Ecclesiastes 3:1-15

Ecclesiastes 3:1

I. Not only has God made everything, but there is a beauty in this arrangement where all is fortuitous to us, but all is fixed by Him. "He hath made everything beautiful in its time," and that season must be beautiful which to infinite love and wisdom seems the best. "Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the creation;" and, so to speak, each day that dawns, though its dawning include an earthquake, a battle, or a deluge each day that dawns, however many it surprises, is no surprise to Him who sees the end from the beginning, and who in each evolving incident but sees the fulfilment of His "determined counsel" the translation into fact of one other omniscient picture of the future.

II. The works of God are distinguished by opportuneness of development and precision of purpose. There is a season for each of them, and each comes in its season. All of them have a function to fulfil, and they fulfil it. To which (Ecclesiastes 3:14) the Preacher adds that they are all of their kind consummate, so perfect that no improvement can be made; and left to themselves, they will be perpetual. How true is this regarding God's greatest work: redemption! In doing it, He has done it "for ever."

III. There is a uniformity in the Divine procedure (Ecclesiastes 3:15). There are certain great principles from which infinite wisdom never deviates. Through all the operations of nature, providence, and grace "that which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past."

J. Hamilton, The Royal Preacher,Lecture VIII.

Reference: Ecclesiastes 3:1. Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons,3rd series, p. 334.