Turn with me, if you would, to
Ecclesiastes chapter 3. Ecclesiastes 3, and let's begin
with a word of prayer. Our most gracious Heavenly Father,
Lord, we are so thankful for another day of life. Lord, you're
so good and so kind to us. We take a normal day, an uneventful
day, for granted. We take every breath of air for
granted. We most certainly, unfortunately,
take the gospel for granted. But Lord, we are thankful to
you that you are faithful and you have kept us and your promise
is to keep us for all eternity. So we give you thanks, Lord,
for all of your kindness and goodness to us. Lord, thank you
for laying hold on us and bringing us here together around your
word. If you did not do this, we would
not come. This flesh is so weak. And so,
Lord, we say thanks. If it be thy will, Lord, would
you prepare us for this morning worship and this evening? Lord,
would you allow us to be quickened, allow this poor, weak flesh to
be quickened by your spirit? And Lord, would you cause us
to leave this world, the cares of this world and the things
that do not matter? the silly things. Lord, would
you let us leave them for just a minute and would you allow
us to enter into your presence and sit at your feet and enter
into your word. Lord, would you please come into
this place and meet with us. Bless us by your spirit we pray.
Lord, we are so thankful that you've given us children. We
understand that all life comes from you. You can give and you
can withhold and you have blessed this congregation with children.
These children are all of our children. Gifts from you, gifts
to this ministry. And Lord, we pray if it be thy
will, you would open their eyes at a young age. Lord, would you
bless their hearts with Christ and the gospel. Cause them to
bear the yoke in their youth. Lord, would you plant a seed
in them, in us, make it to grow, we pray. Please be merciful,
Lord, to this town and every town that you've raised your
truth up. Lord, be with the pastor and be with the brethren there.
Lead us and guide us and keep your hand on us, Lord. Would
you please cause us to know thy will in all things. Forgive us
for all of our sin, Lord, we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Ecclesiastes chapter 3, last
week we saw where Solomon wrote that there is a time to every
purpose under heaven. That is what he said in verse
1. A time to everything, there is a season and there is a time
to every purpose under heaven, physically and spiritually. In the verses that he mentions
these times, down through verse 8, that applies to us physically
and spiritually, both physically and spiritually. Verse 2, he
said, there's a time to be born. God gave us life. And thank God
there came a point when he, like he told Nicodemus, you must be
born again. came a point where he caused
us to be born of his spirit. But reading down through here,
verse 2, a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant
and a time to pluck up that which 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 get and a time to lose. A time to keep and a time to
cast away. A time to rend 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 of war and a time of peace. Everything is in God's
time. Every single thing is in God's
time. Realizing that, if we could really
enter into that, we are so impatient, aren't we?
We all want patience and we want it now and we're just so impatient,
but realizing that everything happens in God's time. We're gonna pick up with verse
nine this morning and this is what I want us to, this is what
I pray the Lord would cause us to understand. This is what I
pray the Lord would cause me to understand. What we're about
to read, this really hit me this week. What we are about to read
is a secret to happiness in this life. It's a real secret to happiness
in this life. If God will truly open our eyes
to this, open our hearts and our minds to what he's saying
here, we could find this word of truth to be life-changing. I believe life-changing. It's
a secret to happiness. The flesh naturally sees the
glass as half empty. Always. Always first. First thing is half empty. Isn't
it? Isn't that how we view it? Oh
man. If God will open our eyes though,
he'll cause us to see that it's always full. That glass is two-thirds
full. Nope. All full. Always full. Now verse 9 right here says,
prophet hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboreth,
knowing that everything on and in this world is vanity." That's
what he's been saying this whole time leading up. It's all empty. It's all empty. What he's saying
is, is there any point to it? Knowing that it's all empty,
is there any point to it at all? Is there any profit that comes
from all of this seeming emptiness? Last week, or two weeks ago,
we saw where he said, I got to where I hated life. Just sick
and tired. Is there any point to all of
this turmoil? That's all it is, is turmoil.
Right after turmoil, oh man, thank goodness we got through
that turmoil. And then here comes turmoil and
struggle and pain. Is there any point? Is there
any point to any of it? Verse 10, I have seen the travail. which God hath given to the sons
of men to be exercised in it." He said it's all travail and
it is. He said God gave it and He did. And He said He gave it to the
sons of men to be exercised. in it. Now I'm sure that everyone
in here at some point has experienced exercise. Nobody naturally wants to get
up off the couch and exercise. Nobody. Nobody. There comes that point though
where you finally say, that's it, I'm rotting. I'm just sitting
here rotting. I have to go exercise. I just
have to get up and exercise. Well, listen to what Solomon
is saying right here. All of our days on this earth,
all of our time here, every step of every day is for the purpose
of exercising the child of God. That's what he's saying. Every
single bit of it is for the purpose of exercising the child of God. Our God never, ever intended
for this world to be our rest. I'm going to say that one again. Our God, since before the foundation
of the world, in all of His purpose that He established long before
any of us were ever here, He never, ever intended for this
world to be our rest." Never. Never. Nowhere in his word did he appoint
us to take our ease in this world like we all want to do. How many
more years you got until retirement? Oh man, it's going to be great. I have asked three or four people,
how's retirement? They say, I work harder now than
I did when I had a job. Everybody knows you don't have
a job, so everybody calls you. Why don't you come help me do
this? Nowhere did he say to take our
ease in this world. Nowhere. Turn with me over to
1 Peter chapter 5. First Peter 5, verse 6, humble
yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God that he may
exalt you in due time. Everything has a time. That's
what Solomon is saying. Everything has a time. And David
kept saying, wait on the Lord, didn't he? Wait on the Lord. It's going to happen in his time.
Verse 7 says, casting all your care upon him, for he careth
for you. Be sober, be vigilant, because
your adversary the devil as a roaring lion walketh about, seeking whom
he may devour, whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the
same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in
the world. But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto
his eternal glory by Christ Jesus after that you have suffered
a while. After that he'll make you perfect
and he'll establish you and he'll strengthen you and he'll settle
you. To him be glory and dominion
forever and ever. Amen. After you suffer. He said the time will come for
him to do all of that for us after we suffer a while. After
we suffer a while. God has given this exercise of
suffering on purpose. On purpose. And here's the purpose.
To make us tired. He exercises us to make us tired. Tired of this world. If He did
not exercise us, we would never become tired of this world. Are you at all tired of this
world? Tired of the sin? Tired of the
problems? Tired of the headaches? Just tired. He makes us tired
of this world. He makes us ready for glory. He makes us ready for true rest
in Christ. That's the whole reason for the
exercise. You're going to get out there
and you're going to exercise. After you suffer a while, He's going
to make us willing in the day of His power. I'm ready. I want
it. I'm tired, and I'm ready for
some rest in Christ. And I'm going to tell you this,
everything he's doing is working. He knows what he's doing, and
it's working. Go with me back over to Ecclesiastes
3. Verse 9 says, What profit hath he that worketh
in that wherein he laboreth? I have seen the travail which
God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it. He hath made everything beautiful
in his time. He hath made everything beautiful
in his time. We need We really honestly need
to see and believe that at any given moment in time, this life
is a roller coaster. You're up, you're down, you're
just holding in the middle. At any given moment in time,
not only is the glass half full, It's not half full, it's all
full. But not only is it full, it's running over at any given
moment in time. He hath made everything beautiful,
whatever the situation is. And I mean, you know, think back
in your mind. You don't have to go very far
in this Rolodex here to find a bad situation. Whatever the situation is, I
mean literally, not except for that, I mean whatever the situation
is, not only do we need to bow to it, we know we need to bow
to it, don't we? But not only do we need to bow to it, we can
take that a step further and actually be happy in the beauty
of it. The way that I see it is not
the way it is. That's not the way it is. This
flesh right here is seeing it half empty. That's not the way
it is. That is not the way it is. It
is actually running over. For God's people, David, I love
how he said, runneth. That means it hadn't stopped
yet. runneth, it's running over always. What I right now see
to be the most horrible thing that has ever happened, if I
belong to Christ, if I belong to Christ, I will, in His time,
see it as one of the most beautiful things God ever did. I will. Every single That's the truth,
every single time. Go with me over to Genesis chapter
50. Genesis chapter 50, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, those
three men, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob had a son that he
loved so dearly he made him a coat of many colors, Joseph. He loved
that boy. And Joseph's brothers were so
jealous of him so they sold him. They sold him. Could you imagine
being sold? Never able to go home again in
your eyes. And I guess Joseph didn't. Sold. And he ended up in prison in
Egypt. Now here he is sitting in prison
in Egypt. He was in his father's house
whom he loved. His father loved him. Now he's
been sold. He's sitting in a prison in Egypt.
Can you imagine what is going through that mortal man's mind?
What's happening to me? What happened to me? It was all so good and now it's
all, what happened? What did happen to him? God made him a prince in Egypt. He put him in charge of all of
the storehouses. And a famine came. And all of
his family, his dad, his name is Israel. And all of his brethren
were all starving. And the only thing that saved
their lives, the only thing that saved his beloved father's life
was the fact that God had given him the keys to all of the food. Every bit of it. Verse 15 right
here in Genesis 50 says, And when Joseph's brethren saw that
their father was dead, They said, Joseph will peradventure hate
us and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did
unto him. And they sent a messenger unto
Joseph saying, thy father did command before he died saying,
so shall you say unto Joseph, forgive I pray thee now the trespass
of thy brethren and their sin for they did unto thee evil.
And now we pray thee, forgive the trespass of thy servants
of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake
unto him. And his brethren also went and
fell down before his face. And they said, behold, we be
thy servants. And Joseph said unto them, fear
not, for am I in the place of God. But as for you, you thought
evil against me, but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass,
as it is this day, to save much people alive. Now therefore,
fear ye not, I will nourish you and your little ones. And he
comforted them and spake kindly unto them. That is what you call
beautiful. That's just beautiful. That is
beautiful. I'll give you one better than
that. What this story right here represents. God's son nailed to a cross. All of the apostles, all of the
disciples that were on the earth back in that day, they saw the
most horrifying scene the world has ever known. The most horrifying scene. The Lamb of God slain. A sacrifice whose visage was
marred more than any man. It was absolutely horrible to
look at. at that time, up until that time,
and even hereafter. It's the ugliest thing sin has
ever caused. How do we see it now? How do we see it now? It is literally
the most beautiful thing God ever did. It's the most beautiful
thing God ever did. It's the sweetest. It's the most
merciful. You think they were saying that
at that moment in time? When he was standing there before
Pilate and they heard the sentence? When they saw the nails go into
his hands? When they heard him cry, my God,
my God, why have thou forsaken me? You think that's what they
were saying? Oh, this is so sweet. So merciful. But how did they
all see it afterward? Boy, they went out in Pentecost.
Peter stood up and he said, men and brethren, you crucified
the Lord of glory, but God purposed for it to be done. They all fell to their knees
crying, men and brethren, what shall we do? All those apostles,
Peter looked over at James and said, this is beautiful. This
is just beautiful. Everything in his time is beautiful. Everything. Every single thing. Go with me back to Ecclesiastes
3. Ecclesiastes 3 verse 11 says,
he hath made everything beautiful in his time. Also, he hath set
the world in their heart so that no man can find out the work
that God maketh from the beginning to the end. What he's saying
is even though we can't see it, it's beautiful. Verse 12, he
said, I know that there is no good in them, meaning the things
of this world. He's been saying it's all vanity.
It's all vanity. Every bit of it is vanity. I
know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice
and to do good in his life. What he's saying is the thing
may not be good, but the purpose that it's accomplishing is worth
rejoicing over. It is worth being physically
happy over. He's saying we have every reason
to be happy with our lot in life. Every reason to be happy. When
somebody says, how's it going? When somebody comes up and they
say, hey, how's it going? We have every reason to say,
great. Because it is. To want something different.
Now, I'm not going to preach to you guys for the next eight
seconds. I'm preaching to me alone. To
want something different is to want something worse. To want something different is
to want something worse. It can't get any worse. You kidding
me? My life can't get any worse. Well, I'll tell you how it could
be worse. We could all be rich and increased with goods and
have no need of Jesus Christ, no care at all for the things
of God. We could have everything our
hearts could want to purchase. We could own all the land around
the lake, beach house. We could just be doing great.
No heart for Christ. No heart for Christ. Just comfortably
running straight into hell. That's what men and women are
doing. They're just so comfortably, just so blissfully running straight
into hell. Somebody might say, you know,
I'm about to lose my house. Yeah, but you're not going to
lose your soul. No way. The Apostle Paul said, I have
learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. I would
love to learn that. Man, I'd love to learn that.
I have learned in whatsoever, you realize what all Paul went
through? Here he is treading water in the middle of the ocean
at night, content. Maybe he wasn't at that moment.
Maybe that's what taught him. You know, this is, what I'm in
right now is a whole lot better than treading water in the middle
of the ocean at night. I'll be happy with this. Prison, that's
a whole lot better than stranded in the ocean. The Lord could teach us the same
thing He taught Paul, couldn't He? He could teach us the exact
same thing. Verse 12 says, I know that there's no good in them,
but for a man to rejoice and to do good in his life. Everything that God gives us,
we need to put it to good use. All of these empty things, that's
the only reason He gives us anything. It's all for the use and the
service and the ministry of each other. Every bit of it. There's
a dear brother from another state. Boy, I love him so much. But he's always buying everything. If you go out to dinner with
him, he's going to get the check. If he hears you want something,
he's going to show up at your door with it. And everybody's
always saying, and I always said so many times, why, why, why?
You know, he jumps up, I got to go to the bathroom. Next thing
you know, the bill has been paid. Why did you do that? He always
said, it's all coming from the same pot. That's what he said
every time. It's all coming from the same
pot. He's right. He's right. God does not give
us the things of this empty world, these empty things, for the purpose
of us just stockpiling them. He doesn't do that. This is what
Matthew Henry said, a commentator from the 1700s. He said, we mistake
if we think we were born for ourselves. And that's the mistake
every human being makes. Born for me. Look out for number
one. God has us here for each other.
Now with that being said, verse 13, and also that every man should
eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor, it is the gift
of God. Knowing that it's all from him,
we can enjoy his goodness to us. We can enjoy all of his goodness. We can eat and drink and do all
that we do to the glory of God. And we give him thanks. It's
his gift to us. Verse 14 says, I know that whatsoever God doeth,
it shall be forever. Nothing can be put to it, nor
anything taken from it. And God doeth it that men should
fear before him. He said what God does is forever. It cannot be changed. It cannot
be altered. It cannot be. So the only way
to peacefully view everything is, thy will be done. Thy will
be done. There are things in this life
that we want to see happen. And there are things in this
life that we don't want to see happen. The truth of the matter is God's
will and purpose is going to be done. His will and purpose
is going to be done. That's what he's saying in verse
15. That which hath been is now. What God does is forever. It's
forever. He doesn't change. Verse 15,
And that which is to be hath already been. Everything that
is going to happen has already been purposed. Everything. It's already been purposed. If
God purposed it, it's done. If He said it, it's done. Verse
15, and God requireth that which is past. Everything he purposes
has to come to pass. It has to come to pass. So peace
and happiness says, thy will be done. Thy will be done. Now, we're going to close out
back up in verse 14. He said, I know that whatsoever
God doeth, it shall be forever. Here's our comfort in that. Here's
our comfort in that. Every instance in our life, every
single instance in our life, everything that comes along in
our life, no matter what today holds, tomorrow holds, every
single thing, if we could see what God sees, and if we could
know what God knows, we would understand that verse 14 says,
nothing could be put to it. Nothing. In every instance of
our life, there is not one deficiency in it. You know, we want to take action,
we want to help out. I think, you know, Everything
that comes along, there's not one insufficiency in it. There's nothing missing that
needs to be there. It's perfect. It's perfect. Verse 14 says, Nothing can be
put to it, nor anything taken from it. There's nothing unnecessary
about it, and there's no part of it that has to be undone. There's nothing missing. There's
nothing there that shouldn't be there. It's perfect. It's
absolutely perfect. He goes on to say, and God doeth
it that men should fear before Him. Every single thing that
happens is for the salvation of a soul. Every single thing
that happens is for the salvation of a soul. It's for the furtherance
of this gospel. It's for the salvation of the
soul. The only reason that God made the earth and put man on it and allowed
man to fall into sin was for the purpose of saving man. That
was the whole purpose in it. And the only reason that Christ
came to this earth and died on that cross was for the purpose
of saving man. That was the purpose in it. And
the only reason Christ has not returned is because every soul
that he saved has not yet been called out. That's the only reason
he has not returned. So as we see these things that
we consider to be strange things, just why? Why? If we want to find real peace
in it, I mean real happiness in it, all we need to do is just
dwell on the reason for it. There is a reason for it. We
might see one of our loved ones. I was thinking about, there's
a, we have some loved ones, well, Dale Simpson. Man, I love him
so much. Amy, his daughter, both of them
are in so much pain and suffering with cancer and chemo treatments
right now. There are other loved ones just
from all over that I hear about or I've talked to, and they're
going through such trial and such sickness. And I'm going
to tell you, my heart hurts for them. I mean, it hurts for them. I don't take pleasure in a loved
one's sickness, not at all. With each one, what if we understood,
what if we truly understood that they could not be saved without
it? What if we understood that that
was God's predestination for them to Christ? How would we
view it then? If we knew that, if we could
see that, not without this, because of, and because of, and because
of. If we knew that, we'd say, or if we knew that that was for
the salvation of somebody else. We would look at it and say,
that's beautiful. Painful, but it's beautiful. It is truly beautiful. I pray the Lord would let us
see that. Everything is beautiful in His time. Okay, you're dismissed.