Ecclesiastes 3
The Lord reigns! The Preacher, the Son of David who
writes Ecclesiastes, presents the doctrine of God's complete
sovereignty not to ask us what we think about it, but simply as a
matter of honesty about the ways of life. The truth is that God's
overwhelming authority is very good news. In fact the prophet Isaiah
connects the gospel or “good news” that God's ambassadors
proclaim today with this doctrine of God's almighty power and
authority. He writes in Isaiah 52:7, “How beautiful upon the
mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes
peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation,
who says to Zion, 'Your God reigns.'”
God rules in heaven over all that happens under the sun.
He determines the time and place for various events and activities,
both those that we receive as positive blessings and those that we
consider negative disasters. Remember that the Preacher ended
Chapter Two by talking about God's gifts. He will speak of God at
length after the completion of this series of couplets about the
times of our lives. There can be no doubt that He understands that
heaven's God ordains and orders every matter mentioned in this poem.
There is a time to be born and a time to die. The
number of days that God has ordained for us were written in His book
before we experienced even one of them. He is the One who planted
us; He is the first Cause, and our human parents were second causes
operating according to His purposes. He is also the One who gathers
up what He has planted, harvesting us for His eternal purpose.
Rulers may order their people into battle, and physicians may perform
necessary surgeries, but the God of heaven long ago set the time for
healing, and even for killing. Who can fathom all His great designs?
A man works diligently on a project, deciding that it is his life's
work. He dismantles some structure from an earlier generation that
once occupied what is now his land. But it is God who first
determined that something new would be built in the place of
something old whose time had come and gone.
In our lives we experience weeping and laughter,
mourning and dancing. We wake up, intending to do one thing, and we
lay our heads on our pillows that night doing the other. Are you
sure you will be weeping tonight? You may be laughing. God knows.
He has ordained it from of old. It is part of a larger purpose that
He is accomplishing, that purpose that the Apostle writes of in
Ephesians 1:10, “... to unite all things in Him (Christ), things in
heaven and things on earth.” God is gathering living stones for
His holy temple. He embraces His people, for He is a Husband to a
bride who will one day be flawless. No one can stop this eternal
purpose. The times that God has determined all fit into His decree.
We seek someone and we find him. We may lose him one
day, and we both may be forgotten by everyone. But God will not
forget. We do what we want within the limits of what we can
accomplish; keeping this, and casting away that, tearing one garment,
and sewing a patch on another. We speak and we listen, we love and
we hate, and even in those emotions and actions that we consider ours
alone, God has chosen the time for these feelings and pursuits.
Somehow all of the details of existence must fit into a larger fabric
of God's design.
Sin came into the world as a declaration of war, but
before the world was created, the way that God would work out peace
with His people through Christ was already known to the Almighty. He
had even determined when the fullness of time would come, and what
that would mean for His beloved Son.
It is within this sovereign fabric of existence that
every worker's toil comes and goes. The Lord makes us busy in
something that He has given to us. We do not see the final glory of
heaven at present, but the Preacher tells us something we need to
believe as we increasingly feel the movement of time: that God has
made everything beautiful in its time. He has left each of us with
an internal testimony of a life beyond this earth. He has put
eternity into man's heart. Not that we understand eternity; even
today, after the cross and the resurrection, we still struggle to
imagine what heaven is like and what our existence will precisely be
when the Lord returns. Nonetheless, we know this: that we will be
like Jesus, for we will see Him as He is.
Until then, it is ours to enjoy the daily gifts God
gives to us, and even to enjoy Him, knowing that whatever He does
endures forever, and that His eternal purpose must have something to
do with our fleeting lives and our endeavors that will soon be
forgotten by a coming generation. And surely God will judge. We are
dust, and to dust we will return; we cannot know today what will
happen to our work after we die. But the God who reigns knows. His
Son has gathered us, He will embrace us, and we will see Him.
Prayer
from A
Book of Prayers
Lord of Hosts, You
are sovereign over all things. You have given a time for ever purpose
under heaven. You are gathering us as living stones for Your eternal
temple. You are embracing Your bride in a love that will never end.
Thank You for placing eternity in our hearts. Thank You especially
for providing the very best answer to our longings. Your Son Jesus
Christ is our provision, and we rejoice in Him. Help us to enjoy the
many blessings of this life, yet with some measure of restraint, as
there is a time for every matter and every work. Like the beasts of
the earth, we will face the end of our lives one day. We too have the
grave ahead of us. Yet You are the most satisfying answer to the
question that You have placed within our souls.
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