No one knows why Chance took that chance. No one knows why Solomon seemed to take leave of his senses.
When 18 year old Chance Warner graduated from high school earlier that day, he probably saw the future bright before him. The father of an 8 month old, he was proud that he had finished high school. To celebrate the day, Chance and his friends went to Lake Allatoona, near his home in Georgia. And that was when the dangerous game began.
Using a long rope, they tied a shopping cart to a tree on a steep hill above the lake. When the time came for his “joy ride”, each player would get into the cart. His friends would release the cart to send him hurtling down the hill. Gaining speed, the cart would fly onto a ramp and launch into the air. With a heavy splash, cart and rider would plunge into the lake. Then the friends would drag the cart out of the lake for the next rider.
But when it came time for Chance to ride, he changed things. He untied the rope from the tree and tied it to his belt. Maybe he thought that he was a good swimmer and could bring the cart back by himself. But he couldn’t. Chance drowned in 30 feet of water that Saturday night when the heavy shopping cart dragged him to his death. The authorities recovered his body from the lake the next day, still tied to the shopping cart. Chance’s father indicated that he might have been drinking before he died.[i]
In Ecclesiastes, chapter 2, Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived described his foolhardy project: “I sought in my heart to give myself unto wine, (yet acquainting my heart with wisdom) and to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was that good for the sons of men, which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life.” (Ecclesiastes 2:3). So how do we gain victory over this vanity?
In a tug of war with worldliness and wine, Solomon thought that his great wisdom would ultimately win out. Maybe he was betting that he could just watch the tug of war as a referee. After all, he was wise enough to know that it was an empty endeavor, right? But 1 Kings 11:4-11 makes it clear the Solomon ultimately lost his tug of war. He was no longer totally devoted to the Lord. His heart laid hold of folly and it dragged him into the deep. Laying hold of folly, his heart lay hold of false gods. If this happened to the wisest man on the face of the earth, where does that leave the rest of us? As we shall see, the words of truth are right, but each one of us is individually responsible to put them into practice – even Solomon.
Solomon was careful to write down the results of his experiment in “laying hold of folly.” His warnings are recorded in the Book of Ecclesiastes. You can learn great wisdom there without having to pay the painful price that Solomon ultimately paid. Life lived that way is “vanity of vanities” and vexation of spirit. But you could learn to praise the Almighty with aging people using Solomon’s instruction in Ecclesiastes 12.
This post is an excerpt from a recent message at Calvary Baptist Church in Findlay, Ohio. You can read the rest of this message by clicking here.
[i] http://www.newsnet5.com/news/national/game-gone-wrong-georgia-teen-chance-werner-tied-to-shopping-cart-drowns-in-lake