Grosey's Messages

Ecclesiastes 12

¹                Remember also your Creator in 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";² before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain,³ in the day when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those who look through the windows are dimmed,⁴ and the doors on the street are shut---when the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low---⁵ they are afraid also of what is high, and terrors are in the way; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along, and desire fails, because man is going to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the streets---⁶ before the silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is shattered at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern,⁷ and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.⁸ Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; all is vanity.

Fear God and Keep His Commandments

⁹                Besides being wise, the Preacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs with great care.¹⁰ The Preacher sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote words of truth.

¹¹              The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings; they are given by one Shepherd.¹² My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.

¹³              The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.¹⁴ For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

Eaton "It is twentieth-century man who is supremely troubled about being 'thrown into existence' and asks why is there something rather than nothing. Probably the twentieth century, at least in the Western world, is the most bored epoch the world has yet seen. 'Stop the world, I want to get off' is a popular cliché. Western intellectual tradition from Schopenhauer onwards has been preoccupied with 'life's ultimate certainty', the fact of death. Albert Camus wrote, 'There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.'¹

Modern man is also a striking confirmation that the universe sours when secularism grips his thinking. He loses his love of nature which becomes caught up in his weariness. 'The sun shone, having no alternative on the nothing new' begins a twentieth-century novel,² giving Ecclesiastes 1:3 a further turn of the screw. Similarly, history is no longer seen to have any purpose. The Judeo-Christian tradition with its linear view of history has been replaced either by some kind of determinism in which man, individually or collectively, plays no significant creative role and so has no meaning, or by a cyclical view in which all human achievement returns inevitably to chaos and so is ultimately futile.³

This purposelessness is no mere academic stance, but a hideous reality that permeates the consciousness of the whole of society and gnaws away mercilessly at the human soul. There is no exit. The universe is silent before all questions and mankind knows what Blaise Pascal meant in saying, 'I am terror stricken before the silence of infinite space.'⁴ He shuns talk about death as the Victorians shunned talk about sex. Meanwhile the 'man in the street' spends his time shielded by the television screen or by the popular newspapers with ready-packaged thinking and diverting entertainment.

To such a world Ecclesiastes has something to say. He does not come as a formal philosopher; it is a word from God he has to share, despite his reflective low-key approach. He does not present half-a-dozen arguments for the existence of God. Instead he picks up our own questions. Can you cope with life without having any idea where you are going? You don't have all the answers to life's enigmas, do you? Your neo-pagan view of life doesn't give you any hope of achieving very much, does it? Nature will not answer your questions, and you are bored by it anyway. History baffles your attempts to understand it. You don't like to think about your own death; yet it is the most certain fact about your existence.

What would it be like, asks the Preacher, if things were utterly different from what you thought? What if this world is not the ultimate one? What if God exists and is a rewarder of those who seek him? What if one of his supreme characteristics is his utter, incredible generosity, his willingness to give and give and give again, his utter acceptance of us just as we are? Could it be, asks this provocative and seemingly negative Preacher, that the barrenness and hideous purposelessness of life stems only from the fact that you will not believe in such a God?

We leave the Preacher there. His message is not complete, for he lived before the full light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He saw 'afar off', and still leaves us with some questions. How can God accept us in such a way? What is the explanation of the hideous mess of this world? On what grounds can he feel confident that some future judgment will put it all right? Is there not a missing link in all this? The missing link is Jesus Christ the Son of God. It is in Christ, the Saviour and sin-bearer, that God says to us: 'God is reconciled to you … You be reconciled to God' (2 Cor. 5:18ff.). He has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man whom he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead (Acts 17:31).

The whole section is a sustained call to decision, presented in such a way as to call attention to the nature of that decision. We must respond to God without delay, in whole-hearted faith, whether life is adverse or comfortable, for we are marching towards the day of our death.

Perhaps you struggle with these yourself or know someone who does. Being aware of these common pitfalls can help equip you to counter them with compassion and godly perspective.

First, some struggle with the sense of uselessness: "I'm over the hill, in the way, and have nothing to contribute anymore." This sentiment is especially prevalent among people who were once prominent, resourceful, and highly respected. Kenneth Gangel catches this idea well when he writes concerning the feelings of many retirees, "Above all the physical and emotional changes looms the question, 'Who am I now?'"1

Another feeling that often grows with age is guilt. People think, I blew it! If only I could go back and give life a second try, but I can't. A poem by Thomas S. Jones, Jr illustrates these feelings of remorse, regret, and guilt.

SOMETIMES

Across the fields of yesterday
He sometimes comes to me,
A little lad just back from play—
The lad I used to be.

And yet he smiles so wistfully
Once he has crept within,
I wonder if he hopes to see
The man I might have been

Experiencing an occasional "what if" in life is normal and can actually help us make decisions for the remainder of our lives, but dwelling on the lives we could have lived or imagining the person we could have been is fruitless. We can't change the past, only our attitudes toward it.

A third common feeling among the aging is a combination of bitterness and resentment. These feelings result in thoughts of self-pity: "I have been so mistreated. My life would have been so much better if it hadn't been for such-and-such. I've had it rough!" There are few people more difficult to be around than those who have lost the battle against bitterness. They are hardened, unpleasant, and brittle. What they lack is a perspective like Joseph's. Though severely mistreated by his own brothers who sold him into slavery, Joseph held fast to his faith in God's enduring presence and sovereignty over the events of his life, concluding, "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive" (Genesis 50:20).

Perhaps you're holding on to bitterness. You know it's wrong to refuse to let go, but the feeling seems so justified! The Bible doesn't deny that unjust things happen; they do. But it teaches that God is the One who will avenge, not us. God's Word challenges us to forgive despite what's been done to us.

A final feeling that often heightens with age is fear. "I'm so afraid of losing my home! What if I get sick? I'm scared to be alone." As we age we face several realistic fears, but much of the time we imagine the worst-case scenarios and plan our lives around things that may never happen! Irrational fears can rob us of all the potential joy we could experience in life. Christ told us that rather than fear the people and things of our temporal existence, we should fear (revere) God, who has complete control of all things (Matthew 10:28).

Rejoice 11:9,10

Remember

As the years of our lives slip away, we're less dependent on birthdays to remind us that we're getting older. Stiff joints, gray hair, and poor eyesight point out the obvious. Many of us try to fight the effects of time with vitamins, hair growth formulas, and antiaging creams, while others simply ignore it. But none of us can stop the steady march of time.

The question for those of us living in the real world shouldn't be, "How can we stop aging?" but, "What can we do with the time we've got?" Accordingly, Ecclesiastes 12:1–8 presents a realistic picture of the aging process and couples it with some down-to-earth advice: don't put off your relationship with God and the enjoyment of His good gifts; remember Him today.

Remembering our Creator means more than just thinking about Him now and then. It means keeping Him at the forefront of our minds so His will affects our attitudes and actions. The important thing to realize from this verse is that we're exhorted to remember God while we are young, not to put it off until we're older. Solomon told his readers that as we age, we will find it more difficult to remember God and to enjoy the good days He's given us as a gift. Sorrow and guilt will rob us of our peace and joy, and our adjustment to the difficulties of aging will be even more challenging.

Solomon described in vivid terms the "dark days" that are coming upon all of us who reach old age. His description serves as a reminder that we ought to remember God and his good gifts today.

Solomon gives us a poetic picture of getting older. Let's work our way through this passage looking at the phrases he chooses:

The day when the keepers of the house tremble. Those are your arms and hands. As we get older, they begin to shake and tremble more.

And the strong men bow down. Knees and shoulders grow weaker, more frail as we age, bending and bowing and slumping.

When the grinders cease because they are few. What are "grinders"? Your teeth, of course! We can be thankful for improved dental care, but we still lose a tooth every now and then.

And those that look through the windows grow dim. Are you getting the idea? Our eyes, the windows of mind and body. No one had spectacles in Solomon's time; they had to live with blurry vision.

When the doors are shut in the streets, and the sound of the grinding is low. Our ears and our hearing begin to fail. We can't hear the old street sounds or the mills grinding away.

When one rises up at the sound of a bird. Teenagers can sleep until noon, but that's a skill we lose as we age. We old-timers are up with the chickens. My parents used to stay at our house. No matter what time I got up in the morning, my dad was sitting at the kitchen table. I'd ask him, "Dad, did you go to bed last night?" Sure—he just liked those early hours.

And all the daughters of music are brought low. Your voice starts to quiver and weaken. You don't sing as loudly or clearly as you once did.

Also they are afraid of height, and of terrors in the way. We become much less eager to climb ladders and stairways as we grow older. We don't even like a high curb.

When the almond tree blossoms. What tree blossoms as you grow older? Your hair puts forth white shoots! Rather than informing your spouse you've spotted another gray hair, why not say, "Nice almond tree, honey!"

The grasshopper is a burden. By summer's end, grasshoppers lose their hop. They're more like "grasslimpers."

And desire fails. You can work this one out for yourself. Hint: there's a whole new line of pharmaceuticals to help.

For man goes to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the streets. This is referring to the unavoidable funeral and funeral procession.

Solomon goes on in verse 6 to give us four images of what it's like to die.

Fallen. Crashed. Shattered. Broken. These are all images of lost beauty. Together their picture is heartbreaking.

Then again, Art Linkletter once said that it's better to be over the hill than under it. Whatever life is for us, wherever we find ourselves in age or stage, every moment is a gift of God—brightly wrapped, waiting to be opened, admired, and delighted in. The bittersweet nature of loss makes the present more precious; knowing that the silver cord will one day slip away, we cherish it all the more while it is in our hands.

Reflect

1. We must face the fact that we aren't getting any younger. Ignoring old age won't make it go away. Aging is inevitable and can propel us toward greater dependence on and a deeper relationship with God. But if we fail to remember our Creator today, our golden years can become "dark days," rather than the joyful times He intends.

Now is the time to prepare for eternity. Preparing for retirement is commendable, but it's nothing when compared to the importance of investing in the eternal relationship we have with God. The Lord wants us to entrust our lives to Him so we can enjoy His presence endlessly. If we see the effects of aging as signposts that point to our heavenly home, we'll be all the more ready to endure them with patience and even joy.

Reverence  fear the Lord

God has designed us to be empty without Him. As we've seen before, Augustine once prayed to God, "You stir man to take pleasure in praising you, because you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."⁸ Our souls will have no peace in life until we remember our Creator. The process of aging and the inevitable tough times in life will only make it more difficult to turn to God if we continue to delay a complete surrender of our lives to Him.