Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - Ecclesiastes 3 - Time and the Providence of God

Episode Date: March 16, 2022

In this series, Jonny Ardavanis explore the main themes in the book of Ecclesiastes. Follow along as Solomon searches for meaning and significance in a world of futility and brokenness.In Ecclesiastes 3 Solomon, after illustrating all the events of life that are under his control will express what is ultimately out of his control: time. The events and timing of events are ultimately controlled by God. In this episode we are compelled to study the providence of God as the antidote to meaningless existence. Solomon’s only hope amidst the sorrows, tears, and unpredictability of life and death is that God is orchestrating all things towards His perfect plan.Solomon will also draw our attention the fact that God has hardwired eternity within the heart of every man so that all creatures made in God’s image know that death is not end. Watch VideosVisit the Website Follow on InstagramFollow on Twitter

Hey guys, my name is Johnny Artavanis and this is Dial In. In this series, we are evaluating life under the sun as we turn to Ecclesiastes and explore its main themes. In this episode, we will look at Ecclesiastes chapter 3. Let's dial in. Now before we turn to chapter 3, we need to recap the first two chapters of Ecclesiastes in order that we might see the shift in Solomon's perspective from the first two chapters to the third. In first Kings three, God asked Solomon, what do you want? I'll give you whatever you ask for. And Solomon asks for wisdom. And because Solomon asks for wisdom, not only does God make him the wisest

man in the world, but God also makes him the wealthiest man in the world. He's not just a little wealthy. He's the wealthiest man in human history. But not only is Solomon's life full of wisdom and wealth, his life is full of women, lots and lots of women. First Kings 11 said that Solomon has 700 wives and 300 concubines. What's your name again? Wait, Teresa, who are you? You look familiar. I'm your wife, Solomon. And that's the way Solomon lives his life. Women everywhere. But Solomon begins chapter one, and he is searching for meaning under the sun. He has considered life, and he says everything is vanity. That word vanity is used nearly 40 times throughout the book, and as we've noted, it refers to a puff of air on a cold winter morning. It's there, and it's gone. Solomon says

life is elusive, and then he's going to ask this question in chapter one. He says, what does man gain? And he's not talking about the bottom line financially, but he's asking the question, what actually lasts? Solomon is perplexed. He is evaluating life and contemplating and considering his own death. So he is asking the question he knows the answer to. When I die, what can I take with me? Absolutely nothing. All is vanity, declares Solomon. But the question is, why does this vanity exist?

Well, in Ecclesiastes 1 verse 13, Solomon is going to point us to a reality that God is the one behind this vanity and behind his baffling. God is the one who prescribes the riddle of life. And when we try to solve the riddle of life outside of the riddle giver, we will inevitably be frustrated. Now in chapter two, after expressing this initial theme of his book, Solomon is going to pursue all the paths that culture calls us down in hopes of finding the answer. And what Solomon is going to offer all the paths that culture calls us down in hopes of finding the answer. And what Solomon is going to offer us is the perspective of having been to the end of all of those streets, and he will tell us they're all dead ends. It's all vanity.

With his unrivaled wealth and unparalleled wisdom, Solomon will turn to pursuing a life of uncontrollable laughter. He leaves the opera house in a tuxedo and goes to pursue madness and folly. Our preacher king loses his Cole Hans, slips on some Crocs and a Dale Earnhardt shirt and goes line dancing at bullfrogs. Solomon is now pursuing a life of folly. No longer is he looking for head scratchers to satisfy his intellect. He is looking for knee slappers to satisfy his emptiness. Make me laugh, Solomon cries. But he will say in much laughter, there is much folly. Because once the laughs are gone, his emptiness returns.

Not only is he a man of uncontrollable laughter, but he will turn to uninhibited sexuality and pleasure. Solomon has no unfulfilled fantasies, and yet in his pursuit of every fantasy, he will be left unfulfilled. Solomon will then turn from exploring his sexuality to a life of unequaled productivity He starts businesses plants forests builds castles vineyards gardens parks temples homes and pools And then he puts his hands on his hips surveys his works and feels fulfilled for a moment But even though solomon will say it's good to do work

It is ultimately vanity because death is coming and he knows his work will soon be forgotten and left to someone who did nothing to achieve it. Now in chapter three, Solomon's perspective is going to change a little bit. Throughout the first two chapters, we've seen him use the phrase under the sun a number of times. But here he is going to say in Ecclesiastes 3 verse 1 that there is a time for every matter under heaven. This signals a shift from viewing the events of life from a human

perspective to a divine perspective in which God's sovereignty is in view. We are going to explore this further, but here Solomon is going to express and confess certain things that are out of his control. Now, I want you to think with me. What's the irony of this? Well, first of all, in the first two chapters, we've looked that Solomon lived a life of absolute control and absolute power. Everything he wanted, he got. Every woman, every lot of land, every neighboring nation, every form of entertainment. He had it all. But here, Solomon is going to tell us what he does not control. He has endless power,

endless wealth, but that does not make him the sovereign of the universe. Solomon knows there is only one sovereign king over all. Now, if you remember, if you studied the attributes of God with us, when we looked at the series or the episode on the sovereignty of God, I love this verse in Isaiah 46 verses nine and 10. God is speaking. He says, I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me. Now, what makes God, God, according to God? Well, he tells us, he says, I am God and there is no other. I am God and there are none like me. Okay, what makes you so different from all the other gods? He continues and says, I declare the end from the beginning,

things not yet done, and I will accomplish all of my purposes. God's sovereignty is what makes God, God. And that is his right to exercise authority over everything. But not only is God sovereign, he also exercises his providence over everything in creation. Now, if you've grown up in the church, or maybe you have not, you've maybe heard the term sovereignty, and maybe you've heard the word providence, and you're not. You've maybe heard the term sovereignty and maybe you've heard the word providence and you're not really sure what's the difference between the two. God's providence is the exercising of God's sovereignty combined with God's wisdom. If God were in control but not wise, we would not be able to trust him. But because God is sovereign and wise, we confess his providence and trust his purposes. And Solomon is going to express his understanding of the

providence of God in poetic form in verses one through eight by detailing a list of life's ingredients that happen within the scope of time. There are 14 pairs of opposites, 28 extremes that occur in life's time and everything in between. And what we are going to find is that God is in control of all of them. The big, the small, the macro, the micro, kings and nations, and bugs and insects. God is absolutely sovereign. Solomon can buy everything money can afford, but here he will express that the one thing he cannot buy and the one thing he cannot control is time and the events that happen during life. Our life is like an upside down hourglass. And Solomon will tell us that no matter how we diet

or invest or protect or preserve, life slips through our fingers and time is undefeated. And what we will see here is that so many of these events revolve around life's relationships. And this is strategic because Solomon knows that life isn't remembered or detailed by the calendar, but rather by the photos and by the soundtracks. As creatures made by God to live in the presence of God, we are relational beings. And so the symphony of life is broken down

by movements that are marked by relationships, war and peace and laughter and mourning and feasting, whatever it may be, the movements are usually marked by the presence of or the absence of relationships. And for this reason, Solomon alludes to the reality that life is marked by seasons, not of changing months, but of changing relationships and changing jobs and changing homes and changing churches and changing diapers and losing hair and losing loved ones. In verse one, he says, there's a time for everything. And that time is not appointed by man. And then in verse two, he's going to say, there's a time to be born and a time to die. Solomon tells us, and God tells you through his word, just like you didn't pick

your birthday, you will not pick your death day. Death will come and it won't consult your schedule. Everybody knows, you yourself included, that one day you will die. But some live in denial of their death because they believe they are sovereign over the timing of it. But Solomon says it's coming. And when you do come to die, time will march on. Time doesn't stop when you stop. Now think with me when your phone dies and when it's recharged, time is not paused. No, the time doesn't pick up where you left off. It marched on and you can go and build businesses, engineer great works, medical patents, athletic achievement, but your life will come to a halt. And everything that you've planned and tried to control will come to an end by what is not planned and by what you cannot control. Your death.

You cannot understand Ecclesiastes without understanding Solomon's grappling with the reality and inevitability of his looming death. He'll then continue in verses three and four and say, there's a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear 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. What's in view here is the same building where the father of the bride will give his daughter away in marriage, is the same building where the daughter of the bride will give his daughter away in marriage is the same building where the daughter of the father will give a eulogy at his funeral. Life is both full of hysterical laughter and loud hysterical weeping. And you know what the Bible says, God is the one who allows for and ordains for the timing of them both. Providence arranges the commencement, the duration,

and the conclusion of all of life's events. In verse 7, he will say there's a time to tear apart and a time to sew together, a time to be silent, and a time to speak. Solomon draws our attention to the spectrums of grief and anger. The silence of deep sorrow may be seen as when Job's friends sat by him sympathizing, or when the psalmist cries out, I am dumb with silence, my sorrow is stirred. But there's also a time to speak, to encourage, to give wisdom. Proverbs 15, 23, a word-induced season, how good is it? Solomon knows every event is ordained, the grieving and the anger and the sorrow and the sadness. Every event is ordained, but you don't ordain them.

Verse 8, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. Now, if we stopped here, we would be puzzled without the perspective of verses 9 through 14. We would be frustrated. And so Solomon leverages the poetry of verses 1 through 8 to provide for us the meaning in all of these events as we look to the one who is beyond the sun. Verses 1 through 8 are not the conclusion, but rather the culmination towards the question he is going to ask in verse nine. He says, what benefit is there for the worker from that in which he labors? In the midst, Solomon is asking, in the midst of all this dancing and dying and laughing and crying and

weeping and winning promotions and layoffs, what's the point of all the pain of hard seasons and all of the joy of good seasons? If we're just going to end up in the morgue, he says, what does man gain from all of these things? Where is their meaning in every promotion or layoff, every tear? What's the takeaway? In verse 10, he's going to begin to answer his own question. He says, I have seen the task which God has given the sons of mankind with which to occupy themselves. He says, there is a plan and a system in all of the circumstances of man's life. Solomon feels this instinctively, but he cannot comprehend it. And so he continues in verse 11. He says, he has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the

beginning, even to the end. Solomon says, all of the joys and sorrows make us realize that we are a part of something bigger. Solomon says, the word of God says that God has set eternity in our hearts, meaning that there is an internal compass within you right now as you listen that helps you find true north and calibrates your own thinking towards your inevitable destiny. Solomon speaks to the reality that somewhere within our mental DNA, we know that we are going to live forever. So this means that every time you meet an atheist, you can ask him what they think happens when they die. And even if they responded and said, nothing, dude, I just go to the dirt. Solomon says that God has hardwired eternity within their hearts and they know they

will live beyond the grave. In verses 12 and 13, Solomon will say, I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and to do good in one's lifetime. Moreover, that every person who eats and drinks sees good in all of his labor. This is the gift of God. Solomon says there's nothing better, meaning that he is reluctantly admitting that there is a way in which we can enjoy life with a proper perspective, that the time we have is a gift from God. And rather than assuming that we are the master of our own fate, we are called here to submit to the master of time who providentially orchestrates everything and has given you an allotted amount of time. Solomon

says, you don't control the timing, but you can rejoice and live wisely in a way that honors God. And one of the secrets to contentment is living gratefully in the gift of every hour, every tear and every laugh lived in reference to the God who providentially ordained them. In verse 14, he is concluding. He says, I know that everything God does will remain forever. There is nothing to add to it and there is nothing to take away from it. And God has so worked that people should fear him. He says, I know everything God does will remain forever. And God has so established the way that time works that every time we are

frustrated by our own inability to control time, we would flee to the one who does. And Solomon, in contemplating his own inability to remain forever, is propelled to express his own powerlessness and surrender to the one who is powerful and reigns from everlasting to everlasting. Solomon is coming to terms that he is a blip on the radar of God's infiniteness, and he is beginning to understand that God is doing things in his great purpose that will endure forever, and our only response is to join hands with him. Our lasting significance isn't found in our earthly achievement, but in our present submission to the one who conducts the symphony of all things. After college, I spent a matter of months serving with a missions agency in the Czech Republic.

And I remember on one occasion, I went with my friend Rob to a museum that hosted the 20 grand paintings known as the Slav Epics by Alphonse Mucha. These 20 large canvas paintings, they're truly massive. Many of them are 26 feet wide by 20 feet tall. They tower over you as you stand at the base of them, and they depict the history of the Slavic people, beginning in the Dark Ages to the Middle Ages to the 10th century to the 14th century, all the way up to the beginning of the 20th century. And each of these paintings cover a significant portion of the Slavic history. There will be events or shadows in certain corners of these massive epics that represent a person or a scenario from that section in time. And I have a photo from that visit of an elderly woman

standing at the base of the 20th and final painting in the series as she stands in the left-hand corner of this canvas. And what struck me then and what strikes me to this day is that this is how often how we view life under the sun. We focus and fixate on only the events we can see, and yet we lose sight of all of the epics, the story that is being painted not by those who are the clay, but the artist that is weaving and orchestrating all things according to his plan. And without the providence of God, our perspective is so minuscule and fails to see

the larger picture. And what Solomon has in view here in chapter 3 is he sees the providence of God as the solution to the meaninglessness of life. Because apart from God, everything seems random. But far from battling the sovereign orchestration of the composer of the cosmos, Solomon bows his head to the greater king who dictates times and seasons, death and birth, summer and winter. And Solomon says there is a better way to live. And it's a life lived with God's providence in mind. Have you considered today that every event in your life is under the orchestration of God's sovereign hand? Scripture calls us to consider the providence of God as the antidote to a life of vanity in a broken world. Stay dialed in.