A Time for Eternity

I think one of the most fascinating books in the entire Bible is the book of Ecclesiastes, because it was written by King Solomon. He wrote it as an old man looking back on his life and reflecting on what he had learned in life. King Solomon was richer than any king before him or after him.

In fact, you can get an idea of how rich he was by looking at his annual gold income. We have a historical record of this found in 2nd Chronicles chapter 9 and verse 13. Now, the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was 603 score and six talents of gold.

That's the equivalent of 25 tons of gold. A ton of gold in the market today is worth 51 million dollars. And King Solomon had an annual income of 25 tons of gold coming to him.

That means his yearly income was an astounding 1.3 billion dollars a year. King Solomon made over a billion dollars a year. He was so rich he could stuff people like Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates and every other billionaire in a shirt pocket and still have money left over.

Solomon's fame was so world-renowned that when the Queen of Sheba visited him, she said in regard to his vast wealth, I believed not the words until I came. And mine eyes had seen it, and behold, the half was not told me, that wisdom and prosperity exceeded the fame which I heard. Yes, sir, King Solomon was a man who had seen it all, had done it all, and he had it all.

But Solomon had learned how fleeting life was, for he wrote, one generation passeth away, and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth forever. As an old man, looking back on his large life, Solomon realized the vanity of this fleeting world with its temporal pleasures. He saw there was a time for everything.

In Ecclesiastes 3.1 he writes, to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. And he broke this down into three main categories. Listen to these three main categories, friends.

A time to be born, meaning a time for living, and a time to die, stating there's a certain time to die for every one of us. And at the end of the book, in the very last sentence of chapter 12, he says, there is a time for eternity, for he writes, for God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil. So King Solomon ends his great treaties on life with a declaration of a future judgment in eternity, referring to the great white throne judgment, the last judgment.

Well, I want to take time today, friends, to look at these three main categories that Solomon so aptly and vividly wrote about, these three major themes in a person's life. Let's examine the first one, a time for living. Solomon tells us, I the preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem, and I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven.

We see King Solomon living large and enjoying life, building his kingdom and tasting every pleasure that comes along. He writes, I sought in my heart to give myself unto wine to lay hold on folly. I made me great works.

I built in me houses. I planted me vineyards. I made me gardens and orchids, and I planted trees and them all kinds of fruits.

I made me pools of water to water there with the wood that bringeth forth trees. I got me servants and maidens and head servants born in my house. Also, I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me.

I gathered me also silver and gold and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces. I get me men singers and women singers and the delights of the sons of men as musical instruments and all sorts. So I was great and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem.

Also, my wisdom remained with me, and whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them. I withheld not my heart from any joy. Then I looked in all the works that my hands have wrought, and the labor I had labor to do, and behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.

I will pause here, friends, to say, in the record on his life, it's recorded that Solomon had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines. So here is rich old King Solomon, full of wine, women, and song. He's the picture of a man living in the fullest season of life, enjoying every moment.

Listen, he is the picture of a man in a boat on a river, in the rapids of life, going along with the current, tasting all of life's enjoyments and pleasures as they come his way, and as they go, much like many of us today. As he travels down those exciting whitewater rapids, he is full of pleasure, little realizing that he's being pulled to the end of a vast cascade and a great void. He's being brought to a preface of impending danger and death because life is short and pleasures fleeting.

Now listen, friends, Solomon shifts his attention from a time for living to a time for dying. In chapter 12, he writes, Remember now, thy creator, in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them. Then Solomon goes on to describe old age, with all its ailments and breakdowns of the body.

Listen to how he describes a person in old age. In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out the windows be darkened. Here's a picture of a toothless old man, bent over and shaky, his eyesight dim, his hearing gone.

He's just a fragment of his former self. Old age has crept in. He's gray-headed and fearful.

Then Solomon's prose turns to a funeral procession, his own funeral. He writes, Because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets, wherever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern, then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. So Solomon found out there was a time for dying, as he already states at the very beginning of his book.

One generation passes away, and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth forever. As such was Solomon's view on life. It was brief, its pleasures fleeting, nothing that he achieved or built or accumulated could he take with him when it came time to die.

It was all vanity. And then, as if with a great explanation point, Solomon ends his treatise by pointing our attention to a future judgment that awaits all mankind, as man cannot escape death, nor can he escape the coming judgment. It's as if Solomon grabs us by the hand, grabs us by the sleeve, as he walks us over to the very brink of eternity, as we stand there with him.

And he points to the great void where a great white throne awaits us. He ends his story with the observation that there is a coming time for eternity. For God shall bring every work into judgment, and with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.

And this takes us to the place in my Bible, friends, that describes this final judgment. And it's found in the book of Revelation and chapter 20. Listen to the striking passage of Scripture.

And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God. And the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life.

And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them. And they were judged, every man, according to their works.

And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. Here is that incredible scene, the one that John Wesley called the grand size, because it's a great heavenly courtroom scene.

Just picture in your mind, friends, that heavenly courtroom scene where the dead, small and great, the rich and famous, the somebodies and the nobodies out of every generation that ever walked this earth stand there before that great white throne. All of the antediluvians who perished in the flood in Noah's day stand there guilty as hell, for there was a wicked generation, and God wiped it out like he would wipe the dirt off a dirty plate. All the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah stand there in a great roll call to face that judgment seat.

Every king, every potentate, every queen and president stands there. The Pharaohs, the Caesars, the rulers of ancient civilizations, all of mankind is held accountable as they stand up against the strictness and severity of God's holy law, and all fail that test, for the Bible declares for all of sinned and comes short of the glory of God. No one is in a hurry on that day, friends.

Every case is reviewed on an individual basis in that courtroom. Evidence is presented, verdicts handed out, sentences read, for the sentencing of the law must be carried out upon all the guilty lawbreakers, for God declares, I will in no wise clear the guilty. But there in eternity is that vast courtroom seen there with God as the judge sitting on that great white throne.

That great white throne symbolizes purity and the holiness of God, the angels or the bailiffs as they handle the books and open them to be read as cases are reviewed and destinies determined. The devil is the prosecutor, the accuser, the brethren, and he and his demons take great delight every time a sinner is led over to the lake of fire and thrown in there. They just yell and howl and screech with joy as that person falls in that boiling sea of fire.

And there I stand. It's my turn to stand there. I stand trembling before that throne.

I can hear the crackling of the fire in the lake of fire as I stand there before my judge. My sins are stacked up against me like a great mountain of evidence rising before me, accusing me of breaking and transgressing God's unbending law. A dark shadow of my collective sins of my entire life cover me.

Sins of commission, sins of omission, willful sins, presumptuous sins. My mouth is stopped as my sins accuse me. A guilty sentence hangs over my head like the sword of Damocles, ready to descend at any moment.

As I stand there trembling, a story in the back of my mind suddenly comes to my thoughts. As I stand in that heavenly courtroom amidst that vast congregation, I think of that story. It's the story about a man traveling through the city of St. Louis, and it is a Sunday, and he is a Christian.

So he parks his car at a downtown church and goes inside to worship. Once he is in there, he realizes he is the only white person in an all-black church, so he takes his seat on the back row. Up on the platform is the well-dressed elderly pastor, who is speaking on his subject for that particular Sunday morning.

His subject is heaven. He begins his sermon by saying, Some folks call heaven paradise. Other folks call it Abraham's bosom.

I like to think of heaven this way. Here is Jesus, just returned from his earthly ministry. He stands there at the pearly gates, and old Gabriel greets him.

Hello, Jesus. Sure is good to see you, Jesus. We sure miss you up here, Jesus.

Welcome home, Jesus. But wait, who's that with you? Is that that thief from the cross? Oh, no, sir. We can't have no thieves up here.

He's not welcome here. Jesus replied, Never you mind, Gabriel. Never you mind.

And just then, Jesus put his arm around the thief and declared, He's with me. Well, that's the story I'm thinking about, is to stand guilty before that great audience and before that great white throne. My sins condemn me.

I'm guilty as hell as I await the sentence of the law to be carried out on me, for the verdict is read. I can see the red glow behind me of that burning lake as it snaps and crackles in twisting flames as it flashes hellfire upon my soul. But just then, there is a commotion in the courtroom as my defense attorney, my advocate, rises to his feet.

He comes beside me, stands next to me. He puts his arm around me, and in a voice like thunder, for all to hear, declares, He's with me. Then a shout of hallelujah rings out in that courtroom as I enter into God's holy kingdom forever and ever.

Hallelujah. Bless God for his mercy and grace. Listen to me, friend.

That's the only hope I have. When Christ's life is laid down and applied to me, I can't stand at that judgment in my own merits. I'll fail that test.

I must stand in the merits of another, the Lord Jesus Christ, as my sins are washed in his blood when he says, He's with me. Oh, dear friend, don't go to hell. It's a horrible place of the tortured damned who cry day and night, and there's no rest there.

There is no peace to the wicked. Listen to this gospel. Please listen to the word of God.

And the spirit and the bride say, Come, and let him that hearsay come, and let him that is a thirst come, and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. And now let me close us, friends, in a time of prayer. Get serious with God right now, friends.

Listen to me as I close us in prayer. Oh, great and dreadful God, we must all stand before you on that day. I ask that you show mercy tonight, and grant grace and disturb folks by your spirit.

Let them feel hellfire flash upon their soul. Open someone's heart to see a bleeding and dying Christ on Calvary. I pray that someone here can receive a revealed Christ, that they can roll their guilt of sin on Jesus, and trust him as their Savior.

I pray these things in the strong name of Jesus Christ. Amen.