Video Transcript: Time on Our Hands, Eternity in Our Hearts
Before turning to Ecclesiastes three, I want to retell a story. There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to the market to purchase some things. And before long the servant came back, and he was pale, and trembling with fear. And he told the merchant, lend me your best horse, I've got to get out of here. And the merchant said, what happened? And the servant said, I was in the market of Baghdad, and someone jostled me in the crowd. And I turned, and I saw that it was death, and death, made a frightening gesture, and looked at me. And so he's got to give me that horse and I am going to ride as fast as I can to Samira, and the merchant said, take my fastest horse and go until he got on the horse, and rode away at top speed towards Samira, 75 miles away. Later that day, the merchant himself went to the market, and he met death and death. He said to death, why did you threaten my servant, and death said, Oh, that was not a look of threat. I was just surprised and astonished, because I have an appointment with him tonight in Samira. That's an old story. But it does tell a very important truth that we can ride our fastest horse as far as we can get. And sometimes we simply cannot avoid our date. With death. There is a time to be born and the time to die and time for lots of other things. And we don't always control those times. Ecclesiastes three says, There is a time for everything. And a season for every activity under heaven, a time to be born and a time to die. Time to plant and a time to uproot the time to kill and a time to heal, the time to tear down and to time to build a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, time to scatter stones and a time to gather them a time to pray embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up time to keep and a time to throw away a time to tear and a time to mend. A time to be silent in a time to speak, time to love and a time to hate, a time for war, and a time for peace. And when we look at these different times, we realize again, the importance of timing. I'm coaching an elementary boys basketball team. And if we had perfect timing, we would beat people even worse than we already do. Because so much in basketball depends on timing, you say again and again. Now hit the guy when he breaks to the open spot. Now after he gets there. If you wait half a second too long, they steal the ball. Shoot when you're open, don't stand there for another second thinking about it or you'll be covered. You've got to have the timing. And it is this way in all aspects of life where timing is is everything. There is a time to born the time to die. By the way we live right now when people think that for many the time to die as before they can eat to be even be born. We remember again this weekend, our own country's law that abortion is just fine, and that it's okay to kill children even before it's their time to be born. There's time to plant in a time to uproot. What would a farmer do? And how well would he succeed? If he plows plants in the fall? And then decides to harvest in the spring? How well would the crops be growing during this nice winter? They wouldn't you have to plant and then uproot and do things at the right time? Is the Time To Kill a time to heal. This applies in many different areas of life. For some of you with cats. That's a tough call, isn't it? Sometimes you say boy, is it time for the end? Or is it time to try to heal him one more time, time to weep and a time to laugh. Timing is everything even when it comes to saying hello to somebody or saying good morning. There's a saying in the book of Proverbs. If a man blesses his neighbor loudly early in the morning, it will be taken as a curse. Because that was bad timing. If you're not a morning person and some somebody comes up to you all smiles into a day. Get out of my face. There's a time to weep a time to laugh. Again. Sometimes when people are in sorrow, the last thing they need is a clever joke. And on the other hand when people are having a good time and celebrating, the last thing they need is Johnny raincloud, walking in trying to spoil everything by having yet another grumpy days. So there is the time to mourn a time to dance. And in so much depends on the right timing or the wrong timing. Because there is no formula that says this is the time to do such and such. It takes a certain amount of wisdom and discernment time to scatter stones or gather them a time to embrace and a time to refrain. Many a young man on a date has thought it was time to embrace. And the young lady thought it was time to refrain. And that didn't always go so well. Or sometimes when you're a married couple, one of you is feeling very lovey dovey and romantic, and the other one's got a headache and says, Please, you know, the time to refrain is not always easy to know, there's time to search time to give up time to keep in a time to throw away the packrats think it's never time to throw away, there is a time to have a garage sale and throw
away more than you wanted to, or at least get rid of it. And, again, you could go a time to be silent, a time to speak. There is a time to just keep your mouth shut and listen, and not make too much noise. But there's also a time when it is wrong to be silent. This is a weekend of remembering Dr. Martin Luther King. And some people thought well, why doesn't he just be quiet and not make such a big fuss? Well, sometimes you need to make a fuss, and you need to make some noise because injustice is there. And something needs to be said. And even though it might be easier just to duck and say nothing. It's a time to speak a time to allow the time to hate time for war or time for peace. In the late 1930s Neville Chamberlain came home from a visit with Adolf Hitler in Munich and having worked out yet another deal with a dictator who had already invaded one country after another. He said I believed in his peace in our time, go home and get a good night's sleep. But it was not a time for sleep, and a time for peace. It was a time for war. And Winston Churchill understood what Chamberlain didn't there there are these different times and sometimes the difference between a great leader and a poor one is simply the ability to know what time it is. And this is the challenge in one decision after another in life what time is it. And it's not always the easiest thing to know little later in Ecclesiastes and chapter eight, verses five and six. He says the wise heart will know the proper time and procedure for there is a proper time and procedure for every matter, though a man's misery weighs heavily upon him. Wisdom is being able to recognize what's appropriate. at a given time. There is no formula that says always kill. There is no formula that says always heal always be quiet. Always speak out. You need to have a wisdom that senses when to do what. And that presents us with the whole issue of timing problems. There is a time for everything. But how in the world? Do you know what time it is? is unclear. So much depends on good timing. But how do you know what to do at a particular time? For some of you young people, there's a time to get educated, there's a time to get a job. When do you know which time it is? That's hard to know. There are many things in life where we just can't quite figure out what should I do at this given moment. That's one of the challenges of time. Another one related to the questions about time is there's a time for this a time for that a time for the other things. But do our decisions really make much difference? Can we really change events, there is a sort of inevitability, things that are unavoidable that can't be changed. The man hops on the horse towards Samira, and death has an appointment with him in Samira that night. So you can call it fate, or destiny, or luck or God's providence. But whatever the person and whatever the culture and whatever the label, it seems there are some things that they just happen at a set time. And you really don't have a lot of control over such things. And then there is that question that comes up again and again in Ecclesiastes? What do we gain? If there's a time to be born, and the time to die? It seems the two times cancel each other out and you end up with zero. If there's a time to gather, but then the time to scatter well at The end of the gathering and the scattering? Aren't you kind of backward, you're stuck where you started. And if you take all of these opposites and seem to add them together, they seem to perhaps add up to zero. These are the kinds of questions that this relentless realist, Solomon writing and Ecclesiastes, does he he thinks hard in two senses, he thinks hard in terms of really applying his brain to you to a matter, but he also thinks about very hard things, and asks hard questions. And these are some of the timing problems that he raises. And that final question, what's the use? What's it all add up to in chapter three, verse nine, after saying, there's a time for this and a time for that. He says, What does the worker gain from his toil? echoes the question that he asked in chapter one, verse three, when he opened the book, what does the man gain? From all his labor? At which he toils under the sun? What is the profit Hebrew word, yitron? profit or gain or wage? What's the payoff? What do you have? When it's all over with? What do you have to show for it? And the word he uses again, and again, it's hevel. It's like a mist or vapor or a fog. And it seems like after all of those times have done their thing. Well, what do you have to show for that first, he is very gloomy. We've seen that in the in the earlier messages and earlier chapters of Ecclesiastes and chapter one, he says things generations come and generations go, the earth remains the same. There's nothing new under the sun. You're like that ancient myth of Sisyphus, where you push the rock up the mountain, and then it rolls right back down. So you have push it up, and it rolls back down. And whether it's changing diapers or dealing with
paperwork at the office, or, or what have you dealing with your homework. Your life is like the Sisyphus syndrome, where you do the same old, same old and not much seems to change. Then in chapter two, he talks about his own personal journey. And he summarizes it as chasing the wind. He tried pursuing every pleasure you can think of. He tried being smarter than anybody else. He tried achieving more. And hey, Solomon had a gazillion wives and every pleasure you could think of, he got smarter than everybody else. And he achieved more, he raked him 25 tons of gold a year, he had everything on his little dream cruise through life. He says, I denied myself nothing my eyes desired. Yet when I surveyed all my hands and done and what I toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless. A chasing after the wind, nothing was gained under the sun, without God who can eat or find enjoyment. That's the point he comes to by the end of Ecclesiastes two, I've tried all this stuff. And I'm beginning to realize it without God, who can eat or find enjoyment. And then he talks about the various times and he asked now, what's the profit? What's the payoff? What does the worker gain from his toil under the sun, and, and here, he's not quite as gloomy as he isn't white, making more progress. He's gaining more insights, not everything at once. But some at a time. I've seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful. In its time, there's kind of a new thought for Ecclesiastes, but he's made everything beautiful. In its time, he has also set eternity in the hearts of men, yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there's nothing better for men than to be happy and to do good while they live, that everyone may eat and drink and find satisfaction in all his toil. This is the gift of God, I know that everything God does will endure forever, nothing can be added to it, and nothing taken from it. God does it so that man will revere him. Whatever is has already been and what will be has been before. And God will call the past to account. You might think the past is past and everything boiled down to nothing. But God will call the past to account. So there's four key truths in those verses we just read. One is that God's timing is beautiful, and it is meaningful. You may think everything is in a rut, and it's just the same old, same old when you're just looking at this or that event, or this or that difficult decision or time of your life. But he realizes that God has a sense of timing, and that in the big picture, even what seems like a confused jumble to us, is something that God is working out and his timing is beautiful and it gives meaning to things. Not only is God in charge of these various times, but also God has done something not just with time but with eternity. He has set eternity in our hearts. And that explains why we feel like we're chasing the wind when we're just living under the sun, and why we feel frustrated and empty. When we're pursuing things as though we could get it on our own God has set eternity in our hearts. And so we have a God shaped, eternity sized emptiness that only God can fill. And this eternity, this yearning in our hearts is a key theme of Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes is a book that raises the questions mentioned many times the bumper sticker, Jesus is the answer and the bumper sticker fired back if Jesus is the answer, what's the question? And here we're seeing some of what the questions are. And one of those questions is, what in the world can fill this eternity sized emptiness that somebody put in my heart, and it was God, who did that. And other insight that comes from that, then is that only by looking to eternity, can we really enjoy the beauty of the various times that occur in our lives? God has appointed it in such a way that we were we're meant to be eternal. And Ecclesiastes, say, hey, there's nothing better than to enjoy life and to do good, and to take these things as a gift from God. But you have to take them as a gift from God, if you're going to be frustrated that you're not controlling it, if you're going to be frustrated that it's beautiful from God's point of view, but you can't see it from God's point of view, you need to live by faith. You need to live by faith, that the eternal is there for you. And that time is a gift with a purpose. Time is an appetizer. Now, let's say you're invited to some big shindig, and they're serving lots of hors d'oeuvres little tidbits and appetizers, and they're around on the tables. And you go around to this little tidbit, you say I'm never gonna get full on that news. You go to the next little hors d'oeuvre, and you say, oh, man, they expect me to fill my belly on this stuff. who's hosting this thing? Anyway? Man, these people ticked me off budget cheapskate serving a bunch of stuff that is never gonna fill you hungry, as a bear? Well, that's how you're going to look at it. If you think the appetizers are the only thing there is, if you don't realize that there's a main course. And these are just kind of a tidbits to get your mouth watering.
And to make your stomach growl even more. If you go through life, expecting too much of it, you are going to be very, very grumpy. If you want to fill yourself up on the nice thing that happens at this time, and the tasty little tidbit over there. And just wish you could stuff your face constantly with tidbits and be filled on that you're going to come out of it very, very disappointed. But if you realize that every little tidbit is meant as an appetizer, then you can appreciate the appetizer without getting overly frustrated by the fact that you're still waiting for the main course to come. The Bible says God appointed the times set for humans and the exact places for where they would live. Paul says this in the course of one of his sermons. He says God appointed the times set for us. And he did this why? So that people would reach out for him. And perhaps find him because he's not far from any one of us. Because in Him, we live and move and have our being. So he says God, set these times. And he's doing it to get our appetite for him going. So don't get frustrated if the tidbits don't satisfy. If you realize you were meant for eternity, then say thank you, God for that great time that I was able to enjoy. And thank you for another time and give me wisdom to deal with the different times. But I realized that all of this is still an appetizer for your great feast. And a fourth key truth in these verses we've just read is that God is in charge, and that God has the final say, we want to be in charge ourselves, but we're not. And whatever God does, is going to stand. That's the basic message. He says God does things and nobody can reverse it. And God has the final say he calls things to account. One of the challenges of Ecclesiastes is that things seem to sometimes be going in circles. We can't quite make sense of it all. And we don't see where it's all headed. And we might be tempted to think that life is aimless and purposeless. But that is only because we do not believe the big picture. God has appointed an end now he is appointed the path that brings each of us to that end, the world is a stage, it is not meaningful in itself. It is a stage that God has created for the pilgrimage of many eternal beings on their path to him. And if you're going to try to find your meaning in the stage furniture, you are going to be savagely disappointed. But if you realize that God is the one who is in charge of it all, and that he has the final say in it all, then you'll begin to understand what the purpose of life is, if you hitch your wagon to the general idea of progress, that things are getting better and better, that life turns out better and better. I got news for you. We all have an appointment in Samira. Okay, there's nothing's changed that the basic issues that Ecclesiastes wrestles with, to haven't changed in the last 3000 years. And so we need to know who's in charge of this whole drama, and what the whole point of it is, and it's not going to come from us, bringing meaning into it, but from rather receiving God's revelation of its meaning. So look at these verses, again, he's made everything beautiful, in its time, he's set eternity in the hearts of man, yet we can't fathom what God has done from beginning to end. That's another reason you live by faith, you live by faith that he's appointed these things, and that he's put eternity in our hearts. But if you say, Boy, it's going to depend on me getting it all figured out. Sorry, it's not going to happen. There is an infinite mind, in charge of a very big world, with a lot of different kinds of times. And some things you will have the right sense of timing, some things you won't, you'll blow it, or you just won't know. But God is in charge. And it is a great comfort to know that when I can't figure it all out, somebody else knows all those times. And so men can be happy and do good while they live and find satisfaction as a gift from God. And it's kind of an appetizer from God. Everything God does, will endure what we do well, we it won't always endure unless it's done for the Lord. But we can't add to what God does. We can't take away from it. He's appointed it. And that final verse, God will call the past to account those four big truths. He's made everything beautiful in its time, he's put this eternity size, yearning in our hearts, He gives things as a gift, but only when time and eternity are somehow connected. And where we can take time, as a gift from him without feeling like we have to be satisfied and filled up with it. And then recognizing his control his rule, his purpose, as the thing that gives life its direction. Well, that it seems almost like the chapter could stop there, because now he's got some important insights that have really moved the process along. But for Solomon, nothing is ever quite that simple. He's just too ruthless and hard nosed of a realist, to just drop the questions that quickly, you can say God's in charge, you can say that God rules with justice, you can say that God makes everything good, and it's time look around you. I saw something else under the sun in the place of judgment,
wickedness was there, in the place of justice, wickedness was there. So you can be in a church building, you can think about these things, and they start to make sense. And then you look around. And you say, really, really, is a just all powerful God in charge of this. And yet, you're looking at that wickedness, and you're kind of staggered by it to say the least. And you say, with such wickedness and so much gone wrong in the world, how can there be a god? And that question is asked many times and we need to take seriously such a question. And then we need to face the fact that only someone who believes in God even has the right to ask such a question or can ask such a question. Because if there is no God, no creator, then there is no standard of justice. There is no reason to expect one thing to be just or to evaluate one thing as just an another as unjust one thing as fitting another as unfitting. One thing as right, another as wrong. Who says anything's right, if you're a random product of the slime, welcome to Reality slime ball, but don't expect anything different. Yes, all we are is randomly produced dirt. Why are you shocked if people treat each other like dirt? Because We have eternity in the heart and we know better. That's why, because we were made by a great and just God. And he has imprinted on us a sense of justice and outrage when things are not the way they're supposed to be. And so the very fact that we can ask these questions about injustice is not evidence against the reality of God, but proof that we have a sense that there is a justice that goes beyond the wickedness we see around us. And so he to he comes to this, he says, I thought, in my heart, God will bring to judgment, both the righteous and the wicked, for there will be a time for every activity, a time for every deed. We sometimes don't know what time it is, it's not yet time for the final judgment. It's not yet time for all things to be put right. But such a time is coming. So even the hard question that he asks and really wrestles with, he returns to his conclusion that there is a day coming when God is going to call everything to account? Well, that's one of the big questions that we that we have to ask, what about all the evil we see around us? And other question is simply, you know, having said he's put eternity in our hearts, well, yeah, we have this eternal longing in our hearts. But every time we look around, the statistics on death are the same. Everybody dies. I also thought, as for man, God tests them so that they may see that they're likely animals, man's fate is like that of the animals, the same fate awaits them both as one dies, so does the other all have the same breath, man has no advantage over the animal, everything is meaningless. All go to the same place, all come from dust, and to dust all Return. Who knows? If the spirit of man rises upward, and if the sphere of the animal goes down into the dust. So I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to enjoy his work, because that is his lot. For who can bring him to see what will happen after him. We all die. In one respect, we're all animals. We all have a biological identity. We all have bodies like animals, and they die just the way the animals die. Who's to say whether we live on or whether we don't. And when you reflect on that one option is just to wish that we could be exactly like the animals. That was the option that Walt Whitman the great poet and nature lover longed for. He says, I think that I could turn and live with animals. They're so Placid, so peaceful and self contained. I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat or whine about their condition. They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins. They do not make me sick, discussing their duty to God. Wouldn't it be nice to just be like an animal? Sure, we got to die. But can't we be as happy as and and enjoy a good meal live for the moment not worry about death coming at us not worry about our duty or be bugged by such things? Can't we just have a peaceful in the moment life like animals do? Why can't it be that way? Well, because God put eternity on our hearts. Sorry. Being like an animal is not an option. You can't avoid thinking about other things. Just a few of the things that are involved in God putting eternity in our heart. One is imagination. We live in a particular world, knowing a particular circle of people living only in one particular place. And yet we can think about places all over the world, we can think about other worlds, we can imagine beyond this moment into the future, we can think of the time of our own death. We can even imagine possibilities beyond death. We have something in us that goes way beyond where we are or the time we're in. And we can't be like animals because part of that dimension of the eternal in us is the conscience. We sense God's eternal standard of right and wrong. Walt Whitman may say, I wish we could just forget about thinking about our duty to God. Sorry, you are wired with a conscience. You are wired to sense
that somebody has a standard and you're responsible to that standard. And there is this dimension of desire have this longing, no matter how good your family life is going. No matter how delicious the meals you're eating, no matter how exquisite the pleasures in the vacations that you take something gnaws at you and says, it's not enough. It's not enough. You can't live like an animal who's happy just because you got a full belly. You have this longing for abundant life and God, you have this longing for perfect joy that never ends, that death can't stop, that nothing can limit. You have this longing, this eternity sized longing because God put eternity in your heart. And so you cannot live like animals. The great philosopher Blaise Pascal said one measure of man's greatness is his misery. Because it is in being miserable about the injustice is in the world, being miserable about the fact of death that impinges on us, being unsatisfied with all the pleasures, this shows how great we are, that we have fallen from a very great state, and that we were meant for a very great world and destiny. So even the very miseries that we experience are evidence of eternity in the heart, and that we can't just consider ourselves animals, or live like animals, we have time on our hands. And yet, that time on our hands is running very rapidly through our fingers. What are we going to make a bit? That's the great question that's raised here. What is time for it's running through our fingers, what are we going to do in it, it's somehow got to connect with eternity, the great Augustin who spent so much of his youth chasing the various pleasures. And then when he came to Christ, He said, You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless, until they can find rest in you. And as you consider Ecclesiastes, once again realize its function. All of the Old Testament scriptures were given for a purpose, to prepare us for Christ, to get us ready for Jesus. And even after Jesus came a great purpose of those scriptures, as we study them, is to awaken things in us to rouse questions to make us want, what only Jesus can give. And we think about that connection between eternity and time, eternity connected with time, eternity entered time, because what looked at times to Solomon like a meaningless jumble, and things going nowhere, God had a plan, and God was unfolding his time. And when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman born under the law to Redeem us. The Bible speaks of this as the fulfillment of the ages has come, you may think that time had no goal. Look again, the fulfillment of the age as the unfolding of the times occurred, in the Lord Jesus Christ, this grace was given us in Christ Jesus, before the beginning of time, that's an interesting way of putting it. We lived from this time and that time, but even before the beginning of time, God had it all figured out. And he already had that grace in, in a sense, he'd already given it. But he did it in time itself. It has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death, and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, who can say whether the spirit of a man just goes down into the ground? Who knows whether we just die like animals? Well, a man came back from the dead. That's how we know that humanity does not just stay in the dust somebody has actually come back. He has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. And these desperate questions that Ecclesiastes asks, are answered in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We all have an appointment in Samira, but we also have an appointment to be raised again, and to live forever. That is what Christ has revealed that Eternity has entered time and time is brought into eternity. And the lives that we live now are going to be evaluated for eternity. So what is the worker gain? In light of that question, in the light of the coming of Jesus, we have to again, hear what the full biblical revelation has to say, store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where your treasure is there your heart will be also, if you want to live under the sun and store up under the sun treasures. Good luck with that moth and Ross destroy thieves break in and steal. There's a time to plant and timed up route. There's a time when you gather there's time you scatter. It kind of wipes each other. It kind of cancels each other out. You better face that fact. and then you better get a better investing strategy. One of the most important areas of timing is investing. Buy, at a certain time, sell at a different time. And if you got the time's right, you will get very, very rich buy the wrong stuff at the wrong time and boom, you are in trouble. And Jesus says, here's some investing advice. Use your time to invest in eternity. store up for yourselves treasures in heaven. You got eternity in your heart anyway, you might as well start investing in eternity. What will it profit? That's the question of Ecclesiastes. What's the yitron? What's the payoff? What's the
profit? What's the gain? What's the use? Jesus says, What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world? Hey, Solomon did pretty well. He he'd gained everything. And it just about lost his own soul in his desperate craving. But what does it profit if you can get all that and you don't have any treasure in heaven? On the other hand, yes, you have that treasure in heaven, then you're not so desperate to have all these gains here. And now the Apostle Paul says, Whatever was to my profit Hi, now consider the loss. For the sake of Christ, I consider the rubbish that I may gain Christ. Ecclesiastes has a great value of getting us less attached to the things that are never going to satisfy anyway. And getting us more attached to Christ. It's possible to have everything but Christ and be miserable. It is possible to have Christ and almost nothing else, and be deliriously happy. This is the message of the Scriptures and the sooner we take it to heart, the happier will be in this life, and the happier will be in the life to come. It's a matter of timing. There's a time to sow and a time to read. What does that mean for us, among other things, I mean, it means plant in the spring and harvest in the fall, you know that the old agricultural meeting is still true. But so for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love and break up your unplowed ground. For it is time to seek the Lord until he comes and showers righteousness on you. It is time to seek the Lord. Sow the righteousness and then you can know what you're going to reap. Because God has set a Day when He will judge the world by the man he has appointed. And that's going to be the Reaping time, Jesus says the Son of Man will send out his angels. And they will gather in the wheat and the weeds to gather and there'll be a great sorting, he'll gather the wheat into his barns, and he will burn the chaff with unquenchable fire. So there is this day of reckoning, a time to sow, and then that great time of reaping when Christ comes again. So that intersection with eternity and Jesus first coming in the fullness of time, God sent His Son, and then God sends his son again, to put an end to the times and to usher in all of eternity. And so there's just one more thing to be said about time on our hands and eternity in our hearts. And that is that now is the time. God has set a certain day, calling it today today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. You say, Well, you know, I may get around to this later of my basketball team takes that approach. They say, Well, I could take this shot a little later. know, when you're open is when you have it. When you're covered. You don't get the opportunity anymore. At a much, much greater level. If you have today, and God says today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart. Don't think Hey, tomorrow is going to be just as good as today. Tomorrow, your heart may be a lot harder. And your appointment that's tomorrow, maybe tonight, not tomorrow. And then what now is the time of God's favor. Now is the day of salvation. There are many things we do not understand about the times but we understand this much it is today. And now is our time. Now is our time to get ready for eternity to embrace the Eternal One to live for him now. And so my dear friends take advantage of that time. Don't waste your life by throwing it away on things that aren't of any value. Don't waste your times and by all means do not throw away your eternity. welcomed the Lord Jesus Christ now, so that he can welcome you into eternal dwellings only one life to assume the past only what's done for Christ, will last. Dear Lord help us to be honest and wise in thinking about time, and the times in our own lives, guide us by the wisdom of Christ, that we may delight in the beauty of each time you have appointed for us. The rather than become frustrated, we may rest in you when we do not have control of all things, that we may look to your favor that we may revere you and realize when we see things that are so much beyond us that somebody very much greater than us, is in charge. And so Lord, may we trust your sovereignty and wisdom, may we trust your goodness, may we listen to that eternal longing that speaks again and again right within our own hearts, in finding Jesus Christ, our joy in our satisfaction, and our eternal reward. In his name we pray, Amen.