Please turn in your Bibles this evening to the book of Ecclesiastes. The book of Ecclesiastes, that's just past the middle of your Bible. In the Pew Bible, it's either on page 648 or 498, depending on the edition you have. 648 or 498. We'll be turning to Ecclesiastes chapter 3 for our text, but we'll pick up in verse 24 just beforehand. Ecclesiastes, we'll pick up at chapter 2, verse 24, reading through the end of chapter 3, with our text being verses 1 through 15 of chapter 3. Hear now the reading of God's holy and inspired and unfailing word. A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God. For without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge, and happiness. But to the sinner, he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven. A time to be born, and a time to die. A time to plant, and a time to uproot. A time to kill, and a time to heal. A time to tear down, and a time to build. A time to weep, and a time to laugh. A time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them. A time to embrace, and a time to refrain. a time to search and a time to give up a time to keep and a time to throw away a time to tear and a time to mend a time to be silent and a time to speak a time to love and a time to hate a time for war and a time for peace what does the worker gain from his toil I have seen the burden God has laid on men he has made everything beautiful in his time 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. 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 and I saw something else under the sun in the place of judgment wickedness was there in the place of justice wickedness was there I thought in my heart God will bring to judgment both the righteous and the wicked for there will be a time for every activity a time for every deed I also thought, as for man, God test them so that they may see that they are like the animals. Man's fate is like that of the animals. The same fate awaits them both. As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath. Man has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place. All come from dust, and to dust all return. Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth? So I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to enjoy his work, because that is his lot. For who can bring him to see what will happen after him? Here ends the reading of God's Word. Well, we've gathered here this evening for divine worship on the Lord's Day and in his kind providence at the last day of the year of our Lord, 2006. And as is our practice, we have listed on the bulletin some key moments from the life of this congregation over the last 12 months. And as with any listing, of course, it's incomplete. It is the highlights, and only the good ones at that. The blessings of God and children born and baptized into this community. Professions and reaffirmations of faith in Christ alone for their salvation. Marriages by which the Lord establishes new covenant households to extend His people and yes, even the death of the saints which is precious in the sight of God. They have left us behind and their travails as well to be present with the Lord. We, however, stay and continue to endure the difficulties of this life, lives that are marred by sorrow and difficulty, frailty of body and weariness of soul that dog us more than we like to admit. We live, as the preacher says, under the sun. Some of the afflictions that we bear are open for all to see. They make our prayer chains. They make our bulletin. But most are hidden and private, known only to us. And with the author of Ecclesiastes, the Heleth, the preacher, the teacher, you have to ask her, why? Why is this so? And what are we to make of it? Well, the teacher in this book presses the difficult questions of life. He presses us to face the truth about life in this world. And our text this evening from chapter 3 presses us to face the burden of time and that which it is to produce in us. As we look at chapter 3, the first 15 verses, we need to notice that it's structured in two distinct parts. Verses 1 through 15 definitely go together. There's some ideas that spill over into the rest of the verses we read, but we're going to stick with 1 through 15. The first part of that structure is a poem. Verses 1 through 8. A poem about time with no explanation. And then in verses 9 through 15, the teacher explains and he expands on the nature and the purpose of time. And those are the verses we'll spend much of our time with. And in those verses, the teacher gives us a lesson regarding the travails of time. A lesson that reveals to us that time itself is a tool in the hand of God in the schoolroom of life. It's to teach us something. And so as we look back over 2006, let us do so with the knowledge and the conviction that we have been tutored by God this year through another tasking year to answer the same pressing question. Now I can say without hesitation that 2006 was another tasking year. Some of you have felt it much more than others. You know it in your bones. It was a tough year. Many of us didn't feel that tough. But you know, I know it was a tasking year because it was another year. It was another year of time. It was just the latest installment in God's annual renewal as He tarries to come for us in what the teacher calls in verse 10 the burden God has laid on men. The burden God has laid on men. It is this burden, this task of living within the confines of creation, within the confines of time, that drove the teacher to study and explore all that is done under heaven. And he calls it a heavy burden, a grievous task in chapter 1, verse 13, and a miserable business in chapter 4, verse 8. And that's pretty strong language. We might think too strong. We might think too strong to describe the comfort and the prosperity that most of us enjoy. Maybe better fitting for people that are struggling to survive in places like the Sudan or in Malawi. But to draw that conclusion is to draw a wrong conclusion based on a wrong perspective, a perspective that is materialistic and humanistic, that measures the truth by what we have and how much we think of ourselves. No, the truth of the matter is that alone and together we all bear this burden. Whether or not we're mindful of it, we still bear it. It is common and it is a demanding burden that God has laid on all men. And by men I mean men and women, male and female. It encompasses not only our pains, but also our pleasures. Not only our trials, but also our triumphs. Not only our failures, but also our successes. our losses and our gains all of it's a burden now this burden is easy to ignore when things seem to be going our way but we sure feel it when things start to go against us and God has given this burden to all men for a reason a reason that is hinted at in verse 10 as well as in chapter 1 verse 13 which is a very similar verse very simply I have seen the burden of God I have seen the burden God has laid on men. We go right past that in English. But the Hebrew here is the sons of men, which is quite literally the sons of Adam. And when we hear it like it's written, we should think immediately that in Adam's fall sinned we all. And there's the clue. As a result of Adam's original sin, God laid this burden on Adam and he laid it on us, his children, each and every one of us. And as we consider this burden, we must not confuse it with the task, the labor that was given to Adam before the fall. We're created to work. We're created to labor for the pleasure of God. But because of Adam's sin, a burden has been placed on our labor. A burden that has made it difficult. We read about it in Genesis chapter 3, verses 17 to 19, where God announced judgment on Adam, Saying, because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, you must not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you. Through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground since from it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return. The reason God has laid this burden on all men is made clear, not only in Genesis, but by the teacher in chapter 7. Much later in his discovery, chapter 7, verse 29, he concludes, This only have I found. In other words, above all that I have found, God made man upright. But men have gone in search of many schemes. Schemes have started with Adam's scheme. He thought he knew better than God. He would like to determine good and evil for himself. And he has cast us into a life of scheming, trying to make our own way in God's universe. Well, the reason for the burden is our sin, but the nature of the burden is tied up very much in time. It's tied up in the tension that we experience each and every day, each and every moment in the tension between the constraints of time and the inward compulsion of eternity. The constraints of time versus the compulsion of eternity is where this tension is felt. And let me explain. The constraints of time are imposed from outside of us, outside of everything, outside of everyone. In verse 1 of our text, the theme of the poem for verses once read is stated. It's announced as an undeniable fact. It's a thesis that the preacher puts out. He says, there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven. And when he says this, he's not saying that there's times when things happen. You know, random times by chance. And he's not saying that things inevitably happen by some kind of impersonal predetermination that is called fate. He's not speaking of that. In fact, he's speaking against those things. His point is that there is an appointed time for everything and a period of time during which that appointment will be fulfilled. Both are set in advance and the one who makes the appointments is God. I'll give you a little example here that might help you get your mind around this. The appointments that God makes are kind of like the appointment you have with your dentist for your next cleaning. It's already on the books. It should be. He set it for you, and there's a time scheduled during which your teeth will be cleaned. Certain things will happen. It'll take a certain amount of time, and then you'll be done. That's the appointment that you have. God sets appointments for our lives for certain times and for certain lengths and for certain things. The difference is that you can break your appointment with your dentist. You can't break your appointments with God. And in verses 2 through 8 of the poem, the teacher piles up evidence to support this claim, evidence drawn from our lives. As we read these verses, we like these verses. We lift them from their context. They're a delight to us. They're read at weddings. They're read at funerals. They're even in rock songs. But they're made to press on us more than they are made to delight us. They're structured in a way that frames them as a complete and comprehensive picture of our lives. In Hebrew, the number seven is the number of completeness or perfection. And the teacher sets forth his evidence in seven verses. And each of these verses is a couplet of a couplet, a pair of twos. Another tool in the Hebrew to give us a picture of completeness and totality by setting one extreme against the other that we see that everything between is included. And so through using these opposing couplets, two at a time, in seven pairs, the author is trying to communicate before he even gets to the details, this is the big picture under the sun. This is your life. So, for example, when we read in verse 2, there's a time to be born and a time to die. He's referring not only to the beginning of our life and the end of our life, He's referring to everything that takes place in between. And when he says in verse 4, a time to mourn and a time to rejoice, he's referring not only to the occasions of our deepest sorrow, as when a loved one dies, or to the moments of our greatest joy, as when we celebrate a marriage, but also to every circumstance in life that comes between. These seven couplets of couplets cover the whole range of our lives. Both the blessings and the afflictions, all of which God appoints and over which all He is in complete control. That's the point. And by them we are told that all the times of our lives are constrained from the outside. We're dancing to a tune, sometimes more than one, and we're not the one who's composing. We're not the one who's conducting. All of our desires, our plans, and our endeavors are constrained in inescapable appointments set by God. Not only in the calendar, but the tides of our lives that first take us this way and then take us that way. Circumstances that arise beyond our control that change the entire course of our lives. How often do we find ourselves saying, who would have ever imagined? Have you ever said that? Who would ever imagine? There you're bumping up against the constraints of time. If you've said it once, you know it's true for all. I just picked two news articles in the last couple of weeks that exemplify this in a way that we just have to agree. Who would have ever imagined that Gerald Ford, who aspired to be Speaker of the House, would become the only unelected President in the United States? And that through the fall of two other men. He was more surprised than anyone. And who would have ever imagined that Oceanside Police Officer Dan Besant, who stopped to assist her in a traffic stop, would be killed by a stranger who shot a bullet around his or above his bulletproof vest and killed him. He did not go to work that day imagining that that was his day. Who would ever have imagined? In Psalm 31, verse 15, King David was right to confess to the Lord, My times are in your hands. Indeed, all of our times are in his hands. We're constrained by God's appointments. As the teacher says in verse 11, He, that is God, has made everything beautiful in his time, in its time. Well, not only are we constrained by time from the outside, we are also compelled by eternity from the inside. And why do I say that? Because if we look at verse 14, the teacher tells us that He, that is God, has also set eternity in the hearts of men. Now, eternity is an attribute of God. That is reflected in all of his works. And the teacher emphasizes this eternality of God in verses 14 and 15. And in 14 we read, I know that everything God does will endure forever. Nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. Because God is eternal, whatever he does has eternal consequences. It will not only endure forever, it is perfect and it is complete so that nothing can be added, nothing can be taken. And he adds in verse 15, You see, since the creation, there is nothing new under the sun, says the teacher. What is has already been, and what will be has been before. And therefore, because God is the one who has created it, and God is the one who has unfolded it, God can and he will call the past to account. This is an interesting turn of phrase. I just want to help you with it a little bit. I do believe it refers to the day of judgment. On the day of judgment, God will call the past to account to testify on his behalf for all that he has done and all that men have forgotten. God is eternal and so is his work. Now it's true according to verses 18 through 21 after our text that we are like the animals. In that we will die, we will return to the dust from which we are formed. But we're unlike the animals in this, that God has set eternity in our hearts. And he's done that because he has made us in his image, male and female, he's made us in his image. Therefore and thereby he has set eternity in our hearts. So by nature, by our created nature, we have a consciousness of God. An awareness that there's something, someone bigger than ourselves and our circumstances. And yet in our sin we suppress it. In our sin we suppress it so that the teacher adds, in verse 11, we cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. His ways are higher than our ways. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. The Apostle Paul makes the case in Romans 1 for this very truth. And Augustine, in his famous saying, made it very clear. He said of God, you have made us for yourself. And our hearts are restless until they find peace in you. Eternity in our hearts. And because God has said it there, it compels us to look past our times and look past our circumstances. And to attempt to discover the big picture. To get a perspective outside of our own. It drives us with questions, sometimes how, but mostly why. Why this? Why that? Why now? Why me? But as we strive for these answers, this eternity compels us to seek these answers. As we strive for them, we can't get beyond what God has revealed. He's told us why in Deuteronomy 29, 29. He says, the secret things belong to God. The revealed things belong to you and to your children. And I've given those to you for a purpose that you might learn to submit to me, that you might learn to do my will. Now, most of us are willing to admit that we don't know the future. We can't even tell the weather five minutes from now. But the truth is, we can't even comprehend the present. And even now, in this moment, in this place, in this sermon, I have no idea where every one of your minds is, what connections you are making, what thoughts you are having, what remembrances you are bringing to your mind. There's no way, I don't know the present. I know you're all here, that's true, but I don't know any more than that. We don't know the present. We don't know the future because it belongs to God as well. Therefore, even though we are constrained by the appointments set by God, we strive against them, seeking for more. A common illustration to contrast the way God sees things and the way we experience things is the picture of a tapestry on a loom. Children, a loom is a big machine that you have threads on that you weave patterns into with other threads and you push it tight. So when it's all done, from one side it's beautiful. It's a beautiful picture. And from the other side it's knots and a mess. And so the eternal God looks on his ways from heaven, from outside of his creation. And he works his plan of redemption within this creation and he sees and he orchestrates it all from beginning to end. He knows the end from the beginning. It's like looking down on the loom on a tapestry that he designed and that he is weaving. And he beholds the fullness and the wonder and he rejoices in his own work. It's beautiful. But we, on the other hand, are constrained by time so that we look up to the heavens We look up from under the sun and all we see is vanity and meaninglessness. Even though we know there's something else going on. Eternity tells us there's something bigger going on, but we can't see it. Much like we might if we looked up under the tapestry, we would see patterns of colors and snarls and knots and we wouldn't know what it was, but we'd know there's something on the other side. That's the constraints we live in. And that's the drive that we have. That's the burden that we bear as fallen creatures. The teacher wants us to feel the truth of our situation. He wants us to feel the corner that we're in. We're not independent. We're not self-reliant like we like to tell ourselves that we are. Rather, we are totally dependent on the sovereign God and upon his will for our lives. But why? Why does God deal with fallen men this way? Why does he press us this way? Because he's tutoring us. He's teaching us. He's tutoring us in the truth that he is the sovereign God in control of everything. And that we are caught up in this tension. And by doing so, each and every one of us is pressed into the corner where we ask to ask the same pressing question. We all get asked the same question. The pressing question has been asked since Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden and will continue to be asked until Jesus Christ comes in glory. And it's posed in verse 9. It's an interesting way to pose it, but it's based on the context. The teacher asks in verse 9, what does the worker gain from his toil? What do we gain from this burden? In other words, if God exists and is in total control, then why should I bother about anything? Why should I strive at all? Ecclesiastes in general, And our text in particular make it clear that if what we experience under the sun is all that there is, and we really believe that that's all that there is, we must conclude that nothing means anything. Nothing has any meaning. Not even ourselves. It is vanity of vanities. Meaningless. Futility. And if that's the truth, if that's the fact of the matter, when we're pressed in the corner and that's all that we can say, then we have to say that the worker gets nothing. And if that's our answer, then fear and loneliness are our closest companions. And today's tragedy and the anxiety about the future will drive us into a vortex of despair. That's the truth of life in this world apart from God. And the teacher presses us to face that. But fallen man is tricky, you know. He doesn't like to be put in that corner. He doesn't want to face the question. So he comes up with answers to avoid that question. He's convinced he's self-controlled. He's convinced that he's sufficient. He's really self-deceived. And he comes up with a few major ways to try to squirm. Some convince themselves that life under the sun is simply an illusion. It's just a bad dream. I'm going to wake up someday when I get enlightened. then you know, I'm going to realize that God and I, we're the same. There is no problem. That's the religions of the East. Others self-consciously assert their humanism and shake their fist at the God they deny. William Henley expressed it in the poem in Invictus. We've heard it from this pulpit before, and I won't read the whole thing to you, but you know the line, I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul. He says, yeah, that's life under the sun, that's all there is, and that's good by me. But most, it seems, simply set aside the disturbing evidence and avoid the ultimate question. And they resign themselves by crossing their fingers and keeping a stiff upper lip, and they hope for the best in a long parade of miseries and difficulties and a meaningless end. The motto of their bravado is, eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Together, they all deny the very God that they even now unwittingly serve. The teacher says in chapter 2, verse 26, reading from the English Standard Version, that to the sinner, God has given the business of gathering and collecting only to give it to the one who pleases God. It is indeed meaningless. Well, all men are tutored by God for the purpose of answering this same question. We're all driven to the same corner. But God has in mind a different answer, and it's hinted at in verse 10, as well as in chapter 1, verse 13, again, where it's a very parallel verse. A Hebrew phrase is obscured by the NIV translation, but it's brought out in others, and I want you to put it in your Bible. I think it's important. Chapter 3, verse 10. When we read, I have seen the burden God has laid on men, the English Standard Version adds, to be busy with. The New American Standard adds, with which to occupy themselves. King James is most helpful here when it says that this travail, this burden, this long and hard work that we live under is given to men to be exercised with. In other words, to be exerted by it, to be exerted in it for the sake of training, for the sake of improvement, for the sake of acquiring something. That's why you go to the gym, isn't it? That's why you go and exercise. You want a return. Men are given this burden to be exercised by it, to gain something. J. Adams helpfully interprets it this way. I've seen the task that God has given to the sons of men to be humbled by it. And I think he comes to that conclusion when we look at the last part of verse 14. Where the teacher states this purpose clearly. When he says God does it, he lays his burden on men so that men will revere him. They will fear him. They will bow before him. He does it so that men will be humbled to acknowledge that there is a God and they are not him. You are not him. I am not him. And we get pressed to that corner and realize that that's the truth. Humility and reverence will lead us to look beyond ourselves and beyond this creation for help. Those who are humbled by God in this way are then able to answer this pressing question in this way. What does the worker gain from his toil? He gains reverence for God. The fear of the Lord. The beginning of wisdom. If being tutored by God has humbled you to know the greatness of your sin and of your misery and to know that it is because of your sin and the sin of Adam then he has also given you reverence toward God so that you will now look outside yourself and this creation for salvation and the question is where will you look? Where will you look? Look to Jesus Christ and he will save you. He says to you come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. You can trust Him and you can trust Him alone because He alone is God in the flesh who came to live under the sun. To live in this burden that we bear and to bear it for us. Although He is eternal God, the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow and forever, he took to himself the fullness of our humanity except for our sin and became incarnate. He subjected himself to the sovereignty of God for the sake of all who will turn to him. In Hebrews chapter 5 we read that during the days of Jesus' life on earth he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death. And he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and once made perfect, once made fit for his work in the flesh, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey. You see, in the flesh, Jesus Christ was tutored by God through 33 tasking years to the benefit of all who will believe as the God-man, as the God-man. He, too, was constrained by time, by the appointments of God the Father. He, too, was compelled by a sense of eternity, greater than ours, because he is God divine. But even in his humanity, he longed for glory. In chapter 7 of his Gospel, John reports that the Jews were not able to seize Jesus because his time had not yet come. But in chapter 17, John says that on the night he was betrayed, Jesus prayed, saying, Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you. Subject to the appointments of God. And according to the sovereign will of God, the Father, Jesus' ministry led him to the cross, accused although innocent, and crucified as one accursed to pay the penalty for your sin and for my sin, if we'll turn to him. In Acts chapter 2, beginning in verse 23, Peter announced that Jesus was handed over to the Jews by God's set purpose and foreknowledge, by God's appointment. And they, with the help of wicked men, put him to death on the cross for the sins of his people. But God raised him to life. He raised him to life in the flesh, the God-man. And in the flesh, the God-man is exalted to the right hand of the God, the Father in heaven, where he reigns even now until the day he'll come back. God-man in the flesh to judge between the wicked and the righteous. And so even now, Jesus Christ, the God-man, sits at the right hand of God the Father, awaiting the sovereign appointment when He may come back. He said Himself in Matthew 24, No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. You see how completely He has identified with us His people who will trust in Him. He has borne this burden. He has borne it so well that he didn't strive against it as we do. His prayer was always, your will be done, not mine. And so even in those hours as believers, in those times of our trials as believers, when we struggle with this tension and we rebel against God because we don't like his timing, Jesus is satisfied for that. And you can know that He'll forgive you for it. As we wait for the day when Christ returns, there's something else that we must get from this text. An assurance and a confirmation that there's something given to us now as those who have been pressed in the corner and have looked outside ourselves for salvation in Christ. As we wait for that day when we who believe in Christ for salvation will be found righteous in Him, will be resurrected and glorified, We enjoy the gift of God here under the sun. The teacher affirms in verse 12, I know that there's nothing better for man than to be happy, that is to rejoice, and to do good while they live. He continues the same thought in verse 13, we might add that moreover or also, 13 in the NIV is listed as two sentences, is one sentence, 12 and 13. I know that there's nothing better for man than to be happy, to rejoice and do good while they live. Moreover, that everyone may eat and drink and find satisfaction in all his toil. This is the gift of God. In the valley of the shadow of death, which this life under the sun is, every day of it, even when it's good, the Church of Jesus Christ and her members will enjoy a plentiful table set before them by our Lord. We'll enjoy his goodness and his love all the days of our life. And as God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God has ordained for us to do. We will pursue them and we will find satisfaction in them. This is the gift of God. In whatever you do, therefore, Paul says, do it all to the glory of God. You can now. You can find satisfaction in it. You can rejoice in it. It's his gift to you. So as we look back at the end of 2006, we can be certain that we have been tutored by God through another tasking year to answer the same pressing question. And all who have turned to salvation apart from themselves to Jesus Christ will step into 2007 humbled, grateful, and confident. Humbled to know our place under the sun. There is a God and we're not Him. And we'll forsake our illusions of being self-reliant and self-dependent and knowing better than God in His own time and we will patiently wait on Him. More and more, when things appear to go against us. And more and more, we'll no longer despise the gifts of God because of unbelief, but we will be grateful to God in all things, especially the good things. But even in the tough things, it's His appointments that we're keeping. And confident that the times and seasons appointed for us will work together for our good, because we can never be separated from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. He's with us, even to the end of the age. 2007. Humbled, grateful, and confident. I pray that it is true for you, because you've turned to Christ from under the sun. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we come before you with grateful hearts to know that what you have done for us, in ourselves trapped under the sun, Constrained by your appointments and frustrated by the eternity you have set within our hearts. You have freed us in Christ Jesus because he came to live that burden for us. To bear it for us completely. To be content in all things with your appointments. And to bear a burden that wasn't his to bear because of his love for us. Help us, Father, to be mindful of all that he has done for us. Help us to be content with your appointments. Keep us humble and free from the delusion that we are self-reliant and self-sufficient. And ever and always looking away from ourselves to Christ Jesus, our Lord, for our hope, for our encouragement, for our strength, for our purpose, for our salvation. It's in his name we pray. Amen.