This document contains excerpts from the Bible discussing humanity's relationship with God and the natural world. It describes how God created humans in His image and instructed them to rule over the earth. However, after the fall, humanity was cursed to toil and suffer until death. The document explores how there are seasons for all things, but also injustice, and how humanity shares the same fate as animals. Overall, it suggests we should enjoy our work and not worry about what comes after, as God will judge all in due time.

1. Who’s really got the control
Ecclesiastes Ch.3

2. v.16 – And I saw something else under
the sun
under the sun
v.1 There is a time for everything, and a
season for every activity under heaven:
a time ----- and a season
under heaven

3. Gen. ch.1 v.26 Then God said, “Let us make man
in our image, in our likeness and let him rule
over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air,
over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all
the creatures that move along the ground.”
In our image
in our likeness
let him rule
v.27 So God created man in his own image,
In the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

4. v.28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be
fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth
and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and
the birds of the air and over every living
creature that moves on the ground.”
Fill and subdue the earth
Gen.2 v.7 The Lord God formed the man from
the dust of the ground and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life, and the man became
a living being.

5. v.15 The Lord God took the man and put him in
the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
To work it
and take care of it
Gen.3 v.17b – 19 Cursed is the ground because of
you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the
days of your life. It will produce thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field. By the
sweat of your brow you will eat your food until
you return to the ground, since from it you were
taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.

6. Through painful toil
thorns and thistles
sweat of your brow
Eccl.3 v.1 There is a time for everything, and
a season for every activity under heaven:

7. Eccl. 3 v.1 – 8 There is a time for everything, and a
season for every activity under heaven:
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 weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

8. a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and 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.
Under the sun & under the heavens

9. v.9 What does the worker gain from toil?
v.10 I have seen the burden God has laid on men.
v.11 He has made everything beautiful in its
time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of
men; yet they cannot fathom what God has
done from beginning to end.

10. v.12 I know that there is nothing better for men
than to be happy and do good while they live.
v.13That everyone may eat and drink, and find
satisfaction in all his toil – this is the gift of God.
Eccl.2 v.24 A man can do nothing better than to
eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work.
This too, I see, is from the hand of God.
2v.25 for without him, who can eat or find
enjoyment?

11. 2v.26 To the man who pleases him, God gives
wisdom, knowledge and happiness,
but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering
and storing up wealth to hand it over to the
one who pleases God.
This too is meaningless, a chasing after wind.

12. Eccl.3 v.14 I know that everything God does will
endure for ever; nothing can be added to it and
nothing taken from it. God does that so that
men will revere him.
v.15 Whatever is has already been, and what
will be has been before; and God will call the
past to account.

13. v.16 And I saw something else under the sun:
In the place of judgment – wickedness was there,
In the place of justice – wickedness was there.
v.17 I thought in my heart,
“God will bring to judgment both the righteous
and the wicked, for there will be a time for every
activity, a time for every deed.”

14. v.18 I also thought, “As for men, God tests them so
that they may see that they are like the animals.
v.19 Man’s fate is like that of the animals; the
same fate awaits them both. As one dies, so
dies the other. All have the same breath; man
has no advantage over the animal. Everything is
meaningless.

15. v.20 All go to the same place; all come from
dust, and to dust all return.
v.21 Who knows if the spirit of man rises
upwards and if the spirit of the animal goes
down into the earth?”
v.22 So I saw that there is nothing better for a
man than to enjoy his work, because that is
his lot. For who can bring him to see what will
happen after him?

16. Eccl. Ch.4 v.1 Again I looked and saw all the
oppression that was taking place under the sun:
I saw the tears of the oppressed – and they had
no comforter;
power was on the side of the oppressors – and
they had no comforter.
v.2 And I declared that the dead, who had
already died, are happier than the living, who
are still alive.

17. v.3 But better than both is he who has not yet
been, who has not seen the evil that is done
under the sun.
Matt. 6 v.22/23 The eye is the lamp of the
body. If your eyes are good, your whole body
will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad,
your whole body will be full of darkness. If
then the light within you is darkness, how
great is that darkness!

18. John 1 v.4/5 In him was life, and that life was the
light of men. The light shone in the darkness,
but the darkness has not understood it.
Acts 26 v.17b/18 I am sending you to them to
open their eyes and turn them from darkness to
light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that
they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place
among those who are sanctified by faith in me.