Word of Salvation – Vol. 39 No.25 – July 1994

 

For Each Experience A Time

 

Sermon: Rev. D. Baird

Scripture: Ecclesiastes 3:1-15

Hymns: B.o.W. 145, 104, 360, 460, 181

 

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

This book of Ecclesiastes is a strange one, isn’t it?  We are attracted to it but we are not sure what to do with it.  We are attracted to it because it is practical.  It’s about everyday life.  In a way it’s all so familiar: eating and drinking, work, time, old age, God, wisdom.

The Preacher talks about the frustrations of life, and we all know something about that.  In so many ways it’s true what it says, ” Meaningless, meaningless, says the teacher, everything is meaningless!” (1:2)  For example “A man may do all his work with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it.  This too is meaningless and a great misfortune” (2:21).

So we can identify with all this, but we are still not sure what to do with it.  Why is this book part of the Word of God?  Like the rest of the Bible, this book is breathed out by the Holy Spirit, and yet the writer is telling us that everything is meaningless.  Doesn’t he know Christ gives meaning to life?  What are we supposed to do with this book?

Let’s try to find out.

First of all, Ecclesiastes is one of the wisdom books in the Bible.  The others being Proverbs, Song of Songs and Job.  These books are about the search for wisdom.  What is the meaning of life?  What is life all about?  These books are in the form of a search (1:12-13).  Sometimes we are not given a neat batch of solutions but a description of the search.  During the search we see these aspects of life that are there and are real.  But sometimes we cannot fully understand how they fit together.  Life is like that, isn’t it?  The aspect of life we want to think about today is TIME (3:1).

When I start reading this verse, a song comes into my mind.  “A time to be born and a time to die…..!”  This song was even made into a popular song some years ago.  It’s the sort of song people like to sing because it rings true: life is like that.  Anyone with insight into life can see this and common wisdom can identify with this.  “There is a season for every activity”.  You don’t have to be a Christian to know this is true, it is common sense.

Let me give you an example.  If you lose something valuable you search for it.  This is the appropriate thing to do.  It is very important to find it.  So you stop what you are doing and throw all your effort into finding the lost article.  However, if you still haven’t found it after two hours you will probably give up.  There are other things to do and life must go on.  “A time to search and a time to give up.”  This is wisdom and common sense.  You need such wisdom to live your life day by day.

There is also verse 4.  There are appropriate and opportune times for everything.  When sad things happen, weeping and mourning is called for.  At other times, when something wonderful happens, it’s time to laugh and to dance.  There is a season for every activity under heaven.

Some days it is better to say nothing; on other days it is better to speak up.  Sometimes we should embrace and other times we should refrain from embracing, and so on.

You don’t have to be a Christian to see that all this is true.  However, a Christian knows that behind all these various occasions there is GOD.

Life’s circumstances change.  It is our task to respond to these changing situations.  Some of these changing circumstances are caused by people and some just happen.  Yet, behind every event is the providence of God.

This is most obviously so with birth and death.  “A time to be born, and a time to die.”  Do we have any say over when we are born?  None.  Do we have much say about when we die?  No.  These things are in the hands of the Lord.  If we are wise we will admit that.  Only a fool thinks he has total control of his life.  Only a fool thinks he is master of his own destiny.  It is the fool who says in his heart: “there is no God.”  It is the fool who leaves God out of his life.  Do you want to be wise?  Then remember the Lord and be in awe of him.  “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” Proverbs 9:10.

The writer of this book is on a search for wisdom.  He discovers that behind all the changing scenes of life is the God of providence.  Although we cannot see Him, God is at work.

More and more people these days are playing the fool.  They look at life and conclude that everything happens by pure chance and therefore nothing has any meaning.  They think the clue is to accept life as pointless.  But that is not so.  There is a personal Creator God.  He is the stage manager of the circumstances of life.  Life has meaning because of Him.

In fact “He has made everything beautiful in its time.”  Things change.  Each year is different from the last.  In fact, no two days are the same.  From where we are that might seem very confusing.  Yet behind the scenes, God is managing it all and his timing is beautiful.  He places each circumstance where it fits best.  We need to remember He is doing that.  We need to be wise about those changing times.  Twice in the Bible wise men are described as “those who understand the times.”

Are we wise?  Can we discern our own times and, remembering God is there, respond to those times?

But look at what verse 11 says.  Remember we are on a search for wisdom.  Here we are in the midst of all the changing times of our lives.  And we remember God is behind it all.

Yet we sense there is more than meets the eye.  God has set eternity in our hearts.  There is something more than living within the bounds of the changing times of this world.

We know that God is overruling our circumstances and He has given us this sense of eternity.  But we still cannot fully understand what God is doing.  There is always a sense of mystery: He knows everything and we only know a small part of it.  Of course, it is only right that it should be like that.  After all He is God and we are His creatures.  We are limited in our understanding.  We will only ever know so much.  We are not meant to be all-knowing.

Besides sin has entered God’s world and brought with it confusion.  We can sense this confusion in the very way the book of Ecclesiastes is written.  This book seems to go to and fro, doesn’t it?  At one time it is more negative, at another time more positive.  Can’t the writer make up his mind what life is about?

Work is sometimes a great burden, verse 9.  But then again work is also a gift, verse 13.  Backwards and forwards, to and fro.  Why is this book like that?  Because life is like that!

Some days we come home from work and think: what is the point of all this?  Other days we find great satisfaction in our toil: this is the gift of God!  The person who has found wisdom realises that life is like that.  Our times are in his hand.  Yet many things are hidden and sin has brought confusion into the world.  So there are tensions in our experience of life, tensions we don’t fully understand and can’t fully resolve.  This keeps us humble before the Lord.

We are to stand in awe of the Lord.  At times our life might seem meaningless; we might wonder what gains come from our toil.  But what God does endures forever, verse 14.  We are to remember that and stand in awe of Him.  Especially when we are aware of our limited understanding and when we feel confused about life, we throw ourselves on the Lord who has no such limitations.’

We know God has done more things than are written in this book of Ecclesiastes.  From Genesis we learn that frustration is caused by the curse which God put on the ground after The Fall.  In the Gospels we find that this God is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  In Romans we discover that Christ will return again to set the creation free from the curse and frustration of sin.  So we know for certain that confusion and futility are banished in Christ.  In fact, He has already paid the price for that victory.

Does that mean Ecclesiastes is now out of date, superseded by the New Testament?  No, certainly not.  This book has a unique place in the Scriptures because it describes the futility and confusion which we see around us and which we experience ourselves.  It also describes the place of God who is sovereignly and providentially watching over it all.  If we are seeking wisdom; if we are seeking to know what life is all about, then we need this picture.

And this picture is all still true for us.  Even though we feel we know many answers from the New Testament: we know all about Christ’s reign of grace, His second coming, the new heavens and the new earth, there are still many baffling things that happen in life.

We still feel the same tensions described here.  When we get up in the morning we don’t know what the day will bring, do we?  We have to learn how to respond to the different situations which come up every day.  We need wisdom to cope with times that are changing.

Until Christ comes, faith in the grace of God must sustain us through many situations we don’t fully understand.

It is true that we cannot fathom what God does from beginning to end.  But God works everything according to the counsel of his will so that men will revere Him.  That’s the beginning of wisdom.  That is what it means to fear of the Lord.

“O, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable His judgements and His paths beyond tracing out!” Paul exclaimed in wonder at the end of Romans 11.  After opening up so many wonders of the grace of Christ, at the end of it all he still has to say: “How unsearchable His judgements and His paths beyond tracing out!”

How wonderful to know Him through the Lord Jesus.  To know Him in the midst of life in this world.  To love Him as a father and to stand in awe of Him as our God and so to have wisdom for our lives.

AMEN