Christ Sanctuary - 27th September 2026
There are some books of the Bible that comfort you immensely
Ecclesiastes isn’t one of them
The Preacher unsettles you / He rattles your cage
He asks questions / you would rather avoid / Questions about
origin / meaning / morality / justice / suffering / death / and destiny
Now / we’ve been journeying with the Preacher for the last many weeks
We’ve traced his steps / agonised with him
He’s tried to understand the meaning of life
by pursuing pleasure / wisdom / wealth / knowledge
You could say
He’s tried materialism / hedonism / existentialism and nihilism
and all he succeeds in doing is paint himself into a corner
And he concludes that “life under the sun” is vanity and futility
But here / in this very last chapter of the book / the epilogue
he finally discovers / the true purpose of life
First / notice that the Preacher is not only unrelenting / in his attempts
to get to the bottom of the riddle of life / He’s driving us there
he’s instigating us / almost shoving us / to get there
v.9 / “Besides being wise / the Preacher also taught the people knowledge
studying and arranging many proverbs with great care
V.10 / The Preacher sought to find words of delight
and uprightly he wrote words of truth
v.11 / The words of the wise are like goads / and like nails firmly fixed
are the collected sayings / They are given by one Shepherd”
The Preacher understands that if wisdom matters
then / he can’t simply impart it / in a take it or leave it manner
This is the reason / he uses his words like “goads” / v.11
You know what a “goad” is? / a goad is a sharp pointed metal spike
that you fixed to the end of a stick / used by cattle-farmers
to agitate the cattle so they will get off the wrong track
and move back / on to the right track
The Preachers is not only guiding us to the way of truth
he goads us / he jabs us / to get to the right path
But as important as instigation / and persuasion are
if what is communicated is not true / then it’s all pointless
So it tells us in v.10 / “The Preacher . . . wrote words of truth”
But sadly / even with all that / he comes to this conclusion
that many scholars have come up with
* that there’s no end to worldly wisdom * that everyone has
his own homespun philosophy / his own ideas to push
Last year alone / 2025 / 3 million new titles were published
3 million new books in 12 months / That’s totally insane
But it is interesting to discover / that even in the days of the Preacher
there were huge libraries that housed countless number of books
that claimed to be the true way to wisdom
And so in v.12 the Preacher concludes with these famous words
“Of the making of books there is no end
and much study is weariness to the flesh”
He’s warning us that while knowledge and wisdom are valuable
our compulsive drive on accumulating information
will not only exhaust us / it will not lead to true wisdom
Now / I’m sure you’ve already noticed / that right through this book
God is there / but He is always behind the scenes / almost unnoticeable
O yes! The Preacher will mention God every now and again but you
have this feeling that he does not really look to God for an answer
God is there / but He’s always in the background
But now / looking to God / he finds the answer
It’s like / he finds the starting point / at the end of his life
And so it should come as no surprise that as soon as he finds out
that God is the answer all along / almost immediately
he senses the shortness of time / the urgency of time
And so / turning to the young / he tells them:
“Remember your Creator in the days of your youth” / v.1
He’s saying to young people / “You’re young / vibrant / full of drive
you want to drink up life / in great gulps / But whatever you do
Don’t let the devil have your prime / and leave the dregs to God
He’s saying to young people / “Just remember this / You can never
remember the Lord too soon but you can remember him too late”
Augustine / in his latter years said mournfully: “Late have I loved Thee!
O Beauty ever ancient / ever new / Late have I loved Thee!” (1)
He’s lamenting
* that for too long / he sought fulfillment
in created things rather than in the Creator
* that God was always present / but he’d been looking elsewhere
When the Preacher says “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth”
he’s not talking / only to young people / although that’s the context
He’s urging all of us / young and old to remember God
But what does it mean to “remember God”?
* In the Bible / to “remember” God
means far more than to simply recall certain facts about God
* In the Bible “remember” God / means * live in reverence toward Him
* set your thoughts on Him / * keep Him in your consciousness
* admit your reliance on him / * orient your life to living for Him
* trust Him / * obey Him
So each time you forsake your idols / and worship Him alone
you’re remembering God
And he says / we’re to remember God / with a sense of urgency
v.1 / “before the evil days come and the years draw near
of which you will say / “I find no pleasure in them”
v.2 / “Before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars
grow dark / and the clouds return after the rain”
The "evil days" are the years when the delights of life begin to fade
* before the lights go out / before dark clouds gather above your head
* before the gloomy seasons of life set in
The darkening of the lights of heaven / speaks of a time
when you start facing sorrow / gloom / and desolation / He’s saying:
“You really don’t have all the time in the world” to remember God!
I used to do some fly-fishing / and one of the flies I used rather successfully
was one that imitated the mayfly / trout love mayflies
But mayflies don’t live for more than 24 hours
In fact / some species of mayflies live for just a few minutes
They belong to an order called Ephemeroptera from which we get
the word “ephemeral” / meaning “short-lived” “fleeting”
Humans / after the Fall / are ephemeral
In Psalm 90 / Moses said “All our days pass away under your wrath
we finish our years / with a sigh” / Now / how long does a sigh last?
James is a little more generous / He says
“Your life is a vapour” / Vapour at least makes it
to the ceiling / But what we have is a sigh!
So Moses says: “Teach us to number our days”
He’s not asking us to count our days
You can’t count / what doesn’t have a set number
Instead Moses is saying / “Teach us / that our days are numbered”
Why / because there are gates standing wide open today / A year from tonight
those gates will be forever closed / There are voices speaking earnestly
to you today / A year from tonight those voices will be forever silent
John Ruskin the art critic had a piece of mahogany on his desk on which
was inscribed / one word - TODAY / And each day he sets out
that word galvanises him / about the shortness of time
Life is fleeting
* You are only as young as you are right now
* Today is the youngest you’ll ever be!
Now / you’ll remember the beautiful poem
the Preacher wrote in chapter 3:1-8
“To everything there is a season
a time to be born / a time to die” / and so on
Now from v.3 / he’s about to give us another beautifully crafted piece
Perhaps you will never find another more beautifully crafted poem
that speaks of the dread of aging / and the ultimate disintegration
of the human body / than you see here
It is thoughtful / sensitive / very tender / most touching
Now / I want to be very careful here / We can’t be exactly sure
what these imageries are supposed to represent
Hebrew poetry allows the imagery to be somewhat fluid
But commentators generally agree / that these imageries
represent a slow-motion description
* of something precious and delicate coming to an end
* of the breaking of the mechanism of life
and the impending decay of the human body
And if you can / I want you to look at it with me / from vv.3 to 6
v. 3 “when the keepers of the house tremble”
the hands begin to tremble with weakness or shaking
“and the strong men are bent” / the legs become weak / the knees totter
“when the grinders cease because they are few” / referring to your teeth
They fall out / those left are no longer able to chew food
“those looking through the windows are dimmed” / eyes lose their sight
v. 4 “when the doors on the street are shut” / haven’t you noticed that
the lips of old people fall inward into the mouth / for lack of teeth
“and the sound of grinding is low” / he’s now toothless / he’s reduced
to eating only soft food / so no sound of grinding is heard
“one rises up at the sound of a bird” / the elderly are easily awakened
even at the sound of an early bird
“all the daughters of song are brought low” / he’s no longer able to
enjoy the singing of others / because he can’t hear it very well
v.5 “they are afraid also of what is high” / he’s afraid of height and stumbling
“and terrors are in the way” / old people no longer feel invincible
“the almond tree blossoms” / Ever seen an almond tree in full blossom!
Its snow-white / I know a friend whose hair turned white
when she was 55 / so she’s dying for a very long time
“the grasshopper drags itself along” / he is now bent like the insect
The body that once leapt with strength now shuffles with his walker
Old people wake up in the morning with new injuries from sleeping
“and desire fails” / he’s talking about decreased libido
all sexual potency is now lost
“man is going to his eternal home and mourners go about the streets”
an obvious reference to death / and people mourning his death
And the Preacher doesn’t want to simply say "You will rot”
Instead / he uses some elegant but disturbing imageries
Look with me at v.6
”before the silver cord is snapped” / the spinal cord
“or the golden bowl is broken” / the skull
“or the pitcher is shattered at the fountain” / the lungs
“or the wheel broken at the cistern” / the heart
It is a grave metaphor of the intricate mechanism of the human body
that sustains life / but now gradually failing
until finally / all physiological function ceases
The lesson is obvious
Our bodies are not our home / they are only a temporary lodging
And how very fragile and temporary it really is
We may have hip-replacement surgery / cataract surgery / walkers
canes / glasses / dentures / hearing aids / and other means
to compensate for the decline of old age
But all that / is only to ease the decline of age / It is not a cure
And the Preacher draws the unavoidable conclusion
v. 7 “and the dust returns to the ground it came from”
This takes us right back to Genesis 2:7 / God made man from dust
And at death / the dust returns to the earth
And he adds / ”and the spirit returns to God who gave it”
There is no total annihilation of the soul
Every soul lives on eternally / its only a question of geography
And again / he repeats / what would now sound like a mantra!
“Vanity of vanities / All is vanity” / v.8 / We need to be careful here
The Preacher isn’t saying: “Nothing matters”
What he’s saying is that everything under the sun is fleeting
when treated as an end in itself / He’s saying
“Don’t build your life on things that death can take away”
Now / no matter what you read / or watch
what you’re always looking for is the ending / the conclusion
You want to know / “What’s the bottom line?”
And here / after taking us through that long twisting road
he finally draws his conclusion
vv. 13,14 / “The end of the matter / all has been heard / Fear God
and keep his commandments / for this is the whole duty of man
For God will bring every deed into judgment
with every secret thing, whether good or evil”
He draws everything to a close and look how remarkably simple it is
Two directives / “Fear God and keep his commandments”
“Fear God” / To fear God does not mean we're to be frightened of God
When a true fear of God possesses you
You’ll be prompted / not to run from Him / but to run to Him
A true fear of God does not repel you from God / It draws you to Him
Because you will know / that only when you run to Him
will you be saved from sin and death and hell
In short / fearing God means you acknowledge Him as God
you reverence His holiness / you bow before His majesty
accord to Him His sovereignty / submit to Him
devote yourself to Him
That / is what it means to “fear God”
Then he says / “Keep His commandments”
Keeping God’s commandment is a natural outflow of fearing God
People who say they love God / but don’t do what God says
are either ignorant or plain defiant
1 Jn 2:3,4 / “By this we know that we know him / if we keep His
commandments / Whoever says “I know him”
but does not keep his commandments is a liar”
“Keep God’s commandments” But why?
Because God gives you His commands not to rob you of your joy
But to lead you / into the riches and the abundance of His joy
Those of you who’ve tried doing life yourself / with you in command
Well tell me / how’s that working out for you?
And there are people today who believe
that they can take command of their own lives
Not many of you are old enough to remember the Oklahoma Bombing
31 years ago / Timothy McVeigh detonated a makeshift bomb
stored in a rental truck parked in front of a Federal Building
The explosion killed 167 people / injured 684
Shortly before his execution / McVeigh released a statement to the public
There was a line in that statement that was picked up my many
It says: “I am the master of my fate / I am the captain of my soul”
Those lines came from the poem Invictus
written in 1875 by William Ernest Henley
Those words / loaded with a false bravado / may inspire young people
to grow self-reliance and courage but you can’t reach your 35th
birthday and not come to see the sheer bankruptcy
of those words / They are simply unworkable in real life
And Timothy McVeigh plunged into eternity with a spiteful arrogance
mouthing the words of a dead poet
The simple truth is this: / You simply don’t have it within you
to live life under your own command / How much better it would be
to heed the words of the Preacher here
“Fear God / and keep His commandments”
All said and done / the ultimate question isn’t:
“Did I have a successful life?” / “Did I accumulate enough?”
“Did people think well of me?”
The final question is: “Did I fear God / Did I keep His commandments?
And the Preacher gives us the reason
for why we need to fear and keep His commandments?
v. 14 / “For God will bring every deed into judgment
with every secret thing / whether good or evil”
See / the Preacher began by looking at life under the sun
He ended by looking at life beyond the sun / to the judgment of God
There is coming a day when everything will be brought into the light
There’s got to be a final accounting for everything we do
So much for the nihilistic philosophy that everything is meaningless
If God exists / everything has meaning
The Preacher is saying / in the end all that you are / all that you’ve lived for
all that will be evaluated
not by any human court of justice / in the here and now
But your life will be judged by the One
Who is totally omniscient / from Whom nothing is hidden
On that day He will say to you “Depart from me / I never knew you”
or He will say “Well done / Thou good and faithful servant”
Sproul tells us that in the end
“every ounce of sweat that has come from the brow of your labour
every ache in your heart / every pain in your soul
will find its fullness of meaning and significance
And you will discover that everything that you experience
in your life / counts / Nothing! / is futile / under the heavens”
So after that long winding journey / the Preacher lands on these six words
“Fear God and keep His commandments”
But it is precisely here that we are faced with a great dilemma
How are sinners like us / able to fear God and keep His commandments
And right here / we observe two facts that make the Preacher’s poem so sad
Not only could he not look back with satisfaction
He could not look forward with anticipation
Because he wrote / at a time / when belief in an afterlife
was only a shadowy concept
But we live now / on this side of Calvary
We know something / the Preacher didn’t know
We know that weak as we are / we can fear God
and we can keep His commandments / because we know of One
Who feared the Father in the sense
of showing reverent joyful obedience and submission
and kept the Father’s commandments / “I have come
not to do my will but the will of the Father” / 1 Jn 6:38
But not only did He submit to the Father and kept His commandments
He did what we couldn’t have done / He took our place
So that now / as God looks at us / who trust in Him / He deems us
to have feared Him / and kept His commandments
This means that everyone can hear the Preacher’s conclusion in two ways:
For the person who rejects Christ: You will stand before God
For the person who trusts Christ: You too will stand before God
but you stand in Christ
You stand “covered” / Christ has become your righteousness
You stand ransomed / redeemed / healed / and forgiven
For you / the conclusion of Ecclesiastes is not frightening
It’s enormously hopeful
In Christ when this life is over / you will endure to all eternity
Apart from Christ not only will you be chasing the wind / you’ll perish
If you trust in Christ / and you remember God / this is what you’ll remember
You’ll remember God / before life fades
You’ll remember death / before it comes
You’ll remember the judgment / before you stand before God
You’ll remember Christ /Who honoured His Father and kept His commands
And that / is what will save you from the judgment
The day is coming / when for you
the silver cord will be snapped / the golden bowl will be broken
the pitcher will be shattered / the wheel will be broken
the dust will return to the earth
And the spirit will return to God who gave it
And then / you will stand before our Creator
So what should we do with the years that God has given us?
Remember your Creator
Don’t wait until the strength of youth has gone
Don’t wait until the pleasures of the world have disappointed you
Don’t wait until death is standing at the door
Remember Him now / Fear Him now / Obey Him now
* Let the brevity of life lead you to the fear of God
* Let the fear of God expose your sin
* And let your sin drive you to Christ / Who alone
can shelter you / from the coming judgment
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(1) A classic English translation of Augustine's Confessions (Book X, Chapter 27) by
Edward B. Pusey reads:
Too late have I loved Thee, O Thou Beauty so ancient and so new; too late have I
loved Thee! And behold, Thou wert within, and I without, and there I sought Thee;
deformed, I rushed heedlessly among the beautiful things which Thou hast made.
Thou wert with me, but I was not with Thee. Those things kept me far from Thee,
which, unless they were in Thee, were not at all.
Thou didst call, and cry aloud, and burst my deafness. Thou didst flash, and shine,
and chase away my blindness. Thou didst breathe fragrance, and I drew in my
breath, and now I pant for Thee. I tasted Thee, and now I hunger and thirst. Thou
didst touch me, and I burned for Thy peace.
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Soli deo Gloria
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