Well we’re back in the book of Ecclesiastes tonight, Ecclesiastes chapter 3. You can find that on page 554 in the pew Bibles located in the pew in front of you. Ecclesiastes is one of the Bible’s wisdom books, along with Proverbs and Job. And we’ve noticed in the first two chapters, the writer, the Preacher as he is called, is on the search for wisdom. He is on the search for meaning or significance from life under the sun, or life in the here and now as we can think of it. And his conclusion consistently has been that all is vanity, and a striving or a grasping after wind. That word “vanity” is a key word throughout the book of Ecclesiastes and it stands for the fleeting nature of our lives. It stands for the limitations that we all face in a sinful and fallen world.
A couple of weeks ago we saw the Preacher, or Solomon as it seems to be, found that all of his personal greatness in the areas of pleasure and knowledge and possessions, it left him completely disappointed. His conclusion was that it was all vanity. And this week we’ll hear about Solomon’s frustrations in looking at the world out there. In some ways it’s a less personal exploration than we saw a couple of weeks ago, but his conclusion is going to be the same. It’s vanity and a striving after wind.
Before we read these chapters though, here is a little bit of trivia courtesy of Wikipedia about these verses. Did you know that The Byrds 1965 recording of the poem from Ecclesiastes chapter 3 holds the distinction in the United States of being the number one hit with the oldest lyrics? It’s true, because these words were written thousands of years before that single was produced as a popular folk song. These verses, what that means is that these verses from Ecclesiastes chapter 3 are probably the most famous verses in this book. And The Byrds were not the only ones to record or to cover this poem in song form. It’s also been covered by Dolly Parton and Bruce Springsteen and Emmylou Harris. It was the first song played on the first episode of “The Wonder Years” in 1988. And more recently in 2017, it played with the closing credits of Ken Burns’ documentary on the Vietnam War.
Now those cultural references might miss a portion of the demographic that’s here tonight, but at least the Baby Boomers know what I’m talking about, right? Whatever the case, these are verses that are more familiar to many other people than other parts of the Bible. And in general, people can relate to what these verses are talking about. They’re talking about different seasons and different times of life. Oftentimes those experiences, the different seasons and times of life, leave us with unanswered questions. They can leave us distressed and unsettled. They can even leave us anxious. The Preacher in Ecclesiastes though, he helps us to live with those unsettling and unanswered questions by pointing us to God. And he points us to God’s providence. So let’s see that as we look to God’s Word tonight from Ecclesiastes 3 and 4. Before we read, let’s pray and ask God to help us.
Father, we pray that You would open Your Word to us tonight, that we would see wonderful things from Your Word, that we would see wisdom, that we would see grace, that we would see Your power and your knowledge and Your goodness. We ask that You would help us to find comfort, that You would help us to find confidence in the face of all that we deal with in our lives around us, and that we would go forth to serve You with joy and with hope and with courage and that You would be glorified in all that we do. We pray that we would be more like Jesus in what we hear and read tonight. We ask that Your Spirit would work in all of our hearts. Speak Lord, for Your servants listen. We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Ecclesiastes chapter 3 verse 1:
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up 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, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.
I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.
Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work. I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth? So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him?
Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them. And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.
Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.
The fool folds his hands and eats his own flesh.
Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind.
Again, I saw vanity under the sun: one person who has no other, either son or brother, yet there is no end to all his toil, and his eyes are never satisfied with riches, so that he never asks, ‘For whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure?’ This also is vanity and an unhappy business.
Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
Better was a poor and wise youth than an old and foolish king who no longer knew how to take advice. For he went from prison to the throne, though in his own kingdom he had been born poor. I saw all the living who move about under the sun, along with that youth who was to stand in the king’s place. There was no end of all the people, all of whom he led. Yet those who come later will not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and a striving after wind.”
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God endures forever.
This is a lot to process and it’s a lot to get our heads around tonight, but I think we can be helped with a couple of lines that we just sang from Henry Lyte’s hymn, “Abide with Me.” The second verse, he writes, “Change and decay, in all around I see, O Thou who changest not abide with me.” Ecclesiastes chapters 3 and 4 are about change and decay in all we see around us, but it’s also about the One who changes not and the One who makes everything beautiful in its time. You see, it may not seem like it at first glance, but the poem at the beginning of Ecclesiastes chapter 3 is about change. It says in verse 1, “For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven.” There’s something about that and about that poem that is almost soothing and reassuring as you hear and we read the cadence and the rhythm that comes along with it. We like for things to have a rhythm or a pattern because it helps us to know what’s coming next. It helps us to know what to expect.
Change is a Part of Life
In fact, I’ve noticed that over the last several years there have been a number of books that are written about things like, “The Rhythms for Life,” and “Sacred Rhythms,” and “Rhythms of Grace.” And there are rhythms of life. There’s six and one – work and rest. There’s day and night. There’s winter, spring, summer, and fall. But there’s no discernable pattern in the experiences of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. There’s no pattern in birth and death, in weeping and laughing, in seeking and losing, in war and in peace. What these verses seem to be saying to us is that change is happening all around us and change is happening all of the time and there is nothing that we can do to stop that change from happening. In fact it’s become a cliche, hasn’t it, that the only constant in life is change. Chapter 3 verse 11 says that in all of those changes, man “cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” We know that change is going to come, but there is a lot that we don’t know about the change that is coming. Change makes us ask questions. It makes us ask questions like, “When? How? How long? Why?” Now sometimes the seasons and the years clip by at a predictable pace for us. It’s “boom…boom…boom…boom.” But then other times don’t we find that it’s “boom..boom…boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom!” And we say things like, “When it rains it pours,” even though that’s not exactly what that phrase means. But we know what it means for change to come suddenly and rapidly and it seems like it’s coming at us all the time. And it’s hard not knowing the timing of the changes in our lives.
Take verse 2 for an example. Verse 2 says, “There is a time to be born and a time to die.” Well we can know pretty accurately when it’s time for a baby to be due, when a baby is due to be born, and yet as that time gets near, as the time for the baby to be born gets near, “any day now” can be pretty nerve wracking, can’t it? Or take the other extreme, death. There may be a loved one who is on hospice care and we know that the end of life is very near, and yet “any day now” can be terribly agonizing. Think about just in our own present moment. How many of us knew that at the beginning of 2020 that we were about to enter a season and a time for pandemic? We had no idea that was coming. And that can be disturbing; that can be unsettling. And we don’t know how long that pandemic is going to last. It’s hard not knowing how long change is going to last.
I recently read a story about how people in the hospitality industry have been seeing an uptick of people who have meltdowns, customers who have meltdowns in things like restaurants and hotels and other hospitality industries. Maybe you’ve seen it yourself; maybe it’s been you at some point. The writer of the article made the point that people in general can fairly well deal with a hardship when they know there is an endpoint they are going to reach. But when it just goes on and on and on, then things can fall apart. And we’ve seen some of that happen over the last few years.
And then there’s the question of, “How?” Just to use a personal example from our own family, our oldest son is about to go off to college. How are all of the details going to fall into place? How will our family adjust to a new dynamic in the home? How will he adjust to life outside of the home? There are all kinds of questions that we don’t know how things will happen when those changes come, even though we know the change is right around the corner. There’s a lot of unknown.
And then when difficult changes come, when suffering enters our lives. Isn’t that question that we often times ask, “Why? Why is this happening to me? What is God’s purpose in allowing this to come into my life at this time? And see, the poem at the beginning of chapter 3 is not some feel good, soothing embracing of the change. No, it’s actually a reflection on the unpredictability of life. And the unpredictability of life can be fairly unsettling, can’t it? We live in a time that people have called “the age of anxiety.” There is anxiety about the future. There is anxiety about the economy. There is anxiety about the moral revolution or about political dysfunction or about natural disasters or any other things, big or small. In fact one recently study said that the share of Americans reporting symptoms of anxiety, depression, or both, quadrupled from June 2019 to December 2020 – quadrupled in a year and a half. Surely every one of us knows something of what it means to struggle with anxiety or with worry. In fact, there are some here who know what it means to be overwhelmed with anxiety. I read one definition of anxiety recently that puts it as an equation. It says, “Anxiety equals the unknown multiplied by powerlessness.” The unknown and powerlessness.
Well what says “unknown” more than constant change? And what says “powerless” more than striving after the wind? We can try to hold onto the wind but we can’t do it. We’re powerless to do it. And there’s something in these chapters, there’s a sense of powerlessness that runs through the rest of chapter 3 and onto the end of Ecclesiastes chapter 4. Powerlessness in the face of the decay and disorder that is caused in our world by sin. And you can tell that Solomon is confounded by all of the problems that he sees in the world around him because he goes back and forth between using these two words – on the one hand there’s “vanity” and on the other hand there is “better.” And it’s as if he recognizes that certain ways are better, but at the same time he recognizes the vanity of the big picture and he is unable to do anything to change it or do anything about it. It’s no wonder that he is perplexed. It’s no wonder that he finds challenges in what he comments on in these verses because he’s commenting on some of the most stubborn and complex problems in all of the world.
Just look at what these verses are talking about. In chapter 3 verse 16 he’s talking about injustice and immorality among those who are supposed to uphold justice and morality. He says in the place of justice, wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there is wickedness. In chapter 3 verse 20 he’s talking about the problem of death. “All are from the dust and to dust all return.” Just down in chapter 4 verse 1, the problem he looks at in those verses is that of social injustice. He says, “I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. The powerful are ruling over the weak and there is no one to comfort the tears of those who are oppressed.” In verse 4 he goes on to the economy and he thinks about the competitive marketplace. He says all toil and all skill and work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor. In verse 8 it’s isolation and loneliness that causes him to weep and to lament. He says, “One person who has no other, either son or brother, yet there is no end to all his toil, and his eyes are never satisfied with riches, so that he never asks, ‘For whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure?’” And then finally in verse 13, it wouldn’t be a complete list of the frustrations and problems in this world if he didn’t talk about politics. Would it? And he talks about this old and foolish king who no longer knew how to take advice.
Isn’t it amazing? Isn’t it amazing that the issues that are often times on our minds and in the headlines today are the same issues that were burdensome to people thousands of years ago at the time Solomon is writing the book of Ecclesiastes? We think about all of the calls that we hear for reform today in our time. We hear about calls for police reform and healthcare reform and economic reform and social reform and political reform. Those are the same kinds of things that the Preacher was talking about in the book of Ecclesiastes. And any prospect of major change, any hope of improvement, probably belongs in the category of vanity and a striving after wind.
It reminds me of a few years ago I came across some discussions from our church’s youth committee that had taken place over twenty-five years ago. It was a study and some discussions from over twenty-five years ago. And believe it or not, believe it or not, some of the challenges in youth ministry today were the same challenges in youth ministry twenty-five years ago. And I said something about what I had found, what I had read about, to the person who was the youth director at that time over twenty-five years ago. And he said, he responded to me somewhat sarcastically. He said, “Oh, so your eighth grader doesn’t like youth group? Well welcome to the last 6,000 years!”
We hear the calls for reform today and we hear the problems that Solomon dealt with in his day, and aren’t we tempted to think, “Welcome to the last 6,000 years” because these problems are deep set. They are age old problems. They are complicated, and yes, there are certain things that we can say are better in light of these difficult problems. He says in chapter 3 verse 22, “There is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work.” “Better,” chapter 4 verse 3, “Better is he who has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.” Chapter 4 verse 6, “Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil.” “Two are better than one,” verse 9 says. “Better is a poor and wise youth than an old and foolish king,” he says in verse 13.
Our Sovereign God Does Not Change
Those things are better, he says, they’re better, but is there any chance of fixing the problems themselves? Not likely. Not likely. Again, it’s vanity. It’s striving after wind. It’s the unknown times powerlessness. It’s change and decay in all around we see. What then can we say about the anxiety and the worry and the fear that come with living with all of these unanswered questions and all of these deeply entrenched problems? What can we say about that? The answer is found in the providence of God. The great truth of God’s providence. “O Thou who changest not abide with me.” You see, God is not subject to change and decay. But no, God, He directs the seasons. He rules over all of time and space. One day He will make every wrong right and every person will be held accountable before His judgment seat in the last day. Chapter 3 verse 11. Look at that. He says, “He has made everything beautiful in His time. Also He has put eternity into man’s heart so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” Verse 14, “Whatever God does, endures forever.” Verse 17, “God will judge the righteous and the wicked for there is a time for every matter and for every work.”
Do you see what that’s saying to us? It’s saying to us that in our unknown, and in our powerlessness, God knows and God is in control. He knows the beginning from the end. He is able to make all things beautiful in their time. “He upholds heaven and earth and all creatures and so governs them so that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed all things come to us not by chance but by His Fatherly hand,” as the Heidelberg Catechism puts it. Does that answer all of our questions? Does that eliminate all of our problems? No, no it doesn’t, but it does allow us to live in the unknown and it allows us to live with uncertainty. It allows us to live with our own frailty and with our own weaknesses, not in fear and despair, but with faith in God. It allows us to live with a hope and a confidence and a peace or shalom in the midst of the changes and the challenges that we all face because God is on His throne. God is on His throne.
You see, in our anxieties, what do we tend to do? We tend to look at what we know. We tend to look and to depend on what we know and what we can do. But God’s providence teaches us to look at and to depend upon what God knows and what God can do. And God knows everything. And He has made everything. And He can do all of His holy will in what He has made and there is not one moment of our lives, there is not one moment in the world around us that is a mystery to God or that is outside of His control. He knows. He knows! And He is able. “He is able to work all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.” And we can be completely confident of His good intentions for us because He sent His only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to give His life for us and to take it up again in resurrection power to secure us in His affection and love and mercy for all of eternity. “And if He did not spare His own Son, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?”
What does that do for our worries and fears? It entrusts them to the providence of God, to the plan of God, and it places them at the foot of the cross. You know, we do not know what lies ahead for us in the week to come. When we wake up tomorrow morning there will be the same old problems out there in the world around us. But you know what Jesus says? Jesus says, “In this world you will have trouble, but I have overcome the world.” When change and decay are all around us, the One who changes not abides with us and He will provide for us all that we need.
Do you know who Martin Luther said was his favorite preacher? It wasn’t Augustine. It wasn’t Chrysostom. It wasn’t John Calvin. “I have one preacher,” he said, “that I love better than any other on the earth. It is my tame little robin, which preaches to me daily. I put his crumbs on my windowsill, especially at night. He hops onto the sill when he wants to take his supply and takes as much as he desires to satisfy his need. From there, he always hops onto a little tree close by and lifts up his voice to God and sings his carol of praise and gratitude, tucks his little head under his wings, and goes fast asleep. And he leaves tomorrow to look after itself. He is the best preacher that I have on earth.” Don’t you love that? Because a robin doesn’t know much and a robin can’t do much, but God provides for the birds of the air and for the flowers of the field. How much more will He provide for us as well? God will provide for us too in His sovereign plan for all of eternity. So let’s trust Him. Let’s fear God and do what’s right. Let’s enjoy all of the good gifts that He has given to us today, and be free from all of the anxieties of life under the sun. Let’s pray.
Father, we give You thanks for Your power, for Your knowledge, for Your grace, for Your truth, for Your Word. We thank You for the way Your Word comes into all of the problems and the worries and the concerns that we face in this life and points us to Your power and to Your control and to Your plan, Your plan which culminated in the birth, the life, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for our salvation. I pray, Father, that if there is anyone here who is lost, thinking that the world around us is subject to chaos and to despair, that You would draw them to Yourself, that they would bow the knee before Your power and Your mercy, that they would find grace in Christ Jesus and find peace for their souls. I pray for all here who are burdened with some worry, some anxiety today or some unknown about the future, that You would show them not only Your past provision but the promises of future provision and of care for them. We pray that You would meet every need, and that in Your great provision You would lead us to Your throne to praise You and to sing of Your glory and Your grace. For we will be doing that for all of eternity. Help us to do that today, tonight, tomorrow, for the rest of our lives for the sake of our great Savior, Jesus Christ. We pray this in His name, amen.