Death is Coming - Ben Stuart

Well, years ago, my wife Donna bought me a book on famous last words, the final words spoken by many famous people, and surprising number of them had to do with work. It's interesting, P.T. Barnum, you know, of Barnum and Bailey Circus fame, his last words were recorded. So how were the receipts at Madison Square Garden? George Edward Kelly, the playwright and director, a consummate director to the end, said to his wife, my dear, before you kiss me goodbye, fix your hair. It's a mess. General John Sedgwick, commander of the Army of the Potomac during the Civil War, was at the Battle of the Wilderness, and he scoffed at his men as they began to duck from Confederate sniper fire, and his last words were recorded, oh, they couldn't hit an elephant from this distance. Senator Paul Wellstone was a senator who, by his own admission, got very little done in his time in the Senate, and so when he was asked, towards the end, what he wanted written on his tombstone, he said, I want them to write, we don't know what he did, but he sure looked tired. And then others were maybe a bit more deep. Goethe said, more light, which left his followers to ask the question, was he being symbolic as the man who wrote Faust, or was he just saying he wanted more light in the room?

We don't know. But Queen Elizabeth said, all my possessions for a moment of time. It's an interesting book to read. It's a little morbid, maybe, but it's interesting to see what are on people's minds at the end of their life, because inevitably it leads you to what would be on my mind at the end of my life? And then even further than that, what should be? What should matter in the end? It's interesting, in 2020, on Father's Day, my oldest daughter, who was in elementary school at the time, gave me a card. It's a lovely card that said, you are the best dad in the world, which is great. And then she wrote on the other side, I don't know if you can read this, from dusk you came. And to dusk you shall return. I don't know why, as a second grader, she felt that I need to be reminded of that. But from the mouths of babes, there's something true about it, right? She certainly stands in a great line. The theologian Jonathan Edwards wrote in his famous resolutions, resolved to think often of my death and the common circumstances that attend death. Why would he write that? Well, I would argue he was standing in the wake of Moses, who wrote Psalm 90, speaking of humanity. He says, in the morning they are like grass

which sprouts anew, and towards evening it fades and withers away. And then he writes, so teach us to number our days, that we may present to you a heart of wisdom. He said, it's good to contemplate the end so it'll help inform how we live now. It's good to think about how you go out so you can think about how you want your life to play out, because our lives will come to an end, right? Oliver Berkman wrote 4,000 weeks, the New York Times bestseller, because he says, that's how many weeks we get to live. 4,000 weeks, that's all. If that's true, I'll turn 50 this summer. I've already burned through 2,600 of them, right? If the lifespan of the average American male is 76 years, I'm 2 3rds of the way done with my life. Morbid, but helpful if it informs the way that you live. And that's where we are at the end of Ecclesiastes. Kohelet is gonna invite us, not just to contemplate the end of the book, but the end of you, and the end of me, and the end of life as we know it, but not just out of some morbid curiosity, it's so that it can affect the way we live. And that's my hope today, right? And so we're gonna look, and I don't know if you picked up on it, this passage really has two parts. There's a poem, and then a postscript from the editors.

He helps us understand what we learn from this book. So I just wanna walk us through the poem, and then hopefully we'll learn from the postscript, right? So the poem starts in chapter 11, and really the theme of the first half of the poem is simply this, enjoy your life. You see it in verse seven. Light is sweet, and it's pleasant for the eyes to see the sun. It's good to live, and it's good to move about in the light of life under the sun. Life is good, and it's good to be alive. Amen, second gathering? It's true. And so verse eight, so if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all. That's my prayer for you. I hope you are happy every day of your life. Enjoy your life. And he says, rejoice, but let him remember that the days of darkness will be many, and all that comes is vanity. It kind of gives you this ominous reminder at the end. Rejoice in the good days, because you remember, many dark days are coming too. And then he says, it's all vanity. That's the word that's been the theme of the book in Hebrew. It's the word hevel, it means like smoke. It's ephemeral, life is fleeting.

So enjoy the good days when you got them. Don't miss it. And then he goes on to repeat that in the next couple verses, but with an emphasis on youth. And so you see in verse nine, he says, rejoice, oh young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart in the sight of your eyes, but know that for all these things, God will bring you into judgment. He says, enjoy your young life. Follow your heart, knowing that God will bring you to judgment. Now some say, he's saying, hey, follow your heart and enjoy it, and God will make you pay for it later. But we looked last week, that's not what he's saying, right? Because that is built upon a misunderstanding and a lie that comes from Genesis three. What was the lie of the serpent in Genesis chapter three? He convinced Adam and Eve that to really enjoy life, they had to run from the author of life. And he says here, no, enjoy your life. And he'll tell you earlier in the book, because that's the portion God gave you, to enjoy it. God, seven times in Genesis one and two, as he creates the world, he says, it's good. What I am making is good. And when he brought man and woman onto the scene,

he said, this is very good. He put them in a garden that he said was a delight to the eyes. And he named that garden Eden, which means delight. And then he told that man as his first command, eat, eat, doubled it up, enjoy a good meal. And then he walked to him, Eve, and Adam broke out in song. And God told the two of them, be fruitful and multiply. That's a good God. Have a great meal, make some friends, marry a beautiful girl and have babies. That's a good life. That's what God said to do. So the enjoyment of life and the author of life are not at odds. In fact, a lot of ancient translations of this text say the judgment here at the end of that verse is not judging you for the bad things you did in life, it's judging you for failing to enjoy the life God gave you. That this is the portion and lot he gave you is what Kohelet will say throughout Ecclesiastes. So enjoy your life. It's not just permitted, it's commanded. Have brunch today with people you love and laugh. Enjoy it. Verse 10, remove vexation from your heart, put away pain from your body for youth in the dawn of life or vanity.

Life goes fast and you'll miss it. So remove vexation, hard times will come but don't let them sink in too deep. Your feelings will get hurt but don't own that resentment. Let it go because life's too short. But rather in verse one of chapter 12, remember your creator in the day of your youth. It's interesting, he keeps telling the young, rejoice and remember. Remember the days are few so enjoy them while you got them. Remember that God gave you this life and here he uses the word creator. Again, he's doing that because all through this text, he's gonna sample from Genesis one and two. I'm talking about the dawn of creation when God spun everything to existence and when he made you, he took the dust and breathed into it the breath of life. God made you on purpose for a purpose and as God created seven times, he said it was good in the book of Job. It says, as he created the angels, shouted for joy. The creation of the world was a joyous thing in heaven and we are meant to enjoy it. So pray before meals, not because you're supposed to and just say, Lord, I pray this food doesn't poison me, may it nourish my body. No, it's a prayer of gratitude. God, thank you for a good meal with good friends.

That's a good life. So be joyful before God. Pursue a godly joy together, right? Rejoice and be fruitful, fill the earth, subdue it. Do good work that matters with people you love. It's a good life, right? While reading this section, I got a text message about two miscarriages, right? The dark days will come, so rejoice in the days when you got them, they're a gift. And rejoice while you remember, and here he comes again, before the evil days come and the years drawn near of which you will say, I have no pleasure in them. And here we hit the second part of the poem. It's interesting, we're gonna get a couple befores. Rejoice before this happens. Before what? He was kind of ominous at the beginning. Before the dark days come. Like, uh-oh, what is that? And here in this verse, he calls them the evil days or the unpleasant days. Rejoice in your youth because the unpleasant days are coming. Well, what are those? Well, he describes them. The unpleasant days are when the years go by and you arrive at the place where you say, I can't delight in them anymore, where your capacity for enjoyment begins to wane.

The evil he's talking about here is getting old, which is a dark thing. And so he's gonna talk about it. about the challenges of age. There will come a time where as you get older, it's harder to enjoy life. Barzillai, the Gileadite in 2 Samuel, provided King David food when King David was on the run, almost lost his life, and so David wanted to reward him for his faithfulness and said to Barzillai, I wanna move you to the capital city, Jerusalem. I want you to sit at the table of the king all the days of your life and feast with me. And Barzillai responded, I am 80 years old. Can I discern what is pleasant and what is not? Can your servant taste what he eats or what he drinks? Can I listen to the voice of singing men and singing women? He says, I don't wanna go out. The music's too loud and I don't care about the food. And then he asked him, will you take this guy because he's gonna love this VIP treatment. I just wanna go home and take a nap, right? And that's old life. It gets hard to enjoy. I had a friend who's older go to the doctor because he had some pretty serious mental conditions and went to multiple doctors. He had the capacity to really get the best working on it and their collective wisdom to him was like,

hey, because of your age and the nature of this ailment, you're just gonna have to ride it out with this one. There's no fixing you. This is just gonna hurt till you're gone. That's tough, right? For me, I took my kids bowling the other day. I hadn't really bowled since I've got seven bulging discs in my back, but I've been doing core exercises, let's go. And so I bowled and my back hurt for three days. My days of bowling are gone, right? I remember there was a hill in West Texas. My dad and I used to hike up together. You can kind of get to the top of this thing, takes a couple hours, and you can just kind of overlook the wild, untamed parts of Texas. And I snapped a photo. One of the last photos I have of my dad is of him from behind. And it's because I remembered when we were younger, we used to run up that thing. And at the end, he was really struggling. And something about me instinctively just snapped that picture, because I had a sense, I think this might be the last time we do this together. It's hard to enjoy life as you get old. And I was right. Arthur Brooks wrote From Strength to Strength.

And he said, in practically every high-skilled profession, decline sets in somewhere between late 30s and early 50s. Does that scare you? I don't know if Arthur Brooks is right, but I know Kohelet tells us we're all gonna get old, right? And that's the next part of this poem. Enjoy your life before the light begins to dim and before it's extinguished altogether. And yet, he's gonna do something interesting here. He's not just gonna say, before you get old. He's gonna use a lot of poetry here and a lot of imagery here that's very personal, but then also he'll get cosmic and universal. And it does an interesting thing to commentators as they try to understand it. Because at some level, they go, all this seems to be sort of a metaphor for an aging body. And there's something to that, and we'll see it in a moment. And then others go, no, it really is the dominant picture is of a house that's falling into disrepair. And at some level, that's right, too, as a metaphor for the failure of human effort. Then it's this description of sort of an oncoming ominous storm from which there's no escape. And that's in here, too. And then the others see the idea of, no, this is sort of like a funeral procession leading you to the end.

Or others go, no, this is a description of the end times. And do you know what? They're right, all of them. And that's not just me not wanting to pick an interpretive path. That's me just saying, this is a poem. And so Kohelet, on purpose, is going to speak to us in rhymes and riddles and other things that make the truth less bitter. He's gonna talk about death, but gonna do it with poetry. And so he's gonna grab images from all these different things, the end of you and the end of all things, all these different images, because he wants to bring pictures into our mind that we'll remember, and he wants to invoke a feeling. If you remember, we said one of the main themes in Kohelet is I want you to feel the frustrations of the fall. When we broke faith with God, something broke in us. And he's gonna move us through that. And he's gonna do it with poetry because he wants us to elicit a feeling about the end. I could tell you, hey, do you know we're all gonna die? And you're like, yes, statistically, yeah, that's a certainty, right? But if I play you Bob Dylan, mama put my guns in the ground because I can't shoot them anymore. That long, dark cloud is coming down,

and I feel like I'm knocking on heaven's door. You feel it. We're all gonna die one day. Yeah, poetry can stir the feelings, and Kohelet will be a poet here at the end. And we'll just walk through it, verse two. Before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain. This parallels the first part of the poem. Enjoy the light of life in the sun because one day it'll be gone. This is also language from Genesis one, the dawn of creation. It's interesting, when you read Genesis one, God creates the light, creation starts with a burst of light, and then he. houses the light in the heavenly bodies. And here in this passage, you get the sun, moon, stars, and the light. And the heavenly bodies go out, and then the lights go out. What God opened up in Genesis is now closing here in Ecclesiastes, right? Interestingly, notice he says the clouds come after the rain. It's a sense of foreboding. He's saying as you get old, it's the encroaching of some dreadful thing. And so it is about aging life, but he doesn't just say, you know, you're going to get old. He's talking about the sun, the light, the moon, the stars. He's using these metaphors.

You go, what's going on here? Well, he's also grabbing imagery from a lot of Judgment Day texts in the Bible. You see all through the Bible when it talks about not just our end, but the end. It talks about the lights going out. Isaiah 13 will say, wail for the day of the Lord is near as a destruction from the Almighty. All hands will tremble and every human heart will melt. He'll talk about men trembling in a moment. For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light. The sun will be dark at its rising and the moon will not shed its light. Jesus quoted this towards the end of his life. You'll know the time of tribulation for the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light. So he says, this is about the day of your end, but then he grabs this imagery about, it's not just us will end, all of life will end one day. It's personal and universal, right? It's also interesting. This is the last reference to the sun. All through the book, it's been talking about life under the sun. And if you remember at the beginning, he was frustrated. At the beginning, he says, the sun comes up, it goes down, rejoices to run its course again. And at the beginning of the book, he's frustrated

because he's like, the sun just goes around, moon goes around, wind goes around. Every day, rise and grind, same thing, nothing changes ever. And so here he goes, you know what? At some point, the Ferris wheel stops and the ride's over. At some point, the sun will dim and the stars will fade. Interesting, as I was typing this part, Apple auto-corrected stars to stewards. The stewards will fade. I was like, good Lord, but it's not wrong, right? And then in verse three, he moves from the heavens to a household, and he describes a house. He says, in the day when the keepers of the house tremble and the strong men are bent and the grinders cease because they are few and those who look through that windows are dimmed. He describes a household, and there's four groups, there's two men and two women, and each has an upper class and a lower class person, the idea being that no one can escape what's coming. You get the men, lower class would be the keepers of the house, these are the guards at the gate, and he says the guards are trembling as they see the clouds coming after the rain. And the strong men are bent. Strong men can mean you're physically jacked. It can also mean you've been a successful man. So the guy who's won in life, who has the money, has the prestige, he's also bent and stooped under what's coming.

The grinders, that's female, that's women who would grind the meal. That was a very common job for women back then. Bread was a source of life and had to be made daily. And so those who would grind the meal to make bread, that was a daily activity. It says suddenly this activity of fostering and continuing life comes to an end because there are few. And then the last group is, again, female, those who look out the window are dimmed. Women that are staring out the window, maybe for a loved one to come home. Stop looking for hope to come, right? Now what's going on with this imagery? Some people look at that and go, hey, I think it's all a metaphor for old age, that this house is a body, right? The grinders are clearly teeth. And the grinder ceased because there are few because back then before dental care, your teeth would fall out and it was harder and harder to eat. They just served you applesauce, right? That's the idea here. And they go, those who look through the windows are dimmed, that's talking about your eyes. Part of getting old is that it gets harder to see, right? Incidentally, old people, I know there's not a ton of you in here, but you're going to have to amen some of this, right?

Because if you recall in the passage, he's describing old age to young people as a land they've never been to. They're going to be wondering if this is true. As you get older, it gets harder to see. The lights in the window grow dim and you've got to buy readers, right, and get the big print Bible, right, in order to read what it means, right? The others are a little less obvious. They go, maybe the guards at the house are your trembling limbs and the stooping is your back because old men begin to stoop because their bones hurt. I'm watching the show with my kids, Physical Asia. It's about the strongest people in Asia competing in all these feats of strength. And I watched that and I was like, I remember when I was in my 20s, I would watch shows like this going, I bet I could do that. I said, now when I watch it, my instinctual reaction is, God, that looks like that hurts. Because the old men stoop, right? That's the idea. And is that true? Is it a metaphor for the body? There's some language of that, yeah. But he's not saying, hey, this is your body that's going to fade. He's also grabbing some imagery here that, again, kind of ties into not just the end of your life,

but the end of all things. It's interesting in Revelation, when the skies are rolled back. Act like a scroll. It says the kings of earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, they will stoop and tremble. Same imagery. And interestingly, when it talks about the end, Jesus quotes the passage that when the end comes, two will be working in a field, one has taken the other's left. Two women will be grinding at the mill. He uses the same language. At the end of all things, there'll be women grinding at the mill and the grinding will cease because there are too few. Same idea. And so is this about the end of you? Yes. But is it about more? Yes. Those who look out the window? Carries the idea of one looking for hope. Cicera's mother in Judges looked out the window longing for her son to return from war. That's the idea. Is that as the storm approaches, I'm looking for my sons to come home, my husband to come home. But all hope is gone, right?

This is about a household watching the dim lights of life grow dim. Verse four, and the doors on the street are shut when the sounds of the grinding is low. And one rises up at the sound of the bird and the daughters of the song are brought low. Now he's moving from a house into the public places. That's the imagery here, that the doors of the street are shut. Now this is interesting. Those who say, hey, this is all continuing to be a metaphor of the body, you go, well, what are the shutting of the doors? And they say, well, and I'll read you one of them. The closing of the doors cannot help but suggest the blocking or disability of some or all of your bodily orifices. I'll let you decide what this commentator meant by your orifices. But it's true, as you get old, some things start to fall apart, right? And the daughters of song are brought low. They go, it gets harder to hear, right? I still have the eyesight of a young man, but I don't hear as well as I used to. It's very funny sometimes when some of you wanna come up and talk to me about hard things in life. Someone may be confessing a particular sin, and I go, huh, what? You gotta say it louder, son.

Because I can't hear you, right? It's interesting, I don't have time to read all these, but there are so many poems in the ancient world about getting old. The Egyptians have one. Eyes are dim, ears are deaf, the bones hurt all over. Old age is a terrible thing. Or this is one of my favorite, this is a Sumerian one. Imagine studying that culture your entire life and translating this. My youthful vigor has left my loins like an exhausted donkey. My teeth can no more chew strong things. My urine used to flow in a strong torrent, but now you flee from my passing wind. They're not all Shakespeare, folks. I just read that to help you appreciate Ecclesiastes. He makes it a poem, which is nice, right? I saw a stat recently that men over 55, it takes them twice as long to urinate as those under 55. I don't know if that's true. But the idea here is the body doesn't work quite like it used to, right? But if you follow the image, the beauty of the image is he's saying something about this household, the lights are dimming and the men tremble. And then as you move to the cities, the doors in the street market are closing. Some of you felt this in DC. When you go to a market,

how do you know the Christmas market is over? It's because all the vendors begin to close their doors. And what did have the bustle of activity and the bustle of life and social interaction and buying and selling of goods, suddenly the sound and cacophony of human life is silenced. The doors to the market are closed. And as the doors to the market close, the sounds of the birds rise. What does that mean? Well, if you grew up in the country, you know, birds don't congregate where people are. But as depopulation occurs, less and less people, you start to hear the sound of birds. And all through the Old Testament, when judgment comes, you see it's not just birds, it's the birds of death. The vultures squawk. The raven quotes nevermore, right? Lord Huron has a song. All the young are getting old, and the summer's gone. All the birds have been singing at night. Then he says, suddenly you hear the sounds of a bird. Because why? Because human life is coming to an end. The almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along, and desire fades. So he moves from the house to the public market, now out into nature. And nature is responding. The almond tree blossoms, many people think

that's an allegory for old age, because almond tree blossoms are white. So he says, when you're getting old, your almond tree blossoms white. You get gray hair, right? And the grasshopper drags itself along. That means it's lost a spring in its step, right? Just can't run as fast as it used to, right? Kevin Hart tried to run a 40-yard dash, and he pulled both quads, right? At some point, you're just too old to run that fast, man. And the desire fades. This is interesting, we don't have time to go into all this, but that word translated there, grasshopper, could be the same word for carob tree, is the idea. It's because a carob tree, when it would grow limp, it would drop its pods that look like grasshoppers. So some commentators think here he's talking about parts of the man that droop and can't rise up again. I don't know if that's true. But this desire fails is interesting because the word desire there is literally the word for caperberry. Caperberry, back in the day, was widely known as a stimulant, particularly an aphrodisiac. And so what he's saying here is as you get old, your hair turns white, and you can't quite get it going like you used to, and the drugs don't help. That's the idea. I mean, that's what he's saying.

I was just curious to hear if anyone was going to amen at that part. All right, just checking on you. We're good, but I don't know. You know, stuff. Or it could simply mean locusts were the sign of judgment. They dragged themselves along because in the Old Testament, the locusts clear out the fields. The food that gave you life is gone. He's talking here about the end, that the fields have failed. All this sums up at this last little part of verse 5, because man is going to his eternal home, and the mourners go about in the streets. So here's where you see all those levels of meaning come together. It is about the body. You do fade, right? Because the mourners come out. You realize our life will end. But then that cosmic imagery is real. The sky darkens. Domestic and economic social activity will cease, because he uses the word here not just for man, like an individual man. He uses the word here that could also mean mankind or humanity. He's playing at both levels. At some point, you will end, and all humanity will end, and the mourners will be in the streets. And that's when you realize the brilliance of what Kohelet's been doing.

As he moved us from the house to the public market to nature, and now he moves us to the grave. You realize this whole journey of this poem has been a funeral procession. It's been your funeral procession and mine. This passage is a Christmas carol. This is the ghost of Christmas future, pointing his bony finger at the grave, as Ebenezer prays that the name on it is not his. And yet there it is. Which incidentally, it's the ghost of Christmas future that really closes the deal. Amen. I mean, there's some cute, heartwarming moments with the first two ghosts, as Ebenezer remembers what was and misses out on what is. But it's when he sees that grave that he gets his act together. Please let me live. I'll buy a turkey for Tim. What do you want, right? Things get happy in the way he lives his life, because he sees his life will end. It's this contemplation of the end, you remember, that's meant to lead you to enjoy the days of your youth. That's what Kohelet is doing. He is the ghost of Christmas future, trying to save you, Ebenezer Scrooge, from wasting your life. Amen.

It'll get more Christmassy than that, but I just had to bring that in. Verse six, before the silver cord is snapped or the golden bowl is broken or the pitcher is shattered, the fountain or the wheel broken at the cistern. The silver cord and the golden bowl, back then lamps were built with little strands with bowls at the top, and it was meant to look like a stylized tree. The menorah looks that way. It's a picture of the tree of life. It's what you would carry for light. And what he's saying here is not just that your light will go out, the very lamp will be smashed. At some point, your valuable life will be extinguished. And the pitcher will be shattered and the wheel broken at the fountain at the cistern. That was the place you got water. At the very place you got water, what was necessary for life, the implements you would use, the pulley to raise the cistern and the pitcher to carry the water, they would shatter. He's telling you, at some point, life will end. While I was writing this sermon, an ambulance pulled up on our street. We live around a bunch of older people. And as the ambulance pulled up,

multiple neighbors came out in the streets because we wondered, is this our friend's end? And thank God it wasn't. But one day it will be, and we'll probably be there to see it. One day the pots will be shattered and they will not be remade. And pots are made of clay, and so when pots are shattered, they return to the dust. And that's where he goes in verse seven. And the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. Again, he goes back to Genesis. We were dust and the wind, or the breath, or the spirit of God. This is the same word in Hebrew. He says that when God made us, it was dust and the very breath of God. The intimate, animating presence of God gave us life. And when Adam and Eve broke faith with God, what did he say? You are dust, and to dust you will return. The wind is gone. And he says one day you'll return to dust, and the spirit will return to the God who gave it. Vanity of vanity, says the preacher, all is vanity. It's brief. Life doesn't last. It goes fast.

If you're not careful, you'll miss it. Now, Merry Christmas. Let's do this. Now we get the epilogue, where suddenly the editor appears again. And he tells you, let me help you understand what you read. An editor has put together Kohelet's words. And he's like that good professor of literature class. When you read literature and says, I don't know what it means, he helps you understand that. I remember the first literature class I took. We read this whole poem about the hunting of a stag. And he said, what's it about? And I wrote a whole paper about hunting with my dad and how you got to stalk deer and shoot them and clean them and gut them. And when I got in there, she said, what's this poem about? And a guy raised his hand and went, unrequited love. And I was like, what? And she said, that's right. I was like, oh, yes, of course. What does unrequited mean? So for those of you that were like, why did we just do this? The editor comes in to help us understand why we studied this book of wisdom. And you see it. Who is the editor? We don't have time to go into all this. Could have been a student of Kohelet, the preacher. Could have been Kohelet himself.

A lot of ancient commentators say, hey, this was Solomon. And so much of what he did here was he compiled what he wrote as a young man when he ran into the frustrations of trying to find life and things, and he couldn't find it. And so he framed it here at the end of his life, an old repentant Solomon saying, hey, I tried to find life and things, and it wasn't there. Let me show you a better way. I'm not sure which is true. But what is clear is that this is a dad, because he's going to say later, my son, this is someone who loves you and has been down this road trying to help you as it's your turn to live this life. And he summarizes the man of the preacher in verse 9. Besides being wise, the preacher also taught the people knowledge. Kohelet was wise, and he tried to give you knowledge of what life is about. Weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs with great care. He summarizes his work ethic. He worked really hard to understand all different strands of wisdom literature and to make it straight. That's what that word means. That he would put it out in front of you so that you could understand how the world works and how to work within it. That's why this book was written.

And verse 10, the preacher sought to find words of delight and uprightly he wrote the words of truth. He says he wanted these words to sound good. Many of you may say, well, this sermon wasn't delightful at all. It was all about death. Yeah, but it was memorable, was it not? And so that's the idea. He put this truth to rhyme to help you remember it. That we could get these thoughts into our mind so they could help us live. And in verse 11, he nests this book in the world of wisdom literature. The words of the wise are like goads and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings. They are given by one shepherd. A goad was a sharp stick. You would use to prod ox. And the nails there, the pricks, the same kind of thing. This was something sharp and painful you would use to guide animals, right? And so he's saying the words of the wise, books like Proverbs and Ecclesiastes here, they're meant to be a little painful. Hard to understand and says hard things. But it's there like an ox goad. It's there to get you moving in the right direction, right? And so what may feel a little bit of pain has purpose. It's to help you not waste your life, but to get to move you in the same direction.

It's the same idea of Psalm 23. That yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, death is near me. I will fear no evil. For your rod and your staff, they comfort me. In the shadow of impending death, he says God is like a shepherd and his staff comforts me. Here, Kohelet, who's a little bit more harsh guy, says in the shadow of death, God has an ox goad and he jams you in the rear to get you moving. And it's a little bit tough, but it's true. C.S. Lewis said pain is God's megaphone to rouse a dying world. It's fascinating. You can look at studies of people with near death experiences, particularly those who survive cancer, have higher rates of happiness afterwards. That a brush with death makes us rethink life. And Kohelet's trying to help us do the same. And so here he says this was all given by one shepherd. God is a good shepherd who uses even prickly people like Kohelet to get you moving in the right direction. What's the right direction? He says in verse 12, my son, beware of anything beyond these of making many books, there is no end and much study is a weariness to the flesh. He says, son, there's a lot of wisdom here in this book. Read this, understand it, then put it away.

At some point, the sermon will be over. I promise it's close. Leave and go live your life. Enjoy the days of your youth. At some point, you gotta shut the book, leave the classroom, turn off YouTube. You don't need to read Marcus Aurelius. You don't need to listen to every wisdom podcast. At some point, turn it off. off and live your life. You don't have to vicariously learn everybody else as there's a place for wisdom. He wrote a book about it. But at the end of the day, you gotta shut that book and ask that girl out and go hang out with those friends and join a club and get involved at church and get out of the spectator stands and live your life. So he says, son, at some point, go, enjoy. This is the lot God gave you, your life, and it's happening right now. Don't miss it, right? Much study wearies the body, right? And so what's the end of the matter? All has been heard. He gives you two commands and two motives. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. It's why you're here. And God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

He says, son, fear God. And that doesn't mean tremble in terror. It means respect that there's a God up there. When he tells you to enjoy life, it's to enjoy life under God. Don't believe the lie that to enjoy life, you have to run from the author of life. He says, if you do that, remember the beginning of this book, as I lived my life under the sun with no eternal ideas in mind, I filled my life with monetary success and drink and sex and all kinds of things, and it was meaningless and vapid. The only hope we have is finding an infinite reference point for our lives. And so he says, son, acknowledge God, fear him, and understand that someone made all this on purpose for a purpose. So as you live your life, pursue enjoyment, but pursue a godly joy. Because the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. Know your God. Keep showing up here. Show up at family groups. Show up at a place where you can study the word of God together so you can live what life's really meant to be about, so you can cultivate what David Brooks calls your eulogy virtues, not just your resume virtues.

Don't just get a great resume, but at the end of your life, you have no friends because you weren't generous. Learn from Ebenezer Scrooge. Learn from Kohelet as he points to your grave. Don't be someone who just chases and hoards power and money. Be someone who, yeah, has a great resume, but at the end of their life has great friends because you were greatly generous and you lived a good life. Fear God and keep his commands. Wisdom and righteousness are meant to journey together, that the fulfillment of the law is to love God and love others. That's the right way to live. And so wisdom, righteousness, love, they're all tied together. Following God's commands is not a burden, it's freedom. And in this day and age, so many are seeing that. We're not gonna get into all this, but as you look at it sexually, in the midst of the sexual revolution, what was the idea? As we liberate sexuality from the confines of marriage, we will find joy and meaningless, emotionless sex. What has happened at the end of that? Statistically, less sex, less meaning, and less love. This separating of sex from God's intent and boundaries didn't give you more, it gave you less.

And so there's a way to pursue life that in the end is vanity, it's not life. And so he says, son, enjoy your life under God, obeying his commands. Run in the path of his commands because he sets your heart free. That's the idea, do you see it? Pursue godly joy. Or as St. Augustine said it, love God, then do what you like. And old person, I would say to you, you can decide if that's you or not. There's a fascinating thing that occurs, Albert Brooks writes about this, that when you're younger, you have what he calls fluid intelligence, a quick mind to problem solve. But as you get older, that begins to fade. But he says what you grow in is crystalline intelligence, is what he calls it. Book knowledge, your brain becomes like a library rather than a fine oiled machine. Doesn't move as fast, but it's got a lot of data. And he says people who get older, but keep trying to find success in their own accomplishments will get frustrated and bitter in life. But at some point you have to realize, I did a lot of what I'm here to do, now I want to invest in the next generation with what I know. And you see Kohelet here at the end says,

my son, learn from me. Don't repay the learning tax I paid. I'll show you the mistakes I made at the beginning of the book, you don't make those. I'll show you what I've discovered is good and true and right, pursue those. And let me encourage you as you're older, don't think for a second you are put out to pasture or too far gone. Your age is a responsibility to do what Kohelet did. I will pass along what I learned from both the good and the bad in my life. I will pass it along for the sake of the next generation. And I think what you'll find is that's invigorating to you. That I enjoy my life and I pass on my wisdom to the age. I would encourage you, do that, never give up on life. Particularly if you're older and here, let me tell you something, I have a lot more younger people asking me for mentors than I have older people willing to be one. Some of you, it's time for you to get in the game. Some of you, you're not ready to mentor, you're showing up late. with a lot of hurt, a lot of pain, and you need to be loved on here. But it's with a path to get healthy, whole, and contribute into the lives of the next generation. That's our calling. That's where life's found. All right, let's get a little hope before we just leave here

and go, OK, we're all going to die. Thanks. Merry Christmas. Kohelet, at the end, grabs this Genesis language, right? To dust you'll return, and the spirit goes to God who gave it. That's where he ends the book. But it's interesting he grabs that language from Genesis 3, because that's the curse in Genesis 3. But Genesis 3 doesn't end in the curse. God gives us hope. But he, the seed of a woman, will one day come and crush the serpent's head. One day a boy will come who reverses this curse. And it's when Adam hears that that he names Eve. Did you know that? She didn't have a name before that. When he hears, one day a boy will come that will crush the head of the serpent, and he'll come from that woman. The seed of the woman will crush the serpent's head. He looks at her and he says, your name is now Eve. That means life. Life is coming from you. One day someone will come to give us life again. And in the midst of that, this tragedy of the breath being gone, you get interesting passages like Psalm 104 that says to God, when you hide your face, they are dismayed. When you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust.

But then it's interesting. It says, but when you send forth your spirit, they're created. And you renew the face of the ground. He puts it opposite. When you take their spirit away, they go to the dust. But when you send your spirit out again, you renew them from the ground. A hope starts to emerge in the Old Testament. The breath goes away. But one day, the wind, this breath, the spirit of God will return. It's the hope of Ezekiel, that when God took the prophet Ezekiel to the valley of dry bones, some of you remember this. He took him to a valley filled with bones. And it says, lo, they were very dry. And God asked Ezekiel, can these bones live? And Ezekiel gives the perfect Sunday school answer. Oh, God, you know. I bet you're about to tell me. And God tells him, prophesy to the breath. Tell the wind to blow. And these bones begin to rattle. And they came to life again. And he says, so will it be when I send forth my spirit to you. When John the Baptist came on the scene, they asked him, are you the boy we've been waiting for? And what does he say? He says, no, I only baptize with water. But after me comes one who will baptize you with the spirit.

A boy is coming who brings the wind back to renew the face of the ground. And so Jesus comes and lives the perfect life we could not. The Son of God stepping under the sun to live in the midst of our frustration, to take on our difficulties, to take the thorns and thistles onto his brow and to die on that cross. Born to die, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And he was buried in the dirt for three days. And when he rose again, do you remember the first thing he did with his disciples? You can read about it in the Gospel of John. As soon as Jesus beat death, it says he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit. Your sin led to death. I took on your sin and took on your death so I could get it out of the way. Why? So the Spirit of God could return. I'm bringing the intimate, animating Spirit of God again. That's why Zacharias, John the Baptist's dad, in one of the poems you read every Christmas, celebrates as he hears that his son is prophesying that boy. He says, son, because of the tender mercy of our God, the sunrise on high will visit us. It's one of my favorite names for Jesus. He says, do you understand what's about to happen, son? He says, the sunrise on high will visit us

to give light to those who sit in the darkness in the shadow of death. Son, we are in the darkness. We are in the shadow of death. The sun is setting for us, but the sunrise is coming to visit us. Old translations call it the day spring because it's the same thing. Day springs up, the sun rises. So when the end of life is here and we're in the shadow of death, hope has come. A light shoots into the darkness. The day spring, the very sunrise will visit us to guide us out of the path of darkness into life. We will go into the dust, but he's renewing the face of the ground. That's the hope in Jesus. When I put my faith in him, Paul says the very Spirit of God comes to live in you and in me. He renews my heart. And then when I face the grave, it will not be the end for me. My soul will depart from this body, but then his Spirit will renew the face of the ground and you and I will live forever. Into the dark, a light has dawned.