Turning Point

Dr. David Jeremiah: What kind of wisdom should be avoided at all cost? Be wise in our own eyes.

David Michael Jeremiah: The sin of pride is in the hot seat today on Turning Point as Dr. David Jeremiah shares wisdom and practical tips from King Solomon on living a life of happiness and humility. From his series in Ecclesiastes, Searching for Heaven on Earth, here is David to introduce today's captivating message, Facing Life with Humility.

Dr. David Jeremiah: Now isn't it interesting, friends, that the next lesson after wisdom is humility? Sometimes when we get wisdom, and we get it legitimately, if we're not careful, we get proud. We think we're smart. We think we're wiser than those around us. And the Bible says that's not a good path to follow. So just in case we're tempted to do that, here is Solomon coming along right after that with a wonderful teaching on the subject of humility.

During this series, we have been talking about very practical things. And here are the practical things we're going to learn in the next two days: humility is knowing what you don't know, humility is living with what you don't like, humility is accepting what you can't change, humility is enjoying what you can't explain, and humility is discovering what you can't discover. Those things will be taught in these two lessons, today and tomorrow, as we talk about humility.

And we want to remind you that you can get all of the material you're listening to and much more because we can't always say everything we want to say from what we've discovered in our research. But there's a book on Ecclesiastes that is available to you called 31 Days to Happiness. It is 323 pages, and it will help you get through this book and remember what you heard on the radio and have it right there in front of you in print. It is filled with footnotes and all of the material that goes into these lessons. We'd love to send this book to you as our way of saying thanks for your gift to Turning Point during the month of February. When you send your gift, simply say, "Please send me 31 Days to Happiness," and it will be on its way.

David Michael Jeremiah: And now here is part one of Facing Life with Humility.

Dr. David Jeremiah: Facing life with humility. It almost begs the question if you really want to get down to it. And the reason is that if you've paid attention to life at all, you know that life itself is a humbling experience. Life makes you humble if you don't resist what it's teaching. It doesn't take very long for someone who's on top to all of a sudden discover that that's not a permanent position.

I wonder about the people that won those celebrity idol shows that came in first, and now all the people that came in second are getting the record contracts. I can't figure that one out either. That's got to be very humbling to them.

I believe children have been created by God to keep us humble. A little girl was talking with her dad one day and asked where he used to live when he was little. He said he lived in Chicago. She said, "Was that in the Old Testament or the New Testament?" Children can really humble you. They really do.

Even church is a humbling experience. Did you know that? I read a statement written by Mark Buchanan. He writes, "I assume you're like me. I get itchy-skinned and scratchy-throated after an hour or so of church. I get distracted and cranky when it goes too long. My feet ache, my backside numbs, my eyes glaze over, my mind fogs, my belly growls. I find myself fighting back yawns and then not fighting them back at all, letting them gape and roar. And I'm the pastor."

Actor Tom Selleck said, "Whenever I get full of myself, I remember that nice couple who approached me with a camera on a street in Honolulu one day. When I struck a pose for them, the man said, 'No, no, we want you to take a picture of us.'"

And the thing about humility as you go through life and it begins to knock off the rough edges of your pride and arrogance, it is a very elusive quality. Because as you know, just as soon as you realize you're humble, you're not. Leslie Flynn wrote, "If you're humble, don't write the book on how humble you are with 12 life-size pictures. Then you've just ruined the whole thing."

But I love the story about H.A. Ironside, who was the pastor of the Moody Church in Chicago. He felt that he was not as humble as he thought he ought to be. And so he shared his concern and he asked an elder friend what he could do about it. His friend replied, "What you need to do is make a sandwich board with the plan of salvation and scripture on it, and wear it and walk through the business and shopping area of downtown Chicago for a whole day."

Ironside followed his friend's advice, and on completion of this humiliating experience, he returned to his apartment. As he took off the sandwich board, he caught himself thinking, "There's not another person in Chicago that would be willing to do a thing like I just did." And you can see he missed the whole lesson because in putting away the sandwich board, he got proud all over again.

Life teaches you humility if you're a willing student. It will teach you anyway, but it can beat you up if you don't cooperate. And that's what Solomon is going to teach us here in the eighth chapter. He's going to remind us of all of the things that make us humble. He's going to teach us that all of these things that we observe about life are okay.

First of all, he tells us that humility is knowing what you don't know. He begins in the first verse of the eighth chapter by saying, "Who is like a wise man who knows the interpretation of a thing? A man's wisdom makes his face shine and the sternness of his face is changed."

Over and over in the Bible, we are warned against being wise in our own eyes. When this warning is heeded, the result is a happy, humble Christian. Listen to what Solomon says here. He says a man who depends on God's wisdom has a shining face. That is, his countenance is changed by the wisdom God has given him. He knows what he doesn't know, but he also knows whom he does know.

He's not worried about the things that he can't comprehend because he's acquired the wisdom of God and that wisdom has taken the sternness out of his countenance and given him a shining, happy face. He is humbled by his own inability to piece life together, but his stern face is changed to a shining countenance because he knows God and he has discovered God's wisdom for life. The first step toward true knowledge is the realization of our ignorance without it. Paul wrote these words to the Corinthian believers in 1 Corinthians 8:2. He said, "If anyone thinks he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know."

The Bible teaches us that knowledge, while it is important for us to acquire it, is a never-ending pursuit. Let me give you an illustration. When I started preaching here, the statistics at that time said that the total knowledge of the world changed every 38 years. In other words, every 38 years, the knowledge that you could acquire was equal to all the knowledge that was existing before that.

Today the knowledge of the world changes every single year. Every single year. And it will keep shrinking down until the information curve can almost be as destructive as a tornado.

I face this every day in my life, and I'm sure some of you do the same. I love gadgets. I've always loved gadgets, electronic gadgets, special little things, and there are so many of them now. And people give them to me because they know that I love them. But it's almost like a curse because when they give them to me, I can't figure out how they work.

I used to be able to read the manual, but now I can't even read the manual. Now the manuals come out in four different languages, and they might as well all be in a foreign language because I don't understand the terminology. I can't read the diagrams. I have a box with a gadget in it that's in my closet unopened because I read the manual that I saw and I realized I don't have time to learn how to use that. I guess it's supposed to be a time saver, but it doesn't save any of my time.

And what is really frustrating is my grandson understands it better than I do. He knows how all of the things work. He tells me where to plug the cords in because he's grown up. What are you going to think about these kids we're raising who are going to have to deal with the change of knowledge every single year for the rest of their lives on an accelerated basis?

The fact of the matter is, wise is the man who knows what he doesn't know. Humility is coming to grips with the fact that what we know is such a small, infinitesimal part of the total knowledge available to mankind. That if anyone ever thinks they're educated and that makes them a candidate for pride, they just need to go back and think about the statistics I just shared. Solomon tells us that when we have true wisdom, it comes from God and we don't have a stern face worried about all that we don't know; we have a shining face because we know the God we do know.

Secondly, humility is living with what you don't like. All of us are caught in a universe that is controlled by others than ourselves. And every day we have to get up to the realization that today we are going to have to do some stuff we don't want to do, live in a way we don't want to live, and experience experiences we'd rather not have.

Solomon uses this illustration in verses two through seven. Let me read the scripture. He says, "I say keep the king's commandment for the sake of your oath to God. Do not be hasty to go from his presence. Do not take your stand for an evil thing for he does whatever he pleases. Where the word of a king is, there is power. And who may say to him, what are you doing? He who keeps his command will experience nothing harmful. A wise man's heart discerns both time and judgment because for every matter there is a time and a judgment, though the misery of man increases greatly for he does not know what will happen. So who can tell him when it will occur?"

Now that's a long and wordy paragraph, but let me just wrap it up for you in a few words. Nothing can be more humbling than to be in a situation over which you feel no control. Solomon here uses the illustration of a king or a magistrate who is in power. And as a citizen under his power, you don't want to obey his authority. Listen to Solomon's word: "Keep the king's commandment for the sake of your oath to God," not because you like the king.

In other words, even when you don't understand what in the world the king is doing and you're not even sure you agree with it, humble yourself before his authority for the sake of your allegiance to Almighty God. This reminds us of what Paul wrote to the Romans over in the 13th chapter. He said, "Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves."

Now of course Paul and Solomon are not telling us that we should do things that violate God's standard. The book of Acts teaches us that it is better to obey God than to obey man. If the authorities put us in opposition to God's direct will, we should disobey the authorities to obey God. But most of our problems aren't like that. Most of our problems with authority is we think the speed limit should be higher.

Living with what you don't like. Anybody else have to deal with that? Every day you get up and you go out into this world and you do not have control of what's going on, and there's a whole bunch of stuff you have to deal with that you don't like, and you have to live with it. You know what happens when you do that? It humbles you. It teaches you humility. It causes you to realize that you are not in control, that you're not even sure what the questions are, let alone what the answers are. And you recognize your dependence upon Almighty God. Humility is knowing what you don't know and living with what you don't like.

Now thirdly, humility is accepting what you can't change. It is frustrating to get in a situation where you have been in control and all of a sudden you're not in control. And so much of life, as we understand it and as we learn about it and as we experience it, is uncontrollable. We just think we have a handle on it and then it goes south.

Notice that Solomon gives us some illustrations of that in these next verses, verses 8 through 14. The first illustration he gives us is death. Verse 8, he says, "No one has the power over the spirit to retain the spirit, and no one has the power in the day of death. There is no release from that war, and wickedness will not deliver those who are given to it."

Solomon says there's something about life that you can't control. You know what it is? It's death. You don't know when it's going to come or what the circumstances will be. The searcher reminds us that there are some things over which we have no control. Death is certainly one of those things. There's an old legend that I like about a merchant in Baghdad who one day sent his servant to the market. Before very long, the servant came back. He was white and trembling and in great agitation. He said to his master, "Down at the marketplace today, I was jostled by a woman in the crowd. And when I turned around, I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture. Master, please lend me your horse for I must hasten away to avoid her. I will ride to Samarra, and there I will hide and Death will not find me."

And the merchant lent him his horse and the servant galloped away in great haste. Later the merchant went down to the marketplace and saw Death standing in the crowd. He went over to her and asked, "Why did you frighten my servant this morning? Why did you make a threatening gesture toward him?" "That was not a threatening gesture," Death said. "It was only a start of surprise. I was surprised and astonished to see him for I have an appointment with him tonight in Samarra."

You cannot program the end of your life. You do not run from death. It is out of your control. And I'm not trying to be morbid about this; it's just the way it is. And you know, the wealthier a person gets and the more stuff they have and the more toys they have and the more control they have over life, the more they sometimes believe there's something they can do to ultimately defeat the last enemy. But there is nothing. Death is out of our control. Have to accept it. You can't do anything about it. Some of you have lost loved ones, but there comes a time after a period of mourning, after a time of weeping, that you have to recognize that this time is over and you have to go on with your life or you become controlled by that over which you have no control: death.

And then he gives us another illustration in verse nine. Not only does death illustrate this, but distress does as well. He said, "All this I have seen and applied my heart to every work that is done under the sun. There is a time in which one man rules over another to his own hurt."

Don't be surprised when you're mistreated by those who may be in authority over you. Don't be surprised when you are hurt by someone you once trusted. According to Solomon, that's life. That's just the way it is. Life is filled with distress and wise is the man who understands and accepts that. We need to learn how to change what we can change and live with that over which we have no power. Change the things you can change, but ask yourself when you think about all the things that distress you, how many of these things do I have control over? Which of these things can I change? If you can change them, work at changing them, but if you can't, just accept them and don't let it ruin your life because that's what happens to so many people.

And I could give you so many illustrations, but I haven't time. You know what I'm talking about. There are just some things in life you can't change. You've got to learn to accept them. Here's the third illustration: deception. Verse 10, he says, "Then I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone from the place of holiness and they were forgotten in the city where they had so done. This also is vanity."

Warren Wiersbe has a comment here in his book on Ecclesiastes. He says in verse 10, Solomon reports on a funeral he had attended. The deceased was a man who had frequented the temple, the place of the holy, and had received much praise from the people, but he had not lived a godly life. Yet he was given a magnificent funeral and an eloquent eulogy while the truly godly people of the city were ignored and forgotten.

Isn't that the way it is? Solomon says sometimes you see this stuff going on, you can't control it, and you just have to accept it. Don't get all bent out of shape over it. You can't do anything about it. That's the way life is. Life sometimes is very deceptive in the way it plays out.

I remember the story about two brothers and they were very wealthy. One of them died. The brother who still lived wanted the pastor to say something nice about his brother. He said, "I will give your building program $100,000 if you will tell the people at my brother's funeral that he was a saint."

The pastor took the $100,000, gave it to the treasurer, and they deposited it in the church account. The day came for the brother's funeral, and the living brother was sitting there in the front row waiting for the pastor to eulogize his brother. The pastor got up, and as he was talking about the man who died, he said, "The man whose remains are in that coffin was a crook. He was an evil man. He stole from people. He robbed people. He did so much he never got caught for. He was a wicked, evil man, but next to his brother, he was a saint."

Isn't that the way it is? Solomon says sometimes you see this stuff going on, you can't control it, and you just have to accept it. Don't get all bent out of shape over it. You can't do anything about it. That's the way life is. Life sometimes is very deceptive in the way it plays out.

Then he adds one other thing and he takes a couple of verses to prove this, and that's defiance. Here's another thing you can't control. Watch this. This is so contemporary. This could be written right off of the paper today. He talks about defiance and he says, "Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and his days are prolonged, yet I surely know that it will be well with those who fear God, who fear before him. But it will not be well with the wicked nor will he prolong his days which are as a shadow because he does not fear before God."

Solomon says sometimes when we look out at life, we see people shaking their fist in the face of God and they're saying, "I've lived like this all my life. Nothing's happened to me yet, and nothing's going to happen to me. I'm the master of my soul, the captain of my life." We see that. We see that often. We see wicked people antagonistic toward God, and it looks like they're getting away with it. The Bible says because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the sons of men believe they can continue to do evil.

How foolish of us to think that God is confined to our own clock. He works on a different timetable, and he hasn't paid all his debts yet. Did you know that? One of these days there will be a reckoning. Don't be fooled by the apparent success of wicked evil men.

Well, we're going to put a bookmark there because we've got a lot more to say about this when we meet together tomorrow. We're in the eighth chapter of Ecclesiastes and we're talking about facing life with humility, and Solomon is weighing in on this with his wisdom. The Bible tells us that Solomon was the wisest man who had ever lived, and I doubt if too many people have lived wiser than him since he was on this earth. His words are encouraging, they're God-inspired, and they're true. And we're learning a lot from him as we go through this book together.

David Michael Jeremiah: By the way, to help you study the book of Ecclesiastes, here's a suggestion. You get a copy of the book which you can get for a gift of any size to Turning Point during the month of February. Ask for your copy of 31 Days to Happiness. Get study guides for all the people in your small group and then facilitate a study of the book of Ecclesiastes in your small group. You will be blessed and so will your patrons who come with you. And we'll see you right here tomorrow. Thanks for listening.

For more information on Dr. Jeremiah's series, Searching for Heaven on Earth, please visit our website where we also offer two free ways to help you stay connected: our monthly Turning Points magazine and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org/radio. That's davidjeremiah.org/radio. Or call us at 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of David's book, 31 Days to Happiness. It's filled with Solomon's wisdom and it's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard, New International, and New King James versions, complete with notes and articles from Dr. Jeremiah's decades of study. Get all the details when you visit our website, davidjeremiah.org/radio.

This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue Searching for Heaven on Earth on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.

Dr. David Jeremiah: We’ll see you right here tomorrow. Thanks for listening.