Acknowledgement: This sermon script is based on one by Ray Galea and appropriated, adapted, edited, expanded, and researched, with an English translation of the Old Testament passage based on the ERV but modernized and modified in the light of the Hebrew. It has been adapted and reproduced here with permission, but responsibility for the final product is my own.
It’s a new year, and everything suggests that this year will be just like every other year. Our facebook feeds tell us things like a baby has been born, a friend has died, it’s a niece’s birthday, a workmate is getting married, a cousin is getting divorced, and a parent has cancer. The news reports tell us of another war, another murder, another terrorist killing, and another round of peace negotiations. We know that this year will be the same as every other year because, there is a time, a season, for everything.
I heard of a man who said he read a newspaper from beginning to end while he was on his holidays. That’s unsurprising, really. But what he didn’t realize was that the newspaper was three months old! He didn’t notice along the way because nothing ever changes. And we can readily believe it.
Our passage today, Ecclesiastes chapter 3, is a favourite at funerals, even and especially non-Christian and secular ones. It is read out by secular funeral celebrants at the funerals of people without faith in Jesus—even if they don’t know where its from, because it rings true. It was put to music by the non-Christian 60s rock band, “The Byrds”, with their jingle jangle Rickenbacker 12 string guitar arpeggios. It’s a classic, and is still popular because it resonates with us—as well as being on the Forrest Gump soundtrack. It speaks not so much about how we ought to live our lives, as much as to how life under the sun is actually and in reality lived. It speaks to our lived experience of life.
Our passage is telling us that there are the seasons of life under heaven. It speaks of the tyranny of time—that one day, sooner or later, in our lives under the sun, there will be a time for everything, whether it is good or bad. Verse 1:
3:1For all things there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.
There are events that come upon us at their appointed times. Some of these things we like, and welcome, and long for. Some of these things we wish we could avoid. Our passage, Ecclesiastes chapter 3 presents us with a string of opposites in verses 2 to 8. For every positive thing there is a negative thing. For every good thing that we accept with joy there is a bad thing that we dread and fear. And yet both the good and the bad come to us in their own time, and have their own season in our lives under the sun. The teacher has said that everything is meaningless, so he is not afraid to cover everything—even the bad things.
Our first couplet in verse 2a reminds us that our lives have a beginning and an end. There’s “a time to give birth and a time to die”. And this simply reflects our lived experience. We have been born, someone gave birth to us, and unless Jesus comes back soon, we will surely die as the wages of our sin.
And we experience this reality in our circle of relationships. We find ourselves at one time rejoicing at a birth—a son, a grand daughter, a niece, a God-child—then at another time crying at a funeral of a friend, a relative, or a parent. Sometimes these two events are separated for the one human by only two minutes—as in the case of a stillbirth—or for others they are separated by 90 years. And sometimes as we live our lives under the sun, we might even experience them both in our circle of friends or loved ones in the same week, that we attend a baptism or a birth on one day, and a funeral on the next. Or perhaps a death and a birth among your family or friends might even occur on the same day—and at once your circle of loved ones is both rejoicing at one event and weeping at the other. That is the nature of life under the sun.
Between our births or our giving birth, and our deaths, we experience a range of positive and negative ‘times’ or ‘seasons’ of life. So in the next three comparisons, in verses 2b to 3, the teacher pictures for us and sets against one another both creative and destructive acts.
First, verse 2b, there’s “a time to plant and a time to uproot”. A farmer in his market garden is either planting seeds for the next crop or pulling up weeds to be burnt in the fire.
Second, verse 3a, there’s “a time to kill and a time to heal”. We might make the trip to the vet, and there we will decide whether to heal the cat or put it down. Or think of those ‘Poirot movies’, where the murderer is caught and injured, and he spends time being healed in hospital only to be hanged on the gallows for his crime. They get healed only to face their death.
Third, verse 3b, there’s “a time to tear down and a time to build up”.
All over our city of Sydney, old houses are coming down, making way for new apartment blocks going up in their place. And all of this is appropriate in its place. It’s wise in our growing city to pull down an old three bedroom bungalow on half an acre near an inner suburban railway station to put up multi-storey home units. There’s a time to demolish a great old building or structures, to set the charges and turn it into a pile of rubble, so that something new and good and better can be put in its place and serve people in our community.
Neither heritage and saving the old thing is absolutely right, nor is development and construction at all costs absolutely right. All this requires wisdom, and each has their place.
We have heard about and seen the destruction of cities throughout the middle east through the many wars. The same power, the United States, that sends the military forces that destroy the buildings, also sends the reconstruction teams to rebuild the buildings. There’s a time to destroy, and a time to rebuild. Remember, the teacher is not saying what should be—he is simply saying what is.
Dr Seuss has a story, “The Sneeches on the Beaches”. The fashionable sneeches have stars on their bellies. The unfashionable ones have none on thars. The ones without wanted stars, and in comes Sylvester Monkey McBean, who for a price puts stars on bellies without. Then the ones who had stars on their bellies at the beginning didn’t want their stars anymore. No worries, Sylvester Monkey McBean also has a star off machine. And around and around they go, paying McBean to put the stars on and take the stars off, until they have run out of money, but are a little wiser.
It is like the tattoo palour on one side of the road, and the tattoo removal clinic on the other side of the road, and both are owned by the same person. And so it is with the military industrial complex that sell the weapons, and then send in the teams for the re-construction phase. There’s a time to tear down, and a time to build.
And with these diverse and contrasting experiences in our lives come the different and opposite emotions. This is what the next four pairs of ‘times’ talk about in verses 4 to 5.
First, verse 4a, there’s “a time to weep and a time to laugh”. The emotional life of a healthy human includes both weeping and laughter. And that include us men. It is normal to experience joy and sorrows, weddings and funerals, and to experience the emotion that accompany them. It might not be pleasant. It might not even be absolutely necessary. Who wants to choose to plummet to the depths of despair and clinical depression? And you may never experience euphoria or ecstacy, and nor should you seek it out using artificial stimulants or illicit drugs or immoral behaviour. But if these things do come, to you, they are a normal part of life under the sun.
Second, verse 4b, there’s “a time to mourn and a time to dance”. We mourn at funerals, and we dance—some of us at least try to—at weddings. In their place, each response is good and proper, healthy and fully human. We should celebrate at weddings, and not treat them like funerals, even though both bride and groom are going to probably suffer horribly in different ways, and die, and the marriage will end. For there is real joy to be found in the wedding and the gift of marriage, in sex and companionship and the hope of family life. And we should rightly mourn at the funeral, even if the person was a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and is now with Christ and free from pain and their broken body. For we miss them, or ought to miss them, or we wish we missed them but don’t, and all this is worthy having a good cry over, if we can manage it and if it comes.
Third, verse 5a, there’s “a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them”. Some take this as referring to clearing a field to prepare for agriculture. One gathers stones to clear a field for farming—and then scatters stones over the field of an enemy for revenge, or in war, so that the enemy will not be able to farm that land. If this is the case, the couplet is speaking of vengeance as a desire, and anger is the underlying emotion. In that case, we must deal with both anger and the desire for vengeance in our lives under the sun. Those very horrible experiences occur in our broken world.
If it doesn’t mean that, the couplet could mean that the throwing away stones is to clear a field by tossing the stones to the side of the arable land, and the gathering of the stones is in preparation for construction and building.
Fourth, verse 5b, there’s “a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing”. Physical affection is important, but it is not always appropriate, and it does not fix every problem. I’ve seen people use hugs to smother the tears of another. It is wisdom to know the difference.
Or it could refer to sexual intimacy. There is a time for sexual expression—according to God in the Scriptures it is marriage—and a time to refrain, when we are single and have not entered the safety of the promises of marriage for the expression of sex.
Living with our eyes open and with realism in our world involves recognizing these opposite and contrasting emotions are a part of life and have their appropriate seasons. This is the reality we must engage in. We must reckon with our experiences of grief, loss, and our desire for revenge, and as much as our joy shown in laughter, dancing, and hugs.
There’s much talk about ‘resilience’ these days, and particularly ‘resilient parenting’. Resilient parenting is about helping our children live in each time of life and learn from every season—both the painful and the joyous—and not to try to create some sort of cocoon or bubble with which to shield them from life as it actually is.
The next four observations—in verses 6 to 7—are reflections on the reality of a fallen and frustrating world. Living in a material world means our stuff doesn’t last, goes missing, and gets wrecked. Entropy is at work with our possessions.
First, verse 6a, there’s “a time to search and a time to give up as lost”. Who doesn’t lose things frequently? It is so easy to misplace my keys, my phones (at least you can ask someone to ring them for you, but then I’m in trouble when I’ve left them on silent), my wallet (you can’t ring that—I’ve wanted to, believe me!), the remote controls to the TV, DVD, set top box, air conditioner, the toothbrush, the four socket power board, the car when I go shopping at the plaza, my bag, my password, my child. We all know about the frightening search for that lost child, and the sinking feeling, the terrible thoughts, and the worry—how am I going to explain this to my wife!
Most of the time such searches thankfully turn out to be only minor inconveniences in the great scheme of things, and we can laugh about them and talk about them in sermons. But sometimes they have a tragic outcome. We have seen this with a lost sailor, swimmer, surfer, soldier, rock fisherman, or jumbo jet. Then comes the tragedy of having to call off the search, when all hope is gone. There’s a time to stop searching.
Second, verse 6b, there’s “a time to keep and a time to throw away”. Take note, hoarders of the world! There is actually a time for throwing away. Am I really going to lose that 20 kilos and fit into those jeans I’ve been hanging on to in hope for these 20 years? Here’s a word to the wives and mothers of Australia: It may be just a torn t-shirt to you, but to your husband or son, it’s an old friend.
Third, verse 7a, there’s “a time to tear and a time to mend”. ‘Tearing’ or ‘rending’ garments is a metaphor for mourning. In the ancient world, grieving people tore their clothes as a sign of their grief. In a fallen world, legitimate causes of grief will come upon us, but eventually that grief needs to come to an end for the sake of others—there is a time to repair as well as tear, to mend as well as to rend.
Fourth, verse 7b, there’s “a time to remain silent and a time to speak”. The ability to know when to speak and when to hold your tongue is what makes you wise. Sometimes fools go where angels fear to tread. Keep this in mind when you write your next online comment. Or there is the ability of speaking sensitively and appropriately to someone in the midst of suffering, and for this the book of Job provides good examples of what not to do. We are told to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. That is a good starting place. And yet there are also times when to not speak is cowardice, and when we must speak truth to power. Self-censorship and fear is a problem in our politically correct world just as much as trolls.
The last two pairs in verse 8 have to do with the affections and their consequences. There’s “a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace”. The teacher starts off with the personal category—‘love’ and ‘hate’—and ends up with the international category—‘war’ and ‘peace’. And of course, there is a link between the two.
Notice that ‘hate’ is not per se sinful. It might be, but there is an appropriate hatred that the Scriptures talk about—hate what is evil, but cling to what is good, for example. While there is rightly something called hate speech and inciting hatred, it is not hate speech to say that something is sinful according to God’s word the Bible. The Scriptures actually talk about not correcting a child as ‘hate’. Proverbs 13:24
Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him (ESV).
Remember, the teacher is not saying necessarily what should happen in this world. He is telling us what does happen in this world. We all want peace in our time. I suspect very few people are really warmongers—I suppose there are probably some. But the Lord Jesus has warned that wars and rumours of wars are not the end but the beginning of birth pains. In the words of Bob Dylan, “There will be no peace, the war won’t cease, until he returns.”
In verse 11, the teacher says, “He has made everything beautiful in its time.” Probably what he means is that, “He has made everything appropriate or fitting in its time.” There is a beauty in an appropriate response to a time or season.
Even though our world is broken, fallen, and subject to frustration and decay, there remains a God given order in this world, even when we deal with the consequences of the fall, such as suffering, pain, and death. Under the sun, each of the times, both good and bad, has a place, and we must accept them both and respond appropriately to both to live wisely under the sun.
Yet, it is a burden to live life in a fallen world. Verse 10:
3:10I have seen the trouble which God has given to the sons of men with which to be afflicted.
Life is not just about births, love, laughter, planting, building, embracing, dancing, and peace—all the good, positive things we want. The stiff arm of life under the sun hits us with the opposite of these things: death, hated, killing, mourning, scattering, rejection, destruction, and war. These negative, awful things are just as much part of life as the good, positive things. And the fact is that there is no beauty in these horrible seasons of life—at least, not when we are in the midst of them. But there is beauty and appropriateness in the responses that we can make to those times.
I don’t know why some of us experience more suffering than others. The uneven distribution of suffering in the world and the church is one enormous mystery to me. We are simply not told why God has arranged it this way. But, if in the popular parlance, you have been lucky so far, sooner or later the luck will run out. Eventually, the negative stuff will come. For there is a season for everything, whether it is good or bad.
In verse 16, the teacher tells us that there is a time for injustice. Remember, he is not saying what ought to be, but what is under the sun:
3:16And moreover I saw under the sun, that in the place of judgement, there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, there was wickedness.
The ‘place of judgement’ here is the human court room. There are miscarriages of justice underneath the sun. There is unfairness and injustice.
Have you ever thought that right now, as we enjoy our comforts and freedoms, that there are innocent people imprisoned in jail, enduring all the shame and anger and injustice, and yet knowing they are innocence. And by the same token, there are guilty people walking the streets, who should be in jail, and perhaps will never see justice before they die. In verse 16, you get the feeling that there is no balance between justice and injustice under the sun—that there is only injustice.
The teacher gives only one side of life under the sun—the injustice—and while he does resolve this question of injustice at the very end of the book of Ecclesiastes, he also points us to the solution here, in verse 17:
3:17I said in my heart, “God shall judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every purpose and for every work there.”
At the judgement day also there will be a time for every work, whether it is good or bad. And there at the judgement, those who have escaped justice in this life and have not fled to Christ for refuge and mercy will receive strict and just retribution for their sins. There will be no bribes, no winks, no nods, no favours. There will be justice. And that should make those who have escaped justice here afraid—because in the end, no one gets away with anything. It is either confessed, forsaken, and forgiven in Christ Jesus, or it is punished in our new resurrection bodies for an eternity.
But the ultimate solution to the problem of injustice also takes us to the reality of life under the sun—that no-one gets out of here alive. This is what renders life meaningless under the sun—the reality of death, and what it does to our lives
In verses 19 and 20, we see the tyranny of time, the burden and meaninglessness of the seasons, in that no-one escapes, whether humans or animals:
3:19For that which befalls the sons of men befalls them animals. This one thing befalls them both, that just as the one thus dies, so also dies the other. Indeed, they all have the same breath, and humanity has no advantage over the animals, for all is vapour. 3:20All are going to one place. All are from the dust, and all return to the dust again.
From the dust we came and to the dust we return. Whether you end up six centimetres under in my backyard like our birds, bunnies, or mice, or you end up six feet under in Pinegrove Cemetery, death is the great leveler, for both humans and animals.
But what sets humans apart from animals is this: God has also set eternity in the hearts of humans, and not in the hearts of dogs. Verse 11, again:
3:11He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in their hearts, yet in such a way that a human cannot discover the work that God has done from the beginning to the end.
We as humans have what the animals do not have. We have the privilege and curse of wanting to live forever. This is the tyranny of eternity that remains in the human heart.
Do you remember the New Years Eve celebrations in 1999, when the word ‘eternity’ was written on Sydney Harbour Bridge? This inscription ushered in the new millenium. Perhaps for our secular city, it reflected the hope that our city and Harbour Bridge would last for eternity. It won’t, of course. But before ‘eternity’ was written in fireworks on the bridge, the word ‘eternity’ had already been written on every the human heart by God himself. That is why the word ‘eternity’ touched the hearts of so many who saw it light up the bridge. Every human longs to reach beyond what we have in this mortal life into eternity. This life is not enough. We want to reach out for immortality. We want eternity while we are trapped in a body that will enter a season of death.
Sometimes we see this desire for eternity among us and within ourselves. We see the desire for eternity with health obsessions, trying to milk another five years out of our bodies, or squeezing ten lifetimes into one with frenetic activity.
Albert Camus said that “life is a sustained protest against death”. Hebrews chapter 2 says the same thing, that we are all enslaved to the fear of death, and yet all the while desperate to live forever. That sense of exasperation forces Solomon to concede reluctantly in verses 12 to 13:
3:12I know that there is nothing better for them than to find joy and do good in their lives, 3:13and also that every person should eat and drink, and see good in all their labour. This is the gift of God.
These are God-given concessions. If you don’t know how life began and how it will end, if birth marks the beginning and death marks the end, then eat and drink, do some good, and enjoy your work. This is the best you can hope for. This is all you’ve got, the divine concession you need to live with.
When you think about it, verses 12 to 13 describe twenty-first century Australia: seeking satisfaction with the divine concession of eating, drinking, working, reproducing. This enables people to not have to think too hard about life, and it numbs the pain. And so most Australians live with the pursuit of the trivial. The modern Australian way is to try and live for the moment—to throw yourself into the job, the next gourmet meal, the new craft beer, the upcoming long weekend. And these are undoubtedly gifts from God. They do really give us a degree of happiness and joy. But if that is all there is, then the burden is heavy.
Our regional bishop, Ivan Lee, the bishop of Western Sydney, when he was seven years old asked his atheist father, “What is the meaning of life?” His father was brutally honest. He said, “Son, there is no meaning to life. There is no god. You were nothing. You became something when you were born. You grow up. You get a job. You make some money and have a family. Then you die. They put you in a box. Then the worms eat you. Then you are nothing again.”
Ivan said he appreciated his dad’s honesty, but it stressed him out from the age of 7 till he became a Christian at 19 years of age.
With that mindset, there is nothing else but clinging to the concessions of God, those good but temporary gifts like marriage and family and work and eating and drinking. But even in the midst of them, the reality of death breaks in.
Take getting married. Two people come together, the day is built up to be one of the most important days of their lives, and they hear the words, “for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health […] till death do us part.” There is ‘death’ again, forcing its way into life, saying to us, “you cannot get away from me in the concessions and distractions of life”.
Think of the bride who was tragically killed in Bali by a freak wave while on her honeymoon , or the bride who died on her honeymoon in Fiji from extreme pneumonia. There are two husbands coming home to Australia from their honeymoons without their new brides.
Marriage is a real joy and gift, but it is temporary, and can be taken away at any time, even at the very beginning, almost before it starts. And others never get married. Yes, we do enjoy food, and drink, and work, and marriage. But they are not enough, not even if you survive the honeymoon and get to enjoy marriage and a family.
Eternity drives us to want more than the concessions. Augustine once famously said, “Our souls are restless until they find rest in you”.
We cry at funerals because we know there is more to life than the concessions. I remember one philosopher at university who apologized for crying at his wife’s funeral. He always taught at university that we humans are no more than a collection of atoms. So why should he cry when the collection of atoms that constituted his wife is now simply re-configured? But his tears exposed that we are not just a bunch of atoms, and that God has indeed placed eternity in our hearts. This life is not long enough. Nothing less than forever will do.
The teacher has some confidence in God and his purposes. He sees that in the midst of his life under the sun, the knowledge of God and his purposes is like a shaft of light probing the darkness. However, the teacher is unclear on the details. Verse 14:
3:14I know that everything that God does will exist forever. There is nothing that can be added to it, nor is there anything that can be taken from it. And God has done this so that people should be in fear before him.
There is some hope in the midst of meaninglessness, but it lies in the purposes of God. The one thing the teacher does know is that everything that God does will last into eternity. Again, why does God order the seasons and times? Verse 14c:
God has done this so that people should be in fear before him.
He may not know much, but the teacher knows that the answer is found in the fear of God. The tyranny of time makes us hungry for eternity, and maybe, just maybe, we will share that forever with God.
The teacher leaves so many questions unanswered. Verse 21:
3:21Who knows whether the spirit of the sons of men goes upward, and the spirit of the animal goes downward to the earth?
We must remember that the teacher here is engaged in an experiment. He is trying to determine what is worth living and what can be determined in our lives “under the sun”. If you like, he has wilful blindness about what is going on “in the heavens” and what God has said to his people. He is adopting “philosophical and scientific naturalism”. He knows that God is there in heaven. But he is engaged in a thought experiment, which he empirically tests by his actions and behaviour.
When he excludes “heaven” and “God” from his thinking, what is the best he can come up with for life under the sun. The best is, “enjoy life, and who knows? Perhaps you may end up different to your dead gold fish. Who knows?”
But that can’t be right! Trapped in time, we yearn for eternity and yearn for certainty, and this frustration and yearning, too, is God given.
While we are trapped in our seasons of time, God is not trapped in time. God is from everlasting to everlasting. His plan breaks into time. We know that in the fullness of time God sent his Son to set us free from a world marked by death as well as birth, hate as well as love, and mourning as well as dancing. Jesus entered every one of our seasons—joy and sorrow, birth and death. When the time had come, the child of the manger became the man of the cross, and by that cross bought our forgiveness. By rising from the dead, he defeated death and put eternity onto everyone’s agenda.
While the universal experience under the sun is that everyone goes down to the grave, with Jesus Christ one of us has now come up out of it again. And the rest of us who trust in Jesus will follow him and also come up out of the grave. The God who set eternity in our hearts has also satisfied that desire of our hearts with this promise in John chapter 11 verses 25 to 26:
11:25Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though that person dies. 11:26And every one who lives and believes in me will never die.
Where will you be five minutes after you die? Today is the day of salvation. It is appointed for a person to die once and after that face judgment. It is the resurrection that cracks open the tyranny of time.
You see that there is a time for everything, and that includes salvation.
We now know the beginning, for God has made that known to us. The past has been made known to us. He has told us that before the creation of the world, God chose his Son to die and save a world scourged with meaninglessness. Before the creation of the world God also chose you who believe in Christ to be adopted as his sons.
God has also made known to us the nature of the present time. He has made known to us that through his blood, we have the forgiveness of sins. Now is the time for salvation.
And God has also made known to us that in the future, we will be resurrected from the dead. He has revealed that there is a resurrection of judgement, and a resurrection of life (John 5:24-30), and that those who believe in Jesus will not be judged but have crossed over from death to life. We have now been sealed with the Spirit, guaranteeing our new body in the new world to come. The mystery hidden for ages has now been revealed to us, that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow. We know that in the end there will be a new heaven a new earth, where he will wipe every tear from their eyes (Rev 21:4). There will be no more death, or mourning, or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.
Notice that in this great vision of the future which we have been given, that there are no opposites anymore. That, my friends, is truly beautiful. In the coming world that the Lord Jesus Christ is bringing in, there is not a time for everything. There is not a season for every activity in heaven, as there was in the meaningless world under the sun. There is only a time for life, planting, healing, building, laughing, dancing, embracing, loving, and enjoying peace. Finally, our deepest longings which stem from the eternity God has placed in our hearts will be satisfied. In the new heaven and the new earth there are no phone calls to say that your father has died.
With eternity comes certainty. John says, 1 John 5:13:
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.
So we who believe in the name of the Son of God now enjoy God’s good gifts we have in this world no longer as a concession wrested from God’s unwilling hand. We no longer take God’s gifts from him in an attempt to impose some meaning upon our otherwise meaningless lives apart from him. But we gratefully receive God’s good gifts in this life as a token from him—as a small reminder—of the gift of eternal life he has promised us and will surely give us.
Early last century, an alcoholic hobo stumbled his way into St Barnabas Anglican church on Broadway, in what is now inner city Sydney. This man listened to a sermon which ended with the question, “Where will you spend eternity?” The preacher invited people afterwards to come forward and make a decision about following Jesus Christ, so that they too could know they would be spending eternity with him. The man, whose name was Arthur, did this, and so came to Christ.
Arthur was illiterate—he could neither read nor write—but he was desperate to do something in service of the one who had saved him. So Arthur Stace decided that he would spend the rest of his life waking up early and writing in chalked copperplate script the only word that he knew on the footpaths of Sydney streets. The word was ‘eternity’. For a long time, no one knew who was doing this. But eventually the Herald ran an enquiry to find out the source of this message. And Arthur Stace was uncovered. Over a period of 35 years, the otherwise illiterate Stace had chalked the word ‘eternity’ around 500,000 times in public spaces across Sydney. A documentary was made about who Arthur Stace was, and in it people came forward, admitting to how they were walking in the city and were confronted by the chalked graffiti that had forced them to think about the very ‘eternity’ that God had already put in their hearts. This one word sermon from an unknown illiterate had provoked in them a search for God.
The word ‘eternity’ strikes a chord in human hearts because God has placed a longing for eternity there. And then in the fullness of time, God has enabled that longing to be satisfied by sending his one and only Son.
Time is running out for you to take hold of eternity.
There’s an old grandfather clock that sits in Chester cathedral in England. It has been there for a hundred and fifty years. It just stands there, keeping time. And on the front of it, there’s a brass plaque, with this poem on it.
When as a child I laughed and wept, time crept. When as a youth I grew more bold, time strolled. When I became a full-grown man, time ran. When older still I daily grew, time flew. Soon I shall find, in passing on, time gone.
To a world trapped in meaninglessness, we need to keep saying that this temporary life is not long enough. This broken world is not good enough. Christ came to usher in a world where there is not a season for everything, but one where there is life not death, love not hate, healing not killing, peace not war, and joy not grief.
We each are now required to redeem the time (Eph 5:16), for there is a world lost in time. Jesus prayed to the Lord of the harvest, and we need more workers of the gospel. We need more men and women who will announce that Jesus’ resurrection has defeated to the tyranny of time. There is now a generation who carry the burden of wanting eternity but not knowing how to get it.
God only ever uses ordinary people. How long will you purse the good instead of pursuing the best? We need more gospel workers, who will announce that Jesus resurrection has cracked open our tyranny of time. We need more gospel workers who will say, and keep on saying, that this life is not long enough, and this world is not good enough. Christ came to usher in a new world, one where there is life and not death, love and not hate, healing and not killing, peace and not war, joy and not grief. We need men and women to announce that there is a place of no more crying or grief or pain, and no more death.
Now is the time for salvation. Now is the day to accept Jesus as Lord. And then now is the season for making Jesus' life giving resurrection known to a meaningless world.
(2) English Translation
Acknowledgement: The translation is the ERV modernized and modified in the light of the Hebrew.
CHAPTER 3
3:1For all things there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.
3:2A time to be born, and a time to die, a time to plant, and a time to uproot what is planted,
3:3a time to kill, and a time to heal, a time to break down, and a time to build up,
3:4a time to weep, and a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance,
3:5a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together, a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing,
3:6a time to search, and a time to give up as lost, a time to keep, and a time to throw away,
3:7a time to tear, and a time to mend, a time to remain silent, and a time to speak,
3:8a time to love, and a time to hate, a time for war, and a time for peace.
3:9What profit does the one who works have in that in which that person labours?
3:10I have seen the trouble which God has given to the sons of men with which to be afflicted.
3:11He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in their hearts, yet in such a way that a human cannot discover the work that God has done from the beginning to the end.
3:12I know that there is nothing better for them than to find joy and do good in their lives,
3:13and also that every person should eat and drink, and see good in all their labour. This is the gift of God.
3:14I know that everything that God does will exist forever. There is nothing that can be added to it, nor is there anything that can be taken from it. And God has done this so that people should be in fear before him.
3:15That which is has already been, and that which is to be has already been, and God seeks again that which has passed away.
3:16And moreover I saw under the sun, that in the place of judgment, there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, there was wickedness.
3:17I said in my heart, “God shall judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every purpose and for every work there.”
3:18I said in my heart about the situation of the sons of men, “It is so that God might test them, and that they might see that they themselves are only like the animals.”
3:19For that which befalls the sons of men befalls them animals. This one thing befalls them both, that just as the one thus dies, so also dies the other. Indeed, they all have the same breath, and humanity has no advantage over the animals, for all is vapour.
3:20All are going to one place. All are from the dust, and all return to the dust again.
3:21Who knows whether the spirit of the sons of men goes upward, and the spirit of the animal goes downward to the earth?
3:22So I saw that there is nothing better than that people should rejoice in their works, for that is their lot. For who will bring him back to see what will come about after him?