Ecclesiastes 12

Jerry A Collins

1. LIVE RESPONSIBLY IN THE FEAR OF GOD BEFORE THE MISERIES OF OLD AGE OVERTAKE YOU 1

First he pleads, remember. This is remembering in such a way that you recollect and reflect an all that God is, has done and act accordingly on this knowledge in your life. Specifically that means:

(1) That God is your Creator. He is the one your spirit will return to when you die vs 7. He is the one who will bring every act to judgment in your life vs 14. It would be foolish to forget that He exists and your accountable to Him. He is the author of life who gives it and takes it away. Evolution is a lie. Atheism is a deception. (2) Remember this while your life is young. Begin obeying and acknowledging God and His Lordship over your life when you are young. Don’t let the fantasies of youth preoccupy your affections. Don’t let the pleasures of youth compromise your life. You cannot make up those years if you remember to do this later on in life. You only go around once in life so do not squander any of it by forgetting God in your life. (3) Before the miseries related to old age diminish your capacity to serve God. That is the days of old age whose troubles or evil he will figuratively depict in the next verses. Days when physical difficulty, injury, pain and suffering may preoccupy your time and limit the way you may serve the Lord with your life. These years in which they find little pleasure. Don’t waste the best years of energy, enthusiasm, opportunity you have he says! When young life seems to stretch endlessly before you. But later in life just living day by day seems to pass speedily by.

Solomon use figures to picture the declining joy and diminishing power of old age. First, life gathers like the weather vs 2. As clouds block out the sun, moon and stars so old age is a time of diminishing lite and increasing gloom that heralds the approach of the darkness of death (11:7-8). I remember this vividly with my grandfather and then my grandmother. All I could think about was the good old days when they were younger and I was living with them. Not this. The joy was gone and the pain only increased. Second, life is like a great house in decline vs 3-4. A watchman now old, once courageous now suddenly afraid vs 3. The mighty of this house now have legs that are bent and feeble to hold them up vs 3. The grinding of teeth cease because there are fewer of them vs 3. Those looking thru windows in this house have dimmed figuratively of failing eyesite vs 3. The doors along the street shut may picture the loss of one’s teeth the word refers to molar teeth vs 4. The elderly loose sleep because every little sound wakes them vs 4. Songs sung during ones youth now impaired by loss of hearing vs 4. Third life is frail like all frail things 5-8. Vs 5 refers to dangers that cause elderly to be fearful of going outside or walking the streets. There are several pictures showing human life in a state of decline.

(1) These words were arranged with great care to accurately present the truth 9-10. Not hasty one-liners to amuse.

(2) These words are designed to prod sluggish ones into action and goad us into doing something about what we have read and heard 11-12. They are his words not a skeptics or cynics. Looking at other sources for wisdom will only wear you out with endless, wearisome searching.