The Whole Duty of Man (Ecclesiastes 12)

Ecclesiastes 12

Sunday, August 29, 2021

The Whole Duty of Man

Intro

Job description

Recap

We come this morning to the end of the book of Ecclesiastes. In this unique book of the Bible, we have been trying to see with all that is vanity in the world around us, and the end being death, how do we rightly live in the here and now.

We have been reminded that there is a time for everything, including life and death. We have learned that we are to enjoy God’s gift to us in life. We have seen how wisdom is better than folly, yet wisdom remains elusive.

And just last week in chapter 11 we saw that we are called to rejoice in the days of light and beware of many days of darkness will come. And this morning we pick back up with that theme as we are called to remember something else.

Main Point

Our whole duty as man is to fear and obey God, for he is our creator and shepherd.

Points

Remember your Creator

Teachings of the Shepherd

The whole duty of man

Remember your Creator (12:1-8)

The command to Remember (12:1)

Last week in chapter 11:8 we saw a call to remember that the days of darkness will be many as a warning to not be surprised when they come. Here as our section of text this morning begins with another call to remember. This time we are called to remember also our creator. Solomon, the Preacher-King did not mince his words regarding the evil that is under the sun. But as he wraps up everything, he points us to remember the creator in our youth.

Why Remember in youth? (12:2-8)

We will deal with what it means to remember the creator in a moment, but first we need to understand this clarification in days of your youth. Does youth mean simply an age category? Partially, but it can also be referring to the youth of one’s life while there is still time. Notice how verse 1 continues clarifying the days of one’s youth. It says, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, “I have no pleasure in them.” Days are coming where we will not have pleasure in life, especially as death comes knocking at the door. This is why Solomon calls these the evil days. It is not so much as evil days of wickedness in this case, as the failure to be able to enjoy life.

Evil Days described

Notice how these evil days are described:

Before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain.

In other words, the light of life is going out, there is nothing but darkness, particularly in one’s eyes and life. This is further echoed in the use of the windows dimmed there in verse 3. But it’s not just one’s eyes and life that fade in these dark days, it is the whole body. For it says there in verse 3:

Keepers of house tremble; strong men bent and grinders cease; (12:3) & Doors are shut; sound of grinding is low (12:4)

The keeper of the house here is an analogy for the body. For the whole of the body begins to shut down in these dark days of life. The strong become weak and frail. The grinders grow weak to the point of not being able to chew. In fact, the body becomes so frail in these dark days, that we see here in verse 5, even we grow afraid of what is high to the point even that of our desire failing. These are the evil days being described and warned against.

The reason for this warning is, we must be reminded that these days are coming for us all. In fact, I remember as a child giving my dad a hard time about being completely white by the time he was, well, my age. And always struggling to maintain weight. Well, here I am now 20 something years later and my body has aches and pains that I never dreamed of having, and the journey has just begun. Age has a way of catching up to us all, and it will only continue to do so. That is what these descriptions are trying to paint. Our bodies tremble and become bent over. Teeth begin to decay, eyes grow weak and dim. We struggle to hear, motivation and desire to do things slowly begins to cease to exist. These are the evil days that Solomon is talking about. And finally following these evil days, death comes.

Death comes for all

Death is the end of all mankind in life under the sun. Life is drained out of our fleshly bodies and they will return to the dust as they are laid in the ground. Nothing can stop it, nothing can keep death from closing in on us. As we all know too well in this past week in the passing of our dear brother. And thankfully death is not victorious for those in Christ! There is resurrection hope. Yet, even in the midst of that resurrection hope, we must see the reality of death’s coming blow for each of us to shape the way we live beforehand! This is what Solomon is trying to get at as he calls us to remember our creator in our youth. He knows what is coming! Just notice how he describes the blow of death upon all of us there at the end of verse 5 through verse 6. As the silver cord is snapped, the golden bowl is broken, the pitcher shattered at the fountain or the wheel broken at the cistern and water flows out of the containers, so our life will flood out of us. This is the reality, while it may not be a positive and uplifting message, it is what is true that awaits each of us at the end of our life here in the flesh, apart from Christ returning sooner. This is why the Preacher-King gives one last vanity of vanities there in verse 8. He reminds us all that all is vanity, that our lives are a vapor, a mist. They are here today and gone tomorrow. Therefore, we must remember our Creator in the here and now, the days of our youth, before this death blow comes! For it will come without warning, and if we delay in remembering our creator now, we may find it too late by putting it off.

Remember the Creator who we belong to

But, how do we remember our creator in the days of our youth, the days we have? First, we need to remember our creator made us, therefore we belong to him. Greg Gilbert, pastor of Third Avenue Baptist Church in Louisville, KY and author of What is the gospel? writes in that book, “None of us is autonomous, and understanding that fact is key to understanding the gospel. Despite our constant talk of rights and liberty, we are not really as free as we would think. We are created. We are made. And therefore we are owned.

If we fail to remember our creator, we fail to see that it is he who owns us and he who is to determine how we live. We must remember this and allow this truth to shape our lives and how we seek to live them. For in our belonging to God, it is to God whom we will give an account to on the day we stand before Him in judgement. In verse 14 it says….

That secret hatred we thought was covered is revealed as we stand before God in judgement. That secret dark desire that we thought no one knew about, God knew. All of these things are revealed before God when we go to stand before him. Nothing will remain hidden. The good or evil we have done in secret will be made known. And left to ourselves, that sin would leave us remaining guilty before God, destined to an eternity of punishment for our crime in hell. This is the punishment for our turning against the creator in sin.

Remember the Creator who pursues us.

Likewise, as we remember our creator, we remember the one who pursues us, despite our sin.

But, despite this wickedness, God has pursued a people for himself. He revealed himself to Abraham in Genesis 12, to Moses in Egypt. God appeared to Joshua, to Samuel, to Isaiah and the other prophets. In each of these, as God made himself known, God invited the people to enter into a covenant relationship with him. A binding promise that was not to be broken. And God has never broken the covenant, but we as man have. Israel did this as they even in the moments God was giving them the law at Sinai, they turned and created a golden calf to falsely worship. They began to go after foreign gods as they desired to be like the other nations instead of how God had called them to act. Our God, the creator of the heavens and the earth continues to pursue hearts, even as he has continually been rejected.

When the prophets were rejected, God continued his pursuit of us, this time by sending his own beloved Son. Jesus came to die on the cross in order to rescue us from sin and death and to restore us to the Father. God did not spare his own Son, so that we could have life. Jesus came to stand in the gap so that our relationship with God could be restored. We need to remember this creator who has gone to great lengths to pursue us!

Christian, we remember our creator in our youth as we remember the God who pursued us in the midst of our sin to rescue us. In remembering this glorious gospel truth, we are able to embrace the grace and mercy of God, and our hearts swell with thanksgiving and love to God.

And friend, if you are here this morning, and you have not remembered your creator, do you really think that you can escape death? Do you think you can escape your creator in judgement? Do you really think that you will somehow be okay in your sin? Remember, God created you, he owns you, and your only hope is by turning and believing that Jesus came to save you from your sin. Repent of that sin today, and place your faith in Jesus! For he alone is the way, the truth, and the life. No one will come to the Father, apart from faith in Jesus.

There is a great need for us to remember our creator so that we can understand the importance of who he is and why it is important for us to be ready to stand before him. For it is this creator that Solomon has been over and over trying to point us to and teach us about. We need to come and live life under the Son, not the sun. And it is to this teaching that we turn our attention to in our second point, follow true and wise teaching.

The Teachings of the Shepherd

The Preacher’s teaching

As we enter into verse 9, the Preacher-King has wrapped up his teaching of wisdom. Someone comes in to close the letter for him or a shift of perspective shifts. For as the letter is being closed we see the Preacher’s teaching being commended for teaching them both wisdom and knowledge, and his careful handling of many proverbs to live by. Yet more importantly the preacher wrote words of truth.

Teachings and Sayings given by ONE SHEPHERD

Yet, in reality these words and teachings did not come from Solomon, they were given by one Shepherd. Solomon declared the things given to him to the people of Israel. He aimed to pass on what was given to him to others. Notice in fact how it describes the words and sayings given by the Shepherd there in verse 11.

The words of the wise being described as goads. A goad is something that stimulates or drives a certain reaction. There are sticks called goads as well that are used specifically for driving cattle and other farm animals. And this is exactly what the words of the wise do for us, it drives us and stimulates us to wise living as we hear words of truth that have been carefully thought through and handled. Likewise, the collected sayings are said to be like nails firmly fixed. In other words, there is a permanence to them.

Christian, do you realize that the words of the Shepherd are exactly what we are studying here right now in the preaching and teaching of the word? These words are firmly fixed like nails driven in. They aren’t meant to come out. The word given by the Shepherd, by God is eternal, it lasts. That’s why 2,000 years after Jesus came, we are still gathering and preaching this word week in and week out. These words given by the One Shepherd then are to be for our instruction. This preaching is the primary part of our gathering. It has nothing to do with the one preaching, whether it is me or someone else. The preaching has to do with the one we proclaim, Jesus, the Christ. For it all points to him! All the wise words, all the sayings point us to Jesus. And it is these words that we are to take and hold tightly to and treasure up in our hearts.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 also tells us this in saying, All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. The words of the Shepherd then to be treasured up used to equip us and lead us to the good work of the Lord.

Beware of anything beyond these.

But if to store God’s timeless and fixed word in our hearts is to be commended, we must heed warning to things outside of God’s word. While there might be partial truths in other books, other teachings, there is nothing that is as timeless as God’s word. And this is why in verse 12 we read a warning to beware of anything beyond these given words from the One Shepherd. For there is no end to books and many things we could study, yet we must be careful in what we put before our eyes.

Learning is not being called into doubt or question here, but the means in which we approach it. The study of many books and the making of more books will not help us to understand eternity or life any better. The only way to understand the world in which we live is by understanding the God who created the heavens and the earth and learning to live well in between our time to be born and our time to die. That’s it. And it is this simple truth that Solomon has labored so hard to show us and point us to. In fact, he makes it really clear for us in verse 13….

The End of the matter is that we are to Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. And this is where we turn in our final point this morning, fear and obey God.

The Whole Duty of Man

The end of the matter has come, what we need to do as we remember the Creator and listen to his teachings is to Fear God and keep his commandments. That is how we are to live in this life. Our purpose, the meaning of our life is found in these two commands.

Fear God

Starting first with the fear of God. In our attempt to explain the fear of God through the years, words like to be in awe of God have been used. However, that limits the understanding of what it means to fear God. To fear God is to yes be in awe of God, but it is to cause us to tremble before him. This is exactly what happened to Ezekiel as he saw the glory of the LORD in Ezekiel 1:28, it says, Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness all around. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. And when I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of one speaking.

To behold the glory of the LORD should cause us to tremble at his majesty and glory. And this trembling is the type of fear that we are called. But this fear differs from sinful fear. Sinful fear would cause us to turn and run from the LORD. A right fear of the LORD though causes us to lean more into the LORD, bowing ourselves in worship and submission to him. Or as Charles Spurgeon says, “It is a fear that leans toward the Lord because of his goodness.”

As God’s mercy and grace are revealed to us, as his holiness is revealed to us, as we see his faithfulness to uphold his word, then we are to grow in our fear of God, trembling at the thought of being in his presence. How could we as sinners be in the presence of such a mighty and holy God? And yet, God indeed has invited us to be in his presence by His grace in Christ.

There is an older Weslyan Hymn from 1738 called And Can it Be:

And can it be that I should gain

An int'rest in the Savior's blood?

Died He for me, who caused His pain?

For me, who Him to death pursued?

Amazing love! how can it be

That Thou, my God, should die for me?

When we recognize this glory of the LORD, and contemplate how this should not be, but by his amazing love that he has invited us to come before him, into his holy presence, how can we not tremble with a right fear of the Almighty?

How to grow in the fear of God

Part of growing in the fear of the LORD is simply remembering the Creator God who made us in his image. But another way we can grow in the fear of God is continuing to grow in our Theology. Theology simply means the study of God. Christian, each and everyone of us are called to study the deep things of God in order to know the one who has rescued us from our sin. We are to continue growing in this knowledge until the day of our death, for our God is worthy of being studied and known deeper.

One more way to grow in this fear of the LORD is better Bible reading. Too many in our day merely turn to devotional books instead of taking time to sit down and read the Bible in its context. So open your Bible and read. And as you read, ask yourself what is this section or chunk of text revealing about God himself?

These are just a few helps to help us grow in the fear of the LORD more. And a right fear of the LORD will then help us to keep the commandments of our God.

Keep his commandments

For fearing God and keeping his commandments go together. Neither are a means of earning God’s forgiveness. Both the fear of God and the keeping of his commandments flow out of our salvation in Christ. This is a freeing thing for those of us in Christ. For our salvation is not dependent upon our own ability to measure up to God’s holy law. However, our obedience is a sign of a transformed life. And there is no salvation apart from a transformed life. For when we recognize that we stand guilty and sin and the grace that God has offered us in Christ, it cannot leave us unchanged. The message of the gospel will lead us to faith and the obedience of that same faith.

And Christ himself summed up the whole of the commandments that we are to keep in Matthew 22:34-40:

But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."

Christian, these are the commandments that we are to keep in loving God with all our heart, soul, and mind. And then to love our neighbor as ourselves. Our struggle to keep these commands is rooted in our failure to fear God as we fail to know Him and see the depth of his love that was poured out for us on the cross.

Christian, let us not take this love for granted. Behold your God and marvel at what he has done. And let that marvel cause us to see the job description given to us to fear God and keep his commandments. This is the whole duty of man, and this is how we are to live in light of death being the end. Let’s pray...