For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: Eccles 3:1-8

1 There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:
2         a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3     a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
4     a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6     a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7     a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8     a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

A. Find out :

1. How wide embracing are these verses? v.1
2. What do verses 2 & 3 cover?
3. How does verse 4 naturally flow on?
4. How does verse 5 continue from that?
5. How do verses 6 & 7a move on from there?
6. How do verses 7b and 8 now change?

B. Think:

1. How can such words as in these verses be encouraging to us?
2. How may they be depressing?
3. How may they be challenging?

C. Comment:

In this passage the word “time” occurs fifteen times, and in that there is a sense of just going on and on. That is probably what Solomon, in the light of all that has he has said previously, is trying to convey, that life just goes on and on monotonously.

If life does just go on and on like that, that should create various feelings in us. First there is the sense of order and stability about life, a certain sureness about it. Second, if we look at it from a purely human point of view, there is almost a depressing inevitability about it, we are caught up in a giant wheel of activity where one thing must follow another. Third, though, and perhaps this should be the most important thing for us, there is the challenge to be alert to the times and the days in which we live.

If is Autumn, we know Winter will follow, but Spring will follow that. If we are going through difficulties, blessing will eventually come. Do we have the patience and perseverance to wait in the right attitude until the next “season” comes? The men of Issachar (1 Chronicles 12:32 ) were those who understood the times and knew what Israel should do. May we similarly understand when it is right to do the right thing in season, the appropriate thing for the moment.   

D. Application?  

1. A time to move and a time to stand still?
2. A time to speak out and a time to be silent?

Passage: Eccles 3:9-15

9 What do workers gain from their toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. 13 That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil – this is the gift of God. 14 I know that everything God does will endure for ever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him.

15 Whatever is has already been,
    and what will be has been before;
    and God will call the past to account.

A. Find out :  

1. What is man’s burden? v.9,10
2. What 2 things has God done? v.11
3. Yet what is man’s “frustration”? v.11c
4. So what is man’s lot? v.12
5. What is God’s gift? v.13
6. Why does God make things as they are? v.14

B. Think:

1. What is the apparent hard aspect to life?
2. How can drudgery be turned to blessing?
3. What provision has God made, according to this passage?

C. Comment:  

Within this passage Solomon faces a problem that all mankind faces and then presents the solution. First the problem: that man has to work to stay alive(v.9,10). Genesis 3:19 tells us that because of our separation from God we will have to work hard to achieve provision. For so many that work is just daily drudgery that goes on and on meaninglessly.

Next the solution: God has imparted so much of Himself that work can be transformed to give us real satisfaction. Let’s consider.

First, the world in which we live and work is a beautiful place (v.11a), it is only man who spoils it. Our work environment can be a blessing.

Second, within us we have a sense of something far more than mere materialism, a sense of eternity (v.11b), a sense of the spiritual world, a sense of the Divine. Our awareness can be a blessing.

Third, the Lord Himself can bless us and transform the ordinary and make it something special (water into wine was the classic illustration in John chapter 2, Moses’ rod was another, Exodus 4:2). As we seek to do good (v.12) and to do our work well (implied), we can find satisfaction (v.13).

Yes, work is there as a necessity but the Lord has so provided that the necessity can be a blessing to us. Yet again we see that without God the world can be hard; with Him it can be transformed. He provides a world that is complete (v.14), a world where past and present are often repeats (v.15) and so a world for us to simply enjoy what is with God’s help, whether that be work or recreation.

D. Application?  

1. Is the Lord in our work? He knows more about it than we do! (see Luke 5:4-10)
2. Let God turn the ordinary into a blessing.

Passage: Eccles 3:16-22

16 And I saw something else under the sun:

in the place of judgment – wickedness was there,
    in the place of justice – wickedness was there.

17 I said to myself,

‘God will bring into judgment
    both the righteous and the wicked,
for there will be a time for every activity,
    a time to judge every deed.’

18 I also said to myself, ‘As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. 19 Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: as one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. 20 All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. 21 Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?’

22 So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them?

A. Find out :  

1. Where did Solomon maintain wickedness was? v.16
2. To whom will God bring judgement? v.17
3. What does he maintain men are like? v.18
4. In what way? v.19,20
5. Of what was he unsure? v.21
6. So what was his conclusion? v.22

B. Think:

1. Reminder! From what perspective was Solomon looking at life?
2. How are verses 18-21 only partial truth?
3. How is the life of the Christian to be very far from the life seen here?

C. Comment:  

At various times in this book, Solomon’s low spiritual state produces half truths, and this is one of those times. First of all he considers the place of justice (v.16) and maintains that even there, there was evil (presumably corruption), in the very place where you would look for truth. But then he thinks, God will eventually deal with this (v.17), and as he thinks this he naturally moves on to think of death, for in death God deals with all men.

Frankly, he says, men are sometimes like animals (v.18) in the way they behave and, indeed, their end is just the same as that of animals (v.19). Humans and animals alike all end up in death returning to dust (v.20).

It is here that we now find the half truth, for in his “under the sun” thinking he sees the material dimension to life only and, yes, all bodies do eventually die and see corruption. However, for the human being at least, (the Bible is silent about animals) death is not the end. The unbeliever is excluded from God’s presence for eternity but never the less lives on in isolation, but for the believer it means a glorious eternity in the wonderful presence of their Saviour. This is the clear teaching of the rest of the Bible.

D. Application?

1. The human viewpoint is limited when it doesn’t know God and doesn’t receive His revelation.
2. Death is not the end!