"I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work" (Ecclesiastes 3:17 NKJV).

In numerous places the Bible talks about the role of time in God's plans. Jesus appeared in Galilee declaring that "the time is fulfilled" (Mark 1:15). Paul, in reference to the first coming of Jesus, wrote that "when the fulness of the time was come, god sent forth his Son" (Gal. 4:4); in reference to the Second Coming, he wrote: "until our Lord Jesus Christ's appearing, which He will manifest in His own time" (1 Tim. 6:14, 15, NKJV). An angel appeared to John and said to him, " 'Do not seal the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand' " (Rev. 22:10, NKJV). We can see that God works through time in order to bring about His will.

Ecc. 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in His time; also He has set eternity in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God makes from the beginning to the end.

Ecc. 3:16 And again I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that wickedness was there.

17 I said in my heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked; for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work.

Solomon is, again, looking at the meaninglessness of life lived apart from God, a life lived only for the immediate pleasures of this world. It has to be meaningless because when it's all done, humans and beasts "all go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again" (vs. 20). As we saw in Tuesday's lesson, that's a conclusion most humans find unsettling, one that makes all that comes before death not only hebel but even worse. One atheist author wrote about the "absurdity" of life: It taunts us with the hope and promise of meaning, and yet in the end we all end up in the same meaningless place as the beasts.