Time and Eternity

IIT UBF - University Bible Fellowship at IIT

Time and Eternity

Date: May. 14, 2023

Passage

Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 (ESV)

1 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

2   a time to be born, and a time to die;
  a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
3   a time to kill, and a time to heal;
  a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4   a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
  a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5   a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
  a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6   a time to seek, and a time to lose;
  a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7   a time to tear, and a time to sew;
  a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8   a time to love, and a time to hate;
  a time for war, and a time for peace.

9 What gain has the worker from his toil? 10 I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 12 I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; 13 also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.

14 I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. 15 That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV) is adapted from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. All rights reserved.

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Daily Bread

Key Verse: 3:11

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

After a generally pessimistic reflection on human life “under the sun”, especially without God, the Teacher poetically describes the passing of time. This section may be the most quoted part of Ecclesiastes. It should not be understood as a meditation on the randomness of life. Rather, it is an encouragement for us to have a proper view of God’s sovereignty over all things. God has sovereignly ordered a time for everything. Birth and death, planting and uprooting, weeping and laughing - each activity has its time in our lives as set by God. We toil and groan under the burden God has laid on us (Ro 8:22) but God has also allowed us to experience beauty (11a). We often avoid pain and struggle and seek ease and comfort. But God, in his wisdom and grace, allows us to have a full range of human experience so that we may always seek him and know him better.

Though we live out our earthly lives in finite time and space, God has also set eternity in our hearts. We long for eternity even though we cannot really understand what our eternal God has done. God alone gives us satisfaction in our work. His will endures forever. God will judge how we live (15). May we have a healthy fear of our sovereign God.

Prayer: Prayer: Father, thank you for being eternal and sovereign over everything that happens. Please grow our faith in every season of life and to live with an eternal perspective.

One Word: One Word: God is sovereign in every season

“my God, My God…”

Mark 15:33-47

Key Verse: 15:33

The Death of Jesus

And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.

Today's Question

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