Sermon Tone Analysis

ECCLESIASTES 3:1-15

                                                                                                          S~/H am 16.8.98,

Ber 20.2.00

PRAY SLOWLY

*1.

INTRODUCTION - TIME, TIME, TIME...*

/We want to control, move through time, change time.

But time’s a cage God’s put round us./

Do you ever feel each year is going more quickly than the one before?

I can’t believe we’ve been in Berowra for 7 months already.

It seems like just a few weeks ago I started here.

And I’m sure we are all conscious of time.

Especially as we get older.

A recurring theme in science fiction is the ability to move through time.

HG Wells’ book “The Time Machine’.

Movies like ‘Back to the Future’.

On TV ‘Doctor Who’.

Wouldn’t you like to be Dr Who - able to go back and undo all those things you wish you’d never done; or go forward and find out things yet to be (the winning lotto numbers for next week).

To go and ask people anywhere for answers to your burning questions.

To actually meet Jesus.

To be able to move through time.

But we can’t.

So how about just changing time.

Imagine I could fit 40 hours into my day, and you could only fit 24 hours in.

My golf would improve out of sight.

Or maybe it wouldn’t.

But I can’t change time.

What about controlling time?

Now there’s something I can do.

And we all do it.

The microwave, so I don’t have to slave over dinner too long (or so Melinda doesn’t); the video so I can tape a show and watch it when I want to, presumably when I have more time and something else I want to watch isn’t on, which rarely happens anyway); the mobile phone so I can make calls when I’m driving and save time.

Ha! Or all those other time-saving devices one can buy.

Yet the more we do these things the more we feel trapped by time.

This week we’re looking at Ecclesiastes chapter 3 and you might like to turn to it in your Bibles.

We’ve seen in chs 1-2 that the Teacher has tried almost everything to find meaning in life.

And failed.

Now in ch 3 he comes to look at time.

Just maybe, time itself will give meaning to existence.

Surely if we can understand and manage time we can understand the world.

Let’s see how he goes.

*2.

THE PRINCIPLE (v1) - EVERYTHING HAS A TIME (time is our cage)*

The Teacher’s principle is stated at the outset in v1 - there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven.

For every thing and every activity, in the world of ordinary human experience.

I want to suggest to you that time is like a cage that God has put around us.

It’s like this little box, and here I am in it.

Boxed in by time.

But what is this ‘time’?

It’s not the idea of duration, or continuity.

Rather it is the idea of a specific moment.

We often use it this way, like the old political ad “it’s time’.

That is now.

It’s time to go, it’s time to eat.

It’s time.

And the Teacher says that there is a time, a proper moment for everything.

And that moment is ordained by God.

And so even what appear to us as two contradictory actions are each appropriate, at the proper God-ordained time.

Hence the mutually exclusive examples in vv2-8.

*3.

THE EXAMPLES (vv2-8) (things happen in our cage)*

\\ In our cage things happen.

I get a job, get married */(drop in Min)/*, have children*/ (drop in babies)/*.

Whatever those things may be for each one of us, everything that happens to us is framed by our birth and our death.

And those two begin this poem on time in v2.

They are two events over which we have no say.

And in between them, all sorts of things happen don’t they.

We live in a changing world.

And the Teacher describes many facets of human experience, which reflect the various stages of the cycle of life that we all go through and eventually move on from.

We are all in one or more of these cycles at the moment - for some there is joy of birth, for others the pain of death.

Some will be crying, others laughing.

Some in good relationships, some in bad.

Some speaking, some being silent and so on.

Why? Lovely as it is, there is a grinding relentlessness and frustrating helplessness about this poem as you read it.

Time acts upon us as it chooses and we have no say.

In keeping with chapters 1 and 2, the point of the poem is that all these facets of life are just examples of the fact that all times are fixed by God.

Every event will occur at its God-determined time, and no different.

And this time will always be the appropriate time, from God’s viewpoint.

Only God knows how events interact and have their meaning.

But from our viewpoint life often unfolds in an unpredictable way, because these events are always beyond human control.

And so we find ourselves locked in a time cage, with no way to break free of time */(shake cage)/*.

God’s control of time imposes itself upon us.

We can do all sorts of things inside our cage.

But there is no such thing as luck, or chance, or fate, or karma, or whatever you want to call it.

Every event is in God’s hand and under His sovereign control.

And so we sing ‘my times are in your hands.’

John Calvin, when he was near death, reportedly said, ‘You bruise me Lord.

It is enough that it comes from your hand.’

Elsewhere in the Bible picks up the same thought.

In Is 45:7 God says ‘I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things.’

And even though we are responsible for our actions, God is sovereign.

The classic case is the story of Joseph.

His brothers sell him into slavery in Egypt, but he rises to be governor of Egypt, and many years later his brothers meet him there unknowingly.

And Joseph reveals himself to them.

So in Gen 45:4, Joseph says to his brothers, "I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt!”

They are responsible for their actions.

But Joseph adds in v7, “But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.

So then, v8 "it was not you who sent me here, but God.

He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt.”

In the very same act where the brothers are responsible for acting wickedly, God was bringing to pass His purposes.

Everything that happens in our cage is at God’s control not ours.

Hence, point 4, the futility of toil

 

*4.

THE CONCLUSION (v9) - THERE IS NO ADEQUATE RETURN IN TOIL *

The teacher puts his conclusion, to all that he has seen - v9 - READ.