00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
We're gonna be looking at the
first 15 verses. So as we start tonight, I'm actually
gonna read the first eight verses, which is really the opening section
here, and then verses nine through 15 is really kind of the follow-up
and really some explanation and evaluation and expansion on those
first eight verses. So if you follow along with me
there, Ecclesiastes chapter three, we're gonna look at the first
eight verses. To everything there is a season.
A time for every purpose under heaven. A time to be born and
a time to die. A time to plant and a time to
pluck 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. A time to embrace and a time
to refrain from embracing. A time to gain and a time to
lose, a time to keep, and a time to throw 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 of war, and a time
of peace. Let's pray. Lord, thank you very
much for your word. Lord, we thank you for the reminders
in your word, considering time. And Lord, even as we continue
considering what it is that you are doing, Lord, the task that
you give to us, and Lord, even the tasks and purposes that you
are doing. We thank you for your word. We
thank you sometimes, Lord, for even the times that your word
can make us think, and Lord, can confuse us even a little
bit, Lord. I pray that this would be an opportunity for us to gain
and grow in our wisdom. Lord, your word tells us that
if we lack wisdom, we can ask of you, and you'll grant that
to us, and pray you would do that here tonight. We ask this
in Jesus' name, amen. Now, as some of you may have
noticed, I do appreciate those of you who are like, hey, Pastor
Dave, it seems like you have a cold. We're praying for you. Well,
this is a time for a cold for me. Whenever we get to fall and
a little bit into winter, I always get usually two and a half, I
say a half because it's not a bad one, two and a half rounds of,
you know what it is, right? Well, there was a new word for
it a number of years that came up. Anyway, let's not talk about
that. I definitely get congestion. I kind of get that achy feeling,
and then I know it's coming on, and I know by the time I get
to the end of it, I will go through multiple boxes of Kleenexes,
and inevitably, I will have to try to preach through it at least
a couple of times. I don't like it at all. There's a time where
I'm like, Lord, my job is to speak and to communicate, and
why would you give me these things? I've learned. I bring the water
up here. And then I tell myself I'm not
going to sing. And then my daughter is helping lead singing, and
I like the songs, and I sing out. And as I'm singing out,
I'm like, I'm going to run out of voice here tonight. And I know that
maybe you in the congregation are like, well, maybe he'll run
out of a voice here tonight, and it'll be good. There is a time for these
things that are taking place. Time is, for lack of a better
term, it is the environment that we live in. And you kind of see
this on the sheet here tonight that we'll get to later on in
the section. As we have been going through
the book of Ecclesiastes, we've actually kind of done a little
bit of a turn in terms of sections. After we have gotten through
the first couple of chapters here, the verses that we start
and arrive at here are actually going to push all the way through
into chapter 5. And really, this section will
push all the way through into the end of chapter 5, verses
18 to 20. In fact, I would invite you to go to the end of chapter
five and look at those verses, because we're really getting
into section two. There's really four sections
of Ecclesiastes, and this is the beginning of this next section.
Solomon has kind of walked us through this process of trying
to figure things out and has not been super successful at
it, although he's gained information. And now we are going to go into
a second round here, and the end of this will actually come
really in verses 18, 19, and 20 of chapter five. If you look
there, it says, Here's what I have seen. It is good and fitting
for one to eat, drink, and enjoy the good of all his labor, in
which he toils under the sun all the days of his life, which
God gives him, for it is his heritage. As for every man to
whom God has given riches and wealth and given him power to
eat of, to receive his heritage and rejoice in his labor, this
is the gift of God. For he will not dwell unduly
on the days of his life, because God keeps him busy with the joy
of his heart. I told you there's going to be
some times that things are going to get a little bit more optimistic.
This section, especially the beginning part of chapter three,
has a little bit more of the optimism as there's a little
bit of a second round of understanding that seems to be taking place.
And so this first section maybe we would say is kind of a bit
of a poem about time, for lack of a better term, or a poem about
times even. in these different times that
are given to us here. And while most of them have some
dualism type of aspects, whereas one that is the opposite of the
other, they aren't all exactly that way. And Solomon here, as
we are following in the process he's going through, is arguing
through, maybe we would say a thesis, that every action that an individual
has to walk through or be a part of, they can trace what's going
on, the actions that are happening around them, and even the actions
that are taking place in the world, they can trace it back
to an ultimate source. And that ultimate source is that
there is a plan, we would say even an all-encompassing plan,
that is administered by God, a time, verse 1, for every purpose
under the sun. To everything there is a season."
This is actually kind of a similar thing that we had already seen
in the verses just before, kind of the end of section one in
chapter two, verses 24 through 26. In fact, it sounds very similar
to what we just heard at the end of chapter five. Nothing
is better for a man than he should eat and drink, that his soul
should enjoy good in his labor, This also I saw was from the
hand of God. For who can eat or who can have
enjoyment more than I? For God gives wisdom and knowledge
and joy to a man who is good in his sight, but to the sinner
he gives the work of gathering and collecting that he may give
to him who is good before God. This also is vanity and grasping
for the wind. And as we have been noting, We
have to keep track of there are times now Solomon is more often
talking about God and his overall purpose here, and he's kind of
putting these parts in there. But he's also talking about if
we're trying to do this and figure this out, try to basically run
and rule and act in our lives here on earth without that, it
is this word that we've seen over and over and over again.
It's vanity. It's chasing the wind, it is
an endless process. We're never gonna get to the
end of it. So after this conclusion, he
is now kind of adding this part, this scheme or this plan that
life itself is not just this monotonous, dreary thing, mainly
because it is in the hands of God. And so this section here,
in contrast of kind of bringing to a close with this negative,
as we saw at the end of chapter 5, is going to be a little bit
more positive. And so this whole section really,
I believe, is kind of in light of the goal of the end of chapter
5. And there is going to be really kind of the principle, which
is what we're looking at tonight, and that principle is God's plan
is really something that embraces all of our reality. That'll really
go all the way through verse 15. Then starting in verse 16,
really until chapter 4, all the way through chapter 4 is you're
going to get some difficult things. These are facts. These are anomalies. So the next section that we work
on, and actually the next two sections that we'll work on,
is a section on what we call anomalies. They'd be exceptions,
things we have to be careful that when these things happen,
and when we go through these things, it doesn't take away
from or deny God's plan. And then chapter five is really
these implications that are gonna be given. There are warnings
and cautions that take place. And as Solomon is working us
through these things, he is really reminding us overall, and especially
in this second section, that we have to be careful not to
make hasty miscalculations about all of the things that take place
in life. We're quick to just say, well, this is what's happening.
This is the way it always goes, which is somewhat correct. We'll
kind of see, but we have to be careful when it comes to consistent
things and making a really hasty, just a hasty determination and
miscalculation. We also have to be careful about
making hasty miscalculations on the anomalies, on the things
that seem to kind of almost be one-offs, the apparent contradictions
to the rules that the Word of God has. As we said way back
at the beginning, Ecclesiastes is a very important part of the
wisdom literature, because there are parts of the wisdom literature,
especially in Proverbs, Psalms kind of has both of them a little
bit, and obviously Job gives the one side. This is kind of
the balancing act, because you have principles in Proverbs that
says, if a wise man or if a person does this, then they are going
to have all these blessings. And we would say, well, wait
a minute, I know some people that are godly and that would
be wise, but their life hasn't gone so well. There are a lot
of difficult things that they have walked through, and especially
here and throughout Ecclesiastes, we're reminded that we don't
get to take contradictions. We don't get to take anomalies
to deny that God is in charge, that there is the providence
of God, and we don't get to say, well, God must not be in control.
God must not have a plan. The reminder that even in the
things that don't seem like they should be planned or are planned,
It is still a part of what God is doing. And part of the overall
reminder here is that life isn't timeless. There are times that
we live in. There are seasons that we live
in. It's interesting when you get
a chance to interact with someone who has decided to move to a
part of the world or a part of the nation where the weather's
just kind of always good. Or I guess if they move somewhere
in the world. You can move places in the world, the weather is always
bad. But how much they love seasons until they get four days into
the season, right? Oh, I miss the snow. Well, stick
around for a little while. You won't miss the snow very
much longer. We have seasons in life. There's
a book on my shelf, a biblical counseling book, that is called
The Seasons of Marriage. and it talks through, we have
to recognize that there are different seasons we go through in marriage.
Pre-marital counseling is very different than, I can't say post-marital
counseling, than crisis, than extended marital counseling. I like to say pre-marital counseling
I do for free because everybody's excited. Regular marital counseling,
I charge you per year you're married because it gets more
difficult the amount of years you've been married. There are different
seasons within our marriages. There are different seasons within
our relationship. There are different seasons within our life, within
church. Every one of you in here has
different places you're at in terms of your relationship, even
with First Baptist Church of Elyria. Whether if you're a guest
with us tonight, or if you have been here longer than the building's
been here, there are some of you in here that say, I was here
before we were even in this part of town. The seasons are even
a little bit different. And so we experience all of these
different things. And so again, this section actually
gets a little bit easier to figure out, at least in terms of outlining
what is going on. And especially the section that
we're in today, there's really going to be this poem that we
read, and then there's going to be really a discussion on
God's purposes for life. So this poem. that we see here.
For those of us that have been around for a while, we know this
has been done in song form in a number of different ways. There
are many people in this world that would say there's a certain
song that just sounds like a song I've heard before, and that would
be very true. I'm really young enough, I don't barely remember
this song, and that's just what I'm gonna say, but it seems to
stick around a little bit. It is focusing on one of the
most important themes in the book of Ecclesiastes, and that
is dealing with this, and it's what we all deal with, the inability
to discern or control the times. The inability to discern or control
the times. I put a number of things, observations
here, and I left some blank. You can kind of fill in some
things. There's a number of things I think that we're going to see that are important
to understand concerning this poem. And I think one thing that
is very important is this poem is descriptive, not prescriptive. Okay, you don't get to say, it's
a time for war, I'm gonna go punch somebody. This is not something
that you and I get to determine. This is a description of life. There are times that things are
taking place. It says there are times you have
to do and there are other times you don't have to do. But this
is not a, okay, I need to figure out where I'm at and I am going
to control the time frame that I'm living in when it comes to
my home, when it comes to my health, when it comes to the
seasons, when it comes to my relationships and those things.
There is a descriptive aspect here, and Solomon's just kind
of describing that there are different times that come about
all throughout our lives. There are things that are happening
in this time of your life that you would not have been able
to imagine 12 months ago. There are things that are gonna
happen in the next 12 months that you are not even going to
be able to imagine what that is going to be like. The times
are coming, different times come, in these ways. And the second
thing there, as I've already kind of mentioned, life isn't
timeless. There are repeated rhythms. There are things that
happen and then happen again, and we really kind of need to
plan accordingly. We need to recognize that maybe
you're in a season of life where everything is great. Everything
is going well. It seems like just things are
all lining up and things are really just kind of, the Lord
seems to be blessing in fill in the blank whatever that is
going on. Solomon would say, You need to buckle up, because
that time is gonna eventually come to an end. There is going
to be a different time that will happen in your life. The times
and the seasons will change. Maybe you're going through a
very, very difficult time. It just seems like nothing works,
nothing is happening, and Solomon would say, that too is a time
that will come to the end. Now, we might say in each of
those times, how long, oh Lord? How long will the good go, or
how long will the bad go? And as we look through the Bible
and even think throughout time, we recognize there are times
in the Bible where the bad went a long time, and where the good
has gone for a long time. And there are times where it
could be short in time, but long in impact, in terms of it could
be something where life can change like that, either one direction
or the other. It is very important, however,
in a wisdom book, and as we think about biblical wisdom, to know
the right time for the right action or the right word. In other words, I need to know
what is the right, to be wise, I need to know what's the right
time, the right action, the right word in the right situation. I remember trying to teach my
kids that there are times when we're not supposed to be making
jokes and goofing around. For example, I remember one time
we were at a funeral and my kids were just kinda carrying on and
that sort of thing. I was like, this is not the appropriate time
to be like this. There are times it is appropriate
to be goofy and to be fun and to have an enjoyable time, but
settle down. I call it, it was a term that
happened a lot in our family when we were younger and it probably
drove me a little bit nuts. It was this, it was situational
awareness. Do you know people that always
tend to say the wrong thing at the wrong time? If you don't
know anybody that is like that, you may be the person in somebody
else's life that always seems to say the wrong thing at the
wrong time. Now, some of you, it's blessed. You don't even
know that you've been saying the wrong thing at the wrong
time, and your gracious brothers and sisters of Christ and family
probably love you very much. Wisdom is always connected with
timing. There's always right timing connected
to wisdom. And again, these first eight
verses are without a doubt the most well-known passage in the
book of Ecclesiastes. This is one of the more well-known
passages within the Bible. Again, this description that
takes place, it is not to be used, maybe to even expand on
that, I kind of put this down, you cannot use this poem to justify
certain emotions or actions. It is simply making a statement.
There are different times and different seasons that take place. So, if those things are true,
what are we going to say about the anomalies? And we'll get
to those a little bit later, as we said. And so, it is, I
like what one commentator said. This is one of the best known
portions of the Bible, and possibly also one of the least understood
passages of the Bible. Because just saying it, or even
singing it, it's time for water. Just to sing about it or say
about it, the question is, well, what am I supposed to do with this? Does this mean
I'm supposed to be impacting this? Am I supposed to be doing
something about this? We want to make sure that we understand
that this is, again, maybe we would even say the important
part of this declaration poem is to at least step back and
say, we recognize that this is even from the perspective of
God upon our lives, there are times and certain times that
take place. For you, it was determined long
before you had any involvement in determination, and you still
had no involvement in determination, the time to be born was determined
by God. This is not only just, well,
it's descriptive, it is descriptive almost from the perspective of
God. What we see here is the plan
of God, and the plan of God really encompasses the lives of human
beings from the day that you are born until the day you die,
and we might add to that, and beyond that. We make a rough
time of the life that we are living in. Our lives basically
are trying to work through each season and each time that seems
to be going on. And unfortunately, without the
wisdom of the Lord and without biblical wisdom, people handle
these seasons and times very differently. If we don't have
the proper care, the proper understanding, or maybe we would even say, the
proper mentoring from a preacher or teacher, that there's a different
season of life and that season had a certain thing that it was
designed to do or designed to not do, but it didn't do that,
we need to be able to have some of that wisdom. There are times
in our lives where there are certain things that aren't going
to happen and they aren't designed to work that way. These times
limit us. They limit our choices. They
limit how we interact and others. And it also can limit and change
the things that we are able to do and even what others are doing
to us. And so the lot, for lack of a
better term, that we have each been given in life, we are not
able to flourish really until we understand that there are
seasons and times that we're going to walk through. I think
sometimes one thing that came to my mind is kind of what investment
strategy is like. It kind of reminded me a little
bit of that, which is, within an investment strategy, for those
that have done investing, you recognize, okay, what am I gonna
do, you know, everybody can be a great investor if the market
always goes up. And so there are some out there
that would say, and I think they rightfully have been able to
say it up to this point, that over the long term, the market is
generally going up. I was actually thinking back,
I can remember I was just barely kind of learning a little bit
about market, that, and they were talking about what an amazing
thing, the market was gonna get over 10,000. And they're like,
they said it was never gonna happen, never gonna get that
way. It's well beyond that. So the investment strategy is
just, well, it's always gonna keep going up. Life is not like
that. While the long-term investment
seems to be like that, and we keep telling ourselves, well,
it's always gonna keep going up, is it? So what's your investment strategy
when the market goes crazy? I'm not gonna, maybe just says,
well, put it all in gold. I don't know what your investment
strategy is. Different times and different seasons require
different type of strategies. It's kind of like that. By using
this term that is being used here, this word that is used
for everything, there is a season. He is really kind of putting
the sands of our times really into the overall view of God's
creation. The word of God talks about God
made the moon to mark the seasons, the sun to know its setting.
While the earth remains, the Bible talks about The seed time
and harvest, the cold and the heat, the summer, the winter,
the day and the night, they shall not cease. This is, as I put
there, there is a rhythm. And there are things that are
coming. There is good, there is bad. There are certain things
that are coming. In many ways, this kind of gives us a, as we
walk through this time, we can almost say, yeah, this is kind
of a time that I've walked through where it was there. Now, I don't
know when the time to cast stones was. or to gather stones, and
there's a lot that people have definitely read into this, but
I think this is the right place to kind of have the overall thing.
We need to learn to receive the times and the rhythms instead
of try to fight against the times and the rhythms. There are rhythms
to parenting, and there are seasons to parenting. And one of the
problems that can arise, and I've definitely been guilty of
this, and it seems to be true throughout different eras and
probably has been true of parents throughout history, it's just
they do it in different ways, which is acting like your child
who is growing up, treating them like a child all the way until
the day they walk out the door and even beyond. What is the
season and what is the time for raising children? Is there a
point in time where you need to stop changing their diaper?
Is there a point in time where you need to stop saying, ah,
here's the food? There are times and seasons,
and we, instead of saying, well, I'm gonna fight against this,
and I'm gonna hold on to my baby for as long as I can. And then
all of a sudden they're gone. We need to recognize that one
of the seasons is the end of the season, which is then saying
now it is time to hand them off into independence. I would say
hopefully dependent on God. And they have not been so dependent
on us, and not so been saying I'll say whatever mom and dad
want me to say, and say I believe whatever mom and dad want me
to believe, and not having learned how to think for myself, how
to have convictions built for myself, all of those things.
There's a season aspect, so again, receiving rather than resisting. And the way that we receive these,
the one thing that stays consistent all the way through these, I
would add, is every single one of these seasons, we should be
drawing near to God. We should be drawing near to
God. Why? Because God is the one who brings
and allows and has put in place the world around us that has
each of these times and seasons. We want to draw nearer to the
one that he is the one who has said about this life. We enter
into a routine that we did not choose, yet that God wants to
use to shape our lives. I would say there's a bit of
a, and this comes up in other types of scriptures, there's
a bit of a recognizing, and when we recognize something, especially
when we recognize God is doing something, the second step is
always submission. Once we recognize, now we can
submit. Once I'm able to recognize this
is what's going on here, okay, I recognize what is happening
here, now I'm able to submit to the Lord and I can plan accordingly. There are times that the fruit
is not going to come. Mark 11, 13 talks about that.
We need to learn then as we submit to God to surrender what the
time requires when the time requires it. This is what is to take place
now. Now some of these things, what
makes this hard is some of these things we can kind of see. Even
as I talk about them and you think about the seasons and times
you have gone through, and even as you try to anticipate some
of the seasons and times that are ahead, you can try to plan
for those things. You can try to plan for your
medical and health future. So for those of you that are
Not in here, but for other people that are a little bit older,
does your medical health future always follow the exact plan
that you intended for it to follow? Not generally, right? It could
be true financially. It could be true in terms of
everything. I mean, we get to watch on TV
people's homes floating away. People's lives being completely
devastated and gone in a matter of 24 to 48 hours. So we think
we can control these things, and we think we can make these
things happen in the way we can, but we can't. We may also handle
them wrong, how we think about what is going on, how we feel
about what is going on, but we need to learn, okay, this is
a, to use some of the terminology, this is a planting season. There is a plowing season. And that's really kind of what
happens here. This is a time to do those things. And you're
like, what about a time to kill? There are times within the Word
of God, by the way, it could be rather just a hunting thing,
but also there is how do you deal with murder? How do you
deal with those who are wrong? Even if we were to think a little
bit about Scripture, it is not because, not necessarily that
man or society or government is sovereign, but because man
is made in the image of God, there are times that there are
those who are supposed to be killed for the actions that they
have done. We then are able to understand,
and by the way, this helps us in thinking and helping others
as well. We can believe that if someone
else is experiencing one of these things, that God has maybe singled
them out in the same way we can think God has singled us out. And what can also happen here
then, and this is really what can generally happen when life
becomes about us and life is not about God as in control,
what happens when things go wrong? We start to think, well, God
must not love me. Part of the wisdom that is going
on here is everyone experiences different times. None of us experience
anything that is 100% no one has ever experienced this before.
Now while there are some unique idiosyncrasies that can happen
within the experiences we have, we know it's true. Anytime that
you really stop and think about something that's really discouraging
you or you have something to complain about, Probably your mom did
this to you, but there's this reminder, somebody's got it worse
than me. This is something that someone
else has dealt with to a greater degree of difficulty or a greater
degree of struggle. Now, we don't like that. I don't
like that. I have a cold. Oh, boo-hoo. So-and-so just went
in the hospital. Quit your crying, Pastor Dave.
That's a legitimate response. Still doesn't help me feeling
bad about my cold, but you are right. I am not bedridden in
a hospital. I am not completely debilitated. But again, we, when we don't
think big picture, other people experience difficulties as well.
God is a God who is the one who is in control, even on this fallen
world. Then it becomes so self-centered. God doesn't love me. God doesn't
care about me. God is against me. Same can be
true on the opposite. If you are experiencing a delightful
time, or you're experiencing a blessing, then apparently you
are in the God click, you know, and then God just loves you.
God just, like, dumping you with so many blessings, you don't
even know what to do with it. It's just too much, you know? You've
got to just kind of, I'm so blessed, I don't even know what to do
myself. Man, obviously, Lord, you're pleased with what's going
on in my life. No, and maybe it's when someone else is struggling,
well, they must be doing something wrong. If you remember in the
Gospels and throughout biblical times, people just assumed if
someone's having something bad happen, then they must be a bad
person, i.e., the book of Job. Same with the blessings. Well,
if someone's having something going right in their life, God must be blessing
them. And I don't know if you follow the lifestyles of the
rich and famous, but they don't seem to be super moral people, so
that can't be it. So it can mess up our view of
ourselves before God. and it could mess up our view
of others. And then we start to read into
what God is doing. Is God like trying to cast some bait out
there? Is he tricking us? Has God been
trying to set us up for a downtime? And so what happens is, without
God, we are relationally unprepared to deal with and interact with
our God within the different times and seasons. So we mishandle
it. Have you within family dealings
ever been misunderstood by a family member so that they then mishandle
you or misspeak to you or mistreat you? I think that's a very, it's
not perfect, but it's a very similar thing, I think, to what
happens when we try to understand God when we don't understand
what God is doing. So if I misunderstand what God
is doing, I'm going to then assume things on Him. And where Solomon
is working through here is he's saying, no, you need to be reminded
that this is part of the human experience. This is part of,
not just the human experience, this is part of the plan of God. When we are able to do this,
when we experience any circumstance under the sun, that especially,
let's say it's an experience that you have tried to avoid
your entire life, when you have tried to say, I have tried to
do everything I can to protect myself from fill in the blank,
and that thing happens, we then find out how close we are to
God, and we also find out, does our theology match our relationship
with him? How many times Does it happen
within the world around us that someone who says, this is what
I believe, this is what I believe, this is who I believe, yet when
life goes difficult or life throws a tragedy, the answer is, I no
longer believe in him or in that. Why? Because they weren't prepared
to know that there very well may be a very, very difficult
time that does truly come from the hand of God. God. If we can name times like this,
as the preacher does here, if we can be prepared ahead of time
for what can await us in the world and even beyond the world,
we then are better equipped in our relationship with God because
our relationship with God stops being, and this word has popped
up a lot in my studies and even in my thoughts, our relationship
with God stops being transactional. I'll do my devos. I'll pray,
I'll do all these things, but I better get something out of
this. Many years ago, I had a young lady, a young woman who was going
through a very, let's just, I'm just gonna say it. She married
a jerk. She married a fool, and she married
an abuser, and she was one that very much was suffering the consequences
of that, and she was trying to do everything she could to try
to win back her husband. And she came to me and I could
tell it from the beginning that she was wanting to go to church
and get biblical counseling so that God would get back to blessing
her. That was why she was there. Multiple times I tried to tell
her, what needs to happen in your life is you need to take
care of what's going on in your life, and you need to grow strong
in your love for and relationship with the Lord for two reasons.
One, if God restores your relationship, you need to be the wife that
you need to be. And if he doesn't, you're gonna need to be strong
for that as well if God does not restore this relationship.
She came to church faithfully. She came to counseling faithfully.
She was always doing that. She did all those things. And
then the moment when the papers were filed, I never saw that
woman again. She never came back to church.
She never went under biblical counseling. She was done. She
was done with all of that. And I know, I could see it. I
could sense it. She's like, well, if I do A,
B, C, D, E, F, G, then God won't let this happen to me. That is a transactional relationship
with God. And when we have a transactional
relationship with God, verses one through eight are not going
to work. our relationship will be determined
on what we think God is doing to us, how he is blessing us,
or how he is hurting us. Remember what it said in Job
19, for I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will
stand upon the earth, and after my skin has been thus destroyed,
yet in my flesh I shall see God. There is an eternal reminder
there, even Christ himself is called and claimed to be, in
the Old Testament, a man of sorrows. Christ himself was that, and
so here, Solomon is taking on a number of roles. He's kind
of doing a little pastoring here. He is learning from God how to
enter into what are the Delightful and difficult times, no matter
what it is. That's kind of the shepherding
aspect. Even in terms of what he's kind
of preaching and proclaiming, maybe we would say on his declaring
preaching side, he is exalting God by not trying to censor everything. that we encounter, but he is
trying to encourage, to draw near to God, especially in the
whole of scripture. There's also here a little bit
of kind of an apologist type of thing, which is he is helping
us to recognize and think about life that we are able to deal
with and get some answers to questions that while we may not
like the answers to questions, they are there. We are able to
recognize that there is a God who is in control. He even maybe
evangelistically is telling us to look instead of what is going
on in the circumstances, to look to God. To look to the one who
truly has taken care of the biggest season of our life. What's the
biggest time frame that will take place in your life and the
biggest season that will take place in your life? It is what
will happen after this life. This life is a vapor. The most
important time frame of yours and my life is what happens after
we are on the earth. And God has taken care of that.
And God has provided for that. And God cries out to us and offers
up his forgiveness and salvation. So to be able to find what's
gonna come next, in verses nine through 15, to find this purpose
and even a nearness to God, we need grace. We need grace to
relate honestly towards what it means to live under the sun
in these times. So one quote, it says, we cannot
talk about our lives, ourselves, what we desire or what we fear
or what surrounds us without referring to time. Plan accordingly. How do I plan
accordingly to uncertainty? And the answer is, to plan accordingly
is I need to recognize who God is We need to recognize that
these different times are things that happen as a result of him.
Which, verse 9 of chapter 3 gets us to the beginning of this discussion
then. Because at this point, let's
say we just stop there. All right, done. God sets it
all up. Everything that happens to you
is because of the purpose of God. That's not a good stopping point
because you already know what's boiling up and welling up within
your conversation. Well, that's not fair. That's
not right. I don't like that kind of God.
I don't want to be able to deal with that kind of God. And so,
verse 9 kind of almost reminds us a little bit of chapter 1,
verse 3, way back in the beginning. Chapter 1, verse 3, what profit
has a man from all his labor in which he toils under the sun?
Verse nine, what profit has the worker from that in which he
labors? And while this seems a little
bit to go a different direction, we're getting into now, what
has God given us to do on this earth? And we might even say
here, how do we do the task that is given to us within these times
and seasons? So he's asking, what do you get? What do we get in terms of this?
In a sense, then we get verses 10 and 11, which really go together
as part of the response. I have seen the God-given task
with which the sons of men are to be occupied. He has made everything
beautiful in his time. Also, he has put eternity in
their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that
God does from beginning to the end. And so in typical Ecclesiastes
fashion, he doesn't give us a really great answer, although it is
an answer. What has he given us? This is
what we're to be occupied with. There's a beautiful aspect. He's
put eternity in our hearts. Now, God putting eternity in
our hearts is a very fascinating phrase there. There's a lot of
things we can say. Does that mean that God means that all
of us have this desire for God? Well, I think that is there and
other passages of scripture talk about this. But I also think
a little bit of what is going on here is I think Solomon is
saying God in some way puts this in all of our hearts that we
recognize and are asking the question, there's got to be a
bigger reason. There's got to be something bigger
and some big thing that is larger and we just can't quite kind
of wrap our minds around it. except no one can find out the
work that God does from the beginning to end. He says we all know that
this is true. We kind of know deep down inside
there's a God who's in control, but we can't figure it out. I
can't find out the work of God does from the beginning to the
end. I can't put all the pieces together. It's really easy for
Pastor Dave to stand up there and say, hey, every good, every
bad, all these times, that's all according to God. Fine, but
could I at least hear that God's going somewhere with this? Do
I get to see the results of the good, the bad, the ugly, and
the blessed when I get to the end? Or can I at least have a
little bit of a view of the end? Now, you know the right answer. Heaven is the end. But we don't
want just that. We want to know, is this hard
time I'm going through worth it? Is there anything about this
or am I just basically a lightning rod that God's just gonna keep
zapping for who knows how long? And God's answer is, there's
a purpose, zap. There's a purpose, zap. This
is now the frustration that Solomon's getting into. Instead of being
a good biblical writer who then says, thus prays the Lord, and
God shall grant you eternity and mercy, Solomon does what
he does knowing about the problem he's had this whole time. This
is not satisfactory is what Solomon is saying. I don't like the answer
here. He is basically saying, I do
not find comfort in the fact that there is a time and season
for everything, and I don't get to know why or what's going on
in those times and seasons for everything. God has made everything
beautiful, God has made everything appropriate for His time, and
He will not clue us in to His grand plan. We have this sense
that there is something going on, but that expectation and
those answers are not given, which is why you get verses 12
and 13. That's why I think he's put eternity on our hearts and
he hasn't given us the answers. I know that nothing is better
for them than to rejoice and to do good in their lives, and
also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good
of all his labor. It is the gift of God. There is a kind of a
resignation there. He's kind of saying that this
allows us to focus in on this thing. There is nothing better
than this, and this is where you're seeing again the end of
chapter two, verses 24 to 26. There is a bit of a disappointment
that is coming on here. It's easy then to try to get
back to just saying, well, I'm just gonna live in the moment.
Nothing is better for them than to rejoice, to do good in their
lives. Again, so just keep doing good. Every man should eat, drink,
and enjoy the good of all his labor is the gift of God. But
then we get to the very end. He says, I know that whatever
God does, it shall be forever. Nothing can be added to it and
nothing taken from it. God does it that men should fear
before him that which has already been and what is to be has already
been and God requires an account of what is past. Solomon now
is kind of digging into the next layer here. He is digging into
this deep-seated desire, maybe we would even say this compulsive
drive. Okay, because people are made
in the image of God, because we are designed and able to appreciate
the beauty of creation, at least on an aesthetic level, to know
the character and the composition of this world, at least on a,
maybe we would even say an academic and philosophical level. There's
also, what is important then is this discernment of the purpose
and destiny. And this is kind of the, I like
what one guy said, he was writing about this. He said, it's almost
like Solomon is running circles around the majesty and the madness
of living on this earth with a God who is in control. If time
forms this environment which, in which we live, we need to
understand and be reminded that God is a God, that there is a
purpose, and there are some principles we're allowed to take along the
path that help us when it comes to being here on this earth. I would almost say, you're really
not able to get to the rejoicing and doing good until you've been
able to say, I recognize that it is the hand of God that is
involved in all of these things, and I'm going to draw near to
him and trust him. I don't think you can get to
12 and 13 as much, or at least long-term realistically, without
acknowledging who God is. Time, which is really this purpose
of all of these times, time is kind of like a parent and we
are the kids. Time and what God is doing is, and I'm sorry, I
don't like this, I don't like this either, What God is doing
in time is not always our business. As a parent, was there ever a
time you pulled the, that's not your business? Not your business. You don't know the big picture.
You don't know everything that's going on here. Okay, your job
is to do what you're told, enjoy the blessings that we have given
you, enjoy the home that we have put over your head, all those
things, but you don't always know what's going on. And it
seems like, I believe, part of this is, Saul is right, there
are things that we do, being blessed by God, but we don't
always get to know everything that is going on. It's not always
our business. It's like being an employee and
a foreman says, this is the way you need to do the work that
you're doing. But what about the whole building?
You do the work that you have been given So there's a recognition
that we have work to do within our life that God has given to
us. I think another thing that is important here is we need
grace to be able to relate to the Lord in the days that we
have been given. God gave us time. Wherever we look, it's there.
We have eternity again in our hearts. And so whatever time
we are in, whether it is a time of quiet, where we are not at
battle with others, and we are not at war, when we are able
to have grace within our relationships. There are times when the world
is not as forgiving. In the New Testament, it seems
that we're over and over reminded, we see these situations, and
even when Christ is wanting to do this, there's difficulty that
he's having to be dealing with. When he wants to be spending
time with the Lord, there are people that need to be cared for, and
there's compassion that needs to take place. And so for us,
while there are times and seasons we are able to handle, we also
recognize there are times and seasons that on our own we are
going to need the Lord within those seasons. As I said, this
is the part that Job's friends were missing out on and we miss
out often as well. We do not adjust to the fact
that there are times that people in times in their lives are really
suffering and really going through a difficult time and it has nothing
to do of any fault of their own. And we need to recognize what
do they need right now? And I would even say sometimes
I would say they don't even necessarily need a theological lesson and
well God works all things together for good for those who love him.
It's not always the time for that verse. Sometimes the verse
needs to be God loves you, Or it needs to be, I'm here for
you and I love you. And that's it. What's the right
tool within these times? Maybe we might be able to see
it from verse seven. What is the time to keep silent? Silence is an interesting thing,
isn't it? What is the time to speak. Job's friends spoke truths out
of season. So we need to recognize what
is our God-given task and how do we do what God has called
us to do in the different times. We need to be able to recognize
these. We need to be able to yield to them. We need to be
able to handle them properly. We need to be able to adjust
to these seasons. So how do we do some of these
things? I think in terms of our relationships, we need to think
about these things. When we think about our relationships,
whether it is with our spouse, whether it is with our kids,
whether it is with our church family, or whether it is with
our family, we need to consider the fact that God is a God who
is at work in me, and God is a God who is at work in someone
else. Sometimes we can live our lives,
this is very true of me as a pastor, I can unfortunately live my life
acting like I am the most important person in someone's life, and
I forget God is the one actually, the Holy Spirit works in other
people as well. I know you're like, Pastor, you
don't think that, right? Obviously I don't think that, but sometimes
I kind of act like that. We all do, where we forget that
God is the one who is also doing a work in someone else. If someone
is going through a really difficult time, and someone is really having
a struggle, whether it's with sin, whether it's consequences
with sin, or it is a season, something that is out of their
control. Do they need you? Possibly, probably. What do they need the most? The
Lord. They need the work of the Holy
Spirit in their lives. So before you jump in, maybe
you should jump onto your knees and to be able to pray and really
bring this before the Lord and ask for wisdom in how to navigate
these things. I think it's true in terms of
the work that God gives us with our own roles. Our lives are
a bunch of roles. God has given us specific roles,
and within those roles, we have responsibilities. There are times
that we are more submission and yielding, and there are times
we have leadership and influence. So within those roles, this is
something that I've been blessed to be able to work through even
a little bit more intently over this last year through a study
I've been doing with a number of different men, really working
through what's my role in terms of husband, in terms of father,
in terms of son. And by the way, I do appreciate
the two guys of you that keep asking me every week, did you
call your mom? I haven't called my mom in a
few weeks. I'm in a little trouble here. I'm not doing a good job
as a son. What's my role there? What does it mean as a pastor?
What does it mean as a brother in Christ? What does it mean
to my neighbors? What is my responsibility to
my neighbors as a child of God? All of these things, it allows
us to kind of think and even kind of what's the timing or
what has God put me in a time and a place specifically for
those things. And the ebb and flows of these
things, I think, can help us think a little bit about how
do I get something started? If nothing's happening in a certain
role or relationship that I'm not handling biblically, how
do I gear that up? How do I start something like
that? Also, I need to know when to stop or pause or wait. One counseling situation I'm
in, we've been It's been a long-term one. And the other day I finally
said, we've actually gone a little long. We're going to take a couple
of months off. And there was a bit of a panic look in their
eyes for very good reasons because of some of the things they've
been walking through. I said, trust me, this is important.
You need to be working on this before God, not before me. And
so we're gonna take a break for a little while here. I'm gonna
give you some tools for you to be able to use biblically through
this process, but this cannot be a thing where it can be and
it can happen within biblical counseling. And by the way, it
may be happening in a relationship that you're in, you probably
should evaluate it, is this codependency type of thing. Where I'm taking
on all the burdens and I'm the one that they unload all their
burdens on, they never do anything, they just bear it all to me and
I try to give them good instruction and We can sometimes try to do
too much and do too much. When do I need to stop? When
do I need to hand off some responsibility? We fight against Sabbath. Maybe
you need to stop working occasionally. Maybe you need to stop doing
some things. We ignore our relationship with
God. We ignore the fact that in all
of these areas we need to grow in terms of those things. We
have to think about what we need in certain times. And we also
need to think about what do we do when we're in the difficult,
I would even say kind of rocky times. How do we deal with all
of these times? So what do we learn? I think
two things. One, God is the God of time. And that may be a little bit
bigger than you think. God is the God of eternity. God
is a God that is not limited by time. God is the creator and
the initiator of time. Now we only interact with God
on a time frame because that's our life. I still, I only can do it so
long because my brain starts to blow up a little bit. But
I still firmly, I think I rightfully can say that God has all the
time in the world to work on you and work on me because he
is not limited by time. For a person to say, well, how
can God hear all those prayers? God has all the time in the world,
every single moment of all of time. God is available to you
right now, fully, and completely. The reason we are not available
to each other fully and completely is why? Don't have enough time. We really should get together,
every single one of us. We would have a great time together.
We should go out and grab a lunch. Let's have you over. You have
us over. It would be a wonderful time. If I just said that's all
I'm going to do, I'm going to stop preaching. I'm going to
stop teaching. I'm just going to go and visit
all my folks. I know I will probably grow by
about 20 pounds, but it would be a biblical endeavor and a
godly endeavor. I still wouldn't be able to get
to it. One Wednesday night, I told the
group in there, I said I had kind of done the math on how
many people groups we have in our church. If I visit with,
I think it was three people, three either homes, whether it's
a couple or a family or a person, if I was able to do that three
times a week, all of the time, it would take me four years to
get to every home in this church. I don't have enough time for
you people. And you don't have enough time
for everybody. God does. God does. Those who are like,
I need to get there, anytime you think I really need to invest
in that person, I would encourage you, take a moment and pray.
Say, God, you can always do a better work than I can. Help me in the
time you have given me to do what you have called me to do.
I'm running out of time. I'm running out of time with
my kids. I'm running out of time here on earth. It just, it keeps
going. But God can use us little vapor-linked
life people walking through these times, but he is the God over
all of that. So there's that part, but also
God is the God who puts us in and allows and even gives these
type of times. And while we want to call into
question when they're bad and be really grateful when they're
good, the response is, this is the time and season that God
puts us into. So the question is, what do we
do with that? But also, God's a God of purpose. There is never a time that God
is not wanting to do something in our lives. And there's never
a time that God is like, is not gonna stop working in and through
us in our lives. And you could draw this out as
big as you want as well. Man, I, this week, this last week I had
a gentleman, godly gentleman, a very fun gentleman. He had
a tongue in his cheek the whole way. He was trying to change
my vote and who I voted for when it came to the presidential election. And he said, I believe if you
vote for this person, the rapture will happen the next day. So
I think you should vote for the rapture. To which I said, that may be
the best argument I've ever heard for voting for that person. But
I don't think you can guarantee that. God is the God of elections. God is the God of what happens
in the biggest of pictures, and the smallest of pictures, and
in each of those things, he is a God who is always accomplishing
his purpose. I am thankful for that, because
there are times I know I have not walked in wisdom in the times
and seasons that God has given me, and yet God still accomplishes
his purpose. Does that mean I'm off the hook?
Does that mean I won't be held accountable for doing things
wrong? No, I still will be held accountable but God still accomplishes
his purpose. I am so thankful that God loves
my kids and has greater purposes for my kids than I do because
I feel like I've been in the business of messing them up most
of my life. This can be true in so many things.
So again, there is this great confidence. Can you kind of feel
that? There's this confidence that as long as I keep coming
back to what is God calling me to do right here instead of trying
to figure out Instead of trying to figure out what's he doing
in the big picture, to be able to get up tomorrow morning and
say, what does God want me to do today? I would encourage you
to start in his word. I would encourage you to start
on your knees. I would encourage you to think about the task that
he has ahead for you throughout the day and think to yourself,
what does God want me to do there? How does God want me to interact
there? Maybe even to think, where is the place that I've been blowing
it every time I interact with that person, or I keep messing
things up and not handling it right in terms of that? And I'm
gonna deal with tomorrow, and I'm gonna handle the time and
season and place and purpose of God on Monday. And then I'm
gonna get to the end of my day, I'm gonna say, Lord, please take
that, and I know you're gonna do your work, and I'll see you
tomorrow morning. That helps us navigate with wisdom
the difficulties of life. Lord, I thank you so much for
this book, and thank you so much for these reminders, and Lord,
I thank you for the wisdom that you offer to us. Lord, help us. We want all the answers. There
are times that we want to read into what is going on in our
lives, and Lord, we know that there is sin, We know the world
that we live in. Lord, there are so many times
that we seem surprised when things are difficult. Lord, I pray that
you would help us not to take things like that personally.
Lord, I pray you would help us not to read into others' lives
the things that are happening there. Lord, for myself, I feel
like this has revealed for me some of the aspects that I very
easily tend to live my walk before you in a transactional nature. Lord, you know there's times
I am doing my best in my walk because I want you to bless the
church and bless me as a pastor and bless my family. I do want
all those things, Lord, but that's not the reason I'm supposed to
be walking with you. We are supposed to walk with
you because you are our God. You love us. We need to love
you, and we need to recognize who you are, and Lord, I thank
you that we can draw near to you. So Lord, as we think about
these things, Lord, I pray that you would help us to be reminded
of the verses that we are about to read as we close, Lord. We
would be reminded of the tasks that you have given us, and Lord,
you would grant us wisdom in the times and seasons. We ask
this in Jesus' name, amen. So I've said I'm gonna do it
every time, so I do wanna read these verses in conclusion. I
forgot this last time. I had it written down. Don't
forget to conclude the way we need to conclude. Ecclesiastes
chapter 12, verses 13 and 14. Let us hear the conclusion of
the whole matter. Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is man's all. For God will bring every work
into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or
evil. Tomorrow is a day to follow Him. I would encourage you to do it.
Times Are a'Changin'
Series Ecclesiastes
God is the God of Time & God is the God of Purpose
| Sermon ID | 1027242214457531 |
| Duration | 1:01:25 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - PM |
| Bible Text | Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 |
| Language | English |
Documents
Add a Comment
Comments
No Comments
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.