The Bottom Line: Fear & Obey - Ecclesiastes 12:9-14 Series

Ecclesiastes 12:9 In addition to the Teacher being a wise man, he constantly taught the people knowledge; he weighed, explored, and arranged many proverbs. 10 The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and write words of truth accurately. 11 The sayings of the wise are like goads, and those from masters of collections are like firmly embedded nails. The sayings are given by one Shepherd. 12 But beyond these, my son, be warned: there is no end to the making of many books, and much study wearies the body. 13 When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is: fear God and keep His commands, because this is for all humanity. 14 For God will bring every act to judgment, including every hidden thing, whether good or evil.

Remember God

Before Adversity Comes

Is there anybody here who thinks you are all done suffering in this life, and you don’t think any big calamity is going to strike your life between now and when you die? If you do think that, you need to re-read Ecclesiastes. (And this time, pay attention.) If one thing was made clean in this book it is that we live in a fallen, futile, unpredictable world where just about the only thing you can really know for sure is that something will go wrong soon. And throughout the book he teaches us how to enjoy life in a world like that. Last week we had a long section about enjoying your youth. And the secret to doing that is in 12:1.

Ecclesiastes 12:1 Remember your Creator in the days of your youth: Before the days of adversity come

In the context, the days of adversity refer to the difficulties of old age. In order to be able to handle those days, you have to remember your Creator before those days come. Let’s think through the logic of that. Wouldn’t it make more sense to say, “Remember your Creator when you are old?” Why does future difficulty mean I should mean I should remember God now? That only makes sense if waiting until old age would be too late. That is the implication of what he is saying. If you wait until all these hard things happen, by then it could be too late to accomplish what needs to be accomplished. Any time you see warnings in the Bible that tell you to make sure to prepare for a crisis before the crisis arrives, the implication is that if you wait until it arrives, it will be too late. If you are going to be able to handle the hardships of old age, you are going to need some years of remembering your Creator prior to getting that old.

Recently I heard someone say, “I used to think that when men tend to get meaner when they get old. But now I no longer believe that. I think they were mean all along, but now they are just too tired to hide it like they used to.”

In many cases I think that’s true. We have various sins in our hearts – it might be anger, for someone else it might be worry, or laziness, or being a busybody, or pride. And when you are young, you have the internal strength to suppress the full expression of that sin. You don’t want everyone to see the ugliness of it, so you keep some limits on it. But when you get old that internal strength goes away, and you can no longer hide what is inside you. But if you remember your Creator while you are young, God can work on transforming those sinful traits into godly traits, so that when the strength goes away and people see the real you, what they see is good. That is one way it could prepare you. Another way is by simply giving you the spiritual strength and maturity to be able to have a right response to the hardships of old age.

And that principle applies not just to old age, but to any kind of adversity. Do you have a job now? Remember your Creator now, while you still have the job, so that when you lose your job you will be able to handle it. Is your liver still functioning – no dialysis? Remember your Creator now while you are still healthy. Is your marriage good? Good relationship with your kids? Do not wait until they go sour to remember your Creator because in many ways it will be too late. The point is, you need a running start of remembering your Creator prior to entering into the next calamity that is coming in your life. This is a broken, futile world, hardship is on the way, do not wait for it to hit to remember your Creator.