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.