WWUTT 1754 Fear God and Obey His Commands (Ecclesiastes 12:5-14)

The meaning and purpose to your life and mine is to fear God and obey

His commands, for God will bring everything into judgment. And our Judge and Savior is

Jesus Christ, when we understand the text. This is

When We Understand The Text, teaching through a New Testament book on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and a

Q &A on Friday. With our Old Testament study today, here's Pastor Gabe. Thank you,

Becky. Well, we'll see, God willing, if we can finish up Ecclesiastes today.

We still have the remainder of Chapter 12 to get through, and I'm going to start out by reading all 14 verses out of the

Legacy Standard Bible. This is the Word of the Lord through the Preacher, writing in the book of Ecclesiastes.

Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth. Before the evil days happen, and the years draw near, in which you will say,

I have no delight in them. Before the sun and the light, the moon and the stars are darkened, and clouds return after the rain.

In the day that the watchmen of the house tremble, and valiant men bend down, the grinding ones stand idle because they are few, and those who look through windows grow dark.

And the doors on the street are shut as the sound of the grinding mill is low, and one will arise at the sound of the bird, and all the daughters of song will sing softly.

Furthermore, men are afraid of a high place, and terrors on the road, the almond tree blooms, the grasshopper drags itself along, and the caperberry is ineffective, for man goes to his eternal home, but the mourners go about in the street.

Remember him before the silver cord is snapped, and the golden bowl is crushed, the pitcher by the spring is broken, 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. In addition to being a wise man, the preacher also taught the people knowledge, and he pondered, searched out and arranged many proverbs.

The preacher sought to find delightful words, and words of truth written uprightly.

The words of wise men are like goads, and masters of these collections are like well -driven nails, they are driven by one shepherd.

But in addition to this, my son, be warned, the making of many books is endless, and much devotion to books is wearying to the flesh.

The end of the matter, all that has been heard, fear God, and keep his commandments, because this is the end of the matter for all mankind.

For God will bring every work to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.

A few years ago, I had been invited to speak at a baccalaureate, and in case you don't know what that is, it's like a graduation service, but more

Christian themed. Graduations at public school, they don't often let you do a whole lot of preaching.

I've always wanted to be invited to speak at a graduation. I've always wanted to do that, but I've never been invited to speak at one.

I have spoken at many baccalaureates, including my own. When I was 18, graduated high school, I was the keynote speaker at my own baccalaureate.

What's interesting is I remember a little bit about what I spoke about when I was 18. I've had people come up to me since then who were at that baccalaureate and said they remember things that I said there.

They can't ever remember any other graduation speech, but they remember certain things that I said at that baccalaureate.

That's really touching. That was even before I had aspirations of becoming a pastor or anything like that.

Anyway, so this one baccalaureate that I had been invited to come and speak at, I had already decided that I was going to speak on Ecclesiastes 12.

That was going to be my text, and from that text was going to encourage the graduates. When I got there on the program, at the very front of the program, what did they have printed there?

But Ecclesiastes 12, 1. That was the theme verse for their baccalaureate, and nobody had even told me that, and I had told no one what my passage was going to be speaking on.

It was just one of those providential things. God had his hand in the matter. So here we have, at the start of Ecclesiastes 12, 1, we'll recap what we had considered last week because we have these interesting images depicting the end of life.

The preacher says, remember also your creator in the days of your youth.

Store up the promises of your creator in your heart so that when the days get hard, you have had a mind that has been conformed to these things from long ago, and it makes it easier to deal with those days that look dark and bleak, and it's difficult for you to find joy in them, especially when you consider that your body is breaking down.

That's what's being depicted here in Ecclesiastes 12, the ageness of the body and how difficult it is to find joy in the days when you don't have any energy to get up out of your chair.

So remember your creator in the days of your youth before the evil days happen and the years draw near in which you will say,

I have no delight in them. Now, at this particular baccalaureate that I was speaking at,

I told these high schoolers, I was 29 at the time, and I said to them, if I could go back and do high school and college over again,

I would have read my Bible more and I would have prayed more. Now, they couldn't go back and do high school over again.

That was over for them. But they could enact those disciplines before they hit college.

That's what I wish I could have done more, spending more time in God's word, letting my mind and my heart be conformed to his will.

And it's not too late for you either to implement that in your life, that you would meditate on the commands of God and the promises of God, equipping your heart for those days when things get really, really hard.

And you're going to be glad that those promises of God are there, that you can cling to them and hold on to them.

And you know that what God has said in his word is going to pull you through. As Paul talked about in 2

Corinthians 1, these things happen to us that we would rely not on ourselves, but on God, more upon the

Lord who raises the dead. And so here the preacher is also advising the younger and saying, remember your creator in the days of your youth before the days get really hard, before it even gets so cloudy upstairs that you find it difficult to learn anything new.

And so the preacher goes on to say in verse 2, before the sun and the light, the moon and the stars are darkened and clouds return after the rain.

And as I had mentioned last week, this is like the countenance of one's face. The joy that can be demonstrated in a person's face, it falls.

They don't see joy in the world anymore. Because remember, the days of evil have come in which this preacher finds no delight in So you don't see that brightness of his face anymore, that vigor in his eye, that longing and that desire for tomorrow, ready to tackle the next day.

Because for this guy, there's not going to be a next day. These days are very, very short for him.

And so it's looking darker and darker as he gets nearer to the end. So the sun and the light, the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain.

Now, last week, I mentioned that that indicated like seasons change.

Seasons are always changing. Nothing is going to stop what it is that's going to happen, especially considering that the preacher is nearing the end of his life.

He's going to die and he can't turn that back. I have gone back and read that and meditated on that further.

And I don't really think that's the indication of that phrase there in verse 2. And clouds return after the rain.

I think rain is a reference to tears because we're talking about the days of evil are here.

He finds no delight in the days of evil. The light has dimmed for him.

And so the rain represents tears. And even after crying, the clouds return and he doesn't see any light at the end of his tears.

The days are still kind of bleak and dark and the end is imminent. I think that's more what's being indicated there by that imagery.

As we go on in verse 3, in the day that the watchmen of the house tremble and valiant men bend down, these men were once brave warriors.

The watchman who is willing to stand in the face of any advancing evil and warn the people of what was coming.

But the watchman doesn't have that courage anymore. He's trembling now, just like an old man's knees will shake and valiant men bend down.

Those guys that were upright of spine and broad of shoulder. And now the age that has come upon their body causes them to be hunched over.

The grinding ones stay idle because they are few talking about the teeth, losing teeth, not even really eating all that much anymore.

And those who look through windows grow dark. The eye changes shape. Images become dim, blurry, difficult to focus.

And the doors on the street are shut as the sound of the grinding mill is low and one will arise at the sound of the bird and all the daughters of song will sing softly.

This is the rooster crowing before dawn. Indicating that even the night, even the darkness in which the preacher is living is about to come to an end, not in a good way, not leading to a new day, but leading to the end of life.

Verse five. Furthermore, men are afraid of a high place and of terrors on the road.

The almond tree blooms, the grasshopper drags itself along and the caperberry is ineffective.

For man goes to his eternal home, but the mourners go about in the street. And so here at this point in verse five, the preacher dies, goes to his eternal home.

And the people who are left, his friends and his family mourn for the loss of him.

Now, that statement before that about men are afraid of a high place and of terrors on the road.

This is just a metaphorical way of saying that an old man can't walk by himself anymore.

He used to just like a valiant man used to be able to go anywhere he wanted and he was not afraid of any attackers on the road.

But this man has come of such age that if anybody were to attack him, he wouldn't be able to fend them off.

He's not really talking about it in that sense. He's not saying I can't walk over to this neighboring city because attackers might get me.

Again, it's a metaphorical way of saying that he can't walk anywhere on his own. He has to be led by the arm.

He needs somebody to help him stand up. The almond tree blooms. What color is the almond tree when it blooms?

It's covered with white flowers. So this is a reference to white hair. The grasshopper drags itself along.

Now, this is a reference to the old man being hunched over, as was said earlier.

But even that his spine kind of sticks out when he's hunched over and his legs don't work like they used to.

So he's kind of looking like a grasshopper, but not one that jumps to and fro, rather one that maybe has lost a leg and he's kind of dragging himself here and there.

The caperberry is ineffective. Now, the interesting thing about that word, this is the only place in the whole

Bible that word appears and many translations don't even use it because some of the

Bible translators don't even know what it means. The caperberry is an appetite stimulant.

And so for the old man, the caperberry, it doesn't increase his appetite. He doesn't want to eat at all. And so kind of what

I mentioned last week, one that loses his appetite, those that are particularly elderly, they will begin to eat less and less and their body wastes away more and more.

So the caperberry is ineffective for man goes to his eternal home, but the mourners go about in the street.

He goes on living, but he lives somewhere else. And those who are left behind are left only to mourn.

Now, what's interesting here is that the preacher does not talk about going on to a place in which he will dwell in joy forever.

The Bible is very scant on references to that in the Old Testament.

We don't have much said about what the afterlife is going to be like. It's really not until Jesus comes and he tells us what will happen after we rise from the dead, whether the soul goes on living or Jesus returns and our bodies are even raised from the dead.

But those kinds of things were very mysterious to an Old Testament people until Jesus came from heaven to say what that place will be like.

There was certainly a hopefulness that the people of the Old Testament had, because as it says in Hebrews chapter 11, they long for a kingdom that was not of this world.

So they had a desire for something that was more than just a land promise, because if it was only about a land promise, then they would have had the opportunity to return to that land.

But they desire a better kingdom that is a heavenly one. It says there in Hebrews 11.

So there's hints of that in the Old Testament, but not much is said about what life will be like after we die.

So even here you have man going to his eternal home, but not much said about that.

Just that the mourners who are left behind here on earth, because that's kind of the focus. That's the perspective of everything in Ecclesiastes, our earthly perspective.

It's really not from a heavenly perspective. It's the perspective that we have here on earth. Hence why the preacher says all is vanity, which we get to again in verse eight.

Verse six, remember him before the silver cord is snapped and the golden bowl is crushed.

References to dying and going on to live elsewhere.

The picture by the spring is broken. That water of life, that vitality we once used to be full of is now emptied and gone and the wheel at the cistern is crushed.

The drive that a person once had no longer there because they have passed on verse seven.

Then the dust will return to the earth as it was and the spirit will return to God who gave it again.

We've got hints there of what is coming after we die.

Now that statement in particular, the body returns to the dust that it was formed from the spirit.

The soul goes back to God who gave it. That's true for a person who knows the

Lord and for a person who doesn't know God. A person who fears God and a person who has lived in rebellion all their lives, a person who knows

Christ and a person who has rejected the gospel. That statement in verse seven is the same for both.

The soul goes back to the one who gave it. The body goes into the ground, whether you're a believer or an unbeliever.

But as it says in Hebrews, it is appointed for a man to die once and after that comes judgment.

And so for the unbeliever, the soul goes to be in the presence of God and they receive judgment for whether they knew

Jesus Christ. If they followed Christ, they will enter into eternal life. If they did not know

Christ, they will be cast into eternal damnation. Verse eight, vanity of vanity, says the preacher.

All is vanity. Once again, reiterating that everything is futile. Nothing can stop this direction for anybody.

Every person dies. If there's one statistic that is statistically true for every single person, it's one out of every one person dies.

You won't live forever. You will die. So make sure your soul is right with God.

And that's only through faith in Jesus Christ. He who died for our sins and rose from the dead, conquering death so that whoever believes in him will not perish, but will have everlasting life.

John 3 16. Anything else is futility. And so finishing up quickly here, verses nine through 14, this this kind of appendix that's added on to Ecclesiastes, and it really seems to be added on after the preacher has died because whoever it is that's written this postlude is speaking of the preacher in past tense.

In addition to being a wise man, the preacher also taught the people knowledge and he pondered, searched out and arranged many proverbs.

Who else could that describe but Solomon? The preacher sought to find delightful words and words of truth written uprightly.

And indeed, these are the words of God. What we have from Solomon in Psalms, there's a there's a psalm that is attributed to Solomon.

What we have in the book of Proverbs, what we have in Ecclesiastes, all of this came from Solomon. Now, the interesting thing about Solomon, as you know, his story, he turned from the

Lord and was raising up high places to false gods to honor his pagan wives who wanted to worship their pagan gods.

And because he had done this wicked thing, God said to him that he would take his kingdom from him, not during Solomon's lifetime, but it would be torn between his sons.

And you have the split kingdom into the northern and the southern kingdom. And so because of that, because that's the way

Solomon's life ends. He's never spoken about positively in the New Testament positively in the sense that, like, for example, in a

Hebrew in Hebrews 11, he's not mentioned as a hero of the faith because he ended up worshiping false gods at the end of his life.

The indication here, though, seems to be that Solomon had repented.

This conclusion to Ecclesiastes, even though Solomon had done this wicked thing at the end of his life, we have a good reason to believe that he repented.

Nonetheless, he's not spoken of very positively after this so that no one will think they can do the same thing that Solomon did and still come out of that.

OK, it is not OK that someone goes after the world or after false gods.

So may we learn from Solomon's failure and not repeat the same mistakes that he made, but what

God blessed him to write down in the portions of Scripture that came from Solomon. Those things are the word of God.

They were inspired by the Holy Spirit. As said in Second Peter, chapter one, no man spoke any prophecy from himself, but men were carried along by the

Holy Spirit. And so Ecclesiastes written in that same divine spirit of truth, words written up rightly.

Verse 11, the words of wise men are like goads in the masters of these collections, like well driven nails, goads guide an animal.

It's painful. You'll strike the animal on the side so that it will stay on the right path. Nails hold up a building.

They hold up a structure. They're like well driven nails and they are given by one shepherd.

So even though Solomon is probably the guy that wrote all these words down, they were given by God.

They belong to the Lord. This is the word of God that guides us. Verse 12.

But in addition to this, my son be warned, the making of many books is endless.

I mean, think about it. We could write books the rest of our lives. You would never have written enough books. People are still writing books.

You don't have enough days in your life to read all of the books that have been written. And much devotion to books is wearying to the flesh.

If you sit down and you read a book and that's all you do for the rest of your life, you really don't come out on the other end of that a better person because your body is going to waste away if all you're doing is sitting around and reading books.

You've got to put the things that you learn into action, put them into practice. Otherwise, it's just the making of books is endless.

Devotion to reading books is weary. And so we have in verse 13, the end of the matter.

And I've said this repeatedly as we've gone through Ecclesiastes together. This is the purpose and the duty of every single person.

After all has been heard, we are to understand this. Fear God and keep his commandments.

Because this is the end of the matter. This is the duty for all mankind.

What is meaning and purpose? What is God's purpose for your life? The answer, fear

God and keep his commands. Verse 14, for God will bring every work to judgment, everything which is hidden.

Understand even the thoughts that you think God knows them before you're even aware of them, whether it is good or evil, all things will be brought into subjection.

God has the final say over all of it. So fear God and obey him. And that's our study in the book of Ecclesiastes.

So to finish out here is we kind of do our doxology here at the very end. Let me repeat these last two verses.

And that will be our close to our study in the book of Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes 12, verses 13 to 14.

The end of the matter, all that has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments.

Because this is the end of the matter for all mankind. For God will bring every work to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.

And all God's people said, amen. This has been When We Understand the

Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt

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