Before It's Too Late (Pt. 1) | Ecclesiastes 11:1-12:14

[MUSIC] Welcome to the David Jeremiah podcast, delivering the unchanging word of God to your ever-changing world. Listen daily at Davidgeramaya.org/podcast or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. On today's episode, Dr. Jeremiah brings a message from his series "Searching for Heaven." And now, here's David. [MUSIC] Well, one of the first books that I ever wrote was called "Before It's Too Late." It was a book on prophecy warning people to get things straight because the Lord is coming back soon. I really believe that. But I've chosen to use the title here in the book of Ecclesiastes to summarize Solomon's teaching through these 12 chapters that we are looking at. Today and tomorrow are the last two days in our study. And I hope you'll be with us for both programs. And before you forget it, you've been meaning to do this. Do it now. Send a gift to Tertig Point for the month of February and ask for your copy of the book. 31 days to happiness. It will be the capstone to our study because in that book are all the things that I have been talking about through the month of February. This book will be a great treasure and will be something you'll keep on your shelf. And I believe you'll come back to it often. You might even want to use it for a small group study and you can be the facilitator, get the book, get the study guides for your group, and study the book of Ecclesiastes together. It will be a lively discussion and certainly very helpful to you in your walk with the Lord. Today we visit part one of Solomon's concluding thoughts and the very pertinent and very pointed. Let's begin our discussion. We are coming to the last message from the book of Ecclesiastes and I want you to turn in your Bibles to the 11th and the 12th chapters. The book of Ecclesiastes says all of you know has been Solomon's round trip experience with God. He starts out with the conclusion that all is vanity. And it's very interesting when you get to the end of his book and the 8th verse of the 12th chapter, he says it again. "Vanity of vanity" says the preacher, "All is vanity." The last two chapters of this book are studied together because the argument flows from the 11th chapter all the way through to the end. And the chapter break is more for convenience than it is for understanding. So we're going to cover these chapters together. Obviously we can't take a long time on each of the verses. But Solomon has taken us down this road of investigation in this book. And I want to remind you once again that Solomon has written three books. He wrote one book in his youth, the book of romance, which is the song of Solomon. He wrote another book at midlife, which is the book of Proverbs. That's the book of rules. And then he wrote this book at the end of his life and that's the book of regrets. And now as Solomon has taken us through this process, he has helped us understand that life under the sun without God is a meaningless experience. It's like being in a cul-de-zac. It's like going around about. It's nowhere. It gets you nowhere. It just leaves you empty and he's got many metaphors to describe it. It's like chasing the wind. It's like vanity. It's like a puff of smoke. Life without God, Solomon has demonstrated in many ways is meaningless. In the passage that we have before us, he's going to resolve all the questions that he has raised in these first ten chapters. And he's going to come at last in the 12th chapter to what he calls the final conclusion. Here's my final conclusion. But Solomon wants us to understand that on the way to the final conclusion, we are still here on this earth. We are going to ultimately be with God forever, but on this earth we have to live by the priorities of life. And so it's very interesting that starting at the beginning of the eleventh chapter and going all the way through to the end of the 12th chapter, Solomon kind of gives us some overarching principles upon which we should base our lives. And as you look at these principles with me, you will see that they are sort of the conclusions of many of the threads of argument that Solomon has woven together in this book. And they come sort of like admonitions. And the first one is in verses one through six of chapter 11, it goes like this, "Life is uncertain, so embrace it." Solomon has gone to great pain to demonstrate throughout the pages of Ecclesiastes the uncertainty of life. We cannot know. In fact, four times in these verses he says, "You don't know. You cannot know. Life is uncertain." The temptation that many of us would have, if we believe we're ultimately going to go to heaven, and that this life is uncertain, we ought to just chill out, sit back and not do anything risky, just kind of be cool, and go through life and wait for death. And then you go to be with God. And I know some people that live like that. But if you study Solomon's wisdom literature, you'd never be able to take that course. Because Solomon really has an interesting take on life when it comes to this particular process. He begins by telling us, "Life is uncertain, embrace it." So the first thing you need to do is diversify your investments. Life is uncertain. Notice in verses one and two. Cast your bread on the water for you will find it after many days. Give a serving to seven or also to eight for you. Do not know what evil would be on the earth. Now this verse of the 11th chapter captures another one of those famous idioms in the book of Ecclesiastes. Cast your bread on the water. You've heard that before. Maybe you wondered where it came from. Well, it's right here from the book of Ecclesiastes. And what it means in the context of this book is, in that particular time, the merchants of Solomon's Day would load up their grain ships and send them off in commerce, hoping that in the process, they would be able to trade and bring back more in trade than what they sent out. That was casting their bread on the water. They would load up their grain in these big ships. And if they didn't send them out, they would sit in the harbor and rot. Solomon says, "Cast your bread upon the water and he uses the plural." In other words, don't put all your grain in one ship. Put your grain in several ships and send it out in a diversified way so that if one of them doesn't work, you've got some others that do. Now in our day and age, we call that diversifying your portfolio, not putting all of your investment in one place. Solomon is telling us that because life is uncertain and we don't know what's going to happen, we should spread our investments out. In fact, he goes so far as to say seven or eight different places. He says in verse two, "Give us serving to seven or also to eight. For you do not know what evil will be on the earth." Then he goes into another argument of the same nature. Only this one has to do with how we go about our work. We're to diversify our investment and he says we're to be diligent in our involvement. Notice verses three and following. "If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth. And if a tree falls to the south of the north and the place where the tree falls, they're at shall I. He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap. As you do not know what is the way of the wind or how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child, so you do not know the works of God who makes everything. So in the morning, sow your seed in the evening, don't withhold your hand for you. Do not know which will prosper either this or that or whether both alike will be good." Now here's what Solomon is teaching us. "If you believe life is uncertain, one of your approaches to life would be, I'm not going to do anything. I'm just going to sit back and cool my jets and wait, see what happens because everything's so uncertain. I don't know what to do." Solomon says, "No, between here and eternity, life is uncertain." That doesn't mean you shouldn't be aggressive in your approach to life. You should be bold. Be strong for the Lord your God is with you. And he says, "Go out and work hard every day. Plant your seed. Harvest your crops." And because life is uncertain, don't work less. Work more. Because life is uncertain, don't go out and just say, well, you know, the Lord's coming back, I only need this little bit of a garden. No, you go out and you sow your seed and you work hard and you involve yourselves because he says, you don't know what's going to happen. He says, you don't know if it's going to rain or not. It might or it might not. You could be driving down the highway and you drive through little patches of rain. You go through rain and all of a sudden it's not raining and then it's raining again. How are you supposed to know where the rain is going to come? Solomon says, "A tree falls and when a tree falls it falls in north or south and it stays where it falls. But you can't figure out where the rain is going to fall." And just as you don't know where the rain is going to go and just as you don't know where the wind is going to blow Solomon says, you can't figure out how the bones grow in a pregnant woman's womb. He says, just like all those things you can't figure out, you can't figure out God. So since you don't understand God and you don't know what's going to happen in life, here's the best thing you can do. Invest yourself and involve yourself with life with energy and with boldness. Now that's something you won't hear very often from many places. Because some people give me the impression that since they know they're going to heaven, they should put a white sheet on and go sit on a fence waiting for the Lord to return. Have you ever noticed that? It's kind of, well I'm going to heaven. That's okay. I don't have to do anything. No, if you're going to heaven, you want to live life passionately because you only get one shot at this life. That's what Solomon is teaching us. Now number two, he's going to teach us that we are not going to stay young all of our lives. Life is short, enjoy it. Verses seven in chapter 11 to verse eight in chapter 12. Now there's several little phrases or little stanzas to Solomon's message. You don't want to go through them with you one at a time. First of all, Solomon says you should experience every day totally. Just experience it totally. Since life is short, you don't know how long you have to live. You should live every day with gusto. Truly the light is sweet, he says, and it's pleasant for the eyes to behold the sun. But if a man lives many years and rejoices in them all, yet let him remember the days of darkness for they will be many, all that is coming is vanity. I love the message of the seventh verse because it resonates with my spirit so much. Solomon says we should never take for granted the dawning of a new day. Don't get the idea that just because you're here today, you're going to be here tomorrow, or the world is going to be the same. He says, get up every day, look out and say, "Good morning." Lord, some people get out and say, "Good Lord morning." You know, I mean, that's how they face life. But you should get up and say, "Good morning, Lord." And thank God for this day that He has trusted you with. That's what He's saying. He's saying, "Truly the light is sweet and it's pleasant for the eyes to behold the sun." I love the sunshine. I love to see the sun peaking through the window when I get up in the morning, getting ready to face the day knowing that almost every day in California is a sunny day. Be thankful. Solomon is saying, "Experience each day totally." Do you begin your day with a prayer of gratitude for God for the gift of life? Maybe you should realize that until you have life threatened a little bit, you won't do that probably. But when you think about the fact that you might not have days to live, you get up in a different way. And every day, if you looked at my journal, almost every journal entry says the very same thing. Thank you, Lord, for this day. And for a good night's rest and for the privilege of being alive one more day on this earth to serve you. Experience each day totally. Then Solomon says, "Enjoy your youth thoroughly. Rejoice oh young man in your youth. Let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and then the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things God will bring in a judgment." Now, I've been telling you throughout this whole series that Solomon's got one little string he likes to play in this book and that is "Enjoy life." Here, he's telling us that young people especially should enjoy life. He admonishes those who are young to enjoy their youth and to live with great adventure and excitement because these are some of the best days you're ever going to have. You know, if you watch young people get amused especially as you get older, you watch them and, you know, they were 16 but they want to be 18. Then they're 18, they want to be 21, and then they're 21, they want to be 25. Somewhere along the way that process starts to reverse itself. I don't know not sure where it is but somewhere it starts to reverse itself. Well, what Solomon is saying here is that when you're young, it's the best time of life. And I think that we ought to be saying that to our kids more than we do. They keep thinking, "Oh, it's going to be so much better later." Well, it's good along the way but youth has so many advantages. Not as much responsibility, lots of energy, many good friends. I watched our kids come up through the schools here over the years and I remember after my two boys went away to play football, we were talking one day and we kind of all agreed together that as much fun as it was to play football in college, the high school days are the best of all. Because you've got this camaraderie and it's not a business, it's a game and it's fun and everybody gets together. Can I get a witness? Isn't that true? Your high school, your young days are great. So Solomon says, "Don't try to always be getting past where you are, enjoy where you are, young people. This is a great time in your life." And you will look back on this later and say, "Those were some good days." So Solomon says, "Remove sorrow from your heart, put away evil from your flesh, walk in the ways of your heart and in the side of your eyes." He's not saying, "Go out and sew wild oats." He's not saying that. In fact, he's reminding us that whatever you do while you're having a good time as a young person, you're going to have to give an answer to God. So here's the way you look at it. I'm going to enjoy everything in my life that I can enjoy that won't get me in trouble with God. Amen? That's a good way to start out, isn't it? I'm going to enjoy everything I can in my life that God will smile on and you think, "Well, that's going to be boring. Oh, no, it's not." You let God be your entertainment director along the way and you'll be surprised how much fun it is to live for the Lord and not have guilt hanging over you for stuff you know you shouldn't have done, but just to enjoy the exuberance of being young. Let me just say a word here to parents that I think is very important. Please allow your kids to be kids. Let them enjoy their childhood and their youth. Don't make them grow up too fast. Don't always try to push them beyond where they should be. I know kids who have lost their entire adolescence because of parents wanting them to be older than they are and then they end up feeling like they've lost something and they go back and try to recover it and it destroys their marriage. So let your kids be kids and remember kids are crazy. They do weird stuff and Mark Twain said, "If you've got a kid, you put them in a barrel and you put a top on it and you cut a little hole in the barrel and when he turns 16 you plug up the hole." That's what he said. That's how you get through teenage years. And he only said that because he was trying to make the point that growing up is like a white water but those are great days and parents let your kids be kids. Amen? And understand that why don't you act more mature because I'm not more mature but I will be someday. So just give me some hope. So experience each day totally, enjoy your youth thoroughly and then the third thing is express your faith thoughtfully. Solomon says in verses 1 and 2 of chapter 12, "Remember now you're creator in the days of your youth before the difficult days come and all the years draw near when you have no pleasure in them, when the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are not darkened and the clouds do not return after the rain." Solomon says two times in this last chapter, "Remember your creator in the days of your youth." And that just runs against the grain of the way most young people think. A lot of young people think that, "You know, I don't need to be serious about God." Now there's time for that later. I'll get serious about God when I'm older, you know, when I've lived more. No, Solomon says, "Here's the key. Here's the key to life. Get your stuff with God together when you're young so you can carry that into your adult years and you will have this foundation that will give you such stability. People will marvel at who you are and how you function." Remember, he says your creator. He's not just talking about having a memory of him. The word "remember" means to get involved in mentally and committed to him. Be committed to your creator when you're young, when the days are not dark, when the clouds don't come back after it rains. In other words, in the good days of your youth, when you're enjoying your young days, don't forget to embrace God and spend time with God. Learn what it means to be disciplined and spend some time in devotions every day and get somebody to partner with you and be accountable to one another. Get in a small platoon, whatever that you do that can help you. Wrap your spiritual arms around Almighty God when you're young so that you carry that foundation into your adolescent years and on up into your young adult years. We all who grew up in Christian homes look back and see how many times we came close to really messing up good. But what would have happened had we not had the foundation that we had to start with? I'll tell you the truth. I don't want to go there because it's scary. Get your stuff together with God, kids, when you're young and don't wait until you get old. Remember your Creator in the days of your youth. Now, he's talked about experiencing every day totally and enjoying your youth thoroughly and expressing your faith thoughtfully. Now he comes to verses three through seven and he's going to talk to the rest of us who aren't young and he's going to say, "Embrace your aging thankfully." In verses three through seven, could be depressing if they weren't so picturesque and accurate. Take a deep breath, everybody, over 40. Solomon is going to give us a little picture sort of poetically about getting older. I want to read this to you and what I'd like you to do is look down at your Bible. Instead of my reading the text like it is one phrase after another, I'm going to read the phrases and tell you what they mean metaphorically. So you follow. I might miss one or two but you'll be able to stay with me if you stay in the text. He starts out by saying in verse three, "In the day when the keepers of the house tremble, well the keepers of your house are your arms and your hands." And he says, "As you start getting older they start to tremble." The strong men, those are your legs, your knees and your shoulders weaken and you walk bent over. And then it says, "When the grinders ceased because they are few, that means you're losing your teeth." And then it says, "When the windows grow dim, that means your eyesight isn't very good." And the doors and talks about the doors shut in the street. That means you can't hear what's going on outside anymore. And then it talks about grinding again. You can't chew your food. And it says, "You rise up with the birds." As soon as the bird starts chirping, four o'clock in the morning, you get up. Do you ever notice how early old people get up? My parents used to stay at our house. No matter what time I got up in the morning, my dad was sitting at the kitchen table. And I ask him, "Seriously, dad, you go to bed last night? Oh yeah, hot's like to get up early. Old people get up early and they go to bed early." And some of you're, "Yeah, right. Yeah." And then it talks about music. It says, "Your voice starts to quiver and weaken. And you're afraid. You're terrified of heights and you're afraid of falling when you walk down the street." And then I love this one. It says, "When the almond tree blossoms, your hair turns white." That's really what it's talking about. You get white hair. And it says, "The grasshopper is a burden. It's a picture of a grasshopper at the end of the summer. It's all worn out. It can hardly pull itself out." This little creature that was so invigorated in the beginning of the summer is pulling itself just barely making it across the ground. And then it says, "And this one here, I got to be careful with it and desire fails." You take that wherever you want to. And then it says, "Man goes to his eternal home and mourners go about the streets." What's that? That's a funeral procession. Now, then you get to verse 6 and he says, "Remember your creator before the silver cord is loose or the golden bowl is broken or the picture shattered at the fountain or the wheel broken at the well. Then dust will return to the earth as it was in the spirit where we turn to God who gave it." Now, remember what our point is here. Our point is life is short. Enjoy it. What Solomon is trying to do is he's taken us on a little journey from being real young to the very last days of our life and he wants us to understand that we're supposed to enjoy life. I heard a story about a fellow who loved to play golf but he was over 80 and his vision wasn't very good anymore. His windows weren't working. And he always had these guys that would go with him to the country club to help him when he went out to play. They would watch where he hit the ball and they would tell him where it went and then he'd go hit it again. Well, one day he went to play golf and his buddies didn't show up. And it was such a beautiful day. He wanted to play golf so bad. So he just hung around the clubhouse, groaning and moaning and the more upset he got, the more people began to notice him. And finally, this other guy in the clubhouse walked over to him and said, "What's wrong? He looks so depressed." And he explained his predicament. He said, "I was looking forward to playing golf today but I don't see well anymore. So I got to have somebody to watch the ball after I hit it." Well, the second man was older than he was. But miraculously, he said, "That's no problem. I'll ride around with you. I have 2020 vision. I can see like a hawk. You just hit the ball and I'll watch the ball fly down the fairway." So they went out on the first tee and the old man hit the ball right down the center. He turned to the spider and he said, "Did you see it?" He said, "I saw it all the way. I watched it all the way till it stopped rolling. I saw it every inch of the way." He said, "Where, where did it go?" The older man paused for a moment. He said, "I forgot." Well, I guess we were having a little fun in this program today. Sometimes I like to tell some of my favorite stories and that's one of them. It's not as funny as it used to be because as I get older, I realize the truth of that little story and some of you know what I'm talking about. Well, tomorrow we'll finish up our study of the Book of Ecclesiastes and I hope you'll join us then we've had a wonderful discussion this week and this month about Solomon's wisdom and the Book of Ecclesiastes is Solomon's investigation of life without God. He finally comes around to the understanding that life without God is not worth living and will hear his summary completed when we meet together tomorrow for the last lesson in this book. Hey, when we're finished with this book, we're going to talk about where do we go from here? That's a book that was written several years ago about what action steps we take in light of the prophetic truth we understand. That begins on Monday and I hope you'll join us there. See you tomorrow. Thank you for listening. Please join us next time for another message from Dr. Jeremiah. Do you have questions about the Bible, theology or Christian living? Smart search by Turning Point Ministries allows you to ask your question anytime, anywhere and immediately access Dr. Jeremiah's biblical answer in his own voice in words. Check it out for yourself at David Jeremiah.org/SmartSearch