The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
Well, good morning church. Let's start with a word of prayer. Lord, we ask that these words written so many years ago ring in our hearts uh this morning and speak to us ever closely, ever real and these words will not return void. they will do its timeless job by transforming us. We ask what you say. Amen. This is a uh very very famous poem which you have just heard one of the most well-known passages in scripture. Uh and we often hear it. When do we actually hear it? You know, funerals. Too bad it's time for you to go. Um Sad, isn't it? But it's the words are haunting um and and yet beautiful. And somehow as the words are read out, they they kind of they speak to our soul. They connect and um this beautiful poem on time is written by Cohellet the teacher Solomon as a lens through which we can actually see life. um using the looking at life through time. So what he has done is that he uses this poem to sharply focus on some of the issues that we need to look at uh in the world and in ourselves. And if you remember the theme of Ecclesiastes uh is written in one uh three what does man gain by all the toil which at which he toils under the sun and 3:9 later on what gain at the end of the poem it says after time to die time to live time to you know war and peace in the end what does he gain so basically this poem is about looking at life and in the end what gain has the worker from his toil. So the background is chapter one when Mark preached above uh you know there's not much gain uh in toil is meaninglessness you can't uh it doesn't enrich your life it doesn't prolong it you can't actually satisfied by the toil gained on the world yen preach on how all the experiences of Solomon whether with many wives or a few wives or a lot of money it's all meaningless in the end and today we're going to look at the tyranny of time um so the first point out of three I'm going to share with you this morning very simply is God sets the time of our lives. Um, and the first thing that we need to look at this this uh piece of poetry is that it's often been misunderstood. Is this piece of poetry prescriptive or descriptive? If you decide which one it is, it helps you understand. Otherwise, you won't be able to interpret this this uh uh psalm, this uh poetry. People say it's prescriptive because you see there's a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. So you come to church, you you're going to hug someone, they look like that. They say better not do that. So there's a time to embrace and other times that you don't embrace. Then you've got words like a time to tear, a time to sew. I mean, when do you tear your clothes? Not a last time I've seen anybody tear their clothes in in in First Baptist was like never. Why? Because it's Jewish custom when you tear your clothes when you're very upset. So you tear great big, you know, display of of anguish. Uh time to sew it back when you're in a feeling better as it were. Uh time to keep silent. Ah, I wish we would learn this. A lot of people, you know, time to when don't simply don't know when to keep quiet and when to speak up. All right. So is this pres This is prescriptiveness. Is it tell us how to live our lives? Because timing is everything, isn't it? If you're in the stock market, you're supposed to buy low and sell high, right? So, if you speak at the right time, it'll be like gold. You speak the wrong time, it be something else. All right? So, timing is everything. And we got lots of books talking Henry Blackabby seasons of God or embrace your season where you try to find out what season you are in. And so, therefore, you could practice the correct actions. All right. But there's a problem. Let's look at the problem. The clue is given in the passage. For everything there is a season. Okay? And a season means there is an appointed time. There is a particular appointment every for a time for every matter or desired purpose or event in the world. That means it's everything is fixed. Um there's a time to be born and time to die. It cannot be prescriptive. You don't get to decide when you're going to be born. Say, "Mom, I'm coming out now." Your mom gets to decide. Even then, not really. Okay. Uh, and time to die. Usually, you don't get to decide when you're supposed to die. In in general circumstances, we don't know uh when the time to die. So, it's it's hardly likely that this poem is about prescriptive what to do. More evidence. I've seen the business that God has given the children a man to be busy with. Right? God gives you this business. He has made everything beautiful in its time. That mean he has made not you have made. If you made the right choices, you you bought the stock low and you sold it high. You made it beautiful. Right? You didn't do it. He says he has made everything beautiful in its time. So everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his talk. For this is God's gift. the world. Time is God's gift to man. So this is basically uh descriptive. It is not prescriptive. It describes what happens. And you look the entire psalm you the song you will see there are about 28 times when the word time is used. Seven is the Jewish number for perfection. Four times that complete number of times human beings may encounter in life. And if you look time to be born, time to die and it ends off with time for war. The two extremes, the beginning and the end. And and time to be born and time to die are complete opposites. They are called in Hebrew meisms. God made the heavens and the earth. They're complete opposites, which means everything else in between is also made by God. Right? So therefore, when it's a time to live, time to born, time to die is the and everything else in between. So he's not going to tell you about everything else, but it's a very nice poetic way of telling you that the whole of human existence has been mapped out by time and you've got uh opposites born then you die plant and then you pick up and some of it inverted love here is peace time to hate war there are positives and negatives. Let's look. There's not enough time on a Sunday to go through every line, but I want to look just generally what this poem is trying to tell us. There's complete list of activity. Born, die, plant, pluck up, kill, heal, break down, build up, weep, laugh, mourn, dance, cast away, gather. The ones that are not quite so nice are in red, right? The ones that you like or you don't like. The ones that you like are in yellow. So you can see there's a there's a pattern. Sometimes the good stuff comes first and the bad stuff comes later. Sometimes the bad come stuff comes first and then the good stuff comes later on. And this is the whole thing. Embrace, refrain, seek, love, keep, cast away, tear, sow, silence, speak, love, hate, peace, war. So therefore, what does it tell you? There's no real sequence. Life is a bit of a mess. There are good stuff there and there's bad stuff there. It covers the whole of life's experiences. The poem points to events behind the actions. If you're look looking at the action itself, then you might be a little misled to think that this is basically prescriptive what to do, but they actually point to events behind the actions. For example, time to break down, which is if you got damage to property, for example, then you got to go and tear it down. You build up. Tell all the architects. Good times, prosperity, we start building again. When do we weep? When there's tragedy, when do we laugh? Family success. When do we divorce? Ma, we mourn where we dance during the marriage. So these actions all point to the events in our lives. And so therefore, uh these are the events of our lives. These are the realities of our lives. And if you look at the realities of our life, there's something that comes right out and it hits you. There are two strands of life. There are two polar life like life is bipolar. You know, you're very good or you're very bad and everything else in between. It's ugly and it's beautiful. Uh you can look this is Vashna Vulovic 1972. Uh she was at Serbian air hostess Yuclesaf airline. uh it blew up and she fell 33,000 feet tail section of the plane and landed you know and she lived. Can you imagine who is the only person in the world that falls 33,000 feet and you break your head, your spinal column as well as your leg, but you live uh you know h how does God decide that that this woman out of everybody else should live and then last week Safi Rose Roso goes to a Ariana Grande concert and she's blown to bits, you know, and and it this it gets at you, doesn't it? My father was only 40 years of age and had a one heart attack and he died straight away. And I've always wondered that. And I have patients I worked on for months and they won't die.
I had one in particular. Somebody else operated on him. Came back with uh you know feces coming out of this side and gastric juices fistula in his from his dadum from his stomach from his pancreas three four areas and months later on in a $ 1.5 million bill and he's still alive. And I look at myself say it's not fair. My dad died when he was just 40 and we had to live alone and and struggle. Um, life has an the poem is beautiful, but it's got a horrible underbelly, isn't it? Uh, good news. If you look at the news in the last one week, just just look at the news. We've got medicines to reduce cardiac arhythmias that cause stroke, dementia, heart failure, and early death. The good news, you know what this medicine is? Chocolate. Chocolate. Can you imagine if you eat one to three times a month, your death rate comes down to 10%. you eat it two to six times a week, you know, you the likelihood of of having an arrhythmia is down about 20%. So go home and get some chocolate. And then again, bomb goes off in Jakarta. Bomb goes off there. Good news. Donald Trump says, "Thank you. I won't forget what you said to the Pope." But if you look at the picture, he's smiling, but he's not. There's a strand. Life is bipolar, isn't it? Same picture, right? As Asia's shares tumble and Malaysia's we got Proton uh being bailed out by China. So the picture of faith is no different. If you look at the picture of faith, that famous passage in in in Hebrews chapter 11 of all the heroes like Samuel and Moses and all who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouth of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of the weak, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. That is one aspect of faith, isn't it? And you see some churches, if you're in the spirit, that's all you're going to get. But that's not what life is about, isn't it? The same passage tells you others suffered mocking and flogging, even chains, imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sworn in two. They were killed by the sword. They went about in sheep skkins and goats and destitute, afflicted, mistreated. Picture of Christians, too. Heroes no less. And so therefore, you've got a bipolar picture of life that that the two strands right cut right across the Christian church too. Just because you are in Christ doesn't mean you get one strand. You get all the healing, you get all the success, you get all the power. This is life. Uh in 1959, Charles Dickens wrote, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Beautiful classic novel describing his times. CNN in an article uh at the end of the last century 1999 written by a famous historian Philip Fernandez Armesto wrote it was the best of times it was the worst of times. The 20th century produced more creativity effort technological resources more planning more freedom more power for good than ever before in human history. It is also century of the most destructive wars, most inhumane massacres, most barbarous tyrannies, worst extremes of wealth and poverty, the foulest environmental degradation, the most trash, and the crulest disillusionment. A bipolar picture of life. It's not changed in the 100 years. It's not changed. And this affects us. This is a very famous singer. Everyone know her name? Susan. Susan Bole. Wonderful singer. And she I remember she dreams the dream. Remember that song? Beautiful. It's a hauntingly beautiful song. And she sang and she's now uh you know worth $35 million US. Um she had amazingly a a number one hit single on two years in UK and US. A feat never done before except by the Beatles. That's how good she is. And you know where she lives? here in a council flat, right? I think it's in Glasgow somewhere in that cold place called Scotland. Hasn't really moved. She's actually bought a bigger house, but she just puts a piano there. But she goes back and lives in this house with her cat Pebbles. And when they ask her, you know, what is all that? You know, she says, I think it's like my song. It's a dream. I spent 46 of my years dealing with trauma and sadness. I lost my mother. I lost my sister and I was in, you know, poor with no money at all and now I've got all this and I dare not spend. You know what? It's a dream. It's going to go away. Time to be rich, time to be poor and then you come again. You see, we all deal with these two strands in life and we dare not breathe because in case the other shoe drops and then we're out. So, we have got deep life produces because of these two strands. If you're honest, deep insecurity. If you have a good time with your family and wondering, "Ooh, this is too good a time. When is the other shoe going to drop?" And if you're honest, all of you, you're going to feel this in your hearts. Uh we are ruled by time. Uh we we're absolutely not in control. Verse uh this verse says, "I perceive whatever God does endures forever. Nothing can be added to it. Nothing can be taken." So if God had decided you're going to die tomorrow, there's very little you could do about it. John F. Kennedy 1963, I think, right, Jeff? You know what he read before he died? Ecclesiastes chapter 3, a time to be born and a time to die. And he didn't realize that these words were prophetic for him on that day that he would be shot and he would die. Somewhere in heaven is all fixed. every single person here when you're going to live and when you're going to die and and and and Cohellet says what is the net effect if you you damage your property you repair it you have tragedy then you have success you divorce you go marriage the net effect is zero isn't it doesn't get anywhere um what does a man gain with all the toil which he toils under the sun what does he what gain has a worker from his toil actually nothing absolutely nothing. I've seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be bis busy with. So what is this business? Okay, we get a better idea what this business is by looking at verse 13 of chapter one. I applied my heart to seek and search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It was an unhappy business that God has given the children of man to be busy with. Here you see in verse 10, God has given the children of man to be busy with. Same words as the one in verse 13 which means the meaning of this comes here. It's an unhappy business. Life is an unhappy business. You pondering. So by having this bipolar strand of life, it causes us to have an impulse to make sense of life. Why is life up and down? Why is life good and bad? See, God sets the times. We've got limited time. We're like trapped in an hourglass. You only got X amount of time. Every single one of you is it's destined. A and there's uncertainty. There could be good and there could be bad. There's no net gain. And because of this, you've got what we call an existential anxiety or angst. Saurin Kirkard wrote about this years ago. When God sets the time and you're trapped by time and uncertainty and there's no net gain, when things like this that anything happens in your life that brings this sharply into focus, then you start to think, why am I here? What is my purpose in life? Who am I supposed to be? How am I supposed to act? That's what the poem is supposed to be. And the only time you read this poem is when bad stuff happens to you. When you when you're when you're having good time and and money is rolling in, you never look at this because you don't you're afraid. You don't want the other shoe to drop. Only when bad stuff come happens and we've got this existential anxiety. Why am I here? What's my purpose in life? Who am I supposed to be? So God sets the time so that we actually have this anxiety. It's all worked in. All right. If you think God makes this world so that you'll be happy, I think you've you've got it wrong. The way it's structured, you have existential anxiety. You have to ask this real question. Second point, God sets eternity in our hearts. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has put eternity in a man's heart. And yet, so you cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. He says everything is beautiful or appropriate or suitable for its time. And let me just touch a little bit about this and then we'll go back to it for a little while because I think you need to understand the rest of the passage. Understand this. How can it be beautiful when they blow people up? How can it be beautiful when you've got all these folk who was alive last week and today are dead? How can cancer be beautiful? How can heart disease be beautiful? How about cardiac arhythmia be beautiful? Right? How can poverty be beautiful? How can disease be beautiful? And how could God says he makes all things beautiful in its time? And if you going up to a person who's suffering in the hospital today and you tell him, "God makes things beautiful in his time, you're going to get slapped." Don't do that. Uh let's get back to that. Let's go back to the passage. He has put eternity into a man's heart. So yet so he cannot find out what God has done from beginning to the end. And then look at this clue. What does it mean that he set eternity into man's heart? All right. So the the Hebrews do not have a concept of out of time or beyond time or eternity. All right. The Hebrews have a concept of the extension of time forward extension of time backwards. So best of all when he talks about eternity, it is the whole of time. Time in its wholeness. It's a transcendent view of life and time where we can study backwards and look forwards where it it's like looking at this. Uh um I actually ate this. The reason I put up there is that when you look at it, you know what happens in your heart? You want it and you know in your in in your mouth it's too small. You see what I mean? And when you got a transcendent view of time, if you got all of time, the future you can think about and the past you can think about and you meditate on that, but you only got the present of which you put your two little grubby hands to feel. That's right, isn't it? This is what it means. It puts that that that that greediness in our hearts as it were. It's like a young girl. She could think 15 moves ahead. She could think 15 moves back. If you've got a dog, you can't. Have you seen a dog? They can't they only move by instincts. They can't think about the past. What he had for breakfast on his third birthday. Neither can they think about the future. Unless you are like Susan Key's dog. Susan Key is somewhere here. She got a dog whom she's trained very well and she had the right command. The dog will actually bow down and say grace. It's like that. I've seen it. I got a picture of it. I could find it. I I didn't find it. and and I saw Susan just a couple of days ago and and she had left the dog and the dog was a basically a shell of himself really tattered and old and blind and two years ago she sent him to a vet and very sadly she told Bet look you know you just put him under because it's just horrible and pitiful watching him do that vet got his needle ready and was all set to put him under walk towards the dog you know what a dog
It broke his heart. And the vet say return it back to Susan. I can't kill this dog. No way. No way. I mean, he's like pleading. He's like worshiping me. But don't but the vet a bit stupid because he didn't realize the dog can't think that I, you know, if you kill me and the the cyanide is going to go in my blood and I'm not going to be able to celebrate my 15th birthday. Okay, I'm not going to be my you know the dog can't think about such things. What what is the dog doing? The dog is doing things by instinct, isn't it? Nice man counts a big needle. That's what a dog does. A human being is different. The human being thinks backwards and forwards and he thinks about eternity. Einstein's got it right. He said for us physicists believe the separation between past, present and future is only an illusion though a convincing one. And if you actually travel fast enough towards the speed of light where God is, time stops. Absolutely. Um and you know all the popular movies we want to you always reflect an idea that you want to transcend time. Here's Back to the Future. Marty McFly goes forward. If you go to Dr. No, he goes backwards. If you go to Caris, you know what they'll tell you? In those days when I was a young man when my hair was all black, I did this and I did this and it'll regail you with all sorts of stories about what they did in the old days. If you go to young people's fellowship, they tell you, you know, when I go to Australia and study, I'll be like this and then I'll be a fund manager, then I'll own Microsoft, right? So young people will think forward. Old people will think backwards. H how is this possible? Because God has put eternity in our hearts. in the old days is divination and magic. They want to find out by cutting through and looking at the internal organs of animals. Uh today we're better off because stock market charts to look. But so we actually have God has put eternity into man's hearts yet he cannot find out what he has done. Can you see the polar opposites? He puts this desire to eat huge hamburger but you can't because in your grubby little hands desire to know is in your heart. this inability to know is in your head. There's this frustration that's built into your life. Isn't this terrible of God? Why does he do that? Why does he give you a huge hamburger and your mouth is so small? Right now, we look at progress and this is the same uh historian Philip Fernando Ameto. He writes, "Finally, looking at the last 100 years, it may be it may be that progress is subverted by its own contradictions. It is his own worst enemy because it excites hopes which can never be fulfilled." This is a non-Christian historian who doesn't believe in the fear of God, but he also accepts reality. It excites hope, hope of eternity, but it can never be fulfilled. This is Kobayashi Issa, a very famous uh Kabuki poet, one of the top four Kabuki uh uh uh um this is a poet in in um Japan. He had a very bad life. He lost five out of five children. So he went to his Zen master and he asked his Zen master, "Hey, what's the deal, man? I mean, I lost every single child, you know, can you give me some advice and some something to touch my soul? And the Zen master turned to him and he said these words, "Just as the sun rises, the dew evaporates. So on the wheel of suffering, sorrow is transient. Life is transient. Man is transient. You deal with it." Very comforting, isn't it? It's exactly like what Cohellet writes, isn't it? Heel. Habel Habel. And then Kobayashi Issa writes in his poem these words. A world of due a world of due it is indeed. And yet and yet and yet. You see he doesn't accept it. He doesn't accept that in his mind and his instincts contradict each other. In his mind the world is due. It's transient. It says habel habel habel but in his heart he cannot accept it. You know why? Because God has put that contradiction into our hearts. You see in his heart it is and yet and the world of due it is in his head. He has put eternity in our hearts so that he cannot find out what God has done. That which is already been that is to be already has been. God seeks what has been driven away. Which means whatever you do in history for next five or 6 thousand years, do you know history will repeat itself. It won't change. A 100 years ago it was the best of times and the worst of times. Now it will still be a best of times and the worst of times. And Fernando says there are few lessons of history and in any case people never seem to learn from them. So what will be will has been will be. And so therefore you've got the sense of eternity because God sets eternal hearts and that cause frustration at not being able to know or grasp an appropriate eternity for ourselves. How is this beautiful? You've got on one hand God sets a time makes you ask why am I here? What is the purpose of my life? What am I supposed to be? Dear hand, God sets eternity in your heart and your frustration because you you can't grasp all that time and live through all that time. There's a you know how this is beautiful. That brings me to the third point. God makes all things beautiful in its time which is the most difficult thing which you need to deal with now. All right. So God gives us life and life brings us existential angst. Okay. Why am I here? What's my purpose? It gives you frustration because there's a whole of life you you you can't enjoy. Uh it's like this. If you look at the back of a tapestry, you know, you see this tapestry, you will see all sorts of strands. They're going here and there everywhere. You come right close, you see big strands of red in your life. These big portions of suffering, unhappiness, and you don't know what's happening. But you stand further away, and you see the other side of the tapestry, you see a beautiful pattern in life. Now, unless you know the purpose for which the person weaving the tapestry does this, all the strands will be haphazard. All the pain in your life, the scars in your life, they seem really haphazard. You know why? They're not beautiful because you don't know the purpose. When you know the purpose, beauty comes with purpose. If you do not know the purpose, it will never be beautiful. And so therefore the word of God says, I perceive that whatever God does endures forever. Nothing can be added to it. Nothing can be taken away from it. God has done it so that people fear before him. Beauty comes with a purpose. If you look at that purpose, it is a purpose which God has in mind, not what you have in mind. If you look at life with what you have in mind, it's like the back of the tapestry. His strands go here and there. It's like McBth who says, "Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage. He's heard no more. It's a tale told by the idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing." If you look at the back of the temp, that is exactly what life looks like because you're looking at life from the viewpoint of yourself. Life is for me to enjoy, for me to live, have my 15 children, and then pass it on to the next generation. And then inevitably life becomes messy and horrible and painful. You know why? Because that's not the purpose of life. That's not the purpose of life. I mean you got uh this is a story of Dave in Talbert Sony celebrating a 50th anniversary. You think bad things happen to life? In Vietnam he was shot in his right leg, lost almost all his blood. Wound hospital. Met his wife within two weeks he proposed. Now, if he didn't get shot, he would never have met his wife, right? I don't suggest that this is a good way to beat your wife. But nevertheless, it seems as if God makes good things out of beautiful beautiful things out of bad things, isn't it? You have this girlfriend dump you, you're really sad, and then you marry this wonderful girl, right? That's not what it's about. Because that's not the purpose of life. The purpose of life is fearing God. Joanie Ericson is very famous because at the 18 years of age, she she jumped off into a a stream and she broke her neck and she spent the rest of the 50 years of her life in a wheelchair. And she actually wrote a testimony and said, "When I get to heaven, I'm going to stand there. I'm going to have my hugging my wheelchair." And and you know why? I'm going to hug my wheelchair and have a conversation with Jesus. I'm going to tell Jesus, you know what, that chair, I love that chair. You know why? Because that chair made me feel weaker. When I was weaker, I kept on leaning on you more and then I felt that you were stronger. So that chair is actually beautiful because the whole of her life transformed her so that she touched millions of lives all over the world. And that chair which we think is horrible is a dark strand in our life that runs everywhere and you don't want to sit in the chair. How many of you will say this chair is beautiful? none of you, unless you're crazy. But for her, it's beautiful because it put that into her life. It has purpose. It made her closer and stronger and more in love with our Lord Jesus Christ. It's beautiful only because if it's based on God's purpose. So therefore, when God works in our heads, when he sets the time, we experience existential anxiety. But it works in our heart with a sense of eternity. And yet we cannot find out what it is. It causes human beings to fear God. That there is a God. That both the heart and the head tells you there is a God. And you need to acknowledge that God to fear that God to love that God and walk with that God. This is how Genesis describes uh Jacob when he had to work seven years for Rachel. They seem to him but a few days. When you actually love someone, it doesn't look like seven years. It only look like seven days. So bad stuff in the world, even a wheelchair will seem beautiful if the purpose is properly discerned. This is Acts 17. He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling that they should seek God and perhaps feel their way towards him and find him. Yet he's not actually far from every one of us. Our purpose of life is to seek God to acknowledge him as your savior as your god. the garden of Eden. If how is it beautiful? Man has to toil and work and face frustration. Woman has painful childbirth and subjugation. Why did God do that? Was it retributive? Do you know that that punishment is not retributive? It is actually redemptive. If you don't suffer, you will never look to God. That's why suffering that strand of suffering in life is there because the ultimate purpose is to make it beautiful when we turn and we repent and we move before God. Remember man in John nine born blind. Now how could that huge strand in your life be any good? Isn't it? They asked Jesus you know who who who sin? Did he sin? How can he sin? Because he was in the tummy. I mean you know he was born blind. But did his father sin? Uh Jesus said it was not that this man sinned or his parents sinned but that the works of God might be displayed in him. And so this man spends his whole life blind and in one fell swoop Jesus heals him and he stands before the the the the highest authority of the land the Pharisees and Sadducees and all the rulers and he tells them I was I don't know what you think about Jesus but I was blind but now I see. I mean you live your whole life It is unfair. It's a whole, if you look at the back of the taposphere, one big strand. It's all red. And one beautiful gold thread comes across. And that day, you stand before the world who do not believe in Jesus. And you stand there and you say, "I was blind, but now I see." That's your only call to fame. If that's what God has created us to be, that makes it beautiful. Philippians in prison, Paul says, "I want you to know that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel that it had become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ prison becomes an opportunity to be like the blind man I was blind and now I see and Paul says I'm in prison for Jesus Christ and all the God will have to see you know wow this Jesus Christ must be something isn't it so that makes prison beautiful and what about the rest of the church and most The brothers having been confident in the Lord by my imprisonment are much more bold to speak without fear and the and the gospel goes forward. So prison doesn't become a dark strand anymore. It becomes a bright strand of gold. It's not it's also beautiful because God is in control. Whatever God does endures forever. Nothing can be added. Nothing can be taken away. God has done it so that people fear before him. So every strand in our lives are there because God is working a purpose in our lives. So when we're looking at this great big red strand in our life, whether it's prison where Raymond Cole could be or illnesses when someone comes and tells you we've got a biopsy and it's this result or that result or you've got a scan how many of you have gone for scans you know I had a lump in my chest once and going for scan is the most terrifying thing in your life. you feel like, you know, letting go in your pants because the result comes out and it's all bright red. Um, but then you remember that whatever God does endures forever. Nothing can be taken away. Nothing can be added. Whatever the scan is there, whether it's full of dots or it's clear, God is in control. And that gives us great comfort, doesn't it? I'm going to end with this challenge. The last thing we need to look at in terms of time is that there's the greatest time and the greatest beauty. But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth his son born of woman, born under the law to redeem those who are under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons. All of time the whole of humanity is at edge of his seat and waiting for that one time when at Christmas good news of a great joy born to you in the city of Bethlehem a savior of the world at the right time absolutely right time he came and then he said the time is fulfilled the kingdom of God is at hand repent and believe in the gospel brothers and sisters we're living in This time, the time is now. The time is now to bring the gospel, to believe in the gospel, to believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins and redeems our time. And this message we bring to the rest of the world. And then what do we do with the current time? This is what Solomon says. I perceive there's nothing better for them to be joyful and to do good as long as they live. also that they should take, eat, drink and take pleasure into all this toil. For this is God's gift to man. So you see this bipolar strands in life. You see these difficulties in life. You don't understand what why these things happen. And you know what Cohellet is telling us? He's telling us to chill out. To chill out. Why you worry about what's going to happen tomorrow? Why you why why you why do you reminisce about the past? It's over. It's finished. Some of us are living in the future. If only I listed my company, my share price will be triple and it'll be fun. Right now, it's like my head is under water. I've got to do I've got to sacrifice. I can do whatever it takes. You know, when it's all done, when I get the deal done, then I start to live, isn't it? But Cohellet is saying, "No, because you don't know what's going to happen to you. You live now. you. There's nothing better for them to be joyful, to do good, and to eat, drink, and take pleasure. You know what? This is a decision. You make this decision today because every strand of your life is already determined by God. There's nothing actually you could do about it. Hey, some of you older ones, you could you have eat vegetables every day and orange juice, but when the time comes, the time's going to come. So, chill out. Okay. Now, you said, "I can't do that. I I I can't really I've got so many things to do. I got so many problems. I can't do that." You know what? Some years ago, there a whole bunch of people, too, exactly like us. They're too busy. They've got debts. They got family problems. They've got hurts. They're thinking about a future. They're too busy. They were bankers. They were police people. They were firemen. It didn't matter. 18 people took airplanes and slammed into two buildings. Many died. But the ones that survived, the ones that survived, you should read the testimonies of how they started to live their life after the accident. You know these guys are no different before the accident, after that. They still the same depths. They still have problem with the wife. They have problem with the children run away. They still got all the pain and the misery in life, right? What was the difference before the accident, after the accident? No difference. Bank account still the same, probably less. But this is what the testimonies are. Pascal Buzzel. He's an interesting man. He fell. He actually surfed from 22 floors down to seventh when the building collapsed. So he's like surfing, you know, big guy surfing down. Absolute miracle. He survived. His wife says, "Every day is a gift. Every day is a gift." This is uh Brian Gaffne. It's been a grind, but it changes a person's perspective as to what stress, what to stress over when you know you've dodged the bullet, not once, but twice, he said. So, he don't stress anymore. He didn't get upset anymore. He doesn't worry about the future anymore because what it takes me dodging the bullet twice to basically chill out. Bruce Salv, a survivor. If you walked away from near-death experience, it's like an epiphany. The plan wasn't for me to die, but to do something else with my life. Money isn't the story here anymore. It isn't about a bigger house or a yard. It's about life and service. And I've not looked back and not regretted it one second. Why does it have to take two buildings to collapse for us to realize the most important things of life is to live to do good to have joy and to enjoy the things that your simple toil have brought to you. That's what Hela is telling us today. We're too imshed in the past. We can't let it go. We're too fearful and frightened of the future and it's driving us from the real gift that God has given us. It doesn't take a disaster to pull our head out of the muck. This is a story of Sujo John immigrant to America and that particular year 2001 he came to America to look for a better life. Can you imagine? And he gets a job in tower one of Twin Towers. That's the worst job in the world. I could be the back of Bangalore law and still do better than that. But how do you know? He thought he had a better life. He came down from the building. He was rushing to the other building because the the plane had hit and his wife was supposed to be in the other building and he ran towards it and just at there he was with a crowd of about 15 people and just at that m moment the entire second tower collapsed and there was debris falling all over and just before that the people were looking to him and he's saying trust in Jesus I trust in Jesus I'm a Christian call upon the name of the Lord and he will be with you and some of them called and some of them didn't last minute evangelist a fantastic fellow from India you know and every single one of the people around him were crushed all crushed by the stones and the debris and the steel only he stood in the middle of that rubble and the haze and he walked out alive you know what that does to a person that tells you God has a plan start living it now and so therefor Therefore, what he does with his time now, he goes through churches every single week throughout America, telling them of what Jesus did for him and saved his life. He's gone back to India where he comes from and he started a home for abused women, prostitutes. It's called Rahab Home. You see, it takes something like that for us to decide to change our lives. It doesn't have to. The message for us this morning is that there's a time to be born, a time to die. You can't change all that. Every single strand of your life is determined by God. It doesn't take a disaster for you to wake up or an illness to wake up. God gives you all that anyway to so that you realize your purpose. It can only be beautiful if you understand God's purpose in your life. So don't fret about the past. Don't worry about the future. Live for God's purpose in your life today. Grab what he has given you today. Hug it close because you could lose it tomorrow and yet live in such a way that it will honor and glorify God. And there's one more time I want you to look at. One more time, the most important time, the future time. Therefore, you also must be ready. The son of man is coming in an hour you do not expect. Who then is the faithful and wise servant whom his master has set over his household to give them the food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find doing so when he comes. There's not much time, brothers and sisters in Christ. It's 2,000 years since the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He's coming soon. and the most important time in the world. It'll be just like 911. You don't know when 17 people or 18 people decide to drive planes inside the the buildings. But God knows. Even Jesus doesn't know. God knows when he's going to come back again. And when he comes, there will be no more time. It'll be judgment time. And he wants to look at every single one of us. It's not fixed in a sense. It's open to you that whether we are faithful and we live and use God's gift. You only got one life. Use God's gift in its proper way, the proper way to bring beauty in your life, your suffering. Find God's purpose and fear him. Let's pray. Father Lord, we just thank you so much that you are a God who is in control every single time in our lives. The time we were born, a time when we fell and hurt our knee, a time when we graduated from school, a time when we started our first job, the time we had our first kiss. Time when we married our spouse, the time of birth of our first child. At the time that we fall sick, the time when the scan came back positive, to the time when the doctor looked at our eyes and with a tinge of sadness, time one day when they shall put us into that coffin, that time has already been mapped out. It is in your time and you make all things beautiful. I pray Lord for every single one of us this morning that the uncertainties of life will cause us to reflect. It didn't have to take a disaster. It didn't have to take an illness. That this morning God's word will penetrate to every single one of us that we learn to live now to live joyfully because you know why? Because we have Jesus in our hearts. That we will live forever. Oh Lord, fill us with your joy this morning. We will live for you and find beauty in your purpose in our lives. In so doing, change us. Help us to live simply, not worrying and fussing about the money in the future, a bigger house, a bigger pension. Help us to just grab what you have given to hug our wives and our children and just thank you Jesus for them and then to live within our means and do good in our lives. share the gospel, touch another life for that because that's the only thing that matters. And father Lord, we look forward to the time when we will see you at the great judgment day that we, your servant, would have been found faithful with the time that you have given us. All glory and honor be to you for yours for Jesus sake. Amen.
