Ecclesiastes - Chapter 3
Human freedom is restricted. Time and God's ways are unchanging (1-22):
Whatever regulates our time curtails our freedom. This is the struggle which the preacher Solomon faced in one of his most famous passages. The preacher calls this lack of freedom futility because our plans are limited, our ability to change our schedule of time is removed from us, and our potential for changing our destiny is almost not possible.
The book of Proverbs speaks clearly on this matter as well in 19:21:
“There are many plans in a man's heart,
Nevertheless the Lord's counsel – that will stand.”
Solomon has come to the conclusion that total submission to what God has determined was the best anyone could do. The mystery, difficulty, and even the futility of trying to catch life's hidden meaning, and especially trying to change life's destined course was the reality the preacher was seeking to demonstrate.
In verses 1-11 he shows us that probing life's meaning is a frustrating matter because evidence shows only God is in control, through His plan of time for His own purpose, not mindful of the purpose of man. These few verses have been called the perfect poem in all of scripture to reveal that the Lord is sovereign in His will over all things we as humans experience. In these fourteen pairs of contrast Solomon gives us the basics of human experience as well as their opposites. These are the cycles of human life as set and regulated by God.
As quite different from the view of our last chapter, these events are all human events, not from nature like earth, sun, wind and sea. From the experience of birth and death to the practices of the harvest, from the delights and restraints of friendship to the waging of war and the pursuit of peace, the preacher teaches us his wisdom of how human life unfolds. His conclusion on these things was bleak:
“What profit has the worker from that which he labors?” (verse 9)
Here our attention is focused upon the ever present limits to human freedom.
These frustrating restrictions were a major theme of this argument, along with God's planned time. It is HIS plan that counts, not ours. Our lives are under restriction because of the great gulf between Him and us. The vexing problem is our ignorance of God's ways for He alone controls our time here.
Solomon says he has looked over the shoulders of people he sees and tried to determine any link between what they do and what happens to them. He allows no thoughts that he sees evidence of any of them more able to control their destiny.
It is God's ways that are good as verse 11 teaches as God has made everything beautiful IN ITS TIME. But the same verse has another lesson. God has placed in man's heart eternity, a sense of concern over our fate and final destiny.
We yearn to be free enough to control that destiny but we cannot, for the Lord shapes both our lives and times plus only He is in control of our destiny. There always remains a tension between our time set by God and our inability to know the purpose of God.
No sensible person who believes fails to understand that God's grasp of life and its meaning is higher than ours. Scripture so teaches clearly (Is 55:9).
Solomon's frustration is that we cannot truly comprehend any part of it, not the beginning, not the end, not anything in between.
Where does this leave us? Solomon says our possibilities are limited. Verses 12-13 teach that we do not have full freedom as God keeps the calendars of our lives. Our task here is to submit to His will and determination, and to do it properly and humbly. We should receive God's gift of life and make the best of it. The simple delights of life such as food and drink and work come from His hand, and they are our tokens of His grace.
We see now the deeper view of this wise chapter. Here our preacher teaches us of the absolute sovereignty of God, and His changeless rule over human time. Verse 14 summarizes the matter for us:
“God does it, that men should fear before Him”
Our proper response should be to trust Him with our WHYS and WHENS and to be thankful for the WHATS.
Time, with its series of events that contain both pain and joy is more than a calendar of simply appointments. It is also a call to worship and obedience. Our responses should also include humility without despair. If our times are completely in another's hand, who better to hold them than our loving and everlasting Lord?
We cannot know all that God's hand is doing in the mysterious ebb and flow of our lives. But the daily supply of grace afforded in our everyday gifts from Him should convince us that His hand is a good one and in that fact should come joy and comfort.
We are no longer under the frustration described by Solomon concerning man's inability to know freedom. Jesus has led us elsewhere away from such sorrow by granting us true freedom which Solomon never knew. John 8:36 is our clear evidence.
“Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed”.
What Ecclesiastes wishes for in its own grim and empty search has been granted to us. The darkest threats to our freedom have been defeated. The threat of judgment has been overcome by the forgiveness of His love. The threat of death has been sent away by His resurrection showing us eternal life awaits us. God still controls all our futures but it is a grand and excellent future for all who are His, not a hollow and unknown future that our preacher saw ahead.