What you take your Bibles, please, and turn to the book of Ecclesiastes and the Old Testament to chapter 3 There's a saying among Bible scholars that there are as many outlines of the book of Ecclesiastes as there are books that study it And that is probably true. I have been consulting 14 different books and there are 14 different outlines provided by these books to this wonderful little memoirs of Solomon. But there is one, I think, out of all the 14 that makes sense to me. It's the simplest one, and it follows the structure of the book that has six times a refrain. A refrain that goes like this, eat and drink and make your soul enjoy good for all of its labor. For this is the gift of God. Walter Kaiser suggests that that refrain divides the book into four sections. What Solomon is doing is that Solomon is musing as an old man back over his life and he's asking the question, did my life count for anything? And was I important at all in the grand scheme of God? And the answer that he will arrive at is yes to both of those questions. So he divides his memoirs, so to speak, into these four discourses or discussions. First, that there is a cycle in the life that cannot be denied. And that cycle is one that men have to experience through the give and take of living with God and other men. He talks about that in the first section that we've already completed in the first two chapters where he talks about the vanity of vanities and how things seem to go round and round and round, how he pursued an understanding of life through the pursuit of pleasure and the search for wisdom, and the drive toward success only to come to this conclusion, refrain number one. There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also I saw is from the hand of God. Then the second discourse, beginning in chapter three to the end of chapter five, is about understanding this mysterious plan of God and it ends with this refrain. Behold, what I've seen to be good and fitting is to eat and to drink and find enjoyment in all the toil, which one toils under the sun, the few days of his life, that God has given him for this is his lot in life. Then he enters into a section, chapter six to eight, where he talks about how this plan of God shapes our lives, only to end with this refrain, and I commend joy for man has nothing better under the sun, but to eat and to drink and to be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through all the days of his life that God has given him under the sun, and this is the gift of God. He finally comes to the end of his discourse, where he talks about removing discouragements as we pursue this plan of God in life, only to end with the idea that God will bring every work to judgment and everything to its proper evaluation. Solomon is a man who is finding that there's only one thing in life that will give us joy, and that is to be part of willingly and purposely this all-encompassing plan of God that orders all of life. As he comes to the beginning of a new section, his second discourse that opens up in chapter three, verse one, he talks about time and change. He says there are only two constants in life, time and change, and they shape everything. Those two words have a special meaning for me. There are words that come from the alma mater of my university, Carman Ohio, Him to Ohio. O come let single-hios praise and songs to alma mater raise, while our hearts rebounding through with joy which death alone can still. Summer's heat or winter's cold, the seasons pass, the years will roll, time and change will surely show how firm our friendship, Ohio. Now that song means nothing to you, and you might think it's kind of geeky. Until you learn the story behind it, it was written in 1903 on a bus by a guy who was a freshman at Ohio State named Fred Cornel. He was the manager of the football team. He was returning from Ohio State's worst loss ever to the Michigan Wolverines. 86 to nothing. Oh, it still hurts to say it. 109 years later or whatever. And so he was wanting time and change. He wanted Ohio State to get better and Michigan to get worse and his prayers were answered. Michigan won the first, I think, 15 out of the first 17 or 18 games. They were 15 wins and two ties and one loss and then things began to change. And in the last 90 games, Ohio State's 143, Michigan's 143, and there's been four ties. That's a pretty even rivalry, isn't it? That's why it's considered the number one rivalry in the country. You don't know this, but New York Times recently wrote an article and they asked the question, what is America's favorite football team and who do you guess came out number one? Well, it wasn't blue. It was these colors. Ohio State is America's most favorite football team. Now, how many people believe that? Raise your hand. There's two or three Buckeye hands, okay? That's what New York Times said, you know who was number two? Michigan. Number three, Penn State, four, Notre Dame five, Texas. You know why? Because those are the five biggest television markets for football in the country. That's how they determined who was the most popular team, who had the most viewers. But I'm sure that there's five million people who turn in to watch the Ohio State Michigan game every year, five million. Because it's so close. If you're on top, you don't want time to change anything. You want things to remain the same. If you're on the bottom, you have this violent, this vitriolic urge to make things change and what's true of college football is true of life. When things are going well, we don't want anything to change. When things are not going so well, then we like Mr. Cornel's hymn to Ohio. Time and change will surely show. And that's what this little guy named Solomon writes about. He writes about time and change. His words at the beginning of chapter three are the most famous words in all of this book, maybe some of the most famous in all of the Old Testament. And there are only one of two Old Testament passages that were put to secular music. In 1959, Pete Sieger, folk singer, put these words to music and called it turn, turn, turn. To everything, turn, turn, turn. There was a season, turn, turn, turn at a time for every purpose under heaven. That song was well known among the beatnicks and the avant-garde of New York City and the college campuses in the 50s, but it was kind of immortalized in 1965 by an American band called The Birds, who turned that into kind of folk rock version. And they hit the number one billboards hot 100 list for 12 weeks with that song, so that this is the number one hit song with the oldest lyrics in the history of rock and roll. These songs celebrate Solomon's understanding of life, that there are seasons in God's plan for life, and there's a purpose to God's plan of life, and there's testing in God's plan of life. I think that of all the messages that Solomon gives, it is this one in chapter 3 that makes the whole book make sense. He says, first of all, there are seasons that God places in this life. For everything, there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven, a time to be born, and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted, a time to kill and a time to heal. A time to break down and a time to build up, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to seek and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to cast away, a time to tear and a time to sow, a time to keep silence and a time to speak, a time to love, a time to hate, a time for war, and a time for peace. 14 pairs of opposites, 28 times, he uses the word time, and what is obvious about these patterns of time is change. From one extreme to the other, back and forth time appears to go, time and change seem to be the only two constants in life. The statements press home, two truths, God's sovereignty, and our moral responsibility. H.C. Newport said of these verses, the last thought that has been suggested at the end of chapter 2 is now developed in a broader application. It has been intimated that no man can give himself or any other person joy unless God so wills it. The sovereign rule of God now is unfolded in its broadest context, not with the purpose of developing the truth as such, but for the purpose of affording comfort in this twofold way. Lupold Gazan to say the two comforts are first of all that God and his manifest plan is in control of all the events of life. And the second source of comfort is that every person should put their hope in God because in time, in God's appointment, all things unfold according to this master plan. It's hard for us to see that. But what Solomon is saying here is there was a timeliness to everything that God does to all his sovereign actions. These friends cannot be pairs of things that were responsible for. We cannot decide the moment of birth or the moment of death. We can't determine the time we're going to weep and when we're going to laugh, those things kind of force the way into our lives. We should not choose when to go to war or when to lose something and we can't choose when peace will come. We should rarely kill somebody or hate someone or refrain from showing affection. These are statements of the timeliness, the perfect timing of God's divine actions. It is God who has established these times. And there is an appropriateness, a perfection, and all that he does will find out in the next paragraph. And yet, at the same time, all of these actions remain the prerogative of mankind, farming, murder, healing, construction, funerals and dances, building stone walls, affection or the refusal to give it, searching for that which is lost, speaking to other people, making love, making war. Solomon's thoughts are those of Paul, that God calls us all things to work together for our good because He knows us and loves us and to call us according to His purpose and at the same time, this is the tension in this great doctrine of sovereignty and predestination election, men are responsible for what they do under the sun. Solomon says that there is a plan of God that encompasses all times and all changes in life from birth to death and everything in between. Every event under heaven, he says, i.e. under the sun, his great theme to this book, birth and death and more in peace, capital punishment, healing of medicine. And all the attendant emotions that go along with it, all the responses of weeping and laughing and hugging and keeping one's distance and love and hate. So if we extrapolate out what Solomon is saying, he's saying this, for everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under the sun, a time for Republicans to rule, a time for Democrats, a time for economic prosperity, a time for recession, a time to build a big home, a time to downsize, a time where churches in America grow numerically and a time when they shrink in size, a time for the American hour on the stage of history and a time for other nations to rise to prominence, a time for rain, a time for drought, a time for tropical storms. Nothing can or ever will remain the same for long. Time and change are built into God's plan for all of the universe, a time for Michigan to win, 86 to nothing, a time for a high state to win nine out of the last ten years. A time to be on top, a time to be on the bottom, a time for everything in between. What makes change so difficult until he Francis says is that it takes a death. She says, all change, even those long for, have their moment of melancholy. For what we have to leave behind us is a part of ourselves so that we in changing must die to one life before we can enter the next life. A child needs to die to his idyllic childhood where everything seems to be perfect and enter into the disenchanted and frustrated world of adolescence before he can go on to adulthood. He has to die to adolescence before he can go to college and pursue the calling that God has given him. Die to himself before he marries and has children and lives for them. A time to die to parenthood so he can pick up grand parenthood and begin to help little children learn how to die and be born anew in different stages of life. The circle is unbroken. If you look back in chapter 1, verses 9-11, that is Solomon's first observation that things seem to go round and round and round. You know, most of you aren't old enough to remember this. But there was a day when a higher state would have teams like Miami and Oregon and Florida state. To come to the stadium and we beat them like 70 to nothing. They were horrible. And now they're top teams in the country. Things just seem to go round. If I live to be 180, a higher state will be back on top again. Because things go round and round and round. What has been is what will be. What has been done is what will be done again. There was nothing new under the sun. Is there one thing of which it can't be said? See this is new. It has already been in the ages before us. There is no remembrance of former things. No, will there be any remembrance of things yet to be among those who come after us? All things go round and yet. There's an order to these things. Here's Solomon's first point in this opening paragraph, this beautiful poem about a time for everything under heaven. Here it is. You were never in control of your life. God has always been in control. You tended to romanticize the good times, to block out the bad times, but change must come over time in order for God's master plan to unfold. There was a God appointed time for everything, for birth, for elementary school math, for high school basketball and college girls and army service and first job. Life of your youth, children, career, old age, illness, new people for the next generation and then death. It's all part of God's great plan, so don't fight it. Embrace it and live by faith in God. How can we live by faith when things go back and forth and it seems to be random disorder to the endless frustrating cycles of life because there are three things about God we need to know. That is the next paragraph, the purpose of God in life. Solomon tells us, what gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also he has put eternity in demand's heart yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceive that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live, also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil. This is God's gift to man. I perceive that whatever God does endures forever. Nothing can be added to it nor anything taken from it. God has done it so that people can fear before him. That which is already has been. That which is to be already has been and God seeks what has been driven away. Solomon says, God has a great plan and purpose in life. From our perspective under the sun, it appears to be random and cyclical and frustrating. But that is not true. We don't know the plan but we know the God behind the plan. And there are three things about God that are fundamental to resting in faith in Him and to progressing through life without going crazy. Here is the first one. Everything is beautiful in God's timing. Look again at verses 9 through 11. What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of men to be busy with. Key statement. He has made everything beautiful in its time. The word beautiful is really the Hebrew word for appropriate or fair good befitting timely or appropriate. The word means that in fact it is used again in chapter 5 verse 18. Behold what I have seen to be good and fitting. The word fitting is this word translated here as beautiful. Meaning over time the difficult changes we face in life come out to make sense and we see how God has used them in a fitting manner in appropriate way. A beautiful end that we couldn't see when they first in their time come storming into our lives. In the end God makes everything beautiful. Everything appropriate. Everything good. God calls us all things to work together for the good, the good of those who love Him. Second truth about God is that God has made us in such a manner that we all have this great yearning to understand his mysterious plan. That's verses 11 through 13. 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. I perceive that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil. This is God's gift to man. He has sent eternity in our hearts. He has put aside unique to all the other creatures as those made in his image and likeness so that we have a sense of eternity. Something that we believe the animals, the lower creation, don't have. But we sense eternity. We believe that our lives go on after our bodies die. That life is in a sense immortal, some eternal life for us. And therefore because we're made in God's image, it's natural for us to try to make this life connected to that eternal life so that they both make sense. Now this can go awry. This can go wrong. This is what Adam and Eve did wrongly. We'll find out later what's what caused them to fall. Trying to make sense out of things beyond their reach, but you can't deny that God has placed eternity in a heart. Solomon won't shy away from that fact. That we have some sense in our minds and hearts that we were just not randomly created. And that after we go to the dust, it's all over. Now we see our lives somehow immortally connected to the eternal God and his infinite plan. And yet God's plan is mysterious. We will never be able to figure it out. That's the third thing he says. God's work is mysterious in his plans. And it's that way on purpose. I perceive verse 14 that whatever God does endures forever, nothing he added to it nor anything taken from it. God has done us so that people fear him. That which is already has been and that which is to be has already been and God seeks what has been driven away. Now earlier he said, you know, I perceive that that gone has this plan, but and he said eternity in our hearts, but not such the week and understand what God is doing. Because what God is doing is a great mystery. Imagine folks think for a minute. If I have to what what theologians call the age of reason, age seven. The Holy Spirit decided at the age of seven to show every boy and girl, every child, what was going to happen to them all through the rest of their life, including the hour and means of their death. How many would want to know that at the age of seven? Would you raise your hand? Then why do you want to know it at the age of 47 or 77 or 97? God works in a mysterious way so that two things happen. Solomon says, first we know that whatever he does is a mutable and eternal, doesn't change last forever. And secondly, so that we fear him, so that we have a reference for him, something that seven year olds seem to naturally have. If we put all these three observations together, here's what we get. God gave us work to do in this life, and in time everything will be seen to fit together and be appropriate. Our desire to know the eternal plan and the divine reason for things as they unfold drives us to God who is both mysterious and wonderful, a God to be referenced and pursued. For the moment that we figure out life and know what God is doing before he does it, we won't need God anymore. That was the problem of Adam and Eve. Long came the serpent one day and said, you know, if you eat that fruit, you will be like God knowing good from evil, knowing the time for good, the time for evil, the time for love, the time for hate, the time for war, the time for peace. Eve should have said, well, listen, you little reptile. We already are like God. Read the first chapter of our story. In the image and likeness he made them, male and female, he made them in his likeness. But she wanted more. She didn't want to have to depend upon God who sets us rhythm of time and change. She wanted to be able to understand it and to determine it for herself. And in reaching for that, she reached beyond mankind into the realm of the mysterious and the divine and fell from grace and brought her husband and all mankind down into sin and misery. It is not good for you to know the secret plans of God. Do you realize what I would do if I knew the outcome of every high state Michigan game until the day I die, I'd be a billionaire, I would all of a sudden believe in gambling and find some place in the Bible to justify it. I'd always place my money on the winner and I'd always come out on top. And in so doing, I would sin against a sovereign God and his plan for life. That's why God told Solomon the secret things belong to the Lord our God. But the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever that we may do all the words of this law. The secret things belong to the Lord our God. There was the mystery of God's sovereignty. But here's our moral responsibility but the things revealed belong to us and to our children that we may obey the words of his revelation. The moral responsibility of man and the sovereignty of a mysterious God fit together. You know, this isn't difficult for children and I have a sense that as people get older this gets easier. It's somewhere between the ages of 15 and 55 that we wrestle with this idea that God is gracious, God is mysterious and we are responsible. Why? Solomon tells us because there are years between childhood and old age where we are tested and this is the testing in God's great plan. Verse 16, the place of justice even there was wickedness. And the place of righteousness even there was wickedness. I said in my heart God will judge the righteous and the wicked. For there is a time for every matter and for every work. I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. For what happens to the children of men, what happens to the beast is the same as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath and man has no advantage over the beasts for all his vanity. All go to one place, all are from the dust and to dust all return. Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth? So I saw that there was nothing better that a man should rejoice in his work and that this is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will happen after him? Solomon says what makes living in faith under the sovereign plan of God difficult is the way God tests us like James talks about in his first chapter. There are three things he says that try our souls. First is that where there should be righteousness and justice and goodness, we find wickedness in the very structures of life. Systemic evil that discourages and make us wonder is God really in charge. Secondly, that when we look at the fate or the end of animals and men, they are the same. They are mortal, they die, they are buried, they return to dust, and so there appears to be no advantage for the man over the beast. Lastly, who can bring him to see what will happen after him? Man can see what their life will accomplish, what they will lead behind them and how God will use it when they are done with their lives. So it all appears in a moment of frustration to be worth nothing. But even behind these anomalies, there is a divine purpose. When we look at verse 18, God is testing us. I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them, that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. Meaning all this frustration in life, this endless cycle, this time for this and time for that time and change, lack of control, having to rely on a sovereign God who is mysterious and distant. And according to us unpredictable, they have a purpose. They test us so that we come to the conclusion that without God, we are but beasts. Prone to injustice and unrighteousness and beastly behavior. Men need God even for the mundane things of life like justice and daily work and facing their own mortality. Verse 21 troubles people because we translate it incorrectly. It sounds like Solomon is unsure about eternal life. Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down to the earth. But according to chapter 3, verse 17, and chapter 12, verse 7, and chapter 12, verse 14, Solomon knows that the soul goes back to God and man lives forever. Because verse 21 in chapter 3 is not a question. It's a statement. We miss translated because we're not faithful to the marking of the maserets who translated the Old Testament and put the vow markings. They did not translate this as a question but as a statement. And rather than who knows it should be stated nobody knows so that it reads this way, nobody knows the spirit of man that goes upward and the spirit of the beast that goes downward except the Lord. God knows the difference between a man and a beast. God knows the immortal soul of a man and its destiny and the mortal life of a beast and its futility. Nobody knows this except God. So when you put all this together, Solomon says four things in this last paragraph. God wants men to face their fallen condition and that they often act in a beastly manner when they do not walk in faith. God wants men to do with the reality of the fall that they are mortal and that they will die. God along knows that the soul of man and beast have different destinies. One is immortal, the other mortal. And God wants us to enjoy our lives and do work in such a way that we trust him with the end result. That is what Solomon drives forward to six different times in six different refrains. I saw that there is nothing better than a man should rejoice in his work for this is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will come after him? Verse 22. Man and beast, they do differ. Walter Kaiser says. Man may be like the beast in one way. His frail body may return to dust but his spirit goes upward to God. Whether for judgment or for more pleasant prospects. The writer does not pause at this point. In the meantime, God has something that men may inherit, their portion, their lot, their place in life. If they meet the previously stated conditions of faith, if they may enjoy their work in this life, then God will in his future evaluation make sense of who they are and all they have done. This is a wonderful word from Solomon. So allow me to put this all together. Life under the sovereign control of God has its rhythms. Good times, bad times, at least from our perspective, but always appropriate times for God's purposes. Three realities reflect God sovereignly. There was a time for everything under heaven. There was a timeless and everything that God does and an appropriateness to every end that he brings about. Three truths about God shape life. Whatever God does is good. Whatever God does is eternal. And whatever God does is deeply mysterious. The facts about man must be kept in mind in this life. Men are sinful and often act like the beast. Men are mortal but they have immortal souls. Men are important and their work has eternal value. Bottom line, verse 22, who can bring him to see what will happen after him? The answer? God will someday, on some great judgment in the future. Show you and me how significant our lives were. All the opportunities we had to bless people and did. All the times we could have made an eternal difference in somebody's life and didn't. All the time and change, back and forth, sovereignly moving us to the place where our lives, our gifts, our faith, could make an eternal difference. That is how Solomon ends this book. God will bring every deed into judgment and reveal every secret of the heart whether it's good or evil. Life does make sense. If you're willing to trust a sovereign God, if you're willing to be content with your lot in life, if you do your work with an eternal perspective and realize that you cannot have your own way, or high estate can't win every week, it would be bad for everybody. The Republicans can't always be on the throne. That would be bad for everybody. America can't always be number one. Most metals, most money, most influence, most missionaries, that would be bad for the world. God has to be number one. And God is set in our hearts. This thing called eternity, not politics, not medicine, not sports, or girls, or wealth, or winning. The only thing that we should give ourselves to that is certain, the time and change cannot affect, is eternal life. And this is eternal life, that they might know you the only true God in Jesus Christ whom you have sent, and you and I don't need to figure the rest out. While the Democrats and Obama are so popular right now, I can't understand that, but they won't be in four or five years. Why the economic, European Union, and the U.S. are failing in China's economy is soaring? Well, that won't be so in ten years. Why the Yankees always win, and Wake Forest never does, that will change too. Some pastor someday will stand up in a pulpit in Ohio and say, do you know what America's most favorite team is? It's the Wake Forest demon deacons. Time and change will take its toll on things. And why things slam into your life the way they do, why your kids act today as they act? How they'll act in the future? Why all your money's gone, and all your work has increased? I don't know, but for everything, there was a season, and a time for every matter under heaven, and God has made beautiful everything in its own time. All we need to do is trust in the Lord with all of our hearts, and lean not on our own understanding, and all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord, turn away from evil, and He will do good, and that is what time and change is trying to teach us. Let's pray. Father, there are lots of questions that we would like to have answered in this life, that you have determined to wait until the next life to reveal. But you have made it clear in this revelation tonight that the rhythms and even the randomness of life really makes sense. Under your inscrutable wisdom, your infinite love, your unchanging sovereignty, and the gift that you have given to us, which is a life in this world, in which we can work to glorify you and do good to other people. Those are the constants that make sense to life. That is the framework of faith in which we live in dwell and have our being. We would like to see things change, other things remain the same. But we give you thanks tonight in faith that we are not sovereignly in control of time or change and not determining the one or the other. We know this, that you have said eternity in our hearts. But in such a way that we cannot understand from the beginning of the world to the end what you are doing, but so that we will have a reverence and love and hope in you as the ever mysterious and ever gracious God. Do what you want. This is your world. Do what you like with us. We belong to you. Use our work whatever it is to bring others to know Christ, to do good to mankind around us, to give you great honor, great pleasure. Help us again. We pray tonight to glorify you and enjoy you forever by resting in your sovereign control of time and change. And enable us to do this, we pray, through the indwelling Christ and whose name we pray. Amen.