Ecclesiastes 3:1-3
‘To everything, there is a season — and a time to every purpose under Heaven. A time to be born, and a time to die! A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted! A time to kill, and a time to heal! A time to break down, and a time to build up!’ Ecclesiastes 3:1-3.
God has set His limits on all human life. Therefore, all the experiences of human life are transient.. All last for but a while — and transient is everything under the sky.
‘There is a time to be born — and a time to die!’ The moment is predetermined of every man’s entering into the world. And the moment is also fixed by the same Sovereign Purpose at which he is to leave it. When a child is born, no one can affirm how long he or she is to continue here.
The time and the circumstances of his or her future departure, are known to God alone — the Author and the Supporter of his or her existence. And we can with certainty say:’There is a time to die.’ To all, the event is equally sure.
When that period arrives, the wish and attempt to evade it — are to all equally vain. No man has power over the spirit, to retain the spirit — no, not for one moment!
His days are determined. The number of his months, is with God. God has appointed his boundaries, which he cannot pass.
There is also ‘a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.’ The planter himself may undo his own work. A period of growth arrives at which wood is either cut down for profit, or rooted out for fruitlessness.
No man, when he plants, can be sure how soon the blasting influences of an unpropitious season may oblige him to pluck up what he has planted. And some one else may later convert a forest into an arable land, or may even waste his plantations to discharge his own debts.
There is also ‘a time to kill, and a time to heal!’ There is a time when God kills, and a time when He keeps alive. There is a time when He brings down to the grave; and there is also a time when He heals and bring back from the very verge of it.
There is a time when all the means that men can devise and employ, will prove ineffectual for the preservation of life. And there is a time, according to the unknown purpose of God, when the same means will check and turn the ebbing tide of life — and bring back the exhausted and despaired-of patient from the last extremity.
All depends on the purpose and appointment of God! For there is indeed also a time to break down — and to die! Are you and I ready, when that time comes?
