Untitled Sermon

The Conclusion of the Matter

Text: Ecclesiastes 8:7-8; 12:13

Theme: A persons battle for eternity is won or lost in this life.

Anyone who has ever read the Book of Ecclesiastes will recognize that it has an almost haunting theme. Its text is melancholy and even cynical. King Solomonthe author of this book has taken a look at life and concluded that much, if not all of it, is meaningless. And he tells us so in no uncertain terms! In the very first chapter, we read these words:

Meaningless! Meaningless! says the Teacher. Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless. (Gosh Solomon, tell us what you really think!) What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises. The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again. (Ecclesiastes 1:27, NIV)

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1:9, NIV)

I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind! I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. (Ecclesiastes 1:1214, NIV)

Solomon is telling his audience, Look, chasing after the wind is a futile effort. Even if you could catch it, what do you have?

The rest of the book continues in the same bleak and disillusioned tone. The author tells us that he has carefully looked at life for meaning and found none. He tells us that wisdom, the pursuit of pleasure, toil and hard work, riches and material wealth are all meaningless. Solomon reaches a crescendo of fatalism in chapters eight and nine when he says that all men, whether righteous or wicked, whether good or bad, whether spiritually clean or spiritually unclean, whether they offer sacrifices to God or not, all face a common destiny. That destiny is death. Well isnt that a cheery thought on this Lords Day? Solomon tells us: As no man has power over the wind to contain it; so no one has power over the day of his death. As no one is discharged in time of war, so wickedness will not release those who practice it. (Ecclesiastes 8:8) NIV

In this one verse, the author points out three unchangeable truths concerning your appointment with eternity:

... the 1st, unchangeable truth ...

I. YOU ARE ULTIMATELY POWERLESS TO PREVENT YOUR DEATH

1. a lot of Americans dont like thinking about the end of life

ILLUS. 32% of Americans confess that they choose not the think or talk about death at all. 47% of Americans have never discussed endoflife preparations with family or loved ones. Fortytwo percent would prefer to die suddenly and avoid endoflife planning altogether.

a. when it comes to your eternity, a bury-your-head-in-the-sand strategy is not a

winning strategy

2. the pandemic forced a lot of Americans to accept the reality of deathwe saw the

number displayed every evening on the nightly news

a. its one thing to acknowledge the deaths of others, and another altogether to

accept our own mortality

b. this is getting all the more relative to my period of life

ILLUS. Not long ago I saw that because of COVID, the average life expectancy for men in the United States decreased from 76 to 73.5 years. Now, I like to think that Im above average! I dont drink, and I dont smoke, and I keep active, but if the actuary tables are correct the news is pretty depressing for someone who is approaching 70! I need to get my wife Linda a bumper sticker that says, Spending my husbands life insurance money!

c. the good news is that we are living in an era where medical science is advancing by

leaps and bounds

3. today, much of the human body can either be replaced, repaired, regenerated, or

transplanted

a. most of our joints can now be replaced or rebuilt with steel and plastic

b. laboratories can take a few cells of skin from a burn patient, place them in a

special nutrient solution and laterally grow patches of healthy skin that can then be grafted back onto the patient

c. some of you here today see clearly through the corneas of others

d. limbs can be reattached

e. hearts, lungs, kidneys, and livers can all be replaced

4. yet, with all our advances, man is powerless to prevent that which fills his heart with

dreaddeath is our great enemy

ILLUS. I read a story a couple weeks ago on the FOX business web site about a Bryan Johnson. Hes a billionaire who made his fortune in the high-tech industry. At 45 years old, hes on a quest for immortalityand hes spending several millions of dollars a year attempting it. He is obsessed with anti-aging and with the idea of being biologically young again. Much of what he does is simply living a healthy lifestyle ... hes a vegetarian, and he strictly observes an 8:30PM bed time, and 5:00AM wake up time. He exercises vigorously for an hour a day. He takes 111 vitamin supplements a day, (how does he have time to do anything else!). He spends hundreds of thousands of dollars monthly to infuse his teenage sons blood plasma into his own blood stream. He has a medical facility in his own home, with a team of 30 on-call physicians who perform daily tests on his various organs, monitor his body fat, and check his heart rate. His lead doctor, Oliver Zolman, is dedicated to reversing the aging process for his patient. His doctors say that his biological age is about five years younger than his actual age of 45. So 45 is the new 40?

And if you so choose, you can join Bryan in his anti-aging quest. He has invited 2,500 people to apply for a spot in his Project Blueprinta 90day, watereddown version of Johnsons extreme $2millionperyear antiaging regimen. The projects goal is simple, Live forever.

The sign-up fee is a mere $999. Those accepted into the program will spend $333 per month on food products that make up about 400 calories of a daily diet. If youre still hungry after that, youre on your own. Those interested in tracking their progress more closely can purchase more advanced biomarker measurements for an additional $800 a month or $1,600 a month, depending on the desired tier.

Sounds nuts, right? But in less than 50 hours, 8,000 people had applied to his program.

a. guess what? Bryan Johnson is still going to diehe may be a really healthy looking

corpse at his funeralbut Bryan Johnson is still going to die ... and so will you, and so will I

1) we can cure disease

2) we can repair the body

3) we can prolong life

b. modern medicine can subvert natures course in many ways, at least for a while

1) but eventually, whether youre young or old, rich or poor, sick or healthy death

still comes

5. no matter how hard people like Bryan Johnson try, we cannot cheat death and we

cannot prolong life forever

Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a

mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. (James 4:14, NIV)

a. according to this passage, our lives are like the morning fog that hangs low in our

Missouri valleys early in the morning

1) it is here for but a short time, and when the sun rises high in the sky the mist

quietly melts away and we hardly even remember its presence

b. scientific discoveries and medical advancements are gifts of God

1) but you cannot defy your bodily limits indefinitely

2) sooner or later, your body has the last word and you will, to use the idiom,

sleep the big sleep

6. God, however, tell us that we are ultimately powerless to prevent our death

a. the author of Ecclesiastes puts it this way: As no man has power over the wind to

contain it; so no one has power over the day of his death. ... (Ecclesiastes 8:8, NIV84).

ILLUS. When I was about ten, my brother and I were staying with my maternal

grandmother while our parents were out of town. We must have been giving grandma a particularly difficult time one day. She was trying to get things done and we were constantly underfoot. Finally, in desperation, my Grandma Margie gave my brother and I each a Mason jar and told us to go out in the backyard and try to catch the wind. Well, that sounded like a great idea and so we did and of course grandmothers dont lie about those things. She told us that wed know when we caught it, because we could crack the lid and listen to it rush out! Needless to say, neither of us caught the wind that day. But it kept us out of grandmas hair for a while.

b. the author of Ecclesiastes tells us that trying to prevent death is like trying to catch

the wind in a jarit simply cannot be done

c. death does not discriminate; Solomon writes that ...

1) it comes for the righteous and the wicked

2) it comes for the good and the bad

3) it comes for the spiritually clean and the spiritually unclean

4) it comes for those who offer sacrifices to God and for those who do not

5) it comes for those of advanced years and it sometimes comes for the very

young

6) it comes peacefully for some and violently for others

7. let me say it again we are ultimately powerless to prevent our death

a. but even though our bodies will die, our souls survive

ILLUS. In Ecc. 12 Solomon encourages us to remember your creator in your youth because old age is coming. He then, in a very poetic way, talks about the realities of growing old. He concludes with ... 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. (Ecclesiastes 12:67, ESV). Did you hear it? He says, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

1) throughout its pages, the Bible reminds us that we are eternal beingsthis life is

not all there is

b. when death comes to the believer, the promise is, to be absent from the body is to

be present with the Lord

1) and the really good news is that resurrection day is coming

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15:22, ESV)

2) this explains why Christians can mourn the dead, and magnify the Lord

simultaneous

3) we grieve, but as the Apostle Paul wrote to the Thessalonian believers, we do

not grieve as those who have no hope

c. God created men to be immortal and His greatest desire is that you spend eternity

with Him in His Heaven

1) the question is not, Will a man live forever in a resurrected body but, Where

will you live forever in your resurrected body?

the 1st, unchangeable truth ... You Are Ultimately Powerless to Prevent Your Death

... the 2nd, unchangeable truth ...

II. YOUR BATTLE FOR ETERNITY IS WON OR LOST IN THIS LIFE

1. Solomon writes, as no soldier is discharged in the time of war

2. here is what Solomon is saying: Just as a nation makes preparations to win a war, so

too, you must make preparations for eternity in this life

a. if you wait until youre standing before God, to get right with God, its too late

b. to wait until Judgment Day to see if you pass Gods standard of righteousness is not

a good planits like a nation discharging its army in a time of warits not a wise strategy

ILLUS. The English author, C.S. Lewis, who was the author of The Chronicles of

Narnia stories, once wrote: He who provides for this life, but does not prepare for eternity, is wise for a moment, but a fool forever.

3. Jesus told His disciples much the same thing 2,000 years ago

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for

the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? 37 Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Fathers glory with the holy angels. (Mark 8:35-38, NIV)

A. THE SCRIPTURES URGE US TO BE PREPARED FOR DEATH

1. that does not mean you are to have a morbid pre-occupation with death

a. instead, you must recognize that death is as natural a part of life as is birth

2. since death cannot be prevented, you must prepare for it

a. many people take great care to prepare for their death practically

1) some people will make wills spelling out the distribution of their estate

2) some parents will make arrangements with family or friends concerning the care

and raising of children

3) some couples will purchase cemetery lots, pick out caskets, have headstones

carved and set, and may even purchase a burial package with the local funeral home

4) some folks will even plan out their own funeral service

ILLUS. One of preachers I always enjoyed listening to was Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. He passed away late last year from pancreatic cancer, and the family posted his service on line several weeks ago. Tim planned out his entire funeral service ... what hymns he wanted sung, what Scriptures he wanted read, who he wanted to speak, and even some of the things he wanted said.

3. but this is not the kind of preparation the bible is referring to

a. Jesus tells us that you must be spiritually prepared

1) it is this area of life where so many are found wanting

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that

leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. (Matthew 7:13-14, NIV)

b. eternity is realthe only question is Where will you be spending it?

c. all menweather good or badare immortal

ILLUS. Bryan Johnson is spending millions of dollars a year for something he already

has!

1) death is not the end of our existence, but merely ushers us from one plane of

reality into another

d. it is in this life that you make your choice of where you will spend your eternity

1) will you spend it with God in His heaven?

2) or will you spend it with Satan in hell?

B. WE PREPARE FOR DEATH BY COMING TO THE LORD OF LIFE

ILLUS. Polls reveal that most U.S. adults today adopted a salvationcanbeearned perspective, with a nearmajority (48%) believing that if a person is generally good, or does enough good things during their life, they will earn a place in Heaven. Unfortunately, people who believe that also confess that they can never really know for sure whether-or-not theyve been good enough until they stand before Gods Judgement Seat.

1. let me say it againyour battle for eternity is won or lost in this life

a. the battle is won through a surrender

1) do you see the irony in that?

2) throughout history, no commander, no army has every won a battle by

surrendering

3) but in you battle for eternity, thats exactly what you need to do!

b. when sinners surrender their lives to Jesus, who is the Christ, the Son of the Living

God, your eternal destiny is decided in that glorious moment

c. and its not hard!

because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. ... 13 For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. (Romans 10:9-10, 13, ESV)

2. do you hear how unbelievably easy that is?

a. living the Christian life can be hard, we all know that

b. becoming a Christian is as easy as falling off the proverbial log

the 2nd, unchangeable truth ... Your Battle for Eternity Is Won or Lost in this Life

... the 3rd, unchangeable truth ...

III. YOU WILL STAND BEFORE GOD AND GIVE AN ACCOUNT

... wickedness will not release those who practice it."

Nothing in all creation is hidden from Gods sight. Everything is uncovered and laid barebefore the eyes of him to whom we must give account. (Hebrews 4:13, NIV)

1. for those who have not repented of sin, and had faith in Christ as Savior and Lord it

will be a fearsome thing to fall into the hands of the Living God

2. for those who have repented of sin, and had faith in Christ, our God will not allow

death to have the final say in your life

a. sickness, aging and death are concerns that are common to all of us

b. but no matter how old or marred our bodies become, and no matter how weak

or feeble our minds may become, there is hope

d. the good new for the believer is that something better awaits us

ILLUS. In 1498 the artist Michelangelo began working on a marble statue he entitled the Madonna della Pietà. The sculpture captures the moment when Jesus, taken down from the cross, is laid in the lap of his mother Mary. Over 500 years later, it is considered one of the worlds great pieces of Renaissance art. It was originally created as an altar piece and now resides in Saint Peter's Basilica, Vatican City. Michelangelo was a mere 24 years old when he sculptured the piece. Art critics were convinced that someone so young could create such a magnificent piece of art, and attributed it to one of Michelangelos artist rivals. That even he snuck in to the chapel where the statue was located an chiseled his name in large Latin letter on the sash running across Mary's chest. It was the only work he ever signed, later regretted his outburst of pride and swore never to sign another work of his hands.

On May 21, 1972 (Pentecost Sunday), a mentally disturbed geologist, Laszlo Toth, attacked the sculpture with a geologist's hammer while shouting, "I am Jesus Christ; I have risen from the dead!" He struck the statue 15 times breaking off Mary's arm at the elbow, breaking off her nose, and chipping other parts of the face.

What did the owners of the Madonna della Pietà do? Did they assume the statue was beyond repair. Did they consider it worthless and toss it in a sculpture dump? Of course not! Master craftsmen picked through the 100 bits of marble broken off of the Pietà and puzzled them back together. In a makeshift lab built around the statue, these workers spent five months identifying pieces as small as fingernails. They used an invisible glue and marble powder to affix the pieces back onto the Pietà. Only experts can tell where the statue has been restored.

3. so why do I tell you this story?

a. Gods design for mankind, was perfect and precious, but sin took a gouge out of

that design, to the point that mankind seems irreparably damaged

1) but it was not in Gods nature to allow sins flaw to permanently mare us

b. He sent His Son into the world to experience life, to experience suffering and to

experience death that he might understand our plight

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of deaththat is, the devil 15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. (Hebrews 2:1415, NIV84)

4. Jesus conquered death when he rose from the grave, and He paved the way so that

death becomes the ultimate triumph for the believer

a. in Christ, we do not have to fear the penalty of sin

b. God takes our broken lives and begins to piece them back together when we put

our faith in him

The Lord is rebuilding Jerusalem and bringing the exiles back to Israel. He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds. (Psalm 147:23, NLT)`

c. because of Jesus, the Christian can look death in the eye and face it down!

Is life really meaningless? Of course not. The writer of Ecclesiastes concludes his book, not in cynicism but in faith. He writes in Ecclesiastes 12:13 Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. Do you want a meaningful life? Then come to Christ, and live for him. If you will do this, then the rest of life will not be meaningless, but meaningful.