Ecclesiastes 3:3-4

A time to kill, and a time to heal

Spiritual times and seasons

The work of grace upon the soul may be divided into two distinct operations of the Spirit of God upon the heart; the one is to break down the creature into nothingness and self-abasement before God; the other is to exalt the crucified Jesus as “God over all, blessed for ever” upon the wreck and ruin of the creature.

And these two lessons the blessed Spirit writes with power upon every quickened vessel of mercy.

1. There is, then, “a time to kill”--that is, there is an appointed season in God’s eternal counsels when the sentence of death is to be known and felt in the consciences of all His elect. That time cannot be hurried, or delayed. The hands of that clock, of which the will of God is the spring, and His decrees the pendulum, are beyond the reach of human fingers to move on or put back. The killing precedes the healing, and the breaking down goes before the building up; the elect weep before they laugh, and mourn before they dance. In this track does the Holy Spirit move; in this channel do His blessed waters flow. The first “time,” then, of which the text speaks is that season when the Holy Ghost takes them in hand in order to kill them. And how does He kill them? By applying with power to their consciences the spirituality of God’s holy law, and thus bringing the sentence of death into their souls--the Spirit of God employing the law as a ministration of condemnation to cut up all creature-righteousness.

2. But it is not all killing work. If God kills His people, it is to make them alive (1 Samuel 2:6); if He wounds them, it is that He may heal; if He brings down, it is that He may lift up. There is, then, “a time to heal.” And how is that healing effected? By some sweet discovery of mercy to the soul, by the eyes of the understanding being enlightened to see Jesus, and by the Holy Ghost raising up a measure of faith in the heart whereby Christ is laid hold of, embraced in the affections, testified to by the Spirit, and enthroned within, as “the hope of glory.”

3. But we pass on to another time--“a time to break down.” This implies that there is a building to be overthrown. What building is this? It is that proud edifice which Satan and the flesh have combined to erect in opposition to God, the Babel which is built up with bricks and lime to reach the topmost heaven. But there is a time in God’s hand to break down this Babel which has been set up by the combined efforts of Satan and our own hearts.

4. There is “a time to build up.” This building up is wholly and solely in Christ, under the blessed Spirit’s operations. But what building up can there be in Christ, except the creature is laid low? What has Jesus as an all-sufficient Saviour to do with one who can stand in his own strength and his own righteousness?

5. But there is “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.” Does a man only weep once in his life? Does not the time of weeping run, more or less, through a Christian’s life? Does not mourning run parallel with his existence in this tabernacle of clay? for “man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards.” Then “a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up,” must run parallel with a Christian’s life, just as much as “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.” But these times and seasons are in the Father’s hand; and, “what God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” Never talk of healing till you can talk of killing; never think of being built up, until you have been broken down; never expect to laugh, until you have been taught to weep; and never hope to dance, until you have learned to mourn. Such only as are taught of God can enter into the real experience of these things; and into them, sooner or later, each according to his measure, does God the Holy Spirit lead all the ransomed family of Zion. (J. C. Philpot.)

A time to weep, and a time to laugh.--

Amusements

The play impulse is, I verily believe, as sacred in the Divine intention as the work impulse. Indeed, Dr. Bushnell has undertaken to show how what he calls the state of play is the ultimate state of redeemed and regenerated humanity, up to which it climbs through previous discipline in the working state; and though in his argument he has not actually done so, yet I presume he would regard that prophetic picture of the new heavens and the new earth wherein Zechariah declares that “the streets of Jerusalem shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof” as only a poetic description of the heavenly employments of children of a larger growth. For, when we come to look a little deeper than the surface, what do we mean by play? Coming home at the end of the day, weary and worn and fretted, you open the door upon your little one roiling and tumbling upon the floor with a kitten. It is certainly not a very classical nor a very dignified scene, and yet, somehow, your heart straightway softens to it, and you sit down and watch the romp with a sense of sympathy and refreshment that you have not had through all the dull and plodding day. Why is it? Why, but because after all that is life without effort or care or burden, joy without labour or rivalry or tedium, bounding motion and bubbling glee without anxiety and without remorse! And what is such a life, disengaged from its animal characteristics and ennobled by a spiritual insight, but the true idea of heaven, where, if there be activity, there will be no effort, but where all that we do and are will be the free spontaneous outburst of the overflowing joy and gladness that are in us.

I. Mere amusement ought not to be, and cannot healthily be, the end of any life. We speak of child-life as the play period of a human existence. And yet, have you never noticed that even the child cannot play, unless he has climbed up into the sphere of play through the toilsome vestibule of work? We see him careering over the ground in the wild joy of his young freedom, climbing the trees, scaling the hillsides, racing through the fields, or gambolling on the grass, and we say, “what glad surrender to pure impulse!” But do we remember how he has come to that free command of himself, his limbs and lungs and muscles; how he has tottered first of all on his tiny feet, and fallen, and risen, only to fall again; how by slow gradations he has taught his muscles to obey his will, and his feet to do the bidding of his thought, and his hands to grasp and hold the things he reaches after? Not without effort, surely, has he come into that larger freedom of the first play state; and not without work, as his best qualification for the really sacred privilege of amusement, has God meant that any one of us should come to our playing moments!

II. What are the principles that ought to regulate our amusements? Those principles are threefold. Our amusements ought to be genuine, innocent and moderate.

1. Let me explain what I mean by a genuine amusement. If amusement has, as we have seen, a definite and recognizable place in every healthful and well-ordered life, then we must at least require of it that it shall honestly serve its purpose--that it shall really and veritably recreate, re-create us. Now, viewed in this light, I did not, e.g. call a ball a genuine amusement. Our amusements ought to leave us fresher and brighter than they found us, net jaded and irritable and lack-lustre-eyed when the next day’s duties roll back upon us. And therefore, I do not wonder that a great many young persons especially, who seek their amusements (Heaven save the mark!) in such channels, are constrained to “key themselves up” to work by the artificial means of unhealthy stimulants.

2. If amusement is not something outside but inside the sanctions of an earnest and Christian life, then our amusements ought also to be innocent. The concern of one who is deciding the question between amusements that are innocent and those that are not innocent, is with the drama as he actually and ordinarily finds it; and this includes the drama whether classic or tragic or comic, or seminude and spectacular; and if any complain that the Church of God frowns upon innocent amusements, and if it utters no downright condemnation, at least withholds its approval from innocent forms of amusement, let them remember that it is because ordinarily those who have once crossed a certain line in this matter, no matter what may be their professions of decorum or religion, are far too commonly wont to cast all restrictions utterly and absolutely behind them. For there is in fact almost absolutely no pretence of discrimination in these things, and persons of pure lives and unspotted name are seen, in our day, gazing upon spectacles or hearkening to dialogue, which, whether spoken or sung, ought to bring a blush of shame to any decent cheek.

3. But, let us also remember, amusement may be thoroughly innocent in its nature, and yet very easily be excessive or immoderate in its measure. (Bp. H. C. Potter.)

A Christian view of recreation

Human life is made up of summers and winters--it may be, in most cases, with a larger proportion of winters than summers, but seldom, indeed, without some days of bright sunshine and joyous hope. Each season, too, ought, in the very nature of things, to meet with a fitting response in the experiences of the soul. When the darkness is round about our path, circumstances all adverse, when sorrow saddens the heart, or death impoverishes the life, then is a “time to weep.” But when the cloud is lifted, and the brightness of the sunshine once more inspires us with hope and fills us with joy; when our enterprises prosper, and our homes are scenes of love and peaceful happiness; when present success not only yields pleasure, but gives the earnest of a still richer blessing, then is the “time to laugh.” Both of these seasons are of God. As He has ordained summer and winter for the earth, so has He ordained that human life should have these alternating experiences, and in both alike we are to remember that we are His, and even in our lighter hours do all to the glory of God. There are some to be found who think recreation, even of the most harmless character, a waste of time which, if not positively sinful, is, at all events, a sign of spiritual weakness. Reasons in favour of such a course are not difficult to seek. There is the solemn responsibility with which life is invested in virtue of the great work to be done, and the hindrances in face of which it has to be prosecuted. Here, it may be argued, is the battle between good and evil, prosecuted under conditions so unequal that the servants of God must be bound to give all diligence in order to maintain His cause. With temptations so subtle, so numerous, so widespread, and so skilfully adapted to all varieties of taste and circumstance; with such mighty forces all actively engaged for the dishonour of God and ruin of human souls, there cannot be any opening for mere enjoyment. Nay, the very feeling is out of harmony with all the circumstances of the conflict. While souls are perishing, how can we have the heart to be glad, or find the time to enter even into the most refined and elevating pleasures of social life? The first answer to this must surely be that the theory breaks down under the weight of its own conclusions. It is an impossible standard of duty which it endeavours to set up, and it collapses under its own extravagance. Hero and there a man may really detach himself from these human interests, and there may be circumstances which mark him out for a special position in which he is absorbed by the one thought of the deliverance of human souls. It may be even that there are exceptional times in which like the prophet Jeremiah the servant of the Lord is ready to cry, “Oh, that mine head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!” But this cannot be the normal experience even of the most earnest Christians. All are not prophets; all prophets are not Jeremiah; Jeremiah was not always in a state of mind like this; in short, men must have a different nature before they can attain to this complete suppression of human sympathies and interests. But the moment it ceases to be real and becomes a mere piece of assumed Christian devotion, that moment it loses, not only its power, but everything which gives it a religious quality at all. But there is this further objection to it. It is not proved to be the best method of securing the particular object in view. In the struggle against evil a wise man will surely look round and study the defences by which it is sustained. In the attack on a strong citadel the attention of the skilful strategist is first directed to the outlying forts which guard its approaches. The same law applies to our Christian work. Individual souls are affected by the society to which they belong, and the influence of society must depend largely upon the institutions--including even those which have to do with the amusements of life--which exist in its midst. The perversions which mislead the minds of men have to be got rid of before the truth can reach them. In this work, even in a land which calls itself Christian, there is need for the ploughshare before the ground can be made ready for the scattering of the seed of the kingdom. The argument, then, is twofold. We have to assert the rule of Christ over all the scenes of human life, seeking so to purify its pleasures that they shall not be hindrances to the spiritual life. But we have also to give a true representation of the Christian spirit, and we fail in this if we convey the impression that in our religion there is no time for recreation. Has not our Father given us the capacity for joy, and does He not mean us to profit by it? (J. G. Rogers, B. A.)