All right, let's take our Bibles
and turn now to the book of Ecclesiastes. Alms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes chapter three. The Spirit of God having taught
not only Solomon, we've been looking at this book. But having taught all the sheep
of God, the emptiness and the vanity and the vexation of spirit,
which is the result of trying to seek satisfaction in this
life through all the temporal pleasures. Last time we looked
at Solomon trying to find satisfaction in just laughter and mirth. He said, I'm just going to enjoy
life and just have a perpetual vacation, is what he was saying.
He said, it's just empty, it's just empty. But now he's going
to instruct us today concerning the Lord's pleasure to, according
to his providential mercy, to save his people. teaches people,
and to keep his people. Now we'll always profit, I'm
gonna look at the first three verses of this third chapter,
and we'll always profit if we remember the words of the Lord
Jesus Christ to the two on the road to Emmaus. I bring this
up so much, but we need to remember, remember, remember. Beginning
at Moses, And in all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all
the scriptures those things concerning himself. We always have to ask
ourselves in any passage of scripture, where is the Lamb? Where's the
Lamb? Show me Christ in this. If I
don't see Christ in this, I didn't see the truth of it. Show me
the Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ is always
found within the Word of God. So the verse is today with the
words of our Lord in mind, let us behold what the Spirit of
God who has been sent by the Father. That's the words of our
Lord. He said, I'll pray the Father. He'll send you another
comforter. He was getting ready to ascend
back into glory. He said, I'm gonna pray the Father.
He's gonna send you another comforter. And he's gonna teach you. He's
gonna bring back to your memory all the things that I've told
you. So here's what we want. We want the Spirit of God to
teach us something. We're just gonna look at these
three verses. Verse one, to everything there is a season and a time
to every purpose under the heaven. Now, the Spirit of God is going
to set forth that which is, first of all, naturally speaking. Now, this book was written by
Solomon, too. Solomon wrote the book of Proverbs,
wrote the book of Song of Solomon. It's these books of wisdom. And
again, as I said a few minutes ago, there's always a natural
meaning to everything. There's a season, a time, and
everything And everybody in this world is
living under the providential government of the Lord. I told you before, you heard
him say it before I did. Who's running this show anyway?
Who's in control? The Lord. Worketh all things
after the pleasure of His own will. But everybody in this world
is enjoying the benefits of the Lord toward his people, in particular. But everybody enjoys it. Everybody's
enjoying the sun today, and everybody's enjoying that breath of air that
you just took. That's God's air. He made it, he created it. So
everything that is happening, to everything, there's a season,
time, to every purpose. What that means is this. It says
everything there is a season. That means an appointment. There's an appointment. To everything
there's a season, there's an appointment. But then it says,
and a time to every purpose under the heaven. That means there's
an appointment, but there's a time for that appointment to be openly
revealed. There's an appointment. It's
the things that have been appointed. There's a set appointment, a
set time for the actual occurrence of that which has been appointed. I noticed, believe me, I wasn't
an avid English major. If I've got a question in English
or something, I'm gonna call the teacher. That's what I did
to Nancy. There's some things I just don't understand when
it comes to English, and punctuation is one of them. I do, I just,
you know, but I noticed something here. To everything there is
a season, a time, to every purpose under heaven, colon, colon. Now, I'm honest with you right
here. I had to look up and find out exactly what does a colon
mean. Here's what it means. Used to
introduce a list of items. We're getting ready to look at
verses two and three in just a minute. And I'll just say this
while I'm on it so you'll understand. Notice where it says in verse
two, a time to be born and a time to die, semicolon. A time to
plant, comma, a time to pluck up that which is planted, semicolon. Okay, again, I'm saying this
to make a point in what I'm about to preach. A semicolon joins
related independent clauses. It says things and it's joining
them together, what they're saying. So Solomon is being moved by
the Spirit of God. He's going to make, introduce
a list of spiritual items to God's people. And then he's going
to set forth, or begin to set forth, and we'll look at verse
two and three. In these items, that are joined
together and they're related, they're related items and they're
all joined together. So that's what I want to do.
I want us to look, now there's a season, there's an appointment,
and there's a time for that appointment to be brought into being. I was
thinking this morning about a conductor of a orchestra. Those of you
that really understand music, I don't. I don't read music.
I don't understand it. I hear something. I'll try to
sing it, but I cannot read music. I don't know. But I think of
watching a conductor. And he's standing up there, and
he's got this music. And here's the orchestra out
there. And he begins. The architect begins the presentation,
and he's leading and guiding. And do you know everything that
they're going to play is right there in front of him? He might
have to turn the page or two to get to it, but there is a
set, there's a season for every note that's going to be played.
But he's leading this orchestra, and when it's time for the kettledrum
to play, bam, there it was. It was there. The time was set. It was in the music. But then
there was a time to play it, and the conductor brings it about. Our Lord is bringing about. all
of the things that He has everlastingly purposed. He set them. They're set. Everything is going
to happen. All the occurrences in this life
are ordered. They're set. Not by man's wisdom,
not by man's power, but rather eternally purposed by Almighty
God for His glory and for the good salvation of his people. He got a people. That's what
scripture, that's what you just read, Dick. You just read Ephesians
chapter one. That talks about that God has
chosen a people in Christ before the foundation of the world that
they should be holy and without blame before him in love. And
we're gonna look at what happens concerning those people. The
Lord's gonna bring about all that the Father giveth me. John
Paul said, I see in me that is in my flesh there dwelleth no
good thing. So sin, sin is in us. It remains with us. It's like
an outlaw. And it's ever ready to oppress
us. It's like a tyrant. It doesn't have dominion over
us. That's what scripture says. Sin shall not have dominion over
it. Like it doesn't rule you as a king. Listen, the sin of
God's people is pardoned, paid for, put away by the blood of
Christ. And therefore, we don't fear
condemnation about it. We're alive under Christ. We've
got the realization of God's mercy toward us. And we now possess
a heart that desires to shun, to kill that association with
sin while we still continue to struggle with it. No believer
likes to see what he is in himself. We're all like that. We're all,
you know, all which were in regenerating grace born again. They also died
too, died to sin and their attitude toward it. Do they still sin? Yeah, yeah, they sin, yeah. If we say we have no sin, we
make God a liar. We're sinners, we're sinners.
But do we love it? Nope, nope. We hate what we are. That's what Paul said. Oh, wretched
man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this dead?
But listen also, time to be born, time to die, a time to plant,
and a time to pluck up that which is planted. Now, I understand
planting. You know, if you have a garden,
you understand that. You understand what that's talking
about? Well, let's talk about the seasons. Well, that's good,
but what's that got to do with the glory of God in Christ and
regenerating grace? All that were according to the
good pleasure of God born of the Lord, died unto sin, they
were planted. That word planted, it actually
means established. I thought about this passage
of scripture, Colossians 2, 7. Rooted, built up in Him, established
in the faith. Joined to the Lord and receiving
all of our spiritual nourishment. plant something in the ground,
those roots, receives all the nourishment from the ground. We receive all of our spiritual
nourishment from him. How? Right here, right here.
Tell me what he has to say. This is where I'm going to learn.
This is what I'm going to be taught. So while the scripture
says there's a time to plant, and there's also a time to pluck
up, Well, I do know that there's gonna come a time in the last
days when the Lord shall take us out of this world. That's
absolutely true, but I wanna consider this one thing before
I go to this last verse, verse three. Being planted in Him at
the same time, same time, there's a realization of being plucked
up. What? Well, from the bondage
and the guilt and dominion of sin as brands, the scripture
says, plucked up out of the burning of God's justice and wrath and
to be raised again in that last day. So we look at this as a
time to be born spiritually, a time also that we die, die
under sin and our attitude toward it, as a time to plant being
established and rooted in the gospel and regenerating grace,
and a time of realization, being plucked out of the very worthiness
of dying before Him, plucked away, saved. This last verse
right here, a time to kill, a time to heal, a time to break down,
and a time to build up. Well, having been shown the mercy
and compassion of God, now we realize the truth about a time
to kill. The Spirit of God has taught
us something of our struggle with sin. We know that. Remember
I was talking about the semicolons a while ago? All these are tied,
they're just tied together. This is the life of a believer. This is what happened. This is
what they're going through. This is what the Spirit of God's
revealed to us. He's taught us something, being born, dying
to sin, of also our struggle with sin, to kill it, the time
to kill it. 524, they that are Christ's have
crucified the flesh with the affections and lust. Those who've
been called unto life in Christ, those who possess a new heart
and a spirit toward him, there's an ongoing battle going on. And their desire is to crucify,
is to kill their flesh. That's what they want. You're
gonna go through the rest of this life struggling with it,
I can tell you right now. But their heart is to crucify,
that's what it, your Christ crucified the flesh with it. We don't have
the compassion for it that we always, first of all, was born
with and that was the only thing we ever thought, now we war against
it. But here's what, their life now,
is in Christ. And it's a time that they realize
something. We've been healed, spiritually
healed by his stripes through the application of his precious
blood. And now our life, we're in a
war. There's a battle, there's a battle
going on. And this battle is gonna be with
us until the Lord takes us out of this life. Hosea, last scripture,
Hosea, let me just read this to you, Hosea 10, 12. Sow to
yourselves in righteousness. Reap in mercy. Break up your
fallow ground. You know what, those of you who
know a little bit about gardening, go in there with a plow and just
break up, break up, break up, till it up, till it up, break
it up. Break up your fallow ground, it's time to seek the Lord. till
he come and reign righteousness upon you. Born from above, having
died to the power, the power of sin, dominion. Right now,
by faith, when scripture says, sow to yourselves, yield yourselves,
yield yourselves unto righteousness himself. Because of the grace
and mercy that he's shown us and that's what a believer wants.
Sow to yourself, break up that fallow ground, which none of
us can do that, but by faith, we know this, that the Lord alone
who can break up that fallow ground, planting of the seed
of his precious spirit. Now we realize our newness, our
oneness in him. We're like the prodigal son. Took his money, told his daddy,
give me what's coming to me, I'm outta here. Wasted it all
in righteous living. He was faint of eating the husk
that he was feeding to the hogs. Came to himself. I'm going back home, I'm going
home. This is what happens when God breaks up that foul ground. I can't do that. You can't do
that. Only the Lord. It's the Lord that worketh in
you. Both the will and do of his good pleasure. Lord, do that
to me. Lord, have mercy on me. Have
mercy on these people for Christ's sake. Amen. Okay, Gary.