Transcript

Brett Kays says this about how movies tend to twist reality: In movies, all grocery shopping bags contain at least one stick of French bread. The ventilation system of any building is the perfect hiding place.

A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds. Cars that crash will almost always burst into flames. People usually confess on the stand during a trial.

Persons are easily knocked unconscious by a blow to the head, and they never suffer a concussion but only end up with a small headache. It is always possible to park directly outside the building you are visiting, even in a busy city.

Any lock can be picked by a credit card or a paper clip in seconds—unless it’s the door to a burning building with a child trapped inside.

All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red readouts so you know exactly when they will go off.

It does not matter if you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involving martial arts; your enemies will patiently wait to attack you one by one by dancing around in a threatening manner until you have knocked out their predecessors.

Computers always turn on immediately. The coffee’s always ready. The tea kettle is already boiling. No one makes the bed, and the bed is always made.

Movies do tend to twist reality, but Solomon does not do so in the Book of Ecclesiastes. He’s right up front and honest and doesn’t sugar-coat things. He tells us how life really is, such as what we find in chapter 3 of this book.

Solomon here presents a series of snapshots of real life, pictures of reality that capture the good and the bad, the positive and negatives of life.

Most of us fill our photo albums with only positive memories. But Solomon here portrays life in its stark reality.

In life’s journey we face many different circumstances and experiences. And sometimes we laugh, other times we weep. Sometimes we hurt, other times we are filled with joy. Sometimes we have gains and are glad, others we face loss and we grieve.

Sometimes we really blow it. Other times we get it right. Sometimes we fall, other times we triumph. All of these are part of life and its journey.

But also in this passage we find how God cares about our life, is there always and involved in every area, and that He works through our collective experiences to make something beautiful in His time and for His glory.

Ecclesiastes 3:1: “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”

In this book we find Solomon on a quest for purpose and doing research into the meaning of life. As a result of his study, Solomon observes that there is a season for everything, and a time for every happening in life.

Each phase in life has its proper “season” which speaks of an appointed duration. It’s like the seasons of the year, that they are an extended period of time with an appointed duration, then it leads into another season. Life has different seasons like that.

And Solomon observes every happening in life has its proper “time” which speaks of a fixed point in time that things occur.

He sees in these verses that life is filled with cyclical patterns, which just keep reoccurring over and over with regularity in mankind’s history. The same thing happens to each generation, generation after generation.

But as Solomon notes that there are APPOINTED seasons and times in our lives, he’s aware of something that rules and orders things.

Solomon observes that events in our lives just enter at will, and there’s a time for this in life and a time for that, and we are helpless to stop their arrival and we are unable to control their departure. But he knows that it is God who is in control, it is God who is with us, it is God who steers us all into the future with His providential hand.

And so we can know that from our birth to our death, when it is time for this and time for that in our lives, God is accomplishing His divine will and purpose in us, even though we don’t always understand what He is doing.

These verses affirm that God cares and is at work in our individual lives. And in understanding this we know that life is not meaningless. God has a purpose for our lives. Knowing that God is making all things beautiful in His time brings meaning to our lives.

Following his general statement about life, Solomon gives us a cross-section of life through a beautiful poem of 14 pairs of positive and negative, contrasting, familiar events, by which he expresses that God has a sovereign design behind all the events that take place in our lives.

Ecclesiastes 3:2: “A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.”

The list begins with reference to the beginning and end of a person’s life in this world. When life boils itself down to the basics it all just goes back to birth and death. There’s a time to be born and a time to die. And we can’t control either one.

In Psalm 31:15 the writer says, “My times are in Thy hand.” Unless the Rapture happens, we all have an appointment with death that we will keep someday. Hebrews 9:27 says, “it is appointed unto men once to die.”

Mel Lawrenz says this, “When I turned 27, I reached an age that my father never did. He died of pneumonia at 26. He’d just started adult life, really.

As I approached my 27th birthday, I had this strange feeling that I was about to cross a definitive line, like when an explorer marks the place that is the farthest reach of the previous explorer and then takes one more step into new territory, off the map, over the edge and no turning back. There was nothing at all pleasant about this sensation.

It was frightening and lonely and I was embarrassed by it, so I hardly told anybody. To be more exact, I felt like I was living on borrowed time, like I had gone further in life than I should have.

I began fearing for my wife and children. What if I left them when they were only two and four years old, which was how old my sister and I were when our father died? What could I do to stop pneumonia or cancer or a plane crash?

What commitments can I make? Is there anything much in life I have control over? I came to believe that this sense of mortality, which is still vivid to me now with another 25 years having passed and my kids in college, that it is a good thing. Why should we not feel mortal? We are. This is not morbid—it’s just real.

And it drove me to believe [and to trust God with my life and live for Him]. It drove me to impart a sense of purpose in my children, a connection with their heavenly Father, that they would trust Christ and be filled with the love of God.

Remembering our mortality is not a bad thing. Pastor C. R. Stam rightly said one time, “Let’s stop living for this life as if it were never going to end and for the next as if it were never going to begin.” We need to live in light of eternity and for the Lord.

Life is short. Eternity is long. Death is certain. Christ is the answer.

Living for Christ we find meaning, purpose and an abundant life. And in Christ, we have a life that stretches into and for eternity, with death being just a bridge into our eternal life in Him and in His presence forever.

Solomon writes, “a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.” The only way to get a crop is to cooperate with the seasons. You don’t plant when it’s harvest time or winter time, and you don’t harvest at the wrong time either. Timing is everything. Agriculture demonstrates how there’s an appropriate time for everything.

And so it is in life. Sometimes God plants us where we live and work or go to school, and sometimes God plucks up what is planted, uproots us and moves us. He does it in His time according to His will and purposes and for His glory.

Ecclesiastes 3:3-5: “A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.”

In life, we are confronted with the polar opposites of the tragedy of killing and the joy of healing, with the taking of human life and the saving of human life. Sometimes they’re back-to-back stories on the news or beside each other in the newspaper.

There’s dying and death and healing and life all around us in this world, and we are forced to deal with these opposites in life, and face them firsthand sometimes, but we do so knowing God is in control.

“A time to break down and a time to build up” we see around us quite often. We see demolition crews followed by construction crews, buildings destroyed then buildings constructed

We also see it in the scenes of life. Sometimes we face hard times where we are tore down, put down, criticized, and other times where we are built up, encouraged, have our spirits raised, like a building that is raised.

We see this also in terms of ages and periods of life, when in youth we find a time of building up and muscles grow, abilities increase, and coordination gets better.

But over time, things begin to “break down”: type gets smaller, steps get higher, things go faster, and people speak lower. Building up and breaking down is a part of life.

From the concepts of death and life and destruction and construction, Solomon writes of the human responses to these events in life. We all experience weeping and mourning, and laughing and dancing in life. We run the full gamut of emotions in life.

And no one is going to escape the hurts and sorrows of life, no matter how hard we may try to run or shield ourselves from it. And the longer we live, the more we experience this.

Our Savior in His earthly life was “touched with the feeling of our infirmities” Hebrews 4:15 says. And He experienced weeping and mourning. Isaiah 53:3 says that He was “a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3).

In this fallen world there will be times of hurt, sorrow, weeping, and mourning in troubled relationships, divorce or the loss of a loved one.

But there’ll also be bright times where we laugh and smile and find times of cheerfulness and joy, among our families, in the birth of children and grandchildren, in wedding celebrations, graduations, during holidays, job promotions, etc.

A time to cast away stones and gather stones and embrace and refrain from embracing speaks to us of our relationships with others and social structure.

Stones were used for building walls and houses at that time. “Casting away” speaks of scattering and (pardon the pun) it speaks of when relationships go through “rocky” times, of when embracing and closeness isn’t there as a result of problems.

But the gathering of stones and times of embracing speaks of the closeness, nearness, confidence, understanding, and building together of relationships. So our relationships in life will have times of ups and downs, rocky and smooth times.

Ecclesiastes 3:6-8: “A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, 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.”

A time to get [or gain], and a time to lose. This has been dubbed the weight-watcher’s verse! It’s like the person I can relate to who said, “I lost three pounds on a diet, but I found them and five more.” But really, this verse makes us think of finances when we go through ups and downs in this area as well.

Or it makes us think of business cycles with fluctuating profits and losses, being in the black one year, being in the red the next.

A time to keep, and a time to cast away [or throw away]. This has been called a garage sale verse! It makes us think of our closets, garages, basements, and attics. We accumulate and keep and then it comes time to get rid of our stuff and cast it away.

Solomon shows here though that there are times in our lives when we get to keep the things we love, but then there are hard times when we are forced to give them up.

Of course our minds go to those we love in life, and how our children are with us for a time, but then we must let go when they move on to begin their lives and homes. Or it speaks of those we love in life who pass away, and we are forced to let them go.

Solomon says there is a time to rend [or tear apart], and a time to sew. In Scripture we find that the Jews used to tear their garments out of intense grief and in their mourning. And so Solomon reiterates that there will be times of sorrow in life.

But after a while there comes a time when we get out the needle and thread and start sewing things up, and we start to get ourselves put back together again.

Silence and speaking goes along with this thought of deep grief. Job 2 says that after losing his children and possessions, Job didn’t speak for seven days.

Keeping silence speaks of hard times, when one is hurting and doesn’t know what to say or doesn’t need or want to speak. And like “a time to sew,” a time to speak refers to better times, coming out of the hard times.

There is a time to love and a time to hate. Believers are to walk in love as Christ has loved us, and extend Christ’s love to all those around us.

Psalm 97:10 also says, “Ye that love the Lord, hate evil.” After a young Abraham Lincoln first saw a living slave offered in New Orleans on a slave block, he wrote this, “There was a rising hatred inside of me against slavery, and I swore if someday I could do something about it, I would do something about it.”

There are evils and injustices in this world that believers ought to rightly hate. And like God, we should love sinners and hate sin.

And Solomon says there is a time of war, and a time of peace. When tyranny runs over the rights of mankind, war is often necessary, and there is a time for war.

And because of the times of war in this country, we have the right and ability to assemble each Sunday to worship and preach God’s Word freely, and we can live without fear with our families in our homes and communities and use the time of peace for Christ.

Ecclesiastes 3:9-11: “What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth? I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it. He hath made every thing beautiful in His time: also He hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.”

Solomon has a question lingering in his mind that he posed in the first 2 chapters also, “What lasting gain has the worker for all his toil and labor?”

He again raises the value of a persons’ work and labor after considering all these events and activities and times and seasons in life.

He sees that for every plus there is a minus in life, for every constructive activity there is a destructive one, for every up there’s a down, so what’s the point in it all?

He says in verse 10 that he’s seen the travail, he’s conducted an exhaustive survey of all the activities, employments, pursuits, and endeavors that God has given to man to occupy his time, as explained in verses 1-8. And he wonders, Is there profit in all this?

Apart from God, the answer is that there is no profit and no point. But with God, the answer is YES, there is a profit, there is a point to life.

In verses 10,11 God enters the scene, and now things begin to make sense and life now has meaning, direction and purpose. God makes everything beautiful in His time.

If we look at life strictly from a worldly perspective like Solomon without God involved, we see futility and meaninglessness. But with Him involved, everything changes.

When we see life through the lens of faith, through God’s eyes, in His time, a picture begins to come together, a beautiful picture of His working and grace in us, where He can and does create something beautiful out of the brokenness of our lives.

God knows all about our unfulfilled expectations. He knows all about our experiences. He knows all about reality. He knows that we don’t always get it right and stumble in life.

He knows us before we were born and in the womb. He knows when it’s our time to die.

He knows when we are broken down and built up. He knows when we cry and mourn and when we laugh and dance. He knows when we embrace and refrain from embracing in our relationships, when we gain and lose, and keep and cast away.

He knows when we are grief-stricken and feel silent and quiet. He hears us when we speak and He knows when we love and when we hate.

God knows everything about the human experience. He knows all the minute details of your experience. And He knows why everything happens. He sees the small, little picture that you see of the moments and details of your life.

But He also sees the big picture of your life and how He is creating something beautiful in His time, and working all things together for your good.

And He sees the huge canvas that He paints on of how everything unfolds in the light of eternity. We cannot know all the answers to all the questions of life. There are some things in life you’ll never know and I’ll never know on this side of heaven.

These things are fully understood by a sovereign God who transcends time. He sees the beginning and the end and all points in between. We see today, God sees eternity.

We will not understand everything in our temporal world. We are mere men, who cannot fully comprehend the sovereign eternal plan of almighty God.

As Solomon says “no man can find out the work that God does from the beginning to the end.” So we should just trust Him, trust the One who is making everything beautiful in His time.

In doing so we can know that there is purpose in tragedy, there is reason in pain and suffering, because we know His sovereign hand is at work in us, and He is in control and we are not, and we need to depend on Him more and more and more.

Because living a surrendered life to God leads to living a life of beauty.

Your unemployment, your failures, financial difficulties, your hospital stays or doctor’s reports, your battles or addictions, your lost romance, your heartaches, your depression and sadness, He knows and He cares, and He’s working in your life. God is always at work.

And notice how verse 11 says “every thing.” God wouldn’t say “every thing,” unless He meant everything. He knows about “every thing” that is going on in our lives. And that includes whatever you are going through right at this moment. And He is making everything beautiful in His time. He is making everything beautiful in His time.

“In His time” are the important words for us to remember and to trust.

And verse 11 says that God has “set the world in their heart,” which literally means, God has set “eternity” in man’s heart.

Thus we learn God has put it in man to know there is life beyond, and put within every human heart a curiosity about tomorrow, prompting man to probe, be intrigued and search. But man will not find the answers to their questions about eternity without God.

God has put eternity in man’s heart and made man for His eternal purpose, and so if we look for satisfaction and meaning in the temporal, we will not find it, and we won’t find complete satisfaction until we look to the eternal, until we look to God and we pursue Him. And when we do, our lives will be transformed by His grace.