WWUTT 1679 A Time for Everything (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)

WWUTT Podcast

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:01

There is a season for everything under heaven. You've heard that song before, right? There's a time to love and a time for hate.

00:08

A time for war and a time for peace. No, it's not some hippie song. It's from the Bible.

00:13

When we understand the text. This is

00:25

When We Understand The Text, teaching through a New Testament book on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and a

00:32

Q &A on Friday. With our Old Testament study today, here's Pastor Gabe. Thank you,

00:37

Becky. We come back to our study of the book of Ecclesiastes, and we're up to chapter 3. Looking at a very famous poem today, one that was a popular song back in the 60s, in fact.

00:50

You may know this as the most popular section of the book of Ecclesiastes. A time for everything under heaven.

00:59

Let's look at it out of the Legacy Standard Bible. This is Ecclesiastes chapter 3 verses 1 through 8.

01:06

The word of the Lord through the voice of the preacher. There is an appointed time for everything, and there is a time for every matter under heaven.

01:18

A time to give birth, and a time to die. A time to plant, and a time to uproot what is planted.

01:27

A time to kill, and a time to heal. A time to tear down, and a time to build up.

01:35

A time to weep, and a time to laugh. A time to mourn, and a time to dance.

01:43

A time to throw stones, and a time to gather stones. A time to embrace, and a time to shun embracing.

01:53

A time to search, and a time to lose. A time to keep, and a time to throw away.

02:01

A time to tear apart, and a time to sew together. A time to be silent, and a time to speak.

02:10

A time to love, and a time to hate. A time for war, and a time for peace.

02:21

That's 14 pairs of a time to do this, or a time to do that.

02:27

And numbers are significant in the Hebrew language. Throughout the scriptures, numbers are used symbolically, whether you're talking about the

02:34

Old Testament or the New. And in this particular case, what would the number 14 represent? It's two sevens.

02:42

Seven of this, another seven of this, and then seven of that, and another seven of that. So, two sevens together make 14.

02:49

What is symbolic about the number seven in the Bible? It's the number of God. That's the way it's most often thought of, but more specifically it's the number of completeness.

03:00

So something is complete put in sevens, and paired up like this, it serves as a witness.

03:06

Because remember that every charge must be established by the evidence of how many witnesses?

03:12

Two or three witnesses. So when you have two pairs of sevens, it's almost as if there is a standing witness to these things that are being proclaimed.

03:22

Everything that happens will happen in its appointed time, and when it happens and when it takes place, when all things are said and done, it will be said to have been completed.

03:34

Nothing is ever left undone. It is done exactly as God has meant for it to be done.

03:40

Do we rest in His sovereignty and trust in His way to know that this is exactly how

03:47

God has meant for these things to take place? And we rest and trust in Him.

03:55

Let's look at the very beginning of this. Verse one kind of sets this up. And then it's the next seven verses that have this back and forth of a time to give and a time to take away.

04:07

It's always something positive followed by something negative. We'll consider that when we get to the pairs.

04:13

So first of all there is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every matter under heaven.

04:22

There we have a pair. It's said twice. This is called a parallelism in Hebrew poetry.

04:28

So we know that what we're reading here is a poem. This kind of sets it a little bit different than some of the rest of the things that we see in the

04:36

Book of Ecclesiastes. There's a lot of poetry, a lot of imagery that gets used here, but this part specifically, this is its own kind of standalone poem.

04:45

And we begin with that parallelism, something that is said twice. There is an appointed time for everything.

04:51

And there is a time for every matter under heaven. It's kind of saying the same thing twice.

04:57

But that phrase that we have rendered appointed time, that means that everything that happens is meant to happen.

05:09

It was decided upon long before it ever happened. It's providential.

05:16

Or even more specifically, we're talking here about the sovereignty of God. There is absolutely nothing that happens in the universe that is outside of God's control.

05:29

And that sovereignty is even demonstrated here in Ecclesiastes 3 .1. There is an appointed time for everything.

05:39

Everything that happens. There was a designated time in which it was going to happen, which means there was a starting point and an ending point.

05:48

And God has determined it. Nothing has ever taken place that God has not determined.

05:53

Nothing has ever gone too long beyond what God intended for something to happen.

05:59

We're reading here about God's sovereignty over all things right at the very start of this poem.

06:05

And surely if you're familiar with R .C. Sproul, you've heard this from him before. It's one of the most famous quotes attributed to Sproul.

06:13

There are no maverick molecules. If there was even one maverick molecule in God's universe outside of God's control, then there's no reason for us to ever believe that any one of God's promises would ever come to pass.

06:32

Because there's something in his universe that is outside of his control. That was outside of his awareness.

06:41

I didn't know that was going to happen. I didn't cause that to happen. That thing happened on its own. Nothing happens outside of God.

06:49

He is the one who has designated all things. The creator of all things created the times and the places in which all of these things would happen.

06:57

There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every matter under heaven.

07:08

Now I find it fascinating that the preacher here says there's a time for every matter under heaven.

07:14

Why would he say that? Why would he not also include what happens in heaven?

07:19

I'm not going to go into great detail on this because we still have to get to our poem. But I think the reason is because time does not matter in heaven.

07:29

It matters to us here on earth. But in heaven, we're going to exist there in a different way and manner as opposed to the way that we exist here.

07:40

And I think that some of those things are demonstrated for us in the book of Revelation. Like I said, I don't have time to go talk about that.

07:49

Now I've piqued your interest like, oh, hang on a second. You mentioned Revelation. We've got to talk about this. Let's stick here with Ecclesiastes chapter three.

07:56

But recognize here that the preacher has simply said there's a time for every matter that is under heaven.

08:02

Everything that is happening under the heavens, God has appointed a time and a place for these things.

08:07

And we may not understand how or why things are happening the way that they're happening.

08:15

But there will come a day when we'll stand on the other side and we'll be able to look back over everything that has happened.

08:22

And it will make sense to us. I'm going to come back to that again when we get to the close of this. I'll come back to that idea again.

08:29

So first of all, let's look at these fourteen pairs. Verse two, there is a time to give birth and a time to die.

08:39

There are times that we celebrate new life that comes into the world. There are times that we mourn over that life being lost.

08:46

But I think even more to the point here with that being stated is that for every single person, there's a time for you to be born and then there's a time for you to die.

08:56

As it says in Job chapter fourteen, God has designated, he has determined the days of a man and set his limits so that he cannot pass them.

09:07

And in Psalm 139, it is said, you know my ways from afar before a word is even on my tongue.

09:15

You know it fully, O God. All the days for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

09:24

God has set our days and he has set our limits and no one can pass what

09:29

God has determined. There is a time appointed for everything under heaven. A time for you to be born.

09:36

And a time will come for you to die. So trust in the Lord your

09:42

God. You understand trust in God's sovereignty. Trusting that he is in control.

09:48

Do you understand how reassuring that is of every single thing that happens to you in your life.

09:53

No matter how difficult you are going to go through difficult things. And just because God is sovereign, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't be hurt whenever bad things happen to you.

10:05

Oh well God is sovereign so I shouldn't be hurt over this. That's not what I'm saying. There are difficult trials that we will go through and it is right for us to mourn as it's said even here.

10:14

There's going to be a time for us to weep and a time for us to laugh. Okay? So yeah, there are those occasions that will happen to us that are huge.

10:23

They're difficult. They're life altering. We wonder if we'll ever recover from this. That doesn't mean we don't trust

10:28

God as sovereign. But in the midst of those circumstances we trust in the

10:35

Lord knowing as it's said in Romans 8 28 that God is working all things together for good for those who love

10:44

God and are called according to his purpose. We know that's more than just some

10:50

Christian platitude when we believe in the sovereignty of God and we trust in him in any and all circumstances no matter how hard they are as we've been reading going through 2nd

11:02

Corinthians chapter 5 on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. The things that we are enduring now in this world are transient.

11:08

We've put our hope in a promise of the eternal things that are to come.

11:14

A building that is being made for us in the heavens without human hands. No one can take it away from us.

11:21

It is promised us in Christ Jesus. So in all these other things that we're going to read here in this particular poem we trust in God for these things are working out for our good no matter how hard no matter how bad no matter how evil we might consider a situation to be

11:43

God is actually working it out for our good and ultimately for his glory.

11:49

So we begin as we're talking about things that happen under heaven with a very easy place to start.

11:57

There is a time to give birth and a time to die. The next pair there is a time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.

12:07

A time to start something, a time to end it. So there's a parallelism going on here as well.

12:13

You have a time to give birth and a time to die a time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.

12:20

Or you might consider that there is a time to sow and a time to harvest.

12:26

I've heard it said that way as well. There is a time to put seeds in the ground there is time to harvest that which has come up which has resulted from that seed.

12:36

And a farmer knows this there's a season in which you plant and there's a season in which you harvest what you have planted.

12:43

And so it is with everything that we put our hands to under heaven. As we apply that in a spiritual way you know that Jesus said to his disciples that the fields are ripe for harvest but the workers are few.

12:57

So there's a time for us to be planting those seeds of the good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ and there is a time that we will see the fruit of that sowing that we have done when we've proclaimed the gospel and we've seen this result in godliness in a person's life, repentance and faith.

13:18

Verse 3 there is a time to kill and there is a time to heal.

13:24

Yeah, believe it or not there is a time to kill. I mean you're talking about a book that appears in the

13:30

Old Testament where you have laws about putting a person to death because they have broken the law because the consequence of that law that they have broken is that they deserve to die.

13:44

So for murder for example, if somebody murders then they should be put to death. If somebody commits adultery the man and woman caught in the act of adultery were to be stoned to death.

13:53

So there is a time to kill. There is a time when life must be taken and done so for the purpose of justice and there is also a time to heal.

14:04

There is a time when there are people who have done wrong but instead of taking the life of the person who has done evil maybe the better thing for that circumstance is to forgive.

14:18

Maybe to show grace. The Apostle Paul was a man who had put

14:24

Christians in the church to death. He rounded them up so that they would be executed for blasphemy, for going against the law of God.

14:35

And yet Paul was not put to death though he was a party to that. God showed grace to him and forgave him.

14:43

A time to kill and a time to heal. There is a time to tear down and there is a time to build up.

14:52

And once again we see that parallelism. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to tear down and a time to build up.

14:59

Those two things go together. So there are times when a building that we've built, there's no way to salvage it.

15:06

There's no way to improve upon it. You just have to tear it down. And then there is a time for building new houses or building new buildings.

15:14

So we can take that as even being metaphorical to things that we should apply in our own lives.

15:19

There are times when it's expedient for us to do something and another time when we need to stop doing that or remove that from our lives.

15:29

Verse 4, there is a time to weep and there is a time to laugh.

15:34

Think about this too the way that the Apostle Paul puts it in Romans chapter 12. That we are to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice.

15:42

I really do think that he has in mind the statement here that we see in Ecclesiastes 3, 4. There's a time to weep and there's a time to laugh.

15:50

So, when there are those in the church who are mourning, we have such a oneness and a fellowship with one another that we should mourn with those who mourn.

15:59

And when there are people in the church who are rejoicing, especially when it's rejoicing over somebody coming to faith, then we as the church who are one body in Christ, we can rejoice together.

16:10

There's a time for both of these things. And we share that as brothers and sisters in the Lord. There's a time to mourn and there is a time to dance.

16:20

You see the parallelism again. A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.

16:26

When somebody has died, well, that's a time to mourn. When somebody when a baby is born, well, there's a time to rejoice.

16:39

There is a time to throw stones and a time to gather stones.

16:46

Once again, we come back to the capital punishment aspect of that. Now, when I had mentioned it back in verse 3,

16:51

I was just giving application to that, but that would certainly be the definite application of verse 5.

16:57

A time to throw stones. So there is a time to execute justice. There is a time to deliver justice to those who have done unjustly.

17:06

And there is a time to gather stones. What did Israel gather stones for?

17:12

They would gather stones to build buildings. They would gather stones to build altars. They would also gather stones as monuments.

17:21

When significant events had taken place. Capital punishment is a significant event.

17:27

But then you have the time to gather stones that becomes, hey, something great happened here.

17:33

Let us remember the blessing of God and how He dealt mercifully with us.

17:39

So a time to throw stones. Capital punishment. A time to gather stones. Remember God's mercy.

17:47

A time to embrace. And a time to shun embracing. There is a time in which we value the unity that we have with one another.

17:58

And we should, for the sake of unity, as it says in Ephesiastes.

18:07

Ephesians chapter 4, verses 2 and 3. With all humility and gentleness, with patience, we bear with one another in love, being diligent to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.

18:20

But then there are also times when we should not unite with certain people. Instead, we should shun embracing.

18:29

And we find that in the New Testament as well. The Apostle Paul to the Thessalonians in 2

18:34

Thessalonians chapter 3. If there is anyone who will not regard what we write in this letter, take note of that person and have nothing to do with him.

18:42

Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother. But in that particular circumstance, when somebody is going against the word of God, there's discipline that should happen there.

18:52

And we separate from that person. Or as 1 Corinthians chapter 5 says, purge the evil person from among you.

18:59

Turn him over to Satan that he may learn not to blaspheme. A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing.

19:07

There is a time to search and a time to lose. There's a time to seek out what we may gain.

19:16

And there's a time when we must be content with losing what we have gained. There's a time to keep and a time to throw away.

19:24

You see the parallelism there as well. That's one that I have a big problem with.

19:29

A time to throw away. My wife is worse at it than I am. She has an even more difficult time than I do in throwing things away that we do not need.

19:42

This is one of those I wish she was with me as we were doing this particular lesson together. A time to keep and a time to throw away.

19:49

It's right there in the Bible, babe. It's time to throw this stuff away. Verse 7 There is a time to tear apart and a time to sew together.

20:00

Now, my wife is really good at this part because she knows how to take old clothes that we have, tear them apart and sew it into something better.

20:10

So there's a time to tear things down. There's a time to sew together. Keep the garment. Sew it back up.

20:17

That it may be reused. There's a time to be silent. And there is a time to speak.

20:25

There's a time when not saying anything at all really is the better thing. That's really difficult for us in our culture at the present.

20:33

Especially when we have social media at our fingertips and we think that we need to share our opinions about absolutely everything.

20:40

There are times when it is just better to just let it go. Or let it be those people's problem who want to deal with it.

20:47

Like you don't have to have involvement in every single issue or event that happens. There are certain people that are gifted and knowledgeable to know how to handle those things.

20:56

Let them do it. You don't have to be involved in everything. But then there are other times when it's necessary to have to speak up.

21:04

Speaking up on behalf of the abused. On the ones who do not have a voice.

21:10

As we read in Proverbs chapter 31, the just thing to do is to speak up for the mute. As it says there.

21:17

We speak up for the unborn. We protect unborn lives that are being murdered by the thousands every day in America.

21:26

That's a good time to speak. There's a time to love and a time to hate.

21:34

Now that one, it can be startling to people. Because hey, if we're loving, we're not supposed to be hating.

21:40

So shouldn't we not hate at all? As Paul Washer said, if you are a person who loves, then you must also be a person who hates.

21:49

Because I love children, I hate abortion. Because I love and value women,

21:56

I hate pornography. Because I love my wife,

22:03

I hate adultery or anything that would be contrary to the love I'm supposed to have for my wife.

22:09

So yeah, there is a time to love and there is a time to hate. As Christians, there are absolutely things we must hate.

22:15

In Psalm 711, it says that God is a righteous judge who feels indignation toward the unrighteous every single day.

22:25

So we too must love righteousness and hate unrighteousness. And finally, we have this last one here in Ecclesiastes 3.

22:33

There is a time for war and there is a time for peace. Where there is conflict, there's even reasons that God has for that conflict to be taking place.

22:46

Now, that does not mean that the conflict is good. It doesn't mean that all war is good war because God has appointed the time for that war.

22:56

Well, he appointed the Chaldeans to come against the Israelites to punish the Israelites but he still also punished the

23:01

Chaldeans later. It doesn't mean that the Chaldeans did anything right. God has appointed all of these things in which they are taking place and though mankind may intend evil purposes in the midst of those things, in any of the things that we have read here, though the heart of man intends evil,

23:20

God means it for good. As it says in Genesis 50 -20. So, once again,

23:26

I come back to you as I did at the very beginning in saying that we trust in God and his sovereignty, that he is in control over all of these things.

23:34

There is nothing happening outside of God's control and how freeing it is.

23:41

What a relief of a burden for us it is when we know that God is in control and he means all things for good, for those who love

23:52

God and are called according to his purpose. All things. Like I said, we may not understand why this thing is happening the way that it's happening right now but we trust in God that a day is going to come in which we'll stand with him in glory and we'll be able to look back on those situations and we will understand exactly what

24:16

God was doing, what he intended in the midst of those circumstances. We may not understand it now but a day is coming in which we will understand if we continue to hold fast to Christ and trust in him in these moments.

24:28

Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13 I think it's verses 12 and 13 where he says,

24:35

Now we see as though through a glass darkly, but soon we will see face to face and then we will know just as we are fully known.

24:48

So remember God has determined our days. He has set limits that we cannot pass. He fully knows us and a day will come in which we will know fully just as he has fully known us.

25:03

So trust in God. That day is coming and it will all make sense and you will worship God forever because of it.

25:12

Heavenly Father, I thank you that you mean good things for us and not evil things. We who are in Christ Jesus, even these difficult things that we go through, teach us to rely more on God who raises the dead as it says in 2

25:27

Corinthians 1 .9. So we trust in you in the midst of these things knowing there is an appointed time for everything.

25:33

Nothing is happening outside of your control and you love us and are giving us good things in Christ Jesus who died on the cross for our sins and rose again from the dead so that whoever believes in him will not perish under the judgment of God.

25:48

We will have everlasting life. Deliver us into your kingdom.

25:54

Your will be done on earth as it is done in heaven. In Jesus name we pray.

26:00

Amen. For more about our ministry visit us online at www .utt .com