July 12, 2026-Morning Service

Ecclesiastes 12:1-14

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

You have your Bibles. You have your Bibles. Turn with me to Ecclesiastes chapter 12. We'll look at verses 1 through 14. As we're turning there, I want to make a comment. I don't normally do this, but I want to do this today. I want to talk to Samantha for a second. Samantha, we're glad that you're here today. We're glad that you're using your talent to serve the Lord. And I know it's not easy with all the contraption on your arm. We're certainly praying for you. But just for the record, normally I'm the one talking about death and dying and all that. And just for the record, you started this today. Okay. Because if you look at the songs we just sang, except for that last one, uh, the Because He Lives, the end of that says, one day I'll cross the river, fight life's final war with pain. So you started this whole thing of death and dying. And also you chose the song Trust and Obey. And then it says in here something about, I'm sorry, just a closer walk, wrong side. Guide thee gently, safely o'er to thy kingdom, shore, to thy shore. So just for the record, Samantha started the concept of talking about death and dying today. Now I'm going to continue it, okay? The reason I mentioned that, because it's neat how God orchestrates his word with songs to be sung. Whether or not it was planned, it could have been planned. She may actually already have a sermon on Ecclesiastes for me today, but if not, God orchestrates stuff like that. And the neat way that God orchestrates that is I'm glad I can be with you today because I thought yesterday that I was going to have to call one of y'all to get some bail money. I'm just letting you know. Okay, I'm trying to be a good, sweet, honest preacher and do the right thing, but sometimes people just say stuff. It gets me, gets my goad. Is that how you say it? It gets me upset. So yesterday I was working, had two of my workers working with me, and we got it talking, and one of them, pretty brave little fellow, I had the audacity to say that I was pushing 60. And I might need bell money now. Rusty, you got some money? It's true I'm pushing 60. I get that. But I look around the room, there's one, two, three, four people younger than me. And I'm thinking the aches and pain I'm feeling now just because of working all week and being up since four this morning, I'm really tired. And I know y'all are looking at me thinking, yeah, you say that every Sunday. But today I got a little bit of an excuse because what we're gonna see in scripture, Solomon talks about old age and what comes with old age. Why do I mention that? Well, except maybe except for the three younger than me, four younger than me, there's Blake in the back's younger than me too. We can all relate one way or another to what he's gonna talk about. So we want to listen up to see what Solomon says about old age. Before we get into it, though, I just want to mention one thing grammatically as we read through this. You know, um people will say you want to take the Bible as it's God's word, it's true, there's no errors, that's all correct. But there's different types of um ways that the Bible's written. Some of it's in songs, some of it's in poetry, some of it's in narrative, like a history story, uh, some of it in letters, things like that. In the midst of that, sometimes you don't necessarily take things literally or it's changed. For example, doesn't the Bible tell us to greet each other with a holy kiss? If you try to greet me with a holy kiss and you're not my wife, you're gonna get a holy black eye. Okay, I'm just telling you that, just warning you, okay? I'll get bail money from somebody, but just letting you know, okay, I just don't do that. Okay. Today, what we have already read looks like it's the idea of a household and a house. If you take it completely literally, it's not all gonna add up. But if you understand it from the point of a metaphor, then things will kind of make sense. So just to get an idea of where we're going with this, I put a definition of metaphor on the screen. Metaphor is a figure of speech that directly compares two unrelated things by stating that one thing is another rather than just saying that they're similar. I'll give you an example. You see that on the screen. Okay, back in the days of college, I have to go in and take an exam, and when I test you, see what all you know. And I come out saying that exam was a piece of cake. Does that really mean my exam was a piece of cake that I could eat? Now, if I was taking a culinary class and it was on desserts, and the exam might have been, you need to present a piece of cake to the professor, then I could say it's a piece of cake. But I didn't take cooking classes, okay? Um, same thing with maybe Weight Watchers, if you've been through Weight Watchers. Maybe let's say there's an exam there, and the final exam is they put a piece of cake in front of you, and you don't want to eat it, but if you eat it, then you get in trouble. Then the exam might have been a piece of cake, literally. Okay. But we know the idea that something is a piece of cake was that it was easy. Two things that are unrelated, test and cake. I mean, there's two unrelated things, but they're used to bring about a similarity with the idea, in this case, that something was easy. Okay. So if you would keep that in mind, the metaphor. And as we go through each of these in the first eight verses, or verses two through seven, I guess, as we look at these, uh, I'll have an underlying section explaining what the metaphor is to help us kind of understand it. And as you guessed, it all has to do with old age. All right. So I think we can relate to this today. Ecclesiastes chapter 12, verse 1. Remember also your creator and the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, I have no pleasure in them. Starts off kind of simple. As we live our life, we need to remember from where we have come and our creator, the one who created us, the one who loved us, the one who's given us purpose in life. Because there is time is coming in our life as we get older, it described here as the days of evil, when things are going to be more difficult. We're going to have trials and tribulations. And if we're not careful, if we've not worshiped the Father, when we get near the end of life and these big trials here, instead of clinging to the Father and asking him for his strength, we turn away from him or don't acknowledge him at all. What's Jesus say? You acknowledge me before men, I'll acknowledge you. If you don't, I won't acknowledge you before my father. That's some serious words there. What's the idea here? As we get older, let's make sure that we're being warned against mindful self-indulgence when it's all about ourselves in life, which can only bring regrets. Yeah, we might could do some great things, experience some great things, but the regret is not having that sweet fellowship with our Creator, the one who we can remember by, as it says on the screen, following after wisdom and seeking true joy that comes from Him. Solomon, we've talked about this before. Everything's in vain. What's come, what's been, it's gonna come again, is just repetitive. Uh life is like a vapor. And he's always been telling us seek after God, walk humbly and holy before him, and enjoy life. Enjoy the lot that God has given you. Okay? So now let's take a look at this idea, the metaphor. As I mentioned earlier, we're gonna look at the idea of a household, somebody's household or an estate. It's gonna talk about the doors, it's gonna talk about the windows, it's gonna talk about the rain that would come upon it, it's gonna talk about the grinders, ladies who uh make flour and prepare flour. Uh but the metaphor behind it, what we're looking at, looks at the concept of our bodies as we deteriorate and this old age arrives. Uh look around the room in the last 10 minutes, five minutes, however long I've been talking, you've gotten older. Okay? I've gotten older. Luckily, I can't see any visible differences in that, but we are getting older. Okay, that's part of life. So let's walk through some of these, looking at the deterioration of life as ascribed by one of the wisest men in the world, and then see what how he concludes his book on calling us to be faithful before the Lord. It says here, before the sun, in verse 2, before the sun and the light and the dark and the moon and the stars are darkened, and the clouds return after the rain. Here you get this idea, you're thinking, okay, here we're talking about the weather here. But what is it about the weather? The days come in the sun, the light, the moon and the stars are going to be darkened. Okay, referencing old age. The clouds return after the rain. Normally, when it rains, what happens to the clouds? They go away and it's sunny again. But if you think about this in terms of our physical body with our eyes, do not our eyes begin to fail? Now, some of you look around the room and you're probably thinking, no, it doesn't have affected me yet. Maybe it never will, I hope not. But I was even griping yesterday, my employees had some problems with the tractor yesterday. Some lights were blinking on there. And I knew the color of the light that was blinking, and I could see its shape, but I couldn't read what the problem was. So what do you have to do? My eyes are starting to get that way. I'm starting to see what he's talking about here. The deal is in the weather, clouds eventually go away. But are our eyes going to get much better? Now, technically, yeah, there's some surgeries, maybe you can have something done to kind of help, but they're gonna get cloudier and cloudier as part of old age. I'm not gonna ask you, raise your hand if you can relate to that, but I think you get the point. Look at verse 3. It says, In the day when the keepers of the house tremble, the strong men are bent, the grinders cease because they are few, and those who look through the windows are dimmed. So let's break these down. You got the keepers of the house, strong men, the grinders, and those who are looking through the windows. Now, if we were talking about real people, real household situation, let's just take one example for our time. The grinders, the women who are preparing the flour, grinding it up. Okay. So it says if the grinders cease their work before because there are few, is that how it is? Because there's less people to grind the flour to sell for the community, they just stop grinding? No, actually, there's more, because what few women are left have to do even more work to be able to provide the flour needed for the town to bake the bread, et cetera, et cetera. So that's just one of several different arguments of why we're not talking about physical household and people. Instead, we're talking about the deterioration of the body. So let's break these down. Look at the first one here. Keepers of the house, referring to the hand. So look what it says. The days when the keepers of the house tremble. Okay, I'm there, but I'm not. Okay. All my life, if you ask me to stick up my hand, even now, John probably can see it, my hand's shaking right now. Okay. I ain't scared or any of y'all. It's just a nervous habit that I've got. But don't we know people, or don't some of us now, in our age, our hands begin to tremble? That's just how it is. Now, medically go ask a doctor why. They probably already told you, I just I just know it's part of getting old. But what about the strong? It says the strong men are bent. Well, oops, wrong way. Uh, strong men, thinking about major muscle groups and our back. How are our backs? How are our major muscle groups, our joints? Do they work like they used to? I think I complained the other day because I was playing pickleball and I kind of hurt myself. Again, yesterday my employees are making fun of me because I was hobbling up and down on that tractor. And their response was pickleball is supposed to be an easy game for people in their 80s to play. Again, I thought, well, I could whip this kid right here, but I'm not. So I didn't do it. But you get the idea, the grinders. And I'm talking about flour, women doing flour. We're talking about teeth. Now, here's an interesting one, not to offend anybody, but look at this. This is in God's word. The grinders cease because they are few. As we get older, is it possible that through dentures or lack of teeth that we don't eat as much? Or we change what we eat, maybe we're not able to chew steaks or tougher foods. Okay, so you see how we're kind of, Solomon's kind of walking us through this idea that we're um uh getting older. Uh the grinder cease, the teeth season doesn't mean we don't necessarily eat. There's other ways to get nourishment through shakes and things like that. And the final part is those who look through the windows are dimmed. Written here, the idea looking through a window that's dimmed would be our eyes. Again, looking at how our eyesight can deteriorate as we get older. With me so far? All right. We're not done yet. We're gonna keep on talking about this. Again, you guys know a lot about this. I'm learning about this because I've got my glasses and my hip hurts when I get up and down. But look at this, verse four. The doors on the street are shut when the sound of grinding is low. And one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low. This is the same concept with this. Let's break this down one by one and see what they're talking about here. The doors on the street are shut. What's that? Yeah, our hearing. I don't know if you've experienced that. We get our ways around it through hearing aids. But ask Debbie how many times I say, What? Or ma'am, or yes, dear, because I'm having trouble. I've even noticed on the lawnmower, when I've got guys working with me, they'll come by with the bigger lawnmower, and it's like that lawnmower didn't sound as loud today as it normally does. Ain't nothing wrong with a lawnmower, it's my ears are going, okay? Uh the idea of the sounding of the sounding of the grinding is low. Well, when you're gritting your teeth, you're gonna hear that, but if you think the actual grinding that women would do either way, the idea of the fact that it's getting low is the fact that we're being affected with our ability to hear, that it's going by the wayside. The same thing, and the sad part is this next part says it rises up at the sound of a bird. Now let's look at how that goes in the scripture. It says when the sound of the grinding is low, one rises up at the sound of the bird. You're like, wait a minute, if you're going deaf, what's the deal? Well, as we get older, is it not true that our hearing kind of goes? But at the same time, is it not true that as we get older, maybe we're a little bit lighter sleepers? I noticed that this morning because I've been up since four. Didn't get a nap. A lot of times I'll wake up at six, take a nap from seven, seven thirty, and then get back at it. But sometimes we could be lighter sleepers just because of all old age. So I've got there, you can't hear well, but the slightest thing that might wake you up, but you shouldn't be able to hear all of a sudden you hear it and you wake up, can't go back to sleep. And then again, the idea of deafness, all the daughters of songs are brought low. How's this for getting depressed about reminding us us of the situation we're living in right now? Okay? All this stems from the fact that he says, remember the creator when you're young, because times coming when things can be difficult. Well, we're all in that stage, I think, if we're difficult. Times are coming in terms of our physical health. Uh maybe some worse than others, but it's something to be aware of. The catcher, though, is if we're living with the Father and being an obedient relationship with him, then we've got somebody that we can turn to. Instead of being mad and angry at God and just missing out on life, we can love our grandkids and spoil them and just have a great time with them, even though we're going through difficult, painful times ourselves. Next one, verse five. They are also afraid of what is high. Terrors are on the way. The almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along, desire fails because man is going to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the street. So start from the bottom, people going to their eternal home, mourners go about the street with the concept of death, that we're all going to die one day. Getting there, look at some things that are taking place. Again, describing one's body. Uh, afraid of what's high in the terrors? Commentators say look at that in terms of feebleness. Can we still do the things now that we used to could do? My 25-year-old brain says yes. My 55-year-old body says no. And somewhere in between I try. And sometimes I can, and sometimes I can, but it's a little bit slower, then sometimes I just can't do it. The almond tree blossoms, the idea that the hair is turning white. And I'm looking around the room, and I'm just gonna leave that one alone. Okay, if you don't understand that, uh talk with um, I don't know, Joyce. I would say talk to Carrie and Build, and she's a nurse, or Johnny's a, you know, these guys, these people, they know about this kind of stuff. Talk to them if you don't understand that. But I'm just gonna leave that alone. The next one there, though, it talks about the grasshopper drive or drags itself along. Uh when you're thinking about that, you think a grasshopper is light and can just up and go. But the idea, what should be light, is now heavy to move. I'm not talking about heavy to pick up a book or light, a book is light and now it's heavy. It's just that our bodies are getting older, weaker, it's harder to do the things that we used to do. And the last one, desire fails. Well, read it on the screen. Okay? The idea of a loss of sexual desire. Okay. I'm not gonna ask if you think that's true or not. We're gonna leave that one alone. Okay. If you want to understand that one, talk to Rusty. He'll explain exactly what that means. Okay? But you get my point on all these, right? You see what Solomon's doing. He's saying, don't forget about your creator because the days are gonna be evil. You're gonna come close and you're gonna get to the point of death. Some people might go instantly, other people are gonna experience a lot of what we're experiencing. You know, if we had a little checklist, I think I could check off a few of these. Not all of these, but I could check off a few of these uh today. But look at verse six. Before the civil cord is snapped, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is shattered at the fountain, or the will is broken at the cistern. Each one of these has to do with finality. Each one of these has to do with the fact that the day coming when we'll take our last breath. And then he goes on to kind of end up this little section here, verse 7, the dust returns to the other earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. When that's doing that, it's referring back to creation. What was Adam created from? Wasn't it from dust, right? And then when he died, he returned to ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Okay, so we're looking at here, if you get the fact that you've got the fall, the creation in 2.7 of Genesis, and then 3.19, you got the fall. Don't forget your creator. The days coming when this life on earth is going to end. Are we ready to meet our creator? And are we enjoying the life he's given us to live, even with the difficulties we may now face? The theme of the book, as he said many times over in verse 8, vanity of vanity, says the preacher, all is vanity. The idea life is like a passing vapor. It's here one minute and gone the next. Can we enjoy what God's given us during this brief time on earth and be faithful to him? Now we're gonna look at a different section. He's gonna talk here for a second about things that he has tried to do as a teacher. For as teachers, this would be something that we could put into practice as we teach. And then he'll close with a challenge at the end of the book, which is actually more like a conclusion or summary in the last two verses. Look at verse 9. Besides being wise, the preacher also taught people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs with great care. Somebody's gonna get up and teach. Hopefully, they're not just gonna get up and just start blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, babbling, right? They're gonna spend some time studying and learning so they can impart great wisdom to their students. All right. In the public school system, if you want to be a school teacher, can you just go up and tell the district superintendent or somebody, hey, I want to be a school teacher and they're gonna hire you immediately? No, you have to prove that you're competent in your ability to teach the subject that you're interested in teaching. I mean, that's just kind of how it works. So Solomon has lived a great life. God has blessed him with wisdom, we know that, and he spent time studying and preparing so that he can take his students to the next level. Verse 9, the preacher, talking about himself, sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote the words of truth. So, what we have here, God's word, God inspired it. Told Solomon what to write. Solomon recorded that. It's the word of God, it is truth. Everything we've read is of the word of the Lord. Verse 11. The words of the wise are like goads and like nails firmly fixed or the collected sayings, they are given by one shepherd. Who's the great shepherd? Is it not Christ? He says, The sheep knew my voice. How does it work with the shepherds? They use a goad. What's a goad? And then, like a long prod that you've kind of pushed to keep an animal moving along. Words of the wise can keep prodding us to move us in the right direction of being obedient to the Father. Like nails that are fixed, that are solid, are those firm sayings of Scripture. Where do they come from? We're not talking about worldly wisdom. We're talking about godly wisdom that only comes from God, our Father, and our Creator. Verse 12, it says, My son, be aware of anything beyond this. Knock out all the godly wisdom you want, but watch out for the worldly wisdom. Why? The making of many books there is no end, and much study is the weariness of the flesh. Now, this is a verse I'd like to take maybe out of context. So when I'm in school, I can tell my teachers, hey, I need to slow down. We need a break because the Bible says many books, there's no end, and all this study makes you weary and wears you down. But the teacher's gonna be like, nope, I'm prepared to teach you. I need to get you to the next level so you can get out and get a job one day. But truth be known, we do need to take breaks. We can't just be study, study, study all the time. That can be difficult. But what's the whole point? The end of the matter? All has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. So people hearing his writings as a teacher, as a wise man, what's the bottom line? Well, he's been saying life is all in vain if you're not living for the Lord. So, what do you need to do? Fear God. Let me ask you this one: do you fear God? I'm not talking about fearing God like you're scared of him, like you're afraid to walk in the room, or you want to be real quiet when you walk in here because you want to be real reverent, like you don't want to disturb God, don't want to wake him up. I'm talking about do we fear God like we put him first above everything else? And all that we do in our life, do we fear God in the sense that as we're tempted to sin, we say, nope, I'm gonna show reverence to the Almighty God, Satan, get behind me, stand firm in his word. Do we fear God? We might fear discipline from our grandmama back in the day. Maybe we have a fear of those in authority, but do we truly fear God and not just fear him, do we keep his commandments? Do we keep the commandments of the Lord day in and day out? If we did, how would our life be different? How would the life of this church be different? I'm not saying that we're not keeping them, but just process that. Last verse. For God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil. Solomon wants to walk, wants us to walk after the ways of the Lord, and he reminds us at the end, oh, by the way, you can fool the people around you, you can fool the king, you can fool the policeman, you can fool all these people, but you cannot fool the Almighty God. Everything that's been done, it's gonna be judgment of that. That doesn't say everything that's been done that you got caught doing, by the way. It says everything, including the secret things, whether good or evil. I pray that as we leave today that we'll take into consideration what Solomon has said as we close out the book of Ecclesiastes, that life goes by fast. Vanity vanity, it's like a vapor, it goes by just like that. Will we remain faithful to the end? To fear him, to love him, and to keep his commandments. The Bible says that, you know, fearing the Lord, the beginning of the wisdom is to fear him, keep his commandments, right? So, two things to think about is do we fear him and we keep his commandments? And number two, do we understand the brevity of life and the need to be obedient to the end? You know the big news of the day, don't talk a lot about politics, but the big news of the day is the passing of Lindsey Graham. You hate it when that something happens and somebody dies instantly, politically, whether you like him or not, he's still a human being, right? And took him out just like that. How'd he die exactly? They're going to figure all that out. Okay. Same thing could happen to us before we get out these doors. The brevity of life. So my prayer is that here at New Hope, at our stage of life, for the four that are younger than me and all those that are older than me, let's remain faithful to the end, fearing God. And that's going to look different for us. There may come a time where those in this room may not be able to physically make it at church and we may have to stay home. We might have to have our names put on the shut-in list. But that doesn't mean we stop fearing God and don't obey his commandments. That's just all the more reason to love him and praise him and ask him for strength day by day to have purpose in each and every part of the day of your life until he calls you home. Let's be faithful to fear God and keep his commandments until we take our last breath. Why? So that in that last breath, the next breath you take per se, you would hear the Lord say, Well done, thy good, faithful servant. Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, thank you again for this day. Thank you, Father, for Solomon and His wisdom. Help us, Father, to give you thanks in all circumstances. Help us, Father, to know that you are in control, that you have a plan for our life. And as part of that plan includes death, I pray that you'll help us to accept it gracefully. But more than that, help us, Father, to remain faithful to you until we take that last breath. We love you. We pray now that you'll speak to our hearts and give us strength for this afternoon and wisdom to live our daily lives before you. We pray this, Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Savior. Amen.