What does it mean that "He has made everything beautiful in its time" (Ecclesiastes 3:11)?

"What profit has he that works in that wherein he labours? I have seen the travail which God has given to the sons of men to be exercised therewith. He has made everything beautiful in its time: also he has set the world in their heart, yet so that man cannot find out the work that God has done from the beginning even to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice, and to do good so long as they live; and also, that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy good in all his labour, is the gift of God. I know that, whatsoever God does, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it; and God has done it, that men should fear before Him. That which is has been already; and that which is to be has already been; and God seeks again that which is passed away" (vers. 9-15).

It is wholesome for man to feel how little he can find out from the beginning to the end the working that God works. Of Himself we can only receive what God reveals; but this is not the question here discussed. The Preacher accordingly speaks his conviction that there is nothing better for them — nothing good in them — but to rejoice and to do good; as He had shown in His work (whatever man or Satan had done to the contrary) only what is excellent and appropriate. Man should in Him confide, endowed as he is, yet in a scene altogether beyond him; and then what must the Maker be? As man, he is to receive what his nature needs, provided ungrudgingly for him to see or enjoy good in all his labour. What could man's toil have availed, unless it were God's gift? Then he enlarges beautifully on "whatsoever God does." How indeed could it be otherwise? As our Saviour said, "There is one good, even God", nor would He be called good by one who did not confess Him to be God: if not God, not good in the real absolute sense of the word; yet became He man in the fullest dependence on God, as He calls us to be.

From ver. 16 the Preacher shows that God's judgment is the key to all the present confusion. So it is for man, till the Son of God came and brought in grace and truth which gives the light of God fully.

Verses 1-11. There is a time for everything. Twenty-eight "times" are mentioned, beginning with the time of birth and ending with the time for peace. Everything has a fixed time: Life-death; seeding-harvesting; killing-healing; breaking-down building-up; weeping-laughing; mourning-dancing, etc. These are the times of the entire race; that is what human life is. All moves and changes; all appears unto him profitless. "What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboreth? What is the gain of it, to be born and to die, to plant and to pull up, to weep and to laugh, to mourn and to dance, to get and to lose, to love and to hate?" But he advanced a step. He recognizeth that all this travail must be of God, who has produced these never ceasing changes, so that men's hearts might be exercised thereby. "I have seen the travail which God has given to the sons of men to be exercised in it." Yeah, there is something which is in man. "God hath set the world in their heart," the correct rendering is, "God hath set eternity in their heart" (verse 11). Man has the sense of the infinite in his heart.

All that time offers, all these changes cannot satisfy, nor can man with eternity in his heart find out the truth about it by himself. He may feel but cannot understand.

Verses 12-15. What then is the good? To what can man in such condition, with such constant changes, and with an unsatisfied feeling of the infinite in his heart resort to? The searcher gives his results. Let man rejoice and do good in his life. Let him eat and drink and enjoy the food of all his labor. But let him also do so fearing God in view of God's judgment, for "God requireth that which is past." This is about as far as the natural man can see.

Man is shown that he is in a time state: there is a time for everything 'under the heaven,' but only 'a time.' God made everything beautiful in its time: He hath set 'the age' in man's heart. Ecc. 3: 11. (The word rendered 'world' in the A.V. in this verse is olam, often translated 'ever' and 'everlasting.' Some translate 'he hath set eternity in their heart,' but the sense doubtless is that man's heart can only naturally embrace the age characterised by time.) "No man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end." God is working out His own end during this time state: man lives in time, but what God does shall be for ever. God will judge the righteous and the wicked, but as far as man's real knowledge extends he dies as the beast dies. This is only man's conclusion drawn from beholding what takes place under the sun.

Ecc. 3. Man is shown that he is in a time state: there is a time for everything 'under the heaven,' but only 'a time.' God made everything beautiful in its time: He hath set 'the age' in man's heart. Ecc. 3:11. (The word rendered 'world' in the A.V. in this verse is olam, often translated 'ever' and 'everlasting.' Some translate 'he hath set eternity in their heart,' but the sense doubtless is that man's heart can only naturally embrace the age characterised by time.) "No man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end." God is working out His own end during this time state: man lives in time, but what God does shall be for ever. God will judge the righteous and the wicked, but as far as man's real knowledge extends he dies as the beast dies. This is only man's conclusion drawn from beholding what takes place under the sun.

Similarly, the absence of the spirit of adoption, the knowledge of present and eternal acceptance, the heavenly hope as contrasted with the earthly one, and the acquaintance with the person of our Lord Jesus, — these and many other features compel the intelligent reader to recognize that in the book of Psalms he is not on characteristic Christian ground. All this is seen to some extent by every Christian properly familiar with the Bible; and yet many of these, through lack of a knowledge of the great dispensational outlines, would be unable to explain exactly why we do not find the same liberty in the Psalms that we do, for instance, in the epistle to the Philippians. The explanation is at once simple and satisfying. "He hath made everything beautiful in his time" (Ecc. 3:11), and the time had not yet come, in the dispensation in and for which the Psalms were written, to bring out Christian truth. Such a thing would have been putting new wine into old bottles.

In contemplating these stupendous works of God, let us seek His wisdom and gracious guidance, that we may get some true knowledge of His object in creating such a universe. It is not, as some foolish and godless people imagine, eternal. It has had a beginning: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” It would seem that the whole vast creation was brought into existence at the same time. At once, and at the word of God, everything came into being in the most perfect order and beauty: “He has made everything beautiful in its time” (Eccl. 3:11). If we find the earth at some subsequent time of its history in a state of ruin, every man that knows God knows He never made it thus, but perfect. We can truthfully say of its waste condition, “An enemy has done this.”

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven." (Eccles. 3:1.) Every thing under the sun is measured by "times." There is a time to be born, and a time to die. No matter what the purpose which the sons of men may take in hand under the heaven, each has its time, but only its "time." It is not "for ever," and its time passes on and is gone. Well is it if they who are passing through these varied times are exercised by the travail which they occasion. (Eccles. 1:13; 3:10.) But beneath the exercises of these times there is a "work that God maketh from the beginning to the end;" for there is a path which the vulture's eye hath not seen. It is hid from the eyes of the living, but God understandeth the way thereof (Job 29), and this work, wrought in ways of infinite wisdom, is "for ever." "I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it: and God doeth it that men should fear before Him." It is done to produce holy fear, the beginning of wisdom in man, and becomes the means of the senses being exercised to discern good and evil in those who otherwise would put good for evil, and evil for good. (Isa. 5:20.) Man cannot find out this work, because his vision is bounded by the horizon of time, and he can but take in by his own powers and senses those things which are thus measured. Very different is God's "for ever." He is the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End; and blessed it is to know that as the varied seasons roll round, and a time to weep and a time to laugh succeed each other, that a feeble creature of time, by faith, and through sovereign mercy, can find his dwelling-place in the eternity of God. "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations … from eternity to eternity thou art God."

" To everything is a season, and a time for every purpose under the heavens." Man, Israelite, Christian, is apt to mistake. Besides, his true place is subjection and obedience. God Himself has an aim before Him which He puts before us. He would glorify the Second man whom the first is so prone to forget, even when be intends to honour God, who alone can judge infallibly of what pleases Him, and graciously lets us know it for our acquiescence.

Each of these vast luminous orbs, suspended in the skies, rises and sets in its appointed time — not a minute or second too late — and keeps its assigned place, or moves in its appointed sphere, without deviating one inch to the right or to the left. There is no confusion, no clashing. "He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down." All is perfect order. Or may we look at the lower creation around us, it is the same perfect order. Everything is in its appointed time and place, so beautifully described in Psalm 104.

There is neither haste nor hesitancy with God. His movements bear not the least resemblance to the jerky and febrile activities of men. Every action is begun at the right moment, and every work completed the instant it is required. When the set time has come the old order passes and the new is announced. That which has passed away is seen to have done its work and that which is introduced enters not clothed with mourning for a defunct dispensation. Nothing is introduced that could be dispensed with, and nothing brought to an end that has not perfectly served its purpose. This earth was in the beginning of the works of God created and endowed with a glory that made the morning stars sing together, and caused the sons of God to shout with joy; and if for millions of years it was made to pass through its cosmos and chaos on its journey to the waste and empty condition in which it is found in Genesis 1:2 there was not a moment of that time when it was not in preparation for a creature to be made in the image and likeness of God, as well as serving a present purpose unrevealed to men. He who inhabiteth eternity does not waste an hour in idleness or in fruitless toil. During the long ages through which this earth has passed, though countless may have been the various purposes it has been made to serve, there was but one grand and glorious goal to which it was steadily advancing. Within its crust is stored a multitude of things that by the unbelieving mind of man is used in his attempts to disprove the revelation given to us of God. These things test and try the profession of Christianity, and are like the fan that winnows the chaff from the wheat. It is well that the tests are there, as they are used to preserve us from all that is spurious and counterfeit.