Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 “A Time for Everything”
Intro: From Vanity and Hopelessness to Hope
- Can anything under the sun satisfy?
- God alone satisfies our deepest needs and desires.
- Suffering and evil without god? No satisfying answers.
- When tragedy, evil, and suffering happen we need to hear and know the sovereignty of God.
Vs 1: Nothing is Random: There is a Time for everything
- A season for everything! “A particular or proper time in the future that is specified as the time something will happen”
- This flies in the face of what most people think.
- Trying to make sense of tragedy and suffering leads many Christians to unbiblical conclusions.
- Deism (Chance), Man’s freedom/God’s Bondage
- Dualism.
- The bible teaches God is sovereign over everything. For Solomon this is answer to the vanity of life.
- Ps 135:6 “Whatever the Lord pleases, He does.”
- Matt 28:18 “And Jesus came and said to them “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.”
A.W. Pink Quote
6 Affirmations
- Your choices are real and consequential.
- Evangelism matters.
- Prayer is effective.
- Sovereignty is not fatalism or determinism.
- Satan and demons are active in our world.
- God is not evil even though He is sovereign over evil.
Vs 2-8 An Appointed Time for everything under the sun. Good and Bad
- A time to be born and a time to die.
- A time for everything in between.
- No-one chooses the time to weep.
Behold the Sovereignty of God: Verses
Is 46:8-11
Vs 9-10: This brings me to more questions
- With Sovereignty what is the gain?
- I am still busy with questions and frustrations!
- What about when
- Someone gets killed?
- I weep?
- I get torn down? When I lose.
- When I mourn?
Vs 11: Beauty out of Ashes
- Pie! God makes it beautiful in it’s time. Everything!
- God has made us eternal. We can not understand “Why God?”
- You and I need to understand that when we don’t understand the things under the sun we can trust our Sovereign heavenly Father who is working all things to the counsel of His will for His glory.
- Acts 2:22-24 You can trust Him!
- Romans 8:28
Vs 12-13: If God is Sovereign and He Loves us?
- You are free to enjoy life!
- Do good. God is with you!
- You don’t have to be afraid anymore!
- You don’t have to have answers to everything. You can be okay with mystery.
Vs 14-15 So Fear Him
- Christian! Walk away from deism and dualism.
- Trust your father.
- Non-Christian
- Spurgeon Quote
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