Remember Your Creator in Your Youth
12:1 Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”; 2 before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain, 3 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 the windows are dimmed, 4 and the doors on the street are shut—when the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low— 5 they are afraid also of what is high, and terrors are in the way; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along, and desire fails, because man is going to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the streets— 6 before the silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is shattered at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern, 7 and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. 8 Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; all is vanity.
Fear God and Keep His Commandments
9 Besides being wise, the Preacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs with great care. 10 The Preacher sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote words of truth.
11 The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings; they are given by one Shepherd. 12 My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil. (ESV)
13 Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
Often times we wonder what God’s “will” for our lives is or we wonder why God doesn’t just tell us what to do. But look here, and this is just one throughout Scripture, in which God tells us exactly what our duty is here as a man/woman on this earth…to FEAR GOD and to keep His commands. And remember the only way to keep those commands is to know what they are and the only way to learn them is to saturate yourself in the Word daily!
13 Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
Amen, Vanessa! I was struck by how complicated we make our lives on a daily basis by trying to come up with another goal for how we should live. God makes it so plain and simple in Scripture: Fear Him and Obey Him. When we read His Word we know exactly what He asks us to do: display the fruits of the Spirit, serve and love Him & others, evangelize, etc. We need to stop searching within ourselves for our purpose in life and search the Scriptures…God is very clear with His commands for us.
14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.
God’s fair and holy justice on those who do not obey Him is perfect in every way. We should make it a top priority to be ambassadors for Christ, sharing the Gospel with those we come in contact with. A Christian’s life should be so radically different from that of a non-Christian that everyone will be able to know that we follow Jesus Christ. For example Pastor Bobby or Lucas, you only have to spend a few moments with them until you know that their lives are radically different than the then anyone we’ve ever met.
13 Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.
The book of Ecclesiastes is supposed to read like a sermon from the wisest man who ever lived: Solomon. Now we get to his conclusion, this is the point he wants to leave us with. Fear God and keep his commandments! On our Missions Trip we talked about how today Christians think that fearing God means a reverence or awe but sometimes this is making it more complicated than it needs to be. To fear God means to fear! To be afraid of His judgment so much that you change the way you act. You stop sinning and start doing what is right because you don’t want to face his consequences. At the end of Ecclesiastes we find the beginning of wisdom: fearing God. May this fear of Him change the way we live today!
MMMMmmmm! Great comments Bobby and Vanessa; they were so encouraging!
I realy liked this chapter; in it Solomon teaches mankind to remember God before it is to late, before the day of judgement. Most of the chapter was spent describing what becomes of us in our old age and how we need to seek God before it is to late and we perish before knowing Him. In this present day we could be killed any day, and have life taken from us by the Creator at any time; that is why today is the day for repentance, and today is the day that we need to tell others before it is to late and they go to hell.
6 Remember him—before the silver cord is severed, or the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at the spring, or the wheel broken at the well,
7 and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
i agree with Hunter. Only God knows how much time we have left on this Earth, and these verses are definitely a call to repent before that time is up. Those who believe that they will chance their lives in some sort of “deathbed confession” often never get that chance. At any moment, we could find ourselves standing before God, and verse 14 reminds us that we will have to give an account. Therefore it is essential that we have our faith secure and that we are living our lives with the fear of the LORD and a desire to be His ambassador to everyone we come into contact with.
1 Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, “I find no pleasure in them”-
I love love love this chapter! This verse kinda just reminds me to love and know God no matter when the time, because days of trouble are coming and we need him then and we just cant come running to him then and say we loved him all along when we didnt live for him.
13 Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.
I love these verses because it basically just sums it all up, fear God and obey his commands. This is exactly what we need to do as christians because, as verse 14 says, a day is coming when no matter what we did, good or bad, will be judged. If we obey his commandments then we dont have to worry about bad things.
8 “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Everything is meaningless!”
…..Basically, the writer of this book is saying that all physical things and possesions are meaningless in this life. The only thing that matters is how we live our lives for God as he goes on to say in verse:
13 Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.
This verse just shows me how mighty God is. He knows every thought and action that everyone has done.It just shows us we need to fear God and tell others about judgment.
Ecclesiastes 12
1 Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, “I find no pleasure in them”-
We need to remember the lord right now! While we are young and don’t have much to worry about. The days are coming that we will need to work and pay bills and raise families. Now we don’t have to think about these things. So build up our foundations in the Lord. So we are strong when these things come to pass.
wow it’s such an intense passage today! It gives a great description of the end times when God is coming back to take His people and judge the world. WE need to be prepared before he takes us up and remember that the end could be closer than we thought! And like what Pastor Bobby was talking about over the mission’s trip, we need to fear the Lord more than we fear man. For man can kill the body but God can kill the soul. :)
Wow! This whole chapter was great. I couldn’t choose a specific verse, but… I really liked everyone’s comments. A lot of people live their lives thinking there’s no rush to change the way they’re living. There’s at least four people who are very close to me that are always telling me: I know I should start going to church again… And I will eventually. It’s sad, but I know that they’re not really Christians. I need to realize that it’s my duty to work in these people’s lives and not give up on them. We need to always stay strong and know that the Lord will always be with us.
13 Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.
It is important to do what God says…..We WILL be judged for everything we have done…including every hidden thing (like it says in verse 14) those little sins that you did when you thought no one was looking are all layed out before God….it is important to fear Him and obey Him becaus ein the end…it all adds up…
14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.
Eeeeeekk this is kind of scary to think about! everything i have done God will judge. Knowing this just makes me want to work that much harder to always live for God.
Verse 13 also stuck out to me. Everyone had really great comments on it!
God created us for His glory, we need to make sure we are living our lives out for Him.
Like Jessica, I couldn’t pick one particular verse, but the message really hit me: we should live our lives obeying God and his commands so that we will be ready for anything, even judgment day. And the fact that we don’t know when it all will end almost creates an urgency within me to prepare myself and others for it. So I will make it my priority to be learning God’s commands to obey them and to be able to tell others.
(We are finally in Texas, just a days worth of driving left!)
14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.
this verse is filled with awesomeness. first off it is kinda scary. EVERYTHING that was hidden from man is not hidden from God, and we WILL be judged for it. so all of the small things we do that we hope no one will find out will be revealed. Thankfully we have Jesus Christ, who will take the sacrifice for our sins and we will be in heaven.
this is also a great verse for evangelistic motivation. we should tell people that they will be judged for EVERYTHING that they do and they will have to face God’s wrath; there is no running from it. that kinda of scares me and compels me to go out and tell people what’s gonna go down
Nice comment Jeff/Ralph. Things are going to just get harder as life goes on, and we need to seek God now so we can grow strong in Him instead of waiting for later because that chance may never come.
12 Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them. Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body.
I liked how this verse addresses the wisdom of the world. Like verse 12 says, wisdom comes from the Lord alone and any other proclaimed wisdom is not only useless but also dangerous because it will lead us away from seeking God, which is the only purpose of man in life. I liked how this verse talks about how we can spend our whole lives learning things and adding to our knowledge, and we will only end up tired. Instead of seeking to understand everything about our world, we should instead invest our time into learning and acting upon God’s Word, and trust that God will reveal to us everything we need to know about how to live a godly life, which is the only thing that really matters anyway. Sometimes, at least for me, we can get caught up in all sorts of extra things, but even if they aren’t innately bad, they will end up distracting us and leave us having wasted a lot of time. We need to instead seek Him first like Jesus says in Matthew 6, and trust that everything we need will be provided and that we can enjoy anything we want in heaven with complete satisfaction and understanding, but here on earth we have a job to do.
Verse 14 really stood out to me, “For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.” This verse is another reminder that we do or think will be judged by God. Sometimes we may think that we are getting away with things we shouldn’t be doing because we don’t get caught, but God knows everything we do and he will will judge us for it; the good and the bad.
13 Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
This verse is telling us everything that we need to do, the reason why we were created. We were only created to do what God tells us. That is it and nothing more.
14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.
This verse reaminds us that everything that we have done will be reviewed at the end of our life. We need to live in a way that we can be proud of ourselves on that day.