Let's take our Bibles now and open them up to
the Old Testament wisdom book. Of Ecclesiastes.
Ecclesiastes chapter 3. We're going to look at
verses 1 through 15 today. Now. Said it before.
Many people in churches avoid this book like
the plague. because they think it's pessimistic.
Maybe it's hard to understand. They think it's
a downer, that it's depressing. But as we saw
last Sunday, there is actually great joy within
this book. There is great joy. We saw that last
Sunday. We're gonna see a little bit more of
it today as well. But even though people sometimes
neglect this book, When they get to chapter 3,
especially verses 1 through 8, all of a sudden
people kind of perk up and they say, hey, I know
that one. But what I want you to hear today is
that Ecclesiastes 3, 1 through 8, yes, it's poetry,
but it's more than just a beautiful poem. This
poem actually shows us the sovereignty, the majesty
of God over all of our lives. over every single
moment of our lives. And so I hope that you will
take away from this God's sovereignty and His
goodness and how we are to be towards Him. And
so let's read Ecclesiastes 3 1 through 15. Please
give attention to the reading of God's Word.
For everything there is a season and a time for
every matter under heaven. A time to be born
and a time to die. A time to plant and a time
to pluck up what is planted. A time to kill and
a time to heal. A time to break down and a time
to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh.
A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to
cast away stones and a time to gather stones
together. A time to embrace and a time to refrain
from embracing, a time to seek and a time to
lose, a time to keep and a time to cast away,
a time to tear and a time to sew, a time to keep
silence and a time to speak, a time to love and
a time to hate, a time for war and a time for
peace. What gain has the worker from his toil?
I have seen the business that God has given to
the children of man to be busy with. He has made
everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has
put eternity into man's heart yet so that he
cannot find out what God has done from the beginning
to the end. I perceive that there is nothing
better for them than to be joyful and to do good
as long as they live. All so that everyone should
eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil.
This is God's gift to man. I perceive that whatever
God does endures forever. Nothing can be added
to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done
it so that people fear before him. That which
is already has been. That which is to be already
has been. And God seeks. What has been driven
away This is God's word, let's pray Father I
pray that as we look at this text that you would
grant us a heart of wisdom And with the words
of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts
Be pleasing in your sight for you are our rock
and our Redeemer This we pray in Christ's name
Amen. Last Sunday, we sang a very familiar hymn
called Crown Hymn with Many Crowns. It's familiar
to us, we sing it often, but what might not be
so familiar is that that song actually has many
more stanzas to it and it's got different versions.
And one part or version that we did not sing
We sang something similar to it, but it goes
like this. Crown him the Lord of years, the potentate
of time, creator of the rolling spheres ineffably
sublime. All hail Redeemer hail, for you have
died for me. Your praise shall never, never fail
throughout eternity. Now that sounds beautiful.
I agree. but we may still be wondering what in
the world is a potentate of time. I doubt that
anyone's gonna use that word tomorrow morning.
And so what's it all about? What is this teaching
us? It's teaching us that Jesus Christ, who is
in the beginning with God and through whom all
things were created, that Jesus, is the very
Son of God and yet He is eternal and He is the
Lord of lords and He is the King of kings and
what Jesus did for us as one who is God, He stepped
from outside of time because time was created
by God. He stepped out from it and into it. He
stepped into our time in order to save us. Jesus
steps into time in order to save us. And yet,
time can be a tricky thing, can't it? There's
never enough time, but sometimes there is maybe
too much time. Sometimes we waste time, and sometimes
time slows to a crawl. Time marches on with such
rhythm and precision. Time is never off by a
single millisecond. And yet many of us can't
seem to keep the time. Time is money. Time's
of the essence. And if I preach too long, somebody
will tell me about it. The South Carolina philosopher
Darius Rucker once sang, Tomorrow's just another
day and I don't believe in time. What is the
purpose of time? This passage helps us. Within
this passage we see that in time God shows us
who we are and God shows us who he is and God
shows us how we are to relate to him. Let's look
at who we are first. in verses one through eight.
This is a poem, as I said, and many read this
poem as a picture of what man does in life. And
even non -believers know, many of them, this
text that's been popularized in music. And people
read this as an expression of human experience,
but friends, this poem, one through eight, is
not firstly about you. And it's not firstly about
me. The emphasis is on God and how he completely
controls all of life. And you can see this from
the jump, from the get -go in verse two, that
there is a time to be born and a time to die.
You did not beget yourself. You didn't have anything
to do with being born. God controls this, doesn't
he? God... Controls this and what this is really
showing us is that God controls all of it on
the macro level all of time and all of history.
But God controls right down to the very micro
right down to us as people to the very dates
on our tombstones. Martin Luther once said you
cannot live any longer than the Lord has prescribed
nor die. any sooner. And so verse two actually
acts as kind of bookends for this of our lives.
There's a time to be born and a time to die and
all the other stuff happens in the middle. Everything
flows between birth and death and so this shows
totality. This shows completeness that and that
God doesn't just govern us as individuals but
God governs all of his creation. This is evidenced
at the second part of verse two. there's a time
to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted.
Friends, we're entering strawberry season. Anybody
like picking strawberries? Or anybody actually
just like eating the strawberries while you're
picking them? I know, I do it too. Is the time
for picking strawberries in the spring or is
it at the end of the summer? No, don't wait on
those things. They'll be dried or withered, gone,
whatever. And so God governs these times. But
he also governs the times of the planting, not
just the plucking up of the planting. Most of
you probably, if you're gardeners or farmers,
you don't do the bulk of your work of planting
within the dead of winter, right? God has seasons
for these things. And yet even as he has seasons,
he doesn't always tell us the order for these
things. We know with the planting and the plucking,
yes, but with some of these other things, we
don't know where they all will fall within the
chronology of our lives. Right. God doesn't tell
you beforehand the day that you're going to smile
and the day that you're going to cry. Right.
But he is in charge of these things that everything
is fitting for him. And it makes sense that as
we look at this some of these are very negative
things. Right. They sound heartbreaking death
and killing here in a time for war and a time
for hate. This is all fitting isn't it for we
live in a very fallen Hevel kind of world don't
we that it's all fleeting it's all going away
and so while sometimes the pieces don't seem
to fit we should we should trust God because
everything that God ordains will come to pass
perfectly as he would have it to and So friends
sometimes maybe when life is feeling like it's
just going too fast Or maybe when it's going
too slow. Or maybe when the times are too weighty,
they're too heavy, the point of it is to trust
God who's in charge of all of your times. The
times of gladness and the times of sadness, they
are all His. This also teaches us not to cling
too tightly to the things of this world, right?
Because they are all fleeting, they will go away.
And yet the time is always right and ripe to
cling to God, to embrace God through Christ Jesus
our Lord. And the way that this is written should
help to show us this because this is written,
as I said, as a poem, but it's written as marisms.
Maybe you've heard that term before. It's a feature
of Hebrew poetry. that uses opposites to show
completeness. The time for war is the opposite
of the time for peace, right? A time for loving
and a time for hating. And so all of this is
showing completeness here. There's 14 of these
things and therefore there's 28 of these things,
which they're all involved with the number seven,
right? A term, a number showing completeness
here. It's meant to show that God governs it
all. all of the times. And yet I don't know exactly
what all of you are going through. I know what
some of you are going through. But perhaps you're
in some of these seasons even right now. Maybe
you are in a season of searching or losing. Maybe
you're searching asking God, Lord, how would
you have me to serve you? Maybe you're searching
for meaning in this life. Maybe you're searching
about who this person of Jesus is. But maybe
you're also in that season of losing, which seems
to be an implied sense of losing intentionally.
Putting off that which is unnecessary or that
which is not good or that which is not beneficial.
Putting off sin, right? You may be in this season.
Or maybe you're in a season of mourning or a
season of dancing. The morning being you've lost
a loved one. Maybe you've been to a funeral recently
and you've felt the weight of that. But maybe
you're also in a season of dancing. A celebration
of God's good gifts. Maybe a celebration of marriage.
Maybe there's a celebration of children, of new
life, right? You might be in these seasons. Maybe
you're in a season of casting away stones or
gathering them, as it says. in verse five. And
what's this talking about? It seems like casting
away stones is meant to show us that somebody
is intending to clear a field for the purposes
of planting of agriculture. You got to get the
stones out of there. But it also mentions the
collecting, the gathering of the stones. Maybe
Solomon here is talking about building. We know
that Solomon built many things. And so what are
you trying to build right now? Trying to build
a family? You're trying to build your career,
whatever it might be. Maybe you're in a season
of embracing or refraining from embracing. One
of the things that we should learn from this
is that we are to understand what is appropriate
in season. And so yes, there are appropriate
times to embrace, but there may be also in times
to refrain from embracing. Maybe you're in a
season of tearing or sewing. We know as we look
at the Bible that when people were in great mourning,
maybe over loss of someone's life or maybe mourning
over sin, that they oftentimes tear their clothing,
right? Maybe sitting in a pile of ashes. Maybe
you're in that season right now of tearing. But
Lord willing, there will be a time of sewing,
of mending, of putting your life back together,
right? Or maybe you're in a season of loving
or hating. And maybe you even look at this and
say, is there a season for hating? I thought
I was only supposed to love. Well, friends, it
is true. We are to love God and love our neighbor
as ourselves. But as we are sanctified, as we
mature in the faith, we should recognize there
are things that God hates. And we should hate
those things too. We should hate sin. We should...
We should hate the effects of sin. We should
hate injustice. We should hate idolatry. We should
love what God loves and hate what he hates. And
the conclusion of all of these things here, and
I'm not going through all of them, is to show
us that we are residents in God's world. We are
underneath him, right? To use another hymn, since
I've mentioned one, this is my father's world.
And you are residents in it during the time he
would have you to be here. And so I hope that
what you actually see is this is teaching us
just as much about us, maybe more so it's teaching
us about who God is. So let's focus on verses
10 through 15. We should recognize that in life,
God is behind the wheel. God is the one steering
the ship. One day comes after the next. and you
and I are not in charge. There was a theologian,
a Christian teacher named Didymus the blind in
the fourth century who likened us in this life
to being on a boat, on a ship in which we don't
see the captain. He said this, God himself manages
the cosmos and looks after it. When you see a
ship which is piloted and holds its course, You
perceive the idea of a helmsman even if he is
not visible. Likewise, the creator is known by
his works and the order of his providence. And
so, yes, even when we cannot see God, that children's
first catechism is true. He always sees us and
he is in total control. This is getting to the
idea of sovereignty or providence. The Heideberg
catechism notes this and says the Almighty and
everywhere present power of God, whereby, as
it were, by His hand, He still upholds heaven
and earth with all creatures and so governs them
that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful
and barren years, meat and drink, health and
sickness, riches and poverty, yes, all things
come not by chance. but by His fatherly hand.
Verse 11 says that He has made everything beautiful
or everything fitting, everything appropriate
in His time. But also look at verse 11, for it
tells us something else that God gives. God gives
us, He places within us eternity. into our hearts.
We are placed in time but with an implanted sense
that there is more there than even we can see.
Professor Benjamin Shaw says, the idea is that
God has placed us in time but with an implanted
sense of eternity. The recognition that what
we see under the sun is not all that there is.
And friends, the very fact that we are even asking,
like, what's up with time, I think reveals something.
God gives us this sense of eternity. He places
it into our hearts. He speaks of it in His Word.
And what does He tell us to do with all of the
times that we live in? We are to trust Him and
trust Him completely. And when it's too befuddling,
when we don't understand it, we should recognize
that God's ways are higher than our ways. It's
like Jesus said, it's not for you to know the
times. And so we ought not question God's timing
or the seasons that we are in, even when we are
in difficult seasons. And friends, this is illustrated
beautifully by the prophet Daniel. Daniel, lived
in a very difficult time and yet he trusted God
in the season that he was in. Daniel chapter
2 verse 20 and 21. Blessed be the name of God
forever and ever to whom belong wisdom and might.
He changes times and seasons. He removes kings
and sets up kings. He gives wisdom to the wise
and knowledge to those who have. understanding
Daniel knew it in his day do you know it in yours
maybe you've all in your lives been able to look
back on how God was working even when you couldn't
see it this is called reading Providence backwards
this happened to me many years ago when I was
the part -time youth director here living in
the man's next door many of you knew me then
and you knew that I was raising funds money to
go on the mission field. And sometimes that money
didn't come in as fast as I wanted to. And I
would see missionary after missionary going onto
the mission field and I would be like, Lord,
I feel that you've called me to this. Why is
the money? Why are the funds? Why is the support
not coming in? Well, two months before I left,
I met my wife. I was talking with my grandmother
after I met Brittany and my grandmother said
to me, do you realize that if you had left for
the mission field when you wanted to, you would
not have met your wife. You would not have two
beautiful children, right? So sometimes we have
to look back on life, read Providence backwards
to see how God was in total and utter control.
control, and that timing is illustrated most
perfectly in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Consider
how God's perfect timing is most clearly evidenced
in him. For one, Jesus was born right on time,
Galatians 4 .4. When the fullness of time had
come, God sent forth his Son. But also Jesus
died, was crucified right on time, Romans 5 6
at just the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
But Jesus also rose perfectly on time. He was
not late. Luke 24 46 the son of man should suffer
and on the third day rise from the dead. And
Jesus will also return right on time. Hebrews
9 26 Christ having been offered once to bear
the sins of many will appear a second time. not
to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those
who are waiting for Him. Friends, are you waiting
on the Lord? Are you trusting in the Lord? Do
you realize, recognize His sovereign control
over your life? Well, if you do, then you might
say, well, good, but how does this impact me
today? How does this impact me? tomorrow. How
do I live? Look in verses 12 and 13 for our application.
How do we relate to God? I read it again. I perceive
there's nothing better for them than to be joyful.
And then it mentions the food and the drink and
the taking of the pleasure in these things, right?
Yes, in this life that God has given you and
between the times on the tombstone, you are to
enjoy Him. and to enjoy his good gifts. This
is the application of the text, enjoying him
and enjoying what he gives to you. But also you
see in verse 12, this conveying of this moral
good that is there tells us to do good. Now,
some Bibles don't. It's a little more difficult
to find there. Some translate it differently,
but I can assure you in the Hebrew, there is
an emphasis there in verse 12 on doing good as
long as they live. We recognize that as believers,
Paul speaks of this in Ephesians, chapter two,
that you were created for good works, which he
prepared beforehand for you to do. So yes, we
are to do good. We are to do the things pleasing
in God's sight Psalm 34 14 says turn away from
evil and do good Seek peace and pursue it and
so application enjoying God and his good gifts
Secondly doing good, but thirdly look in verse
14 I perceive that whatever God does endures
forever, nothing can be added to it, nor anything
take it from it. God has done it so that people
fear before Him. Why has God placed us in this
time, in this season where we are? In order that
we would fear Him. In order that we would revere
Him and be in awe of Him, that we would worship
Him and obey Him. And friends, this is actually
the answer to the entire book of Ecclesiastes,
not to give it all away. But if you were to go
to the end of the book, chapter 12, the second
to the last verse, you see the point of all of
this. The conclusion when all has been heard
is this, fear God and keep His commandments because
this applies to every person. The reason that
you are here is to fear Him. We ought to be like
Isaiah when he's confronted with the very holiness
of God. He says, woe is me, I am a sinner. I
am undone. We should be like the tax collector
who wouldn't even look up to God in his prayer.
But he says, be merciful to me. We ought to be
like Hebrews chapter 12. It tells us to offer
acceptable worship with reverence and awe This
is the responsibility of the Christian And imagine
if you will imagine what it would be like if
every human being enjoyed God's gifts in him
every human being did good towards one another?
What if every human being on the face of the
earth revered God? What would that be like? Friends,
what you are imagining is eternity for the believer
because he has put eternity into our hearts and
it's not simply a concept, it's not simply an
idea, it is a fact. And friends, the clock is
ticking. The clock is ticking. For the Christian,
eternity with God is what is promised. But for
the unbeliever, what is promised is hell. It
is eternity apart from God's good pleasure. And
yet there's the free offer of the gospel to be
received by faith. all who call upon the name
of the Lord will be saved. And so today, if you
are unsure of what to make of Jesus, today is
the day of salvation. Right now, there is no
time like the present to embrace Christ in faith.
And so friends, if it seems like life is lacking
in some way, If it seems like there has to be
more than this, if you feel the tension of the
already and the not yet, that is intentional.
You are longing for more. You are longing to
be rid of sin. You're longing to be rid of the
effects of sin, and you are longing to be with
God for eternity. And as I close, verse 15 gives
us comfort in this way. for it reads that which
is already has been and that which is to be already
has been and God seeks what has been driven away.
If we put this very literally there at the end
of verse 15, it says God seeks out what he pursues,
meaning that God is working out all of his purposes.
He is not done. For everything there is a season.
And friends, It will all be accomplished perfectly
in His time. Come, Lord Jesus, let us pray.