Biblical ABC’s: S is for – Season
Mrs. Rick Jackson
Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, “To every thing there is a season, and a time
to every purpose under the heaven.”
The word SEASON is used 55 times in our English Bible, all but twice
referring to a time or season. What are we to learn about these “seasons”? That’s what we’re going to see tonight, “to
everything there is a season” or time. Time is one thing that has been allotted to each of us equally the
same – we have each been given a 24 hour day.
That translates to 1,440 minutes or 86,400 seconds. It’s what we do with those 86,400 seconds
that matters.
PRAYER
I.
A Season (without God)
We’ll begin with
looking at “a season.” There is an
interesting verse in the accounts of the kings after the reign of David in the
book of 2 Chronicles which says, “Now for a long season Israel
hath been without the true God, and without a teaching
priest,
and without law.”
Turn with me to 2 Chronicles 15, and
let’s begin reading at verse 1: “And the Spirit of God came upon
Azariah the son of Oded: 2
And he went out to meet Asa,
and said unto him, Hear ye me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin; The LORD is
with you, while ye be with him; and if ye seek him, he will be found of you;
but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you. 3 Now
for a long season Israel hath been
without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law. 4 But when they in their trouble did
turn unto the LORD God of Israel, and sought him, he was found of them.”
Here we find a time in the history of the children of
Israel when they had forsaken their heritage.
They had forgotten their God. God
had not forgotten them. And they were
reminded of that very thing. We all need
that reminder. God has not forgotten
you. Have you come to “a season” in your life
when you feel you’ve been forsaken, that God has forgotten you? Oh, dear one, God is and always has been,
right beside you. In your time of trouble, you need only to seek
Him and call out to Him. He is ever
beside you. I am reminded of what Jesus
told the disciples in Matthew 7:7 &
8 – “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find;
knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to
him that knocketh it shall be opened.”
“To every thing there is a season, and a time
to every purpose under the heaven.”
Then there was an individual in the book of Acts who
was without God. Do you remember when
Paul was imprisoned and awaiting his trip to Rome? He had opportunity to witness to not only the
guards who were watching him around the clock but also the different rulers who
came to hear his case, some out of mere curiosity. One of these was Felix. We read in Acts 24:24 and 25, “And
after certain days, when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, which was a Jewess,
he sent for Paul, and heard him concerning the faith in Christ. 25 And as he reasoned of righteousness,
temperance,
and
judgment
to come,
Felix
trembled,
and answered,
Go thy way
for this time;
when
I have
a convenient season,
I will call for
thee.” Evidently, Felix was biding his time, waiting
until the time was more
“convenient.” What do you suppose was
holding him back from making his decision for Christ? Was he embarrassed for the company he kept? Did he have more questions about what he heard? The Bible says, “(For he saith, I have heard thee in a
time accepted, and in the day of
salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now
is the accepted time; behold,
now is the day of salvation.)” – 2
Corinthians 6:2
You know, a long season and a convenient season
are too long to be without God. It
is important for us to be aware of a season in our
life and those close to us. There are
others around us facing a season without
God. “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose
under the heaven.”
II.
Due Season (of blessings)
We next have what we find ten times in Scriptures, the
due season, what I call, the “season of blessings.” Galatians 6:9 tells us, “And let us not be weary
in well
doing:
for
in due season
we shall reap,
if we faint
not.” We are told that if we continue on, if we
don’t give up, we will receive the blessing! That is a wonderful promise! This has been promised by the Lord from the
very beginning. “To every thing there is a season, and a time
to every purpose under the heaven.”
Look with me at Leviticus 26:3
& 4, “If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my
commandments, and do them; Then I will give you rain
in due season,
and the land
shall yield
her increase,
and the trees
of the field
shall yield
their fruit.” Again, it’s only a matter of doing right,
following the Lord, and persevering, and then receiving the blessing! This promise is repeated in Deuteronomy 11: 13 &14, “And
it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments
which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with
all your heart and with all your soul, That
I will give
you the rain
of your land
in his due season,
the first rain
and the latter rain,
that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil.
It is not only that the Lord
blesses us, but we can be a blessing to others, merely by taking care in what
we say. Proverbs 15:23 says,
“A man hath joy by the answer of his mouth:
and a word
spoken in due season,
how good
is it!” Similarly, Isaiah 50:4 says, “The
Lord
GOD
hath given
me the tongue
of the learned,
that I should know
how to speak
a word
in season
to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning,
he wakeneth
mine ear
to hear
as the learned.” We are reminded in James 3:2, “For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the
same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.” So, to be in
due season, to say the right thing at the
right time, is truly a blessing! There are 86,400 seconds in every day – can we
consciously use those seconds to say and do what is right? “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under
the heaven.”
III.
In Season (timing)
Have you given our beginning
verse much thought yet? Ecclesiastes 3:1 says,
“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” I’ve quoted it several times. Let me quote it again, “To every thing there is a season, and a time
to every purpose under the heaven.” What
does it mean, really? There’s a time
for everything, it says. Who’s in charge
of that time?
When
Job was afflicted after he thought he had lived justly and confessed his sins
regularly, and his friends came to him and accused him unjustly, Job
entertained thoughts of asking God why he had been put through such
agonies. But the Lord came to Job and
spoke to him in a whirlwind and in Job
38:31-33 we see the Lord ask Job the following: “Canst thou bind the
sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with
his sons? Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the
dominion thereof in the earth?” Did Job have charge over when the
stars appeared in the sky? By whose
order and timing did they appear? “To every thing there is a season, and a time
to every purpose under the heaven.” What
was the lesson Job was to learn? The
Lord is the One who had a “purpose under the heaven” for his life. It wasn’t about what Job did or didn’t do,
was it? It was the purpose he had to
fulfill in God’s plan. He was to fulfill
God’s timing, to be “in
season!”
There’s a beautiful verse in
Ezekiel 34:26 which
says, “And I will make them and the
places round about
my hill
a blessing;
and I will cause the shower to come down in
his season; there shall be showers
of blessing.” That is the source of Daniel Whittle’s song, Showers
of Blessing.
There shall be showers of blessing:
This is the promise of love;
There shall be seasons refreshing,
Sent from the Savior above.
Showers of blessing,
Showers of blessing we need:
Mercy drops round us are falling,
But for the showers we plead.
Again, it is God who sends
the showers in His season. We cannot cause it to rain, we can only pray for
it! Jeremiah reminds us, Jeremiah 5:24 – “Neither say they in their heart, Let us now fear
the LORD
our God,
that giveth
rain,
both the former
and the latter,
in his season:
he reserveth
unto us the appointed
weeks
of the harvest.”
And what will all of that
rain bring? A harvest, right? So, when we follow the Lord, keep His
commandments, walk in His statutes, then Psalm
1:3 tells us, “And he shall be like a tree planted
by the rivers
of water,
that bringeth forth
his fruit
in his season;
his leaf
also shall not wither;
and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.” “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under
the heaven.”
IV.
Night Season (of concern)
I want to pause for a moment and mention the season that many of us
have uncomfortably experienced. Too
often, it has been expressed that when you become a Christian, you have no more
troubles. God does not promise a life
without problems – sadly, we live in a sin-cursed world. Job 30:17
says, “My bones are pierced in me in the night season:
and my sinews
take no rest.” And in Psalm 22:2, “O my God,
I cry
in the daytime,
but thou hearest
not; and in the night season,
and am not silent.” The night season is obviously our most
vulnerable. It is the time we feel most
alone when our cares press upon us and we may mistakenly think as David did in
this Psalm that God does not hear our cry.
Oh, we must remember He is ever near!
Jesus promises, in Matthew 28:20,
“…lo, I am with you alway, even
unto the end of the world.”
Again, in Hebrews 13:5, “Let your conversation be without
covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath
said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” Although we must have the night season, the times of trial, we must never
forget that we do not walk it alone. We
must not abuse those part of the 86,400 seconds that come in the night when we
sigh and cry and fear that we are all alone.
1 Peter 5:7, “Casting all your care upon him; for
he careth for you.” “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under
the heaven.”
V.
Salt Season (for flavor)
Finally, I told you there were
two “season” verses
that did not pertain to time. They are the following:
Leviticus 2:13: “And every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt;
neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God
to be lacking
from thy meat offering:
with all thine offerings
thou shalt offer
salt.”
Mark 9:50: “Salt is good: but if
the salt have lost his saltness,
wherewith
will
ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and
have peace
one
with
another.”
The one seasoning common all over the world is salt. Why do we use it? To bring out flavor in our foods. It is an important component in cooking and
adding flavor. Jesus called it
good. God expressly commanded the
Israelites to use it in their meat offerings – not to leave it out! Seasoning is important!
Jesus said in Matthew 5:13, “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour,
wherewith shall it be salted?
it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under
foot of men.”
It is
important to be “in season”
in order to be salt that has
flavor. We want to be used of God. How can we do that? To be prepared! Paul put it this way to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:2, “Preach the word; be instant
in season,
out of season;
reprove,
rebuke,
exhort
with
all
longsuffering
and
doctrine.” We find in 1 Peter 3:15 the admonition, “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be
ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of
the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” Again, Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 2:15, “Study
to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed,
rightly dividing the word of truth.”
That’s why we’re here, right? We
want to be salty!
Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, “To every thing there is a season, and a time
to every purpose under the heaven.”
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