For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up 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 together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast 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 for war, and a time for peace. What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil - this is God's gift to man. I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. Ecclesiastes 3:1-14
1. God Is In Control Of (Sovereign Over) All Time And All Events
In verses 2-8, we see truth taught about time through merisms. "A merism is a rhetorical device (figure of speech) in which a combination of two contrasting parts of the whole refer to the whole." (Philip Ryken)
None of these times are random events that happen without cause, meaning, or purpose. There is a God in heaven Who knows all, sees all, has all power & authority, and Who has ordained all times & seasons for His good purposes. He’s the God of time & God over all events. He’s God over our birth & our death & everything in between!
- Ecclesiastes 3:14: I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it . . . .
- Psalm 139:16: Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be.
- Ephesians 1:11: [God] works all things according to the counsel of His will.
- Psalm 31:14-15: But I trust in You, O LORD; I say, "You are my God." My times are in Your hand.
God is the King of time! King Jesus is the King of time! He is the King of every detail of your life!
2. God Makes Everything Beautiful In Its Time
Verse 11: He has made everything beautiful [appropriate, right, good] in its time.
- Life of Job: Lost all of his wealth; lost all of his children; lost his health; he kept trusting God! God restored him!
- Life of Joseph: Hated by his brothers; thrown into a pit; sold into slavery; falsely accused; put in prison; forgotten in prison; but he kept trusting God! God raised him up! [The life of Jesus!]
- Romans 8:28: And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
- Revelation 21:1-4: Then I saw a new heaven & a new earth, for the first heaven & the first earth had passed away, & the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, & they will be his people, & God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, & death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."
J. R. R. Tolkien: All things sad will become untrue.
Come LORD Jesus! Come quickly!
3. God Has Put Eternity Into Man’s Heart
Verse 11: Also, He has put eternity into man's heart . . . .
We were made for God, & we were made to live forever! Death is an enemy! Funerals are not normal! We need the GOSPEL! so that we may never die!
John 11:25-26: Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection & the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 & everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?"
C. S. Lewis: Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find until after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others do the same.
4. God’s Ways And Purposes Are Sometimes Beyond Our Understanding
Verse 11: yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
We will not always know what God is doing or why God does what He does. Why did this happen? I don’t know?
Charles Spurgeon: God is too good to be unkind & He is too wise to be mistaken. And when we cannot trace His hand, we must trust His heart.
Author: Difficult things can cause us to ask, “Why did this happen?” God may never reveal His reasons, but He has revealed His character to us. He assures us that He is ever-faithful, always caring, & will never leave us in our time of need.
Psalm 23:4: Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
5. God’s Will For Us Is Joy, Obedience, And Fearing Him
Verses 12-13, 14: I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful & to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat & drink & take pleasure in all his toil – this is God's gift to man . . . so that people fear before Him.
a. God calls us to have joy in Him & in all the good gifts He has given us: V 12: to be joyful
1) Joy in God: Psalm 37:4: Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
2) Joy in God’s gifts: 1 Timothy 6:17: [God] richly provides us with everything to enjoy.
b. God calls us to obey Him: V 12: to do good as long as they live [Jesus’ great commission in Matthew 28]
c. God calls us to fear Him: V 14: so that people fear before Him. [Fear His wrath; fear turning away from Him]
Ecclesiastes 12:13: The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
6. Jesus Christ: The Merism Of All Merisms
Remember what a merism is: “A merism is a figure of speech in which a combination of two contrasting parts of the whole refer to the whole.”
Jesus Christ is the Merism of all merisms!
- Revelation 1:17-18: Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.
- Revelation 22:13: I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.
Jesus came into the world at just the right time to save us from our sins:
Galatians 4:4-5: But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
Jesus is the God-Man Who holds all time & events sovereignly in His hands. He lived all these times out perfectly (He was born, & He died; He wept, & He rejoiced; He was silent, & He spoke; He’ll make war, & He came in peace). In the fullness of time, He came & died on that cross & rose from the dead so that we might know God & trust that He is working all of our times out for our good & for His glory. Through His death & resurrection, He has made a way for us to fear & obey God by the power of His Spirit. And because of Jesus we can enjoy the earthly gifts God has given us without fear because Jesus delivers us from the wrath to come. Jesus is the Merism of all merisms Who created time, upholds time, & keeps all our times in His hands! He is the whole of the whole! He is everything of everything! He is our all in all! He is the ultimate merism: "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." Revelation 22:13
Let’s think about Jesus more: A time to be born, & a time to die: Jesus is the God-Man Who is God the Son come in flesh, born of the virgin Mary, & He died on that cross where He suffered the wrath & curse of God to save sinners
A time to plant, & a time to pluck up what is planted: He is the Sower, Seed, & Soil simultaneously: He came planting the Word of God like no one ever has, & He cursed the fig tree, pointing to judgment on all who reject Him!
A time to kill, & a time to heal: The world tried to kill Him as soon as He came into this world, but He would go on to heal from all manner of sickness & diseases – healing lepers, casting out demons, causing the lame to walk, the deaf to hear, the blind to see, & the dead to rise! The religious leaders tried to kill Him, but He always escaped until the time was right for Him to die, but then He rose up from the dead to bring healing to all the nations!
- Psalm 34:18: The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.
- Psalm 147:3: He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
A time to break down, & a time to build up: Jesus told of how the Jewish temple would be totally destroyed, but He came to build up a new temple of saved sinners from every tribe and language and people and nation!
A time to keep silence, & a time to speak: Jesus was falsely accused & went to that cross as a sheep before its shearers is silent, He opened not His mouth, but He is risen, so we open our mouths & speak the truth in love, just as He did!
A time to love: No man ever loved like Jesus Christ loved!
A time to weep & mourn, & a time to laugh & dance: Jesus & His disciples wept & mourned at His death, but He rose up from the dead so that we all would laugh & dance for joy throughout all eternity!
A time to hate & a time for war: Jesus is coming back to judge the world, & He will only have hatred & war for those who do not trust in Him as their LORD & Savior! Are you ready?! Repent & believe the Gospel!
God And The Gospel
Iain Duguid On Ecclesiastes 3
God is at work in this fallen world, establishing his own order and justice, a work that must necessarily have a successful outcome. God will have profit from his toil.
How can that be? How can God curse sinful mankind and still redeem him? How can the conflict between eternity and time be resolved? Here we must go beyond Ecclesiastes. The preacher poses the question with great power, but the answer is not yet fully revealed in the Old Testament. The answer, when it comes, takes your breath away. In the fullness of time, the Eternal One took upon himself time‑bound flesh and entered our world. He experienced for himself the frustration of life in a fallen and cursed world. The one through whom the entire universe was created was conceived in Mary’s womb and experienced a time to be born. He came to earth both to plant and to uproot. He came to gather to himself the lost sheep of the house of Israel and the gentiles, but also to scatter the self‑righteous Pharisees, telling them “Get lost! I never knew you!” There was a time when Jesus healed the multitudes and a time when he stayed where he was rather than going to heal Lazarus. Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus and he laughed and danced at the wedding at Cana. As our great High Priest, Jesus experienced the full range of human emotions. The one who spoke the world into existence, and taught the multitudes with great power, became silent before his accusers, like a sheep before its slaughterers. The one who possessed light and life in himself from all eternity experienced his own “time to die” as he was driven into the deep darkness of death on the cross. In place of their eternal, unchanging relationship of peace, the Almighty declared a time to wage cosmic and brutal war against sin in the body of his own, precious son.
Do you sense the profound contradictions that are caused by the Eternal One entering history, the Unfallen and Holy One coming into a fallen and sin-filled world? What more profound contradiction could there be than for the Eternal One to die on the cross? What could be more un-godlike? What is more astonishing than for the sinless one to be made sin on behalf of his Adam’s helpless race? What greater injustice has ever been perpetrated than hanging the only sinless person who ever lived on a criminal’s gallows, condemned by man and cursed by God? And for what? What profit was there in all of his toil? Jesus left behind eleven frightened disciples who had abandoned him and fled, while the twelfth was the one who betrayed him. His body was buried with respect, in a stone tomb, but he appeared to be just like every other human being after their final breath, dead and gone, all set to return to the dust from which it came. Is that all there is to the story? Is the cross the place where we see the final triumph of darkness, disorder and death over light, peace and life?
By no means! Those who killed the ever‑living One were themselves doing precisely what God’s perfect plan and timing had decreed (Acts 2:23). This was the defining event that God in His astonishing wisdom made fitting in his time. The time they killed the Lord’s anointed was the time when God healed his people; the time to put on display their hate became God’s time to display his love; their declaration of total war was God’s means of establishing total peace. This is how God brings to perfect judgment the wickedness of men without utterly destroying you and me, who by nature are wicked. This is what takes the serpent’s lie that we shall be like God and astoundingly turns it into an incredible truth: we shall be like God – not through our attempts to steal that status but through Christ’s willingness to give up his glory and embrace our flesh! This is what ultimately determines the difference between men and animals: that Christ died for ungodly sinners in order to turn us into his chosen and beloved people, making children of Adam into the children of God.
So what should we conclude as we stand at the outset of a new year? What difference should this text make to your life? You should expect many things will happen to you this year that will be mysterious, completely impervious to your gaze, and deeply frustrating. There will be good things and bad things in the year ahead, and you will not necessarily be able to see how the bad things are fitting. They won’t be fitting to your schedule, but God’s timing is nonetheless perfect. They are part of living in a fallen sin-cursed world.
How will we respond to that reality? How we should respond is with trust in God and peace in the midst of life’s turmoil, confident that God always knows exactly what we need, even when we don’t. Since we are very weak and broken people, however, it is more likely that we will respond very badly. When we wake up tomorrow and discover that the car won’t start, we probably won’t say to ourselves, “Oh, this is God’s time for my car to break down.” Instead, we will probably plunge ourselves into a tailspin of anger and despair, convinced that this is yet more data that God doesn’t really love us and care about the details of our lives. In that moment, as you see yourself spiraling down, ask God to use this experience to increase your faith, hope and joy. Ask God to grant you the courage you need to keep on believing, even when it doesn’t seem to make sense.
Christmas reminds you that God’s love for you doesn’t depend on how well you respond to the challenge of life in a fallen and confusing world. He loves you even when you don’t believe that he loves you, and having begun a good work in you, he will bring it to completion on the last day, even if you cannot see how that can possibly be. Entrust the painful and bitter aspects of your life into the hands of your loving heavenly Father, knowing that in Jesus you have an intercessor who understands your pain, and asking him to help you believe that this too is part of his perfect plan for you.
But most of all, give thanks for the death and resurrection of Christ, which is the assurance of our hope of heaven. This event in the fullness of time is how God has achieved his eternal purposes in you and in this world, by defeating death and its stranglehold on humanity. This is how God redeems a people for himself, for all eternity in heaven, where this world’s light and momentary frustrations and sorrows will be set in the richer hue of God’s incomprehensible mercy and grace to us. This new year, look forward all the more intensely to the time that is yet to come, the time when time will be no more, when all of your frustration and sorrow and sin will be gone and God will be all in all to his people. Then there will be no more time for pain, or for tears, or for loss, or for mourning precious loved ones, or for brokenness, or for death, or for war, but instead there will simply be all eternity in which to glorify and enjoy the God who made us and redeemed us for himself. On that last day in heaven, God will satisfy the desire that he himself placed in our hearts for eternity, by giving us himself. On that day, we will doubt his love and care for us no more, but will know it in its full depths and richness, which will make every sorrow fade from our minds forever.
Amen! Hallelujah! What a Savior!
More Resources On Ecclesiastes 3
Sermons from Monergism
