Ecclesiastes 3 - for the Byrds...

The passage that made song history with the Byrds...

1 There is a time for everything,

    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

2     a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3     a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
4     a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6     a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7     a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8     a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

9 What do workers gain from their toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet[a] no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. 13 That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. 14 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 people will fear him.

15 Whatever is has already been,
    and what will be has been before;
    and God will call the past to account.[b]

16 And I saw something else under the sun:

In the place of judgment—wickedness was there,
    in the place of justice—wickedness was there.

17 I said to myself,

“God will bring into judgment
    both the righteous and the wicked,
for there will be a time for every activity,
    a time to judge every deed.”

18 I also said to myself, “As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. 19 Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath[c]; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. 20 All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. 21 Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?”

22 So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them?

When we examine this passage, we see that there is a time for every event in our lives -both good and bad. That we will find ourselves going through them at some point. We were all born, we will all die. We all move, we all have times for anger and times for embracing. As Matthew Henry's Commentary tells us, Solomon here in the first 14 verses tells all this as a warning to us even today, that time is short so make the best of it for Christ while we're here. If we look back at verse 11 it tells us how no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. Think about this. 

In verses 15 - 22 Solomon dives into the fact that even with all our advanced technology there is nothing new under the sun. So true. When you can find ancient brothel houses in Pompeii that have graphic images of what each woman did still able to be seen thousands of years later, it shows us that indeed, nothing is new. Sin hasn't changed, just technology. We're all still sinful people in need of a Saviour. Also, what we see is that without the fear of the Lord guiding us and leading us in our judgments, we will fail. Solomon seems defeated when he talks about humans and animals, how we humans have no advantage over the animals? Sure we both die, but animals don't have the hope of salvation - we do! If we were nothing but like the animals then Solomon was right in saying we might as well do what we want, just enjoy our work and other things. But thank God he wasn't right. We are made in the image of God as we saw in the Garden of Eden! We're hand-crafted in our mothers' wombs by His hand! Jesus came to save us by his death! Solomon didn't have the advantage of that when he wrote, but looking back we can see how his words are so true, that life without God IS meaningless or as some versions put it, vanity! It really is all about us and nothing more if God does not exist. But he DOES so we have a responsibility to seek Him out and serve Him, so serve well!