Kingdom for a Horse – Sunday, July 15, 1951
The line that Shakespeare had Richard III say, “My kingdom for a horse,” has far-reaching implications in the pattern of human behavior. When a man needs something, or thinks he does, or sets his heart on having something, a kingdom may seem like a more or less trivial thing at the moment. Immediate wants, immediate worries, small annoyances often crowd out matters of much greater moment.
History has proved (and also people have proved) that a person will sometimes pay an exorbitant price to satisfy an immediate appetite. Esau, of course, is the classic example of forfeiting much for little, of failing to look far enough, soon enough, and of sacrificing the future for the present. And it was Esau of whom Paul wrote that he “sold his birthright for one morsel of meat.”1 There is another phase of this same problem that suggests itself: Because we want what we want when we want it, we are often inclined to obligate ourselves for more than we can pay and to borrow beyond reason and to postpone today’s obligations and presume that they will somehow be easier to meet tomorrow.
Also we sometimes agree to do more things than we know we can possibly do, and so we find ourselves worried and committed and crowded from all sides, and we say to ourselves, “if we can only get through this immediate difficulty, if we can only set straight this one embarrassment, if we can only avoid the consequences of this one commitment, we’ll never let ourselves lapse into such a situation again.” There is always inherent danger in paying too big a price for present wants or in too readily postponing to the future, problems that should be faced and solved in the present—because the future will always have its own problems and have its own price to pay without adding to it the price we now postpone for present expediency.
Time is a long time, and eternity is a long time after time—and we should look far into the future before we offer a kingdom or a birthright or any principle or exorbitant price for any appetite, for any passing pleasure, or for any want or supposed want of the immediate moment.
1Hebrews 12 :16.
“The Spoken Word,” heard over Radio Station K S L and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System, from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, July 15, 1951, 11:00 to 11.30 a.m., Eastern Time. Copyright, 1951
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July 15, 1951
Broadcast Number 1,143