In today’s episode of Hope for Today, we embark on a profound journey through Ecclesiastes Chapter 3, exploring the intricate tapestry of divine timing and its implications on our lives. Host David Hawking weaves theological insights with practical wisdom, addressing the age-old question of why things happen the way they do. From birth to death, planting to harvesting, Ecclesiastes reminds us of the precise seasons and purposes ordained by God. With biblical references and personal anecdotes, this episode challenges the modern illusion of self-determination and invites listeners to acknowledge a higher power orchestrating every moment.
God is the subject of time. God is in control of time. God has set everything in its proper time. And he has a purpose and a season, an exact time for everything that is happening. And yet man continues to deny that truth. Man continues to act like he is the master of his fate and the captain of his soul. But Ecclesiastes is simply telling us here, what is the fact, no matter what you believe about the fact. You will not change these facts. They are here, and we must face them.
SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome to a new week of Bible study on Hope for Today. We live as though time belongs to us, as though we set the schedule, as though we decide what comes next. But Ecclesiastes chapter 3 corrects that illusion. Scripture tells us that there’s a time for everything, a season appointed by God, and a purpose set by Him alone. God is not subject to time. Time is subject to God. And no matter what we believe about that truth, it remains the truth. Today, Bible teacher David Hawking opens Ecclesiastes chapter 3 as God’s word calls us to face the fact that we are not the masters of our fate. We’ll get into Ecclesiastes 3 in just a moment. First, if you’re enjoying our new series on Ecclesiastes, we encourage you to not miss a single program as we continue through this very important book of Scripture. And if you do happen to miss a broadcast, well, you can always catch up by visiting our website, davidhawking.org. That’s David, H-O-C-K-I-N-G.org. Also available on our website are David Hawking’s original message outlines and sermon notes for the Ecclesiastes series. These are the original sermon notes and outlines he used to teach these messages that you’re hearing on radio. And you can get the collection, the complete pack of all the sermon notes for every message in the Ecclesiastes series for just $10. Get them right away by making the purchase and downloading them from our website, davidhawking.org. Or you can order a printed version for the same price when you call 1-800-75-BIBLE in the U.S. or 888-75-BIBLE in Canada. And here’s David with today’s study time.
SPEAKER 01 :
Take your Bibles to Ecclesiastes chapter 3. There’s a time for everything. A time for everything. A time to get up in the morning. Amen. And a time to go to bed at night. Amen. There’s a time for everything. And this particular passage has much practical information for all of us concerning how we regard the events and changing circumstances of our life. As to what we see, what we understand, what our perspective is in all of that. Ecclesiastes 3, beginning at verse 1. To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven. a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck what is planted, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. a time to gain and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to sow, a time to keep silence and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time of war and a time of peace. What profit has the worker from that in which he labors? I have seen the God-given task with which the sons of men are to be occupied. He has made everything beautiful in its time.” Also, he has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and to do good in their lives, 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 whatever God does, it shall be forever. Nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it that men should fear before him. That which is has already been, and what is to be has already been. And God requires an account of what is past.” Let’s look to the Lord in prayer. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that you have the answers to the changing times of our life. We thank you, Lord, for what you teach us here. And I pray, God, that today many of us will recognize that it is time, time for us to make some clear decisions about our relationship to God, about the way we handle the affairs of our life. God, we pray you’ll speak to us by your Holy Spirit, for we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen. You know, God is referred to nine times in these 15 verses, either by the pronouns he or him or the direct word God. God is a subject of time. God is in control of time. God has set everything in its proper time. And he has a purpose and a season, an exact time for everything that is happening. And yet man continues to deny that truth. Man continues to act like he is the master of his fate and the captain of his soul. But Ecclesiastes is simply telling us here, what is the fact, no matter what you believe about the fact. You will not change these facts. They are here, and we must face them. And I want to tell you today at least five things about God and his relationship to time that maybe will help us to focus in on what the writer Solomon is trying to tell us about the whole subject of our time and the changing events and circumstances. I think you could almost start by saying that man, he is saying, cannot control the events and circumstances of his life. He’s the victim. He’s not the master. And God is in charge. These five things. Number one, I believe Solomon wants us to acknowledge that God has a reason for all that happens in our lives. How many times do you ask like I do, why did you do that, Lord? Here you are on the freeway during the rush hour and you’ve got a flat. And you leap out of the car and you know you should praise God, but really the first thing on your mind is, why me? You know, at this time, everything is beautiful in its time, including flats on the freeway in the rush hour. I mean, really, do we understand this, that God has a reason for all that happens in our lives? That’s the whole point of the first eight verses. It starts out, verse 1, to everything there’s a season, a time for every purpose under heaven. The word season and time are two different things. In the Greek translation of this Hebrew text, it uses some familiar words that are used frequently in the New Testament. It uses the word chronos, from which we get chronology, which means the sequence of events. Kairos it uses, which means the season or the opportunity. God talks about buying up the opportunity because the days are evil in the book of Ephesians. That’s the word season or opportunity, meaning, oh, this is the moment. but there’s also chronology, sequence of events, and what this text is saying that both God is controlling. Not only is he bringing something into your life to cause it to be seen as the proper time, but he is also controlling Moment by moment, day by day, month by month, year by year. God is not sitting up in the clouds somewhere watching time unravel with no intervention. He is the sovereign master, the providential control over everything that is happening. In verses 2 to 8, it’s kind of interesting. This is Hebrew poetry. There are 28 activities of man listed here, 14 couplets that are organized in seven, we might say, poetic stanzas. There are two to go together. Two couplets go together, or four statements go together. A time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, a time to pluck what is planted. Another interesting thing about all these is that often the last word of that particular set of four rhymes in Hebrew with the next word that’s mentioned. For instance, down in verse 4, where it says a time to weep, there are many Hebrew words for weep. It’s interesting, the author picked the one that rhymes, that is, it sounds the same as the last word of verse 3, to build up. And in Hebrew, they’re practically the same word in sound. He does that frequently. A time to mourn, a time to dance, a time to cast away stones, a time to gather away stones. There’s probably only one here that will confuse you. Well, some of them might, if you think too much about them. But as you look at it, there’s one that’s confusing. Now, I want you just to center in on it. Verse 5. Are those two things really alike? A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones, a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing. Now, those two things sound a little bit different. But technically, they’re not. There are many things about the ancient world that are interesting, but one of them deals with the fact that it’s an agricultural society. And in the land of Israel, most of the ground, if you go over there today, you’ll see the same thing, is stony ground. There are stones and rocks everywhere. Now, one of the things that a military invasion would do, just to prepare the way, is to put stones in the enemy’s fields. First of all, to make it more difficult for them to have a crop and thus to live, so that the timing of their invasion would be better. And the writer is saying there’s a time to cast away stones. You’re going to throw stones in a field. There’s also a time to gather them up, which would be helping them to achieve productivity in their fields. Then when he says there’s a time to embrace or a time to refrain from embracing, he’s talking about your relationship to that invasion. There’s a time when you would, hey, say, hey, come on in. We welcome you. Great, we’re partners. Let’s sign a covenant, a contract. Let’s agree that we can work together. There’s also a time to refrain from that because you don’t know what their motives are. I just want to mention that because I know when I was reading this, the first thing I thought about was romance. You know, a time to embrace and a time to refrain. And I said to my wife, when are we going to refrain from embracing? She says, it’s never the time. But anyway, that’s really not the point of verse 5. That’s really not the point. Each one of these is telling us something about life, the activities of life, all to say that God has a reason behind them all, every one of them. The time we’re born, the doctor says, oh yeah, that’s going to be on such and such, nine months, I know exactly the week. Now you know that often it’s fouled up, right? The baby comes early or the baby comes late, it’s not on the day. It’s rare that it comes on the exact day that they say it’s going to come. And how about death? A time to die? The Bible says it’s appointed unto man once to die. The Bible says all your days, however many there are, are all known to God. They’re all planned out ahead of time. God knows when you’re going to be born. God knows when you’re going to die. And think about it. Would you really want it any other way? Can you imagine a God who does not know the exact day that you’re going to die? Is he that helpless? Is he omniscient or is he not? Does he know all things? How can he be God and not know everything, including the day we’re born and the day we die? And so to ask the question, does God have a reason? It seems to me like Augustine, we should say this about this passage. It is, if the providence of God, the control of God, does not preside over all the affairs of men, there is no need to bother about religion. What the writer is saying here is fundamental to life. Is there a purpose? Is there a reason? No. Nobody really thinks about that subject until something goes wrong. Until something down at work goes wrong. All your goals, all your dreams didn’t come out. Until something changes in your health. Bad health comes. Serious circumstances happen. Things happen you never planned on. You never thought would happen. And at that point, my friends, we better acknowledge that God has a reason for all that happens in our life. I think really these verses suggest three things. Number one. It suggests that God is in control. This deals with the providence of God. God really controls the affairs of people’s lives, and therefore he has a reason. The providence of God is behind it. Take your Bibles and turn to Psalms 115. I want to show you a few verses that deal with the providence and control of God. I find in normal conversation with people about things that change in their life or circumstances they would put in category bad, that frequently at that moment you question whether God has a reason. You question whether this is the timing of God. You find yourself asking, why Lord did you do it in the way that you did it? A lady whose husband is suffering very severely in a hospital and not really appears to be pulling out of it. And she’s asking that question right now. Why? Why is this happening? I mean, why doesn’t the Lord take him home and relieve the pain and the suffering or at least get him healed? Why does he stay in that condition? Why? There are so many things like that that you ask in life. A friend of mine had an accident in his car, and he got his car out of the shop, and the day he got it out of the shop, he had another accident again. Now, you know how that hits you. Why me? I mean, why? What’s the point? And he affirmed to me that neither one was his fault, of course, of course. But, you know, why? Why do these things happen? Is God in control? That is a basic question. Psalm 115, verse 3 answers, Our God is in heaven. He does whatever he pleases. Now turn over to chapter 135 and compare this. Our God is in heaven. He does whatever he pleases. Chapter 135, verse 5. 135, verse 5. I know that the Lord is great, and our Lord is above all gods. Whatever the Lord pleases, he does in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deep places. Now that’s magnifying the Lord for his greatness, that he’s above all gods. And it’s saying that he does whatever he pleases, whether it’s in heaven or whether it’s on the earth. God is in control. Look at Psalm 139 and verse 16. Psalm 139, verse 16. This beautiful passage that David remarks about the creation of a baby in the womb. And in verse 16 it says, Your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed. And in your book they all are written. What are written? The days fashioned for me when as yet there were none of them. Do you believe that? That’s what it says. Why is it that we continue to question this? Some say it’s because God is invisible and I can’t see him. Others say is that he doesn’t directly audibly speak out of heaven and give us the reason. You can’t see God. So here you have an accident in the freeway. Why is this happening? God doesn’t say, hey Dave, here’s my reason. You know, he doesn’t do that. So you’re stuck. I can’t see him. I can’t hear him. And you’re asking me to believe that every day of my life and every event and every circumstance is under the providential control of God. Naturally, I’m going to ask, hey, how is that possible? Plus the fact I’m going to see my ability to choose and my freedom, as it were. And I’m going to see that as a direct conflict with the fact of what God knows. Because God knows that something is happening does not mean that he hasn’t also given me the freedom to choose. But he knows what I’m going to choose. And that, friends, blows my mind. If you want to really get a headache, go out under a tree and contemplate that one. God knows everything is happening, and yet I’ve got the ability to choose. I’ve done stupid things in my past to try and figure this thing out. One that I remember well. It was bothering me so much. I just went out of the house. My wife said, where are you going? I said, I’ve got to think this thing through. This is driving me crazy. And I went out on the porch, and I sat down, and I’m thinking about God controlling everything, and yet I’ve got the freedom to choose. And I saw this little dandelion out in the yard, and so I went over and I picked that thing up. I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet. And I looked at that little dandelion and I thought, God thinks I’m going to eat breakfast. See? Maybe I can fool him. I’m not going to. See? Then I got the dandelion out and I was pulling the leaves off. I’m going to eat breakfast. I’m not going to eat breakfast. I’m going to eat breakfast. You wonder how it comes out, don’t you? And when I finished, I realized the crushing truth that God knew I’d pick up the dandelion. You know what I mean? Your head can hurt over this. You know what I mean? God knows everything. He’s in providential control. And the writer here, Solomon, is leading us step by step to some definite conclusions that all of us need to apply in our lives but frequently don’t. The fact is, whether you like this or not, God has a time and a reason and a purpose and a season for everything. And that definitely, if I’ve got to acknowledge that that’s true, that he has a reason for all that happens in my life, then that suggests, has to suggest, theologically, logically, philosophically, it has to suggest that he is in control. Doesn’t matter what you think about it, it has to be true. You know, David said in Psalm 31 5, my times are in your hand. How true that is.
SPEAKER 03 :
How true indeed. Well, friends, you’re listening to Hope for Today with Bible teacher David Hawking, and he’ll be back in a bit to close out our study. So do stay with us. Just before that, Matt’s here, and we’re going to share with you a wonderful resource that will fit perfectly in your home Bible study library.
SPEAKER 02 :
Inside Is Life Worth Living? My dad expresses his sincere desire and prayer that his study of Solomon’s messages in Ecclesiastes under the direction and supervision of the Holy Spirit, will powerfully motivate and encourage your life.
SPEAKER 03 :
And in the application of its message, you will find wisdom, peace, and much joy as well. Matt, this month we’re offering Is Life Worth Living? by David Hawking, together with the complete set, the complete set of audio messages for our current radio series in Ecclesiastes, The complete package? For just $40. Well, hey, let’s take a quick look inside the pack for the topics covered. And Matt, this is incredible and so perfect for what our listening friends are facing today. Amen. I see that chapter one is all is vanity, right? Chapter two, Matt, living for your job. Oh, we got a time for everything, a time for judgment. Wow. In Chapter 5, the tragedies of life, Solomon’s reflections on that. Wow.
SPEAKER 02 :
The importance of friendship from Chapter 6.
SPEAKER 03 :
Chapter 7, Matt, what happened to integrity? Yeah, right? Yeah. Chapter 8, the problem with wealth. How about chapters 10 and 11, the value of wisdom and the search for wisdom? Chapter 12, the problem of authority. Yeah. Is there a problem with authority today? Nowadays, yeah. Chapter 13, how to enjoy what you do. Chapter 14, one event for all. And chapter 15, wisdom is better. Chapter 16, the characteristics. Chapter 17, What We Do Not Know. Wow, wow. So much. Well, Matt, this and so much more are in store for you inside Is Life Worth Living? David Hawking’s 172-page deep dive into the riches of Ecclesiastes and inside our radio series in this power-packed Old Testament writing.
SPEAKER 02 :
Everything you’ll hear in the Ecclesiastes series on radio plus the book Is Life Worth Living? are in our featured resource pack this month for just $40. The Is Life Worth Living Pack will bless you.
SPEAKER 03 :
And your purchase will bless and help the ministry of hope for today. At a donation to help us continue this radio and online outreach, or simply send your most generous contribution and join with us in ministry. And please continue praying for hope for today. Amen, Matt. Amen. Well, to get your copy of this wonderful resource, call us at 875-BIBLE, that’s in the U.S., or 888-75-BIBLE in Canada. And Bible spells out on your phone keypad there, 24253. You can also get these resources and many more at DavidHawking.org. That’s our website, DavidHawking.org. Well, remember the study notes for the Ecclesiastes series. We mentioned that at the top of the broadcast. Those are available. The complete study note pack for all of the messages in the Ecclesiastes series, just $10. And you can make the purchase right now and download it. You’ll have it in seconds. Or we can send you a hard copy, all printed out. And that resource is just $10. And right before David returns to close out our study today, we want to be clear with you. This ministry moves forward only as God provides. And as the new year begins, it’s critical that we start from a position of strength, of financial strength. If God has been using the Bible teaching that you hear on Hope for Today in your life, And if you believe the uncompromised teaching of his word matters in a confused and compromising world, well, we ask you to prayerfully consider sending a special financial gift of support because your gift helps keep this broadcast on the air. It keeps God’s word going forth without apology and helps set the direction for the months ahead. Please pray first, and if God moves your heart to give, you can call us at 875-BIBLE in the U.S., 888-75-BIBLE in Canada, on our website, davidhawking.org, or send a gift by mail in the U.S., Hope for Today, Box 3927, Tustin, California, 92781. In Canada, write to Hope for Today, Box 15011, And thank you. Thank you for standing with us as we continue to proclaim God’s Word here on Hope for Today. Let’s get back to David.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I hope you’re enjoying our study as much as I am bringing it to you. I can tell you this, that a lot of what’s in chapter 3, people quote all the time. You hear them. Every now and then they say, well, there’s a time to everything under the heaven. And they speak about it. There are even some movies and books that take these words like a time to kill. they take it as the title. They get it right out of Ecclesiastes chapter 3 without realizing what this is really all about. And it’s one of the great chapters if you’re really struggling with why things happen in your life as they do. This is your chapter, Ecclesiastes 3. God is referred to nine times in just 15 verses, actually. He’s in control of time, people. He has a purpose for everything that is happening. Part of our problem is not seeing that. Of course, there are many things that happen, and we don’t understand, and we want to ask why. Why did God do that? Why did He allow that? In this chapter, there’s 28 activities listed, and they are in 14 couplets. what we’d say are poetic stanzas, two in each verse. It’s interesting, there are 14 positives and 14 negatives. But behind that is the providence and purpose of God. There’s no doubt about it, as well as his power to do whatever he wants to do at any time that he wants to do it. And a part of our responsibility is to accept that purpose and that control over all that happens in our life. Yes, there are difficult things. things we cannot explain. That happened to Job also. He didn’t even know why all this suffering came and what God was doing through it. But he learned that the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Don’t forget to get our commentary on this book of Ecclesiastes, Is Life Worth Living? God bless you. Hope you can be with us for our next broadcast.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, thank you, David. And next time, we’ll continue our fascinating study through the book of Ecclesiastes. So invite a friend to listen along with you as David Hawking brings you the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible, and particularly Ecclesiastes, here on Hope for Today.
