A Time for Everything Part 2 Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: 2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which 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 get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; 7 A time to rend, 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 of war, and a time of peace. We will continue todays teaching with verses 4 and 5. In verse 4 Solomon tells us that there is a time to weep and a time to laugh. When we lose a loved one we often weep over their death. If they are in Christ our weeping should only be for a short time as we should rejoice that they are now absent from the body and present with the Lord. There is also a spiritual weeping that should take place in the life of a believer. When we sin against God and the Holy Spirit brings conviction or brokenness we often weep as a way of showing God that we have truly repented. This brokenness will happen from time to time in our lives and it should be something that we welcome. There is also a time to laugh. There are some people who think that laughing is not appropriate when it comes to spiritual matters, but I would beg to differ with you. We were created in the image of God and it was God that gave us a sense of humor. There is nothing wrong with good clean humor. We need a good laugh every once in a while as it relieves stress. The Bible tells is in Proverbs 17:22a “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine:. A good laugh is like medicine to the soul.” Again we see in verse five that there is a time to mourn and a time to dance. As stated earlier we should weep and mourn when we lose a loved one, but we should also mourn over injustice. When those who have done wrong and they are not punished we should mourn, also when someone who is punished that does not deserve to be punished we should mourn as this too us injustice. There is a time to dance. We should be willing to dance before the Lord. We see in 2 Samuel 6:14-15 that David danced before the Lord with all of his might when they brought the Ark of God back into Jerusalem. The Ark represented the presence of God, and we also dance when we are in the presence of God. Solomon then tells us that there is a time to gather and cast away stones. When we look in the Bible we can see many of the patriarchs gathered stones and built altars to offer sacrifices to God. The Bible tells us in Deuteronomy 27:5-6 5 And there shalt thou build an altar unto the Lord thy God, an altar of stones: thou shalt not lift up any iron tool upon them. 6 Thou shalt build the altar of the Lord thy God of whole stones: and thou shalt offer burnt offerings thereon unto the Lord thy God:. These altars were built of whole stones, God wanted altars that were built to offer sacrifices to Him came from His original creation and did not want them altered in any way. We should continue to build altars in this day in time, but they should be built using lively stones as stated in 1 Peter 2:5 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. As the Body of Christ we are that spiritual house. There are also times when we should cast away stones, this is to say that we should cast away sin far from us. In the Old Testament as the Israelites conquered the Promised Land, God told them to But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire. (Deuteronomy 7:5). There are some things that need to be torn down in our lives if we expect to move into Gods promises for our lives. Finally we have to understand that there is a time to embrace and not to embrace. Embracing in private is always appropriate but public shows of affection are not always appropriate. However when we do embrace it should be done in love. Many times we embrace when we meet someone or when we greet one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. Also when we depart from people we also embrace as a show of the godly love that we have towards them. When Ruth and Orpah were about to leave their mother in law Naomi the Bible tells us the following in Ruth 1:14 which states, And again they wept together, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-bye. But Ruth clung tightly to Naomi. Here we see that Ruth would not let go of or embraced Naomi. We to should have this kind of lover for others but mostly for God. We will continue this teaching tomorrow. May the peace and love of God be with you always!
Posted on: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 14:30:42 +0000
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