Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
2 a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up 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 together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast 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 for war, and a time for peace.
INTRODUCTION
Good morning, Grace. Welcome to the most famous passage in Ecclesiastes. If someone has heard of only one part of this book, this is almost certainly it. It’s been made popular by various artists for many years. The majority of this passage is a poem and there’s something particularly gripping about its simplicity and scope.
As we make our way through it, you’ll notice that the Preacher does not interpret or explain his observations at all. We’ll get into that a bit next week. You’ll also notice three main claims of the text and sermon: (1) All seasons belong to God, (2) God’s sovereignty is comprehensive, and (3) A biblical worldview is able to accommodate all of the poem’s claims.
The big idea of this passage is that every time and season of our lives belongs to God, for His glory and our good. The main takeaways are to learn to conform our preferences to God’s purposes and to develop a better standard by which to judge the seasons than our convenience.
ALL SEASONS BELONG TO GOD
You may have heard me say once or twice that I am not a big fan of winter. Mid-summer definitely isn’t my first choice either. Late spring and all of fall are the best times of the year, weather-wise, in my humble opinion.
You may be interested to learn that I’ve done a bit of introspection as to why that is (joking). In the end, it doesn’t seem to be anything profound or virtuous that is shaping my perspective. I think it’s as simple as convenience. The cold of winter and the heat of summer make ordinary things more difficult and everything harder to enjoy.
On the one hand, like all of you, I’m certainly entitled to my personal seasonal preferences. On the other hand, however, I know that I’m not thinking rightly about this in some ways. God made the seasons and each for His good purposes. We see that consistently throughout the Bible.
After the Flood, God declared to Noah, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22).
And in Psalm 74:16-17 we’re told, “Yours is the day, yours also the night; you have established the heavenly lights and the sun. 17 You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth; you have made summer and winter.”
The Prophet Daniel affirms that it is God who “changes times and seasons” (2:21).
Grace, how would we know the extent of God’s holiness (Daniel 7:9) or His washing away of our sins in Jesus if we did not have winter snow (Isaiah 1:18)? How would we know the full measure of new, restored life that is ours in Christ if not for the blooms of spring? How would we know the consuming power of God apart from the fierce summer heat? And how would we know the nature of dying to ourselves apart from the falling leaves of autumn?
In all of this, I’ve come to recognize my need to learn to conform my preferences to God’s seasonal purposes. In that, I’ve come to recognize that I need a better standard by which to judge the seasons than my personal preference or convenience. And in that I’ve come to recognize that the alternative is to dishonor God and miss out on learning the important lessons He’s embedded into each season.
The bottom line is that each season belongs equally to God and is equally an instrument of God for bringing about the glory of His name and the good of His people.
That is, in many ways, the heart of this passage. What is true of the calendar seasons, is also true of the rest of our lives. Our every life-season (circumstance) belongs to God. God has a good purpose for our every experience and He is working it out in all we encounter.
That’s what the Preacher was saying in v.1.
1 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven…
There is a season for everything and a time for every matter because God has determined it to be so.
Grace, we are about to consider many seasons of your life and mine. The key to bear in mind as we do is that the Preacher understood all of them to be from the hand of God. That might not sound surprising until we recognize that roughly half of those seasons—like winter and mid-summer—are not pleasant. Indeed, they are anything but convenient or comfortable. Roughly half of the seasons and times mentioned by the Preacher are things we typically try to avoid at all costs. And yet, pleasant times and grievous times alike are divinely-orchestrated, the Preacher writes.
And just like I need to learn that God’s goodness and glory flow equally from each of the annual, calendar seasons, we must learn that they flow just as freely from each time and season of life. We need to learn to conform our preferences to God’s purposes in all our circumstances. We need a better standard by which to judge the seasons of our lives than our personal preferences or convenience. And we need to recognize that the alternative is to dishonor God and miss out on learning the important lessons He’s embedded into our every circumstance.
Again, helping us with those things is at the heart of this passage. All seasons belong to God.
THE COMPREHENSIVE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
Ecclesiastes 3:1 is a declaration of God’s sovereignty over the times and seasons our lives. Ecclesiastes 3:2-8 is a poem that unpacks that in comprehensive fashion.
Among other things, the Preacher’s poem describes the impact of the sovereignty of God on our lives. He uses fourteen pairs to get at the fact that God is at work in everything we experience throughout our entire lives.
The Preacher does not (in this section) speak to the reason behind or aim of the sovereign God’s comprehensive governance, only that it is comprehensive governance.
Whole Life
Collectively, the fourteen pairs are intended to cover the whole span of the human life, beginning to end. The opening line is clearly intended to highlight this, “a time to be born, and a time to die…”. In other words, God is sovereign over the times and seasons of our lives from birth to death, and every moment in between.
Grace, it is not hyperbole to say that you have never spent a single second alone. God has been with you without interruption for your entire life. And God had a good and glorious purpose that He was carrying out in every single moment.
Whole Experience
At the same time, as the rest of the pairs in the rest of the poem are meant to indicate, God is sovereign over the whole of our experiences as well. He’s not just with us in some general, overarching way. He is that, but He’s also with us in each and everything we experience within that time.
I invite you to take a moment and draw to mind three or four things you’ve experienced in life. They can be big or small, significant or insignificant, recent or long-past. Just try to draw to mind a few times in your life.
I thought of moving out of my parents’ house (embrace/refrain from), getting married (mourn/dance) and having kids (born/die), and MSU’s 2000 national championship in basketball (weep/laugh). As I’m sure you can see, every one of the experiences I though of are covered in the scope of the poem. I imagine the ones you thought of are equally easy to see as well.
We’ll get into the specifics of the poem’s pairs in just a minute, but for now, the point is simple: Every moment and experience of our lives are within God’s sovereign plan. It is right to say that there is a time and place for all we have and will encounter. Indeed, the Preacher’s poem is meant to affirm the simple, yet profound reality that by God’s design, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven…”
As we make our way down the list, it is right to wonder how some of these times and seasons could be glorious and good. When we consider death, killing, breaking down, mourning, losing, and hating, for instance, glory and good probably aren’t the first things that come to mind. Understanding how each is a part of God’s plan, therefore, is important.
WORLDVIEW
Everything covered in the Preacher’s poem makes up a biblical worldview and points to the need for one. That is, a key aspect of living in this world as God intends, and with the kind of meaning and purpose the Preacher was seeking, is having a thoroughly biblical view of everything in it. We need to see the world as God sees it and this poem is a significant help to that end.
Our brains, from the earliest age, are continually trying to make sense of the world around us. We can’t not look for an explanation for our experiences. In many ways, that’s what Ecclesiastes is all about, the Preacher’s explicit and thorough attempts to do what we all do by nature: make sense of what we encounter.
The Preacher looked around and saw all the things listed in vs.2-8 and tried as hard as he could to find the meaning of them all, especially as they relate to the hand of God.
Eventually, we all experience the things the Preacher lists in his poem. But why? What do they mean? How do they fit into the whole? How does God use them for glory and good? We must, by our very God-given nature, ask and attempt to answer those questions. To do so is to construct a worldview. The main question is not, therefore, whether or not we have a worldview. The main question is how accurate our view of the world is.
And, once again, the Preacher’s poem goes a long way to help us with this. If you can’t clearly and confidently explain how each end of each pair fits into God’s plan for the world, then you still have work to do on your worldview (which we all have, of course). When is the time to be born, die, plant, pluck, kill, heal, …?
Birth and Death (2a)
At God’s sovereign hand there is… 2 a time to be born, and a time to die…
Each of the Preacher’s poem pairs has both a physical and spiritual component to them in God’s design, perhaps none more important than this one.
Physically, there is, of course, a time to be born. This is the easiest of all to see. In the very first chapter of the Bible, we read, “27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth…” Being fruitful, multiplying, and filling the earth means that God intends mankind to have babies.
It is God who opens and closes wombs (Genesis 29:31) and God who knits us together in the womb (Psalm 139:13). There is a time for babies to be born and it is the Lord who sovereignly determines those times.
What’s more, we need not only to be born physically, but spiritually as well. Sin is such that we are born physically alive, but spiritually dead (1 Corinthians 15:2). If we are to be made right with God, therefore, we need to be born again. This too is from the Lord (John 3:1-8). It is God who grants spiritual birth as much as physical.
Again, I imagine that if you already understand God’s hand in any of Ecclesiastes 3:2-8, it will be this one; that God determines the time for birth and new birth. But what about death? Is that too really determined by God?
Both physically and spiritually we see this from the first pages of the Bible and throughout as well. To Adam and Eve, God said, “16 … “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:15-17).
As you know, Adam and Eve eventually ate of the forbidden tree. At the very moment they did, they died spiritually and made certain that eventually they would die physically as well. And in that, they came to represent all mankind, bringing death to all their offspring (1 Corinthians 15:22).
In Job 14:5 we’re told that mankind’s “days are determined [by God], and the number of his months is with [God], and [God has] appointed his limits that he cannot pass…”.
Likewise, in Acts 17:24 we read that God “himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he … determined allotted periods…”.
Practically, this means that for a church to be healthy, we need to have a balance between births and funerals. We need steady reminders that death is, as the Preacher has already said, inevitable, and that life is short. This helps us to look to God and feel an appropriate sense of urgency to bring the gospel to the world.
Likewise, we need steady reminders that God is the God of life too. We need to see babies to know our vulnerability and dependence, to remember the new life that is in Christ, and to long for the day that all will be made new. And all of this in its God-appointed time and season for glory and good.
At God’s sovereign hand there is… 2 a time to be born, and a time to die…
I won’t go into as much detail with all of the pairs as this one, but I wanted to unpack this one a bit more to show you how to think biblically about the Preacher’s poem pairs. What I did for this one (and more) can be done for them all.
Plant and Pluck (2b)
At God’s sovereign hand there is… 2 a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
A biblical worldview emphasizes that part of our purpose on earth is to make the earth bear fruit (Genesis 1:28-30). This is true on the physical level—we’re meant to plant seeds that will grow into food, flowers, and timber—and on the spiritual level—we’re meant to plant gospel seeds everywhere we go that others might believe in Jesus and be saved (Matthew 28:18-20).
In the same way, a biblical view of the world emphasizes the need not only to plant, but also to harvest (“pluck up what is planted”). God’s people were even commanded by God to celebrate His harvest blessing with an annual festival (Numbers 28). And even more significantly, God’s people are meant to join with the angels in rejoicing whenever a sinner repents and a spiritual harvest is reaped (Luke 15:10).
Kill and Heal (3a)
At God’s sovereign hand there is…3 a time to kill, and a time to heal…
The Bible is filled with stories of God’s healing of the suffering and sick (Luke 4:40) and commands for His people to do the same (Luke 10). To be a Christian is to reject indifference to the hardships of others and to love our every neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-39). If Christianity lived out is anything, it’s a recognition of God’s grace in our lives compelling us to give grace to those around us.
A time to heal seems clear and godly, but a time to kill? Isn’t that outright prohibited (Exodus 20:13)?
Yes and no. The unjust taking of a life is certainly prohibited and there is no time or season for that (that’s the heart of the sixth Commandment). At the same time, since the Fall, there are times, at God’s hand and ordained by God in which killing is just. God Himself killed animals to provide cover for Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:21). God commanded His people to kill animals as sacrifices (Leviticus 23:19). God Himself ordered the killing of His enemies (Isaiah 63:1-6). God gave the governing authorities the power to punish evil with the sword (Romans 13:1-7). In the last days, God will eternally kill all who remain in rebellion against Him (Revelation 19:20). And God predestined the killing of His Son for the forgiveness of sins from before time (Titus 1:2).
It is sometimes hard to consider, but sin requires killing, and in that way, it is a gracious thing that God has ordained times and seasons to kill, to hold back and atone for sin.
Break and Build (3b)
The fourth of the Preacher’s poetic pairs is found in the fact that at God’s sovereign hand there is… 3 a time to break down, and a time to build up;
God’s people are to build up families and cities (Genesis 1:28). He commanded His people to build the Temple (2 Chronicles 1-6). We are to build one another up with our words (Ephesians 4:29) and in the faith (1 Thessalonians 5:11). He is building His Church (Matthew 16:18).
There are seasons as well, equally ordained by God, to break down towers (Genesis 11) and idols (Exodus 34:13). We are to break down “arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God” (2 Corinthians 10:5). The Lord will break down the work of the proud (Proverbs 15:25) and the wicked (Psalm 28:5).
Grace, the world we live in, by God’s design, is such that we must be people who build and break in due season. We dishonor God when we neglect either in their proper time.
Weep and Laugh (4a)
At God’s sovereign hand there is… 4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
To live as God intends us to live and requires of us, we must weep with those who weep (Romans 12:15). There is a time to cry at the sinfulness and destruction of sin (Luke 19:41-44) and in grief over our sin (Matthew 26:75). It is right to weep when the pain of loss is severe (John 11:35).
And, there is a time to laugh and rejoice in the fellowship of the saints and in recognition of the kindness of God. In a sermon a few weeks ago I said, “Laughter is a satisfying gift of God when it is rooted in gladness at the kindness of God and Christian fellowship. The righteous are men and women of deep belly laughs, flowing from the joy of the Lord.”
Mourn and Dance (4b)
At God’s sovereign hand there is… 4 a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
Just as we are meant to weep with those who weep, we are to mourn with those who mourn (Romans 12:15). Godliness does not mean that hard things aren’t hard. As long as there is sin, there must be grief in the people of God. Godly men and women are not indifferent to the vile nature of sin or the suffering of others.
At the same time, God’s grace in Christ is such that sin is not ultimately winning. Everywhere we look we can see evidence of God’s glory and victory (2 Samuel 6:14). Every where we look we see evidences of grace. Everywhere we look in the Bible, we find promises of God (Romans 8:28). Everywhere we look there is some aspect of God’s nature and work to celebrate with dancing.
I hope you’re beginning to see the pattern. And I hope that within it, you are beginning to see that this world is such that there is a time and season for things on the opposite end of the spectrum. And in that is another important lesson still: Whenever we are mourning, someone else is dancing, even as whenever we are dancing someone else is mourning.
At the same time you are burying a spouse, someone else is getting ready for their wedding day. It is good and right for both to happen at the same time. It is a means of God’s comforting grace to see others dancing while we are in mourning. It is grace to remember that it has not always been like this and that this will not last forever.
At the same time, it is a sobering means of God’s grace to see those who are mourning while we are dancing. This keeps us from making idols of the object of our joy and reminds us that we are made for something greater than the best this broken world has to offer—that’s a lesson the Preacher, evidently, hadn’t quite learned yet.
At God’s sovereign hand there is…4 a time to mourn, and a time to dance… and both, by God’s gracious design, often happen at the same time.
Cast and Gather (5a)
At God’s sovereign hand there is… 5 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
This one is the trickiest of all the pairs. No one seems confident in the meaning of this one. In addition, unlike the rest of the pairs of pairs (two pairs/verse), the pair of pairs in v.5 have no obvious connection. It seems to be a kind of break in the rhythm of the poem.
Nevertheless, at the very least it means that there is a time when it is good to remove stones (as a farmer would do before planting a field) and a good time to gather them together (as a farmer would to build a stone wall).
Embrace and Release (5b)
The eight pair lets us know that at God’s sovereign hand there is… 5 a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing…
There are few things better than the embrace of your spouse (Song of Songs 2:6) or your child or a good friend. One of the sweetest things I’ve experienced is the hug of a brother in Christ whom I’ve labored in the gospel with across the world. There is an immediate connection when serving with suffering saints.
There are times to refrain from embracing as well; like when we send missionaries (Matthew 10:5; Luke 22:35) or excommunicate someone from our fellowship (Titus 3:10). Both are hard, but right in their own way.
Like the rest of the pairs, for every godly person there are regular times in which we must be hugging others and regular times in which we must let go. Both are from the Lord for glory and good at the right time.
Seek and Lose (6a)
At God’s sovereign hand there is… 6 a time to seek, and a time to lose;
It is good for God’s people to seek wisdom (Proverbs 3:13). It is good for God’s people to seek the salvation of non-Christians (Luke 19:10) and to seek to restore Christians who have wandered from the faith (Matthew 18:15).
At the same time, there are seasons in which the opposite of seeking (losing) is what we must do. On the most practical level possible, this means that we cannot hold onto anything in this life so firmly (other than our faith in Christ) that we will not let it go. At some point, we need to be willing to give up the search for every lost thing so as not to sacrifice everything else for it. Jesus even gave this example in letting go of the salvation of others if they steadfastly refuse to receive the good news (Luke 9:5).
On a more profound level, we must lose our lives so that we can gain them (Matthew 10:39). We must lose whatever parts of our bodies that cause us to sin so that we can save our souls (Matthew 5:29). And we must lose the whole world that we might gain salvation (Luke 9:25).
Keep and Cast (6b)
At God’s sovereign hand there is… 6 a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
This second pair in v.6 is very similar to the first. To keep and seek are tightly paralleled, even as to lose and cast away are as well.
In this life, God has ordained that there are times to hold onto something and to let it go. This refers to family heirlooms and to friendships. It refers to ministries within the church (VBS is an effective tool in certain seasons and not in others) and to approaches to the spiritual disciplines (one Bible reading plan my serve someone well as a new believer but not as well as they mature).
Tear and Sew (7a)
At God’s sovereign hand there is… 7 a time to tear, and a time to sew…
The Preacher’s eleventh poem pair concerns tearing and sowing. It is likely that the Preacher had in mind the tearing of garments associated with mourning. When the people of God were exceptionally angry or distraught, they would tear their clothes as a symbol of great grief (2 Kings 22:11). There are things in this world that ought to tear our hearts and cause us to anguish and lament.
At the same time, it is right to cease our mourning at some point (to sew back together the clothes we tear in our grief). Our mourning cannot go on forever, for there is new mercy each day.
The main point, once again, is that living rightly under the sun often means doing opposite things at their God-given times. It is the time and season that determines the appropriateness of certain things rather than the things themselves.
Silence and Speech (7b)
At God’s sovereign hand there is… 7 a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
The Proverbs (some, perhaps, written by the Preacher himself) are filled with such wisdom.
Proverbs 10:19 When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent.
Proverbs 13:3 Whoever guards his mouth preserves his life; he who opens wide his lips comes to ruin.
Proverbs 15:23 To make an apt answer is a joy to a man, and a word in season, how good it is!
Proverbs 16:24 Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body.
Proverbs 21:23 Whoever keeps his mouth and his tongue keeps himself out of trouble.
Sometimes godliness means speaking the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15) and sometimes it means listening in love. Sometimes God intends us to correct and rebuke (2 Timothy 3:16) and sometimes He intends us to sit silently with our friends. Sometimes we hold our tongue and overlook an offense (Proverbs 19:11) and sometimes we take our offense to our brother or sister (Matthew 18:15).
By God’s design, there is a time and a season for talking and for remaining silent. And we need God’s Word, God’s wisdom, and God’s Spirit to know when it’s which season.
Love and Hate (8a)
At God’s sovereign hand there is… 8 a time to love, and a time to hate;
If there is a consistent message in the Bible it is that all mankind ought to love God above all things (Matthew 22:37). If there’s a second consistent message in the Bible it is that all mankind ought to love our neighbors as God loves us and we love ourselves (Matthew 22:39). Beginning to end, God means us to love even our enemies (Matthew 5:44). Beginning to end, God means us to love everything righteous (Psalm 45:7). Beginning to end, God means us to love our brothers and sisters of the faith (Romans 12:9-10).
But the truth is, as the Preacher recognized, if we love well, we will also hate well. That probably sounds a bit counterintuitive, but God’s Word assures us that it is not.
If loving someone well means giving all of yourself for the best of that person, then we ought to hate everything that gets in the way of what’s best for a person. That is how God loves and why he hates.
God hates every abominable thing, especially those who “burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods” (Deuteronomy 12:31). God hates false gods and the alters constructed for them (Deuteronomy 16:22). He hates all evil doers (Psalm 5:5) and those who love violence (Psalm 11:5). He hates those who hate His people (Psalm 139:21). The Lord hates “haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, 18 a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, 19 a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers” (Proverbs 6:17-19).
We ought, therefore, to hate what the Lord hates because we love what the Lord loves. Our hatred for wicked things, along with the knowledge that God set His love upon us while we were still wicked things ourselves, compels us to love in far greater ways than we otherwise could.
And all of this is because God has made it so, each in its proper time and season.
War and Peace (8b)
Finally, the Preacher’s fourteenth poem pair is that according to God’s sovereign hand there is… 8 a time for war, and a time for peace.
Whenever possible, insofar as it depends on us, we live at peace with those around us (Romans 12:18). More significantly still, all who are in Christ have perfect, eternal peace with God (Romans 5:1).
But because of the world we live in, there’s a kind of peace that is only on the other side of war. Therefore, we make war on our sin and flesh (Romans 8:13). We make war on the schemes of the devil (Ephesians 6:12). And in the end, we will join God in making war against everything that sets itself up against Him (Revelation 19:11-16).
There really is a time for each and every pair in this poem. The time is set and ruled by our sovereign God. Understanding that is a key component to viewing the world as it truly is and for living it as we ought.
CONCLUSION
This really is a remarkable passage. Its main message is that every season is God’s season and, therefore, men and women of God give ourselves to learning what God has for each season. With the Spirit’s help, we train ourselves to love God’s appointed seasons more than the comfort they might provide. We seek to gain every possible grace from whatever season we’re in, knowing it’s all from the hand of God in Jesus for all who will receive Him in faith.
In other words, the big idea of this passage is that every time and season of our lives belongs to God, for His glory and our good. And the main takeaways are to learn to conform our preferences to God’s purposes and to develop a better standard by which to judge the seasons than our convenience.