by John G. Reisinger

In our last article, we looked at Ecclesiastes 3:1, where the writer announces that we are locked into times and seasons the same way that we were locked into nature in 1:4-7. "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven." In chapter 1, the teacher describes the monotonous sameness of nature and our inability to change it. Chapter 3 is his presentation of the constant but unpredictable change from one extreme to another in nearly every area of life. Again, the changes are beyond our control or choice in any way. The Teacher uses fourteen couplets (3:1-8) to describe a wide range of human activity and experience that cover various aspects of our lives. We concluded that this chapter in Ecclesiastes sets forth the sovereignty of God in a personal and extremely practical way. What are some of the useful lessons we can learn from Ecclesiastes 3?

First, contrary to William Henley’s poem Invictus, it is obvious that we are neither "masters of fate" nor "captains of our souls." Masquerading as a noble attempt to take responsibility for one’s own destiny, Invictus epitomizes the rebel’s cry of defiance against the truth of Ecclesiastes chapter three.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley (1849-1903)

The second thing we learn is that a person’s response to the truth of God’s sovereign control as set forth in this chapter will show whether he/she has a heart renewed by grace or a heart committed to being one’s own god. The true believer will rejoice that God controls both the events in our lives as well as the timing of each event. He sings with hope and confidence, "What ever my lot/ Thou hast taught me to say/ it is well, it is well, with my soul." In contrast, the rebel cries, "It matters not how straight the gate/ How charged with punishments the scroll/ I am the master of my fate/ I am the captain of my soul."

Fallen humanity, by nature, thinks life would be wonderful if we could order every event of every day of our existence. If that were possible, do you really believe that all your days would be happy and without care? At first, you probably do, but upon reflection, you know better. You realize that you would change five things before noon the first day simply because something unforeseen happened. By mid-afternoon, you would be lamenting that you had not chosen something else at noontime.

This thing we call "happiness" is a monster that we can neither tame nor destroy. It was let loose in the Garden of Eden when humankind forsook pleasing God as the chief purpose in life. Man chose to go his own way and make his own rules, believing that therein lay the route to happiness. Did you ever ask yourself, "Exactly what is happiness? What would it take to make me a truly happy person?" We would love to be able to make everything and everybody that does not line up in a way that pleases us to "un-happen." I cannot be happy until everything in my life contributes to my personal well-being. Anything that does not promote my felicity should "un-happen." That means I may have to destroy your happiness and your individuality if they in any way hinder me from getting what I need (meaning my own way) in everything.

Your children really believe that they have both the ability and the right to choose what they are positive will make them happy. They are convinced that the day they move out of your house and go on their own they will experience the first day of true personal happiness. They cannot wait to be free to make their own choices so they can be happy. "Oh," you say, "but they do not know any better. They are young and have not faced the real world." Of course, you are correct, but the question remains for you, "Have you faced the world of reality or do you still have this fantasy about happiness?"

Would a five-year old pick spinach or a candy bar? The candy bar, of course. Would a teenager pick doing homework instead of going to a movie? We all know both the answer and the reason behind the answer. We fail, however, to see the same principle operating in our own adult spiritual lives. Would you ever choose a trial, a disappointment, or a sickness over ease, comfort, and health, even if you knew beforehand the unbelievable grace that you would experience through the trial or sickness? We really are not so different from our five-year olds!

Let us look a little more closely at chapter three in detail. Everything in life revolves around an ordained time. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven (Eccl. 3:1, KJV). Both the Old and New Testament Scriptures see purposefulness in all of life’s events. There is no hint that fate or chance controls human destiny. The biblical message is, "it came to pass," not, "as luck would have it."

God has ordained a time for sending rain and for withholding rain. He supplies it or suppresses it right on schedule. Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit (Lev. 26:4, KJV)

God has ordained a time for the destruction of his enemies. To me belongeth vengeance, and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste (Deut. 32:35, KJV). Other times, God strengthens the hand of the enemies of his people when he purposes to use them as instruments of judgment (see Habakkuk).

There is an ordained time for conception and birth. In Genesis 21:1-2, we read that, "the LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did unto Sarah as he had spoken. For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him" (KJV).

All "times" serve God’s eternal unchanging purpose. We saw this in Luke 2:1-5, when God used a universal tax to get Mary to Jerusalem. We often hear preachers say, "The time was ripe. Rome had built roads and expanded communications. There were great expectations for something major to happen" and God "took advantage of these prevailing conditions." NO! God prepared all those things. He did not take advantage of the conditions; he created the necessary conditions to fulfill his sovereign purposes!

Chapter 3, verse1 shows that times (events) and seasons (purposes) go together. The KJV says, "a time for every purpose," and the NIV says "a season for every activity." Certain seasons dictate certain activities and make other activities impossible. Spring means it time to get the lawn mower in shape. Why? Spring means growing grass, whether I like it or not. The pessimist says, "Oh no, not already. It is so useless to cut the grass, it just grows back." The optimist says, "Great! Everything will be green and beautiful again. I love working in the fresh air and sunshine and getting the exercise." I never cease to be amazed at how a pessimist and an optimist can look at exactly the same thing and see two opposite situations. I think I mentioned this before but it is worth repeating. Someone scrawled "Apathy rules" on the outside of a university library. Someone else wrote the words, "True, but who cares." It is tough to live with either a consistent optimist or a consistent pessimist.

We swallow a bitter pill when we are forced to admit that we have no control over, nor can we change, the times, the seasons, or the things that go along with each. Sometimes, different circumstances radically change the response to the same event. For instance, we usually associate a birth with laughter and joy. Psalm 127:3-5 accompanies many baby shower gifts.

Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. (KJV)

Suppose the child is born blind and deaf? We would be tempted to say, "Some gift!" As we think of all the hardships that child must endure and all the effort and labor its parents must expend to care for it, we would want to mourn rather than laugh. What good can ever come out of such a tragic situation? Yet, suppose that baby’s name was Helen Keller. Although she was born with vision and hearing, she suffered a severe fever when she was just nineteen months old that left her blind, deaf, and mute. How many children with perfect sight and hearing have affected the world as much as Helen Keller did?

Some years ago, my wife took a nurse’s aid course. The nurse who taught one of her classes was obviously an evangelical Christian. When she came to the subject of abortion, she asked the following question. "Do you think an abortion would be justified if the unborn child was the pregnant woman’s sixth child, the family lived in poverty, the husband had venereal disease, and the wife supported the family by taking in laundry? One child was already born blind, another was born dead, and the doctors knew this new child was going to be born with some severe abnormalities." All but two out of nearly forty said, "Yes, under those circumstances an abortion is justified if not actually mandated." The teacher said, "You just aborted Johann Sebastian Bach."¹

Psalm 31:15 expresses David’s hope, "My times are in Thy hands." This is the practical application of the theology of sovereignty. It applies the truth of ordained times and seasons to personal life. Think about all the times and circumstances of David’s life.

There is a time for David to be a shepherd even though he is ordained to be a king.

There is a time for him to be misunderstood and hated, which will equip him for later work.

There is a time for him to hide in a cave in fear for his life, which teaches him to learn confidence in God.

There is a time for David to be anointed as king, but he will have to wait to exercise the rights of king.

David will not use the energy of the flesh to achieve or avoid any of these things, even though he knows they ultimately must occur. He will wait for God’s time.

In the cave, he resisted the flesh and refused to kill Saul. There is never a right time to follow the flesh.

David refused to use the sword to defend his throne against his own son. "I did not need a sword to get this throne and I will not use a sword to defend it. God gave it to me in his time and he can take it away if he so chooses."

If you had been David’s mother and you had been given the power to control the events surrounding his life, how many of the very unpleasant experiences he endured would you have eliminated from his life? How many children do you know who have been ruined by sincere parents who determined that their children would not have to endure the things that they did? Were not all of David’s bad experiences the very things that helped make him such a great king?

We must not view the writer of Ecclesiastes as an emotionless stoic saying, "Well, that’s the way the cookie crumbles, so grin and bear it, even if does not make sense." Nor is he an Epicurean saying, "Who can trust a God like that? Eat, drink and be merry and do not think about the problems." He also is not a disappointed romantic asking, "Where is the goodie-giving God I heard about?"

Ecclesiastes chapter three is another way of presenting the truth of Romans 11:36, "Of him, and through him, and to him, are all things." Paul records the worship that follows heartfelt submission to God’s sovereign ordaining of all things, "To whom be the glory forever." The Teacher echoes Job, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him" (Job 13:15, KJV). This worshipful attitude towards God’s sovereignty finds expression in the hymn "Whate’er my God Ordains is Right."²

Whate’er my God ordains is right:
His holy will abideth;
I will be still whate’er He doth;
And follow where He guideth;
He is my God; though dark my road,
He holds me that I shall not fall:
Wherefore to Him I leave it all.

Whate’er my God ordains is right:
He never will deceive me;
He leads me by the proper path:
I know He will not leave me.
I take, content, what He hath sent;
His hand can turn my griefs away,
And patiently I wait His day.

Whate’er my God ordains is right:
His loving thought attends me;
No poison can be in the cup
That my Physician sends me.
My God is true; each morn anew
I’ll trust His grace unending,
My life to Him commending.

Whate’er my God ordains is right:
He is my Friend and Father;
He suffers naught to do me harm,
Though many storms may gather,
Now I may know both joy and woe,
Some day I shall see clearly
That He hath loved me dearly.

Whate’er my God ordains is right:
Though now this cup, in drinking,
May bitter seem to my faint heart,
I take it, all unshrinking.
My God is true; each morn anew
Sweet comfort yet shall fill my heart,
And pain and sorrow shall depart.

Whate’er my God ordains is right:
Here shall my stand be taken;
Though sorrow, need, or death be mine,
Yet I am not forsaken.
My Father’s care is round me there;
He holds me that I shall not fall:
And so to Him I leave it all.

Let me review the main lessons in this great chapter. (1) Everything happens by God’s decrees. (2) Everything happens according to God’s timetable (3:1), and (3) everything is beautiful in God’s time (3:11). This includes death, the ugliest experience of man. Only God can say at a graveyard, "How beautiful in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints."

The Seeker now begins to apply what he has been saying. Verses 9-15 of chapter 3 record some of the practical implications of this theology in real life.

What does the worker gain from his toil? [Good question! The ungodly answers, "No profit at all – it is meaningless. The child of God says, "Nothing is in vain. Even pain has a purpose."] I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. ["Everything" really does include "all things!"] He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God. [The Apostle Paul—"I have learned in whatsoever state I am in, therein to be content."] I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him. Whatever is has already been, and what will be has been before; and God will call the past to account. (NIV)

There is an essential and certain cause/effect relationship between theology and life, between what we believe and how we feel and act. One of the most stupid statements ever made is, "It does not matter what you believe as long as you are sincere." Sincerity has absolutely nothing to do with truth. Sincerity is to truth what the gas peddle is to your car. The gas peddle determines how fast you drive your car, but it has nothing to do with the direction in which you are going. I used that illustration once when I was speaking at a youth retreat. On the way home, we became lost. One of the youngsters with me said, "Go a little faster Mr. Reisinger and then we will be sure we are going in the right direction." Everyone laughed and a girl said, "Floor the gas peddle and we will be positive we are going the right direction." I am sure everyone can see how ridiculous that is, but it is no more so than saying, "It does not matter what you believe as long as you are sincere." Your sincerity in what you believe determines how zealous you are in practicing your beliefs, but sincerity has nothing to do with whether what you believe is true or false.

One of the dangers of this idea is that the more sincere you are in what you believe, even when you are wrong, the more zealous you will be in actions that stem from that thinking. Like driving a car, the more assured you are that you are going in the right direction, the further you will go before you turn around. No one is more sincere than the typical cult member is. The terrorists of our day are the most fully convinced people there are, but they are dead wrong. A terrorist may be so sincere that he/she will gladly die for his/her beliefs, but he/she is still wrong in both the beliefs and the actions growing out of those beliefs. He/she will never change until his/her thinking changes.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse used to say, "All of the world’s real problems are theological!" He was correct. For instance, the race problem in the United States involves theology. We can never solve that problem until we all believe in the creatorship of God and that all men and women are brothers and sisters. If you want to solve the race problem, study Acts 17. Do you want to make the race problem worse? Teach people the Darwinian theory of evolution and the survival of the fittest. You cannot deny God as creator and still maintain that all human beings are "created equal in the sight of God."

Whether we like it or not, we will see everything in life from only one of two points of view. If, on the one hand, all we see is a mess of unrelated pieces without any meaning, then we will agree with the writer of Ecclesiastes and say, "Meaningless, meaningless, all is meaningless." If, on the other hand, we see the hand of God ruling all things for his own glory and for our good, then we can always, in all situations, bow and worship.

Our Lord told a parable of a wealthy farmer who hoarded his goods. He kept building bigger and bigger barns.

And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. (KJV)

The rich fool made three mistakes: (1) He mistook his body for his soul, (2) he mistook time for eternity, and (3) he mistook himself for God. If you who read this are not converted, then you are making those same three mistakes every day of your life! Our Lord will someday say to you, "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."

We simply must see a cause/effect in what a society believes and how it acts. We have said it before; it is not the drugs, unbridled sex, and pills of every description that produced our present society. Our society’s beliefs about the purpose and meaning of life drove it to a place where every form of diversion became necessary even to get out of bed.

If we dwell on verse 9, we could develop a defeatist attitude that leads to either apathy or cynicism. What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth? If we know before we start an endeavor that even though we will succeed we will still be bitterly disappointed, then why even start?

In Verse 10, I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it, Solomon repeats the question asked in verse 9, but now brings God into the picture. The real burden on man is that he must bear both the travail and its meaningless results without ever understanding either.

Verse 11a is one of those Halleluiah texts; He hath made every thing beautiful in his time . . . . When we begin to grasp its truth, we want to shout for joy. Like Romans 8:28, the "everything" here really means everything without exception. God ordains the events and the times and it all serves his purpose. All of our times are really his times for me. The message is, "Relax, brother, he’s got the whole world in his hands."

My brother Ernest owned a large construction company. He employed a man who knew more about Caterpillar tractors than the Caterpillar Company. One day when I was visiting with my nephew, we happened to be on a job site when a large Caterpillar tractor broke down. They immediately radioed for the expert mechanic. When he arrived, my nephew smiled and said, "Watch this guy." When the tractor broke, it meant that four heavy dump trucks, a large scoop shovel, plus a number of workers also were idle.

The mechanic got out of his pick-up truck and walked over to the tractor. He walked around it about three times pushing and pulling wires and other things. He asked the operator some questions. Then he slowly walked back to his pick-up and got a thermos jug, poured himself a cup of coffee, and proceeded to sit down and drink it. I looked at my nephew who was grinning from ear to ear. If my brother Ernest had been there, he would have shot the man. Finally, the mechanic stood up and said, "It is one of three things. If it is ‘A,’ I can have it fixed in an hour. If it is ‘B,’ we will need such-and-such a part, so radio and get one just in case. If it is ‘C,’ we will have to take it back to the shop. Get a flatbed out here just in case. I will know which it is in twenty minutes." He was always right. My nephew looked me and said, "It is beautiful to watch him work."

The man was not goofing off while sitting there drinking his coffee. He was running everything through his brain and was not going to start tearing anything apart until he knew what was wrong. Sometimes, we feel that God is on a coffee break. Rather than fret and worry, we must relax, because God has it all under control. All of our times are in his hands. It really is beautiful to watch God work. He is always right.

The second part of verse 11 shows the source of the lost man’s pathetic situation. "…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. Humanity can neither escape God nor figure him out. God has put eternity in man’s heart. In his heart of hearts, man knows that God is there, but he will do anything and everything possible to avoid any confrontation. Man brags about his freedom while his chains of self and sin drag him into one bad situation after another. Man would rather be the center of total chaos then he would admit he is a creature, a lost creature, desperately in need of grace.

The child of God learns to look at everything that happens as coming from the hand of a heavenly Father. How radically different is the view of time and events for a lost man and a saved man. Imagine a convicted criminal in a prison cell, unable to sleep. At six o’clock in the morning, he faces execution. He can see the stars through his cell window. He wishes the sun would never replace them. The most dreaded words he will ever hear are when the jailer comes and says, "It is time!" What horrible words. Now, imagine a bedroom where a girl is tossing and turning because she cannot sleep. She too will soon hear those same words, "It is time!" However, she cannot wait to hear them. She is eagerly waiting for her mother to knock on the door and say, "It is time." Tomorrow is her wedding day. They will be some of the sweetest words she ever hears. Does it amaze you that the same words could carry such different connotations? Imagine the lost man and the believer hearing the grim reaper say, "It is time." What will be the reaction of each to the same words?

How do we apply sovereignty theology to our lives? If you are asked, "What all are you going to do today?" just say, "I don’t know for sure. My father has a bunch of appointments for me." Whatever you face, you can say, "It is time." You, however, do not say it with stoic resignation. You can also say, "Whatever it is, I am sure it will be beautiful in his time and his purpose."

There is a time for everything. There is a time to be converted and that time is now. "Today is the day of salvation." There is a time to get earnest with God and that time is right now. There is a time to return to our first love and that time is now.

To be continued.

¹ The information in the teacher’s story does not seem to be entirely accurate. Web-based biographical data on Johann Sebastian Bach includes no references to poverty, his father’s venereal disease, or his mother as a laundress. The point of the story is still valid.

² Written in German by Samuel Rodigast (1676) and translated into English by Catherine Winkworth (1863). Rodigast wrote this poem for his friend Gastorius, who was seriously ill at the time. Gastorius recovered and wrote the tune for Rodigast’s words.