“reTurn,
reTurn, reTurn”
A
Sermon on Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
November
3, 2002
by Rev. Stephen C.
Magee
Introduction: I hated life... I hated all my labor...
I want to begin by thanking Rod for
preaching last Sunday, and thanking you, the men and women of the church, for
the part that you play week in and week out in using your gifts for God's glory
here at Exeter Presbyterian Church. Doug
mentioned to me on Wednesday night how encouraged he was to see how well the
ministry in the church proceeded during our week away at the conference in
When I last preached to you two
weeks ago, we considered the center of the first of three cycles of this book
of wisdom. That first cycle is a
reflection on the fleeting nature of even a very productive and wise life. At the center of the cycle, Solomon tells his
own story. Today we conclude this first
cycle of the book with a very familiar passage.
Before we consider the very poetic conclusion of Solomon's own story, I
want to take a moment to consider where we left off with the story of
Solomon. We have been thinking about the
fleeting nature of human work and wisdom, and in the last few verses from two
weeks ago, Solomon says that as he devoted himself to understanding things in
the midst of a life of great toil, the more that he thought about it all, the
more he hated life. He says,
2:17 Therefore I hated life because the work that was
done under the sun was distressing to me, for all is vanity and grasping for
the wind. 18 Then I hated all my labor in which I had toiled under the sun,
because I must leave it to the man who will come after me.
Solomon was not just having a bad
day when he wrote these words. He was
speaking the truth. Because of the
fleeting nature of life, the more he thought about things, the more that it
bothered him. He was very blunt about
this. "I hated life... I hated all
my labor..." Why? Because the more
I pursued wisdom, the more I saw things as they are. That no matter how diligently and wisely I
pursued my work in this brief life, I could not have any assurance of what
would happen as a result of my labors after I died.
The passage before us today is the
best answer I know of to the dilemma that Solomon was rightly expressing from
his own life experience. I want to
invite you to stand and to hear the word of God that concludes this first cycle
of inspired consideration on the question of the futility of human work and
wisdom.
TEXT: Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
1 To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven:
2 A time to be born,
And a time to die;
A time to plant,
And a time to pluck 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;
A time to embrace,
And a time to refrain from embracing;
6 A time to gain,
And a time to lose;
A time to keep,
And a time to throw 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 of war,
And a time of
peace.
The Sovereignty of God in...
The conclusion of this cycle comes
in a very poetic statement about something called the sovereignty of God. What this phrase means is that, despite all
the things that don't seem to make sense to us in this world, God is in charge
of everything. Immediately prior to this
passage, after Solomon said that he had come to hate life and hate all his
work, the author states that he saw that his labor and all that came from it
was from "the hand of God." He
went on to say that "God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy" to the
person he determines to give it to. In
fact the entire book of Ecclesiastes is a very strong statement not only of the
futility of our life under the sun in this fallen world, but also of the
sovereignty of God, who rules over all.
Therefore, when we read over and over again in today's passage about
"a time" for this or that under heaven, we are to understand by this
that Solomon is referring to the One who is in heaven and who rules over
all. He is the One who has set the times
and the seasons for all these things.
Let us consider for a moment some of
the things that God rules over. We will
look at verses two through four, and then verses six through eight, and then
return to the middle of the poem in verse five.
In verse two we see that God is the Lord of human life and death. Yesterday several hundred people attended a
memorial service for
In verse three we see that the Lord
of heaven is not merely in charge of the day of our coming and the day of our
going, but also of our human accomplishments between those two days. For here we see that we are not to imagine
that the work of the soldier and the doctor are beyond his power and will. For there is a time that
has been set by Him for all of our actions. The soldier kills and the doctor heals. One businessman builds up, and another tears
down. But all soldiers, doctors,
entrepreneurs, and workers, all who labor toward various accomplishments, are
under the sovereign power of God. All
people and all their actions have a set time and purpose known to Him who works
all things according to the good pleasure of His holy will (Ephesians 1:11).
We see in verse four that our God is
the Lord not only of all human life and action, He is even the Lord of all
human events and emotions. For there is a time that He has established for weeping and
laughing, for mourning and for dancing.
We tend to think of ourselves as in charge of our own destinies, yet as
time moves forward in our lives we see another Hand above who is working His
will. We tend to think of ourselves as
in charge of our own accomplishments or failures, but we learn that there is a
Hand above who causes one man to rise to fame, while another lives a quieter
life in simplicity. But surely we are in
charge of our feelings, we suppose. Yet
think about this for a moment. Is there
anyone here who doubts that the Lord of Creation and
Up to this point I have spoken of
three topics in twelve poetic phrases, and I have done this in a somewhat
individual way - individual life and death - individual accomplishment or
failure - individual celebration or sadness.
I now want to skip over the middle four phrases in verse five, and
continue with the final twelve phrases, looking at these in a more communal
way. For God is
sovereign not only over individual lives, actions, and emotions, but He is also
sovereign over the rise and fall of all human nations and societies.
In verse six, then, we are to
consider that God is not only sovereign over individual gaining and losing, but
also over the seeking after gain, and the losing of what was once gained that
takes place on a societal level. As we
see the nations of the world, we see that natural resources are not evenly
distributed. We see that cultural
conditions that make for prosperity or poverty exist in varying measures in
various lands. The result is that one
nation has much, and another is in desperate need. Do we imagine that these things happen independent of the sovereignty of God? If we think that way, then we are wrong.
Psalm
135:6
Whatever the LORD pleases He does,
In heaven and in earth,
In the seas and in all deep places.
In verse seven, there is a time set
for ever act of human justice and judgment.
There are acts of treachery and rebellion that demand an outcry on the
part of the righteous. The prophet
Jeremiah speaks of one such instance where the king showed complete contempt
for God's Word, by having it thrown into the fire, line by line, as it was read
to Him.
Jeremiah 36:22-24 22 Now the king was sitting in the winter house in the ninth
month, with a fire burning on the hearth before him. 23 And it
happened, when Jehudi had read three or four columns, that the king cut it with the scribe's knife and
cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the scroll was consumed
in the fire that was on the hearth. 24
Yet they were not afraid, nor did
they tear their garments, the king nor any of his servants who heard all these
words.
In Solomon's day as well, one right
way to react to this kind of
bad news of God's judgment was the tearing of one's garment. There is a time set for such tearing within
the community of God's people or among the nations of this world, and there is
a time for sewing the garment back together again, as the calamity passes. There is a time for speaking up in the courts
of the church or the state. But also
there is a time for holding back speech, even as Christ did in the travesty of
justice that took place at his own trial.
These images, if we consider them in terms of communal debate and
discourse, speak of the consideration of a people concerning the evil and
danger that stands against them, and all of this is
under the sovereign hand of God.
Verse eight, considered in terms of
communal application, speaks of the very rise and fall of nations and
peoples. This too is under the
sovereignty of God, even though we may not be able to discern what the Lord is
doing through such marvelous exercise of His kingly power. We are brought to recognize the truth that the
Babylonian ruler, Nebuchadnezzar, was made to see. The prophet Daniel warned Him concerning His
need to humble Himself before the God of heaven and earth, but at first He did
not take adequate heed to this warning.
Daniel told him:
Daniel 4:27-35 27 "Therefore, O king,
let my advice be acceptable to you; break off your sins by being righteous, and
your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor. Perhaps there may be a
lengthening of your prosperity."
28 All this
came upon King Nebuchadnezzar. 29 At the end of the twelve months he was walking about
the royal
31 While
the word was still in the king's mouth, a voice fell from heaven: "King
Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: the kingdom has departed from you! 32 And they
shall drive you from men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the
field. They shall make you eat grass like oxen; and seven times shall pass over
you, until you know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives
it to whomever He chooses." 33 That very hour the word was fulfilled concerning
Nebuchadnezzar; he was driven from men and ate grass like oxen; his body was
wet with the dew of heaven till his hair had grown like eagles' feathers and
his nails like birds' claws.
34 And at
the end of the time I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my
understanding returned to me; and I blessed the Most High and praised and
honored Him who lives forever:
For His dominion is an everlasting dominion,
And His kingdom is from generation to generation.
35 All the
inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing;
He does according to His will in the army of heaven
And among the inhabitants of the
earth.
No one can restrain His hand
Or say to Him, "What have You
done?"
God is in charge of it all, even the
rising and falling of nations. We think
that there is no "hate" in God, but He is the one who said,
"Jacob I have loved, and Esau I have hated" (Malachi 1:2, Romans
9:13). There is a time for hate of one
people by another, and thus a time of war.
There is a time of cordial relations, a time of love, and thus peace
between different peoples, and all of this, as the King learned, is under the
sovereign hand of God.
But there is one set of four phrases
in our poem that we have passed over.
They are in verse five and include the most difficult image to
understand in this passage.
5 A time to cast away stones,
And a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace,
And a time to refrain from embracing;
These words are in the very center
of this poem which concludes cycle one.
While we can see readily that "embracing" is a positive thing,
yet we wonder when we read the words about casting away and gathering stones,
which one of these is the good one, and which one is the bad one. The two central phrases deal with gathering
stones and embracing, and we wonder what possible connection there might be
between these things. Why is Solomon
telling us in the center of this passage that God is sovereign in the work of
gathering stones and embracing?
First, if we search the Old Testament
for the words that are hear translated "cast away" and "stones," we will see
that the context is always one of divine judgment. In Leviticus 14:40, it was the stones that
were full of some infectious "plague" that were to be "cast into
an unclean place outside the city."
And in several places, an enemy of God and his people, such as the King
of Ai in Joshua 8:29, was hanged on a tree, then his body was removed from the
tree, cast away some place, and then covered with stones. There is a connection made between people and
stones, where the people are cast away, and then the stones are cast away on
top of them. In Nehemiah 9:11, the
people pray to God, reminding Him of His acts of judgment against the Egyptian
armies with these words first speaking of the Israelites, and then of their
persecutors, the Egyptians:
Nehemiah 9:11 You divided the sea before them, so that
they went through the midst of the sea on dry land; and their persecutors You
threw into the deep, as a stone into the mighty waters.
So
the idea of casting away stones seems to be a picture of God's judgment.
But what of the
idea of gathering stones. There
is only one other place in the Bible where these Hebrew words for gathering and
stones are used together. In 1
Chronicles 22:2, it is recorded that King David gathered people for the work of
gathering stones for the building of the temple. This is very clearly a good picture - a
picture of blessing - a picture of being gathered to the place of the presence
of God, where God himself dwells. In the
New Testament we learn that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and we are
called living stones, who are being gathered for God's building, where Christ
Himself is the chief cornerstone - a stone that was cast away by men, but Elect
and precious in the sight of God (1 Peter 2:4-8).
If we move ahead for a moment to the
imagery of the embrace, we have a picture of turning toward another person with
friendship, and even more, with intimacy.
Embracing is what husbands and wives do, among others, but here in the
center of this poem, we are looking more for the work of God than for the set
times for humans to embrace. The fact is
that God has announced from the earliest chapters of the Bible that He cleaves
to His people, as a husband embraces his wife.
The Apostle Paul has spoken in this way in Ephesians 5:
Ephesians 5:31-32 31 "For this reason a man shall
leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become
one flesh." 32 This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and
the church.
Here at the center of this poem we
have two phrases that are both positive right next to each other. The sovereign God has set a time for
gathering stones and a time for embracing.
At the center of God's sovereign work is His divine work of gathering
living stones for His temple, embracing them through Christ our Lord. In all of this and in all things below this,
God is sovereign.
Truly, for EVERYTHING there is a season,
and a
time for EVERY PURPOSE under heaven.
The Importance of a Firm Belief in the
Sovereignty of God
I want to briefly press upon you the
great importance of this doctrine of the sovereignty of God. It makes a great deal of difference whether
you believe in it. God is sovereign over
individuals, over families, and over nations.
God is sovereign over all physical things, and over all things in
spiritual realms. God is sovereign over
all time, past, present, and future.
If this were not the case, we could
have no assurance about anything. Was the
cross simply the work of sinful men, or was it due ultimately to "the
determined purpose and foreknowledge of God," as Peter says in Acts
2:23? Is your response to the cross a
matter of only your own inclination, or is it due ultimately to God who draws
men to Himself, as we are assured by Jesus in John 6:44 and by Paul in
Ephesians 2:1-10? If we do not believe,
not only can we have no peace about the life and death of Gretchen Hills, or
about our own pursuit of work and wisdom, we can not even be sure that Christ
will return to judge the living and the dead.
If there is one molecule in the universe that is somehow independent of
the times and seasons of God's settled purposes, how can any of us here below
be sure of the return of Christ?
If God Is Sovereign, What is He Doing?
But it is not enough to believe that
God is sovereign. This passage and the
whole of the Scriptures take us further.
God is not sovereign to simply say, "Aha! I am in charge and you
are not. I'm big, you're little. I'm smart, you're dumb." All that is true enough, but God in His great
wisdom, justice, and mercy has a purpose in His sovereign plan and
actions. And that purpose is displayed
in the center four phrases of our text.
Our God will bring great glory to Himself in the judgment of sinners,
and in His rescue of His people.
The Lord is building the temple of
the Holy Spirit. He is building
something. He is embracing someone. And through the giving of His Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ, through this Perfect One's life, death, and resurrection, someone
is being embraced as a bride. And all
creation yearns for the revealing of the sons of God. And this shall come to pass.
Christ is gathering stones. Christ will embrace the church. But the harlot of the world will be cast
away. She shall not be embraced. This is the work that God is sovereignly doing.
Conclusion: Repent - reTurn, reTurn, reTurn.
Brothers and sisters we must turn to
Him today with assurance of His love.
This means repentance.
Q What is
repentance unto life?
A Repentance
unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the
mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief
and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and
endeavor after, new obedience. (WSC)
There is a certain way of looking at
the verses before us this morning that would be very wrong. It is the way of Eastern mysticism,
that looks on life as an endless cycle of things that just happen -
meaningless events outside of the sovereign control of any particular god. This view says that there is a time for this
and a time for that, and the world just keeps on turning and turning, with no
particular divine purpose or result.
Such a view is for "The Birds."
I think that we have something much
more wholesome here for "The Mamas and the Papas" of today. We have a sovereign God with a sovereign
purpose, which He will sovereignly accomplish. He is building the temple, embracing the
bride, causing
new spiritual life to be born, and a precious vine to be planted that will bear
fruit unto eternity. The lame will be
healed, and the family of God built up, and He will wipe away every tear, and
make the broken heart to rejoice and dance.
He will seek and save the lost, and keep the church secure. He will repair what needs mending among his
people, and will speak the words "Well done thou good and faithful
servant." He will announce His
sweet love to His chosen ones eternally, in a place of
settled peace.
But if this is not satisfactory in your eyes. Know this also. This same Savior shall be a judge of those
who do not know God, and who do not obey the gospel
of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Thes 1:8). For He will scatter stones, and there are
some that He will refrain from embracing.
He will bring the second death, and root up what does not
bear fruit. He will kill, and will tear
down, and there will be much mourning and gnashing of teeth. For the lost will be truly
lost, and thrown away into utter
darkness, and their garments will be torn and their nakedness exposed. There will be there no pleasant word of
blessing for them, for He will hate His enemies with perfect hatred, and that
warfare will never end.
And
this perfect justice of God is what Christ suffered for us on the cross, that
dead stones might be brought to life, and then living stones would be built up
together into a holy temple for the Lord, that the
Dear
people, turn and return to the Lover of your souls.
2 Chronicles 7:14 14 "if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves,
and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear
from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.