King Solomon made an extremely wise observation in the book of Ecclesiastes: “That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which it may be said, “See, this is new”? It has already been in ancient times before us” (Ecclesiastes 1:9,10).

In other words: everything that happens today has already happened in the past. History repeats itself. Here, Solomon is talking about human beings, who are so intelligent in the field of science, but in the field of life, they seem blind and deaf, ignorant, for not learning from the mistakes of the past.

You can easily observe this in the lives of children with their parents. As a parent, you made mistakes when you were young. Today, you know it was a mistake; things that were wrong. If there was a chance to go back, you would. So, you pass this knowledge on to the child. And they, around 18 years of age, say: “I want to make my own mistakes”. You want to teach a better way, but the child doesn’t want to listen. And one of the reasons God put this in writing is so that no one can say, ‘I didn’t know.’ The Old Testament is full of stories that are repeated today.

Those following the series “Kings” see that everything happening to David is repeated today. You are seeing the situation of the son of David, named Absalom. What does he want to do? He grew up revolted against his father. “My father was not good. So, I will take the throne for myself.” And he died for his vanity: caught by the hair in a tree. This story repeats itself today. Absalom symbolises the human being who revolts against God. “I rule my life. I will not follow God.” They sit on the throne of God and take the throne for themselves. But this is something unconscious; the person does not know what they are doing, but they repeat the story.

So, what must you do if you want wisdom in your life? You need to look at the mistakes of the ancients, your mistakes and the mistakes of others. Pay attention, and don’t repeat the proven history of what doesn’t work. Why would you repeat a mistake? Instead, repeat the story that worked. In the Bible, there are also success stories. Learn from the mistakes and successes that are recorded. And thus, you will be wise in whatever you do. And you won’t have to repeat the mistakes of others to know that it doesn’t work.

Watch the entire message in the video above.