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Living the Dash

Wisdom for the Heart / Dr. Stephen Davey
The Truth Network Radio
December 13, 2024 12:00 am

Living the Dash

Wisdom for the Heart / Dr. Stephen Davey

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December 13, 2024 12:00 am

Ever wondered what gives life its true meaning? King Solomon pondered this as he observed life’s fleeting moments and its unexpected turns. In this episode, we’ll delve into Ecclesiastes 3, where Solomon poetically outlines the seasons of life—from times of joy to moments of pain. These seasons, which span from birth to death, reveal that life is more than a series of random events. Instead, each moment fits into God’s grand design, no matter how chaotic it feels. We’ll discuss what it means to live purposefully within these moments, embracing both triumphs and trials as parts of a divine plan. Discover how seeing life through Solomon’s eyes can inspire a deeper trust in God’s timing. This episode is perfect for anyone feeling lost, struggling with life’s unpredictability, or simply seeking comfort in God’s sovereignty. Tune in to gain practical insights and encouragement on how to make the most of your “dash”—the time between your birth and your final breath.

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Solomon recorded by the Spirit's inspiring influence, there are six things that the Lord hates. Seven are an abomination to him.

Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows division among the brethren. Solomon is essentially reminding us there are things to love and to cling to and there are things to hate. In Ecclesiastes, Solomon pens a poem, revealing life's many seasons. Moments of joy, grief, loss, and gain. What's the point of it all? Today's message dives into Solomon's reflections and unveils how God orchestrates every moment, even when life feels chaotic. Join Stephen as we explore why understanding God's hand in your life's hand is important. Those seasons can transform how you live that dash.

Let's get started. Just that little dash, which represents their entire life. And the poet was struck by that, and it certainly provoked my thinking as well. And she wrote a poem, I edited it a little bit for the sake of time, but it goes like this. I read of a man who stood to speak at the funeral of a friend. He referred to the dates on the tombstone from the beginning to the end. He noted that first came the date of birth.

He then spoke of the following date with tears. But he said what mattered most was the dash between those years. For that dash represented all the time his friend had spent on earth. And now those who loved him most knew what that little line was worth. For it mattered not how much he owned, the cars, the house, the cash. What mattered most was how he lived and how he spent his dash.

It's an insightful thought, isn't it? I don't think I'll ever look at a tombstone again and see that little dash and not think of all that it mattered and represented. If you'll turn to the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon has written his own poem about life. He describes in general terms what can happen in the space of that little dash which represents your life and mine. Now as you're turning to Ecclesiastes and chapter 3, you're about to be introduced to the world's most famous poem on the subject of time which represents life. In fact, his introductory line may sound familiar.

For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven. Now if you're old enough, when you hear those opening lines, you're not thinking about Solomon. You're thinking about Pete Seeger and the birds. Turn, Turn, Turn is the name of that song and how unspiritual of you to think that. Wait, I thought of that too.

Never mind. Their song actually popularized in pop culture all of this poem except for six words. And it became so well known and went to the top of the charts and they made an awful lot of money off it that I found it was interesting that Seeger would later send a portion of his royalties to Israel to acknowledge the fact that their former king was the composer. And this is indeed as we're looking at this an inspired poem.

Now before we dive in, let me make a couple of comments to sort of set the thing up. Solomon is obviously focused on the subject of time. The word time is going to appear beyond this opening line 28 different times. This is obviously the main idea of this paragraph or this poem. The poem is composed of 14 pairs of opposites. This is a poetic device called merism. This is where one phrase couples together polar opposites such as birth, death, reaping, sowing, weeping, laughing. And by putting them together in a couplet, it suggests the totality of all that that represents. Birth and death and everything in between. It's a representation of the totality of life. If I could title this poem, it would be something like this.

God has designed your dash. That includes your first breath and your last and that's Solomon's first couplet. Go back to verse 2, just the first phrase. Every matter under heaven, there's a time and a season with that, a time to be born and a time to die.

Those are the bookends of life, right? Your birth certificate. You know that date.

You might have a copy of it tucked away in your file. You might celebrate it with cake and enough candles if you've got room on top of it. It's getting tougher every year. You celebrate that birth date on that day. If you have girls like I do, you celebrate that day for a month usually. You're not exactly sure about the other date. He has already determined the length of your dash. Solomon isn't trying to tell us, you know, to have this sense, you know, try to pick a date. In fact, he is just as equally interested, and I want to focus here, on the fact that God is reminding us through this inspired poem of the amazing truth that you didn't even choose the date of your birth. He had nothing to do with it. The first moment you took in that first breath and you let out that first cry for having been rudely interrupted, you didn't have anything to do with deciding that would occur.

Your dash began without you deciding. That was the choice of a sovereign Lord who opens the wound. No matter what the indirect means may be, He alone gives life.

So think about it. You had nothing to do with that. The fertilization of that egg, which became you, had nothing to do with any decision you ever made. And you're alive right now, Solomon is reinforcing here, by God's determination, God's planning, God's design, you fit into what He's calling beautiful, fitting, suitable. His plan for eternity, He chose to involve you. Which means then, you're not an accident, you're not a mistake, you're not a medical experiment, you're not some lucky turn of events, you're not some afterthought, you're not an interruption. The fact that you are alive right now is proof that you happen to be part of God's perfect, eternal, breathtaking, beautiful plan. And this is just the beginning.

And by the way, let me make one more point about this. You happen to be alive because God chose you to be alive right now. This generation. This time in human history.

He decided that. And we bring Him glory now in this generation as we trust Him, as He fits everything into His grand scheme. Now between your birth and your death, the length of that little dash, there are a lot of things that are going to take place.

There are a lot of experiences, there are a lot of seasons that are going to take place, and Solomon basically layers out in very general terms, many of these experiences. And so let me kind of take us through this. You don't need a lot of commentary and we'll move fairly quickly and make it to the end of the poem, just in time for supper.

All right? Notice verse 2, here's a couplet, a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted. Now there are seasons for sowing and reaping and everything in between. We learn to cooperate, that farmer does, with God's design.

You can fight it all you want, plant tomatoes in February, but it isn't going to work. You cooperate with his seasons and these times. One author suggested that we need to cooperate as well with the seasons of our own lives as God cultivates, or weeds, or plants, lessons of faith that will later on grow fruit. Verse 3, the first couplet reads, a time to kill and a time to heal.

The word for kill is not the typical Hebrew word for murder, which we're forbidden to do, of course. The word Solomon uses might refer to capital punishment or self-defense. Solomon continues in verse 3, there's a time to break down and a time to build up. In verse 4, Solomon writes, there's a time to weep and a time to laugh. We'd love those seasons of laughter to outnumber those seasons of weeping, but God is fitting those in.

You may be in one or the other today. Solomon simply tells us we're going to experience plenty of both of them. There's a time to cry when tears flow freely. Jesus wept as he bore, as it were, as the infinite God man, all the sense of the sorrow of death there at Lazarus' tomb. This is the suffering of Job, who we're told his eyes poured out tears unto God, having lost his children and the life he knew.

Solomon is expressing here in this couplet nothing less than the legitimacy of both crying and laughing, which means that a wise person doesn't run from either one. Along that same line, the last couplet in verse 4 reads, there's a time to mourn and a time to dance. There's a legitimate time to mourn the loss of a loved one, the loss of a plan or a dream or a hope. An appropriate loss like that is not time to paint on the little plastic smile. It's time to mourn.

It's appropriate. Mourning is not faithless or sinful. According to Solomon, there is then this season where mourning is absolutely the correct, God-designed, suitable, fitting, beautiful response in life.

Now he goes to the opposite, the polar opposite here. According to Solomon, there are seasons of mourning. Notice there are times to mourn and there are times to dance. He evidently wasn't a Baptist, but at any rate, he thinks there ought to be some times when you can jump up and down.

Dancing up and down at the news you hear, that's good news and that's really what you're going to do. This is the wide spectrum of God-given emotion. In verse 5, he writes there's a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together. He writes next in verse 5, there's a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. This could be a reference to marital sexual intimacy. Warren Wiersbe in his little commentary writes, he believes it's a reference to the culture of the Near East where they would openly embrace and kiss one another on the cheek when they meet.

And then they would do the same when they part. He paraphrased this to read, there is a time to say hello and a time to say goodbye. In verse 6, he says there is a time to seek and a time to lose. The word seek carries the idea of gaining. You could read it, there's a time to gain and a time to lose.

Sounds like your dieting plan. Well actually, the idea here of gaining and losing, these are financial terms. They're carrying the implication of financial gain and financial loss. Maybe you've experienced the polar opposites of both. Maybe you've experienced a time of gain and loss. Maybe you've seen blessing financially.

Maybe you've experienced bankruptcy. Again, God is in control of these seasons specifically for your life. He has woven into the narrative of your life that little dash what only He can control. In verse 6, again, there's a time to keep and a time to throw away. You could render this, there's a time to store away things you need and you might need them later so store them away. And there's a time to throw things away because you haven't used them in a long time and you probably never will.

Very practical terminology. And in practical terms, what I thought of is you could read, you know, there are times to keep and there are times to throw a yard sale. So you people that love the yard sale, here's your theme verse for the rest of your life, go for it. There are times when you gather, you keep, you store and there are times when you say, you know what, I don't need it anymore and I'm going to give it away or sell it. This woman writes in verse 7, there's a time to tear and a time to sew.

If you're familiar with the Scriptures, you read often when someone experienced a setback or a tragedy, they would tear their garment, they would tear from the collar downward over their heart to physically express their heart was broken. And there would be then this season of dealing with tragedy and difficulty and pain. One author wisely commends that we ask God for His perspective and for His wisdom as we move through these seasons. He writes, there is a season when it's time to tear and there's a season when it's time to get out your needle and thread and start sewing things up. Further in verse 7, there's a time to keep silence and the polar opposite is there's a time to speak.

We would be wise to know the season we're in. There are times when you should speak up and there are times when you shouldn't speak up. To understand the principle that when it's not necessary to speak, it is necessary not to speak. I'm reading right now a biography of George Washington called George Washington on Leadership and John Adams writes that George Washington had the gift of silence. He knew when to speak. My mother would quote to me that famous statement by Abraham Lincoln, I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.

She made me memorize that, I have no reason or idea why but I did memorize it. He writes in verse 8, there is a time to love and a time to hate. Now we get the part about loving. What's this about hating? What are we supposed to hate? The psalmist wrote, hate evil, you who love the Lord, Psalm 97 verse 10.

Solomon wrote in Proverbs 8 verse 13, the fear of the Lord is the hatred of evil. So how much do you hate your sin? What do you feel about your sin?

How deeply are you feeling and regret and remorse and in despising sin? In fact, Solomon recorded by the spirit's inspiring influence this very interesting self-revelation from God that we wouldn't know had he not recorded it. He writes, there are six things that the Lord hates, seven are an abomination to him.

Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies and one who sows division among the brethren. Solomon is essentially reminding us there are things to love and to cling to and there are things to hate and we don't marginalize them or try to manage them. Finally, Solomon ends his poem by writing in verse 8, there is a time for war and a time for peace. These were the words that Peter Seeger changed so that you didn't have war, you only had peace and he redid the last line. But there is a time for war and a time for peace.

This is a national response perhaps of self-defense or an effort to eliminate tyranny in the world or to act on behalf of another nation for the sake of justice. Human history frankly is the biography of war and peace alternating between war and peace treaties. One author I was reading said that our world is a strange mixture of battlefields and hospitals. And that ain't gonna change, by the way. It ain't gonna change until Jesus creates a new earth, Peter writes, and a new universe at the end of human history after the final judgment.

He creates that eternal state for the redeemed to inhabit forever and where he, the prince of peace, along with his redeemed will never be distracted, never be hurt, never be engaged in, again, the winds of war. Now, let me attempt to summarize this inspired poem on the subject of time. This dash through life, I mean, you've heard of the 100-meter dash or the 200-meter dash or whatever. What about the 20-year dash or the 50-year dash or the 80-year dash or the 105-year dash?

What about that? What about the time that God has allotted for us? Well, let me give you at least two principles that Solomon, I think, would have us consider. First, your dash is filled with appointments from God. You don't want to waste them. The apostle Paul picks up on this idea in Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 16 where he says to redeem the time. Use the time. Invest the time. Make use of time for the glory of God. The fact that you have time means that you've been given life, which means you have this gift from God. What are we gonna do with it? Use it wisely and well. Jonathan Edwards, the leader of the Great Spiritual Awakening in the 1700s, recorded in his journal at the age of 19, and I quote, I often hear people in old age saying how they would live if they were able to live their lives over again. So, resolved, he writes, that I will live just as I wish I had lived supposing I lived to an old age.

That's good for any age, by the way. I have enjoyed reading and finishing a 400-page history of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. It's amazing what's all behind it. But this swaying beam that these men would walk across 300 feet high in the air and the unpredictability of gusts of wind. In fact, they had a calculated fatality rate whenever they built a bridge. They built into that project an understanding that for every $1 million spent, one life would be lost. Well, in 1932, the engineers designing the Golden Gate Bridge, overseeing that project, believed that those risks needed to be lowered.

So, when construction began, they enforced numerous safety measures like, for instance, the mandatory use of hard hats, prescription filtered eyeglasses. They even built an on-site hospital. But the most effective safety device I read, which was brand new, they'd never tried this before even though it had been used for decades in the circus, was the use of a trapeze net.

They created a gigantic one draped 60 feet below the bridge, extending 10 feet on either side. It saved countless lives. In fact, the newspapers began running box scores of the men whose lives were saved. One headline read, score on the safety net to date, eight lives saved. After four years of construction and $20 million expended, only one worker lost his life. What they didn't expect was the morale of the construction crew, that net freed them, the author wrote, of paralyzing episodes of fear.

They began to be able to focus on their job and work better, knowing that net would catch them. I couldn't help but think, what a great analogy to the Christian life. We may not understand the fitting suitability, much less the beauty, of everything that's happening in our lives or in our world, but we join David with this perspective in saying, I trust you, O Lord, my times are in your hands.

Or like Moses who recorded in Deuteronomy 33, the eternal God is your refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms. That's not a cop-out. That's not a crutch. That's not make-believe. That's not fatalism. Okay, sirrah, sirrah, whatever will be, will be, so whatever.

You can't do anything about it. None of that. Solomon's poem is not about fatalism. It's about faith. It isn't about giving up. It's about growing up in our deepening faith and sense of trust in the perfect, wise plan of God who reigns in heaven. This is coming to understand as Solomon has put it in poetic form here.

In fact, if I could summarize it all in only one sentence, it would be this. As you live out your dash through life, God orchestrates everything and holds everything and He will accomplish everything at just the right time. Solomon's wisdom teaches this. Live your dash with purpose.

Trust God's timing and know that He holds every moment of your life. This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. Today's message is called Living the Dash. You can learn more about us by visiting wisdomonline.org. There you'll find Stephen's entire Bible teaching ministry, including daily broadcasts and hundreds of sermons. We post each day's broadcast on the home page, so if you miss a lesson, you can catch up right away. Previous broadcasts are also available if you want to revisit older teachings. And all of his sermons are available to listen or to read. Visit wisdomonline.org any time to access Stephen's teaching library and daily broadcasts. Join us next time. .
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-12-13 00:11:23 / 2024-12-13 00:20:10 / 9

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