Ecclesiastes 3:9-15

Ecclesiastes chapter 3 verses 9 through 15 for our text and study this evening. What prophet hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboreth? I have seen the travail which God have given to the sons of men, the sons of men to be exercised in it. He hath made everything beautiful in his time. Also he hath set the world in their heart. so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice and do good in his life. And also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor, it is the gift of God. I know that whatsoever God doeth. it shall be forever. Nothing can be put to it or anything taken from it. And God doeth it that men should fear before him. That which hath been is now, and that which is to be hath already been. And God requirth that which is past. May God bless to us the reading of His holy and soul. sacred word this evening. The father of a girl who had been raped and brutally murdered was interviewed by a spokesman for a Midwestern television station. And when asked to state his feelings about the tragic event, the grief-spicking parent replied that he accepted it all as part of God’s will. He stated that he believed that somehow God would bring good out of it and that therefore he had no desire for revenge. He was glad the murderer was apprehended. He was glad that he would be punished for his deed. But it was a surprising answer for today’s world. This incident raises a number of of questions. Is there such a thing as God’s providential control of all events? If God’s providence is a reality, why did he permit this beautiful girl to suffer such a horrible death, such a shocking event? If everything is controlled by God, why bother to do anything in this life? Aren’t God’s decrees inflexible? You can’t change them. Why is God’s providence so mysterious? Solomon has just spoken of God’s predetermined purpose, and we looked at this last study in verses 1 through 8. Things don’t just happen. They happen because of God’s hand, bringing them to pass. There is a fixed time and season in God’s providence for everything. You’re not the captain of your God’s providence. your own destiny. God is in control. So what does this all mean? How should you respond to this truth? Well let me begin by saying this. You need to face the truth of God’s sovereignty. We see that in verses 9 through 11. Why bother doing anything if God is in sovereign control of everything? Verse 9, he says here, what prophet has? he that worketh, and that wherein he laboreth. The fact that in verses 1 through 8, Solomon never mentions God, does not allow us to think that fate is controlling everything. Verse 11 indicates that God, who has every time in your life in his sovereign hands, brings these things to pass, he hath made everything beautiful in his life. He hath made everything beautiful in his life. He has made everything beautiful time. God controls these things. And they are in his sovereign hands. Solomon is a shrewd judge of human nature. The preacher’s observation here is man is not really free. That’s a disturbing thing for most people. They don’t like it. It leads to some obvious reactions. Well, if what will be will be, regardless of anything I do, why should I try to do anything? Verse 9. Why should a person laborously seek worthwhile goals in this life? After all, whether his endeavors will succeed or fail or all really up to God. are they not? And his sovereign will. Why expend any mental, any physical energy? Why then not just sit back and let the world roll by? These are certainly legitimate questions. It seems like there’s a lot of evidence that people apparently do what they desire to do in this life, despite the fatal consequence. like the rapist that we talked about earlier. Though to simply argue that everything falls out according to God’s eternal plan, we’re told is like special pleading by believers. An atheist might be willing to admit that believing that God is in control of everything is a great comfort to someone who is overwhelmed by sorrow. His problem is he doesn’t believe it, therefore he finds no comfort in it. He just sees what he thinks is an apparent tension. That man has free will and God is supposedly sovereign at the same time. The truth is that man does not have a free will. The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, and like the rivers of waters, he turneth it, whithersoever he will. Proverbs 21 and verse 1. This tells us here something that we should pay careful attention to. A man’s heart devises his way, but God directs his steps, Proverbs 16 and verse 9. People can’t fathom that God shapes the circumstances which leads to the decisions that they make in this life. So they do exactly as he directs their hearts to do. In fact, the Bible talks about he directs their heart to obey his will. Let me just take a simple example. Would Joseph’s brothers have gone down to Egypt to get food if if God had not brought a famine upon the land of Canaan. You see that his decision to go down to Egypt was based upon God shaping the circumstances in their life so that the most plausible thing for them to do is to go down to Egypt where we hear that there’s food down there. And so they go down. Now, did they make the decision to go down? Sure, they made a decision. to go down. But didn’t God shape that decision? And therefore, their will isn’t really free? A free will means there’s nothing that shapes your decision. You just make it out of the clear blue. But that’s not true. You live in a world where everything is shaping, is shaped by God. So whatever we do is often directed then by the circumstances around us. and so we have to look at this very carefully and realize that this is the case. Why bother doing anything if God is in sovereign control? The second thing he says here, it leads us to think about, is you have been given the burden of knowing why your life must be meaningful. Now notice verse 10 here. I have seen the travail which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it. Here Solomon returns to the thought of chapter 1 in verse 13, where he said this, I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven. This sore travail had God given to the sons of men to be exercised therewith. God has placed this burden upon man, and that is, He goes through a lot of trouble and toil in this world, labor and sorrow. It happens in this world. As you go through it, you happen to have a lot of this taking place. This travail has been lauded you by God. He has brought this into your life. He never intended for you to find perfect comfort and peace in this life. For many people, this travail, if you look at it carefully, is beneficial. It’s like a medicine that actually does you good. Why? Because all the labor and sorrow of this life makes you to desire something better, something beyond this life. It makes you think about life’s purpose. It makes you think about eternity. So you’ve been giving you. a burden to bear, a weight to carry. You’re a burden to know if your labor, indeed the whole of your life, is profitable. Life becomes then a careful study. God, by ordering the various times in your life, is your teacher. And he’s teaching you spiritual lessons as you go through this world. If the events of life happen haphazardly, if they would happen randomly, then there’s no lesson to learn. There’s nothing to be gained. There’s no reason behind it. What can you possibly learn from that? But if God is directing affairs of your life, you are exercised by these various events of life to learn a lesson that he’s teaching you. In other words, he gives you a spiritual education. The story is told about a man in China. who raised horses for a living. And one day, his prized stallion escaped, got loose, and ran away. His friends all gathered from around town to his home to mourn his great loss. And after they expressed their concern, the man raised this interesting question, how do I know whether what happened is good or bad? Well, a couple of days later, the runaway horse returned home, bringing some stray horses along with him, so that the man had more horses than he had when he started. His friends came to his house again, this time to celebrate his good fortune. But the old gentleman said once again, but how do I know whether it’s good or bad? That very afternoon, the prized stallion that had escaped and returned reared up and ended up kicking his son. And the young man’s leg was broken. Once more, the crowd assembled at his home, this time to express their sorrow over the incident. But the father again said, Yes, but how do I know whether this is good or bad? Well, only a few days later, war broke up. But because the son had a broken leg, he was exempted. for military duty and didn’t have to fight. Yes, you guessed it. His neighbors and friends gathered once more, but we’ll stop the story here. The fact is, we have a limited perspective on things. We can’t always know what’s good or bad right off the bat. Bad things may end up being good in the long run, and what we think is good may end up being bad in the long run. There’s no instant. learning. It often involves years to assess whether an event in your life is actually good or bad from a human perspective, of course. Faith sees everything, though, done by God as beautiful in its time. Notice verse 11 here. He hath made everything beautiful in his time. Although a man may appear to be wise, he finds himself unable to answer many of life’s questions and the disturbing thing here is man is able to ponder his future. He’s able to think ahead. Now the animal kingdom can’t do that. The chicken, the cow, the pig, is not able to think about why certain things happen in their life. They have no clue about all this. However, you were able to contemplate. plate things. You’re able to weigh things. Well, look what happened in the past. Look what happened now. And put them together. Think about Joseph’s brothers. Again, when they get out to Egypt for food, there’s a harsh ruler, which they don’t know is Joseph at the time. And he put Simeon in jail. Remember that? And what did his brothers say on their way home? God has done this to us for what we did to Jonah. or what we did to, excuse me, Joseph. So, they’re thinking about it, and they’re putting two and two together and say, well, we shouldn’t have treated Joseph that way, and now it’s coming back to haunt us. Remember when Jonah fled from the presence of the Lord, didn’t want to go to Nineve and preach, we find that God sent a great storm so the ship was about ready to be sunk. And people were wondering, why did this happen? Jonah knew, God sent it because I disobeyed him. Very obvious and very clear. Solomon’s point is, why go on with your foolish skepticism? Why not just accept the fact that God is in total control? Sober contemplation of the ups and downs in life is a good exercise if you’re willing to follow it to a logical conclusion that whatever God says, and his word is true. Now, you see that life makes no sense if you do not have personal faith in God. It’s the eye of faith that sees there is a beauty in everything that takes place. If I put it in Paul’s terms in the New Testament, all things work together for the good to them that love God, to them that are the called, according to his purpose. even the most tragic events that are most unpleasant to you in their proper time are altogether beautiful because God works for your ultimate good in these things. For every believer, the gracious purposes of the Lord shine through in the darkest moments of your life. And you begin to understand there’s a grand design. behind it all. Divine design so that everything is designed for you to be beautiful. The histories of Joseph and Esther should come to mind in this regard. Since we’ve been talking about Joseph a lot tonight, let me stick with him tonight. Look at the beautiful ending. Young Joseph is cruelly hated by his brothers and he’s sold into slavery by them and he ends up in Egypt. Now that seems like a bad thing. When he’s there, he’s purchased by Potipher, but Potipher’s wife falsely accuses him and he ends up in prison. And you’re thinking, oh no, it’s gone from bad to worse. He meets there, Pharaoh’s butler and his cupbearer who angered the Egyptian ruler and so they were thrown into jail. Joseph interprets their dreams, which come to pass, just as he said. When the cupbearer was restored to his former position, he was requested by Joseph, remember me, and tell the king. They know that I’m innocent of all these charges. But the cupbearer forgot about him. And that seems to be bad too. Pharaoh has a troubling dream, which no one can interpret. And what happens? The cup bearer remembers Joseph. Ah, now that seems like a good thing. Joseph interprets Pharaoh’s dream, and he’s exalted to the second in command in Egypt. Wow, there’s another good thing. A terrible famine comes, and Joseph’s family is in dire straits, and they have to, you know, in Canaan, and that seems like a bad thing. But because of that, Joseph’s brothers end up going down to Egypt, and Joseph ends up and ultimately saving the lives of his whole family, providing for them in Egypt, and that’s a good thing. And as Joseph says, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good, to save much people alive. So all things do work together for the good of them that love the Lord to them who are the called according to his purpose. This surely, this surety about life, however, is only for those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and walk according to his commandments. The unbeliever doesn’t have this privilege. The man without faith has no such assurance. It’s an exercise and futility to go through this life. He can’t figure it out. H.G. Wells, the English novel, who wrote War of the Worlds and a journey from Earth to the Moon and the Time Machine and so forth made this statement near the end of his life. The experiment will be ended and each of us will be dissolved in a nothingless, nothingness, like crystals down a drain pipe. What a sad view of life he had. Faith sees everything beautifully done by God. Now you have a sense of eternity, he tells us here in the second part of verse 11. Also, he has set the world in their heart so that no man can find the work that God makeeth from beginning to the end. The word world world here, Olam in the Hebrew, means something of long duration or it means forever. We might say God has set eternity in the heart of men. This word forever or eternity is found in verse 14, you’ll notice, and elsewhere in this book. There was a man named Walt Whitman who once bemoaned the fact that the animals have a carefree existence. They’re so placid and self-contained. They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins. They do not make me sick discussing their duties to God. No one is dissatisfied. No one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth. The animals have it made, he says. But the words of Whitman may strike a response of cord when you first read them, and you may even envy the animals and think, boy, I wish we were more like them. The fact is you are different. God made you different. Try as you might. You can’t avoid the solemn thoughts that you have about your life, about your destiny, and about your sin. Why do you feel guilty? Why do you dread death? Why is it so difficult to believe that everything is doomed to complete annihilation? You find that hard to believe. because God said eternity in your heart, you ought to know better. You possess an eternal soul. These things cannot easily then be ignored by men. In the latter part of this verse, he says, you can’t fathom life. Even though you have eternity set in your heart, you can’t fully grasp the meaning of all things. Indeed, you even resist the pull of eternal and spiritual things. in your life. You look in the opposite direction for satisfaction. You imagine that secular knowledge, you imagine that carnal pleasures, will answer your deepest needs. Your limitations as a creature, your sinfulness, and fall, prevent you from enjoying a complete understanding of God’s providential dealings. You don’t even live long enough to find out all that God is doing. It’s impossible, even if you did live longer. I mean, look at some of the early people in the book of Genesis who lived over 900 years of age. They still can’t figure all that God is doing. Only God knows the answers to life’s difficult questions, and yet man stubborn looks in all the wrong places and thus he stays in the dark. You can’t figure it out. So you should look at this passage and you see the need to face God’s sovereign that he’s talked about in verses 1 to 8. Secondly, you should enjoy the benefits of God’s sovereignty. Look at verses 12 and 13. He talks about the gifts of God. I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice and do good in his life. And also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor. It is the gift of God. Now this theme will constantly come up as we go through Ecclesiasiasias. The same kind of thinking is mentioned repeatedly. Life can be pleasurable for the people of God. Complaining about God’s sovereign control only makes you a practical atheist as you go through this life. Anyone who truly believes and trusts and God joyfully embraces the assurance that God is in charge of the times and seasons of his or her life. And on that basis, you receive gifts from him. His loving and wonderful, bountiful provision, he grants you. You can rejoice that your God owns the cattle on a thousand hills and he shares good. things with you. You can pursue God honoring activities which bring happiness, such as the enjoyment of good food and drink. Such as doing good to others. Finding satisfaction in your work because what you’re doing, regardless of what it is, whether your housewife, a computer programmer, whatever you are, even the minister. They’re all in a way serving God. And so therefore everything can bring satisfaction if we’re doing these things. These are legitimate goals for God’s people. They’re God’s gifts to us. Whenever called to live a joyless, unhappy life of mere subsistence, we can enjoy a plentiful table. We can enjoy the bountiful goodness of God. All the days of our life as he provides for us and we can be thankful for it. The gifts of God. And then he says this provides for us a sense of security in verses 14 and 15. I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever. nothing can be put to it or anything taken from it. and God doeth it that men should fear before him. that which hath been is now and that which is to be hath already been and God requireth that which is past. The works of God endure forever. When God grants salvation to us, it’s something that’s eternal. It never is taken away. And God’s work is so complete that man cannot add nor subtract from their ultimate perfection. Seeing how awesome God’s works are, men should fear before him. The practical outcome of our belief in God’s sovereignty will ultimately be worshiped. We will worship the one who sovereignly controls all the events of our life. Yes, there’s wickedness in the world. It’s been in the past, and it will be worshipped. be in the future. And if as a believer you have to pass through the waters of persecution or have to go through a time of misery or suffering of something of this nature, there is this assurance that God is going to require an accounting of the past. God will judge the evil which men do. There is security in sovereignty because it means that God will bring man to account for all that he’s done. He doesn’t escape. In this life, you reap what you sow, and in the life to come, there is an eternal judgment and an eternal hell that takes place. Would you want to live in a world in which God wasn’t in control? Where the wickedness, which men do, they would never be held accountable for. I wouldn’t want to live in that world. Remember when I was in Armenian, I first went to seminary, and I came to the Doctors of Grace and the sovereignty of God. I began to think about how frightened I was about the world because it seemed like God and Satan were in this conflict and Satan had just as much power as God, and I didn’t know what was going to happen. I had a low view of God. God. I had to have my view of God exalted to realize that he is in total control of these things. Even Satan is under his control. And so this gives you comfort as you go through life. Life’s a lot easier to live when you know whatever happens, God’s loving purpose is being worked out in your life. Isn’t that the wonderful thing about God’s in this regard. The father of that girl, which was brutally murdered, found comfort in the fact. It was all part of God’s sovereign plan. It was all part of God’s sovereign will. He said, well, how could he think this way? Because he was trusting in God. He believed what God’s word said. Could you not do the same thing with the darkest moments in your own life? Can you not find God? comfort in the fact that your God is in charge of everything? Doesn’t this exalt God? Doesn’t this lead you to praise him for who he is? Can you see with the eye of faith that everything that God is doing in your life as a believer is beautiful in its time? Enjoy them the gifts of God’s providence, what He has provided for you. Realize that God. God has granted these good things for you. Do your work as unto the Lord, whatever God has called you to do in this life, and find satisfaction in that. May the Lord bless to us His Sacred Word this evening. I have a word of close with a word of prayer.