Ecclesiastes 3; John 20:19-30

There's an old grandfather clock that sits in Chester cathedral in England; it's been there a hundred and fifty years, keeping time. And on the front of it there's a brass plaque, with this poem on it.

When as a child I laughed and wept,

Time crept.

When as a youth I grew more bold,

Time strolled.

When I became a full-grown man,

Time RAN.

When older still I daily grew,

Time FLEW.

Soon I shall find, in passing on,

Time gone.

Time's funny stuff isn't it? The older you get the faster it goes. When you're a kid, the time between birthdays takes forever. When you get on a bit, it's like nothing. Another year gone, and it's like you can hear the WHOOSH as it whistles past your ear.

Time flies.

There's another time poem here in Ecclesiastes 3; and it's one of those famous bits of the bible you'll find printed on tea-towels. Or on posters behind toilet doors. It's the sort of text you see embroidered and hanging in loungerooms. It's even been a pop-song.

It's a poem about TIME. And it's got a rhythm a like the swing of a pendulum. It's a poem that stands back and looks at the seasons of life. And says, it's all going to roll around, whether you're ready or not. There's a summary in verse 1. "There's a time for everything - there's a season for every activity under heaven." And then it spells it out. There's a time to be born, there's a time to die. There's a time to plant, there's a time to uproot.

It's all part of the cycle. It's all part of time taking it's course. Which in some ways is a comfort. And in other ways is kind of scarey, isn't it? Because in the end, it's like we're just along for the ride. And you're not in control. The times roll around whether we're ready or not. It's time pulling the strings, and not us. And from our point of view, things just unfold in front of us. And there's nothing we can do to stop it. A time for war, a time for peace. A time for this, a time for that. Like it just rolls around without people like you and me having the slightest bit of control.

There's a time to tear down, a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance. If you want to count them, there are 14 pairs of direct opposites. Scatter, gather, keep, throw away, tear, mend, love, hate, war, peace. But they're just a sample of the opposites life's made out of. It's like the teacher is looking at life and he says, Every dog has it's day. Time rolls on, it brings the good, it brings the bad.

Time is funny stuff. And let me tell you, when you read a poem like that from the point of view of someone who knows God's got it all under control, you can read it with confidence. But if you read it without God in the picture, if you read it from the point of view of the LIFE UNDER THE SUN, the life without God, what have you got? Just blind fate. The wheels of time rolling along, bringing the good with the bad. And all you can do is put up with it.

Now if you haven't been here the last couple of weeks I need to warn you, this Ecclesiastes is a pretty strange part of the bible. Cause it's written by a bloke who's decided to jump the fence, and he's taking the LIFE WITHOUT GOD point of view. It's written by a King of Israel who might have been King Solomon, but he doesn't say. He just calls himself THE TEACHER. He's travelling incognito. And he's looking at things from the point of view of a philosopher, and he's saying, okay, let's forget about what we know from the bible, and let's see what we can work out for ourselves. Let's have a good look at the facts of life, and see if it makes any sense.

And by the time he's noticed how everything has it's season, by the time he's balanced out the births with the deaths and the weeping with the laughing, by the time he's read the births deaths and marriages in the Courier Mail, he's pretty much in two minds.

And it gets worse. Verse 16, he goes down to the local court house, and all he finds is CORRUPTION. The police are taking bribes, the judges are in the pockets of the crime bosses, and there's not a royal commission in sight. Why bother?

Look what he says. Verse 16. "I saw something else under the sun; In the place of judgement, down at the court house, wickedness was there. In the place of justice, wickedness was there." He looks at life, he looks for justice. And it wasn't there. Still isn't, is it? Funny, we had all our police corruption enquiries. But it's not just us. Same in Hong Kong. And in the UK. Another one in America. All digging up exactly the same sort of dirt. Corruption where there's meant to be justice. Life's like that. So why bother?

And it gets worse again. Have a look at verse 18 to 22. If you want to have a good look at life without God, here's where it takes you. And the point is, there are atheists these days who absolutely agree with this. They've written off God, they've decided we're just monkeys without the fur, and suddenly everything's upside down. It's okay to abort babies, but you've got to save whales.

Peter Singer is a famous Australian philosopher; now he's a professor of Ethics in an American university. Back in the 70s he wrote a book called ANIMAL LIBERATION. Chapter 1... All Animals are Equal. And that's his argument. We're all animals. We're no different. So chimps and wolves and pigs and cows and rats and elephants and persons are absolutely equal - you've got no more value than your DOG. You want to take a look at life without God? Then MAN IS JUST LIKE AN ANIMAL.

Read from verse 18. Cause here's what God wants you to know if you're going to push him aside. Here's what the teacher figures out. He says "I also thought, "As for men, God tests them so they may see that they're like the animals. Man's fate is like that of the animals, the same fate awaits them both: as one dies, so dies 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, all to dust return."

You want to know the real problem with time? There's a time to be born. But there's a time to die as well. And if you're a person who's living life without God, then you've got to realise... Peter Singer's right. You're no different to an animal. You breathe the same breath. You die the same death. And your life's got about as much meaning and value as the life of a mouse. Or a cockroach. Or a worm.

LOOKING FOR SOMETHING MORE...

It's not a real encouraging picture is it. And the funny thing is, people like the animal liberationists who take it to it's logical conclusion are pretty much a minority. Most people can't live with those sort of consequences. Most people, if you ask them, they've got some sort of vague idea that there's more to it than that. IN fact, even Peter Singer just recently came out and admitted it. His mother is in a nursing home. He's always been pro-euthanasia... because we're no more value than animals. Except when it came to HIS OWN MOTHER... he came out recently and said, "well, THAT'S DIFFERENT." Life's cheap... except when it comes to someone he loves.

Because the fact is, WE ARE DIFFERENT. Go back a few verses and have a look at verse 10, you can see why. And there's one way we're absolutely different to the animals. There's one thing about us that sets us apart.

And that is, I don't think you'll catch a cow or a dog trying to figure out if there's LIFE AFTER DEATH. You won't catch a PIG daydreaming about ETERNITY. But WE do. Because we've somehow been built with a little splinter of ETERNITY in our hearts. Doesn't matter who you are, you know there's something more. We've somehow been designed with the ability to tangle with ideas like infinity. And the universe. And life after death. And GOD. Here we are carried along by the times and the seasons and the mourning and the dancing, going round and round the circles - and we've got eternity in our hearts. So we know there's something more.

There's only one problem. And you'll see it when we read the verse 10. He says "I've seen the burden God has laid on men. 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."

When a mate of mine went to school, there was a boy in his class who was partially sighted. He wasn't totally blind. He sort of had a narrow little field of view, and if he got up close enough to things he could make out the details. And there was this great big long mural on one of the walls at school. And my mate Craig says he still remembers the day he saw this poor kid right up close against the wall. Looking at one little bit of the picture. Then moving along. And looking at the next bit. And moving along.

He could catch one little glimpse at a time. But no matter what he did, he couldn't get the BIG PICTURE. Which is how it is with us, isn't it? There's something about life that points to something bigger. That says THERE'S MORE. There's eternity in your heart. But it's just too big to get hold of. We can't fathom it from beginning to end. Because we're only partially sighted.

And that's the problem he comes to at the end of the chapter as well. Are we just like animals, or aren't we? Who can say? He says WE'RE PARTIALLY SIGHTED. And who can give us the sort of answers you need to figure it out?

I want you to notice, there are two questions at the end of the chapter we're looking at. Two CRIES FOR HELP. From a man in the dark, and all he's got to guide him is a flickering candle.

Animals came from dust, we came from dust. Animals die. We die. And here comes the question. The question is, WHO KNOWS? He says "Who knows if what I'm saying is right or wrong? Who knows if I'm just going to die like an animal? Or if there's something more. WHO KNOWS, he says there in verse 21, if the spirit of man rises upward and the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?" Who can answer a question like that?

I mean, the only person who could answer a question like that is someone who's been there - and come back.

Same sort of question in verse 22. He says a bloke might as well just shut up and put up with it, he says - and here comes the question again - "FOR WHO CAN BRING HIM TO SEE WHAT WILL HAPPEN AFTER HIM?"

It's meant to be what they call a RHETORICAL QUESTION. The sort of question you're not meant to answer cause it answers itself. "Who can show you what happens when you're dead?" Nobody can, can they? It's a one way trip. Who can say you're any different to an animal when you're dead? NOBODY CAN. When you're dead, you're dead. And for hundreds of years after this Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes was written, that was the only answer. Who can say? NOBODY CAN.

I'm not talking about those sort of near-death experiences people have with the bright lights and the tunnels. They're NEAR DEATH. I'm talking about WELL AND TRULY DEAD. And come back to talk about it?

Well, I guess it's pretty obvious, isn't it? We're a whole lot better off that old King Solomon. Because as far as the teacher can get is, yep, there's eternity in our hearts alright. And there's an eternal God out there. But WHO CAN SAY MORE? He's got tunnel vision. And that's as much as he can make out.

But we can see a bit further, can't we. Because we're living the other side of the greatest event in history. The death and resurrection of Jesus.

Who can say if the spirit of a man is any different to an animal, who can say if there's LIFE AFTER DEATH? JESUS CAN. Who can bring you to see what happens when you're gone? JESUS CAN. And that's exactly what he's done. Once and for all.

I'm not talking in the abstract here. We read it earlier. Thomas was a normal bloke, and when his mates told him they'd seen Jesus alive again after he'd been dead three days, Thomas said the normal thing. He said, "You guys are out of your heads. When you're dead, you're dead."

I reckon it's a bit unfair that he's gone down in history as DOUBTING THOMAS. Cause I reckon you or me would have said pretty much the same. But it's not long after that doubting Thomas comes face to face with the facts. Face to face with the RISEN JESUS. Who says, stick your fingers here. Put your hand in the spear hole in my side. Stop doubting. And believe.

Friends, I want to say to you, if you've looked at the evidence about the resurrection of Jesus and believed, it's going to make a huge difference in the way you live your life. Because in the gospel, Jesus brings us the very words of ETERNAL LIFE. Nothing less. He's the one who says, if you BELIEVE IN ME, you'll live. And if you reject me, you're rejecting the keys to eternity. It's that serious.

Reject Jesus, and you're back at square one. Living and dying no better than an animal. The hints of eternity all around you. And you'll never figure it out.

But grab hold of Jesus, and the pieces all start to fit together, don't they. And instead of living in a random sort of world where you're just in the middle of a cycle of random good times and random bad times, you can live with confidence. That your times are in God's hands.

And there's a there's a bigger picture - that might not make sense right now. But one day it will. One day it will.