God's Appointed Times Text: Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
Introduction: The Divine Choreography
We live in an age that worships at the altar of personal autonomy. Modern man believes he is the master of his fate, the captain of his soul, and the sole author of his own story. He wants a world that can be managed, controlled, and bent to his will. But the book of Ecclesiastes, and this passage in particular, lands on that sentiment like a ten-ton safe. It confronts our delusion of control with the stark reality of God's absolute sovereignty over every moment of our lives.
The Preacher, Solomon, has spent the first two chapters demonstrating the vanity of all human endeavor when viewed "under the sun." That phrase is key; it describes a worldview that refuses to look up, a life lived as though this world is all there is. From that horizontal perspective, wisdom, wealth, pleasure, and toil all end in futility. It is shepherding the wind. But here in chapter three, the perspective shifts. Solomon is not a nihilist; he is a hard-headed realist who understands that the only way to make sense of the chaos under the sun is to acknowledge the God who reigns above the sun. This famous poem is not a lament about the meaningless cycles of fate. It is a declaration of God's meticulous and exhaustive providence.
This is not fatalism. Fatalism is the blind, impersonal grinding of the cosmic gears. The Christian doctrine of providence is the personal, wise, and good governance of our heavenly Father, who holds all things in His hand. He is not a distant watchmaker; He is the composer of the symphony, the choreographer of the dance. Every note, every step, every beat is precisely timed and placed according to His perfect will. This passage gives us a series of fourteen pairs of opposites, covering the waterfront of human experience, and declares that God has appointed a time for every single one of them. For the unbeliever, this is terrifying. For the believer, it is the foundation of all true peace and profound joy.
The Text
There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every matter under heaven, A time to give birth and a time to die; A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted. 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. A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones; A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing. A time to search and a time to lose; A time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to tear apart and a time to sew together; A time to be silent and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate; A time for war and a time for peace.
(Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 LSB)
The Unchanging Principle (v. 1)
The Preacher begins with a sweeping, foundational statement.
"There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every matter under heaven, " (Ecclesiastes 3:1)
This is the thesis for the entire poem. Nothing is random. Nothing is accidental. The word for "appointed time" speaks of a specific, designated season. The word for "time" refers to a fitting or appropriate occasion. God is not just the Lord of the big picture; He is the Lord of the details. Every event, every joy, every sorrow, every birth, and every death is on His calendar, scheduled with infinite wisdom. This is a direct assault on the idea that our lives are a series of meaningless accidents. The universe is not a chaotic mess; it is a cosmos, an ordered reality, because it proceeds from the mind of an orderly God.
Notice the scope: "everything" and "every matter under heaven." There are no exceptions. Your career, your marriage, your health, the rise and fall of nations, the sparrow that falls from the sky, the number of hairs on your head, it is all governed. This is what we mean by the sovereignty of God. He doesn't just have a general plan; He has a specific, all-encompassing plan. He "works all things according to the counsel of His will" (Ephesians 1:11). This truth is the bedrock upon which a sane and stable life is built. Without it, we are adrift on a sea of chance, and despair is the only logical conclusion.
The Rhythm of Life and Death (v. 2)
The first pair of opposites deals with the most fundamental realities of our existence.
"A time to give birth and a time to die; A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted." (Ecclesiastes 3:2)
Our beginning and our end are not in our hands. We do not choose the moment of our birth, and, despite our best efforts, we do not ultimately choose the moment of our death. These bookends of our lives are set by God. This is humbling. We enter the world helpless, and we leave it helpless. This is God's design to remind us that we are creatures, not the Creator. Our days are numbered by Him before one of them comes to be (Psalm 139:16).
The parallel with planting and uprooting is agricultural and covenantal. Israel's life was tied to the land and its seasons. There is a right time to put the seed in the ground, and there is a right time for the harvest, which involves uprooting the plant. This is the rhythm of work and reward, of sowing and reaping. But it also carries the sense of God's covenantal dealings. He is the one who plants nations, and He is the one who uproots them in judgment. Our lives, our families, our churches, our nations, we are all in His field, and He is the divine husbandman.
The Rhythm of Destruction and Restoration (v. 3)
The next pair is stark and, to our modern sensibilities, quite jarring.
"A time to kill and a time to heal; A time to tear down and a time to build up." (Ecclesiastes 3:3)
This is not giving a blanket endorsement for murder. This must be read within the context of the whole counsel of God. There is a time for the magistrate to bear the sword in capital punishment (Romans 13:4). There is a time for just war. There are times when God Himself acts in judgment to take life, as He did in the flood or the conquest of Canaan. And there is a time for healing, for restoration, for the physician's art. Both are instruments in the hand of a sovereign God.
Likewise, there is a time to tear down, to demolish a corrupt institution, to break down a wall of hostility, to repent of sinful structures. And there is a time to build up, to plant a church, to build a Christian school, to raise a family, to establish a just society. God is a deconstructor and a constructor. He tears down the Tower of Babel, and He builds the City of God. He is not committed to the status quo; He is committed to His holy purposes, which sometimes require demolition before new construction can begin.
The Rhythm of Emotion (v. 4)
From the grand scale of life and death, Solomon moves to the internal world of our hearts.
"A time to weep and a time to laugh; A time to mourn and a time to dance." (Ecclesiastes 3:4)
Our emotional lives are not random chemical reactions. They are part of the story God is writing. There are seasons of profound sorrow, of weeping over sin, of mourning loss. Jesus Himself was a "man of sorrows." And there are seasons of laughter, of joy in God's goodness, of dancing in celebration, as David did before the Ark. A mature faith does not try to live in a state of perpetual, plastic happiness. A mature faith knows how to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. It embraces the emotional texture of a real life lived in a fallen but beautiful world, knowing that God has appointed the time for both tears and laughter.
The world seeks laughter without a reason and flees from mourning at all costs. But the Christian understands that "blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted" (Matthew 5:4). Our mourning is not despair, because we know the God who turns our mourning into dancing (Psalm 30:11). Both are appropriate in their appointed time.
The Rhythm of Relationship and Work (v. 5-6)
The poem continues, touching on our actions and interactions.
"A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones; A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing. A time to search and a time to lose; A time to keep and a time to throw away." (Ecclesiastes 3:5-6)
Throwing stones could refer to clearing a field for planting or to the act of judgment (stoning). Gathering stones could refer to building. There is a time for tearing apart and a time for building up. Similarly, in relationships, there is a time for the intimacy of an embrace, and there is a time for separation, for shunning what is evil, for breaking fellowship with those who persist in unrepentant sin (1 Corinthians 5:11).
Our possessions are also under God's sovereign timing. There is a time to search for what is lost and a time to accept a loss. There is a time to acquire and keep things, to be a good steward of what God has given. And there is a time to let go, to throw away, to declutter, to give generously, recognizing that we are stewards, not owners. The world says "get and keep." God says there is a time for both keeping and losing, and wisdom is knowing which time it is, as determined by Him.
The Rhythm of Concord and Conflict (v. 7-8)
The final verses bring the poem to a powerful climax, addressing speech, affections, and the state of nations.
"A time to tear apart and a time to sew together; A time to be silent and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate; A time for war and a time for peace." (Ecclesiastes 3:7-8)
Tearing garments was a sign of grief or righteous anger. Sewing them represents restoration. There is a time for righteous protest and a time for reconciliation. There is a time for silence, when a fool is speaking or when wisdom dictates restraint. And there is a time to speak, to confess the truth, to rebuke sin, to proclaim the gospel, regardless of the consequences.
And here is the most difficult one for our sentimental age: "a time to love and a time to hate." Our culture believes love is the unqualified acceptance of everything and that hate is always and everywhere a sin. The Bible disagrees. We are commanded to love God, to love our neighbor, and even to love our enemies. But we are also commanded to hate what God hates. "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way And the perverted mouth, I hate" (Proverbs 8:13). We are to hate sin, injustice, rebellion, and idolatry. A love that does not hate evil is not true love; it is flabby, sentimental nonsense.
Finally, the poem concludes on the international stage. There is a time for war, for the just defense of a nation, and there is a time for peace. God raises up nations and He casts them down. He is the Lord of hosts, the God of armies. And He is the Prince of Peace. Both war and peace are on His timetable, according to His sovereign purposes. Pacifism is not a biblical option, because it denies that there is an appointed time for war.
Christ, the Lord of All Time
So what do we do with this? If we stop here, we might be tempted to a kind of resigned fatalism. But this is not the end of the story. This entire poem points us to the one who stands outside of time and yet entered into it, the one who is the Lord of every appointed time: Jesus Christ.
In the fullness of time, at the exact moment appointed by the Father, God sent His Son (Galatians 4:4). There was an appointed time for Him to be born, and an appointed time for Him to die. There was a time for Him to be silent before His accusers, and a time for Him to speak with authority. There was a time for Him to weep over Jerusalem, and a time for Him to rejoice in the Spirit. There was a time for Him to embrace the little children, and a time for Him to shun the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. There was a time for Him to tear down the temple of His body, and a time to build it up again in three days.
In the cross of Christ, we see the most violent and beautiful collision of these times. It was a time to kill, when wicked men murdered the Son of God. But it was also a time to heal, as by His stripes we are healed. It was a time of war, as Christ did battle with sin, death, and the devil. But it was also a time of peace, as He made peace by the blood of His cross. It was a time of profound hate, as the world hated the light. But it was the ultimate time of love, as God demonstrated His own love for us in this.
Because Jesus is Lord of all time, we who are in Him can face our own appointed times with confidence. We can laugh without feeling guilty, and we can weep without despairing. We can work and we can rest. We can build and we can see things torn down. We can live and we can die. For we know that all our times are in His hand (Psalm 31:15). And He has "made everything beautiful in its time" (Ecclesiastes 3:11). The story He is writing with our lives, with all its strange and contradictory seasons, will in the end be a masterpiece. Our whole duty, then, is not to understand the timetable, but to trust the Timetabler. Fear God, and keep His commandments.