It's good to see everyone this
morning. I'd like for you to take your
Bibles and turn with me to the Book of Ecclesiastes, Proverbs,
then Ecclesiastes, chapter 12, last chapter of the book. Solomon penned the book of Ecclesiastes
under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And he says in chapter
one, verse 14, I'll just read it to you. He says, I have seen
all the works that are done under the sun and behold, all is vanity
and vexation of spirit. The Book of Ecclesiastes is the
book about man born under the sun. Man living in the light, the
natural light that we have as we're born. Certainly under the direction
of God, but yet we're sinners and we live a natural life that
looks to sin and enjoyment. Now he says all is vanity. Now that word vanity, it means
unsatisfactory, temporary, fleeting, not permanent. Simply meaning that the earthly
joys that we had yesterday, the joys that we had last week, a month ago, a year ago, they're
gone. The soul of man was created to walk with God. And in the
garden, the spirituality of man was totally lost in Adam's sin,
so there's no more walking with God. And that soul, in wanting
to find happiness and peace and contentment, looks to the things
of this life which are fleeting. And so what happens is the soul
is left empty. And we're always seeking. If
I could just do this, I often think this silly idea of people
having this, what they call a bucket list. Things I'd like to do before
I die. Problem is, after you die, what
good is it? And that's what life is all about.
All these things we do, they're not lasting. They don't do us
any good. Now God has been good to us,
we know that. And we're to enjoy this life.
Scripture says in Ecclesiastes, Solomon says we're to enjoy the
fruits of our labor. That's given from God. But when
we try to set those joys and pleasures and seek after them
in the things of this world, we're gonna come up So in chapter
12, after Solomon goes through, and this, I believe that the
book of Ecclesiastes was penned by Solomon in his old age because
he goes through all the things he's experienced, all the things
he's seen in his life, inequities, injustices, envy, hate, strife,
everything. He talks about him having made
beautiful gardens and delighted his eyes in everything as king,
the richest king that ever lived up to that point. And he says,
after I die, whom am I gonna leave it to? He says, I might
leave it to somebody that won't take care of it. He says, it's
all vanity. It does me no good spiritually. So in chapter 12,
what he's gonna do, what we're gonna look at this morning is
he sums up this whole thing of life Okay, and let's read in
Ecclesiastes 12, verse one. He says, remember now thy creator. Remember, be mindful of, consider,
meditate on, thy creator. And notice he doesn't say, remember
now thy God. He says, thy creator. He brings
it down to a personal level. God created me, God created you,
personally. Acts 17 says, in him we live
and we move, we have our being. He created me personally. What
duty do I have to him? But he says, remember, be mindful
of, now, thy creator in the days of thy youth. While the evil
days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say,
I have no pleasure in them. Remember in the days of your
youth, when your mind is strong, when your body is strong, and it all can be dedicated to
a full work of the Lord. Because evil days, he says, are
coming. Now by evil, he doesn't mean
wickedness. He means troublesome days. And
he's talking here about old age, and that's what he's gonna talk
here for a few minutes. We're gonna talk about the old
age and then what we can draw from that. The evil days is old age. You know, when we're young, I
was thinking about this this morning, when we're young, we
get sick. Usually it's one sickness. We get a cold, we get the flu,
we get COVID, we get over it. But when you get old, it seems
like all these things that he's about to talk about are compounded. It's one on top of the other. If it's not one thing, here comes
another one, here comes another one, all due to old age. Psalms 90, David says, the days
of our years, are three score years and 10. I know a lot of
people here. I can see a lot of people here
in this fellowship who are there. We're there. Three score and
10. That's what we've been told,
promised. The days of our years are three
score years and 10. And if by reason of strength,
you got good body health, they be four score years old, four
score years, Yet their strength, yet is their strength labor and
sorrow, for it is soon cut off and we fly away. He's saying,
you're going to have trouble in old age. And those of you
who are 70, 60, 70, I'm 79 pushing 80 years. I see these things
coming up on me that are multiplied, not just one, two and three,
but four and five. And what do we do? We take all
kind of medications now, trying to curb all these maladies that
we have because of old age. Now in verse two, he says, the evil days draw nigh in verse
one, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them, while the
sun or the light or the moon or the stars be not darkened,
nor the clouds return after the rain. The gloominess, he's talking
there about the gloominess of old age. While you're young,
you don't experience those things. But for instance, there it says,
nor the clouds return after the rain. In old age, one sickness
comes upon us, one problem, And we think we're getting ahead
of that and getting it healed. And first thing you know, here
comes another one. So the clouds come back, it rains,
then it clouds up again, as far as diseases go. And he's going
to tell us here just in a second, just what all these things are
that's going to come upon us due to our old age. He says in verse three, In the day, in the day, the day
when we're 70 years old, 80 years old, in the day when the keepers
of the house shall tremble, our hands, our arms, they're
the ones that keep us. They're the ones that feed our
mouth. They're the ones that does the
work. What happens when we get old? I have a neighbor. there was right next to me, and
he's younger than I am. He's probably 70, I'd say. And
I hadn't been seeing him out much. He's usually out about
his house there working. I hadn't seen him much. And I
went out the other day, and I come back, and I see him walking along
the driveway with a cane. And I stopped, and I said, hey,
Bill, I haven't seen you out much. He was like this, all of a sudden,
70 years old, and he's just shaking. And he can't do anything. He
says, I can't work. And it come upon him all of a
sudden. And that's what it's talking about here. The keepers
of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves,
O people, bend over a lot, you see. The spine, he's talking
about the spine, the back. It no longer is able to support
the upper body. And we grow weak in the back. This is all part of what we can
expect. You young people, it's coming. I assure you it is coming. Right
now you won't experience that. Your sicknesses are far and few
between. But these things are coming upon
every one of us, some more than others, some sooner than others. And strong men, in verse three,
the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders shall seize
because they are few. He's talking about your teeth.
A lot of people won't have false teeth in their old age. Some
of mine are missing. They're few. Why? They're just
wore out from chewing. food for a lifetime. And those
that look out of the windows be darkened. That's her eyes.
That's her eyes. I was down visiting an uncle
of mine one time. He was in his 80s. He was watching
TV with the binoculars. Now isn't that something? Watching
TV with binoculars. He had them laying there. That's
the only way he could see. The eyes. Eyes get dark. And I noticed
that. I used to be able to sit and
watch TV and see the writing on a TV, but not anymore. I can't,
with my natural eyes, see it. And even sometimes, it always
tickles me. You get these medicine bottles
and whatnot, they put such fine print on, you can't read them.
And even with glasses, and the older you get, the worse it gets. Verse four, he says, and the
doors shall be shut in the streets. Old people tend to stay inside. We stay inside. We don't, we
just don't feel like going out much anymore. We close the doors,
kind of stay to ourselves. That's way of life. And like
I said, Solomon experienced this. This is what he's, he's talking
about this from experience. And it says, goes on to say,
when the sound of the grinding is slow. Hearing, hearing starts to go. Many of us are wearing hearing
aids. And a lot of people, you run
into a lot of people that's always saying, what'd you say, what'd
you say? Well, we need hearing aids. That's what it is, the
ears. And then it says in verse four
again, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird. I know
most of you, probably most all of you at 70 years old, 60 or
70 years old, have trouble sleeping. I do. I was up this morning at
three o'clock, wide awake, and that's not uncommon. And even if I do sleep, I usually
wake up early. I'm a very light sleeper, and
little things wake me up. But here he says, you should
rise up at the voice of the bird. We get up early in the morning.
And all the daughters of music shall be brought low. There's
no joy and pleasure of these things. Some people like to listen to
music. I don't. I used to in my younger years,
but not anymore. It doesn't mean anything to me.
Verse five, he says, also, when they shall be afraid of that
which is high. Isn't that true? The older you
get, you don't like to be up on ladders. I noticed something
in the last few years when I'm watching television, and they
may have a commercial something of a picture from a big tall
building looking down on the street The instant they flash
out on the television, I jump. I mean, it's like I'm right there. That scares me. I just, for an
instant, you think. But I didn't used to be like
that. Climate didn't bother me. That kind of thing didn't bother
me, but in these last few years, I can see that happening. And
then in verse five, he also says, and fear shall be in the way.
When we were young, We were fearless. Nothing really scared us. And
we know that youth has its, youth has no fear. People do things
all the time that you think, what in the world's wrong with
them? Why would they even try to do
something like that? There's no fear in them. But as we get
older, fear comes, fear comes. We're afraid of, we keep our
doors locked. We're afraid of people in public. I mean, especially nowadays,
you don't, I mean, with the crime and everything, you just, you're
never sure. But we're afraid. As we get older, we become more
afraid. Now compare this to the, compare
this, all these things that have happened to the sin that we've
experienced through our youth, and it only gets worse. Almond tree shall flourish. Verse
five, gray hair. I'm looking at people here, I
see a bunch of people got gray hair. Practically everybody in here
has gray hair. Brought on by our old age. And the grasshopper says in verse
five, shall be a burden. We don't have the strength we
once had. The lightest thing we can't pick up, we can't handle. Our legs get weak. Always said the first thing that
goes is your legs, and that's true, that's true. My legs are
weak, they bother me a lot, and some of you are in the same position,
I know that. And this next one, this is the
one of all that I've read took me the most by surprise. Verse
five, he says, and desire shall fail. Those things I once loved, once
loved to do, I don't have a taste for them. It's not my body, it's
my mind. It just doesn't matter anymore
that I love those things. The desire just naturally fails. I was thinking, as I was reading
that, as my dad got older, we grew up, I grew up hunting with
him. He used to take me hunting. Used
to go hunting with Scott and Glenn and Dad, take hunting trips. Been with Charlie, we've hunted
together. And as my dad got older, You
kind of start backing away from it. And you know, as a young
man, I didn't understand that. How come he doesn't like to do
that anymore? Well, I see that now because I went through the
same thing. I finally gave it up. And even the things I like
to do, it's almost like it's a burden, not physically, but
in the mind. I just don't have a desire to
do it. And here, Solomon says he knows. He's been there. Desire. Our
desire to do the things we love are gonna go away. Then what
do we have left? What do you have left in the
joys of this world? Nothing. And all because, it
says, man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about in
the streets. In verse six, It says, wherever the silver
cord be loosed, or the fountain bowl or the golden bowl be broken,
or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken
at the cistern. This here, the silver cord is,
this is it. This is the separation of the
body And so we sing that song face to face. Remember that verse
in there? One day the silver cord will
break and I no longer as now shall see. It's talking about
the instant the soul leaves the body. And we'll see that in the
next verse because it says then in the next verse, then shall
the body. Now, the word says, or the pitcher
be broken at the fountain or the wheel broken at the cistern.
Some of the comments that I read said, well, this applies to the
heart, the heart pumping the blood through the veins, the
wheel broken at the cistern, the pumping, the broken at the
fountain. And that may be true, but the
whole issue is in that verse that this is the separation of
soul and body. Then in verse seven, like I said,
it says, then, then, when that silver cord is broken, then shall
the dust return to the earth as it was. And the spirit shall
return unto God who gave it. Verse eight says, vanity of vanity,
saith the preacher. All this, what has it gained
us? What has our possessions in life
gained us? What profit have we had under
the sun in seeking after and looking for the pleasures of
this world to satisfy our souls? It's all vanity, vanity of vanities. In verse nine it says, and moreover,
because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge. Yea, he gave good heed and sought
out and said in order many proverbs. The preacher sought to find out
acceptable words, and that which was written was upright, even
words of truth. The words of the wise are as
goads, that's prods. They used a goad, they called
goads, it was just a sharp stick, point to drive cattle. The words
of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters
of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd. And further,
by these my son be admonished, of making many books there is
no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. Then we come to verse 13, and
I want to just spend a little bit of time here. He says, let
us hear the conclusion of the whole matter, of the whole book
of our going through this life, seeking for those things that
satisfy the soul. What's the conclusion? What is
the conclusion? What? should we do? What should we do? What is the
conclusion? Let us hear the conclusion of
the whole matter. Fear God and keep his commandments. Question. Here's the question
of the hour. Is the gospel found in these
words? And the answer to that is absolutely,
absolutely. The word fear there, it's not, it doesn't refer to
a servile fear like you would to a dictator that demands everything.
I was watching, I've been watching on television documentaries on North Korea
what those people over there suffer. I mean, this dictator
even dictates how they cut their hair. And he gives them so many. These are the styles you have
to do. If you go from one providence
to another in that country, it's like us going from West Virginia
to Ohio, you have to have papers from the government just to cross
over to the next providence. If you were to go from West Virginia
to Kentucky to The Isle, and they caught you in Kentucky,
you're going to prison. That's servile fear. But the
word fear here is a reverential fear that God is the creator. Our
lives are in his hands, and we respect him. We respect
him because he is God. But there's a problem. Man by
nature does not fear God. Psalms 36 one says this, the
transgression of the wicked sayeth within my heart that there is
no fear before his eyes. Man was born hating God. Luke 12, four says this, and
this is our Lord Jesus Christ speaking to his disciples. Because as he says, and I say
unto you, my friends, my brothers, my sisters, I say unto you, my
friends, be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after
that have no more that they can do. but I will forewarn you whom
you shall fear. Fear him which after he hath
killed hath power to cast into hell. Yea, I say unto you, fear
him." A reverential fear of God as our creator, a respect for
him. He created me personally. I owe
Him. I owe Him my life. Life is about
me and Him. Him giving me life. That's what
it's all about. We need to bring this down to
where we live and realize this God is not someone out there
like the world teaches, some God out there that can't do anything
or has no business with us, he alone gives us slice. But how is this fear that he's
talking about brought about? Is the gospel there? Yes, it
is. The answer to that fear is the preaching of the gospel. The gospel that says God is holy
and righteous beyond our understanding, beyond our comprehension. We
have an idea of God's righteousness, but the scripture says we look
through a glass darkly. We don't see the fullness of
God's righteousness. But listen to what he says. Listen
to this, and I want you to think about this. In Matthew 12, 36,
he says, and this is the Lord Jesus Christ speaking this to
his disciples. But I say unto you, that every
idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof
in the day of judgment. Think about that. Just like that's
every word. Every word men are gonna have
to give an account. Anybody speak idle words? We all know we do. Romans 8, 7 says, speaking of
this hatred of God, because the carnal mind is enmity. That word
enmity means hate. The carnal mind is enmity against
God, for it is not subject to the law of God. Listen to what
it says. Neither indeed can be. It is impossible for man of his
own free will to turn himself to God. It says neither indeed
can be. It's an impossibility. We're
dead. We are dead spiritually, absolutely
dead. You can't be any deader than
a man laying in a coffin. You just like, as Marvin pointed
out many times, you just won't tell that man in that coffin
to get out of bed. Get out of that bed he's laying in. As to
tell a man to repent, and believe in God. That gospel, the gospel,
says in Jonah 2, 9, salvation from our sin is of the Lord. Titus 3, 5, not by works of righteousness,
which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us by
the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. I think of the public, and when
I read that, mercy. All he said was, God be merciful
to me, a sinner. He was speaking from his heart,
and the Lord says that man went down to his house justified. God showed that man mercy. Salvation
is of the Lord. This gospel says in Roman 5.8,
but God commanded his love toward us in that while we were yet
sinners, absolute rebels, hell-bent sinners, hell-bent on going to
hell as fast as we can, while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us. What a blessing. First John 4
and on says, And this was manifest the love of God toward us because
that God sent his only begotten son into the world that we might
live through him. This is the gospel. This is the
truth. This is the only way a man will
ever be saved from his sins. From his sins. Not from hell. From his sins. Hell is just a
result of sins. We have to be saved from our
sins. We have to be justified, justified,
no charge. The gospel that says that there is hope
as long as we are alive, brothers and sisters, there's hope, there's
hope because of Christ our Lord. And I love John 14, two, three. He says, in my father's house
are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have
told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place
for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that
where I am, there ye may be also. that we suffer the effects of
old age, that we suffer the effects of sin, and we will. For a man
to say, well, I don't sin, is a man that hasn't seen himself.
A believer sees himself. He knows what he is. He knows
he deserves to go to hell. But even at that, I often think,
I still don't see the fullness of it. And I won't in this life. We see but in part, Paul says. I think, I think about this thing
of life and day-to-day living and what I do and what I don't
do. And I know when it comes to scripture,
when it comes to scripture, I don't know a lot. I don't know a lot. Let's just be honest. There's
so much in here I don't know. But I do know this, I do know
this, that I want, I want to be free from this body of sin. I want to live where righteousness
dwells, where Christ Jesus dwells, and that's the only place I can
be free from sin. I want to live forever in the
presence of him. But oh my, my oh my. Right now, it seems like it's
a struggle, doesn't it? We're all struggling. And those
of us who are getting old, we're seeing the facts. It doesn't
get better. It really doesn't. We've seen it. And dear brothers and sisters
who've gone on before us, many have suffered afflictions in
their old age. And I'm beginning to see it myself,
and I see it in you too, many of you. We're all in this thing
together, struggling. And in ourselves, we have no
strength. That's the problem. I have to look to Christ for
strength, even in old age. You young people have to look
to Christ in your young age. Remember him. He's the one that
has salvation and salvation. There's one mediator between
God and man, the scripture says, the man Christ Jesus. That pretty
well serves it up. All these false religions around
the world, there's only one. I am the way, the Lord says,
the truth and the life. In my old age, what hope do I
have? But yet, for all that's ahead
of us, this life is temporary. We're getting closer every day
to leaving this world. It may be tomorrow. Begin to see the effects. The
other night, the other night in service, I got dizzy. here
at church. I don't know what causes it,
but I got the same way last night, almost. I must attribute to the old age,
things are happening. I have to expect them, but there's
hope. It's not gonna last long, brothers
and sisters, it's not. To those of us who are arriving,
we're almost there, you know, and when man by nature doesn't
want to die. We were never created to die.
Man was created to walk with God. But because of Adam's sin, death has passed upon all of
us. And we don't want to die. And
Paul says that. Paul says, I don't want to be
unclothed, totally, I want to be clothed with the righteousness
of Christ. in the body. I want that perfect
body to live forever with him. So in closing, let me say this,
it's just, let's consider, let's consider our life and understand that
all things are in God's hands. I just wish, I wish the Holy
Spirit would own me completely. That's a believer's hope, that
he would own me completely. That I would look to the Lord
Jesus, I would look to God the Father as my all in all, completely. But yet while I do that, I know
that my life is mixed with sin, and I can't get away from it.
And that's where The believer mourns, and he mourns greatly,
constantly. When the Lord says, come under
me, all ye that labor and heavy laden, and I'll give you rest,
he's not talking about one coming. Remember back when, I can't,
no, uh-uh. He's talking about coming daily,
daily, for you feel, as a believer, the need of him. I exist. My joy is in Christ,
not in this life, not in this life. This life is so fleeting,
and we need to consider it. I pray that God would bless the
word to our hearts. And with that, we'll close the
service. Pat will come and lead us in
a song.