Time and Eternity
Ecclesiastes: Everything Matters • Sermon • Submitted
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Transcript
Introduction:
Introduction:
Recap:
Recap:
As we continue to study through Ecclesiastes we need to remember that this book is about the Preacher, trying to find the meaning of life without God. It will be important as we continue to keep that in mind because without the context we can come to some very unbiblical conclusions.
Last week we saw Solomon find nothing but vanities- hebel: vapor or breath. in his pursuit of the good life.
He first saw creation go through the mundaneness of its cycles. Generations come and go, the sun rises and sets just to rise again, the wind blows in a predictable pattern, and even the streams run into the sea and yet the sea never is full.
Creation should have inspired Solomon to fall to his knees in worship of God (YHWH) but he calls it vanity, because apart from God creation is meaningless.
As for us believers, our lives are filled with newness:
A new name
A new community
A new commandment
A new covenant
A new and living way to heaven
A new purity
A new nature
A new creation in Jesus Christ
All things become new!
The second vanity Solomon reveals is that of wisdom and knowledge.
Solomon looked into and explored both extremes of human behavior wisdom and knowledge then madness and folly. Just in case either had the meaning of life.
Our world claims that the solution to many of our social problems are because there is a lack of education.
The wiser you are the more worries you have; the more you know, the more it hurts.
Solomon then explores pleasures, possession and accomplishments.
Well if creation is vanity, knowledge and wisdom is vanity, why not look into hedonism or accomplishments.
All the world can offer you are cesspools and broken cisterns, whereas God offers the fountain of life.
vv 1-8) Poem: A Time for Everything
vv 1-8) Poem: A Time for Everything
[1]Solomon, as a research student of life and human behavior observed that there is a predetermined season for everything.
Coming to the conclusion that, “What will be, will be!” It means that history is filled with cyclical patterns, and these recur with unchangeable regularity. Man is locked into a pattern of behavior which is determined by certain inflexible laws or principles. And therefore Solomon tells us that man is a slave to fatalism’s clock and calendar.
With this poem the Preacher enumerates twenty-eight activities which are probably intended to symbolize the wholeness of life.
For those of you who might be interested in numbers throughout the bible, I found this interesting: twenty-eight is an intriguing number because it is four which is the number of the world (Creation on the fourth day) multiplied by the number of completeness seven (The day God stopped creating).
This list is made up of opposites. Fourteen positives and fourteen negatives. In some ways, they seem to cancel out each other so that the net result is zero.
It seems the purpose of this list is to reveal a balance. Describing the different seasons and facets of life- is beautiful. Yet it also casts a dark shadow, because it reminds us of the inevitability of trouble and evil, and of the relentless monotony of life.
We see twenty-eight mentions of, “A time… a time… a time… A time.” This in intentional, Solomon isn’t showing us that there is a variety but to give us a sense of the monotony of all things.
Because Solomon isn’t interested in God’s solution, one of his findings are that we are governed by these patterns. Kind of setting them up as our real masters of our lives.
[2] There is a time to be born. A person has no control over this, and even the parents must wait out nine months which form the normal birth cycle.
There is also a time to die. Man’s allotted span according to:
10 The years of our life are seventy,
or even by reason of strength eighty;
yet their span is but toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away.
is seventy years, but even apart from that, it seems that death is a predetermined appointment that must be kept.
It is true that God foreknows the terminus of our life on earth, but for the Christian this is neither morbid nor fatalistic.
For the Christian we need to understand that you are immortal until your work is done. And though death is a possibility, it is not a certainty. Maranatha! There is a blessed hope of Christ’s return, which places our eyes on Christ and not on the mortician.
“I’m not waiting for the undertaker- I’m waiting for the uppertaker.”
“A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted:” With these words, Solomon seems to cover the entire field of agriculture, linked closely as it is with the seasons of the year:
22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”
Failure to observe these seasons in planting and harvesting can only spell disaster.
For the believer too there are going to be different seasons of ministry in our lives too. For some it will be planting the seeds of the gospel, while others will be able to nurture what is growing, and ultimately the Lord gathers the harvest.
[3] “A time to kill, and a time to heal:” Bible commentators go to great lengths to explain that Solomon couldn’t be referring to murder but only to warfare, capital punishment, or self-defense (while they are most likely right).
We must remember that Solomon’s observations were based on his knowledge under the sun. Without divine revelation, it seems to him that life was either a slaughterhouse or a hospital, a battlefield or a first-aid station.
“A time to break down, and a time to build up:” First the wrecking crew appears to demolish buildings that are outdated and no longer serviceable, then the builders move in to erect modern complexes and rehabilitate the area.
[4] “A time to weep, and a time to laugh:” This one rings particularly true. Life seems to alternate between tragedy and comedy.
“A time to mourn, and a time to dance:” The funeral procession passes by with its mourners wailing in grief. But before long, these same people are rejoicing at a wedding reception, quickly no longer remembering the sorrow.
[5] “A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together:” In the ancient world they commonly scattered stones on a n enemies’ land to hinder farming.
25 And they overthrew the cities, and on every good piece of land every man threw a stone until it was covered. They stopped every spring of water and felled all the good trees, till only its stones were left in Kir-hareseth, and the slingers surrounded and attacked it.
2 He dug it and cleared it of stones,
and planted it with choice vines;
he built a watchtower in the midst of it,
and hewed out a wine vat in it;
and he looked for it to yield grapes,
but it yielded wild grapes.
Some people take the words figuratively, and reference this to the intimacy between husband and wife. Which could give us a little more context to the following line.
“A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing:” in the realm of the affections, there is a time for involvement and time for withdrawal. There is a time when love is pure and a time when it is illicit.
I personally don’t believe that Solomon is referring to intimacy. The way that i read it is that it comparing friendship or enmity.
Regardless what is being evoked is the human need for discernment: when is the right time to do this or that, and how would humans know what the right choice is?
[6] A time to seek, and a time to lose:” This is referring to a business’ cycle with profits and losses.
What I found humorous is that the Hebrew world for lose has this connotation: To give up looking for a lost item.
There have been more times then I can count were I just had to give up trying to find my bank card and have to just accept that it is gone.
“A time to keep, and a time to cast away:” Most of you are familiar with this pattern. For months or even years, we store and stash things away in closets and attics. Then in a burst of house-cleaning zeal, we clear most of it out to donate to a thrift store.
[7] “A time to tear, and a time to sew:” Could Solomon be alluding to the constant changes in fashion?
I’m now getting old enough to see that some of the cool things when I was a kid are making a come back. MULLETS!
“A time to keep silence, and a time to speak:” The time to keep silence is when we are criticized unjustly, when we are tempted to criticize others, or to say things that are untrue, unkind, or unedifying. Because Moses spoke unadvisedly with his lips, he was barred from entering the promised land:
10 Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, “Hear now, you rebels: shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” 11 And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice, and water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their livestock. 12 And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.”
32 They angered him at the waters of Meribah,
and it went ill with Moses on their account,
33 for they made his spirit bitter,
and he spoke rashly with his lips.
The time to speak is when some great principle or cause is at stake. Mordecai advised Esther that the time had come for her to speak:
13 Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. 14 For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
[8] “A time to love, and a time to hate:” No this doesn’t give you the right to go around hating and loving people as you see fit.
It is important to note that Solomon was not speaking a man who was seeking God, but the world. It seemed to him that human behavior fluctuated between periods of love and hate.
For us today we are called to love our neighbors:
18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.
14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well.
There is also a righteous anger that is legitimate under the appropriate circumstances:
5 I hate the assembly of evildoers,
and I will not sit with the wicked.
6 I hate those who pay regard to worthless idols,
but I trust in the Lord.
22 I hate them with complete hatred;
I count them my enemies.
26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger,
What makes this poem so beautiful is the way it shows that even the tragic, dark aspects of life can be artfully-and powerfully- presented.
This poem reveals the need to take full advantage of the time God has given us.
16 making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.
“One life twill soon be past, Only what is done for Christ will last.”
vv 9-11) A sliver of hope
vv 9-11) A sliver of hope
[9] For every constructive activity or act there is a destructive one. For every plus a minus. For a person living under the sun, they have nothing but zeros at the end of all their toils.
[10] Solomon had conducted an exhaustive survey of all the activities, employments, and pursuits that God has given to mankind to occupy their time. He has just given us a catalog of these things in the pervious verses 2-8.
[11] He has concluded that God has made everything beautiful in its time, or, that there is an appropriate time for everything.
He is not so much thinking here of the beauty of God’s creation as the fact that every action has its own designated time, and that in its time it is eminently fitting.
Solomon understood that man has an awareness and a longing for the eternal. Coming to terms with God has put eternity in man’s heart.
Though mankind lives in a world governed by time, we have intimations of eternity. We instinctively think of “forever,” and though we cannot understand the concept, we realize that beyond this life there is a possibility of a shoreless ocean of time.
God’s work and ways are inscrutable to us. There is no way in which we can solve the riddle of creation, providence, or the consummation of the universe, apart from revelation.
In spite of the enormous advances of human knowledge, we still see through a glass dimly:
12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
We are going to find ourselves in a continual state of “How little we know of Him.”
Don Richardson used the phrase “eternity in their heart” to describe the phenomenon of redemptive analogies in most all aboriginal cultures. Almost every culture has traditions, customs, or ways of thinking that reflect basic Biblical truth, and these can be used by Christian missionaries to explain the gospel.
vv 12-15) The Preacher’s conclusion
vv 12-15) The Preacher’s conclusion
[12-13] In light of God’s making everything beautiful and in His gift of eternity in men’s hearts- Solomon looks at this and states that because man’s life is governed by certain inexorable laws and because all his activities seem to leave him where he started, the best policy is to be happy and enjoy life as much as possible.
[13] Not that life should be governed by hedonism, but that it is the gift of God for man to enjoy his food and drink and find what pleasure he can in his daily work.
This is a low view of life, and completely sub-Christian in its outlook, but again this is Solomon’s earthbound insight.
[14] Solomon does accurately perceive that God’s decrees are immutable/never changing. What God has decided will stand and man cannot alter it, either by addition or subtraction.
It is foolish for creatures to fight against the arrangements of their Creator. The better thing is to respect, fear, and submit to Him
After all:
God’s actions are permanent.
God’s actions are effective and complete.
God’s actions are totally secure.
[15] Current events are merely a replay of what has happened previously, and nothing will happen in the future but what has already been. God arranges everything on a recurring basis so that things will happen over and over again.
Our conclusion
Our conclusion
Going back to verse 11...
Now in light of revelation we can know that God’s purpose is to unite all things in Christ!
9 But, as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—
10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
This might frustrate some of you… But we do not need to understand everything. We need not understand everything but can live a life of joy as a servant of Christ.
10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
also trusting that God’s plans are good:
28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
For us today enjoy what the Lord has given you. Be content. Love God. Honor Him with your worship.
24 The Lord bless you and keep you;
25 the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
26 the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
I Have Decided to Follow Jesus
I Have Decided to Follow Jesus
Verse 1
I have decided to follow Jesus
I have decided to follow Jesus
I have decided to follow Jesus
No turning back no turning back
Verse 2
The world behind me the cross before me
The world behind me the cross before me
The world behind me the cross before me
No turning back no turning back
Verse 3
Though none go with me still I will follow
Though none go with me still I will follow
Though none go with me still I will follow
No turning back no turning back
(Ending)
No turning back
No turning back
No turning back
No turning back