Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Spotify | TuneIn | RSS | More
Text: Ecclesiastes 3:1-15
So in the cycles of this life, things are regularly accomplished. They don’t last, but they are accomplished. And everything that is accomplished eventually succumbs to corruption but in the meantime, there are purposes being accomplished.
Predictability
- On the positive side, this makes things somewhat predictable. Understanding cycles and timing gives you some advantage in how to make the most of the time you’re in.
- Seasons determine the tools you use. If you went out and disked during harvest you’d ruin the harvest. Not that the harvest is eternal, but it does serve a purpose.
- Seasons determine your plans and activities.
- Seasons determine what you wear and even the appropriate behavior.
Purpose
- A season is a time in which a purpose is accomplished.
- Then Solomon tells you there are 28 seasons and objectives that are accomplished in a fallen world.
- Time to be born – 9 months after conception, time to die, when the spirit returns to God and the soul is separated from the body, time to….
- Solomon asks the question again in verse 9, what profit is there? Everything succumbs to corruption. We must plant even though the harvest won’t be eternal. We must build even though the building won’t be eternal.
- Every purpose in its time is beautiful like a baby born at 9 months. That’s good. But a baby born at 7 months, that’s not good. It’s the wrong timing. The purpose hasn’t been accomplished therefore it’s untimely and tragic.
- In verse 11 there is the profound thought that man is hopelessly tied to his labor for such a brief time there is no way for him to gain a perspective from God’s eye view.
- Man can’t live long enough to see beyond his own labor in his lifetime. And he’s stuck in a cycle of life no matter what he does.
- Some teachers seem to think this is by choice; man doesn’t think about eternal things by choice. The reality is man CAN’T think about eternal things because he’s stuck in the cycle of corruption.
- This is what revelation from God becomes about. Giving man God’s perspective on himself and the work of God. 1 Corinthians 2:6-11 is Paul’s commentary on this very thing.
- David said, If you had not spoken, I would be like them that go down to the pit. Meaning absent revelation from God, David is absolutely trapped in his own mortality.
- Jesus tells Nicodemus you need to be born of the Spirit, meaning you can’t see things I need you to see unless I show them to you. And if I can’t speak to you about earthly things there is no possible way for me to speak to you about heavenly things.
Proper attitude
- In verses 12-13 Solomon reminds his audience of one of his conclusions.
- Solomon also says that because life is filled with vanity, man should enjoy the life he can produce for himself. No one else will enjoy it like him. He won’t be able to pass it on with any assurance that the value will be passed on. This is said multiple times throughout the sermon (2:24, 3:13, 3:22, 5:18, 8:15)
- While we’re trying to find a good outcome, the LORD is trying to work good into man’s life. What happens is passing, but the spirit and how I go about my life, counts. Good works (Titus 2:7, 14, 3:8, 14).
Permanence
- While man must live in this corrupted and passing world, the work of God is forever.
- An example is in Hebrews 9:13-14 eternal redemption through the eternal Spirit
- I mean what could man do to take away from something like eternal redemption?
- The present will be the past and God will lay the line of judgment to what is done. Not the intentions, or the desires, but the good or bad work.
