of myself as immortal. In fact, during most of my early years on this planet, I thought I was. At least I lived that way. I thought nothing’s ever going to happen to me. Life’s going to work for me. Death will never come to me. Something about us when we’re 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, that we’ll try anything. That’s why they like fighter pilots to be so young. They still think they can’t die. And they’ll try it. But the fact is, he said, I want God to make known to man that man is an animal. For that which befalls the sons of men befalls beasts. Even one thing befalls them both. As the one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath. So that a man has no preeminence above a beast. For all is vanity. All go to one place. All are dust. And all turn to dust again. And you know, I guess it’s true. For when people die, if we didn’t embalm their bodies, they would rot away like roadkill. And we go to a lot of trouble. We take our loved ones to the funeral home. They embalm the body. They lay them out in a casket. And we take them out to the cemetery and we put them in the ground. But they’re dead. The breath is all gone, and we even at the funeral will say, dust to dust, ashes to ashes, and we think, well, we started out as dust, and now he’s going to go back to dust again. Well, when my faithful old German short-haired pointer died, she was a good old dog. She was my friend. She’d been faithful to me for something like 14 years. I couldn’t throw the old girl out into a ditch. So I had the vet call up a fellow who put her in a box and took her out to a pet cemetery and buried her in the ground, and there she is. And she’s over there, her bones, her dust, in the pet cemetery. And one of these days, they’re going to lay me out in one of these cemeteries nearby here, and I’m going to be down there in the dirt just like she is. And Solomon says, you really need to think about that. You think you’re better than your dog, but you’re both headed in exactly the same direction. Now, I know that makes us all a little uncomfortable. We like to think that although our bodies are going to go back to the dust, perhaps that’s what Solomon is talking about, that our soul will not, that our soul goes to heaven, or God forbid, it goes to hell, And it happens immediately when we die because the soul can’t die, and we’re going to go on and on and on. And it’s not a question of whether we live. It’s just a question of where we are in heaven with a beatific vision or looking in God’s face, dining on milk and honey, or whether we’re in hell dancing around from one hot brick to another or upside down in a steam hole or whatever it is that Satan and his demons can dream up for us. But Solomon seems to be saying something rather different. He said, when you’re dead, you’re dead. And that’s that. And you die like the animal dies. Now Solomon isn’t closing out the idea of a resurrection. What he is talking about is the way things will be if there is no resurrection. And he said, who knows that the spirit of a man goes upward and the spirit of a beast goes downward in the earth? Who says that? Because when it comes to good old-fashioned death, it’s not like that. Man dies, the beast dies, and we go to our respective graveyards and we wait. We wait for life. I guess the poor old dog waits for nothing. Although I’ve had people ask me, you know, will I see my faithful hound dog in the resurrection? And I have to tell them that, well, I’m sorry, the Bible really doesn’t say anything about that. But I suppose in the resurrection, when you’re like God and when you’re in his presence and with all the holy angels round about and so forth, that if at that point in time you still want old spot to be with you, maybe God will let you. I don’t know whether you will think that’s important when that time comes. But God made us the way we are and surely understands the love we have for those little critters, and that love is very real. But Solomon said, I perceive that there is nothing better that a man should rejoice in his own works, for that’s his portion. For who’s going to bring him to see what shall be after him? Folks, life is here. It’s now. You’re living it now. And what Solomon is saying is, you know, you’d better do what you can to make it work because it isn’t going to go on forever. And when it’s over, it’s over. Now, he’s talking about human physical life. He’s not allowing for your Redeemer. He’s not allowing for a Savior. He’s not allowing for the resurrection from the dead. What Solomon is talking about is making this life work and what’s important in this life and what’s not important in this life. And he says the fact is that you’re going to die like the dog dies. You have so many years on this planet. There is a time to be born, there is a time to die, and you’re not going to be able to get beyond that border of your life. You have no more hope of that than the sea has of getting beyond her borders. And so, you really need, as you work to make this life work, as you plan to make it work, as you set your goals, you need to have your head up. And you do need to be looking ahead, for there is something out there. There is a resurrection to come. There is a new kind of life. And God doesn’t intend to spend eternity with a bunch of losers. You, my friend, were born.
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Born to Win. The Born to Win radio program with Ronald L. Dart is sponsored by Christian Educational Ministries and made possible by donations from listeners like you. If you can help, please send your donation to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. You may call us at 1-888-BIBLE44 and visit us online at borntowin.net.
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