A Time For Everything

In some ways, this is the most important possession I own. It is not my wallet. It is a personal digital assistant, a PDA, it's my palm pilot. And in some ways it is the most important thing I own. In some ways, in many respects, this stands between me and chaos. As it has in here, my daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly calendar. So I know everything that's supposed to happen. It doesn't always work out that way, but I know everything that's supposed to happen. In fact, it's already filled in through 2013. So for that reason, if you ask me for a wedding next June, you come to me and say, will you marry me? I'll look at this and say, no, I'm already married. That's really, I can figure out whether or not that's a good date or not. I know when I've got missionary scheduled or when I meet with pastors or deacons or committees or when I've accepted a speaking engagement somewhere else or any number of other things that may take place when a staff member has a birthday or I have a doctor's appointment or wherever it may be. It's in here. So that kind of helps organize things. It also has in this little digital device, it also has a daily task list for the next week. Every Friday, I fill that in for the next week. And so I know exactly when I'm going to be studying for this sermon on Sunday morning or Sunday night or Wednesday night or when I'll plan for a meeting or when I'll work on a project or when I'll answer phone calls or emails or any number of other things that may need to be done. It stands between me and chaos. Without this, I would wake up every morning with a lot of freedom saying, wonder what I'd like to do today? But that kind of freedom is not good. In a sense, this limits my freedom. I can't wake up every day saying, well, wonder what I would like to do today. I wake up every morning saying, what have I committed myself to do today to accomplish what needs to be done this week and this month and this year? I've already committed myself to. Now, obviously, there are things that will trump the plan that's been laid out here. Family needs, emergencies or crises in the church. People needs, if someone comes to me with a need that always trumps what's written in here, that'll get done some other time. Or sometimes just the prompting of the spirit to do something different than what's planned or written down. That has a way of changing those things. But to a great degree, this plan governs my day and organizes my life. So it limits my freedom to a great degree. But that limitation to my freedom is actually a tremendous benefit and a great blessing to me because it assures me that I will not waste time. It assures me that I will not spend half the morning trying to figure out what I'm going to preach next Sunday or how to go about getting ready for it. I know exactly where I'm headed. It assures me that at least for my life that I will invest my time and be productive in the use of that time. And I will be able to do, at least for me, it helps me to fulfill what Paul said in DeFesions chapter 5 when he said, be very careful then how you live, not as unwise but as wise, buying up every opportunity or redeeming the time, whereas the in-avis says, making the most of every opportunity. For me, it helps me fulfill the prayer of Moses in Psalm 90 and verse 12 when he said, so Lord teach me to number my days that I may apply my hearts unto wisdom. Now I'm not preaching on time management this morning. That's not the purpose. But I'm using a simple illustration of what Solomon is going to talk about for the next three chapters because on a broader scale, Solomon will talk about the tension between God's plan and our freedom. Does God's plan, what he has already planned for today and next week and next year, which is certain to happen, by the way, in God's plan? Does that limit our freedom? Does that make us, where we are not responsible to choose? Or does God's plan incorporate and include that freedom? What Solomon will talk about in the next three chapters is God's overall plan for every event of life. We call it God's sovereign plan. The fact that he is on his throne in control and he determines what will be done. And the freedom we have within that plan and how we should respond to that, that's what Solomon, that tension is what Solomon is going to deal with in the next three chapters. So it is very real. That tension between what is planned and whether or not we have freedom to act within that plan. That's what he is going to talk about. Now, here's how it fits in the whole message of ecclesiastes. We have found that in the book of ecclesiastes, what Solomon is dealing with is how to find real purpose, meaning and fulfillment in life, yes, even enjoyment in life. And we've seen in the first two chapters that Solomon basically raises this question. How do you go about finding real purpose and meaning in life? Nobody gives several ways that people attempt to do that. All of them leading to dead ends. And then he closes chapter two by describing what it means to know that things are right with God, to begin with the perspective of a relationship with God, which then allows you to find not only forgiveness of sin and eternity in heaven, but also real purpose and meaning in the life that we have here and even the proper enjoyment of this life because the other pieces of the puzzle begin to fit together. Now it's a very normal human response once the white bulb goes on and you realize that, once you realize, okay, the true meaning and purpose in life begins with a relationship with God. So I've established that. I know Christ is my savior. I have a relationship with God. So now everything is going to be great, isn't it? All my problems will vanish. All the pieces will easily fit together. And life will be just one smooth ride of enjoyment, right? Wrong. There are multitudes of things that hit us square in the face and seem to go counter to what we have just learned. That true meaning and purpose in life is found in a relationship with God, or at least that's where it begins. And everything fits together because of that. But there are lots of things that will happen in your life that are just unexplainable, that are bad, that are tragic, that are heartbreaking. And if we do not understand what Solomon is going to say in the next three chapters, we will become disillusioned about life and bitter against God because there will be things that will happen that will frustrate us and cause us to wonder if there really is any purpose or meaning in life even when we know the Lord. And so Solomon is going to deal with that. In these three chapters, and you can see on the back of your sermon outline this morning, again the outline of the book of Ecclesiastes, and I put it there for you to kind of reset, make sure we understand the flow of thought, Solomon is dealing with God's plan for life in these three chapters. He will introduce the reality of that plan and the verses will look at this morning, then how we should respond to that plan, how we move within that plan, and then he will introduce us to eight challenges, at least from our perspective what would appear to be challenges to the idea that God is in control. What about the injustices of life? What about death? What about oppression? What about isolation or fleeting popularity or any number of other things that Solomon will address that seem to go counter to the idea that God is in control or that God has a good plan for my life? What about those things? He'll deal with them very honestly and then draw a conclusion at the end of chapter five about, okay here, let's reset. Here's how we find purpose and meaning in life in spite of all the difficult things that happen. But we've got to begin with the bedrock foundation, the assurance of the fact that God is in control, that God does have a plan and purpose for life. So that's what Solomon introduces us to in the first eight verses. There is a purpose and a plan to life. What Solomon does in these verses is to give us 14 contrasts to demonstrate the reality of God's plan. Now notice if you will, verse one, he introduces it this way. He says there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens. Down in verse 11 he will make it clear that he's talking about God who is in control of this time and season. Verse 11 says, he, God, has made everything beautiful in its time. He also has said eternity in the human heart, yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. In other words, you can't understand everything that God does. And this broad, wide-ranging purpose and plan of his, you'll never fathom at all. You'll never understand every part of it. But God does have a plan. And Solomon says in verse 1 there is a time for everything. The word time literally means a pointed time. It focuses upon that plan of God, that purpose of God. It is God who appoints things in life. Who has a purpose and a plan, there is an appointed time for everything. And then he goes on to say there is a season, different word, different time kind of word. This word literally means a suitable or appropriate time. That's why the NIV is translated as season. There is an appropriate season for every activity under the heavens. And so what Solomon is saying basically is that the events and the duration of those events are both under the control of God. Everything, every activity within the purpose and plan of God. That's how big God is. Okay, now what Solomon does then is to give us 14 contracts to demonstrate that reality of God's plan. And we've got to get this. We've got to understand this basic foundation. If you do not believe in the purpose and plan of God, if you do not believe that God is in control of what happens in life, then life will at some point leave you disillusioned, totally confused and bitter against God. And there are a lot of people that live their lives with those lingering feelings and emotions and attitudes. Everything in this life, everything, every activity has a time and a season for it in the plan of God. He is able to work all those things together to use Paul's expression in Romans 8 to work all those things together for good. That's not that everything that happens in life is good. There are a lot of bad things that happen. There are a lot of hard, tragic, heartbreaking things that happen in life. But God is able to work all things together to produce His good. Remember, not what makes me feel good, but His good, which is basically the likeness of Christ to be more like Him. God uses everything in our lives to mold and shape us to be more like His Sunderlor Jesus. And that's what Solomon is going to talk about. Now quickly, we're going to look at the contrasts in God's plan. As quickly as we can, I promise you this is not a 14-point sermon, but we're going to look at 14 contrasts here that Solomon gives us to demonstrate and illustrate this over-arching plan of God. Now he does it in a beautiful Hebrew way. This is good Hebrew poetry. And it's poetry that we still love today because this is part of the part of Ecclesiastes you're probably most familiar with. You see it on birthday cards, especially as you get older. There's a time for everything. It's my little face up to it. It's coming. You see this on birthday cards. You see it in different ways, in different places. These expressions, a time for peace, a time for war, time to kill. Remember John Grisham's book in the movie? There are a lot of people drawing from this passage. It's beautiful poetry, but it's designed in a form of couplets. It's what Hebrews would call a merism, which basically is you give the two extremes and the two extremes are intended to communicate everything in between. And so for instance, when he starts out by saying there's a time to be born and a time to die, he's talking about all of life. All of life. That's a Hebrew poetic way of referring to all of life, time to die, time to born, and time to be born, time to die, and everything that happens in between is all in the plan and purpose of God. Let's look at these contrasts. Verse two, and there are seven groups of them, obviously. Verse two has to do with life's momentous events. The contrast in God's plan in life's momentous events. Solomon says there's a time to be born and a time to die. God points our birthday and the day of our death. Both are uncertain to us. And all of us can tell stories about the birthdays, right? The doctor told you little Johnny would come on such and such a day. Did it happen? Probably not. He came in God's time when God intended for him or her to come. And we could all tell stories about that. The old people used to say when the apples ripe, it'll fall. And that's just the way of saying, when God is ready for this baby to be born, it'll be born. So there's a time for birth. There's a time and that's all in God's purpose and plan and there's a time to die. And that is also in God's purpose and plan. Both ends the book ends of life and everything in between fall within the purpose and plan of God. Other momentous event, verse two, time to plant and a time to uproot. Obviously, this would be the way of life for the culture that Solomon was addressing, a farming culture. There's a time to plant. There's a time to uproot. And what he's basically saying is a farmer has to fit within the seasons. There is a time when you plant. There's a time when you uproot or harvest or even pull up the residue of the plants and turn the soil back over again. There's a time for that. And that time is set by God. It's not that you set the time. That time is set, but the seasons are set by God. And the farmer must cooperate with those times set in God's plan or else you don't have a crop. Now, obviously, there are things beyond your control in that. But in general, he's saying you cooperate with God's plan in farming. But we're not farmers for the most part. We're not farmers here today. And so it really has application to our personal lives, too. There is a time to set down roots. There's a time to pull up those roots and move on. There's a time for both in God's purpose and plan for our lives. So in life's momentous events, God is in control of both ends of the spectrum and everything in between. Verse 3 has to do with the social realm, just mankind in general referring to social issues. Verse 3 says there is a time to kill and a time to heal. It's interesting that there are two Hebrew words, the Old Testament, written in Hebrew origin, two Hebrew words for kill. There's one that has to do with the taking of a life. There's one that has to do with murder. Solomon does not use the word for murder here. He's not talking about murder. There's not a time for that. He's talking about in general terms the taking of human life. So basically John Grisham's book is a misuse of this term. There is no place for taking personal vengeance or justice into our own hands and murdering someone to set a wrong right. That's not what Solomon's talking about. Solomon's talking about in general there is a time to take human life. A couple of examples scripturally would be capital punishment for one. I know that's a hot political issue, but it is first and foremost a biblical issue. There is a time for capital punishment. Genesis 9 lays down the framework because human life is made in the image of God. The person who volitionally, premeditatedly takes a human life, forphets, his or her own life. That's what God said in Genesis 9. Paul reaffirms it in Romans 13. Jesus admitted that it was a part of God's law in John 19 as regards his own standing before Pilate. And so yes, there is a time for the taking of human life. There is also a time for just war. I have to be careful with that one, but there is a time. There is a time for the taking of human life. There is a time to kill. And that sense, there's also a time to heal. That's the other end of the spectrum. There is a time for forgiveness. There is a time to heal broken relationships. Even between nations, there's a time for healing, a time for forgiveness, for patching up old quarrels. There's a time to take human life. There's a time to heal divisions and rifts. And then he goes on to say a time to tear down and a time to build. We think of urban renewal when we think about that. We think of even in our own town where condemned buildings have to be torn down to make the area safer for residents of our town. Sometimes things are torn down. There's a time to do that. There is a time to build back up. But that's also true of relationships. There is a time to tear down. There is a time to rebuild. There's a time in human relationships. There's a time to tear down some things. There's a time where the difficult, ugly issues have to be dealt with. And you have to tear down some wrong ways of thinking and wrong ways of behaving before you can rebuild. There's also a time to build up, to encourage, and to strengthen. Everyone who's done any marital counseling knows that that's usually the process you go through. You have to tear down some things first before you can start building up. And some couples don't last through the tearing down process. They're not willing to deal with the difficult issues of what they've done wrong, how they're relating wrongly to each other and admitting that and dealing with it and being open about it before they can start rebuilding. So there's a time to tear down. There's a time to deal with difficult stuff and tear down some stuff. And there's a time to build back up as well, to encourage and to build up what is good. And for both in the social realm. The third couplet, the third series of contrasts in verse four has to, or in verse five, excuse me, verse four has to do with our emotions. Yes, our emotions, verse four. The time to weep and a time to laugh. There's a time for both. Some people think it's always time to laugh. It's not. Some people think it's always time to weep. That's not true either. There's a time for both. There is a legitimate time to express pain and hurt and to weep. C.S. Lewis is well known for the saying in his book, The Problem of Pain. God whispers to us in our pleasures, but he shouts to us in our pain. You see, sometimes in the painful times of life, God does more deep work in our lives than what could ever be done through the good times and the pleasurable times of life. There is a time for pain. There is a time for expressing that, for weeping. There's also a time for laughing. And we need that. We need good laughter. There's a place and a time for that. We need more of that sometimes, especially I think in the work of God. Sometimes we get just too serious about things. And there is a time to laugh at yourself and to laugh at life. And what happens? There's a time for that. Not every time. Not when it's time to mourn and weep, but there is a time to laugh. I'll never forget reading about Charles Haddon Spurgeon who was the pastor of the great Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, the latter half of the 1800s. It was a great preacher, maybe one of the greatest preachers ever in the English language. Started out preaching at 19 years old and preached for over 50 years in London. He was a great man of God. But he assumed a pulpit that had been long known for its puritanical kind of teaching and very austere, hard preaching. And everybody was real serious and straight laced and glared at you while you preached and that kind of thing. Spurgeon had a tremendous sense of humor. And he was not afraid for it to come out in the pulpit. So early in his ministry, he got called on the carpet by the leaders of the church about using too much humor in the pulpit. And his response was classic. He said, I think it less accrime to produce momentary laughter than to produce a half-hour of profound slumber. I love that. And it's just characteristic of Spurgeon's sense of humor. There's a place for laughter. Yes, even in church. There's a place for laughter. There's a place to weep. There's a place to laugh. We didn't notice the next part of that verse in our emotions, the part that's hard for Baptist to understand. There's a time to mourn and a time to dance. There's a time for both. There is time to mourn. There's a time when we lose a loved one. There's a time when there's a tragic event in our lives. There is a proper sense and a place and a time to express grief and to mourn. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. There's a time for that. There's a place for that deep heart-wrenching sobbing grief. There's a place for that. But there is also a time to dance. In the Old Testament, dancing was the ultimate expression of joy. In the Old Testament, it was a jumping whirling motion. You would jump up and whirl around in the air. If I tried to do that, I'd break so many bones I wouldn't be able to walk for a month. That was the way it was done in Old Testament times. Remember the story of David bringing the ark back to Jerusalem? The Bible says he was dancing before the Lord? That's what he was doing. He was leaping and whirling around in the air, dancing before the Lord with great joy. There's a place for that. There's a place for bodily expression, even of joy to the Lord. Don't be afraid of that. There's a place to tap your foot and to move a little bit when God gets a hold of you through a song or something. There's a place for that. A place for expression of joy. Place to mourn. Time to mourn. Time to dance. Our emotions. He gives the next contrast in verse five. That is in our personal relationships. Notice what he says here in verse five. It's a time to gather stones. A time to scatter stones and a time to gather them. It's an interesting expression, again, that somehow lost to us who are not in a farming background. In Bible times, when a particular country won a battle, won a war against a country and occupied that country, they would often scatter stones over the fields of farmers to render them useless. Then they would either take captives or they would leave the land and it would basically cripple the country. He says there's a place for that kind of hard ship. But there's also a time for gathering stones. Gathering stones up out of the field which would usually be done to build a wall, to make a boundary. There's a time to scatter them. There's a time to gather them. In our relationships, again, since we're not farmers, let me apply it this way. There's a time to treat people differently. There's a time to throw some stones. And there's a time to gather some stones. Wait a second, John, what are you talking about? You're not talking about stone and people, are you? In application, let me say it this way, there is a time for confrontation. There's a time to get in someone's face and confront them about wrong, sin, evil. There's a time for that. In that sense, throwing some stones, there is also a time to gather the stones to help a person get those stones out of their life, for affirmation, for encouragement. That's true in marriage relationships. There are times when you have to have the hard discussions. And times can be kind of rocky. You're casting some stones when those things happen. But there's also a time for affirmation and building up and encouraging. Notice he says also in personal relationships at the end of the verse, there's a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. There's a time to demonstrate affection and love and concern by embracing someone. There's time when it's better not to do that. And wisdom helps us to see the difference. When it's appropriate to embrace, when it's appropriate to refrain from embracing. Notice he goes on to give another contrast. This time in verse 6 about our possessions. Our possessions. This contrast in the plan of God in regard to our possessions, Solomon says it this way, there's a time to search and a time to give up. Interesting. Time to search and a time to give up. There's a time to search for what is lost and there's a time to give it up as lost. And actually the word give up is the Hebrew word for lost. There's a time to keep looking for stuff and then there's a time when that becomes an unproductive use of time and you just finally say, okay, it's lost. It's gone. It's gone up. There's a time for both. In other words, there's a time to pursue some things. There's a time to give up pursuing some things. And that's true even in the attainment of possessions. There's a time to pursue the attainment of possessions. There's a time to give up on that. You've got enough. Don't work, look, strive any harder for more stuff. You've got enough. There's a time for both. And in the end of verse six ought to be a sign on every garage, every attic, every basement, every closet. There's a time to keep and a time to throw away. For you pack rats, there is a time to throw away. There's a time to get rid of some of that junk. Now the problem is one of you in the home thinks it's always the time to keep. One of you thinks it's always the time to throw away. And that's where you've got to work that out yourself. Don't come to me about that one. Come to Pastor Simmons about that one. There's a time to keep. There's a time to throw away. In other words, again, this balance in life, in God's providence, there is a time to keep things. There's a time to throw them away. That's true, not only of possessions, it's true also of our lives. It's always good to do some self-evaluation. So what we're doing, what activities, what focus of life we have, and sometimes there's some things when we do that, we'll say, okay, I want to keep this. This is important. But you know what? I've been spending too much time over here doing this. It's not productive. It's not good for my life. I'm going to throw that away. It's time to throw that away. Time to just forget that. That's good self-evaluation that is needed for all of us. So verse six, primarily having to do with our possessions. In the next set of contrast, in verse seven has to do with our reactions. How we react to things? He says in verse seven, there's a time to tear and a time to mend. Probably referring in his culture to the very well-known way of expressing grief, a time to tear the clothes. When one was grieving in Bible times, they would, it was called rinding your garments. It could be grieving over a lost loved one. It could be grieving over your own sin. But they would rip their outer garments. There's a time to do that. There's a time to express that kind of reaction to something that is wrong. But there's also a time when the grieving period is over, there's a time to sow that back up. There's a time to mend. There's a time to heal. Eventually, the sowing up, the healing must come. Neither extreme is good to live in forever. Forever. Or Solomon could simply be talking about also, there's a time to keep repairing a garment. Then there's finally a time when it's thread bearing, you say, this is time to tear it up, it's ready for the rag-bile. There's a time to tear. There's a time to keep mending. Balance of both. Then notice, I wish there were someone over my shoulder at all times telling me this next one. When? The time to be silent and the time to speak. Obviously, there's someone better than over my shoulder. There's someone within me called the Holy Spirit who is, if I listen to his promptings, will help me to understand when it's best to speak and when it's best to stay silent. I don't always do a good job of that. I don't know about you, probably all of you do. And I'm the only misfit. But it's difficult to find that balance. There is a time just to say nothing. And there are other times when we must speak very strongly our convictions and what we believe about something and what we feel about something. There's a time to speak. It's also a time to be silent. I love those seemingly contradictory verses in Proverbs 26. I think about them a lot. Proverbs 26, for says, do not answer a fool according to his folly or you yourself will be just like him. Very next verse. There are a fool according to his folly or he will be wise in his own eyes. And I think about those two verses. It almost sounds like a contrast, doesn't it? Don't answer a fool according to his folly. But the second half of the verse gives the key as to when to tell the difference. There are times and you must discern this in God's wisdom. There are times when you don't answer a fool or you'll just be drawn into foolish arguments. And you'll become just like that person. You know, they're not going to change. They're just going to try. They love dragging you into more and more foolish arguments. Just be quiet. Just let it go. But there are times when you have to answer a fool or he will be confirmed in his own folly, he'll think he's right and you have to point out why he's wrong. So knowing the difference between those two is not always easy. Takes the discernment of the Holy Spirit to do that. But there's a time just to back off. Say I'm going to let you spout off all you want. You don't know what you're talking about. I know that. But let it go. Be quiet. But there's a time then to answer someone unless they continue in their folly. Time for both. Notice the last contrast in verse eight. And that is a contrast in our choices. A time to love and a time to hate. That's difficult for us to accept or understand because we hear so much about love in our day and how we should love everything. And love everybody. And we should love everybody. But we should not love everything. There's a time to love. There's also a time to hate. There is a love that is unthinking and gullible. There is a time to hate. There's a time for instance for me to hate injustice. To hate prejudice. To hate foolishness and what it's doing to tear up the lives of people. There's a time for me to hate my own sin. There is a righteous anger and hatred at what is wrong. God hates some things. The Bible says and he's perfect. So there's a time to hate. There's a time to love that there's also a time to hate. And then he finishes out by saying there's a time for war and a time for peace. I saw a bumper sticker just this week. So a bumper sticker that said, I'm already against the next war. I understand that sentiment. No one wants war of any kind. No one likes war. No one likes for it to drag on and on and on for sure. No one wants that. But there is a time for war. There is such a thing as a just war. Fought for a just cause for a good end. And this is the inspired word of God. God says there's a time for war. I'm going to take his word for it. But there's also a time for peace. There's a time for mending of the fences, for healing of the relationships, to make peace. There's a time for that too. What Solomon has done then is to introduce us to these contrasts, 14 of them, which serve to demonstrate the fact that God has set a time for everything that happens in life. So to all the extremes you can think of, and those and everything in between in this Hebrew way of poetry is included in God's plan and purpose. Now quickly, a few principles from these contrasts. The first principle I would suggest is this. This is a general description of human life. All of these elements taken together form an overall description of the experience of humans, of the experience of human life as a whole. This is human life as a whole. Solomon is not saying that all of these will be true in every individual's experience. He's not saying that. He's saying taken as a whole, this is what human life can include. This is the life of people on this planet. He's not saying that every one of you will necessarily experience a time when it's right to take life or to be engaged in a war. That will not be true of every individual, but in the human experience as a whole, there's a time for both. And it's all in God's plan and purpose. He's not even necessarily commending all of these things. He's not saying you should do all of these things. Come on, go out and take someone's life. He's not suggesting that you personally should do all of these things. He's not suggesting that you mess up someone's field or scatter stones. He's not suggesting that these are not prescriptions. These are more descriptions of what happens in life. Some of them are bad. Some of them are heartbreaking. Some of them are even evil. But they happen in human life. So this is a general description of human life. Second principle I would suggest from these verses is this, our lives should be balanced. This is all so difficult. I have to be reminded of this just about daily, maybe you do too. I have a tendency to get off balance, probably you do too. But it tends to maybe to weep a little bit too much sometimes and forget about the laughter. Or sometimes maybe laugh too much and forget that there is a serious side of life too. Sometimes I get a little unbalanced on the silent speaking end of the spectrum. Sometimes I'm too quiet and don't address what I should address. Sometimes too outspoken and don't back off when I should. It's difficult to learn that balance. I have to be reminded of the balance between affirmation and confrontation. That there is a time to scatter stones. There's a time to gather them up and build the wall and to help people. There's a time to confront people. There's a time to affirm. And sometimes just my nature is to be too assuming and too affirming. And I don't like confrontation. But that's needed sometimes. Needed. So we have to be reminded of that balance in life sometimes. Third principle that I would suggest. We should recognize the sovereign purpose of God in all events. And that really is the thrust of this passage and of these whole three chapters is that we should recognize the sovereign purpose of God in all events. There is a time, a God appointed time, purpose and plan for everything Solomon says. And there is an appropriate length of time, season for every activity under the heavens. Now he will go on to say as we saw in verse 11, I can't always understand that. I can't fathom all that God is doing. And so there are some things in the scope of life which is all under God's plan and purpose. I don't understand. I don't see. And that's where I have to trust him. Where I have to have a solid foundation in believing that God is big enough to take everything, both the good and the bad and work them together to produce his good in my life, the likeness of Christ. And even those things that shatter me and that break my heart somehow God can take them and bring something good out of them if I didn't believe that. There are times when I would not preach. I just give it up. If I didn't believe that there are times when I would just like you want to give up on life because life can be hard, agonizingly hard. And when I don't understand what's going on, I lean back against this firm, firm wall. And that is that God is in control. I don't understand it all the time. I don't understand what he's doing, why he allows certain things. But if I didn't believe that somehow in the end God and his plan and purpose will work all things together for good. If I didn't believe that I'd want to give up too. I just read this week an old story about some Scottish fisherman who had come in from a long day out on the sea. And they were in an end that they often frequent and to eat their supper before they would go on home. One of the ladies who was serving food in that particular end many, many years ago was walking to a table and one of the fishermen was making a broad gesture with his arm to describe the size of the fish they were catching that day and his arm hit the pot of tea that she was carrying, knocking it against a white washed wall and splattering the tea all over the wall. The owner of the end came over and said that stain will never come out of this white washed wall. We'll have to redo it. We'll have to redo the whole wall. Maybe not. Called out a voice from the back of the end. Everybody turned to see who had said that. It was an unassuming gentleman who was seated over in the corner, eating his dinner. He picked up a box that was beside him, walked over to the place on the wall that had been stained by the tea, opened up his box, he pulled out some brushes and some linseed oil and some paints, and began to work with that ugly stain touching up parts of it, addressing other areas of it, adding color and hue to parts of it. Until finally it was clear to everyone who was watching that the head of a magnificent buck with an amazing rack of antlers was emerging from that stain in the wall. He quickly signed his name at the bottom when he was done, he aged Lancer, paid for his food and walked out. The owner looked at the signature a little closer and said, oh my, that is Sir Edwin Lancer who at that time in England was the most well-known painter of his day, typically did wildlife and outdoor scenes. He had been eating in that little end that evening and took the opportunity to turn a stain into a beautiful wildlife painting. If I didn't believe God could do that with the messes of my life, I'd want to quit just like you do sometimes. But I do believe in the bedrock of my soul at times it is shaken, yes, but I do believe in the bedrock of my soul that God is in control. And it has a sovereign purpose and plan that includes everything in my life. Some of it hurts really bad, some of it is hard to go through, but I do believe that he will bring good out of that and make me more like his son because of that, even when I can't understand. And even when I do shake my fist and say why? In the bedrock of my soul, I believe there's a sovereign purpose of God in all events. But that leads me quickly to the fourth principle that helps to balance out what I've just said, because that can be taken in a direction which I think is unwise and unbiblical. The degree of fatalism can enter in if you're not careful with that. If you don't have the proper balance to that truth, the fourth principle balances that out. God's sovereign purposes do not exclude human responsibility. Obviously, a lot of these things in this list, I have no control over, but there are some of them that are, that I have responsibility for. I have responsibility to laugh sometimes. I have the responsibility to tear down, to engage someone in confrontation. That's my responsibility to do that sometimes. It's my responsibility to build the wall sometimes with someone. Sometimes I'm responsible to make peace. Sometimes I'm responsible to do some of these other things. I've got to decide when I'm going to embrace, when I'm going to refrain from embracing. I have responsibility in many of these things. Some of them are beyond my control, obviously. And ultimately, they all fit within the purpose and plan of God. I believe both. I believe that God does have a purpose and a plan that includes everything that happens in this world, but within that plan, God is big enough to include my responsibility. You say, well, I don't understand that. That's because you're not God. You're not big enough to put those two together. God is. God can put those two together. And somehow in His providence and plan, He has included my choices, my responsibility. I'm not just to fold my hands and do nothing. And when something bad happens, say, well, God, thank you that that's over in your plan. That's me one of the next things. No, I'm responsible for how I respond. I'm responsible for what I do for the choices I make. And when I have responsibility in an area, God holds me accountable for the choices I make when something is totally out of my control. And I cannot change what's happened by what I would do. I still have a responsibility to respond with rest and trust in God's sovereign purpose and plan. Can you trust Him? Can you rest in Him when you can't understand what's happening in life? Solomon is going to tell us next time how to respond to that truth of God's sovereign plan and purpose. And then He's going to say, here are some things that will challenge that I know in your life. Do you believe? Do you believe you can still find meaning, purpose, and joy as you rest upon the all controlling sovereign purpose and plan of God? His greatness. Can you trust Him for whatever's happening in your life? That is the issue. Let's pray together. While there I feel like the man who came to you in the Gospels and said, Lord, I believe help my unbelief. How we struggle with this, Lord. I do believe that you're in control. Help my unbelief when I doubt it, when I can't understand it in the midst of the uncertainty of my life in the midst of the hardship sometimes of our lives. So Lord, help us to trust and believe you in those times. Father, I thank you for the solid bedrock foundational truth that you are a sovereign God, you're in control. You have a plan. There is a time and a pointed plan and purpose for everything and there is a season that you've assigned for everything in this world and life. Help us to trust you when we can understand that. Help us to take responsibility when we have choices to make. Help us most of all to live faithfully in your good plan for us. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.