Remember & Rejoice.
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Major Ideas
Major Ideas
Rejoice and remember while you live (11:7-8).
Rejoice and remember while you live (11:7-8).
The light is pleasant, and it is good for the eyes to see the sun. Indeed, if a man should live many years, let him rejoice in them all, and let him remember the days of darkness, for they will be many. Everything that is to come will be futility.
Eccl 11:7-8
The light is pleasant, and it is good for the eyes to see the sun. (11:7)
The light is pleasant, and it is good for the eyes to see the sun.
To be alive is good. God has blessed us every day we get to open our eyes and see the sun.
Even if we should live 100 years, we should rejoice in them all.
But we must remember that death will bring with it many days of darkness.
All that comes is vanity, meaningless, futility. It’s empty.
Rejoice in your youth and vitality (11:9-10)
Rejoice in your youth and vitality (11:9-10)
Ecclesiastes 11:9-10
Rejoice, young man, during your childhood, and let your heart be pleasant during the days of young manhood. And follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes. Yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things. So, remove grief and anger from your heart and put away pain from your body, because childhood and the prime of life are fleeting.
Young people should rejoice when they are young (i.e., because they are young).
They should be light (i.e., carefree).
They should follow the impulses of their hearts.
The should follow the desire of their eyes.
Yet know (think: remember) that God will judge.
So remove grief and anger from your heart . (Those aren’t the impulses of the heart that the young should follow.)
Put away pain from the body. (If the eye desires something injurious, don’t follow that impulse.)
Childhood (i.e., youth) and one’s prime is fleeting. (Don’t waste it on sin, which leads to heartbreak and pain.)
Remember your Creator in your youth (12:1-7)
Remember your Creator in your youth (12:1-7)
Ecclesiastes 12:1-
Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, “I have no delight in them”;
It is just as important to remember our Creator (i.e., the One who made us, has authority over us, and will judge us) in our youth as it is to rejoice in the youth He gives to us.
Old age will bring evil days and years in which we will have no physical delight in life as we once did in youth.
Our delight will have to be found somewhere besides our strength and vitality.
One day (and sooner than any of us expect) the sun and the light, the moon and the stars will will be darkened. The clouds of old age will dim the light of youth. And then the trials of old age will rain upon us.
before the sun and the light, the moon and the stars are darkened, and clouds return after the rain;
One day our hands, which once provided for us and protected us with their strength, will shake. The watchmen tremble (12:3a).
One day our legs (our mighty men) will, which once carried us with strength and stability, will stoop or bow as they struggle to carry our weight (12:3b).
One day our grinding ones (our teeth) will stand idle because most of them will have fallen out (12:3c).
Modern dental care often means that we can keep out teeth until death, but even in our day that’s not always the case. In Solomon’s day, the old lost their teeth.
One day our eyes (those who look through windows) will grow dim (12:3d).
One day our ears will shut out the sound like shut-doors on a busy street shut out the sound (12:4a).
One day our sleep will be so light that the soft song or quiet flutter of the bird will wake us early in the morning (12:4b).
One day our voice will not sing with the strength it once did. The daughters of song (our vocal chords) will sing softly (12:4c).
One day we will be afraid to get up on a ladder or get out on the street (12:5a).
One day our hair will be white like almond tree blossoms (12:5b).
One day will no longer bounce around like a grasshopper. Rather, we will drag ourselves around like an old grasshopper that can no longer jump (12:5c).
One day we won’t even have the desire to eat (12:5d).
The caperberry was thought to be a stimulant for the appetite. But at an advanced age, even it failed to stir the appetite. The elderly person began to lose weight, to fade.
One day man will go to his eternal home. Mourners will gather in the street to grieve his passing (12:5e).
Remember Him before the silver cord is broken and the golden bowl is crushed, the pitcher by the well is shattered 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.
Remember Him before the silver cord is broken and the golden bowl is crushed, the pitcher by the well is shattered and the wheel at the cistern is crushed;
Life is envisioned as a precious lamp of gold and silver that will be crushed by old age.
The light of life has gone out.
It is a pitcher by a well shattered or a wheel used to draw water crushed.
The water of life is cut off.
“Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it,” (12:7).
Man was made from dust () and to dust he will return.
The spirit (i.e., the breath of life) which was breathed into man by God will depart, and there will be no more breath in the lungs.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Solomon ends strangely in ...
“Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher, “all is vanity!”
If all is vanity, why rejoice in our youth?
If all is vanity, why remember God in youth or in old age?
What does it matter?
It matters because not all is vanity.
Life under the sun matters because there is life beyond the sun.
Life in time matters because there is eternal life to follow.
And what we do here matters there.
We are told in the NT to consider how we live under the sun.
Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil.
Ephesians 5:15-17
We are also told that hard times will come in the last days (cf. ). And we know from experience that hard times will come in our last days. The counsel of Scripture is the same in both instances...
2 Timothy 3:14-
You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
Prayerfully, like Timothy and like Solomon before him, we have learned to rejoice in and remember God in our youth so that in our last days we continue to remember and rejoice in our Creator as pass from life under the sun to life beyond it.
If we rejoice in Him, our strength and vitality in youth will be spent on Him.
If we remember Him in our youth, we will spend our final days and years rejoicing in Him.
To remember our Creator is to make our Creator the center of our lives.