One Final Point
Ecclesiastes 12:1-8
November 14, 2021
This morning we come to the end of the sermon of the preacher.
The final 6 verses we’ll see next week are the final word given by the author.
But this morning the preacher’s sermon is wrapped up.
We certainly won’t recover it all, but you should at least be familiar
At this point with what we might call the HIGH POINTS of the sermon.
The book contained 2 main points.
The first 6 chapters deal with THE FUTILE PURSUIT
It is where he spoke to us about “striving after wind”.
• Things like pursuing knowledge
• Things like pursuing pleasure
• Things like pursuing a legacy
• He told us about the dangers of hasty words or of loving money.
• He showed us the futility of seeking treasure.
Those are all pretty common obsessions of the world
And having tried them all the preacher indicated that
They were all “striving after wind”.
They were “vanity” or HEBEL
• They were a mirage.
• There is no satisfaction to be had there.
And so the critic of life gave A SCATHING REVIEW
Of all that the world commonly advertises.
“I bought it, don’t buy it” was his message.
The last 6 chapters outline THE NOBLE PURSUIT
After telling us what not to pursue he then began to tell us what we should pursue.
You could call it wisdom, but perhaps that isn’t the best term.
It seems more like he was seeking to give us some perspective.
What he was really doing was PREPARING US TO PURSUE CHRIST.
The things he told us to pursue were all things
That we would need when it comes time to follow Jesus.
For example:
• He talked about the value of mourning or accepting a rebuke.
• He talked about the importance of pursuing righteousness even when there is not an immediate payoff for it.
• He talked about the value of submission and meekness and humility.
• He talked about the importance of listening to wisdom.
• He talked about the brevity of life and the certainty of death.
• He talked about how we should ignore the futile motivational messages of the world and prepare for a coming judgment.
Sure he wrapped all of those lessons up in practical teaching.
• Things like obeying the king
• Or not cursing a rich man
• Or attending a funeral instead of a party
• Or not staring at the clouds when there is plowing to be done.
His teaching was practical and down to earth,
But it was all for the point of teaching us to pursue the things
That are necessary if we are to enter the kingdom of heaven.
We see A DIRECT CORRELATION with the attitudes he told us to pursue
With the attitudes Christ told us we needed to be saved.
Matthew 5:3-10 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. “Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Those are the necessary attitudes for a man to be saved
And we have seen that those are the exact same attitudes
That the preacher has been teaching us to pursue.
Well this morning his sermon comes to an end,
And it comes with ONE FINAL POINT.
DO IT NOW, BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!
The text this morning is quite unique.
It is almost completely ALLEGORICAL.
• It is a picture with a deeper meaning.
• I’ll show you that in a minute.
But there is ONE COMMAND that the allegory is meant to enforce.
The command is this:
“Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth”
It is most certainly a command AGAINST PROCRASTINATION.
I don’t have the numbers or statistics but anyone who has spent any time in the church can attest that far more people are saved in their early years than in their latter years.
It’s not that you never see an older person surrender their life to Christ,
It’s just that by in large if they don’t come when they are younger,
They typically never do.
JESUS EXPLAINED ONE REASON.
Last week we heard the call of Jesus.
Matthew 16:24-27 “Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? “For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and WILL THEN REPAY EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS.”
We were reminded that in order to follow Jesus you must lose this life.
And we think of men like Peter or Andrew or James or John or Matthew or Paul who did exactly that.
• They turned their back on their fishing business.
• They left their father.
• Matthew left his tax booth.
• Paul said he suffered the loss of all things.
And in contrast we think about men like the Rich Young Ruler
Who refused to leave his wealth that he might follow Jesus.
And Jesus said:
Matthew 19:23-24 “And Jesus said to His disciples, “Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. “Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
One of the reasons it gets harder to follow Jesus the older you get
Is because typically as you get older you amass more treasure in this world
And it becomes harder and harder to forsake it.
I used to love working with college students.
• They seemed the easiest to compel to follow Christ because for them the cost
was seemingly lower.
• All they were leaving was a dorm room and maybe an old couch they found on
a curb somewhere.
But as people move into life and adulthood
And they start to acquire wealth and security and they grow a family
And as they seek to maintain health and comfort
It becomes harder and harder to ask them to follow Christ.
That’s a reason Jesus told us about.
BUT THE PREACHER HAS AN EVEN DIFFERENT REASON
WHY THIS SEEMS TO BE THE CASE.
The preacher has at least 1 reason why this is so.
“Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, “I have no delight in them”;”
From the perspective of the preacher the world tends to produce
Bitterness and Cynicism and Hardness of Heart.
As men and women get older
And the days become more evil and life becomes more difficult
It is harder for men to acknowledge their Creator.
The longer you live and the more hardship you see.
Even the more hardship you endure.
And the longer you listen to the world’s complaints.
For many, the bitterness is too much to overcome.
The preacher knew this.
And he concludes his sermon with one last appeal to the young man:
“Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth”
That is the appeal, and we will come back to that in a moment.
But FIRST we’ll work through the text and examine this allegory
Which the preacher preserves for us.
The exterior picture that he presents is one of the sun setting and the light going out in an old and rundown house.
Now, you may not like this, but what he will talk about in rather vivid detail
IS ACTUALLY AN ELDERLY PERSON
Who is now feeling the days of pain and old age
And who will ultimately walk into death.
You know by now that this preacher has no problem talking about the things that are a little uncomfortable, and this text is certainly no different.
BUT HE DOES SO FOR A POINT.
He is telling the young man to open his eyes and look around
And see the elderly around him and to realize that
He really doesn’t have that much time to reconcile with his Creator.
Now you already noticed this morning that ON YOUR BULLETIN
I dug up some old Church Directory pictures and put them on the front.
I would imagine that many of you probably enjoyed looking at the old pictures.
That bulletin is specifically for
The young man and the young woman in the church.
• This morning I want them to look around at the rest of us.
• Because I know to them we all look really old.
• I want them to realize that we were all young once too.
But in a blink…in a flash…this life is gone.
There really isn’t that much time.
So this morning we take a rather vivid look
At the journey toward old age that we are all on.
Incidentally it is the time in life which the preacher refers to as
• “the evil days”
• Or the years “when you will say, “I have no delight in them”;
He’s talking about the coming days that you WON’T enjoy.
He’s talking about the coming days that most men DO NOT delight in.
And the young man should ACT BEFORE those days come.
(2) “before the sun and the light, the moon and the stars are darkened, and clouds return after the rain;”
He’s simply talking about the time when the DAYS GROW SHORT
And HARDSHIP STACKS upon hardship.
Those days are coming for every human in this cursed world.
AND HERE COMES THE ALLEGORY.
For reference sake, are you familiar with the beautiful woman in the book of Song of Solomon?
Song of Solomon 4:1-3 “How beautiful you are, my darling, How beautiful you are! Your eyes are like doves behind your veil; Your hair is like a flock of goats That have descended from Mount Gilead. “Your teeth are like a flock of newly shorn ewes Which have come up from their washing, All of which bear twins, And not one among them has lost her young. “Your lips are like a scarlet thread, And your mouth is lovely. Your temples are like a slice of a pomegranate Behind your veil.”
We have all laughed at that, but you understand the allegory there.
“hair like a flock of goats…descended from Mount Gilead” – she has long black flowing hair
“teeth…like a flock of newly shorn ewes…all of which bear twins” – she’s got all of her teeth and a pretty white smile.
“Your lips are like a scarlet threat” – just the beauty of her mouth.
Well what Solomon does there to describe his beautiful bride
He does here to describe the hardship of old age.
(3) “in the day that the watchmen of the house tremble, and mighty men stoop, the grinding stones stand idle because they are few, and those who look through the window grow dim;”
Now perhaps one could make some literal sense of this verse and think it speaks maybe of some sort of invasion or judgment, but when you read the text as a whole you realize he is painting a symbolic picture.
“in the day the watchmen of the house tremble”
“watchmen” there is literally “keepers of the house”
And it is reference to the arms and the hands of this elderly man.
And he’s talking about the day when he gets old
And his muscles aren’t what they used to be
And his hands and his arms shake and tremble.
“and mighty men stoop”
• And this older man now walks hunched over because even the bones in
his back begin to deteriorate.
“the grinding stones stand idle because they are few”
• These are his teeth and he’s lost most of them.
“and those who look through the window grow dim”
• And that of course speaks of his darkening and failing eyesight.
This man who was once young and full of strength and vigor
Has now felt the crippling effects of old age and his body is wearing out.
(4) “and the doors on the street are shut as the sound of the grinding mill is low”
The “grinding stones” were his TEETH, the “grinding mill” is his MOUTH
And “the doors on the street” are his LIPS.
It pictures the old man without teeth
Whose lips even begin to sort of sink back into his mouth.
He doesn’t eat much because he doesn’t have the teeth to chew it.
“and one will arise at the sound of the bird”
COMMENTATORS DEBATE rather this is a reference to his voice getting higher pitched or if it speaks to his inability to sleep anymore and so he rises up early.
Either is fitting.
“and all the daughters of song will sing softly”
The NIV translates that “but all their songs grow faint”
Meaning he rises up early at the sound of the bird
But he can’t hear it anymore.
(5) “Furthermore, men are afraid of a high place and of terrors on the road”
He’s no longer sure footed
So climbing a mountain or walking on unlevel ground
Only presents danger of greater injury and he dares not go there.
“the almond tree blossoms” – his hair turns gray
“the grasshopper drags himself along” – he shuffles his feet and walks slow
“and the caperberry is ineffective”
LITERALLY this is “and the caper berry bursts”
It speaks of the caper berry which has become too ripe,
And it swells and it bursts and it falls off the tree.
THE OLD MAN IN THE PICTURE HAS DIED.
“For man goes to his eternal home while mourners go about in the street.”
• This man who was once full of strength and vigor.
• This man who once wrangled livestock
• This man who once pounded the hammer
• This man who once fought wars and battles
• This man who worked night and day
He was once a young man too.
We just celebrated Veteran’s Day this past Thursday.
We don’t see them anymore because nearly all have died now,
But it has always struck me throughout my life
When I’d see those men who were WWII veterans.
In my lifetime they were old and gray and walked slow
And where much like the description that the preacher gave here.
They were physically weak and were not sure footed.
• And yet these were the men who charged beaches under machine gun fire of
the Nazi’s and Imperial Japanese.
• These were men who lugged mortar shells up high ridges and who fought in
unspeakable conditions.
They were almost superhuman in their prime
And we saw what old age did to all of them.
Indeed it does it to everyone.
Many of us have watched it happen to a parent or grandparent.
AND THE POINT OF THE PREACHER IS:
IT WILL HAPPEN TO YOU TOO YOUNG MAN
As young people you get stuck in the hall behind an older man who doesn’t move as fast as you’d like to
• And what you don’t realize is that 60 years ago he would’ve knocked your head off in football.
• He would’ve schooled you on a basketball court and I promise you didn’t want in the boxing ring with him.
• He could hoe in the field for hours on end.
• He could pick cotton with nothing but a sack.
• He could dig ditches and milk cows and stack hay
• Cross country wasn’t a competition for him that was how he got to school.
The point to all of this?
YOUNG MAN IT WILL HAPPEN TO YOU TOO!
• You only have a window here.
• Time is short.
Life is going to do things to you that you aren’t going to like.
And I promise you it is much easier for you
To seek out your Creator now than it will be then.
SO HERE WE SEE THAT THE OLD MAN HAS DIED.
So the preacher returns to his MAIN POINT.
(6-8) “Remember Him before the silver cord is broken and the golden bowl is crushed, the pitcher by the well is shattered and the wheel at the cistern is crushed; then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it. “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher, “all is vanity!”
Those three pictures are all symbolic and they all mean the same thing.
• First you have a golden lamp bowl full of oil and it is hanging by a silver cord.
• But in time the cord breaks and bowl falls and the light goes out.
• There is a pitcher which sits by the well for drawing water, but in time it falls and it shattered and the wheel at the cistern is crushed and water will never be drawn again.
They are pictures of death.
Which is why the preacher says, “then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.”
The body goes back to the ground
And the spirit returns to stand before God.
And the preacher ends his sermon the way he began it
“Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher, “all is vanity!”
Your life is but a short vapor.
AND YOUNG MAN THIS MESSAGE IS FOR YOU.
When you are young it is often true that
You are focused on all the sparkly and attractive things
That this world has to offer.
And the deception of the world is that
• Those things are fleeting and so you’ve got get them now.
• You can do the God-thing later, you’ve got time.
• Use your youth to go and obtain the world.
THE PREACHER SAYS JUST THE OPPOSITE.
Go back to verse 1
(1) Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, “I have no delight in them”
Don’t waste your youth seeking the vanities of this world.
Seek God in the days of your youth.
Hard and uncomfortable days are coming.
And it is rare in this world to find someone turn to God then.
Those who trust God at that point
Are typically those who started trusting him at an early age.
They see those trials in a different light than the lost world.
The lost world gets angry and bitter at hardship
And often times even blames it on God.
And so his call is don’t wait, reconcile with your Creator now.
You might not be willing tomorrow when life gets harder.
So let’s take a moment and look at this command.
I just want to point out some words to you here
And make sure you understand them.
He says, “Remember also your Creator”
Let’s start with that word “Creator”
You are the product of a Creator.
You are not a Big Bang accident.
There is PURPOSE, INTENT, and EXPECTATION attached to your being.
There is a Creator who made you on purpose.
And I would remind you that He is meticulous.
Psalms 139:13-15 “For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;”
There is nothing hasty or negligent about your existence.
You were created exactly as He intended.
Remember Jeremiah?
Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
Remember Isaiah?
Isaiah 49:1 “Listen to Me, O islands, And pay attention, you peoples from afar. The LORD called Me from the womb; From the body of My mother He named Me.”
Remember John the Baptist?
Luke 1:12-17 “Zacharias was troubled when he saw the angel, and fear gripped him. But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your petition has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will give him the name John. “You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth. “For he will be great in the sight of the Lord; and he will drink no wine or liquor, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother’s womb. “And he will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God. “It is he who will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, TO TURN THE HEARTS OF THE FATHERS BACK TO THE CHILDREN, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
And it is true for you as well.
Perhaps not as a prophet a forerunner
But CREATED FOR A SPECIFIC PURPOSE.
Even the things that you may think are MISTAKES are not mistakes.
John 9:1-3 “As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”
Everything about you was meticulously designed for a purpose.
You have been created by the Creator.
Now that brings about another important point then.
The Preacher said, “Remember also your Creator”
In short, you need to understand where you fit in the divine order.
• You are not the Creator.
• You are the creation.
• You don’t define God, He defines you.
• You don’t direct God, He directs you.
• You don’t use God, He uses you.
• God doesn’t answer to you, you answer to God.
We’ve read it so many times but surely you have this passage ingrained on your heart by now.
Acts 17:24-31 “The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’ “Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”
God made you for a purpose and one day you will answer to Him
As to how you used this life He gave you.
Young man you need to “Remember your Creator”
• You need to ponder what He expects from you.
• You need to learn what He demands.
• You will one day give an account to Him
• It is important that you understand His expectations.
Those of you who came to Disciple Now learned about this.
• Adam was created “in the image of God”
• Adam was God’s image-bearer.
• Adam was God’s representative to creation as to who God was and what God was like.
But Adam fell into sin and the image was marred.
• We lost what it meant to be human.
• We lost our understanding of who God is.
• Adam still bore God’s image but it was a distorted image.
That is where humanity now lives.
Humanity has a distorted view of what it even means to be human.
• That is why they love evil and hate good.
• That is why they lie and steal and commit adultery and do all manner of evil.
• That is why they are filled with sensuality and corruption and anger and malice.
• That is why they are jealous and envious and hateful and hate one another.
They have lost their understanding of who God is
And so they have lost their understanding
Of what it means to bear His image.
SIN WRECKED IT ALL.
BUT CHRIST RESTORES IT.
John 1:14-18 “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John testified about Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’ ” For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.”
• Jesus came and bore the image of God.
• Jesus was the first real human we saw since the garden.
• Jesus was the first actual image bearer of God.
And that is why in that passage from Acts that we read a moment ago
JESUS will be used as THE STANDARD by which God judges all men.
Let me read that verse to you again.
Acts 17:30-31 “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”
Jesus is the picture of what God demands from humanity.
That is also why the Bible says that God is at work to conform you to the image of Christ.
Romans 8:28-29 “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;”
NOW YOUNG MAN DO YOU HEAR WHAT I AM SAYING?
You need to “Remember also your Creator”
What does He want?
What does He demand?
When you stand before Him what will He expect?
He expects you to be what He created you to be.
• Perfect
• Flawless
• Holy
• The accurate image bearer of God
• Just like Jesus
That is what He created you to be.
That is what He expects.
That is the standard of judgment.
And the only way you will ever achieve that
Is if you run to Christ to be clothed in His righteousness.
PICTURE IT LIKE THIS.
• You were created to be the image bearer of God.
• So PICTURE YOUR LIFE AS A PAINTING.
• Your life is meant to show the world who God is.
And then one day you die and you stand before God,
And GOD ASKS YOU TO SEE THE PAINTING YOU DREW.
“Show me Rory, show Me this painting of Me that you have created.”
Could you imagine how angry God would be if I showed Him a picture of myself?
• Me in all my sin and corruption.
• Me in all my distortion.
There is a picture in my office that Zek painted of me when he was little.
In that picture my ears are huge. They are almost as big as my head.
I PROMISE YOU THIS.
That picture is a closer likeness to what I actually look like
Than I am to what Go actually looks like.
There is no way I want to stand before God like this.
• I want to be clothed in the perfection of Christ.
• I want that extreme makeover that only Christ can give.
YOUNG MAN THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY
For you to be made pleasing to the One who created you
And that is if you repent of your sin and run to Jesus.
2 Corinthians 5:21 “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
• If you spend this life thinking about what the world wants…
• If you spend this life thinking about what your girlfriend or boyfriend wants…
• If you spend this life thinking about what your parents want…
• If you spend this life thinking about what you want…
But you never give any thought to what your Creator wants you are a fool!
“Remember also your Creator”
But there is one more point to be made.
The Preacher said, “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before…”
• He DIDN’T tell you to put it on your calendar sometime later.
• He DIDN’T tell you to just think about it someday.
He said you had better do it now
Before the evil days come and death creeps up on you
And you fail to do it all.
I want to close with one more message from Jesus.
TURN TO: Matthew 25:14-30
That is a story that speaks of wasted resources.
You were created for a purpose.
Do it now while your strength remains.
Do it now while you are young.
Don’t be lazy.
IT WILL NOT GET EASIER TO REPENT AND RETURN LATER
A.W. Pink said:
“What insanity is it that persuades multitudes to defer the effort to repent till their deathbeds? Do they imagine that when they are so weak that they can no longer turn their bodies they will have strength to turn their souls from sin? For sooner could they turn themselves back to perfect health.”
(Arthur Pink – “Practical Christianity”)
Young man, heed the words of the Preacher.
• This is not a game.
• This life is a vapor.
• Old age and death are certain.
Reconcile with the One who created you through His Son Jesus Christ.
