Ecclesiasties 3-4:3

Sermon Summary: The Sovereign Lord has woven the universe together, set the seasons in motion, and appointed the events of your life all in the pursuit of you.

Vs. 1

In the introduction of Ecclesiastes, The author/preacher states a rhetorical question “What does a man gain after all his toil?

We are introduced then to the concept of the march of time

we can’t go backwards in time

we can only go forwards

forward one second of a time - it is as if we are trapped in a half dimension of time that we have no control over.

Revelation that everything we experience has an appointed time.

Vs. 2-8 (**Prescriptions not descriptions)

born - die

the bookends of every event you’ll ever experience

plant - pluck

planting by the seasons - appropriate times to plant and harvest

kill - heal

justified violence:self defense, agricultural - slaughtering animals - healing, birth etc.

Break down - build up

houses, barns, barriers

weep - laugh - mourn dance

marriage, children, sunrises, sunsets, miscarriage, funerals, divorce

scatter - gather stones

ancient war practice - 2nd Kings 3:19

2 Kings 3:19 ESV

and you shall attack every fortified city and every choice city, and shall fell every good tree and stop up all springs of water and ruin every good piece of land with stones.”

gather stones up to plow a field, mountain area, lots of rocks

embrace - refrain from embrace

friendships, time to end

seek - lose

look for lost things, time to give them up as lost

keep - cast away

personals and belongings - donate

tear - sew

potentially a practice of tearing your clothes - sign of deep lament, grief, and for grief to end

silence - speak

confronting or remain silent

love - hate , war - peace

the human experience, not necessarily the personal experience

Everything that could possibly happen in our lives happens somewhere in-between these extremes. and just like in chapter one, the conclusion is the same. Time marches on. There is still no net gain from the experiences of the seasons of life that we can get on our own.

vanity, vanity, vanity.

are you properly frustrated yet? - where are you supposed to take your frustration? The Preacher tells us in the next section

Vs. 10 is a restatement of Ecc 1:13-14

Ecclesiastes 1:13–14 ESV

And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.

What the Preacher told us he was setting out to do, he has reportedly done.

applied his heart to experience everything that is done

unhappy because of the curse of sin

life and work - not originally burdensome things. why are they now? The consequences of our sin.

trapped us in this half dimension of time

invalidated all our work

kept us busy with no respite

This is the work of man, but what about God’s work?

Vs 11

States that God has made everything beautiful in its time

Can suffering be beautiful? can death be beautiful? are broken relationships and mourning beautiful? How?

Eternity in our hearts

General revelation - reference Mark’s sermon

Desire for justice

sensitivity to oppression

all point to the truth to the conclusion that this life isn’t all there is.

that’s where general revelation ceases.

God has given us an awareness of eternity, but not an understanding of eternity.

Why not understanding?

we can’t comprehend it

we don’t deserve it

thinking otherwise is the same sin as the Garden: the desire to have the same knowledge of God: essentially to be God.

without an understanding of eternity, what are we instructed to do next?

Vs. 12

Be joyful and do good, eat and drink, and find pleasure in your work

This is God’s gift to man.

The work that God does is forever

God is not apart of the curse we’re trapped in - His work endures

Specifically what work are we referring to?

ordering everything - going back to the poem

we’ve been through several extremes - so lets take a moment and summarize.

Your work, your experiences, and life on this earth, everything inside of the extremes of birth and death will not only deny you meaning, but God has appointed these experiences by his own will. He’s given us an awareness of this, but not a total comprehension of his work throughout eternity.

All this begs the question to why?

The Fear of the Lord.

we’ve mentioned this several times to understand the overarching theme of Ecc. but here is the first time we see it appear in the book.

What is the fear of the Lord?

Psalm 130:4 is one of those verses that makes your eyes screech to a halt on the page: “But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.” It sounds all wrong. “But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be loved” would make sense. So would “But with you there is judgment, that you may be feared.” But that is not what it says.

Stranger still is the fact that the psalmist just doesn’t look afraid of God. Quite the opposite. Straight after v. 4, he goes on to write of how “his soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen [wait] for the morning” (Ps. 130:5–6). He fully embraces the fact that “with the Lord there is steadfast love” and “plentiful redemption” (Ps. 130:7).

That is because the fear of the Lord that Scripture commends and which the gospel produces is actually the opposite of being afraid of God.

In fact, it is Jesus’ own filial fear that believers are brought to share. Jesus** is the Spirit-anointed Christ who Isaiah prophesied would **come forth from the stump of Jesse:

“And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge _and the fear of the Lord. _ And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord</span>.”

Now, it is not that He loves God and has joy in God but finds, unfortunately, that to fulfill all righteousness He also must fear God. Quite the opposite: the Spirit who rests on Him is the Spirit of the fear of the Lord, and His delight is in the fear of the Lord. This filial fear is part of the Son’s pleasurable adoration of His Father; indeed, it is the very emotional extremity of that wonder.

What does it do to your heart, and mind, to know that the God of the universe, who holds the galaxies in his hands, humbled himself, took on flesh, died on the cross feeling the wrath of God and has orcastrated everything in your life, both the good and bad, in the pursuit of you. So that you will glorify him, and enjoy him forever?

That is the fear of the Lord. That is how we are able to be joyful. to eat and drink ad enjoy this life. When we glorify God with our lives and enjoy and wonder of his great love for us.

after hearing this news, there will be no doubt still be objections.

Vs. 16-22

Injustice and wickedness exists in the places it shouldn't.

experiences with unfair court decisions

uncertainty and indignity of death

oppression, oppressors,

Some of the stories we shared at Baptism told me we have a congregation that is quite aware of oppression.

If the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, even in the darkest parts of our lives, Then these objections show what life is like when we try to live our lives devoid of God

God has appointed the seasons. There is a reason there is a time to plant and harvest. there is a reason there is a winter and a spring. There is a reason you have faced the struggles you have.

You may not ever know all the details and reasons this side of eternity, but you can know the ultimate reason. It’s to have your shame, your hurt, frustration, peace, fun and your joy all find its fulfillment in Jesus

Application

What will you do with the knowledge that Jesus has woven your life together, to pursue after you. despite being driven away by Sin?

Will you life your life with the fear of the Lord? Will you live in wonder of all his power and goodness shown to you?

Would you want to see the promise of His redemption in your life?