Preached this yesterday at Lakeside Community in Alto, MI. This is the first time I’ve attempted a sermon on Ecclesiastes. Enjoy…
When it comes to the book of Ecclesiastes there are two things that nearly everyone knows about it: 1) it’s an extremely pessimistic book declaring repeatedly that “everything is meaningless;” and 2) The Byrds. Not the Alfred Hitchock classic, but the 60’s rock band who wrote a song straight out of Ecc. 3.
While the song “Turn! Turn! Turn!” was popular throughout the 60’s and 70’s as a plea for peace, the songs itself offers little in the way of any interpretation or significant message. Unfortunately for biblical studies, the message of peace usually associated with it, is not really found in the text the lyrics were taken from.
The repetition of the words, “Meaningless! Meaningless! Everything is meaningless!” actually leaves us with a feeling of despair and, well, meaninglessness. This emphasis is difficult to overcome…but not impossible. In fact, one of the beautiful things about Ecc. 3 is that God’s sovereignty is thrust front and center. Where the “Teacher,” as the author is called, eventually ends up is at the conclusion that only God controls time – we experience a series of haphazard events but nothing is ever outside the control of God’s divine hand.
What I want to do this morning is work through our text, step by step, retracing the Teacher’s logic…
So let’s start in the best place to start: the beginning…
Right from the start we know what the Teacher is getting at: “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven…” And we actually get a little hint of the Teacher’s assumption that God is in control already in verse 1. When the Teacher uses the word “activity” the idea behind the Hebrew is that this is a deliberate action.
As the Teacher goes on to elaborate in verses 2-8 on what he says in verse 1, we realize that many of the things he lists are things that we have absolutely no control over. We may intentionally do some of the things here, but the focus is on the time aspect. It is impossible for us to intentionally cause these times to come into being; only God can tweak time in such a way as to make it speed up or slow down.
Likewise, the word used for “time” and “season” – it’s the same word in the Hebrew – also carries a sense of being appointed or predetermined. Again, only something a sovereign God can do.
So that’s our thesis: everything has a particular time that it will happen regardless of what we may or may not do.
It’s from this stark reality that we have to ask ourselves a question of significance: If everything has its time and we cannot control that time, then what does that mean for us and how we live our lives?
I hope you still have your Bibles open because I want you to take a look at the larger context of Ecc. 3. In other words, Ecc. 3 is sandwiched between two discussions of the same thing. What is it? Toil! Work!
In the second half of chapter 2 the Teacher is emphasizing how meaningless toil and labor are in the grand scheme of things. He picks up on that same discussion again in chapter 4. I would suggest that chapter 3 is meant to be understood in that context. But where do I get that idea from?
Take a look at verse 9… READ 3:9-10
The Teacher says that he’s seen the way people work and labor and how little they get from their hard work. “What does the worker gain from his toil?” Based on the repeating theme throughout the book, it’s pretty safe to say “Nothing!” Does it buy him more time to live? No. Does she acquire more stuff than she otherwise would? Probably not.
So what’s the point? Time goes on, we work our fingers to the bone, and in the end we have nothing to show for it. All our work “is meaningless.” What we try so desperately to achieve never actually produces the results we desire.
But why is it meaningless? What is the reason for this meaninglessness?
Well let me ask another question: why do we work so hard? And I don’t mean work in the sense of getting up every morning and going to work and getting paid and coming home for dinner – although that would be included in what I’m getting at. But I also mean spiritual work. Why do we work so hard?
And let’s be honest, we work hard because we feel there’s something to be gained through hard work – afterall, it’s the American way: work hard and be adequately rewarded for what we do. Unfortunately, this isn’t something I have a solution to. I’m not going to tell you to stop working so hard and get fired. So I guess I point this out in order to bring to the surface a little piece of evidence of the sin that has filled the hearts of all people everywhere. The evidence of sin comes in the form of hard work; for many of us, working hard is a way of controlling what happens in our lives.
For many of us, our spiritual life goes in waves – one day your up, the next your down. You wake up in the morning, feeling confident that God’s hand of blessing is upon you. Then you turn on the evening news and are reminded of all the misery that exists in this world. By the time you go to bed your wondering why, if there is an all-powerful God up there, why doesn’t He just zap everything a take away all the pain and fix everything and make it perfect like it used to be. Many have walked away from the faith using the logic that a good God could not possibly allow the atrocities of life to persist.
And there’s something inside of us that desires to maintain a certain amount of control over our lives. And control takes hard work. So we work hard, often failing to realize that the only work that is actually capable of accomplishing anything good is the work of God – the work that extends from His hand.
In verse 11 the Teacher writes, “He has made everything beautiful in its time.” Some translations read “He has made everything PERFECT in its APPOINTED TIME.” Everything that happens, happens and is completed when God says it will be. And everything has a time…
Beginning with verse 12, the Teacher begins to help us see an application of his musings…READ 3:12-13
Something I want to point out about verse 12: where the NIV reads “be happy and do good” this is a place where the NIV has offered a very poor translation of the Hebrew. A more accurate translation would be found in the RSV which reads “be happy and ENJOY THEMSELVES.”
By the time you get the end of verse 11 your left thinking, “What’s the point?” Your left with the same feelings that the entire book seems to foster within our hearts and minds. But the negativity is certainly not the only way to respond to Ecc. 3. Don’t forget the author has written these things down for a reason; he wants to teach his readers something and build them up rather than tear them down. This is wisdom literature, intended to be extremely practical and help you live life better.
If you read Ecclesiastes and you get to the feeling depressed and wanting to through your hands in air and declare that life is fatalistic with no rhyme or reason, you’ve missed the point of the book. In the same way if you read chapter 3 and walk away feeling as though there’s nothing we can do about anything because we’re all just slaves to time anyway, you’ve missed the point of this chapter.
The Teacher writes in verse 12 that he knows – not wishes or hopes or desires or thinks but knows – “that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and” – and I’ll revert to the RSV here – “and to enjoy themselves while they live.”
And so all this talk about time and how it just keeps going on and how we as human beings have absolutely no control over what happens and when, is not supposed to pull us down, but it’s supposed to free us. It’s supposed to free us from the bondage of the Law and slavery to sin. It’s supposed to free us from the overwhelming desire to control everything that happens. It’s supposed to free us from the pressure and stress of taking upon our shoulders the cares of the world. It’s supposed to free us to be able to live the way God intended His people to live. It’s supposed to free us to live in peace with God…and with the world that He created.
And when we have this freedom of completely trusting in God to watch over all that happens in this world we live in, only then are we free to be happy and to enjoy ourselves while we live…And in verse 14, the Teacher includes his own profession of faith…
READ VS. 14
Happiness and enjoyment is the end result if the wisdom of chapter 3 is followed. You get there only by faith – and by faith I mean a personal relationship with the triune God. It doesn’t get much more plain than the final sentence of verse 14: “God does it so that men will revere him.”
God does all these things so that we might believe in Him. He appoints particular times that He then keeps hidden from us, so that we will learn and see that only He controls what happens and when. And unlike the works of our hands and the things we strive after, what God does will never pass away. Everything on this earth will come to an end, but God and His kingdom will always remain.
Just as the Teacher has said, “there is a time for everything”…but a time for everything “under heaven.” God is not bound by time; He is eternal, omnipresent, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. He is the constant that sustains life and makes faith possible.
And so, while the world around us runs around in panic because of the unpredictability of life, we can sit here today and in our living rooms before work and open His Word and know, God is in control. And because of His control, we know that everything will work out exactly as He determined it would. And that is comfort is the best way. A comfort that forces us to fall on our knees and “revere” the One who put this all into action to begin with…THE WORD OF THE LORD
Filed under: Bible Study, Christian Living, Ministry, Sermon
