All right, let's open our Bibles
to Ecclesiastes 11. Ecclesiastes 11. And I want everybody to open
your Bible to this. I want you to read along with
me. It's a very important message. Verse 7. Ecclesiastes 11, 7. Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes 11 verse 7. Truly the light is sweet, and
a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun. But if
a man live many years and rejoice in them all, yet let him remember
the days of darkness, for they shall be many. All that cometh
is vanity. Rejoice, O young man, in thy
youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth,
and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine
eyes. But know thou that for all these
things God will bring thee into judgment. Therefore remove sorrow,
the word is anger, from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh,
for childhood and youth are vanity. Remember 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. Now
this is a word to all of us, especially to those who are young. The wisest thing, the wisest
thing above everything else, the wisest thing we can do with
our lives, especially beginning in our youth, is to prepare for
the day when we shall die and meet God in judgment. That's
the wisest thing you can do. The wisest thing. To do so, we
must seek the sweet light and the pleasant sun. There is a
light and there is a sun that men seek. The first thing that
we have here is a word to wake us up to our need. He says in
verse 7, truly the light is sweet and a pleasant thing it is for
the eyes to behold the sun. The word light here and the sun
here are put for natural life and natural light, for a good
life, many days and a good life that is sweet, that is pleasant. Everybody likes to walk in the
sunshine. We don't like to be in a storm.
We don't want to be in raging waves, in a violent storm. We
want to be where there's sweet light and it is pleasant to behold
the sun. That's where we want to be. You
graduate from high school and you think about you got your
whole life ahead of you. and the reason we get an education
and the reason that we try to get a good job is because we
want to get a nice house, we want to get nice good food, we
want to have some security and we want to do that because light
is sweet and it's pleasant to walk in the sun. We don't want
to have a life of hardship and a life of trouble and a life
of just barely able to to get by. Everybody wants that sweet
light and that pleasant sunshine. That's the case with everybody
and we go after these things with great zeal. When you think
about it, you think of something in your life that is very important
to you right now and you've gone after it and you've tried to
work at it and you've gone at it hard and heavy with everything
you've got. Because you want to achieve it.
Because you want it to happen. You want to see it come to pass.
Or you think it's going to be the best thing for you, for your
family. It's going to be security. It's
going to be best for you. And you want that as opposed
to darkness and evil and things that are bad. You want what's
best. But when is the last time you
and I went after spiritual things with that same kind of zeal and
that same kind of dedication and that same kind of fervency?
Honestly. When is it that we look to making
sure we teach our children on a daily basis and we promote
the gospel and we speak to folks right by us that we walk by every
day at work and in our community and what have you? with the zeal
that they need to know Christ. And we need to know Christ. And
this is the most important thing there is in this earth. And yet
we act like walking in natural sunshine and natural goodness
and having just a naturally good life. That's the most important
thing. It's not. That's not the most
important thing. Light is important. It's vital.
You got to have light to have life. And you got to have life
to have light. They are both vital. Light is
the first thing God created when He created the world. The eye
to behold light is one of the first members that is formed
in a baby in the womb. So light is important. Life is
important. But what He is talking about
here is He is talking about natural light and natural sunshine. Yeah, these things are sweet.
These things are pleasant. There's no disputing that truth.
But there's something every one of us must remember. After the
natural light, after the natural light, the life comes darkness
and death. And that'll come soon. Look at
verse 8. But if a man live many years,
see how he's talking about light here being life, living many
years. and rejoicing them all. He's
got a good life. He's been full of sunshine. Yet
let him remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many. All that cometh is vanity. Notice this key word here, if. He says, if a man live many years
and if a man rejoicing them all. Few live many years, and few,
fewer, rejoice in them all. You know, the scripture says,
Behold, thou hast made my days as a handbreadth. You hold your
hand up, you look at those four fingers right there, that's a
handbreadth. And God's made our lives as short
as those four fingers are wide. Now that's short. And when you're
young, you look out ahead of you and all the days you think
you have, and you say, well, that doesn't really mean much
to me. And you think time drags by because there's so many things
that you want to see happen, that you're waiting on, and you
have to wait for them to happen. And so it seems like life's just
dragging by. But you take the summer vacation
in between your school classes. Here you are in summer vacation.
Now you want time to drag by. Now you don't want time to fly
by. You want time to drag by. And you blink your eye and the
vacation's over and it's time to go back to school. Well, your
life's that summer break. And in a blink of eye, it's going
to be over. But that's not the end. Just
because life ends, that's not the end. He says here, there's
some darkness to come. There's some darkness to come.
Let's suppose you do have a long life and you have some great
ease in this life. Don't let the thought of that
lull you into a false sense of security. There's been some folks
who have lived many years. There's been some folks who say
through the first 30 or 40 years of their life, they had relative
ease in their life. And therefore, they think it's
going to always be this way. It's going to always be this
way. Yet, even in these best days, God says, remember the
darkness. Remember the darkness. There's
days of darkness that shall come. Now look here in verse 8. There's
no wilf in this second statement. It says, verse 8, for they shall
be. They shall be. And this is certainly
true for the man that only seeks natural light and natural life. He shall see darkness. But we're
all going to see some darkness. We shall, they shall be these
days of darkness. And notice, they shall be many.
The days of our life and the good times may not be many. He
said, if, but the days of darkness shall be many. They shall be
many. He describes it in the next chapter. First of all, as our body is
growing old, he talks about there, the keepers of the house shall
tremble. You see that old man and his hands are shaking and
his head is wobbling and he can't keep his hands controlled. That's the keepers of the house
trembling. You see a man who, it says, strong men shall bow
themselves. You take a man, a young man,
somebody that's strong, and he's able to lift heavy weight, and
he's able to lift large objects and work strong, and he's just
strong as a bull. And he gets old, and he can't
even lift up his own body. He can't even lift just his upper
body and raise it up straight. It says the grinder shall cease.
The teeth shall be few. This is that darkness he's talking
about that's coming. The windows be darkened. The
eyes are going to grow dim. Now, if you spend your life living
for your carnal senses, for these earthly bodies, enjoying the
things that you can touch and taste and hear and smell and
see, what are you going to have when all these things are darkened
and you face the days of darkness? What joy will you have then?
Where will your joy be then? Some of you here, you're not
20 years old. And I know people who have been
in this shape that's described here since they were in their
60s. And now they're in their 90s. They've been in that shape
for 30, 40 years. They've been in that shape longer
than you've been alive. Sometimes a man's life is half
light and sunshine and half days of darkness. And sometimes it's
more days of darkness than it is light and sunshine. He says,
remember that. Remember that. He's turning us
from this flesh. He's turning us from this life,
from the things that you and I naturally seek, which is only
the natural. That's all we ever seek. And
then there's another kind of darkness. There's another kind
of darkness. There's going to be a day when
our bodies, the light's going to go out of our bodies, and
our bodies are going to go into graves. And have you ever thought
about this? For most of us, unless Christ
returns soon after our bodies are laid in the grave, for most
of us, our bodies are going to be in the darkness of death in
the grave longer than they were in the light on the top side
of this earth. A lot longer. And then there is
a darkness of the end of this world. The scripture speaks about
a time coming whenever the sun is going to be darkened. God
is holding it there now and giving it the light. But He says the
sun is going to be darkened. The moon is going to become as
blood. The stars are going to fall from
the sky. He said the islands, you think of those little islands,
we live on an island. We are talking about North America,
South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, the islands. And every
other little island in between, they are going to be shaken out
of their place. And the heavens are going to be rolled back like
a scroll. He describes it in Hebrews as
you take a cloth and you just fold it up like a vesture, like
your clothing at the end of the day and discard it. That's what's
going to happen with this world right here, that heavens that
we see, that outer space. And then there's another darkness
that's described in Scripture, outer darkness. That's where
if a man meets God without Christ, he'll be cast out into outer
darkness. We watched Gravity the other
night. And that's not the outer darkness.
That's just space. That's the second heaven. That's
not outer darkness. But I was watching that movie
and there she is floating around out there in space. And I thought,
man, how awful that would be to float and not be able to go
where you wanted to go and do what you wanted to do, you're
just floating. And then to think if all there
was was darkness. I've been in darkness. I've been,
we used to go in this cave down in middle Tennessee and you get
back in there and you turn a light out and it's dark. I mean, you
can't see anything. And that picture there of that
movie, that's not anything what outer darkness, outer darkness
is going to be a terrible place. I don't know what it'll be, but
it's going to be horrible. But that just made me think of
outer darkness. Darkness, he says. Consider this
now. If a man live many days, many
years, and rejoice in them all, yet let him remember the days
of darkness, for they shall be many. All that cometh, all that
cometh is vanity. What he is saying is, everything
that is going to come for your flesh, In my flesh, He's saying
for this life, everything we accumulate in it, even for this
world, the heavens and the universe and this world, it's all coming
to nothing. It's all coming to darkness.
This is not what it's about. God didn't create this for permanence. This was created as a stage for
us to learn something. That's all this was for. And
it's coming to an end. Every bit of it. And if you live
your life here thinking that this is all there is, and so
you live your life searching and looking to just feed these
senses, they're going to be darkened one day. If you're looking just
to accumulate your stuff in this life, to have a good life, that
life's going to come to darkness one day. And if you think there's
some kind of stability in this world, it's coming to darkness
one day. So there's nothing about where
we are right now that has any stability, any lasting sustenance
to it whatsoever. It's coming to darkness. It's
vanity. It's going to end in nothingness. That's what it's
going to end in. Well, He gives us a word here. He gives us a
word here. The Holy Spirit answers an objection
that He knows the young man's going to make. Now you think
about this. And I read this and I thought
that's just the objection I would have made when I was a young
man. Just the same objection. Young man hears this warning
and his answer is this. Well, if that's the case then,
I'm going to rejoice while I can. I'm going to let my heart cheer
me. I'm going to walk in the ways
of my heart. I'm going to walk in the sight of my eyes. I'm
going to live it up while I can. A man will say, my will shall
be my only law whether it is God's will or not. I am going
to just enjoy the time I have. The very fact that this will
be the answer of your own heart to what I just spoke about is
evidence enough that your way is wrong and my way is wrong.
The fact that that would be the thought that would enter the
heart lets you know by nature you are a bumbling fool. There
is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof
are the ways of death. A young man contacted me three
years ago. He had some questions. He was
raised in works religion and his parents wouldn't even let
him look into Christianity at all. And this man had some questions,
this young boy. And I started corresponding with
him. And I spent a lot of hours writing to him and trying to
show him things. And he just broke off contact.
Well, last week he contacted me again. And he told me that,
reminded me who he was and said that the reason he broke contact
was he just decided that he was going to follow no religion but
his own conscience. But now he's met some girl and
she's religious. And so he's back asking questions.
And I told him, I wrote him and I said, I did this prayer and
God opened his eyes. But I wrote him back and I said,
listen, God didn't come to call the righteous. He came to call
sinners. Go find out what that means. Those are Christ's words.
And I said, you sound as lost as you did when I talked to you
the first time. And I said, why don't you follow
your idol God? Let Him give you your answers.
Follow your conscience. The man whose conscience is his
only guide, he's got to fool for a guide. Especially the natural
mind. So the Holy Spirit of God answers
that objection, and He does so with a bit of irony. He says,
verse 9, Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth. Go ahead. And let
thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the
ways of thine heart, in the sight of thine eyes. But know thou,
but know this, that for all these things God will bring you into
judgment. The man who desires to live his
life seeking only to gratify the lust of his flesh, he may
find out that God will give him the desires of his flesh. And
he may have a good life and he may have an easy life, but God
is going to turn his glory into shame. He will turn that glory
into shame. A man is given a lot of advantages.
And instead of using those advantages to seek God, he uses them for
his own flesh, for his own interest, for his own fleshly pursuits,
just for the here and now. And so, he goes through life
and God gives him more. God lets him have more. And he
boasts about how much he's done, how much he's accomplished, and
how much he's gained, and how far he's come, when God is the
only one that gives. He wouldn't have anything if
God didn't give. But even in this life, and especially in
the life to come, God says, I'll turn that glory into shame. He
said in Hosea 4.7, As they were increased, so they sinned against
Me. Therefore will I change their
glory into shame. But here's the greatest check
against all this vain idea and this vain thought that I'll just
live it up while I have a chance. We're coming into judgment. We're
going to meet God in judgment. But know thou that for all these
things God will bring thee into judgment. There's a judgment
to come for everyone. Hebrews 9.27 says it is appointed
unto men. Two things are appointed unto
men. Number one, it's appointed unto men once to die. And number
two, after this the judgment. Everybody's going to stand before
God. Have you ever stood before an earthly judge? It's not the
most pleasant thing in the world. It's scary to stand before an
earthly judge. That earthly judge has no authority
and no power in comparison with God Almighty. Can you think right
now honestly, do you think you who believe Christ and rest in
Christ and have a good hope of everlasting life because of the
righteousness of Christ, do you really want to stand before God
in judgment? I don't even like the thought
of it. And I've got a good hope in Christ. I don't have a terror
of judgment because of what Christ has done for me. But I don't
take it lightly. You're going to stand before
God. Before God. You put it out of your mind,
you can bury your head in the sand, but we're going to face
God in judgment. And if you put these things out
of your mind, and you go on living only for yourself, and you're
treasuring up, this is what you're doing. This is what Scripture
says. You're treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath. Against
the day of the wrath of the Lamb. What does that mean? You know
how people heap up treasures for themselves, and they're going
to use them for a rainy day. I'm going to have all this saved
up, so when I get into bad times, I'll have all this saved up just
for that day. Well, while you're doing that
and while you're seeking everything in this life and seeking everything
for self and just living like this is it, it's the same as
just heaping up those treasures, heaping up those treasures, heaping
up those treasures, doing it for that day when you stand before
God. And everything you accomplished, everything you accumulated in
this life, everything that this world praised you for, God's
going to say, I'm going to damn you for those things. Because
you could have been seeking me and you were seeking those things
instead. Scripture says there will be
a witness against us. All those things will be a witness against
us. That's going to be so when you meet God outside of Christ. God shall judge you for all the
carnal and sensual pleasures that you sold your soul to enjoy
in this life. Well, preacher, you take away
my joy. I got time to think on these things. I got time to think
on these things later on. I know a man, I've been enjoying
having some of the sweetest times with my son lately, especially
at night. Talking about the scriptures
and I've enjoyed hearing things he said and I've enjoyed it.
And I know a man who did that same thing when he was his age.
I know a man who followed his father. His father preached the
gospel and he followed his father every step his father made, heard
him preach the gospel, knew the gospel in his head and could
tell you everything about it. And as that man grew older, he
grew harder and he grew harder. And every time his father would
speak to him about the gospel, he would say, you just want to
take away my joy. I got plenty of time to think
about those things. Well, now that man's father has
gone to be with the Lord. And that man is the same age
his father was when he was trying to talk to him about these things.
And right now, just like it's always been, when somebody will
try to talk to that man about the gospel, you know what he
says? Why do you want to take away my joy? I got plenty of
time to worry about those things. He's sick. He's going to die. He don't have many days left
on this earth. And he's still using that same lame excuse for
not seeking God. I wonder how many times you're
going to hear that word over and over for eternity in hell. I got plenty of time. Yeah, you
got plenty of time now. You're going to repeat that man's
mistakes? You're going to keep on saying, I got plenty of time.
I got plenty of time. Well, hear this. This is the
Holy Spirit. He gives us a word that we need to heed today. And
if he makes it effectual, we'll heed it today. Listen to what
he says in verse 10. Therefore, remove sorrow from
thy heart. He says here, the word sorrow
is anger. Therefore, remove anger from
your heart. When you hear this, especially young sinners, all
sinners think this when they hear this message, but especially
young sinners, they hear this and what they hear in this message
is, you've taken away from me what I hold most dear. You're
taking away the sensual, you're taking away the carnal, you're
taking away the earthy, you're taking away these things that
are the only things I can see and hear, the things I love and
things I want to pursue. That's what you're taking away
from me. And so in your pride you get angry about it and your
heart boils over. And you say, I don't want to
hear that. I wish he'd quit talking to me about that. All he talks
about is sin. All he talks about is judgment. All he talks about
is having to face God. I wish he'd just talk about something.
Can't you just tell us how to live in this life and enjoy it? And God says here, you put that
away. That's what He's saying. You
remove that from your thoughts. You take that angry heart and
all those evil thoughts and remove it away. Put it away. Not only
that, He says this in verse 10, Put away evil from your flesh. It means turn from your flesh.
Do you know this? If you don't know Christ, if
you don't believe on Christ, the only thing you enjoy in this
life are fleshly things. That's the only thing you enjoy
in this life. The only thing that you have any perception
of or any idea about or any pursuit of are fleshly things. That's it. God says, put that
away too. The pursuit of it, living in
it, whether it's moral or immoral, whether it's godly or ungodly,
He says, if it's done in your flesh, turn away from it. Leave
it alone. Those are two commands that are the same command. He's
saying, repent. That's what He's saying. Repent.
Turn from you. And then look, here's why. Verse
10 says, for childhood and youth are vanity. They're vanity. We're sinners by conception.
And so everything that we think, everything we do, everything
that we presently hold dear is vanity. And all our thoughts,
our excuses of why, you know, we're going to put this off to
a more convenient season. You'd be like, that man, he never
found a convenient season. And there won't ever be a convenient
season. There's nothing convenient about your flesh dying. There's
nothing convenient about your flesh being mortified and put
down and you being told that it's worthless and a stinking
dead thing that's not going to profit you anything. There's
nothing convenient about that. And we're going to have to face
it sooner or later. Childhood and youth, along with all the
things that you naturally hold dear, is uncertain, it's unsatisfying,
and it shall not last. Just like I told you, this whole
world's vanity. I bought flowers for Melinda
last week. Was it last week? When did I
buy those flowers? Yeah. Monday. Sunday. Sunday. I bought
her flowers Sunday. And already, they're withering.
And that's what the Scripture says about us. It says, The voice
said, Cry. Christ told John the Baptist,
Cry. Preach. What? All flesh is grass, and
all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. The
grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord
bloweth upon it. Surely the people is grass. You
see, if God takes His Spirit from you, you're withered. If
God just removes His sustaining power from you and me, we're
withered. Because He upholds all things
by the Word of His power, even you and me. The very one we cuss,
the very one that we make our excuses not to seek after. He
says here, the grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the
Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it. Surely the people is grass. But now listen to this. The grass
withers and the flower fades but the word of our God shall
stand forever. There is a God and there is a
place where God abides. It's called New Jerusalem. Heavenly
Mount Zion. It's called God's throne. It's
it's where Christ sits at the right hand of God And it is a
it obviously is a place because like I told you the other day
Stephen when he was dying God rolled the heavens back like
a scroll and he saw him there. He saw him there And the Scripture
says in that day when the heavens are rolled back like a scroll,
men that don't have Christ are going to run into the dens, into
the caves and the mountains, and they are going to beg the
mountains, follow me and hide me from the face of the Lamb. So then the Holy Spirit gives
us this most important command. And I pray you make this affectionate
in our heart. Look at verse 1. Ecclesiastes 12.1. Remember now. thy Creator in the days of thy
youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh,
when thou shouldst say, I have no pleasure in them." Now, he
begun by saying, truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing
it is for the eyes to behold the sun. But there is something
far more sweet than natural life and natural light. It is spiritual
life and it is spiritual light. Christ the life, Christ the light. He said there, He said there,
it's a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun, but
there's something far more pleasant than to behold the natural, S-U-N,
it's to behold the S-O-N. The Scripture says, unto you
that fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing
in his wings, and you shall go forth and grow up as calves of
the stall. Do you have a fear of God in
your heart? Do you reverence God like you reverence the dead? Do you reverence God like you
reverence your teacher? Like you reverence the president? Like you reverence being an authority
here? We ought to give Him more reverence
than anybody. We ought to tremble knowing that
we're going to stand before God. We ought to tremble knowing that...
Paul said, knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.
God's not playing around. God's holy. And you can't come
into His presence unholy. God's righteous and we can't
come into His presence unrighteous. And all we are is unholy and
unrighteous. And God won't receive us. God
won't accept us. So He says here, seek Him now. And He says, and all those that
fear Me, He says, I'm going to arise just like the sun of righteousness. Just like the sun outside rises
in the morning. He says the sun, the S-U-N of
righteousness, Christ the Lord will arise. And just like those
rays go forth and they warm, He says, I'll arise with healing
in My being. Healing he'll show you the light.
He'll show you him. He'll show you who he is. He'll
show you what great things He's done for his people Do you even
care? Do you even desire to know him?
Do you even have any kind of a heart to seek God at all? This is how important it is the
thought cross your mind. Well, I can put this off. Well,
I see so being so Like this about it tonight. I got tomorrow God
is so adamant to tell you not to count on tomorrow that He
says seek Him today. Seek Him today. The time is short
and your time is short and it's so short that God says don't
count on tomorrow. He says, now is the day of salvation. He says, remember now thy Creator
in the days of our youth. Whereas you know not what shall
be on the morrow, for what is your life? It's even a vapor
that appears for a little time and then vanisheth away. How
long does that vapor last when you walk out in the cold and
you breathe and you see it? And quick as you see it, it's
gone. He says, that's our life. That's our life. God commands
us to take advantage of the time. He says in Ephesians 5.16, redeeming
the time because the days are evil. That means take advantage
of the time. Take advantage of the time God's
given you. Take advantage of the time by seriously seeking
the truth of God's Word. By seriously seeking Christ.
Not once. Not, oh well, I sought Him and
I had this fuzzy feeling and I confessed Him in believer's
baptism and now I've got that over with. No. Seek Him every
day. Seek Him constantly. All your
life. Seek Him. Are you going to waste
your life in a pursuit of fools' gold, or will you seek the unsearchable
riches of Christ? You have a life to live, you
have a death to die, you have a judgment to face, and you have
an eternity to spend. How are you going to use this
time? How are we going to use this time? Our Savior said, what
is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose
his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange
for his soul? For the Son of Man shall come
in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He shall
reward every man according to his works. One of the saddest
things there is to see, and you see this when you preach the
gospel, one of the saddest things to see is to see young people
who are given great advantage waste the advantage they've been
given. God's given you great privileges. You've got the gospel
preached to you in spirit and in truth. Do you know there are
a majority of people on this earth that do not have that?
God's given you a faithful church, a body of believers that are
more than willing to help any of you anytime you need it with
any question about these scriptures or anything else they can help
you with. Some have believing parents. Some of you got believing
brothers or sisters or other family members. and you have
the Word of God. You can pick this Word up and
you can follow along and read the Word of God as the Gospel
is being preached. You can go home. You don't have
to hide it. You don't have to worry that
the police are going to stop you and cart you off to jail
because you live in some communist country that doesn't want you
to have the Word of God. You can freely go home and read
this Word and search the Scripture. And yet with all these advantages,
you stop up your ears, close your eyes, and throw the book
on the shelf, and just don't pay any attention whatsoever. But spend great amount of energy
to try to become better athletes, and to try to become better workers,
and to become better professionals, and to become better all these
other things. Do you see why He says for all
this God will bring you into judgment? Do you see why this?
This is. God commands you remember now
thy Creator in the days of thy youth. Do you know what it means
for God to be your Creator? Do you know what that means?
It means He made you. You didn't make yourself. It
means He sustains you. He gives you life. Take a breath. God gave you that. Bat your eye. God gave you the strength to
do that. You'd be a raven maniac if God took good sense away from
you. And He can. Everything you have, God gave
it to you. He's our Lord and our owner,
rightfully so. And therefore, we're under obligation
to serve Him and worship Him. This is not an option. Men walking
around, little haughty, arrogant, piss ants walking around here
talking about, I believe this guy and that guy. It's not an
option. It's not an option. We're under obligation to believe
God. We're under obligation to worship
God. If you won't heed that word,
you're directly looking God in the eye and saying, no God. It's screaming in God's face.
It's defying God. It's saying to God, I will not
have you to be God. Can you imagine being hooked
up on a machine in a hospital so near death that the only thing
keeping you alive is that machine and those doctors that are doing
everything that's necessary to keep you alive and you're screaming
at the doctors and telling them how you hate them and how you
don't want to see them walk in that room and how you got bigger
and better things to do than to look at them? This is what the scripture says. Not only did God create this
world, He upholds it. Let me try to give you an idea
of why you're here. Let me try to put this in simplest
terms I can, why you're here. This word creator here is plural.
It means creators. It says here, remember now thy creators
in the days of thy youth. God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit. One God in three persons. God
the Father created His people in eternity when He chose whom
He would in Christ, not based on any good or evil in us, but
chose to redeem us from our sins and gave us to His Son. God the
Father created His people right then. And then the triune God
in Christ, Christ created this whole world. The heavens and
the earth. The scripture says, by Him were
all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth,
visible and invisible. Whether there be thrones or dominions
or principalities or powers, all things were created by Him
and for Him. For Him. That's the reason. For Him. And He's before all
things and by Him all things consist. Man was created after
the image of our creators. God said, let us, our creators,
create man after our image. Let me ask you something. How
was man created after the image of God who is invisible? Because he was created after
the image of Christ and that body and that person that Christ
would have when He came into this earth. And because Christ
is the fullness of the Godhead bodily, He was created after
the image of God. Did you understand that? Did
you get that? He was created after the image of Christ. Man
was. After that image of Christ as
in a body, as he would be. That's why man was given a body.
It wasn't that God gave Christ a body because man was given
a body. He gave man a body because he would give Christ a body.
Christ is first in everything. And because Christ is the fullness
of the Godhead bodily, therefore man was made in the image of
our creators when he was made after the image of Christ. And
then, so He's made man. Then the triune God, our creators,
allowed sin to enter in. They allowed Satan to enter the
garden and allowed us to fall in at Him. That was not by accident.
God did that for this reason, to bring glory to His name and
the salvation of His people from our sins through the redemption
that's in Christ Jesus. God did this for His glory. He created this world for Him
and He allowed us to fall in sin for Him. And then the Lord
Jesus Christ, in time, He came and He created His people through
redemption when He laid down His life at Calvary and put away
our sins and made us the righteousness of God in Him. And then God the
Holy Spirit creates His people when He creates a new man within
us in righteousness and true holiness and brings us to faith
in Christ. And when he does that, that's
when you have true light and true life. Christ the light and
Christ the life. That's when you behold how pleasant
it is to walk in beholding the light of the S-O-N. That's when you find that word
sweet and pleasant. And until then, you don't have
a clue. You don't even know what life's
about. Give a man a huge mansion, give him a yacht sitting out
somewhere on the ocean, give him some frou-frou food on some
fancy napkin and he thinks, oh, I've got it, this is sweet and
this is pleasant. That's hell without Christ. A man that has nothing, that
lives at the bottom of the hill and cleans that man's bathroom and his underwear for
him and shines his shoes and has Christ, that man's got everything. He knows what's sweet and pleasant. And then, so you have your creators. God the Father created His people
in divine election. God the Son created His people
by His redemption. And God the Holy Spirit creates
His people by regeneration. So, where does that leave you? You that don't know Christ. God
even created you. Just your natural body. The first
time you were conceived in your mother's womb and came forth,
God created you. And you know why He did it? He
did it for the same reason He creates His people. Same reason. He did it so that He might give
His Son all preeminence in all things. That's why He did it.
So here you are. Now you're in this great, grand
creation that God has made all around us. Now listen carefully.
I'm fixing to bring this home to you right where you are. Here
you are in this grand creation God's made. This stage God has
created that where He would work out this great salvation and
reveal who He is, who His person is in His Son and how His glory
in His Son and show what great things He's done for His people
in His Son. Here's this great stage. And if you live for this earthy
life, and for this earthy S.U.N. and just for the natural light
and the natural life. You know what it's like? It's
like walking into a grand theater where there's a show that's going
to be played out with this famous character and it's the greatest
show that could ever be written. And you walk in and You're looking
at the spotlight, and you're looking at the stage props, and
you're looking at the stage, and you're looking at the curtains,
and you're looking at all of those things, and you never even
pay attention to the main attraction. You never even see what all that
is there for. You miss the whole thing. That's
what's going to happen if you pass through this whole life
and you never, never seek God. You never seek Christ. But I
want you to know this for an assurance. And this is what the
Scripture is telling us. For all these things, though you
wouldn't heed this word, for all these things, you're still
going to bring Christ all preeminence. Everybody that walks this earth
is going to. We're either going to do it by
God's grace when we bow and confess Christ to be Lord and cast all
our care into His hands and trust Him to save us from us. Or we're
going to do it in justice one day, in judgment, when we stand
before God, before Christ Himself and He judges us and then casts
us out into outer darkness. Either way, in mercy or justice,
we're going to bring preeminence to Christ. And in that day, the
Scripture says, when the host of rebels have been cast out
into outer darkness, we're going to know God so fully in that
day and know what true righteousness is in that day so fully. We're
going to clap and applaud and declare God's glory for casting
them out into outer darkness. Can you imagine that? That's
knowing what righteousness is. That's knowing what true justice
is. God also has highly exalted him and given him a name which
is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee
shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord to the glory of God the Father. How sure am I of that?
God said, I have sworn by myself the words gone out of my mouth
in righteousness and shall not return, that unto me every knee
shall bow and every tongue shall swear. If God has promised it
by himself, it shall come to pass. Why aren't you trembling? Why
aren't you under your seat right now? Because you think you've
got tomorrow. God said when that day comes,
you'll be under the seat. You'll be under the seat. You
see, our whole duty to our Creator is fulfilled by us when we fear
God and we believe on His Son. Our whole duty is fulfilled.
Look at Ecclesiastes 12.13 and I'll finish. He says, let us hear the conclusion
of the whole matter. Fear God and keep His commandments,
for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every
work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good
or whether it be evil. Sinner, fear God, because you
shall come into judgment. Every secret thing, whether good
or evil, shall be judged. What that's telling you and me
is this. Don't try to fake God out. You can fake me out. You can fake mom and dad out.
You can fake out others. Don't try to fake God out. Because
fear God. Reverence God. Know that God
is going to judge the secret thing. Every work, good or evil. You picture some balances. And this is what men are taught
all their life. Well, all my goods, God is going to put on
this side. And all my evil, God is going to put on that side.
And hopefully my good will outweigh my evil. God is going to put
all your good on one side and God is going to put all your
evil on the same side. And the one that is going to
be standing on the other side is Christ our righteousness by whom this
world is going to be judged. And if you meet God that way,
He is going to say, Thou art weighed in the balances and are
found wanting. That is certain. So fear God. And then He says, and keep His
commandments. Turn to John chapter 6. Now you
can't do that yourself. You and me were guilty the moment
we were conceived because we broke God's law in the garden.
How then are we going to keep God's commandments? There's one
commandment God's given that we're going to keep. And that
one commandment, God gives us the grace to keep it. And this
is it right here. This is it. John 6, 28. Then said they unto Him, What
shall we do that we might work the works of God? And Jesus answered
and said unto them, This is the work of God, that you believe
on Him whom He hath sent. You see, Christ fulfilled all
righteousness for His people. And the way that righteousness
is made, our righteousness is through faith in Him. God says,
when you believe on Christ, God says, He's a righteous man. He's
fulfilled my whole law, every bit of it. This is the commandment,
John said, that you believe on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ,
and love one another as He gave us commandment. That's one commandment.
That's the one His people shall do. That's the one He has to
do. So the whole duty of man toward our God, our triune God,
our creators, is to fear God and believe on the name of His
Son, Jesus Christ. Salvation is only by the doing
and dying of the Lord Jesus. So the only way God is going
to receive you, already He is going to receive me, is for us
to come to God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Come to Christ
believing on Christ. Come to Christ confessing that
you and everything about you deserves nothing but eternal
damnation. Come to Christ confessing you
need mercy. Come to Christ casting all your
care into His hand. Like those that said, if we die,
we are going to die in His hand, but we are going to Him. Go to
Him and cast all your care into His hand. That's how God will
receive His people. And God promises, you come forsaken
yourself, and God will show you mercy. Because if you can come
forsaken yourself, God's already showed you mercy. He's already
drawn you to Himself. When is the time to do this?
Read our text. Read our text, Ecclesiastes 12.1.
Remember now, 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. Now, now, now, today is the day
of salvation. And listen to me. You know what
tomorrow is going to be? Tomorrow is going to be today. When it gets here, tomorrow is
going to be today. You know what time that's going to be? Now
is the time to seek Him. You know what the next day is
going to be? It's going to be now. It's going to be today.
It's going to be the time to seek Him. Seek Him now. Right now. Whatever hour it is,
seek Him now. From here on. Amen.