Our Life’s Time of Opportunity

Transcript

GR 2125
05/05/2019
Our Life Is Time of Opportunity
Ecclesiastes 3:11-22
Gil Rugh

We’re continuing our study in the Book of Ecclesiastes. So, look at Ecclesiastes. It’s right about the middle of your bible if you’ve not been with us. If you open your bible up right about to the middle and you might hit the Psalms, and then if you’re in Psalms keep going. Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, right there about the middle. A decent sized book of 12 chapters and a very important book because it’s telling us how we are to live our lives in a difficult world. Turn back to Ecclesiastes chapter 12 at the end of this book, verse seven. Maybe we’ll pick this up while we’re here. We’ll be talking about this in our section that we’ll be looking at shortly. “then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it. ‘Vanity of vanities…’” We have noted the word vanity basically translated means “Breath of breath.” The point is everything is temporary, but a breath. All is breath, all is temporary.

We are transitory, we’re here for a short time, our bodies will be buried. We’ll return to the dust is the point but that’s not discouraging. It is to be encouraging and a reminder so in verse 9 he says, “In addition to being a wise man, the Preacher…” who is Solomon the one who has gathered this group together to instruct them, “In addition to being a wise man, the Preacher also taught the people knowledge… and arranged many proverbs.” The Preacher sought to find delightful words and to write words of truth correctly so these are words of wisdom; they’re words of truth in this book. Down at the end of verse 11 we are told, “they are given by one Shepherd.” We know who that is; we’re all familiar with Psalm 23, “The Lord is My Shepherd, I shall not want.” So these are words from God through Solomon to instruct us on how to live wisely in a world that can be very difficult, very unpleasant. It involved toil and labor, and pain and suffering, and yet in it we are to experience joy and satisfaction.

Come back to Ecclesiastes chapter 3. We’re dealing with man’s life as Ecclesiastes talks about, under the sun, so the Book of Ecclesiastes is concerned with how do we live our physical lives here day by day? As a result of sin, which we have noted and looked at this a number of times, recorded in Genesis chapter three when Adam and Eve sinned, that brought a curse upon creation. Man and all the rest of creation, and that brought death and we just read about that in chapter 12 where we return to dust. God says that as punishment for sin the punishment for sin is death, physical death being an obvious manifestation. There’s also spiritual death and eternal death but Ecclesiastes is talking about our physical life and our physical death. Because of sin, we have become temporary transitory beings. We will have a life that comes to an end. We will be buried, returned to the dust from which we were created.

Along with that fact of our temporalness is the fact that hardship, toil and labor--remember we read in Genesis 3 that man now—he would have cultivated the garden and enjoyed the task but now also suffering and pain. You’ll toil, you’ll labor by the sweat of your brow. For the woman she would have had children but now she’ll have children in pain. We have this balance. God did not take all the joy, all the pleasure, all the satisfaction out of life because of sin. Man would still do what he was created to do but there would also be the negative side of that. It would be a harsh world. It would be an unpleasant place often, at times. There would be pain, stress.

We have to live wisely. That means first that we fear God. That’s going to come up in our section again today. To fear God is to recognize Him as God, to honor Him as God, to realize He is sovereign. He is a God to be believed. We must recognize and understand that as sinners we turn to Him for salvation. He is the God of salvation. We are told in the New Testament where Paul wrote to Timothy, there’s one God and one mediator between God and men. Job said, Oh, I wish there was an umpire, a mediator to stand between God and me to bring me in an acceptable way to God. Jesus Christ is that one. So, when we fear God we bow and believe what He says that His Son is the Savior He provided. We believe in Him. Now we are to live wisely as God’s people. Solomon is writing to Jews particularly, the people that God had chosen for Himself so that they might live wisely in this world. That doesn’t mean it’s an easy life.

I believe Adam and Eve were redeemed by the grace of God. Remember He provided animal skins to clothe them, which was a reminder you need a sacrifice. One must die in your place. The animal sacrifices were a picture of that, but it took the sacrifice of a man, a human being, Jesus Christ the God-man to truly pay the penalty. I take it that Adam and Eve were cleansed and forgiven by the grace of God, but they had to suffer. They had to leave the garden, they had to go out into a harsh world and death followed. When you get to Genesis 5 you have that relentless account of this one was born and they died, and this one was born and they died, and they died and they died. That reminder, the wages of sin is death, but how do we live in this world as temporary beings serving an eternal God, dealing with the pain, heartache, stress, pressure, and yet having joy.

That’s what he is talking about, there’s a combination here and chapter 3 is very much about the fact that God is totally sovereign. Chapter 3 verse 1, “There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven.” God is the one who appoints the time. God is the one who appoints the event. What is so foundational to everything for those of us who fear God is the recognition that God has appointed this time and this event for us to live wisely. Now sometimes you know it can seem like not an appropriate time. All of us have been in a situation where we’ve said, what, oh, this couldn’t have happened at a worse time. Oh, I can’t believe it happened now and then I have to stop and say yes, it happened now, and this is the now time God has appointed with the now event that God has appointed. That’s what chapter 3 verse 1 says. Now, how do I handle this wisely?

He’s appointed the time, He’s appointed the event, and now I am responsible to function wisely in dealing with that. And so, we not only have the sovereignty of God woven through this, we have the full responsibility of man. Each of us is individually responsible and accountable. God determines the what and the when, and we are responsible to implement the how with wisdom, and in His plan it’s all covered. That’s why you come down to verse 11, which we’ve looked at, “He has made everything appropriate…” everything beautiful literally, “…in its time.” Some of these events are listed in verses 2 to 8 and we had those 14 pairs of events. All, literally in verse one, every event that word literally means delight. If you have in the margin of your bible, it’s a delight because God’s made it beautiful but there are times of weeping and times of laughing.

Well, we think of the time of weeping, they’re not pleasant and it is unpleasant. God meant it to be unpleasant, He meant it to be difficult, to be painful, to be stressful. That’s part of the consequences of sin; not because He’s a mean God but because He is a just God. Even we as God’s people live under the curse of sin. Now we’ve experienced redemption but we still live in this world under the curse of God where God’s intention is even we as God’s people suffer trials, difficulties, pain, even those godly. We get cancer, we have children who suffer. We are treated unfairly at our job and so on.

All part of living in a fallen world and we will die just like everyone else. In fact, He’s going to say we’re no better than the animals when it comes to that. Your dog is going to die and so are you and you’ll both be buried. When we were looking for a house, we were looking at a townhouse kind of residence and we went out to the backyard with a realtor and then we looked and there was this little enclosure with a fence around it. I guess it was a marker in there. It didn’t have anything on it. The realtor said I think probably they buried a pet here. Well, we didn’t buy the house. It had nothing to do with that. I wasn’t afraid of the ghost of the dog, but (laughter) it didn’t work out. It was a reminder, that now they have pet cemeteries. You know what, they have human cemeteries too. So that’s where he’s going to take us.

This life here, it’s where you want to concentrate day by day, our life here. Every day it’s a time appointed by God, the events of that day are appointed by Him, and you can go back and read verses 2 to 8. He brings these polar opposites and reminds us God the sovereign God appointed the time and that event in that time. We talk about the good and the bad, the ups and the downs, and it doesn’t mean that all of a sudden, things have unraveled and run off the rails because it’s a time of weeping. Because the same God who appointed the time of laughing, appointed the time of weeping. It’s in His hands and that’s a comfort. The knowledge of that is good but it won’t take the sting and the pain that will continue to be there. Okay we pick up with verse 11 just where we left off. “He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has set eternity in their heart…” The eternal God created us in His image. He created us to be eternal.

Sin came in and disrupted that, if I can put it that way. The plan of God obviously included that, planned for it, and ordained it, but death came; but we have a sense that there’s something more than us. That’s built in those of you who are in our study in Romans; we’ll get to this in Romans chapter 2. Part of being created in the image of God is having that consciousness and awareness, and people have struggled with this fact, the fact that we are temporary. This is what is frustrating Solomon, the reality of life. I had no control over what preceded me. This is the time I came into and I’ll have no control over what comes after me, and I have this brief period-of-time. And how am I to function? It’s not to depress us. It’s not to discourage us, we just live realistically so to speak with our eyes open.

How often do we tell our kids as they’re growing up and something comes up, and we say well, that’s just not the real world, and we explain to them something of reality and what they don’t like. You’ll learn that you’re going to have to deal with things you don’t like, things you find unpleasant. Now we try to raise kids without that and we don’t help them at all. It’s not reality but God has set eternity in the hearts and His intention is man won’t be able to resolve it all. “…man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.” Because you see He was sovereign in the beginning, and everything up to our time, and He’s sovereign over everything after our time, but it’s out of our control. It’s the whim of the wind. It’s the desire of the wind, humanly speaking, but it’s the sovereign control of God in our brief lives.

So where do we go from here, verse 12 and it’s going to be a swing from God’s sovereignty to man’s responsibility. “I know there is nothing better for them…” talking about mankind, those who are living under the sun, this physical life, “…than to rejoice and do good in one’s lifetime…” in one’s lifetime, our physical life here, “…than to rejoice and do good…” Look up in verse 26 of chapter 2, just at the end of chapter 2. “For to a person who is good in His sight He has given wisdom and knowledge and joy...” Now this point here, there’s nothing better for them, to rejoice and God has given joy, and down in verse 12, to do good. Up in verse 26, the “person who is good in His sight…” Now we have a problem. Later in Ecclesiastes we’re going to be told there is not a righteous man on the earth who always does good and never sins. We’re familiar with Romans 3, there’s no one good in God’s sight, but he’s talking about the person who now is wise, and true wisdom comes from God to those who have a relationship with Him. Now we are to live for Him, to live pleasing to Him, to live obedient to Him. So, we rejoice, we have joy, and God gives us joy. That’s His intention.

We talked about when sin occurred. As we have mentioned repeatedly, God did not take all the joy out of life; they’re certain things that continue. Adam still was going to work the soil, he’d have difficulty in working it, but he would get benefits from the soil. He would provide food. The woman would still have children, but now she has pain. But she would have the joy of having a child so it’s a mixture now. Pain, suffering, difficulty has been added to the creation, but joy, pleasure, and satisfaction has not been withdrawn, and now we who know God know His hand can function with wisdom. We can appreciate His control, His work; so, there’s nothing better for them than to rejoice and do good, in one’s lifetime.

This is what we’re talking about, our life here, our life now. Our lifetime, this is what we have. This is a unique time. This is consistent with all of Scripture, this time of opportunity that will not be repeated. This physical life we have here now, the time between our birth and our death. And the time when we have developed and then can make our decisions, decisions appointed by God for us with events He has arranged, at the time He’s appointed, to grapple with that to deal with that.

Over in chapter 7 of Ecclesiastes, verse 20, we don’t jump ahead too often. I quoted this verse I just want you to see it there. “…there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins.” But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be doing good and as God’s people we want to function pleasing to God. The unbeliever functions outside those bounds and pursues his own selfish desires, but we are to also rejoice and do good. We have the list of things that God might bring into our life in verses 2 to 9, the contrasting things. We want to be careful, even in times of weeping we can have a certain joy, in knowing Romans 8:28, “…that God causes all things to work together for good…” I don’t understand why, why now, why in this way, but you know what, I don’t have to have all the answers. God has told me what my responsibility is.

We do this with our children for their good. We’ll tell them to do something and they say I don’t understand why. I don’t see that that’s going to do anything. I remember, I hate to admit it but telling my English teacher in high school, I’ll leave it there, I don’t need to study the English language and grammar. I know how to talk. What kind of idiot am I? You know what I had to do, when I went to college? I had to take Greek, and they talked about verbs and participles, and what is that? You know what I had to do? I had to get an English book and study English. Sometimes you have to learn. That’s what God’s doing with us. In the difficult time, Lord, this is painful, this is miserable. I wish I were dead. As Solomon said, I hated life, but in wisdom, you get yourself stabilized again.

This is a time God’s appointed. This event in this time is for me. God, I need an added measure of grace. I need Your strength. This is overwhelming me. I can be honest with God, but I can find joy in my life. Not every day is going to be joyful in the sense of a laughing day, but I know this is a day, painful as it was. You know, I’ve learned that’s why, as we mentioned in James a number of times, we count it joy when we fall into trials because that is producing character and developing endurance in us. Verse 13, “moreover, that every man who eats and drinks sees good in all his labor--it is the gift of God.” This answers the question, verse 9, “What profit is there to the worker from that in which he toils?” What is it? It is an immediate benefit. We get satisfaction, we get provision. You know, no matter what your job is like, how difficult it is, how miserable it is, how much you “hate the job,” you can stop and think. At least I can say, Lord, thank you for providing. You get a paycheck, the paycheck enables you to buy food to get clothing, to buy a place for your family to live, even in the miserable toil of life. And God intends it to be a difficult life. That’s the consequence of sin, and as we’ll see, it’s part of His plan to cause us to turn to Him and to depend on Him.

“…it is the gift of God.” He could have taken it all away and left us with the misery of our sin but that’s not true. Now, I didn’t say He’d make your labor, your job, your toil pleasant. He doesn’t say He’d take the pain out of the childbirth for example, for the woman, but what did Jesus say when He walked the earth? The pain of childbirth, it gets forgotten by the woman because of the joy of the child. He didn’t take it all away. Now when that child gets to be a teenager, He brings the pain back again (laughter), but we get to that later, so it’s the gift of God to eat, to drink, and see good in the labor. This is what God’s provided. This is the way He wants me to do it. I come home exhausted, worn out. It was a difficult day and I wasn’t even treated fairly but I get a paycheck, we’ll sit down, and have a meal. I can send my kids to school with clothes. Thank you, Lord! There’s satisfaction, there’s joy in that. That’s God gift that He enables that to go on. Man was created to do. Adam was placed in the garden before sin to cultivate it, but now it’s hard; but there is still the joy, the satisfaction. You see good coming out of your labor.

Look at verse 14. Now the contrast, “I know that everything God does will remain forever; there is nothing to add to it and there is nothing to take away from it, for God has so worked that men should fear Him.” The contrast between man and God, we are a breath, we are temporary. We’ve looked at so many of these verses repeatedly already, and we’re only to the third chapter and it’s repeated throughout the bible. We are temporary. The wages of sin is death, that’s still a reality. I’m a believer. I know I look forward to eternity in the glorious presence of God. The fact is, this is the life that I have to live here and now, and the last enemy that will finally be destroyed is death, and that will take the kingdom for that time to come. It’s an enemy. It’s an enemy for the believer. Paul’s writing to believers in the church at Corinth when he says the last enemy that will be destroyed is death. You read 2 Corinthians 11 where Paul talks about his life of difficulty, trial, suffering, pain, pressure, and stress. And that’s life. That’s because of sin. Everything God does will remain forever. We are the transitory part.

Come back to chapter 1. Verse 2 reminded us everything is temporary, “Vanity of vanities!” Temporary of temporariness, it’s all a breath; it’s all a breath. That’s us! “What advantage does man have in all his work which he does under the sun?” This is it, how does it all work out then? I’m working, I’m toiling, I’m struggling, do everything I can, then I’ll die, and I have no control over what happens after. “A generation goes and a generation comes,” verse 4, “…the earth remains forever.” God’s eternal, what He creates continues on. The sun came up long before you were born, the sun went down. The same pattern and it’ll be doing that after you and I die, and he went through the various areas as he went on. The wind blows, it blew before you were born, and it’ll continue to blow. The waters run down into the sea, and the sea doesn’t get too much water and the cycle goes on. That went on before you were born and that’ll go on after you’re born. You’re just here for a little breath and you’re gone, but God’s eternal. He was there and His works were going before we came into the picture and they’ll be there after we are out of the picture. Everything God does will remain forever. There’s nothing to add to it, there’s nothing to take away from it. Humbling as it is, you don’t make much difference. I don’t make much difference. Physical life goes on, toil goes on, and we’re soon forgotten; and he’s coming to that in Ecclesiastes.

That’s not to depress us, that’s just to remind us of reality. We can’t live with wisdom if we create a make believe world. We’ve come to that in our country. We are pretending and were pretending this is reality. I used the example of the men and women and now you don’t know whether it’s a male or female, a boy or a girl, a man or a woman. Your eyes can’t be trusted. Science can’t be trusted; chromosomes and all they don’t matter. It’s a pretend world, but it’s not a real world. We as created beings are responsible to live in a real world and we are accountable to God when we don’t. We as God’s people live with wisdom. I realize I’m temporary and I’ll be gone, and life will go on and what do I do to make a difference? Church buildings are built, over time they are torn down and something else is built in that place and something else is built in another place. You know this church was started in another place and that building was torn down and now there’s apartments or something like that at that site. We come and go, and everything we do is the same. People built great mansions and then they were torn down and replaced.

That’s the thing, what God does is eternal and the working that God does. I hope you have underlined at the end of verse 14, “…God has so worked that men should fear Him.” Every man, every human being has a sense of their temporariness, but there is an eternal and we recognize that there’s something, Someone, greater than us, and to that One I am accountable. He is the one who rules, who exists before I come into the picture and after I go out of the picture, talking about now, under the sun here, not where we are eternally but our life under the sun. “…God has so worked that men should fear Him.” This is where we are in Romans 1. If you don’t fear Him, you’ve closed your eyes to reality. You are doomed. Your life here cannot have real purpose. There is no anchor, you’re just adrift here; making it up as you go. You know you look; even unbelievers look around say I don’t even understand what’s going on anymore. They don’t fear God and they keep fighting. Well, I’m the one who can solve it, I’m the one who can make it right, I’m the one who can fix it. (Sound of a breath) You’ll be gone.

Now Nebuchadnezzar had to come to realize that. Is this not mighty Babylon, which I have built by the might of my power, and then he was humbled like an animal and he came to realize there’s only one God and it’s not me. There’s only one God, who is eternal and my life here is brief, and Nebuchadnezzar’s been long gone. Basically, we read about him in Scripture but his palaces, his whatever, are gone. So, Solomon spent 14 years building his palace. Any of you visit it on your trip to Israel? Nope. Why? It’s gone. Where is he? That’s just the way life is. We ought to fear God. He is a God to be feared. He must be honored. He must be obeyed. The beginning of that is to recognize what He says is true. I can’t honor God and at the same time say, I don’t believe Him, He’s a liar, so that means I believe what He says. I am a sinner, I’m guilty, I’m unacceptable. I need a Savior. He’s provided the Savior. I believe that Savior died for me, I will trust Him. God will forgive me and I become His child. That’s all behind this. This is Israel. They knew the God of Israel was the Savior, but much of Israel did not believe in that God. But Solomon is writing for those who have wisdom. Men should fear Him.

Verse 15, “That which is has been already and that which will be has already been, for God seeks what has passed by.” Now we read a statement like this and I say well, I’m not sure what he is saying. Basically, God controls the past, He controls the future. He was here before we came, He’ll be here after we go. Life under the sun is not dependent upon us. It’s dependent upon Him. So that’s the point. “That which is has been already and that which will be has already been, for God seeks what has passed by.” He controls yesterday. I sit and listen to this talk about reparations. We want to make right what happened 100, 150, 200 or more years ago, by doing something. We have no control over the past. I wasn’t there, I’m not accountable for that. I’m accountable for the time in which I live.

I don’t know where my ancestors came from. I’m a mongrel being, I guess. I know at least there was a German and English, I haven’t bothered checking it out. We’re all, they say we’re a nation of immigrants. We all came from somewhere else I guess, except the Native American Indians. They were here before we got here. Why did my ancestors come here? You know the big issue over some ancestors came because they were slaves. Others fled persecution, some fled religious persecution, some fled famines and starvation to try to get the better life. I don’t know, and you know I had no control over it, but you know what, this is the time in which I live, and I am accountable for this before God. I can’t say, well, if my great, great grandfather hadn’t left England I’d have been better off, or if they hadn’t left Germany. I don’t know. I was born in the 1940s, World War II. I wouldn’t have wanted to have been in Germany in a world war as a little kid with everything being bombed to nothing. I wouldn’t have wanted to be in England where they were bombing and so I’m glad my ancestors got out of there.

In World War II my mother and I were living here rather comfortably while my dad went to war in another country. So, I’ve lived the time I have and whatever reason motivated them to come, I’m here now. I realize God controlled the past. He controls the future. He brought it all that I’m in this time. I can’t say well, if they hadn’t done this, if my parents hadn’t done this, if they hadn’t moved to Pittsburg, to Philadelphia my life would have been different. I had no control over that and here I am today. This is where you are now, and you are accountable to God for your now, the time, the situation you’re in. Well, I wouldn’t be in this if… But for us as believers, I’m in this because the God who appoints the time, appoints the event and what happened there. Even people sinned.

I was reading recently in 2 Kings about Naaman, the commander of the Syrian army, who had leprosy. You know that the bible says there was a little girl who was a slave to Naaman’s wife. She had been captured when Naaman swept in with the armies into Israel and carried them away captive. Here’s this little girl as she’s called, a slave to the house and the wife of Naaman. You know what that little girl did? She sits there weeping and crying and saying, oh, if I was only back in my homeland, if I was only back with my parents. How these miserable people have carried me away. No, you know what she says? Naaman is a leper. She tells her mistress, the wife, oh, I wish our master were in Israel because there’s a prophet who could heal him.

Now wait a minute what’s she doing? She’s living the time and the event that God has provided for her. No matter the sin maybe, and she’s carted off into slavery away from her home, away from her family, but she’s not sitting in a puddle. Why, because that’s where God put her. She’s recorded in Scripture. She functioned as a wise girl, testifying to the God of Israel. Could have been there saying, oh, I miss my family, I miss my home. I’m just a young person. What future do I have? I’m a slave and I’ll be a slave here for—it doesn’t matter, God appointed the time. He appointed the event.

The sin of other people never frustrates God’s plan for me. We get all tied up with if this boss hadn’t done that, if this person hadn’t done that, if they had only. What’s that got to do with me? Remember these things are out of our control. This is the desire of the wind. God is sovereign behind it, but from my perspective, I have no control. What I’m really bemoaning is, I have no control. But I can be thankful I know the God who is in control. That’s what keeps me from becoming a miserable, self-focused, self-pitying person, complaining and grumbling. That’s why we’re not to be complainers, we’re not to be grumblers. Why? I know the sovereign God, so we are to fear Him. All this is we fear Him. I realize it’s out of my control. I realize there is one greater than me. This is not bound by the time, the transitory period in which I live, so we ought to fear Him.

Verse 16, “Furthermore, I have seen under the sun that in the place of justice there is wickedness and in the place of righteousness there is wickedness.” Now here we go back again. It’s an unfair world. It’s an unfair world. I have seen that under the sun this is where we’re talking now. The life here, this physical life, it’s an unfair, unjust world we live in. All we’ve got to do is turn on the TV and look. They can’t even figure out what’s right and wrong anymore. They’re adrift with their own foolishness and we bear the brunt of that, the consequences of it. You work in a job that may be very difficult and unfair. You may be the best employee, and you’re treated the worst. You get bad reviews when you should get good. You get paid less than you should and it’s not fair and we could go on. Kids can feel they’re not treated fair at school. It’s just an unfair world; even in the court system. “Furthermore, I have seen under the sun that in the place of justice there is wickedness and in the place of righteousness there is wickedness.” You know what this fallen world is characterized by, wickedness. It’s a world in rebellion, rejection of the living God, His truth. Remember Jeremiah 8:9, they have rejected God’s word. “…and what kind of wisdom do they have?” It’s a rhetorical question; they have no wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Knowledge and wisdom come from Him, the Book of Proverbs tells us. We oughtn’t to be surprised, nor should we be discouraged and beaten down. This is life. That’s what he says, so you see he goes back and forth. Men should fear God. God’s eternal, but I’m in this miserable world; but it’s not all misery. I can find joy in the trials, in the difficulties, in the hard work.

Verse 17, “I said to myself, ‘God will judge both the righteous man and the wicked man,’” so there is coming a time when the eternal God will be the righteous Judge. God said, “As I live every knee shall bow, every tongue shall acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” That pervades Scripture, the recognition God is the final Judge. With that, there is the recognition. That’s where Romans 1 says that even unbelievers suppress the truth in unrighteousness. They won’t acknowledge what is so clear. There’s that awareness of accountability, of justice. Even with the confusion going on in the world, everybody no matter what side they’re on, are claiming that they are the ones promoting justice righteousness. They have one person come on, and now they say this is what is just and righteous. The other person comes on, this is what is just and righteous and you have wicked men acting. But in God’s grace, He’s not withdrawn what we call common grace. Otherwise, the world would be totally unlivable. That’s where we’re going in the future with the Tribulation, when the world becomes almost unlivable under the control of satanic domination, and God’s judgment poured out, culminating at the great white throne judgment in Revelation chapter 20.

Well, when’s it going to come? Is the world going to get worse? Is it going to get any worse than this? Yes, but God has appointed “for a time for every matter and for every deed is there.” You’ll note “every matter”. You see in the little number 2 in front of 2matter when you go to the margin by 17 Or delight. That’s the same word that was translated “event” up in verse one. It’s a delight and I like that event. I don’t have any argument or matter. Part of the delight in it is the recognition; it’s by God’s appointment that event, that time. In that sense, it’s a delight because He made everything beautiful. Because it’s happening according to His schedule. The event happens at the time appointed by Him, so judgment.

You know we’re transitory. My life’s running out. I was hoping the Lord was coming and that the Lord eventually and quickly will set things right. Well, I come and go. Solomon wrote this almost a thousand years before Christ was born. We’re three thousand years removed from Solomon, just round it off. We’re still waiting for the time, but God’s eternal. I think three thousand years, one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, a thousand years is as a day. He’s eternal but the time will come. Used to say God is never early, God is never late. That’s what we’re saying here; a time, a time, a time the event in the time. The event never gets out of the time because verse 1 of chapter 3 told us there’s an appointed time and a time for every event. And there’s a time for the judgment and the judgment will happen at that time. You see the sovereignty of God here and judgment is coming.

That will come, but in the meantime don’t be overwhelmed by the unfair, unrighteous, wicked world in which we live. We understand sin is serious before God, and the consequences of sin are serious, and we are still feeling the impact of that and living the impact of it, even as believers. The proof of that ultimately is we still die. That’s where he’s going. Verse 18, “I said to myself concerning the sons of men…” Remember these sons of Adam, you could translate this literally because that’s what it is, the singular the sons of Adam, reminding us the consequences of sin. That’s why we groan. Remember we went to Romans 8, “in these physical bodies.” This is a difficult time, God intends it. I had the song, “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.” I don’t think it’s in our hymnbook. You know that’s what we’re being reminded of here, to live a real life. “I said to myself concerning the sons of Adam, ‘God has surely tested them in order for them to see that they are but beasts.’” We ought to be learning from this. There is a holy righteous God who is the Judge. We are sinners, we are temporary. Ultimately, we give an account to Him at the appointed time. We are like the beasts; don’t get too arrogant.

Nebuchadnezzar had to be reduced to living like a beast for seven years, eating grass like an ox before he realized what he was and who God is. We are but beasts. We say well, I thought humans and animals were different. They are, but there are points of similarity. You know what, we’re both temporary. Your dog will die, you will die. You’ll put your dog in the ground, they’ll put you in the ground. A little passing of time, you’ll both be dust. That’s the point, “For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same.” The fate of the sons of men, the sons of Adam, that curse of sin, you’ll die and the last enemy that will be destroyed is death. The fate of the sons of Adam, the fate of beasts is the same. “As one dies so the other; indeed, they all have the same breath and there’s no advantage for man over beast, for all is temporary.”

Now he’s not saying that therefore you know we have no afterlife like the animals, or the animals necessarily have a life after death. What he’s comparing is our physical life under the sun. And the frustrating thing that we have to grab onto is, and God brings this to our attention, God wants us to understand He is God, we are not. He is eternal, we are not. That doesn’t mean that there’s not an afterlife, but in this life, put it into perspective. This is the thing, people go on living their life and as we know, you’re brief. You’ll die like the beast dies. I’ll die like the beast dies. All is a breath. For the beast, you cry when your dog dies, you cry when a loved one dies. But the point is, death characterizes life.

We won’t have time to get there but Job talked about the tree, when you cut down a tree and even cut off the stump; you know what happens? Sometimes, poof, life comes out of it. We had a tree in front of our previous place, a bush tree, probably a bush. You know it looked so dead, a few green things in it. I finally said to Marilyn, I’m going out, I’m a good gardener, I’m just going to cut the dumb thing down. So, I did. You know what happened? It grew up to be beautiful. My neighbor said, I never thought that bush would survive. That’s what Job says, one thing about a bush, you cut it down, it can come back up. The problem with man, he’s like the beasts. You lay them down in the ground and he doesn’t get up. Good point, a very good point. That’s what we’re saying here. All is a breath. “All go to the same place.” I’m not saying there’s no life after death for man, but what, “All came from the dust and all will return to the dust. Who knows that the breath of man ascends upward and the breath of the beast descends downward to the earth?” There’s a lot of discussion on that verse from the Hebrew construction here and how it ought to be translated but I think the point is clear no matter what the translation. From the human perspective, there’s no difference.

Now we talk about what happens to the spirit of a man after he dies, and I have a list of passages we could go to, but we don’t have time right now. And later in Ecclesiastes Solomon will say the spirit returns to God. The point here is for both men and beast, life on this earth is done. When you die we’ll have the service, for you, for me. Life will go on. Whatever happens after that is outside the bounds of what this life is, because when I die everything I’m going to do, everything I’m going to accomplish is done. There’s no life for me on this earth after that, the context he’s talking about, how we live now. “I have seen that nothing is better than that man should be happy in his activities, for that is his lot.” We ought to accept the fact this is the time God has appointed for me. This is what He has appointed for me in this time. Live it, don’t fight it. Enjoy it, be happy in your activities. Say yeah, but you don’t know what my job is like. You don’t know what my situation is like. You don’t know what my health is like. No, but we can say we know this is what God has appointed and I can find joy and satisfaction. You’re here today no matter what’s going on in your life. And then you say, oh boy I just hate, dread, Monday morning is coming. I don’t know what to do, but you’re here, we’re functioning; we can enjoy what God has done.

You don’t know what’s coming after you. You can’t control that. The same thing Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. Don’t worry about tomorrow, each day has enough trouble of its own. He doesn’t say today is pleasant enough. Each day has enough trouble of its own. This is the time; this is the event that God’s planned for you. Enjoy the day. That doesn’t mean if I’m going to have cancer surgery this week that I’m not dreading it, that I don’t have fear. The point of Ecclesiastes is that I’m a real person, living in this fallen body under the curse of sin still. I long for the redemption of the body, but this is my life now and how am I going to find joy in that? Well, Lord, You have appointed this for me. I hate pain. I hate the unknown, but there’s no unknown with You.

There’s nothing, and I recognize that we live with wisdom. Otherwise, you know what, we’re throwing our days away, but the end of being wise and using the days will come to an end for us. And then I stand before God and I say well, I didn’t have opportunity and I didn’t like this and that wasn’t what I wanted, and how do I tell God when He says I appointed that for you at that time. It wasn’t my responsibility to be unhappy and disagree with God. I’m not a fatalist. It’s not Que Sera, Sera, whatever will be, will be. No, I have a God that I love and serve who has appointed the time, who’s appointed the event. Yeah but that was an ungodly person who did that. That ruined my life. No one can ruin my life. They can bring pain, they can bring unpleasantness, they can bring sorrow, weeping is part. God, I accept from the hand of You what You do, but you can’t ruin my life because I’m living this day facing what God has provided for me, for this day and want to use wisdom so that I can honor Him.

Let’s pray together: Thank you Lord for the riches of Your word. Thank You, Lord, for You have not abandoned us to our sin. You in grace have reached out to us as a God who is a Savior. You have worked so that we would be brought to fear You, reverence You, honor You, believe You, believe in the Savior You have provided. Believe that only in Him can we be justified, forgiven, and belong to You for eternity. You’ve so worked that now we can live with wisdom and recognize that You are the God who sovereignly appoints the time and the delights, the events that will happen at that time. Our times are in Your hands. We want to live responsibly and wisely, to honor You in every situation and every event, and every circumstance can be done by Your grace. We give You praise, in Christ’s name. Amen