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A Time for Everything (Ecclesiastes 3:1-11)
Steve Fenton, 22 May 2011
Part of the Hard Questions- Spiritual Answers series, Sunday Morning service
Time is very precious and yet so often we find ourselves asking, “Where has the time gone?” Time slips through our fingers and once we have spent it we cannot get it back again. Ecclesiastes 3 captures the range of human experience with fourteen contrasting couplets, and confidently states, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity . . . ” It is vital that we do not wait until the prospect of time running out before we recognise what really matters to us and, very closely associated, what really matters to God.
| Earlier: | Same day: | Later: |
|---|---|---|
| « The Search for Contentment | None | Filled with the Holy Spirit » |
Ecclesiastes 3:1–11 (Listen)
3:1 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
2 a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
3 a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7 a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
9 What gain has the worker from his toil? 10 I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 11 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.
(ESV)