Laughter because it is the right time

LAUGHTER BECAUSE IT IS THE RIGHT TIME
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
Ecclesiastes3:4 ESV A time to weep, and a time to
laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
Ecclesiastes3:1-8 ESV For everything there is a
season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a
time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and
a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a
time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build
up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to
mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away
stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to
embrace, and a time to refrainfrom embracing; ...
BIBLEHUB RESOURCES
Pulpit Commentary Homiletics
The Manifold Interests And Occupations Of Life
Ecclesiastes3:1-8
D. Thomas

There is nothing so interesting to man as human life. The material creation
engagesthe attention and absorbs the inquiring activities of the student of
physical science;but unless it is regarded as the expressionof the Divine ideas,
the vehicle of thought and purpose, its interest is limited and cold. But what
men are and think and do is a matter of concernto every observant and
reflecting mind. The ordinary observercontemplates human life with
curiosity; the politician, with interestedmotives; the historian, hoping to find
the keyto the actions of nations and kings and statesmen;the poet, with the
aim of finding material and inspiration for his verse; and the religious
thinker, that he may trace the operation of God's providence, of Divine
wisdom and love. He who looks below the surface will not fail to find, in the
events and incidents of human existence, the tokens of the appointments and
dispositions of an all-wise Ruler of the world. The manifold interests of our
life are not regulatedby chance;for "to everything there is a season, and a
time to every purpose under the heaven."
I. LIFE'S PERIODS (ITS BEGINNING AND CLOSE)ARE APPOINTED
BY GOD. The sacrednessofbirth and death are brought before us, as we are
assuredthat "there is a time to be born, and a time to die." The believer in
God cannot doubt that the Divine Omniscience observes,as the Divine
Omnipotence virtually effects, the introduction into this world, and the
removal from it, of every human being, Men are born, to show that God will
use his own instruments for carrying on the manifold work of the world; they
die, to show that he is limited by no human agencies. Theyare born just when
they are wanted, and they die just when it is well that their places should be
takenby their successors."Manis immortal till his work is done."
II. LIFE'S OCCUPATIONS ARE DIVINELY ORDERED. The readerof this
passageis forcibly reminded of the substantial identity of man's life in the
different ages ofthe world. Thousands of years have passedsince these words
were penned, yet to how large an extent does this description apply to human
existence in our own day! Organic activities, industrial avocations, social
services, are commonto every age of man's history. If men withdraw
themselves from practicalwork, and from the duties of the family and the
state, without sufficient justification, they are violating the ordinances of the

Creator. He has given to every man a place to fill, a work to do, a service of
helpfulness to render to his fellow-creatures.
III. THE EMOTIONS PROPERTO HUMAN LIFE ARE OF DIVINE
APPOINTMENT. Theseare natural to man. The mere feelings of pleasure
and pain, the mere impulses of desire and aversion, man shares with brutes.
But those emotions which are man's glory and man's shame are both special
to him, and have a greatshare in giving characterto his moral life. Some, like
envy, are altogetherbad; some, like hatred, are bad. or goodaccording as they
are directed; some, like love, are always good. The PreacherofJerusalem
refers to joy and sorrow, whenhe speaks of"a time to laugh, and a time to
weep;" to love and hate, for both of which he declares there is occasionin our
human existence. There has been no change in these human experiences with
the lapse of time; they are permanent factors in our life. Used aright, they
become means of moral development, and aid in forming a noble and pious
character.
IV. THE OPERATION OF DIVINE PROVIDENCEIS APPARENT IN THE
VARIED FORTUNES OF HUMANITY. This passage tells ofaccumulation
and consequentprosperity, of loss and consequentadversity. The mutability
of human affairs, the disparities of the human lot, were as remarkable and as
perplexing in the days of the Hebrew sage as in our own. And they were
regardedby him, as by rational and religious observers in our own time, as
instances of the working of physical and sociallaws imposed by the Author of
nature himself. In the exercise ofdivinely entrusted powers, men gather
togetherpossessionsand disperse them abroad. The rich and the poor exist
side by side; and the wealthyare every day impoverished, whilst the indigent
are raisedto opulence. These are the lights and shades upon the landscape of
life, the shifting scenesin life's unfolding drama. Variety and change are
evidently parts of the Divine intention, and are never absent from the world of
our humanity.
V. THE MORAL AND SPIRITUAL ISSUES OF HUMAN LIFE BEAR
MARKS OF DIVINE WISDOM AND ORDER. It cannotbe the case that all
the phases and processes ofour human existence are to be apprehended
simply in themselves, as if they containedtheir own meaning, and had no

ulterior significance. Life is not a kaleidoscope,but a picture; not the
promiscuous sounds heard when the instrumentalists are "tuning up," but an
oratorio;not a chronicle, but a history. There is a unity and an aim in life; but
this is not merely artistic, it is moral. We do not work and rest, enjoy and
suffer, hope and fear, with no purpose to be achievedby the experiences
through which we pass. He who has appointed "a season, anda time for every
purpose under the heaven," designs that we should, by toil and endurance, by
fellowship and solitude, by gain and loss, make progress in the course ofmoral
and spiritual discipline, should grow in the favor and in the likeness ofGod
himself. - T.
Biblical Illustrator
A time to kill, and a time to heal
Ecclesiastes3:3, 4
Spiritual times and seasons
J. C. Philpot.

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-abasementbefore God;the other is to exalt the crucified
Jesus as "Godover all, blessedfor ever" upon the wreck and ruin of the
creature. And these two lessons the blessedSpirit writes with power upon
every quickened vesselofmercy.
1. There is, then, "a time to kill" — that is, there is an appointed seasonin
God's eternal counsels whenthe sentence ofdeath is to be known and felt in
the consciencesofall His elect. Thattime 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 electweepbefore they laugh, and mourn before they dance.
In this track does the Holy Spirit move; in this channeldo His blessedwaters
flow. The first "time," then, of which the text speaks is that seasonwhenthe
Holy Ghosttakes them in hand in order to kill them. And how does He kill
them? By applying with power to their consciencesthe spirituality of God's
holy law, and thus bringing the sentence ofdeath 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? Bysome sweetdiscoveryofmercy to the soul, by the eyes of
the understanding being enlightened to see Jesus, andby the Holy Ghost
raising up a measure of faith in the heart whereby Christ is laid hold of,
embracedin the affections, testifiedto 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 erectin opposition
to God, the Babel which is built up with bricks and lime to reachthe topmost

heaven. But there is a time in God's hand to break down this Babelwhich has
been setup by the combined efforts of Satanand our own hearts.
4. There is "a time to build up." This building up is wholly and solely in
Christ, under the blessedSpirit's operations. But what building up can there
be in Christ, exceptthe 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 ofclay? 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, "whatGod 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 canenter into the real experience ofthese
things; and into them, sooneror later, eachaccording to his measure, does
God the Holy Spirit lead all the ransomedfamily of Zion.
(J. C. Philpot.)
A time to weep, and a time to laugh
Amusements
Bp. H. C. Potter.
The play impulse is, I verily believe, as sacredin 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 redeemedand regeneratedhumanity,

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 Jerusalemshall be full of boys and
girls playing in the streets thereof" as only a poetic description of the heavenly
employments of children of a largergrowth. 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
classicalnor a very dignified scene, and yet, somehow, your heart straightway
softens to it, and you sit down and watchthe romp with a sense ofsympathy
and refreshment that you have not had through all the dull and plodding day.
Why is it? Why, but because afterall 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,
disengagedfrom its animal characteristicsand 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 ofchild-life as the
play period of a human existence. And yet, have you never noticed that even
the child cannotplay, unless he has climbed up into the sphere of play through
the toilsome vestibule of work? We see him careering overthe ground in the
wild joy of his young freedom, climbing the trees, scaling the hillsides, racing
through the fields, or gambolling on the grass, andwe say, "whatglad
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? Notwithout effort, surely, has he come into that largerfreedom
of the first play state;and not without work, as his best qualification for the

really sacredprivilege of amusement, has Godmeant 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 leastrequire 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. calla ball a genuine amusement. Our
amusements ought to leave us fresher and brighter than they found us, net
jaded and irritable and lack-lustre-eyedwhenthe next day's duties roll back
upon us. And therefore, I do not wonder that a greatmany young persons
especially, who seek their amusements (Heaven save the mark!) in such
channels, are constrained to "keythemselves up" to work by the artificial
means of unhealthy stimulants.
2. If amusement is not something outside but inside the sanctions ofan earnest
and Christian life, then our amusements ought also to be innocent. The
concernof 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 ortragic 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 leastwithholds its approval from innocent forms of
amusement, let them remember that it is because ordinarily those who have
once crosseda certainline in this matter, no matter what may be their
professions ofdecorum or religion, are far too commonly wont to castall
restrictions utterly and absolutely behind them. For there is in factalmost
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 spokenor 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 orimmoderate in its measure.
(Bp. H. C. Potter.)
A Christian view of recreation
J. G. Rogers,B. A.
Human life is made up of summers and winters — it may be, in most cases,
with a largerproportion of winters than summers, but seldom, indeed,
without some days of bright sunshine and joyous hope. Eachseason, too,
ought, in the very nature of things, to meet with a fitting response in the
experiences ofthe soul. When the darkness is round about our path,
circumstances alladverse, 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 scenesoflove and
peacefulhappiness; when present successnotonly yields pleasure, but gives
the earnestof a still richer blessing, then is the "time to laugh." Both of these
seasonsare 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, evenof 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 greatwork to be done,
and the hindrances in face of which it has to be prosecuted. Here, it may be
argued, is the battle betweengoodand evil, prosecutedunder 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 engagedfor the dishonour of God and
ruin of human souls, there cannotbe any opening for mere enjoyment. Nay,

the very feeling is out of harmony with all the circumstances ofthe 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 sociallife?
The first answerto 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 collapsesunder its ownextravagance. Hero and
there a man may really detach himself from these human interests, and there
may be circumstances whichmark him out for a specialpositionin which he
is absorbedby the one thought of the deliverance of human souls. It may be
even that there are exceptionaltimes in which like the prophet Jeremiahthe
servant of the Lord is ready to cry, "Oh, that mine head were waters, and
mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weepday and night for the slain of
the daughter of my people!" But this cannot be the normal experience evenof
the most earnestChristians. All are not prophets; all prophets are not
Jeremiah; Jeremiahwas not always in a state of mind like this; in short, men
must have a different nature before they can attain to this complete
suppressionof 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, notonly its power, but everything which gives it a religious quality at
all. But there is this further objectionto it. It is not proved to be the best
method of securing the particular object in view. In the struggle againstevil 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
strategistis first directed to the outlying forts which guard its approaches.
The same law applies to our Christian work. Individual souls are affectedby
the societyto which they belong, and the influence of societymust 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 gotrid of before the truth can reachthem. 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 ofthe
seedof the kingdom. The argument, then, is twofold. We have to assertthe
rule of Christ overall the scenes ofhuman 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 representationof the Christian spirit, and we fail in this if

we convey the impressionthat in our religion there is no time for recreation.
Has not our Father given us the capacityfor joy, and does He not mean us to
profit by it?
(J. G. Rogers,B. A.)
STUDYLIGHT RESOURCES
Adam Clarke Commentary
A time to weep, - laugh, - mourn, - dance -
- "When private griefs affect
The heart, our tears with decent sorrow flow;
Nor less becoming, when the public mourns,
To vent the deepestsighs. But all around
When things a smiling aspectbear, our souls
May well exult; 'tis then a time for joy."
Copyright Statement
These files are public domain.
Bibliography
Clarke, Adam. "Commentary on Ecclesiastes3:4". "The Adam Clarke
Commentary".
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/acc/ecclesiastes-3.html. 1832.
return to 'Jump List'

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible
A time to weep, and a time to laugh,.... There is a time for these things, as it
goes ill or well with persons, as to their health, estate, or friends; and as it goes
ill or wellwith kingdoms and states. The Jews weptwhen they were in
Babylon, and their mouths were filled with laughter when their captivity was
returned, Psalm137:1; and as it goes ill or well with the church of Christ,
when there are corruptions in doctrine and worship, a neglectof ordinances,
declensions in faith and practice, few instances of conversion, and there are
divisions and contentions, it is a time for the mourners in Zion to weepbut
when God creates Jerusalema rejoicing, and her people a joy, or makes her
an eternal excellency, and the praise of the whole earth, then it is a time to
rejoice and be glad, Isaiah 61:3; and as it is, with believers, when Christ is
withdrawn from them, it is a time to lament, but, when the bridegroom is with
them, it is a time of joy; when it is a night of darkness and desertion, weeping
endures, but when the morning comes, the day breaks, and the sun of
righteousness arises, joycomes with it, Matthew 9:15 John 16:19. Now in the
present state is the saints' weeping time; in the time to come they will laugh,
or be filled with joy unspeakable and full of glory, Luke 6:21;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance; to mourn at funerals, and to dance at
festivals;in a spiritual sense, Godsometimes turns the mourning of his people
into dancing, or joy, which that is expressive of; see Psalm30:11.
Copyright Statement
The New John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible Modernisedand adapted
for the computer by Larry Pierce of Online Bible. All Rightes Reserved,
Larry Pierce, Winterbourne, Ontario.
A printed copy of this work can be ordered from: The Baptist Standard
Bearer, 1 Iron Oaks Dr, Paris, AR, 72855
Bibliography

Gill, John. "Commentary on Ecclesiastes3:4". "The New JohnGill
Exposition of the Entire Bible".
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/geb/ecclesiastes-3.html. 1999.
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
mourn — namely, for the dead (Genesis 23:2).
dance — as David before the ark (2 Samuel 6:12-14;Psalm 30:11);spiritually
(Matthew 9:15; Luke 6:21; Luke 15:25). The Pharisees,by requiring sadness
out of time, erred seriously.
Copyright Statement
These files are a derivative of an electronic edition prepared from text
scannedby Woodside Bible Fellowship.
This expanded edition of the Jameison-Faussett-BrownCommentary is in the
public domain and may be freely used and distributed.
Bibliography
Jamieson, Robert, D.D.;Fausset,A. R.; Brown, David. "Commentary on
Ecclesiastes3:4". "CommentaryCritical and Explanatory on the Whole
Bible". https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/jfb/ecclesiastes-3.html.
1871-8.
Keil & DelitzschCommentary on the Old Testament
“To weephas its time, and to laugh has its time; to mourn has its time, and to
dance has its time.” It is possible that the author was led by the consonance
from livnoth to livkoth , which immediately follows it; but the sequence ofthe
thoughts is at the same time inwardly mediated, for sorrow kills and joy

enlivens, Sir. 32:21-24. ‫דופס‬ is particularly lamentation for the dead,
Zechariah 12:10;and ‫דופס‬ , dancing (in the more modern language the usual
word for hholēl , kirkēr , hhāgǎg ) at a marriage festivaland on other festal
occasions.
It is more difficult to saywhat leads the author to the two following pairs of
contrasts: -
Copyright Statement
The Keil & DelitzschCommentary on the Old Testamentis a derivative of a
public domain electronic edition.
Bibliography
Keil, Carl Friedrich & Delitzsch, Franz. "Commentary on Ecclesiastes 3:4".
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/kdo/ecclesiastes-3.html. 1854-
1889.
Wesley's ExplanatoryNotes
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
To weep — When men have just occasionfor weeping.
Copyright Statement
These files are public domain and are a derivative of an electronic edition that
is available on the Christian ClassicsEtherealLibrary Website.
Bibliography
Wesley, John. "Commentary on Ecclesiastes 3:4". "JohnWesley's
Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible".
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/wen/ecclesiastes-3.html. 1765.

John Trapp Complete Commentary
Ecclesiastes3:4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a
time to dance;
Ver. 4. A time to weep, and a time to laugh.] Only we must not invert the
order, but weepwith men that we may laugh with angels;lay godly sorrow as
a foundation of spiritual joy. Surely out of this eatercomes meat;out of this
strong, sweet. Strong and sweetrefreshments follow upon penitential
performances;these April showers bring on May flowers. Tertullian saith that
he was nulli rei natus nisi poenitentiae, born for no other purpose but to
repent; but then he that truly repenteth, de peccatis doletet de dolore gaudet,
is grieved for his sins, and then is glad of such a grief. "Those that so sow in
tears shall reap in joy": whereas those that will not - in an evil time, especially
when God "calls to weeping and mourning," [Isaiah 22:12]and even thrusts
men down, as it were, with a thump on the back - weephere, where there are
weeping handkerchiefs in the hands of Christ, are like to have their eyes whipt
out in hell, and to howl with devils.
A time to mourn.] Matterenough of mourning we shall be sure of (and we
should be soberly sensible of it) while we are in this vale of misery, valley of
tears, in hoc exilio, in hoc ergastulo, in hoc peregrinatione, as Bernard hath it,
in this prison house, purgatory, pilgrimage. In this place of banishment and
bondage, how canwe look for better? God sets us not here, as he did Adam in
paradise, to take his pleasure, or as he did Leviathan in the sea, to sport and
dally. We must not think to do as the people of Tombutum, in Africa, who are
said to spend their time in singing and dancing. The wayof this world is like
the wilderness ofSin, or the vale of Siddim, or the Pacific Sea, whichCaptain
Drake found tempestuous and troublous above measure. (a) Many miseries
and molestations, both satanicaland secular, we are sure to meet with, to
make us mourn. Jerome complains that he had furrows in his face, and icicles
from his lips, with continual weeping. Origen is thought to have died of grief.
Chrysostomcalls the days of his life the days of his sorrow. Basilwas made

old and unprofitable for God’s Church before his time, with travail and
trouble. Rebecca is wearyof her life; so is Elijah. Naomi will be Naomino
longer, but Marah; Paul veils all his topsails, and sits down in the dust, [1
Timothy 1:15] besides his sympathising with others. [2 Corinthians 11:29-30]
And a time to dance.]Or, Skip, as young cattle do at spring time. Here is
nothing for mixed immodest dancings. Quid opus est talibus salsamentis?
What need people provoke themselves to that evil they so naturally incline to?
Nemo sobrius saltat, said the heathen orator: No soberman will offer to
dance. Where there is dancing, there the devil is, saith a Father: (b) and
cannot men be merry unless they have the devil for their playfellow? Dancing,
saith another, (c) is a circle, whose centre is the devil, but busily blowing up
the fire of lust, as in Herod, that old goat.
Copyright Statement
Text Courtesyof BibleSupport.com. Used by Permission.
Bibliography
Trapp, John. "Commentary on Ecclesiastes 3:4". JohnTrapp Complete
Commentary. https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/jtc/ecclesiastes-
3.html. 1865-1868.
Matthew Poole's EnglishAnnotations on the Holy Bible
A time to weep; when men shall have just occasionforweeping and mourning.
Copyright Statement

Bibliography
Poole, Matthew, "Commentaryon Ecclesiastes3:4". Matthew Poole's English
Annotations on the Holy Bible.
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/mpc/ecclesiastes-3.html. 1685.
Whedon's Commentary on the Bible
4. Weep… laugh… mourn — The human heart must vent its emotions, and
they must have appropriate expression. Tears are no more virtuous than
laughter. The moral quality lies further back than the mere expression. Life is
full of both. “Man, thou pendulum betweena smile and tear!” To dance
should be to rejoice, which is the exactopposite of to mourn. The Hebrew to
dance is clearly used from its rhyming or mating the word to mourn. But even
“to dance” expressesjoyousness.
Copyright Statement
Bibliography
Whedon, Daniel. "Commentary on Ecclesiastes 3:4". "Whedon's
Commentary on the Bible".
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/whe/ecclesiastes-3.html. 1874-
1909.
Mark Dunagan Commentary on the Bible
"A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance."

But at times we want to laugh, when it is a time for weeping. Too oftenwe
want to feel goodall the time and avoid anything that might bring us sorrow.
But whether we like it or not, tragedy, heartache, and suffering will affectall
of us. There is a time to stop laughing. There also is a time to mourn for your
own sins and the sins of others (1 Cor. ; James 4:9-10;2 Corinthians 7:8-10;
Matthew 26:75). The dancing here isn"t lustful dancing. "Men and women
never danced together, even on those occasions where both sexes participated
in the sacredprofessionaldances, they always dancedseparately. Dancing for
sensualentertainment was unheard of among the Hebrews" (Nelsons Bible
Dictionary, p. 276). "it is clearthat men and women did not generallydance
together, and there is no real evidence that they ever did. Socialamusement
was hardly a major purpose of dancing, and the modern method of dancing
by couples is unknown" (Zond. Ency., p. 12) "Biblicaldancing was the
unrehearsed, spontaneous exuberance resulting from a great physical victory,
or some festive occasion" (Kidwell p. 75). The word "dance" here means to
leap or skip about. There are times when we must be joyful! (Luke 15:25)
Copyright Statement
Bibliography
Dunagan, Mark. "Commentary on Ecclesiastes 3:4". "Mark Dunagan
Commentaries on the Bible".
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/dun/ecclesiastes-3.html. 1999-
2014.
E.W. Bullinger's Companion Bible Notes
to weep., Genesis 23:2;Genesis 44:30. 2 Samuel12:21. Joel2:17. Jeremiah
21:9. Luke 6:25.

to laugh (Compare Ecclesiastes2:1, Ecclesiastes 2:2). Genesis 21:6. Psalms
2:4; Psalms 37:13. Matthew 5:4; Matthew 9:15. Luke 6:21. Nehemiah 8:9.
to mourn., Genesis 23:2. 1 Samuel16:1. Proverbs 29:2. Isaiah38:14; Isaiah
61:2. Joel1:9.
to dance., 2 Samuel 6:14. Psalms 149:3;Psalms 150:4. Jeremiah31:13.
Copyright Statement
Bibliography
Bullinger, Ethelbert William. "Commentary on Ecclesiastes 3:4". "E.W.
Bullinger's Companion bible Notes".
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/bul/ecclesiastes-3.html. 1909-
1922.
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible - Unabridged
A time to mourn - namely, for the dead (Genesis 23:2).
Dance - as David before the ark (2 Samuel 6:12-14;Psalms 30:11;spiritually,
Matthew 9:15; Luke 6:21; Luke 15:25). The Pharisees,by requiring sadness
out of time, erred seriously. The Church's temporary sorrow shall be
ultimately turned into joy (John 16:20). Meanwhile, let us not force ourselves
to laughter unseasonably, forestalling God's time, like the world, that gilds
over its misery, and then falls a victim to despair (Matthew 9:15).
Copyright Statement

Bibliography
Jamieson, Robert, D.D.;Fausset,A. R.; Brown, David. "Commentary on
Ecclesiastes3:4". "CommentaryCritical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
- Unabridged".
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/jfu/ecclesiastes-3.html. 1871-
8.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers
(4) Mourn.—This is the ordinary word used for noisy funeral lamentations
(Jeremiah 4:8; 1 Samuel 25:1).
Copyright Statement
Bibliography
Ellicott, Charles John. "Commentary on Ecclesiastes 3:4". "Ellicott's
Commentary for English Readers".
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/ebc/ecclesiastes-3.html. 1905.
Treasuryof Scripture Knowledge

time to weep
Nehemiah 8:9-12;9:1-38; Psalms 30:5; 126:1,2,5,6;Isaiah 22:12,13;Matthew
9:15; Matthew 11:17; John 16:20-22;Romans 12:15; 2 Corinthians 7:10;
James 4:9
a time to laugh
Genesis 21:6;Luke 1:13,14,58;6:21-25
to dance
Exodus 15:20;2 Samuel 6:16
Copyright Statement
Bibliography
Torrey, R. A. "Commentary on Ecclesiastes 3:4". "The Treasuryof Scripture
Knowledge". https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/tsk/ecclesiastes-
3.html.
Commentary by J.C.Philpoton selecttexts of the Bible
Ecclesiastes3:4
"A time to weep." Ecclesiastes3:4
Does a man only WEEP once in his life? Does not the time of weeping run,
more or less, through a Christian"s whole life? Does not mourning run
parallel with his existence in this tabernacle ofclay? 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." Living souls will know many times to weep;
they will have often to sigh and cry over their base hearts; to mourn with tears
of godly sorrow their backslidings from God; to weepover their broken idols,
faded hopes, and marred prospects;to weepat having so grieved the Spirit of
God by their disobedience, carnality, and worldliness;to be melted into
contrition at the feet of a dying Lord, so as in some measure to be led into the
path in which Jesus walkedas "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief."
They will have to bewail the falling off of those friends whom once they looked
upon as bidding fairer for the kingdom of God than themselves;to weepat the
cruel arrows of calumny which are shot againstthem by professors;to mourn
over the low state of Zion, how few there are who really serve the Lord
acceptablywith reverence and godly fear, and adorn the doctrine in all things.
But above all things will they have to weepover the inward idolatries of their
filthy nature; to weepthat they ever should have treatedwith such insult that
God whom they desire to love and adore; that they should so neglectand turn
their backs upon that Savior who crowns them with loving-kindness and
tender mercies;and that they bear so little in mind the instruction that has
been communicated to them by the Holy Spirit.
There is many a weeping time for God"s children; and if there be one frame
of mind in soul experience more to be covetedthan another, it is to be weeping
at Jesus" feet. We have two sweetinstancesofthe Lord"s manifesting himself
to those who were weeping—one to "the woman who was an immoral sinner,"
who stoodbehind him, and washedhis feet with her tears;the other was to
Mary Magdalene, who "stoodoutside the sepulcherweeping."
Oh, how different is the weeping, chastenedspirit of a living soul from the
hardened, searedpresumption of a proud professor!How different are the
feelings of a broken-heartedchild of Godfrom the lightness, the frivolity, the
emptiness, and the worldliness of hundreds who stand in a professionof
religion! How different is a mourning saint, weeping in his solitary corner
over his base backslidings, from a reckless professorwho justifies himself in
every action, who thinks sin a light thing, and who, howeverinconsistently he
Acts , never feels consciencewoundedthereby! "Blessedare they who mourn,
for they shall be comforted."

Copyright Statement
Bibliography
Philpot, JosephCharles. "Commentary on Ecclesiastes3:4". Commentary by
J.C.Philpoton selecttexts of the Bible.
https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/jcp/ecclesiastes-3.html.
Ecclesiastes3:4. A time to weepand a time to laugh. There are seasons when
those who belong to the kingdom of God must weep, because the Lord hides
his face from the house of Israel, (Isaiah8:17) and there are also times when
they can rejoice. Joyalways comes last. Forthis reasonthe weeping of the
children of God is quite different from that of the world. It always has a
backgroundof hope. Theirs is not the anguish of despair; it is a sadness which
takes comfort. Our Lord alludes to this passage whenHe says in Luke 6:21,
μακάριοι οἱ κλαίοντες νῦν, ὅτι γελάσετε. In close connectionalso with this
passageStands John 16:20 : ἀμὴνἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι κλαύσετε καὶ θρηνήσετε
ὑμεῖς, ὁ δὲ κόσμος χαρήσεται·ὑμεῖς λυπηθήσεσθε, ἀλλʼ ἡ λύπη ὑμῶν εἰς
χαρὰνγενήσεται. When it is the time for weeping it is useless to try and force
ourselves to laughter, as is the fashion of the world, which seeks to forgetand
gild over its misery until at last it falls a victim to despair. Our course should
be that which is enjoined on us in 1 Peter5:6, ταπεινώθητε οὖν ὑπὸ τὴν
κραταιὰνχεῖρα τοῦ θεοῦ, ἵνα ὑμᾶς ὑψώσῃ ἐν καιρῷ:Bengel—intempore
opportune, when the seasonforlaughter has arrived. This seasonhoweverwe
may not endeavourto anticipate: our moods of feelings should go hand in
hand with the various phases of divine providence: we should actin short like
the children of Israel, who once in the days of their captivity hung their harps
on the willows and refusedto sing the songs ofZion. A time to mourn and a

time to dance. On these words it is remarkedin the BerleburgerBible—"If
any man at another time is visited by still severermisfortunes, then weeping
will not suffice, but wailing must be added thereto, that is, a greatand public
mourning must take place in that we wring our hands above our heads and
express our lamentation in the gestures and attitude of sorrow."
PRECEPTAUSTIN RESOURCES
Question:"What does it mean that there is a proper time for everything
(Ecclesiastes 3:1–8)?"
Answer: Ecclesiastes3:1–8 is a well-known passage thatdeals with the
balanced, cyclicalnature of life and says that there is a proper time for
everything:
“There is a time for everything,
and a seasonfor every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weepand a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatterstones and a time to gather them,

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to searchand a time to give up,
a time to keepand a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.”
In this passage, the Preachersays that there is a time for every matter in life.
He illustrates this truth by juxtaposing opposites:fourteen pairs of
contrasting activities as examples of how life is comprisedof various seasons.
A straightforwardreading of the passagereveals severalconcepts:
First, the timing of our activities is important. Killing someone (Ecclesiastes
3:8) is generallyconsideredevil and a crime, but that may change during a
time of war, when defending one’s country can be considereda noble act.
Dancing (verse 4) may be appropriate during a time of celebration, but it
would not be appropriate for a funeral. Both our actions and the timing of our
actions are important to God.
Second, these seasons in which certain pursuits are proper are appointed by
God. His plan for life involves a variety of experiences and activities. Weeping
may be part of life, but life is not all weeping;laughter has a place, too
(Ecclesiastes 3:4). Constructionis goodin its time, but sometimes
deconstructionis necessary(verse 3).

A key to this passageis found a few verses later:“He has made everything
beautiful in its time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). The proper activity at the right time,
bringing about God’s purposes, is a beautiful part of God’s overallplan. A
tapestry, viewedfrom the back, seems a chaotic and unlovely work;but the
maker of the tapestry has a wise purpose for the placement of eachthread.
Third, Ecclesiastes3:1–8 serves as a bridge betweenthe first two chapters and
the sectionthat follows. People are to accepteachday as a gift from the hand
of God (2:24–26). Why? Ecclesiastes3:1–8 explains it is because Godhas a
reasonand a time for all things. People may be ignorant of God’s timing (3:9–
11), but they are called to enjoy life in the present(3:12–13)and trust in God’s
sovereignty(3:14–15).
God offers much wisdom in the saying, “There is a time for everything, / and a
seasonforevery activity under the heavens.” Godis sovereign. Our activity in
this world is meaningful as we rely on His wisdom, His timing, and His
goodness.
CRISWELL
GOD’S TIME IS NOW
Dr. W. A. Criswell
Ecclesiastes3:1-8
1-19-92 8:15 a.m.
We welcome the throngs of you who share this hour on radio. And may the
Lord bless to our hearts the messagefrom this passagein Ecclesiastes.
"There is a time and a purpose for all things under the sun" [Ecclesiastes 3:1].

One of the most impressive of all the pieces ofstatuary I have ever seenin my
life is blocking the main streetthat goes through Chicago University. The
artist has castin bronze a dynamic, impressive, likeness oftime – of death.
And across a small lagoon, he is looking at the panorama of life. Here is a
child looking upon time – death – with wide open wonder. Here is a youth
covering his eyes from such a horrible spectacle, andhere is an old woman on
her knees with her hands extended, welcoming the day of death.
Time; the creationof God, and all of the purposes of the Lord are wrought
out and expressedin time. As Galatians 4:4 avows:"In the fullness of time,
God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made unto the law, to redeem us
who were cursedby the law." Think of all of the generations andthe
thousands of years through which God workedin time bringing His Son into
the world. Time is the essenceofall of God’s purposes and providences. It is
a strange thing to me that the Revelationbegins with that avowaland closes
with that avowal. In Revelation1: "Blessedare they that read and they that
hear the words of these prophecies. . .for the time is at hand" [Revelation1:3].
Then the last, twenty-secondchapter: "Sealnot the words of this prophecy,
for the time is at hand" [Revelation22:10]. And how blessedare they who are
sensitive to the times of God. First Chronicles writes:"The children of
Issacharwere men of understanding the times, to know what Israel had to
do" [1 Chronicles 12:32]. So we speak of time in the purpose and plan of God
for us.
First there is a time of supplication, and intercession, and seeking the face of
our Lord. Before our Savior wrought any of the greatthings for which God
sent Him into the earth; He spent His time in supplication and prayer; prayed
all night long before the choosing ofthe twelve apostles [Luke 6:12]; prayed
earnestlyin Gethsemane before His crucifixion [Luke 22:44]. His life was
characterizedby one of interminable intercession. And thus the church, with
one accord, they prayed and sought the face of Godbefore the day of
Pentecost[Acts 1:14]; and thus with us, before the hour of exigencyand
destiny we are calledto pray, to intercede, to seek God’s face and will; a time
of intercession.

There is not any moment in my life that is more impressive in my heart and
memory than upon the occasionwhenI announced to our congregationin
Oklahoma, "Whenthe word comes that our troops are to storm the shores of
Normandy, when that word comes, immediately all of us are to come, come to
the house of God and to pray." Word came to me at 2:00 in the morning,
"Our troops are storming the shores of France." Iimmediately dressedand
went down to the church, and when I walkedin I was overwhelmed. The
balcony around like this, and on the floor like this, it was jammed to the last
capacitywith these who were seeking the face of God. All of our lives ought to
be like that. It is a time of intercession, ofprayer. And if we were thus to seek
God’s face, and all the vicissitudes and providences of life, we would be
strong, and courageous, andunafraid for the morrow.
I think one of the strangestthings I ever read in the Bible is when Gideon
calledthe men of Israeltogetherto face the invading Midianites, and there
were 32,000men who responded. And God said to Gideon, "You make the
announcement, ‘If you are afraid, if you are timorous, you go home.’" You
remember how many went home? There were 22,000 thatturned [Judges 7:2-
3]. I cannotthink of such a thing; facing the future and the callof God for
eachone of our lives. How do you do it? With fearand with trembling, with
anxiety for the tomorrow? No! Having prayed and having soughtthe face of
God, rise with every morning sun with courage, and confidence, and
persuasionthat God in His grace and goodness willsee us through; will bless
us in the way and in the work. There is a time and a place for everything
under the sun; a time of intercessionand seeking the face of God.
There is a time and a seasonforeverything under the sun [Ecclesiastes3:1]; a
time of recommitment, and reconsecration, and renewal, and revival. Who
has the revival? We do. The lost just come to the burning; it is we who
reconsecrate andrededicate ourselves to the Lord God. The church is "we";
it is "I." If I do not repent, the church does not repent. If I do not turn, the
church does not turn. If I do not reconsecrate, the church does not
reconsecrate. And if I am not caughtup in revival, the church is not revived.
It must begin in me.

One of the most dynamic of all of the chapters in the Bible is Genesis 35.
After Jacobhas gone from home in Israelto Haran [Genesis 29:5]and all the
experiences that follow after, then chapter 35:God said to Jacob:"Go back to
Bethel" [Genesis 35:1].
Back to Bethel I must go,
Back where the rivers of pure waterflow.
Back to the true life my love longs to know.
Bethelis calling and I must go.
[Author and work unknown]
A time of reconsecration, and recommitment, and revival; for every purpose
and for every reasonthere is a time appointed of God under the sun; a time of
separation, translatedhere: "A time to tear" [Ecclesiastes 3:7]. One of the
most unusual things that you will find in the Bible is the use of a word like
that. The Bible begins with that – badal, badal – translatedin most of our
texts, "Goddivided, God separated." So the first words: God separatedHis
creation:He separatedit into planets, and into stars, and into universes
[Genesis 1:14-19]. Goddivided His creation;God divided the night from the
day, the light from the darkness [Genesis1:3-5]. God divided the waterfrom
the land, the rivers from the sea [Genesis 1:6-8]. That’s the way the creation
begins: God divided it.
And God no less divides and calls us to separationfrom the foibles and from
the vanities of the world; we are to be a separatedpeople, a called-out people.
God separatedBarnabas and Saul for the work where unto He calledthem
[Acts 13:2]. And we are calledto be separate from the world [2 Corinthians
6:16-18]. Thus, the story of Jacob;God calledhim away, separatedhim from
Esauand from the Canaanites [Genesis 28:1-5];the last time he ever saw his
mother, kissing her good-bye. GodseparatedMoses fromEgypt and from
Pharaohand sent him out into the desert[Exodus 2:14-15]. Godseparatedin

the life of Job – one of ease, one ofaffluence, one of splendor – and God
separatedhim from his children, from all of his possessions, evenfrom his
health [Job 1-2]. And God separatedSaul from the establishments of the
Jewishpeople [Philippians 3:4-7]. God calls us to a separatedlife from the
world [2 Corinthians 6:16-18]. I could illustrate that so easily. Wouldn’t you
be surprised if you found your pastorin a certainplace, doing certainthings,
involved in certain activities? Godcalls us to a separatedlife.
And of course, all is a purview and a parable of the ultimate and final
separationfrom this world, when God calls us in death to another life in
eternity [2 Thessalonians4:16-17]. How inexorable is that ultimate
separation. I read a sermon in Bozrah, down there at the southern part of the
Euphrates River. I have been there. It is a greatcity. A servant came to his
master in the morning and said, "Oh my master, my master! I saw Deathon
the streetof Bozrah this morning, and he lookedat me. Oh, master! Lend me
your fleetesthorse that I may flee to Baghdad." And the goodmaster, in
keeping with the earnestrequest of the servant, gave to his servant his fleetest
horse, and the servant made his way to Baghdad. That afternoon – that
afternoon, the mastersaw Deathon the street of Bozrah and the master went
up to Deathand said, "What do you mean by frightening my servant so?"
And Deathreplied, "Goodmaster, I did not intend to frighten him. I was
merely surprised to see him here in Bozrah because Ihave an appointment to
meet him in the morning in Baghdad." There is an inexorable date that we
have with death [Hebrews 9:27]. That is God’s separationfrom this world for
us who are in this pilgrimage.
And that leads me to my final avowal:O God, in the face of the providence of
life and in the inevitability of eternity, there is a time and a seasonfor
everything under the sun [Ecclesiastes3:1]. There is a time, and a place, and
a season, andan hour for our salvation[2 Corinthians 6:2]. May I speak of
that briefly first? Nationally, internationally, I do not think there everwas a
time in the world when such an open door has been given to the Christian
people as we have in EasternEurope and in Russia today. Friday at noon we
had a lunch here at the church with men who are interestedin the messageof
Christ and salvation brought to those hungry-hearted people in Russia and
EasternEurope. By law, you can’t teach God in the public schools of

America, but you can teachthe Bible and have services ofChrist in the
universities and in the schools ofthat atheistic country. Oh, what a day!
What an opportunity! God’s time of salvation, and wouldn’t it be wonderful
if this whole world could be brought togetherin a great commitment to the
work of the Lord in all of His creation. Insteadof spending the fortunes of
our nation on armaments and military supplies, to do it: to take all that God
has given us for the salvation of mankind and for the subduing of the whole
creationof God in His worshipful name. "There is a time and a seasonfor
everything under the sun" [Ecclesiastes3:1]. And that time of salvationis for
us; it is for you.
My father was an uneducated cowpoke. He was wonderfully converted out
there on the range in WestTexas whenhe was twenty-sevenyears of age. As
those greatranches broke up and they invented barbed wire – don’t need a
cowboyany longer – my father became a barber. And as I grew up as a lad,
every day of my life, I saw my father in that shop, reading the Word of God;
reading the Word of God; reading this Holy Bible. It brought into his life
deep convictions. I am just amazedas I think through some of them. And one
of them was this: he believed that there was a time and a place for every man
under the sun to give his life to Jesus. And if he turned aside from that final
call, he committed the unpardonable sin [Matthew 12:31-32;Mark 3:28-30].
He would never be saved.
And I lived through, as a little boy, an illustration of that in our little church.
There was a town marshal named Charlie Step. And in a revival meeting –
and I, as a little boy eight or nine years old, I sat right there and watchedhim,
and heard him – in that revival service, Charlie Step was deeply moved, and
God’s sainted friends gatheredround him and pled with Charlie Step to
receive the Lord as his Savior, give himself to Jesus. And he steadfastly
refused and hardened his heart. I stoodthere and watchedhim, and he cried
like a child; but held on to the back of the pew in front of him and refusedto
respond to the appealof God. My father said to me, "He will never be saved.
That is God’s lastappeal to his heart; he has turned down the overtures of
grace for the last time, and he will never be moved again."

So as a child, I watched. And when I moved away, I kept in touch; and
Charlie Step was never moved again. He never wept again. The Holy Spirit
never struggled with him again; and he died a lost man and is in hell today.
Whether my father is corrector not is known but to God, I just know that
there is a time and a seasonwhen God appeals to a man’s heart to give himself
to Jesus, to acceptthe Lord as his Savior, and he canturn Christ down for the
last time and never be moved again, and never be saved, and die lost.
O God! "Behold, now is the acceptedtime; behold, now is the day of
salvation" [2 Corinthians 6:2].
There is a time, I know not when,
A place, I know not where,
That marks the destiny of men,
to glory or despair.
There is a line, by us unseen,
That crosseseverypath;
The hidden boundary between
God’s mercy and God’s wrath.
How long may men go on in sin?
How long will God forbear?
Where does hope end? and where begins
the confines of despair?

Our answerfrom the skies is sent-
‘Ye who from God depart,
While it is calledtoday, Repent!
And harden not your heart.’
[from Spurgeon’s "The Soul’s Crises" #906]
There is a time and a seasonforeverything under the sun [Ecclesiastes3:1],
and there is a time when I must give my heart to God [2 Corinthians 6:2].
There is a time when I am to be saved. There is a time when the Holy Spirit
pleads with my soul, and if I turn God down I am forever lost. O God, that
when the Spirit knocks atthe door of my heart, I’ll answer, "Yes Lord, yes!"
GreatTexts of the Bible
Eternity in the Heart
He hath made everything beautiful in its time; also he hath setthe world
[eternity—R.V. marg.] in their heart, yet so that man cannot find out the
work that God hath done from the beginning even to the end.—Ecclesiastes
3:21. This text, like the book of which it forms a part, has been a puzzle to
interpreters. In the Authorized and RevisedVersions it is translated“He hath
setthe world in their heart.” But the word translated “world,” which suggests
the boundlessness ofspace, is elsewhereand generallyused to denote the
boundlessness oftime. It is the word used in the phrase “for ever and ever.”
The best modern interpreters, therefore, translate it in this place by the word
“eternity.” So taken, the text is a nugget of pure gold, shining out from the dry
sand and bare rock. The book which mourns over the vanity of earthly things,

and sees so clearlythe limitations of human knowledge,recognizes,
notwithstanding, a Divine element in man. In spite of man’s ignorance and
weakness,Godhas put eternity in his heart.
2. By the word “heart” here, as elsewhere, we are to understand not man’s
affections alone, but his whole mental and moral being. The assertionis that
all man’s powers and processes, whetherof reasonorof will, involve and
imply an eternalconstituent, whether man is aware of it or not. And by
“eternity” we are to understand not the endless prolongationof time, the
everlasting continuance of successions, but rather superiority to time,
elevationabove successions. GodHimself is not under the law of time—he is
“King of the ages.”And we are made in His image. Though we have a finite
and temporal existence, we are not wholly creatures of time. To some extent
we are above its laws. We have “thoughts that wander through eternity,” a
consciousnessthatwe are too large for our dwelling-place, a conviction that
the pastand the future are ours as well as the present.
3. The drift of the passage, then, appears to be something like this: God has
made everything beautiful in accordance withits function and the relation in
which it stands to other created things; it is beautiful as He sees it, whether it
seems so to mortal eyes or not, for its beauty consists in the truth it expresses
and the spiritual work it does;and, when the time comes for it to pass away,
the effects ofits work will still remain, for whateverGod does is done for
eternity. “WhatsoeverGoddoeth it shall be for ever.” Also God hath setthe
feeling of the eternal in the human heart; all men have it in some degree, even
though they do not know why they should have it, cannot justify it to their
reason, and cannot find out what God is doing by means of the things of time
from beginning to end. Interpreted in this way, this great saying at once
becomes luminous as well as profound, and the sage who originally uttered it
might have been speaking for our day as well as his own in thus giving
expressionto his thought about the mystery of life. Forthree distinct things
are emphasized here as present to human experience everywhere. The first is

the sense ofbeauty; the second, mysteriously allied to the first, is the feeling of
the eternal;and the third is our confessionof perplexity and helplessnessin
the endeavourto find out what the purpose is, if any, which is being effected
by means of the flux and travail of our earthly existence.
Commenting on this passage Baconsays:“Solomondeclares, notobscurely,
that God hath framed the mind of man as a mirror or glass, capable ofthe
image of the universal world, joyful to receive the impression thereof, as the
eye joyeth to receive light.” In his funeral sermonon Dr. Livingstone, Dean
Stanley workedout a thought of a kindred kind. The earth, he said, is, broken
up by seas andmountains, so that the nations seemdestined to live apart; but
in man’s breastthere is a thirst for exploration and discovery, an
unquenchable longing to know all that can be known of the world in which he
lives; and as this desire takes shape in action, obstacles vanish, and all ends of
the world are brought close together. The factthat the world is thus setin
man’s heart, so that he is prepared to explore it, to understand it, to use and
to enjoy it, is surely a proof of design in Nature and of the wisdom and
goodness ofthe greatCreator.
I
The Sense ofBeauty
“He hath made everything beautiful in its time.”
Beauty is the most elusive and analysable thing that enters within the range of
our perceptions. We have the idea of the beautiful, but we can never say just
why any particular thing is to be pronounced beautiful, or wanting in beauty,
as the case may be. Beautyis God’s art, God’s manner of working. Beautyis

the necessaryconceptionofthe Creator’s thought, the necessaryproduct of
His hand; variety in beauty is the necessaryexpressionof His infinite mind. In
createdthings there are, of course, necessarylimitations; but the Creator
seems to have impressedupon the things that He has made all the variety of
which they are capable;no two faces, orforms, or voices, or flowers, or blades
of grass are alike. Even decayand disorganizationhave an iridescence oftheir
own. Beautyis not merely the surface adornment of creation, like paint upon
a house, like pictures upon its walls, like jewelleryupon a woman. Beauty
permeates nature through and through; the microscope, the dissecting knife,
revealit; there is no hidden ugliness, no mere surface beauty, in God’s works.
If you try to eliminate their element of beauty, you destroy them. The core of
the fruit is as beautiful as its rind. Beauty is an essentialpart of the nature of
things. Equally with substance it inheres in everything that God has made. It
is part of the perfectionof God’s works, part of the perfectionof God Himself;
like truth, like holiness, like beneficence, like graciousness.
Why we receive pleasure from some forms and colours, and not from others,
is no more to be askedor answeredthan why we like sugar and dislike
wormwood. The utmost subtlety of investigations will only lead us to ultimate
instincts and principles of human nature, for which no further reasoncanbe
given than the simple will of the Deity that we should be so created.1 [Note:
Ruskin, Modern Painters.]
The nearestapproachI can make myself to an explanation of what beauty
is—and even that is no explanation, but only an index finger pointing towards
it—is to say that it is the witness in the soul of that which is as opposedto that
which seems—the realof which this world is but the shadow;it is a glimpse,
an intimation of the Supernal, the state of being in which there is no lack, no
discord, strife, or wrong, and where nothing is wanting to the ideal perfection,
whateverit may be. In other words, it is the eternaltruth reminding us of its
presence, though unable with our limitations to do more than brush us with
its wings. Keats hits the mark in his tender line:

Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.1 [Note:R. J. Campbell.]
1. The beauty of the world is something quite distinct from use; it is something
superadded. It is like the chasing of a goblet which would be as useful if it had
no beauty of form. Whatevermay be said of the beauty of true utility it is
unquestionable that the most intense of the emotions called out in presence of
the beautiful have no connexion whateverwith any thought of the fitness or
unfitness of the objects thus perceivedfor any particular purpose, or of the
correctnessofthe relation occupiedby them to any larger categoryor to
creationas a whole. When we feel the beauty of a tree, for instance, or a
jutting crag, we are not influenced in the slightestby anything in their
appearance whichsuggests thatthey are in their right place or that in form
they obey the line of development which makes in some way towards a fuller
expressionof life and power.
Ruskin has pointed out that the clouds could do all their work without their
beauty. But they do not. They spreada perfect panorama of loveliness above
us. Sometimes it is the feathery cirrus cloud, looking, as William Blake said,
“as if the angels had gone to worship and had left their plumes lying there.”
Another time the cumulus cloud, with piled, heaving bosom, throbbing with
anger, fills the heavens, soonto find relief in the lightning flash and the
cracking thunder. Or it is the stratus clouds, placid and level, rising step
behind step, looking so solid that imagination finds it easyto mount them and
reachthe land which is afar off, where is the King in His beauty.2 [Note:G.
Eayres.]

2. Beauty, however, is not without use. It is the messengerofGod’s love to the
world, showing that all creation“means intensely and means good.” It is the
fringe of the Lord’s own self, the outshining of His presence, the appealof His
love. Ruskin says that beauty is “written on the archedsky; it looks out from
every star; it is among the hills and valleys of the earth, where the shrubless
mountain-top pierces the thin atmosphere of eternal winter, or where the
mighty forestfluctuates before the strong wind, with its dark waves of green
foliage;it is spread out like a legible language upon the broad face of the
unsleeping ocean;it is the poetry of nature; it is that which uplifts within us,
until it is strong enough to overlook the shadows ofour place of probation,
which breaks link after link of the chain that binds us to materiality and
which opens to our imagination a world of spiritual beauty and holiness.”
Wordsworthwas convinced (and he gave his whole life to preaching the
lesson)that to find joy in the sights and sounds of Nature actually fed a man’s
heart, and disposedhim to the goodlife. In the well-knownlines written on
revisiting the banks of the Wye after an interval of five years, he expressed
what he himself had owedto the sights seenon his former visit—
Oft in lonely rooms, and ’mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owedto them,
In hours of weariness,sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart,
And passing even into my purer mind,

With tranquil restoration.
So far we should all agree:but he goes on—
Feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a goodman’s life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
Of kindness and of love.
Wordsworthbelieved that happiness found among the things of Nature, the
simple leapof the heart, for example, at the sight of a rainbow, transmuted
itself into acts of kindness;and this need not surprise us, if we believe, as
Wordsworthbelieved, that behind all the outward shapes ofNature lives and
works the Spirit of God, who through these things sheds into our hearts His
own gifts of joy and peace.1 [Note:Canon Beeching, The Grace ofEpiscopacy,
134.]

All earthly beauty hath one cause and proof,
To lead the pilgrim soul to beauty above:
Yet lieth the greaterbliss so far aloof
That few there be are weanedfrom earthly love.
Joy’s ladder it is, reaching from home to home,
The best of all the work that all was good:
Whereof’twas writ the angels aye upclomb,
Downsped, and at the top the Lord God stood.1 [Note:RobertBridges.]
3. Beautyhas its seasons;it flushes and fades. Everything in the world must be
in its true place and time, or it is not beautiful. That is true from the lowestto
the highest; only with the lowestit is not easyto discoverit. It does not seemto
matter where the pebble lies, on this side of the road or on the other. It may
indeed do sad mischief out of its place;but its place is a wide one. It may lie in
many spots and do no harm, and seemto show all the beauty and render all
the use of which it is capable. But the things of higher nature are more
fastidious in their demands. The plant must have its proper soilto feed its
roots upon, or its bright flowers lose their beauty, and even there, only in one
short happy seasonof the year is it in its glory, while the pebble keeps its

lustre always. Higher still comes the animal, and he has more needs that must
be met, more arrangements that must be made, a more definite place in which
he must be set, before he cando his best. And then, highest of all, comes man,
and with his highest life comes the completestdependence upon
circumstances. He is the leastindependent creature on the earth. The most
beautiful in his right time and place, he is the most wretchedand miserable
out of it. He is the most liable of all the creatures to be thrown out of place. He
must have all the furnishings of life, friendships, family, ambitions, cultures of
every kind, or his best is not attained. It belongs then to the highestand most
gifted lives to seek their places in the world. It is the prerogative of their
superiority. Surely it would be goodfor men if they could learn this early. It
would scattermany delusions. It would dissipate the folly of universal genius.
The perfectwoodwork ofthe carpenter, the strong ironwork of the smith, the
carved marble of the sculptor, the August fields of the farmer, the cloth of the
weaver, the schoolof the master, the quiet room of the student, the college
with its turrets, the cottage with its hollyhocks and vines, all come with their
separate charm, and help to compose the magnificence of the world. In the
thrilling page of history, the poverty of the learned is seennow to be as grand
as the gold of the merchant or the estates ofroyalty. We do not feelthat
Socratesneededriches, and we are glad that Jesus Christ had nothing but a
soul. The isolationof His soul made it stand forth like white figures upon a
dark background. His soulreposes upon poverty like a rainbow upon a
cloud.1 [Note: D. Swing.]
I cannot feelit beautiful when I find men still at their business when they
ought to be at home with their children. I cannot feelit beautiful to see the
common work of the world going on on Sundays. I cannot feel it beautiful to
see little children at hard work when they ought to be in school, or aged
people still obliged to toil and moil to the very end. But good honestwork,
done with some pride and zest, and done in season, becomesin a way

transfigured, and is “beautiful in its time.”2 [Note: Brooke Herford, Anchors
of the Soul, 251.]
II
The Capacityfor the Infinite
“He hath seteternity in their heart.”
The doctrine of immortality does not seemto be stated in the Book of
Ecclesiastes, exceptin one or two very doubtful expressions. And it is more in
accordancewith its whole tone to suppose the Preacherhere to be asserting,
not that the heart or spirit is immortal, but that, whether it is or not, in the
heart is planted the thought, the consciousnessofeternity—and the longing
after it.
We differ from all around us in this perishable world in that Godhath set
eternity in our hearts. All creationaround us is satisfiedwith its sustenance,
we alone have a thirst and a hunger for which the circumstances ofour life
have no meat and drink. In the burning noonday of life’s labour man sits—as
the Sonof Man once sat—bywell-sides weary, and while other creatures can
slake their thirst with that, he needs a living water;while other creatures go
into cities to buy meat, he has need of and finds a sustenance thatthey know
not of.
It is said that Napoleonwas askedto suggestthe subject for a historical
picture that would perpetuate his name, and he askedhow long the picture
would last. He was told that under favourable conditions it might last five

hundred years. But that would not satisfyhim; he cravedfor a more enduring
memorial. It was suggestedthat the sculptor might take the place of the
painter, and genius might come nearer to conferring immortality. Now what
was the meaning of that ambitious craving? It was a perverted instinct; it was
a solemn and impressive testimony to the fact that God has seteternity in
man’s heart. That demand for earthly immortality was but the echo—the
hollow, mocking echo—ofthe voice of eternity in the greatconqueror’s soul.1
[Note:A. Jenkinson, A Modern Disciple, 40.]
1. God has set the eternal in the mind of man.—It is the essentialnature of
thought to move out into the boundless, and to overleapall limitations of time
and space. This seems to be precisely the meaning of the Preacherin the text.
“Also he hath seteternity in their heart, yet so that man cannotfind out the
work that God hath done from the beginning even to the end.” The eternal in
the mind of man is a movement, not a fulfilment. He cannot comprehend the
boundless, and yet he must for ever feel the dynamic of it. He is bound on an
endless quest because he is, on the one hand, a finite creature, and because, on
the other hand, God has set eternity in his heart.
I had been attractedby Whewell’s essayon “The Plurality of Worlds,” where
it is argued that our planet is probably the only world in existence that is
occupiedby intelligent and morally responsible persons;the stars of heaven
being a material panorama existing only for the sake of the human
inhabitants of one small globe. This paradox, we are to-day told, is fully
fortified by “scientific proof” that the earth is mathematically placed in the
centre of the limited portion of space which, according to the theorist,
contains the whole material world. And all this is taken as an apologyfor the
faith that a Divine incarnation has been realized upon this apparently
insignificant planet, for the sake of persons otherwise unfit occasions ofthe
stupendous transaction. But I do not see how science canput a limit to the
space occupiedby suns and their planetary systems, or how the universe can
be proved to have any boundary, within a space whose circumferencemust be

nowhere and its centre everywhere;or even a limit within time, in its
unbeginning and unending duration. It seems a poor theistic conceptionto
suppose God incapable of incarnation in man, unless this planet were thus
unique in space and time. With the infinite fund of Omnipotent and
Omniscient Goodness,whatneed to exaggerate the place of man, in order to
justify his recognition, even according to the full economyof the Christian
?Revelation1 [Note: A. Campbell Fraser, Biographia Philosophica,259.]
2. God has set eternity in the moral nature of man.—This was what the
philosopher Kant felt when he affirmed that the contemplation of the moral
imperative filled him with awe, and with a sense ofthe sublime like that with
which he lookedupon the starry heavens. The moral law of which man is
conscious,and by which he knows himself bound, belongs to the eternal order
of things. In bestowing upon man the stupendous obligationof the moral
consciousness, Godhas seteternity in his heart. Ill-success has attendedthe
foolish attempt to deduce the majesties of the moral law from an
accumulation of temporal experiences. A poor, little, broken code can be
made out of the ingenious manipulation of man’s interests and pleasures, and
some lingering sentiments may be tortured out of forced theories of evolution.
But the simple majesty of the moral imperative and the incomparable
sublimity of moral truth bear a stamp which is known only in the heavenly
places. The simple explanation is all-sufficing and manifestly true; the Lord
proclaimed His law from heaven.
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong,
And the most ancientheavens, through thee, are fresh and strong.
If you came across a piece of gold reef in the midst of a peat bog you could do
no other than infer that it had been brought there by some ancient flood from

some greatsystem to which it truly belonged, or else that down beneath the
blackness andooze of the peat bog there lay a solid stratum wholly different
in quality and worth. Or again, if, as is the case in some parts of the world,
you saw a valley wateredand made fertile by a streamthat seemedto rise
from the bowels ofthe earth, you would want to know where the reservoirwas
from which that stream got its volume. It is not otherwise with the heart of
man. Right in the midst of the sombre ugliness of our common life lies the
gold-bearing rock which tells of a nobler origin for the soul, and of a stratum
of being in which there is nothing of the blackness andthe slime of evil. And in
the valley of our cumulative experience, whereinso much that is gracious and
beautiful springs and grows, wateredby the flowing crystalriver of spiritual
ideals and aspirations that rises unceasinglyfrom the mysterious deeps of our
being, surely there is that which tells of our eternalhome. It is in our heart
because Godhas put it there, and because it is the fundamental fact, the most
essentialfact, of our strangely complex nature.1 [Note: R. J. Campbell.]
Tennyson has drawn a wonderful picture of a man of noble nature who has
been led captive by lust. He knows the right and admires it. His soul has been
filled with aspirations after it. But this one sin has crept slily in and made its
home in his heart; it has fascinatedand masteredhim, so that he cannotshake
it off. Sometimes his better nature rises up; he tries to break his chains—he
fancies himself free; but the next time the temptation faces him he lays down
his arms, and is willingly made captive. Though his passionis gratified he has
no peace. The very nobility of that nature which is now degradedonly makes
his misery the greater. The fact that he knows the right so well, and yet,
somehow, cannotbe man enough to do it, makes his life at times intolerable.
Another sinning on such heights with one,
The flowerof all the westand all the world,

Had been the sleekerfor it; but in him
His mood was often like a fiend, and rose
And drove him into wastes andsolitudes
For agony, who was yet a living soul.
Yet the greatknight in his mid-sickness made
Full many a holy vow and pure resolve.
These, as but born of sickness,couldnot live.
“I needs must break
These bonds that so defame me; not without
She wills it. Would I, if she willed it? nay
Who knows? but if I would not, then may God
I pray Him, send a sudden Angel down

To seize me by the hair and bear me far,
And fling me deep in that forgottenmere,
Among the tumbled fragments of the hills.”
Such is man as we find him. He sits down in this poor, sinful world and,
gathering everything he canreacharound him, he tries to be content. But
there is enough of God and eternity within him to confound him and make
him miserable.1 [Note:W. Park.]
3. God has set eternity in the spiritual outreaching of man.—Man is by nature
a worshipping creature. He cannothelp stretching forth his hands towards the
heavens, and seeking communion with the everlasting invisible Powerwhich is
felt to dwell there. He cannot rest in temporal companionship and in the
interests of time and place. His spirit summons him to unknown heights and
bids him wistfully wait at the gates ofeternal glory.
When Shelley sought to dethrone and deny God, he was fain to setup in His
steadan eternalPowerwhich he called the Spirit of Nature. To this his spirit
went pathetically out in earnestlonging, and to this he rendered a homage
indistinguishable from worship. God had set eternity in Shelley’s heart, and
he could not escape from the impulses of worship in his ownspirit. The spirit
of man, even when encompassedwith much darkness ofignorance, must still
stand
Upon the world’s greataltar stairs

That slope thro’ darkness up to God.2 [Note: J. Thomas, The Mysteries of
Grace, 251.]
III
The Tyranny of Circumstances
“He hath seteternity in their heart, yet so that man cannotfind out the work
that God hath done from the beginning even to the end.”
1. Here are two antagonistic facts. There are transient things, a vicissitude
which moves within natural limits, temporary events which are beautiful in
their season. Butthere is also the contrastedfactthat the man who is thus
tossedabout, as by some greatbattledore wielded by giant powers in mockery,
from one changing thing to another, has relations to something more lasting
than the transient. He lives in a world of fleeting change, but he has eternity in
his heart. So betweenhim and his dwelling-place, betweenhim and his
occupation, there is a gulf of disproportion. He is subjectedto these
alternations, and yet bears within him a repressedbut immortal consciousness
that he belongs to another order of things, which knows no vicissitude and
fears no decay. He possesses stifledand misinterpreted longings—which,
howeverstarved, do yet survive—after unchanging Being and Eternal Rest.
And thus endowed, and by contrastthus situated, his soul is full of the “blank
misgivings of a creature moving about in worlds not realized.”
This creature with eternity in his heart, where is he set? What has he got to
work upon? What has he to love and hold by, to trust to, and anchorhis life
on? A crowdof things, eachwellenough, but eachhaving a time; and though

they be beautiful in their time, yet fading and vanishing when it has elapsed.
No multiplication of times will make eternity. And so, with that thought in his
heart, man is driven out among objects perfectly insufficient to meet it.
A greatbotanist made what he called“a floral clock” to mark the hours of the
day by the opening and closing of flowers. It was a gracefuland yet a pathetic
thought. One after anotherthey spread their petals, and their varying colours
glow in the light. But one after another they wearily shut their cups, and the
night falls, and the latestof them folds itself togetherand all are hidden away
in the dark. So our joys and treasures—were theysufficient did they last—
cannot last. After a summer’s day comes a summer’s night, and after a brief
space ofthem comes winter, when all are killed and the leafless trees stand
silent.
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweetbirds sang.1 [Note:A. Maclaren.]
2. We may be sure that this contrastbetweenour nature and the world in
which we are set is not in vain. We are better for having these cravings in our
heart, which can never be satisfiedhere. Were we without them, we should
sink to the level of creation. We sometimes sayhalf sadly, half in jest, that we
envy the peacefulcontentedlives of the loweranimals. But we do not mean
what we say. We would rather have our human life, with its hopes and fears,
its pathetic yearnings, its storms and its calms, its immortal outlook, than a
life without cares and without hopes beyond those of the present moment.
Picture some tropical forest, where animal and vegetable life luxuriates to the
full, and where the swarms exuberant of life know no discontent. Would you
give up your high though unsatisfied yearnings for bright but unreasoning life
like theirs? Or when, in spring, you wander through the fields, burdened with
cares and doubts and fears about the future, while the birds, in utter freedom
from care, are filling the air with song, would you exchange with them, and

part with your hopes of an endless life, your longings for the Father in
heaven? Why, just to ask the question gives it its answer.
When Alexander of Macedon, afterhe had subjugated the whole of the known
world, shed tears that his conquests were over because there was nothing left
for him to conquer, howevermuch we may disapprove of the ambition to
which he had surrendered his life, yet we admire him more than if he had sat
down in selfishease to enjoy himself for the rest of his days. The soul that
aspires is nearerto God than the soul that is content and still. Or if we meet
with one who cares fornothing higher than the worldly wealth and ease and
pleasure he enjoys, would you change your noble discontentfor his ignoble
content with what “perishes in the using”? When we think of the future which
lies before eachone of us, we shall regard it as a crowning mercy and blessing,
that, though at present God does not bestow the life we crave, He does give us
longings for it, and refuses to let us forgetit, since even in time “he has set
eternity in our heart.” It is this that keeps us from utter degradation;without
it how base we should be.1 [Note: Memorials of R. T. Cunningham, 96.]
3. This universal presentiment itself goes far to establishthe reality of the
unseen order of things to which it is directed. The greatplanet that moves in
the outmost circle of our systemwas discoveredbecause that next it wavered
in its course in a fashion which was inexplicable, unless some unknown mass
was attracting it from across millions of miles of darkling space. And there
are “perturbations” in our spirits which cannotbe understood, unless from
them we may divine that far-off and unseen world which has power from afar
to swayin their orbits the little lives of mortal men. It draws us to itself—but,
alas, the attraction may be resistedand thwarted. The dead mass of the planet
bends to the drawing, but we can repel the constraint which the eternal world
would exercise upon us; and so that consciousnesswhichought to be our
nobleness, as it is our prerogative, may become our shame, our misery and
our sin.

This is the marvellous thing, that there is something in the heart of man
constantly and successfullycontradicting the sight of the eyes. For the eyes of
man—and no one realized this more intensely than the Preacher—are weary
with the sight of the things that fade and die. From the first time they look out
upon the world, they behold the sad and continuous process ofdecay. All
things are in flux, all things decay, nothing continues. Every voice speaks of
mortality. Not only do leaves and flowers wither and fade, but a more
educatedeye beholds the stars fade in their orbits. The man that the eye
beholds is a mortal creature passing swiftly from the cradle to the grave. For
the eye of man mortality is signedand sealedin the dust of the tomb. “The
grass withereth, the flowerfadeth: surely the people is grass.”Whata
tremendous witness to immortality must exist in the heart of man, to scorn the
partial vision of the eye, and to transfigure its scenes ofmortality into the light
of immortal hope!
“The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord,” said the author of the Book of
Proverbs. Yes, a candle, but not necessarilyone lighted; a candle, but one that
can be kindled only by the touch of the Divine flame. To the natural man
immortality is only a future of possibilities. To make it a future of realities we
need to join ourselves to Jesus Christ. Take Christ, and eternity in the heart
will not be an aching void, an unsatisfiedlonging, a consuming thirst. There is
satisfactionhere and now. He that believeth on the Sonhath eternal life.
Immortality is a present possession. The presentis potentially the future. As
NewmanSmyth has said: “Justas the consciousness ofthe child contains in it
the germ of his manhood, and just as gravitation on earth tells us what
gravitation is among the constellations, so eternity in the heart here shows us
what eternity will be hereafter.”1 [Note:A. H. Strong, Miscellanies,i. 331.]
In that delightful book The House of Quiet there is a striking passagewhere
The Life of Charles Darwin is thus characterized:“What a wonderful book
this is—it is from end to end nothing but a cry for the Nicene Creed. The man
walks along, doing his duty so splendidly and nobly, with such single-

heartedness and simplicity, and just misses the wayall the time; the gospelhe
wanted is just the other side of the wall.”1 [Note:David Smith, Man’s Needof
God, 9.]
Two worlds are ours; ’tis only sin
Forbids us to descry
The mystic heaven and earth within,
Plain as the sea and sky.2 [Note:Keble.]
ETERNITYIN THE HEART
Ecclesiastes3:11.
There is considerable difficulty in understanding what precise meaning is to
be attachedto these words, and what precise bearing they have on the general
course of the writer’s thoughts; but one or two things are, at any rate, quite
clear.
The Preacherhas been enumerating all the various vicissitudes of prosperity
and adversity, of constructionand destruction, of societyand solitude, of love
and hate, for which there is scope and verge enough in one short human life;
and his conclusionis, as it always is in the earlierpart of this book, that
because there is such an endless diversity of possible occupation, and eachof
them lasts but for a little time, and its opposite has as gooda right of existence
as itself; therefore, perhaps, it might be as well that a man should do nothing
as do all these opposite things which neutralise eachother, and the net result
of which is nothing. If there be a time to be born and a time to die, nonentity
would be the same when all is over. If there be a time to plant and a time to
pluck, what is the goodof planting? If there be a time for love and a time for

hate, why cherish affections which are transient and may be succeededby
their opposites?
And then another current of thought passes throughhis mind, and he gets
another glimpse somewhatdifferent, and says in effect, ‘No! that is not all
true-God has made all these different changes, andalthough eachof them
seems contradictoryof the other, in its own place and at its owntime eachis
beautiful and has a right to exist.’ The contexture of life, and even the
perplexities and darknessesofhuman society, and the varieties of earthly
condition-if they be confined within their own proper limits, and regarded as
parts of a whole-they are all co-operantto an end. As from wheels turning
different ways in some greatcomplicatedmachine, and yet fitting by their
cogs into one another, there may be a resultant direct motion produced even
by these apparently antagonistic forces.
But the secondclause of our text adds a thought which is in some sense
contrastedwith this.
The word rendered ‘world’ is a very frequent one in the Old Testament, and
has never but one meaning, and that meaning is eternity. ‘He hath set eternity
in their heart.’
Here, then, are two antagonistic facts. Theyare transient things, a vicissitude
which moves within natural limits, temporary events which are beautiful in
their season. Butthere is also the contrastedfact, that the man who is thus
tossedabout, as by some greatbattledore wielded by giant powers in mockery,
from one changing thing to another, has relations to something more lasting
than the transient. He lives in a world of fleeting change, but he has ‘eternity’
in ‘his heart.’ So betweenhim and his dwelling-place, betweenhim and his
occupations, there is a gulf of disproportion. He is subjectedto these
alternations, and yet bears within him a repressedbut immortal consciousness
that he belongs to another order of things, which knows no vicissitude and
fears no decay. He possesses stifled and misinterpreted longings which,
howeverstarved, do yet survive, after unchanging Being and eternal Rest,
And thus endowed, and by contrastthus situated, his soul is full of the ‘blank
misgiving of a creature moving about in worlds not realised.’Out of these two

facts-says ourtext-man’s where and man’s what, his nature and his position,
there rises a mist of perplexity and darkness that wraps the whole course of
the divine actions-unless, indeed, we have reachedthat central height of vision
above the mists, which this Book ofEcclesiastes puts forth at lastas the
conclusionof the whole matter-’FearGod, and keepHis commandments.’ If
transitory things with their multitudinous and successivewaves toss us to solid
safetyon the Rock of Ages, then all is well, and many mysteries will be clear.
But if not, if we have not found, or rather followed, the one God-given way of
harmonising these two sets of experiences-life in the transient, and longings
for the eternal-then their antagonismdarkens our thoughts of a wise and
loving Providence, and we have lost the key to the confusedriddle which the
world then presents. ‘He hath made everything beautiful in his time: also He
hath setEternity in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God
maketh from the beginning to the end.’
Such, then, being a partial but, perhaps, not entirely inadequate view of the
course of thought in the words before us, I may now proceedto expand the
considerations thus brought under our notice in them. These may be gathered
up in three principal ones:the consciousnessofEternity in every heart; the
disproportion thence resulting betweenthis nature of ours and the order of
things in which we dwell; and finally, the possible satisfying of that longing in
men’s hearts-a possibility not indeed referred to in our text, but unveiled as
the final word of this Book ofEcclesiastes, and made clearto us in Jesus
Christ.
I. Considerthat eternity is setin every human heart.
The expressionis, of course, somewhatdifficult, even if we acceptgenerally
the explanation which I have given. It may be either a declarationof the
actualimmortality of the soul, or it may mean, as I rather suppose it to do, the
consciousnessofeternity which is part of human nature.
The former idea is no doubt closelyconnectedwith the latter, and would here
yield an appropriate sense. We should then have the contrastbetweenman’s
undying existence and the transient trifles on which he is tempted to fix his
love and hopes. We belong to one setof existences by our bodies, and to

another by our souls. Though we are parts of the passing material world, yet
in that outward frame is lodgeda personality that has nothing in common
with decayand death. A spark of eternity dwells in these fleeting frames. The
laws of physical growth and accretionand maturity and decay, which rule
over all things material, do not apply to my true self. ‘In our embers is
something that doth live.’ Whatsoeverbefalls the hairs that get grey and thin,
and the hands that become wrinkled and palsied, and the heart that is worn
out by much beating, and the blood that clogs and clots at last, and the filmy
eye, and all the corruptible frame; yet, as the heathensaid, ‘I shall not all die,’
but deep within this transient clay house, that must crack and fall and be
resolvedinto the elements out of which it was built up, there dwells an
immortal guest, an undying personalself. In the heart, the inmost spiritual
being of every man, eternity, in this sense ofthe word, does dwell.
‘Commonplaces,’you say. Yes; commonplaces, whichword means two things-
truths that affect us all, and also truths which, because they are so universal
and so entirely believed, are all but powerless. Surelyit is not time to stop
preaching such truths as long as they are forgottenby the overwhelming
majority of the people who acknowledgethem. Thank God! the staple of the
work of us preachers is the reiteration of commonplaces, whichHis goodness
has made familiar, and our indolence and sin have made stale and powerless.
My brother! you would be a wiserman if, instead of turning the edge of
statements which you know to be true, and which, if true, are infinitely solemn
and important, by commonplace sarcasmaboutpulpit commonplaces, you
would honestly try to drive the familiar neglectedtruth home to your mind
and heart. Strip it of its generality and think, ‘It is true about me. I live for
ever. My outward life will cease, andmy dust will return to dust-but I shall
last undying.’ And ask yourselves-Whatthen? ‘Am I making “provisionfor
the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof,” in more or less refined fashion, and
forgetting to provide for that which lives for evermore? Eternity is in my
heart. What a madness it is to go on, as if either I were to continue for ever
among the shows of time, or when I leave them all, to die wholly and be done
with altogether!’

But, probably, the other interpretation of these words is the truer. The
doctrine of immortality does not seemto be statedin this Book ofEcclesiastes,
exceptin one or two very doubtful expressions.And it is more in accordance
with its whole tone to suppose the Preacherhere to be asserting, not that the
heart or spirit is immortal, but that, whether it is or no, in the heart is planted
the thought, the consciousness ofeternity-and the longing after it.
Let me put that into other words. We, brethren, are the only beings on this
earth who can think the thought and speak the word-Eternity. Other
creatures are happy while immersed in time; we have another nature, and are
disturbed by a thought which shines high above the roaring sea of
circumstance in which we float.
I do not care at present about the metaphysicalpuzzles that have been
gatheredround that conception, nor care to ask whetherit is positive or
negative, adequate or inadequate. Enough that the word has a meaning, that it
corresponds to a thought which dwells in men’s minds. It is of no consequence
at all for our purpose, whether it is a positive conception, orsimply the
thinking awayof all limitations. ‘I know what God is, when you do not ask
me.’ I know what eternity is, though I cannot define the word to satisfy a
metaphysician. The little child taught by some grandmother Lois, in a cottage,
knows what she means when she tells him ‘you will live for ever,’ though both
scholarand teacherwould be puzzled to put it into other words. When we say
eternity flows round this bank and shoalof time, men know what we mean.
Heart answers to heart; and in eachheart lies that solemnthought-for ever!
Like all other of the primal thoughts of men’s souls, it may be increasedin
force and clearness, orit may be neglectedand opposed, and all but crushed.
The thought of God is natural to man, the thought of right and wrong is
natural to man-and yet there may be atheists who have blinded their eyes, and
there may be degraded and almostanimal natures who have searedtheir
consciencesand calledsweetbitter and evil good. Thus men may so plunge
themselves into the present as to lose the consciousness ofthe eternal-as a man
sweptover Niagara, blinded by the spray and deafenedby the rush, would see
or hear nothing outside the green walls of the death that encompassedhim.

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