Pathway to Victory

David Mullins: Hey podcast listeners. Thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's word through the most effective media available, like this podcast. To support Pathway to Victory, go to ptv.org/donate or follow the link in our show notes. Now, here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

Dr. Robert Jeffress: Hi, this is Robert Jeffress, and I'm glad to study God's word with you every day on this Bible teaching program. On today's edition of Pathway to Victory, Thomas J. Watson, the founder of the IBM corporation, said the way to success is to double your failure rate. That's where I got the title for today's message. What he's saying is the more times you try something, yes, the more you're going to fail, but the more you're going to succeed as well.

David Mullins: Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress. Walk into any bookstore or library and you'll find books on how to be more successful in every area of life. But worldly advice always falls short of the Bible's timeless wisdom. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress shares the first of Solomon's secrets for success. It has to do with the power of persistence. But first, let's take a moment to hear some important ministry updates.

Dr. Robert Jeffress: David, we're so excited about the upcoming Pathway to Victory vacation tour in 2027. I've traveled a lot over the years, but I can tell you from experience, some journeys change you. And I believe this will be one of them. May 14th through the 23rd, 2027, I'm inviting you to join me and the Pathway to Victory family on a Mediterranean cruise we're calling the Journeys of Paul.

We'll explore Thessalonica and Ephesus, incredible places where Paul planted the early church. This is so much more than a vacation. It's an opportunity to grow deeper in your faith and to make friendships that will last a lifetime. Come join us. I promise you won't regret it. All the details are at ptv.org.

Well, in our new series, we're talking about Solomon's divine wisdom and its application to our lives. Today we'll discover the key to finding genuine success. But before we get started, I'm inviting you to take advantage of the book I've written that parallels our series. It's also called The Solomon Secrets.

You'll find a chapter on the topic we're addressing today and a wide variety of other relevant topics such as managing your money, cultivating a healthy marriage, and how to raise a God-fearing family. The book is yours when you give a generous gift to Pathway to Victory. I'll explain more later on, but right now, let's get started with today's message. It's titled To Succeed More, Fail More.

Listen to what the book of Proverbs says about persistence. Now, I could give you dozens of verses, we only have a time to look at a few. The synonym in the Bible for persistence is diligence. Look at Proverbs 10, verses 4 and 5. Solomon says, "Poor is he who works with a negligent hand, but the hand of the diligent, the persistent, makes rich." Or, "He who gathers in summer is a son who acts wisely, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who acts shamefully."

Proverbs 12, verse 24 says, "The hand of the diligent, that is the persistent, will rule, but the slack hand will be put to forced labor." Or Proverbs 20, verse 4, "The sluggard, that is the lazy person, he doesn't plow after the autumn, so he begs during the harvest and has nothing." One more, Proverbs 21, jot this down, verses 25 and 26, "The desire of the sluggard puts him to death, for his hands refuse to work. All day long he is craving while the righteous gives and does not hold back."

All right, Robert, you might be thinking, I understand that persistence is a biblical quality. I understand that it may be the key to success, but how do I develop persistence in my life? Now, here's how to develop persistence in your life. Six keys to developing persistence, write them down. First of all, understand the value of persistence. Understand the value of persistence.

Will you notice in these words we just looked at from Solomon, the contrast that Solomon draws is not between the gifted and the ungifted, the lucky and the unlucky, the beautiful and the ugly, the rich and the poor. The contrast is between the persistent person, the diligent person, and the lazy person. That's the difference. The persistent person is the one who is successful.

Secondly, if you're going to be persistent, you have to learn to let go of the past. Persistence means letting go of the past. At 83 years of age, the great architect Frank Lloyd Wright was asked a question by a reporter. The reporter said, "Mr. Wright, what is your greatest architectural achievement?" Wright responded, "The next one." That's what persistent people do. They refuse to look backwards, they are always looking forward.

You know, the writer of Hebrews said the same thing in Hebrews chapter 12. Listen to what the writer of Hebrews said, "Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith."

The Bible compares living the Christian life to a foot race. The goal is to win the approval of Christ. But if we're going to run this race successfully, we have to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. We have to keep looking forward instead of looking backward. You know, this idea of refusing to look at both past successes and failures is found in Paul's words in Philippians chapter 3, verses 13 and 14.

Remember what Paul wrote? He said, "Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and pressing on to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." Forgetting what's behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead. If you're going to be successful in life, learn to let go of the past.

Number three, persistent people learn the importance of beginning. They learn the importance of beginning. You probably remember from your physics class the law of inertia. Remember the law of inertia? Inertia basically says a body at rest will remain at rest, a body in motion tends to remain in motion. Simply put, it takes a lot more energy to start an object moving than it does to keep that object moving.

The key is beginning, summoning the energy to begin a project. Persistent people understand the importance of beginning. Now, that's opposed to the lazy individual who can think of any and every reason not to begin a project. Listen to Proverbs 26, verses 13 and 14. This is really funny when Solomon writes this. Verse 13, he says, "The sluggard, the lazy person says, 'There is a lion in the road. A lion is in the open square.' As the door turns on its hinges, so the sluggard on his bed."

The lazy person can't get out of bed, and he invents all kind of excuses of why he can't begin today that project. The lazy person says, "Oh, there's a lion out there. He'll eat me up if I get out and go to work." Let's face it, we all have a little bit of the sluggard in us. We can all think of a reason not to begin that exercise program. "Well, I don't have the right shoes and the equipment."

We can think of a reason not to get up and have our time with the Lord, praying and reading His word. "Well, God wants me to get my rest today." And we can have a reason for not going to the doctor. "The doctor may, well, you know, he may discover something bad, so I don't want to go." That's kind of stupid when you think about it, isn't it? But we all always come up with reasons not to do what we're supposed to do.

The great way to overcome inertia that we all have is to begin doing something. Now this is worth the price of the sermon today, so I want you to listen carefully. If you know what it is is going to make you successful in life, just start doing something. Just start beginning. That can get you the energy you need to continue. I came across this advertisement in a medical journal years ago that talks about the importance of beginning. Listen to this:

"We have good news for you. Motivation is not going to strike you like lightning. And motivation is not something that someone else, a nurse, doctor, family member can bestow or force on you. The whole idea of motivation is a trap. Forget motivation. Just do it. Exercise, lose weight, test your blood sugar, or whatever. Do it without motivation and then guess what? After you start doing the thing, that's when the motivation comes and makes it easy for you to keep on doing it."

As Harvard psychologist Jerome Bruner says, "You're more likely to act yourself into a feeling than feel yourself into an action." So act. Whatever it is you know you should do, do it. Now here's that nugget of wisdom in that paragraph. It is easier to act yourself into a feeling than feel yourself into an action.

Some of you are waiting until the feeling hits you to do what you know God wants you to do. As somebody once said, "You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great." The successful person, the persistent person, understands the importance of beginning.

Number four, if you want to develop this quality of persistence, anticipate setbacks. Persistent people expect and accept setbacks rather than being paralyzed by them. They understand that setbacks are part of the tuition for moving forward in life. In fact, some of our country's most successful people have had devastating setbacks. Let me give you a couple of examples, I love these.

In 1889, the San Francisco Examiner newspaper sent Rudyard Kipling the following rejection note: "I'm sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don't know how to use the English language." Did you know that 15 publishers and 30 agents turned down John Grisham's first novel, A Time to Kill? Today his novels have sold over 100 million copies. George Lucas's movie Star Wars was rejected by every major studio in Hollywood until 20th Century Fox decided to take a chance on it, and of course, it's one of the most blockbuster franchises of all time.

Thomas Edison discovered 1,880 ways not to make a lightbulb. Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times, and yet he's considered one of baseball's greatest players. Thomas J. Watson, the founder of the IBM corporation, said, "The way to success is to double your failure rate." That's where I got the title for today's message. The way to success is to double your failure rate. What does Watson mean by that?

What he's saying is the more times you try something, yes, the more you're going to fail, but the more you're going to succeed as well. The way to success is to double your failure rate. Did you know Thomas Watson was simply echoing what Solomon had said thousands of years before? Listen to Ecclesiastes 11:1. These are Solomon's words. He said, "Cast your bread on the surface of the waters, for you will find it after many days."

Here's how that applies to us. The more resumes you send out, the more interviews for a job you're going to get. The more sales calls you're going to make, yeah, the more rejections you'll have, but the more transactions you'll end as well. The more pounds you attempt to lose, the more pounds you'll actually lose. The more people you share your faith with, the more people you'll come to see know Christ as Savior. That's what he's talking about here. The way to success is to double your failure rate.

Number five, if you're going to be a persistent person, and this is so key, expect to work hard. Expect to work hard. Now you have to hand it to Solomon, he had a great sense of humor. Listen to Proverbs 19, verse 24, "The sluggard buries his hand in the dish and will not even bring it back to his mouth." Now that's lazy.

But we all have a little bit of the sluggard in us before we get real self-righteous about this. We all have some sluggard in us. Let me illustrate that for you. How many of you here today, watching on television, know of one thing you could start doing that would make you more successful in your business or at your job? How many of you would say, "There's one thing I know if I start doing this I'd be more successful in my business." Raise your hand. Don't lie in church, okay? Raise your hand. All right.

How many of you would say when you think about your marriage, you know there is one thing I could do right now in my marriage that would give me a better relationship with my husband or wife? If I would start doing one thing, how many of us can think of something? I can. Okay. All right. How many of you would say, you know, there's one thing I could do that would improve my health, give me a better quality and perhaps quantity of life, if I started doing this one thing I'd be healthier? How many of you can think of something?

Okay, one more. How many of you can think of one thing, if you started doing this, it would improve your relationship with God? Something you could do to improve the most important relationship of all, your relationship with God. Now here's my question for you: why aren't you doing it? Why aren't I doing it?

I mean if we all can think of things that would make us more successful in our business, give us more money, better health, a better relationship with our mate, a better relationship with God, why aren't we doing it if we know what to do? You know what the answer is for most of us? "Oh, that would require too much effort. That would just cause us to work too hard."

Well, if that's your excuse, I've got some great news for you today: you're not going to die from hard work. Did you know that? You're not. You're just not going to die from hard work. You might die from some other things, it's not going to be hard work.

A.L. Williams is an insurance giant. He wrote a great book a few years ago. I've mentioned it before, but it's one of my favorite books. I love the title of it. The title of it is All You Can Do Is All You Can Do. A.L. Williams, before he went into the insurance business, was a high school coach, football coach, here in Texas. And he talked about the importance of working hard, and he uses this illustration:

He said, "I used to tell my football players that it was impossible to die from hard work. In the summer we'd have football camp and we'd practice three times a day, and I'd say, 'Now guys, you're going to get out there in the hot sun and you're going to be working and the coach is going to be fussing at you, and you're going to feel like you're going to die. But when you feel like you're going to die, just keep working, because the Good Lord put a little mechanism in your head up there that makes you pass out before you die.'"

"And if you do pass out, we'll drag you up to the dressing room, put you in the shower, give you some salt tablets, and you'll be ready for the next practice." Now there's some wisdom in that. Successful people understand the importance of working hard. Finally, and certainly most importantly, make sure that you're persisting in the right goals. Make sure you're persisting in the right goals if you truly want to be successful.

Nothing is more tragic than spending your life climbing up the ladder of success, reaching the top only to discover it was leaning against the wrong wall all together. Make sure you're persisting in the right goals. I am confident that if Solomon were standing here today, he would say the same thing to you. Solomon was the wisest, the wealthiest, the most powerful man of his day.

And yet he discovered that work is meaningless, pleasure is futile, and death is certain. And that's why in his journal called Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament, he came to this conclusion: "Worthless, worthless, everything in this life is worthless." Now he was speaking from a horizontal viewpoint. As you look at the world around you apart from God, it's all meaningless. Work is meaningless, pleasure is futile, death is certain.

But when you look vertically, it gives you a whole new perspective. And in the final chapter of Ecclesiastes 12, Solomon said, "Therefore, my advice to you as the most successful man who's ever lived, my advice to you is simply this: remember your Creator. Remember God in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you say, 'I find no pleasure in them.'"

That word 'remember' doesn't mean in Hebrew 'oh, just bring to mind.' It's not like saying, "Oh, I remember God. I remember God. I'm going to get on doing what I was doing." No, 'remember' means to make God central. Make God central in your life in the days of your youth before the days of trouble come. Remember this: no amount of success will fill the void of an empty life.

If you apply these principles I gave you today from God's word, you're going to be successful in your work, in your finances, and in every area of your life. But no amount of success can fill that hole of an empty life. Only God can fill that hole. You may not know the name Ray Combs, but many of you know his face or would have known his face. He was the host of the nighttime version of the game show Family Feud. Remember Family Feud?

One night on one episode of Family Feud, Ray Combs was walking down the line of contestants, one of the families that was competing, greeting them as he usually did, and he came to one of the contestants and he noticed they were wearing a lapel pin that had two question marks on it. Now those of you who have been through the evangelism training explosion, witness training program, you know what those two question marks are.

People who go through this training in how to share your faith wear these pins, these two question marks, as a way to get into a spiritual conversation with people because it's always a conversation starter. Well, that's exactly what happened that night on Family Feud. Ray Combs looked at that pin with the two question marks and he said to the contestant, "What does that pin stand for? What are those two question marks?" He took the bait.

And so the contestant said, "Well Ray, these two question marks represent the two most important questions in the universe." Ray Combs said, "Well, what's the first question?" And he said, "Remember, this is on national television." He said, "Well the first question, Ray, is, if you were to die tonight, do you know with certainty that you would go to heaven?" Ray Combs kind of chuckled and he said, "Well, I sure hope so, but nobody can know that for sure." Then he went on down the second person, the third person, and then he stopped in his tracks.

He went back around, walked back to that contestant and said, "Okay, my curiosity got the best of me. What's the second question mark stand for?" The contestant said, "Well the second question, Ray, is, if you were standing before God and He were to ask you, 'Why should I let you into heaven?' what would you say to Him?" And without missing a beat, Ray Combs said, "Well, I would say to God, because I'm the host of Family Feud and everybody in America loves me." And the crowd roared with laughter and applause, and off they went into the game.

Not long after that, Ray Combs was replaced as the nighttime host of Family Feud. And not long after that, he hanged himself. He didn't even bother to leave a suicide note. Apparently being the host of Family Feud wasn't enough to guarantee happiness and security in this life, much less the next one.

As Solomon said, there's nothing in this world that's going to satisfy that need you have in your life for God. There's a God-shaped vacuum in each one of us. Or as Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 2:25, "For who can work and who can find enjoyment apart from God?" Remember your Creator in the days of your youth. Make sure you're persisting in the right goal.

King Solomon said if we want to succeed more, we need to fail more. That's profound counsel from the man who had it all. Well, I'm so glad you chose to join us for today's Pathway to Victory. Remember, I've written a book to complement your study in the Proverbs. It's called The Solomon Secrets: 10 Keys to Extraordinary Success in Life. My book includes a chapter on the topic we addressed today, and I've chosen nine other key principles as well. I've written a chapter called "Spend Your Way to Wealth" and "The Way Up Is Down."

When you give a generous gift to Pathway to Victory, I'll make sure you receive a copy of my book, The Solomon Secrets. But before our time is out, I'd like to send a shout-out to our growing family of monthly supporters that we call Pathway Partners. Your consistent month-by-month giving is truly making a difference. I heard from Barbara who listens to our program in Maryland. She said, "Pathway to Victory is like a breath of fresh air in a world filled with stagnant air. I plan my day so I never miss a message."

And then she adds, "Although my donation is truly a sacrifice for me, I don't mind giving because I want to do whatever possible to help you deliver these messages to a world that badly needs to hear them." Well, thanks so much, Barbara. And now it's your turn. Would you join Barbara in supporting Pathway to Victory? Go online to ptv.org or give us a call and let us know that you'd like to become a Pathway Partner today. Your monthly giving enables us to pierce the darkness with the light of God's word. Here's David with all the details.

David Mullins: Today when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, you're invited to request a copy of Dr. Jeffress's bestselling book, The Solomon Secrets. Here's our toll-free number: 866-999-2965, visit ptv.org, or text PTV to 78800. And when your gift is $75 or more, we'll also send you this month's teaching series, also titled The Solomon Secrets, on DVD video and MP3 format audio disc.

One more time, call 866-999-2965 or make your request online at ptv.org. You could also send your donation by mail. Write to PO Box 223609, Dallas, Texas 75222. That's PO Box 223609, Dallas, Texas 75222. I'm David Mullins, inviting you back next time when Dr. Jeffress shares Solomon's Secret number two: discover why success without succession is failure. That's coming up Wednesday on Pathway to Victory.

Dr. Robert Jeffress: Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas.

David Mullins: You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so grateful you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible. One of the most impactful ways you can give is by becoming a Pathway Partner. Your monthly gift will empower Pathway to Victory to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and help others become rooted more firmly in His word. To become a Pathway Partner, go to ptv.org/donate or you can follow the link in our show notes.

We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. Oh, and one last thing before we go: don't forget to reserve your spot on the 2027 Journeys of Paul Mediterranean Cruise. You've heard me and Dr. Jeffress talk about it, and cabins are going quickly. Just picture yourself aboard the beautiful Celebrity Infinity, sailing round-trip from Athens, standing where the Apostle Paul stood in Ephesus, and taking in the breathtaking Greek islands.

Nine unforgettable nights with stops in Mykonos, Rhodes, Santorini, and more. Every meal prepared, every detail taken care of, plus fellowship with like-minded believers. There's also an optional pre-cruise extension to Athens. Oh, and one more thing: if you book online before July 31st, you'll receive a $200 early bird discount. To book your spot, go to ptv.org. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.