Redeeming Time Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 Dr. Steve Lee I. The Frustration of Dealing with Seasons in Life Q Wisdom Literature Ecclesiastes is the testimony of a man who calls himself The Preacher. He is on a journey in search of the meaning of life by studying the world around him. As I pointed in the first message, unlike the other books of the Bible the wisdom books are unique in that they point us not directly to God, but to his creation, inviting us to gain wisdom by observing the world that he has made. This journey to gain wisdom and understanding isn t always a smooth one. In fact, it can get pretty harrowing. The wisdom writers are willing to go to some pretty dark places. And along the way they pour out their grievances to God with brutal honesty. This honesty was so disturbing to many Medieval Bible scholars that they called Ecclesiastes one of the Bible s two dangerous books. (The other was Song of Solomon because of all it s overt sexuality.) Controlling Time Today we turn Ecclesiastes 3:1-15, which is arguably the most famous passage in the book. I want to introduce the message today with a video clip. The clip for today comes from the movie, Click, which tells the story of a man played by Adam Sandler who goes to Bed, Bath, & Beyond, to buy a universal remote, but ends up getting a remote that enables him to control the world around him. Although this movie is a pretty lighthearted comedy, it taps into a yearning inside us all to control time. And the desire to control time is essentially the desire to take control of our lives. Don t we all wish we could fast-forward over the unpleasant moments of our lives, or completely skip whole chapters like you can on a DVD? Wouldn t it be great if you could pause time in those better moments like a vacation at the beach GCC Family Retreat 2017 Dr. Steve Lee P.1
so that you can enjoy that moment for as long as you want? Or even rewind to your most cherished moments so that you can relive them as often as you d like? We may not have a magical remote like Adam Sandler, but in our own limited ways we try to take time into our own hands. When we are bored or frustrated we disengage or distract ourselves in the hopes of making the time pass faster. We try our best to savor the good moments and make them last as long as possible. We do everything we can to try to prevent any of the bad chapters from showing up in our lives. When they do arrive, we do everything we can to get through it as fast as possible. And some of us are stuck in the past, always reliving the good old days, as an escape from the present. In these weak and limited ways we do our best to take control of our lives by taking control of time. Misinterpreting the Poem In his quest to find life s meaning, the Preacher finds himself also reflecting on this matter of time. And the summary of his observations on time is found in a poem captured in the first 8 verses of chapter 3 Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: 2 a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; 3 a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; 4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; 5 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; 6 a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; 7 a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 8 a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace. Before we go any further, we have to make sure that we understand what the Preacher is saying about time through this poem. This is important because there are some questionable interpretations that have become pretty popular. Probably the most common of these misinterpretations is this one. The purpose of this poem is to teach us that we need to discern the times so that we can know what we re supposed to do in any given situation. In other words, we need to do the right thing at the right time. We need wisdom to redeem the time so that we ll act in the appropriate way depending on the specific circumstances that we re facing. Is it a time for planting? A time for building? Is it a time to speak or a time to be silent? For example, when you re at a funeral that s a time to mourn, not dance; cry, not laugh. Or sometimes you ve got to know when it s time to give up on something and tear it down, as well as recognizing when it s time to build something new. GCC Family Retreat 2017 Dr. Steve Lee P.2
There may be a lot of wisdom in all these statements but I don t think it s the message of this passage. The first problem with this interpretation, is that it s not really suggested anywhere in this passage itself. The Preacher never actually says anything like, Therefore, be wise about recognizing the times and act appropriately. This interpretation is also problematic because it suggests that there are appropriate times for us to engage in what would generally be considered inappropriate behavior. There are a lot of bad things on this list like dying, uprooting what someone planted, killing, destroying things, hating others, withholding comfort, ripping and tearing things, and going to war. What if someone were to say to you, I ve been praying about this a lot, and I think this is a season when I really need to hate you right now. I don t want to do it, but I feel convicted that this is what God wants me to do at this time. There are some who ve tried to get around this difficulty by arguing that, for example, the killing in this poem refers only to capital punishment, or that hating refers to hating only evil. I have a hard time believing, though, that what the Preacher really had in mind was calling people to exercise the judicious application of the death penalty. The Cruel Rhythms of Time Well if it s not about doing the right thing at the right time, then what is the point that the Preacher is trying to make? I believe the point of the poem isn t so much about understanding the sign of the times so that we can act appropriately, but it is simply telling us how the world operates regardless of what we do. Notice that for each season of life that he describes, the Preacher counters it with an opposite season. His point is that there are cycles in life that oppose each other, and this opposition is often the source of much of the frustration in our lives. We find ourselves in a season of optimism, a time for growing and building for a bright future. But without even understanding how it happened, everything is suddenly being torn down and all you can do is watch helplessly. v v v In one moment you re thinking about upgrading your kitchen with your next pay raise, and in the next moment you find yourself in the unemployment line. In one moment you are celebrating the birth of a child and in the next you find yourself at the funeral service of a loved one. In one moment everyone is getting along wonderfully, and in the next everything falls apart and no one even wants to talk to each other anymore. Just when we felt like there was hope for global peace with nuclear disarmament and the end of the Cold War, we find ourselves in one of the most protracted periods of warfare in US history with no end in sight for this War on Terror. In GCC Family Retreat 2017 Dr. Steve Lee P.3
one moment I was on top of the world witnessing the resurrection and expansion of a historic mission hospital in Africa, and in the next moment I m struggling for my next breath and my missionary career is suddenly over before I even realize fully what s happened. This is life under the sun. We re all subjected to different seasons in life by forces that are so much larger than us. And often the next season seems to undo the very progress that we felt was being accomplished in the previous one. These rhythms of life can be incredibly frustrating and infuriating. That s why right after the poem, the Preacher laments Ecclesiastes 3:9, What gain has the worker from his toil? In other words, what s the point of all our efforts when everything we build eventually gets torn down and progress seems like an illusion? At the end of v.11 he states Ecclesiastes 3:11, 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. As human beings made in the image of God, he has put eternity in our hearts. That s why we can t be satisfied with an animal existence just living for survival, for our next meal. As much as science and modernity have attempted to kill religion, it simply hasn t worked, because we are spiritual beings. Our souls cry out for the eternal, for meaning, for immortality. But even as we hunger for eternity, we struggle to find it. We struggle to make sense of the world that we see all around us. Can there really be order in the midst of all this chaos? Can there really be meaning behind all this apparent randomness? Have you ever been in a traffic jam so bad that people get out of their cars and even climb up on them to try to figure out what s going on? That s what Ecclesiastes 3:11 is all about. There s something deep inside us that drives us to know what s going on down the road, but no matter how hard we try we can t see the cause of the traffic jam. God has put eternity in our hearts but we struggle to understand his ways. Derek Kidner, We catch these brilliant moments, but even apart from the darkness interspersed with them they leave us unsatisfied for lack of any total meaning that we can grasp. Unlike the animals, immersed in time, we long to see them in their full context, for we know something of eternity; enough at least to compare the fleeting with the forever. We are like the desperately near-sighted, inching their way along some great tapestry or fresco in the attempt to take it in. We see enough to recognize something of its quality, but the grand design escapes us, for we can never stand back far enough to view it as its Creator does, whole and entire, from the beginning to the end. GCC Family Retreat 2017 Dr. Steve Lee P.4
II. Trusting in God s Sovereign Care Q Everything Beautiful in Its Time So what is the conclusion of all of this? The Preacher tells us in Ecclesiastes 3:10-11 Ecclesiastes 3:10-11, I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Without faith, life seems like nothing more than an endless and absurd cycle of life followed by death, building followed by destroying, loving followed by hating. But through the eyes of faith we see that God accomplishes his purposes even in the midst of chaos and evil. I believe this is one of the most powerful expressions of faith in God to trust that he is able to make all things beautiful in his own timing to believe that God can accomplish his will despite all the wrong and brokenness and sin in our world. This is the faith that the Preacher is calling us to. What does this faith look like when it s lived out? Joy First it results in a life of joy and celebration. Ecclesiastes 3:12-13, I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; 13 also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil this is God s gift to man. This is very similar to the theme of my last message of living in the moment. True wisdom is not to be consumed by our inadequacies and limitations that we see in ourselves or the problems we see in the world around us, because we know that God, our Shepherd, will care for us. Tommy Nelson, In many ways Satan is sometimes easier to understand than God. Satan in a sense is very simplistic. He is a being of pure evil. That means his reasons for doing everything he does are easily understood. God, however, is a problem. It s often difficult to interpret His actions in the shortterm. If He s good and all-powerful, why is there so much suffering in the world? Solomon wants to tell us that even when we don t understand everything God is doing, we cannot let what we cannot know destroy what we can enjoy. GCC Family Retreat 2017 Dr. Steve Lee P.5
And when we ve truly gained this wisdom, we can stop our worrying and learn how to enjoy the small moments as gifts from a loving God. Most of our kids have been taking piano lessons for 10 or more years. And with five kids there were periods when the piano was being played almost non-stop during most evenings at our house. But throughout all this time, I realized that the music was never really being played for enjoyment either by the kids or by us. For the kids each song was just another hurdle that they had to jump over a stepping-stone to get to the next, more difficult song that the teacher will assign. For us as parents, it was about listening for mistakes so that we could correct them or measure their progress. Your tempo is wrong. Slow down, you re playing it too fast. That note was wrong in that last measure. Try it again. One day, I was listening to one of my older daughters playing a piece and I was struck by how beautiful it sounded and how deaf I had been to this beauty for so many years. I thought how strange it was that so much music was being played in our house, but who was actually there enjoying any of it? A lot of us live our lives like this. There is music all around us, but we re deaf to it, because we re too preoccupied with all our worries and burdens to actually hear and enjoy it. Trust and Worship This leads me to the other result of our faith in God: a life of trust and worship. 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, so that people fear before him. In other words, God sets the times and there s nothing that anyone can do to change it. God s will cannot be thwarted. The response to this truth is to fear him. This doesn t mean that we re supposed to be afraid of him, like a child would be afraid of a domineering and abusive father. To fear God is to give him the rightful place of respect and trust in our hearts, acknowledging his authority and rule over everything that happens. Jeffrey Meyers, The burden of being a god is not one that a human creature was meant to shoulder. Along with godlike sovereignty comes the crushing responsibility for your entire life and the outcome of your life. Ecclesiastes is liberating. It tells you that you need not feel guilty for something you cannot control. All times and seasons are in God s hands. We find ourselves enmeshed in these seasons, but we have no sovereign determination over them. They come upon us. We are not in control. We have no leverage, no advantage over these seasons. Wisdom accepts these seasons from God s hand, and then follows God s lead by discerning the appropriate dance GCC Family Retreat 2017 Dr. Steve Lee P.6
step. Faithful and wise living means submitting to God s timetable and thereby responding in a way that acknowledges God s superior but inscrutable plan for your life. In the days of the prophet Jeremiah, the capital city of Jerusalem was defeated by the Babylonians. Many Jews were slaughtered, the temple was burned to the ground, and the surviving Israelites were deported to Babylon. If ever there was a hopeless period in Israel s history, this was it. In the face of such horrible tragedy, how could the Israelites imagine that their could possibly be a future for them, or that God was even with them any more? And yet this is the word that God gave to his people Jeremiah 29:4-7, Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. In other words, Settle down and make yourselves at home because you re going to be in Babylon for a while. It s not what you want and it isn t going to be easy, but God will still be with you. There are some painful moments ahead in your life; It may not be what you expect and definitely not what you want; but this is all a part of life. But God s promise to us is that nothing is by accident everything has a place in his plan. Romans 8:31-32, What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? The cross is God s reassurance of goodwill toward us, no matter what we may be asked to endure in our lives. God always wills our good in everything because we have peace with him through Jesus Christ. Even when he disciplines us, it is for our growth, not simply for punishment. This means that we can face every season of our lives with joy, courage, and worship. GCC Family Retreat 2017 Dr. Steve Lee P.7