Please remain standing as we read now from Ecclesiastes 2.24 Ecclesiastes 2.24 Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink and 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. To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven. A time to be born, 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. What profit has the worker from that in which he labors? I have seen the God-given task with which the sons of men are to be occupied. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end. 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. 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. You may be seated. I've titled this sermon, Purposes and Purpose. And the reason for that is because this text shows to us, and will lead into as we go through the rest of Ecclesiastes 3 later today, it goes into this idea that if individual acts have meaning, there must be a meaning to the whole. In order for any purpose to matter, there must be purpose of the whole. that individual purposes derive their meaning as opposed to vanity or meaninglessness because of the fact that they fit together into a purpose, the purpose. And so we are hit with that. We start with, again, verses 24 through 26. And the reason I'm spending a little bit more time on those verses is because I want you to understand the difference of what is communicated there versus what's communicated shortly thereafter in chapter 3. Because one of them is called vanity and grasping for the wind. And the other part is said to be meaningful. And so if you put them side to side, they look very similar. And you might go, oh, Solomon is saying even for Christians, life here is vanity. The stuff that happens here is meaningless. And beloved, that theology, that what happens here in the physical world before we die, that it's meaningless and doesn't matter, is the type of theology that has led to evangelicals building everything worth having in America and then giving it away to the wicked. If everything we do here is vanity, even for the Christian, and that we just need to enjoy the vanity, if that's the case, then why build? Why leave anything to your heirs? Why suffer any hardship for future generations. Why? Think about three months from now, much less three years from now, or three generations from now. And so, look at verses 24 through 26 of Nehemiah chapter 2. Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor." So do you see that this is about eating and drinking, which are used as kind of representatives of the idea of consuming the enjoyable products of labor? It says, "...and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor." So the enjoying of the work and the enjoying of the fruits of the work. Nothing is better for a man than that he should enjoy the work and enjoy the fruits of the work. And this is read as a statement that's positive because it's so similar to what we see later on in chapter 3. OK, so jump with me. Let me see which page of the handout. It's pretty late. Let me see if I can find it for you. Page 7 of the handout. Chapter 3, verse 12. 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. So they sound pretty similar. They sound pretty similar. But let me point out some differences. We know the answer to the book. The good life is laid out for us in the book, and it's laid out for us plainly at the end of the book. Chapter 12 verses 13 through 14. Here's what it says. You see this in the bottom of page 7 of the handout. 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. Okay, so let me walk through that backwards. God will bring every secret thing into judgment. So if it's good or evil, God differentiates. Remember earlier on the idea that Wisdom is better than foolishness, in the same way that light is better than darkness, and that having eyes in your head is better than not having eyes in your head. You can tell the difference between things. So the ability to tell the difference between good and evil is what wisdom allows. Now, if God judges these things, there's an everlasting meaning to them. There are everlasting consequences and therefore everlasting meaning. The things that we're to choose, the good that we're to pursue is the fear of God, which is the beginning of knowledge and the beginning of wisdom. So we are to have certain doctrine in our minds, certain truths to be possessed. And we're to keep his commandments, those are the actions to carry out. So the fear of God, representing believing what God has revealed, and obedience to his commandments as the way of life. That is the positive message that we are to pursue. When you look at Ecclesiastes chapter three, verses 12 and 13, again, this is on page seven, it says, I know nothing is better for them, for man, than to rejoice. What gives cause for rejoicing? Something that's lasting. Something that's meaningful. Something that's good. So the rejoicing comes from salvation and from the knowledge of God. That rejoicing is good to do. And to do good. How do you know the difference between good and evil? If everything's meaningless, do you know the difference between good and evil? No. Doing good is the same thing as doing what God commands. to do good in their lives, and also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor." Now, so the eating and the drinking and enjoying the good of the labor is a part of what we're supposed to do in the good life, but it's not enough. And so we are kept from a spiritual asceticism where we say matter is bad, the spirit is good. We're kept from it because we're told it is good for us to enjoy these things in moderation, in the way that God commands in his law. Not drunkenness, not gluttony, not adultery, but instead the moderate use of drink and food and the proper place for sexual activity. All those things are to be done in the way that God commands in His law. And you know the difference between excess and moderation, or asceticism, based upon God's law. Now, on the other side, when we look at what is said back in chapter 2, verse 24 and 25, Nothing's better for a man than that he should eat and drink and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. Notice the enjoyment is in the labor and in the good of the labor. And that's defined for us in the context by the eating and the drinking. The good of the labor is the produce of it. That gets explained further. This also I saw was from the hand of God. That little sentence right there is often interpreted to mean God gave by his hand like he wrote with his finger the Ten Commandments and this message is from God. That's not the point here. The point here is that the labor and the fruit of the labor come by the providence of God. The hand of God is used generally in the scriptures to refer to the idea of the active power of God. His hand uses a symbol for him exercising power, not in this instance referring to his teaching. But rather, the argument is, you know, Earlier we were talking about pleasure being mixed with wisdom as a way of enjoying life. Perhaps wisdom is not sufficient and we need wisdom plus enjoyment for the purpose of life. And so then he goes on to say, well, you know what, maybe I could defend the idea that pleasure seeking is the good life because all of the power to enjoy good comes from the providential hand of God. And if God has providentially determined something, doesn't that justify the rightness of it? You see the categorical error there? This is the same argument that was used for what was called manifest destiny and nationalism generally. You say, you know, this people is the most powerful people in this geographic zone. And there's no geographic cutoff until that river or that mountain range or those seas. And therefore, isn't it really manifest providence that we should conquer all those spaces? Because it's just so obvious that that's the hand of God that was determined for how things would go. Therefore, it must be right for us to do what is so plainly evident in providence. And really, since God predestines everything, isn't everything justified morally? I guess that leads to there's no difference between right and wrong. I guess that means everything's vain. This is the line of reasoning that Solomon goes through right here. So watch this. Nothing's better for a man than he should eat and drink and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. This also, I saw, was from the hand of God. That's providentially God's the one that gives the food and the drink and He's the one that causes people to be able to enjoy their work and to have work and to succeed in their work. That's all true so far, except for nothing's better for a man. He's misdefined the good right there. Verse 25, for who can eat or who can have enjoyment more than I? So now he's saying, as an argument, he's saying this is the purpose because of the fact that also I'm the one that can most do this. It's convenient for him. For God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to a man who is good in his sight. saying, I've got all this stuff, I'm doing good things, and I've got wisdom and knowledge, God's giving me all these things. Further defense, the providence of God has given me all this stuff, therefore it must be good. But to the sinner he gives the work of gathering and collecting, that he may give to him who is good before God. Okay, so God organizes history, he's arguing, in such a way that the wicked are always put into servitude to the righteous. And that servitude, they provide them with the means of enjoying the fruits of labor. That's the argument. Then he says, He gives the work of gathering and collecting to the sinner that he may give to him who's good before God, the righteous. This also is vanity and grasping for the wind. If we read all this positively as Solomon accurately stating the actual purpose of life, at the end he says it's vanity and grasping for the wind, which means even for the Christian, life is meaningless, and a grasping for wind. Many people that I respect, weirdly, even people who generally read the book the same way I do, in terms of this idea that it's a polemic against false goods going back and forth between them, many of them, for some reason, read this section as a positive statement of the true view. And then they say, We should take away the fact that even though this is the right statement, it still leads to a sort of meaninglessness and grasping for the wind. And you need to accept that and accept that your life here is ultimately meaningless. And it leads to a sort of Gnosticism of application. Where you end up saying, all that really matters is the spiritual and the material does not matter. But beloved, it does matter whether you can feed your children or not. It does matter whether or not you can provide a roof for your family or not. For yourself. It does matter whether or not you can wield the sword against the wicked or they wield the sword against you. These things matter. The law of God tells us what to do in these things. To say that it's meaningless and a vanity and a grasping for the wind to apply the law of God is a blasphemous affront to the perfect commandment of God. It cannot be the case that this is man's all, and this is the whole of the matter, and also that it's meaningless. So this text is not a text positively describing. Instead, it is asserting a last effort by Solomon to defend the argument of the enjoyment of pleasure as the good being put alongside with or in the place of wisdom. So what he is doing is showing us that this effort to defend something because of the providence of God is a foolish argument. You do not know what's right and what's wrong on the basis of what happens. It wasn't righteous for Judas to betray Jesus even though God predestined it. Predestination of a thing does not imply its righteousness on the part of the actor who is held responsible. God controls everything and he holds men responsible. There's a difference between being the effectual cause, the one who determines what will happen, and being the responsible cause. God is the effectual cause of everything, but he holds men accountable. He causes them to choose. He turns the hearts of kings wherever He will. And then He holds them responsible for what they choose. So we'll get to that a little bit more again later as we get to this text. But right here, the argument in verse 26, God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to a man who is good in his sight. Remember, The story of Job. There are men who are wise and knowledgeable. And God takes from them in history the enjoyment of things. And He takes from them pleasures. He takes from them the fruits of their labor. He does this as a testing for them. And He ultimately at the judgment deals with it. So we have to recognize that this effort to say the providence of God is what gives the ability to enjoy, and therefore those who are enjoying are the ones who are receiving justice, makes the judgment all present. It flattens out history and eliminates delay of judgment. But to the sinner he gives the work of gathering and collecting that he may give to him who is good before God. Sometimes the righteous are enslaved and gather and collect for the wicked." So if this view were true, then Saul then would have to look around and when he looks around he would see that sometimes the wicked get rewarded in this life and the righteous get punished in this life. He's going to explain that in more depth in later chapters. He's giving you the summary answer right here. This also is vanity and grasping for the wind. This view is wrong. So now, go to page 2, chapter 3. To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven. If there's a time for every purpose under heaven, there must be a general purpose that it fits toward. This is what's happening here. When we talk about God's will, that's a term that's ambiguous. Ambiguity means that there's more than one meaning. Ambiguity has to do with the idea of multiple definitions, and it's important when you deal with ambiguities to be able to differentiate between the different definitions and to know when you're talking about which one. So when you talk about God's will, every time you hear anybody talk about God's will, you need to ask the question, which meaning are we using? There are two meanings that you need to be aware of. The first one is God's decree, and the second one is God's command. God's decree is what God has determined will happen. God's command is what you ought to do. So one is what is determined what will happen. The other one is what you should do, what your duty is. So those differences, what will happen and what you ought to do. People will ask the question, what is God's will for my life? Well, one answer is whatever he's predetermined. You might say, okay, what's God's will for my life? The other answer is whatever he commands. And you go, well, not everything he commands is predetermined to happen. That's right. You've sinned. You've sinned. Those are different things. They're not the same thing. So you have to deal with, when you deal with the will of God, it is best to make sure to disambiguate by saying, which one are we talking about? The decree of God or the commandment of God? Is this about what will happen? Or is this about what we ought to do? Now, to everything that God has commended, And to every lawful purpose, there's a time to perform the commandment. But this context is not just about what men should do, but rather that God has, by his determinative providence, chosen. He's chosen a time for things to happen, and he also commands things to be done at certain times. So I want you to take away two things here. There's two messages that are being communicated by this list of purposes. that there's a time for every purpose under heaven. First of all, remember that under heaven means under the government of God. He has planned every event that's ever happened and ever will happen. And He's doing that to accomplish the display of His glory. He has the purpose of creating this artwork of history to show what He intends to show. Also, He gives to us in His law Teaching for everything that ought to be done. For our lives, for us to choose meaningfully. There's no time when it is fitting for us to choose sin under the law of God. And God predestines all evil that happens to accomplish his purposes. So it's not meaningless when evil happens. He brings it into judgment. And he uses that evil for the good of his people. Think about the fall of Adam. When he fell, he left the place of a righteous servant and moved to the position of a condemned unrighteous servant. And that was in order that the second Adam might come to make him, rather than a righteous servant that would be rewarded like the righteous angels, instead, that he would be, by mercy, by the works of another, a righteous son who receives the inheritance, not just of wages for his work, but inheritance as a son of God who receives all things. So that purpose in the sin of Adam. And then, with the predestined Betrayal of Jesus by Judas. The wicked condemnation by the Sanhedrin. The wicked condemnation by Pilate. The wicked murdering of Jesus by the Roman soldiers. All of those sins predestined to bring about the redemption of the race of man. God predestined even the sins. to accomplish a purpose and to bring about the good. That centurion that oversaw the murder of Christ and then said, truly, this man is the son of God, he was predestined to supervise the murder of Jesus so that he would be saved. That man's sins were predestined for his good. So God makes everything fit in to show his purpose. And the law provides for us the instruction set for fitting choices. It is fitting for God to predetermine sins and to put them into the timeline for the purpose of showing His own justice and mercy. God has a place for all subordinate means and ends to be used for the ultimate end. His goal, to glorify Himself, His means, everything He predestines to bring it about. His assignment of ends and means to us, He tells us we should glorify Him. And even if we rebel against Him, we will glorify Him by being objects of His wrath to show His justice. If we pursue His glory and enjoy Him, we are objects of His mercy, and we show His glory by showing His mercy. So His assignment of ends and means to us requires us to have a theory about the order of means. What does what to bring about what? We have to evaluate the situation as rational creatures. We have to choose means, and we have to execute those means. If life is meaningless, there are no goals worth chasing, no means worth employing, If life is meaningful, then we must know the goal. We must know the means to employ. So if our goal is to enjoy the glory of God, and to show the glory of God, and to encourage others to see and enjoy the glory of God, then the law of God is the perfect explanation of how to accomplish that goal. We have to judge using the law of God, and we have to evaluate particular facts, particular situations. So think about this. There's a season for everything. Isn't that overwhelming? You go, well, I have to know the season, the right time, for everything. That's for the good life. You might go, that seems overwhelming. How will I ever know all the things to do with all the things? That's a lot of things. How will I know all the things to do with all the things? And then, in case the point didn't sink in, Solomon in v. 2 says there's a time to be born and a time to die. There's a time to plant and a time to pluck what's 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. Then you go, Many volumes have been written about when to do which of those. Is there a place where there is sufficient instruction to know about all of those things? Well, the law of God. Every philosopher has to define the good, and Christianity defines the good as God. And so how do you get the good? You know God, you get his essence, you get his nature, you get his attributes, his glory in you by knowing him. Page three, God is the good and he has a goal in creating. He wants to display his glory. Point 10, men ought to glorify God. as a corporate goal, that's not just us as individuals, there's too much to do, there's too much to figure out, so we have to work together. That's what the church is for, the city of God. There's too much to bear, too much to do, too much to learn, for us to do it alone, especially as men who live 70, or if we're strong, 80 years. Man ought to glorify God as an individual goal. And we ought to work together. Page four. A time to be born and a time to die. So now, we begin to think about this. And you ask yourself about these particular things. And each of these becomes a weighty thing to consider. You know, when you say a time to be born, you might go, well, I don't get to pick when I'm born. Sure, God predestines when you're born. But the literal Hebrew here is a time to bear. When is it time to give birth? When is it time to seek to have child? and time to die. You see how now it becomes a little bit more about, oh, there are things I have to make choices about there. The sixth commandment teaches us when it is time to bear children and when it is time to die. This is the questions of life and euthanasia. The Sixth Commandment is what teaches us there. And if you study the Sixth Commandment in the larger catechism and look at all the verses that are organized around it, there is much depth. There is much to plumb. Much to look for. The general rule is that men should get married and have children. So when is the time to bear? Generally, it's always time to bear. It's always time to have children. Except, well, there are exceptions. Except, in times of persecution, it might be wise for a man to not allow his daughter to marry. Remember 1 Corinthians? But, it's not sin if he chooses to allow her to marry. That's what Paul teaches. But there is some prudence to be considered. It is now a good time to encourage marriage. Those things must be chosen. And then for those who are married, the idea that there's an assumption that if you're married, that that means it's the time to bear. That there is this having of children. Then there's the time to die. You know, the general rule is you are to preserve life, and you preserve your own life. Except that the Lord Jesus Christ, for example, gave His life as a sacrifice. Was that sin when He gave His life as a sacrifice? No, He knew the time to die. There are times when men must spend their lives to accomplish things. The general rule is you have a duty to preserve your own life. When there's no wise way to preserve your life, and especially if there's some duty to risk your life to preserve some other, you make the best you can with your remaining time. And there are things that you do, you prepare your soul, You prepare your estate, and you prepare your heirs. And so this little thing, it sounds nice, and it sounds kind of profound, and then you realize, wait a second, there actually are times for these things. There are times to bear children, and there are times to die. And you have to be able to evaluate, in your own life, when is it wise to start to pursue having children, and when is it wise to die? Time to plant, time to pluck up. Pluck what is planted. What governs this? The Eighth Commandment. Planting is about economic value. You might say it's for beauty, okay. Would you ever pay anybody to do that? Do people pay anybody for landscaping? Is there anything about beauty that you have to deal with as an economic thing? It's a luxury. The beauty of landscape is a luxury that comes from extra resources that you don't need to survive. People who are incapable of doing enough work to feed themselves do not generally mow the lawn. There's a time to plant and a time to pluck what's planted. The Eighth Commandment teaches us about this. The general rule is to take the wilderness and to prepare it to do more, to prepare the wilderness to be a garden, to be a farm, to make it into an orchard or a vineyard Normally, what's been made should be maintained and not plucked up. Sometimes it's time to destroy what's been made because it becomes ineffective. Fruit trees, typically, for example, have a limited lifespan of utility. At a certain point, you have a fruit tree and it's giving you fruit in its season, year after year after year after year. At a certain point, the fruit is bad. And you have to tear down that tree. You cut it down, you pluck it up, and you plant again. There's also times when you have property that's productive and you have some enemy that could obtain it. And if they obtain it, they can use it further for your harm. And so you might destroy it. There's also times where you've got something that's perfectly productive, but now there's a better use than that productive thing. Have you ever seen farmland turn into a subdivision of houses or industrial facilities? Someone determined we can make more with this land than growing cotton on it. That's Arizona, that's all we grow. And so, in that space, there's a need to tear up, to pluck up what was planted and to replace it with increased productivity. Verse 3, page 5. A time to kill and a time to heal. This is governed by the sixth commandment. The general rule is you're not to kill. What are the exceptions? Defense, just war, criminal punishment. You're very familiar with those. Why are you familiar with them? Because you've studied the law of God on that subject. There are details. What things should you defend? Which rights should you defend and which ones should you give away? You might not defend your horse from being stolen and risk your life and legal problems unless you need your horse to get out of some place alive, in which case you might risk your life to defend your horse. There are things like that where you have to make choices, where you take matters of law and you apply them to particular situations. And the law is sufficient for it, but our judgments rely upon evaluating stuff that comes to our attention in life. When the time to heal, the general rule is to heal those who are in need. Jesus was asked, who's my neighbor? And he gave a story about a Levite, a priest, walking by a man who was injured. And then a Samaritan walking by the man. And as opposed to just walking by and leaving him in his injuries, he heals him to the best of his ability. Not fully healed, but he dresses up wounds. And then he takes him to a place where he can receive further help. And so that man served as a neighbor. He did an act of love. And so who acted as the neighbor? The idea there is that to be a neighbor rightly, to do what's fitting to neighborliness is to carry out the law. The general duty we have is to heal. Are there ever times when it's wrong to heal? Would the times when it's proper to kill be times when it's wrong to heal? Sometimes you might not heal would be if you don't have the resources to do so while taking care of your other duties. Another time might be when it would put you under undue risk. Combat medics have to make that decision. They see somebody injured in a position that's exposed to fire, and they have to make the choice to not throw their lives away, to fruitlessly try to go heal somebody else. There are times when enemy combatants should not be healed, but instead should be killed. Historically, one of the jobs of an armor bearer or of a shield bearer was to follow the main warrior around and to fight by his side as necessary, but also when the main warrior won and defeated his enemy, knock him to the ground, and moved on to fighting the next guy, the shield bearer's job was to make sure he was dead and couldn't follow on and attack them from the rear. That man's job was not to heal. His job was to kill enemy combatants who had been removed from temporary harm, and his goal was to remove them permanently from harming in the war. Remember when Jonathan went up with his shield-bearer? He had a sword, his shield-bearer had a sword. They were the only two. They went up to the camp in the Philistines and they fought. That was his shield-bearer's job, was to make sure that there's a death given to those that were first defeated. Now, because there were so few of them and so many of the enemy, they were probably both fighting side by side. But then, when there was a need to check, he'd be the one that would pause and go to the rear and make sure that was all taken care of. A time to break down and a time to build up. What governs that? The Eighth Commandment. Breaking down is necessary in war when you tear down other people's buildings. And there's times in peace where you must destroy buildings. You've seen buildings with demolition done to them, that something might be built in its place. Again, that's the same principle. There was a farm and you replaced it with a building. There's a building and you replace it with a different building that will generate more economic value. There's a time to break down. Laughing is about suffering and enjoyment. And it's about contentedness and discontentedness. So the Tenth Commandment governs that. Don't covet. Instead, have right desires. Be content. But also, laughter relates to partying, and to mirth, and to enjoyment, and feasting. You know, Solomon has spent a lot of time talking about his hall as a king. and all the partying that went on there. What is partying in the halls of kings about? Why do kings have halls to host events in? Because it is fitting to laugh and to feast when you have had victories. It is fitting to laugh and feast and rejoice when you've accomplished something. It's fitting to reward those who have worked hard and sacrificed by giving them a time of rejoicing and enjoyment and to lift up their spirits and to share in times of camaraderie and to say, Look what has been done. Let us recount the blessings of God. Let us recount the acts of men that are worthy of honor. These are times to laugh. The seventh commandment deals with the moderate use of meat and drink and all those enjoyments. And with weeping too. The seventh commandment deals with us keeping a level head. It's possible to weep when men ought not to weep. It is possible to give oneself over to despair. One of the things that the Romans noticed as they were worried about the decline of manly virtue in the Roman Republic is they started to worry, I wonder if these tragedies that were written by the Greeks that we've brought into our culture are starting to reduce the manliness of men. We see men crying over plays as actors on a stage lie to them about events in their lives, but they don't give a tear over the misfortune of their fellow countrymen. What is this disorder in the souls of men? And so, I think there's a place for tragedies and for drama and a utility for them as pieces of art. But it is possible to care too much about fictitious men and too little about true men. And so there's a time to weep and there's a time to laugh. And the law of God tells us when we should do each. There's a time to mourn and a time to dance. The same principles apply. mourning and weeping, laughing and dancing. The 7th and 10th Commandments teach us on these things. A time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones. Remember, we talked a little bit about this when I flew over this before, but why do you gather stones? Well, building projects. But also memorials. Do you remember? Do you remember that when Israel had something worth remembering, they would build memorials often. One time when they were crossing over the Jordan, They stack 12 stones, one for each of the tribes, to remember when God caused the water of the Jordan to stop and heap up. So these stones are for remembering. There are times to cast away stones, to tear down what's been built, or to cause things that are being held onto to no longer be remembered. One example would be, remember the bronze serpent that God gave to Moses? And that bronze serpent was for the purpose of the people looking to God, and there was a symbol of a bronze serpent, and they were in the midst of a number of serpents that were poisonous. And God said, look to this bronze serpent, and you will be healed. That was a symbol for Christ, looking to Christ would cause us to be healed from death. by the serpent. But then the people started to worship that bronze serpent. And what did King Hezekiah do? He chopped it up. He took something that was a memorial, and he destroyed it because of its abuse. And so these things, the tearing down, the casting away of things according to their fitting times, the time to cast away stones, the time to gather stones, There's a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. The 5th commandment teaches us about countenancing and discountenancing. The 7th commandment about who it's appropriate to give our affections to. A time to gain and a time to lose. This again is about the 8th commandment. You know there are times when your job is not to try to gain. Your job sometimes is to mitigate damages. Sometimes your job is to destroy. Warfare again. It's a time to destroy. A time to keep and a time to throw away. The second commandment teaches us to destroy idols. The fifth commandment teaches us that we have a duty sometimes to keep things that honor other people. The sixth commandment teaches us that there are dangers that sometimes must be destroyed. Traps, harms, pits, things that are a snare to other people's health. The seventh commandment, we should throw away things that have to do with lasciviousness. Eighth commandment, we should throw away things that make it so that space is not properly used. And all these things, there's a time, and the law teaches about them. Tearing down and sowing. Again, the same commandments. A time to keep silence, a time to speak. The first commandment teaches you when you ought to speak truth, and your duty to not blaspheme, but to hold your tongue. The second commandment teaches us about order in worship. Who should keep silence right now, and who should be speaking? The fourth commandment teaches us about the ordering of time and when we should speak about what. The fifth commandment about who should speak in what order and how to honor with speech and what things not to say. The sixth commandment about not giving provoking words. The seventh commandment It teaches us to not say things that would tempt others. The 8th commandment causes us to speak things that would help to encourage economic activity and write contracts. The 9th commandment about guarding reputation and not speaking false accusations. And the 10th commandment to not stir up covetousness. The law of God teaches us about speaking in silence. A time to love and a time to hate. We ought to love God. We ought to express love towards God, not with hypocrisy. We ought to keep our oaths and pursue the love of God. We should honor properly in our relationships. The fifth commandment teaches us about the orders of love, who to focus on in what order. The sixth commandment about executing those who deserve punishment and guarding those who do not. Each of the commandments teaches about how to do these things, who to seek to destroy, who to seek to guard. And war and peace, war is the most magnified form of strife. And there are times when others are so unpeaceable that you have no choice that can be righteously accepted but to seek to destroy. All of these things are laid out, and the question is given, what profit has the worker from that in which he labors? All of these are work. Think about that list, all of these acts of work. Planting, plucking, work. Killing, healing, work. Breaking down, building up, work. Weeping and laughing, mourning, dancing, throwing away and gathering, embracing and refraining from embracing. These things are all difficult or easy, depending on their time and your attitude, but they're all works that we're told to do at particular times. What profit has the worker from that in which he labors, if it's all vain? Nothing. He fills in the answer, though. The answer that's given to us is, I've seen the God-given task with which the sons of men are to be occupied. Earlier it was about the hand of God in terms of his providence, and now it's about God giving the task by his command. This task is given by his command. He has made everything beautiful in its time. That's an assertion about aesthetics and beauty. Things done at the proper time are beautiful. Things done in a fitting way is beautiful. Do you know what the Bible says is beautiful? Things that are fitting are beautiful. This is the biblical aesthetic. This is the biblical theory of beauty, is to put things in a fitting place and a fitting time, and they're beautiful. Talk about the beauty of holiness. The beauty of holiness is the beauty, not that we should adorn holiness with, but that holiness by itself is beautiful. That this idea that the purpose of glorifying God and doing the things that we should do to glorify God, that that's beautiful. And when our tastes do not find it beautiful, that tells you that there is something wrong with your taste buds, wrong with your eyes, and not with that beauty. But instead that we have a duty to seek to reform, to reshape, to realign our standard of beauty, for our affections to be reordered. And the word of God is powerful to cleanse us. to take our eye that is dirty and tearing up and obscuring the form of beauty and to wash it out that we might see the form of beauty as God has given it. We begin to appreciate things properly as the Word of God cleanses us and our vile affections are healed. We are made new by the Word of God. Not that the old man is totally eliminated. You're the same man. But that which is malformed and that which is lacking is replaced with right form and it is filled. What profit has the worker from that in which he labors? I have seen the God-given task which the sons of men are to be occupied. He's made everything beautiful in its time. His response to this pleasure-seeking is, there's a higher pleasure that worldly men do not know of. It is the beauty of holiness. It is delighting in seeing the truth of God and seeing His glory. Also, He has put eternity in their hearts. We need a true beauty, not a beauty that diminishes. If sex becomes your god, if wine becomes your god, if entertainments and laughing become your god, they become more and more disappointing over time. But the beauty of holiness increases in its enthralling power as you get it more and more. It increases and does not diminish, unlike the excesses of this life. And He's put eternity in their hearts. It's not enough for things to be about today. Men need meaning that lasts. And so he's put everlasting in our hearts. He's put eternity in our hearts that will pursue it. except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end. God's given us a desire for things that last, and he's given us a desire for meaning. And here's the thing, God is infinite, and his working is infinite, and we will never find it all out. And so therefore, we'll never run out of new beauty to see. and every piece of new beauty will make the whole more beautiful. You see a work of art and you think that's well done, but if somebody added an extra line or an extra house in the picture or whatever, it'd be too much. But God as an artist is so magnificent that everything he adds to the art makes it more beautiful. There's never an unnecessary stroke. There's no extra things. There's not too much in it. It never is too busy. He's made it perfect. And every time you see the new feature, it becomes more beautiful to you. And God says, I've been looking forward to seeing you see that one. And he has the whole of it from beginning to end plant. On page seven, 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. We should rejoice in God who is beautiful and who gives beauty for us to behold. We should do good which is determined by the law of God. We should eat and drink and enjoy the good that comes from our labor because our labor, we can have good labor because we have the law of God. And then we can enjoy these things and give thanks to God because God is the focus. We can eat and drink to the glory of God. We can acknowledge it to be the gift of God. God's the one who gave it to you. And you can rejoice and give thanks in that. Page eight. I know. And whatever God does, it shall be forever. None of his works pass away. None of them are forgotten. God doesn't make a show and then go, oh, that was really bad. We're going to remove it from the canon of the series. Everything that happens perfectly fits and is beautiful. It shall be forever. Nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. His work is sufficient. There's nothing that needs to be added. And His work has no unnecessary components to display His glory properly. Everything that's ever happened to you has a purpose to maximally display the glory of God. Any little thing. God does it that men should fear before Him. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. It's the beginning of wisdom. God causes every little thing so that He can display His glory to the fearers of Him and to use these things to bring about the fear of Him, the knowledge of Him. That which is has already been. In other words, the things that you're going through right now, this slightly over time sermon being inflicted upon you, that you're politely sitting through, was predestined from eternity past. So you should blame God, not me. No, we just argued against that. Additionally, What is has already been. It's predestined. What is to be, the future, has already been. The future's already predestined. And God requires an account of what is past. So God intends to tell the story and to hold accountable his courtroom in the last judgment. And because of the fact that we don't have any business I'm going to just immediately move into calling for the congregational meeting so that we can conclude that I don't think there's any business to discuss and we can round that out. So. We ask that you would cause us to delight. In your beauty. We pray, Father, that you would help us to enjoy our work and the fruits of our work, thinking of you and your glory, putting every thought captive to Christ. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. Comments, questions, objections from the voting members and those with speaking rights? Mr. Price.