Ecclesiastes 11:7–12:8

0:00 Good morning, please take out your Bible, if you would, and turn with me to the book of Ecclesiastes. Book of Ecclesiastes, we'll begin reading chapter 11 and verse 7. And as you find your way there, let me bring you greetings from Grace Fellowship Church in Toronto, Canada, a very like-minded church that is just wrapping up their worship service right now, at least if all is going according to schedule. If you're ever in the Toronto area, we'd invite you to come and worship with us.

0:30 I think you'll find, again, very like-minded brothers and sisters in the Lord there. Ecclesiastes chapter 11, beginning in verse 7, and we'll be reading into midway through chapter 12. Light is sweet, and it's pleasant for the eyes to see the sun. So if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all. But let him remember that the days of darkness will be many.

1:03 All that comes is vanity. Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things, God will bring you into judgment. Remove vexation from your heart and put away pain from your body for youth and the dawn of life are vanity. 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.

1:40 Before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain. 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 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 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 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 and the dust returns to the earth as it was and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

2:42 Vanity of vanity, says the preacher. All is vanity. Well, it's been a joy to speak to the men over this weekend, and they would know that I had one message there that was intended for everybody, focusing on the character of the Christian man, what does God call every man to be? And then I had one message that was aimed toward the slightly older men, those who are seniors, and we talked about how to use those years well and how to aim to use those years well. Then I said the next message is this one Sunday morning would be aimed toward the younger men and younger women, but of course, because this is Scripture, it will apply to everybody as well.

3:34 So, when Eileen and I were young and almost married, and then young and newly married, there's this one old couple in the church that we grew to love and we grew to respect so much. They were Mr. and Mrs. Lubberts. They had grown up in Holland and lived through the German occupation there through the Second World War. And then, like so many other Dutch people, they had immigrated to North America in the years following the war. And they had settled in there and just lived normal Christian godly lives. We had the privilege of being church members with them in the first church we were part of as adults. And there are two things that we saw, that we admired in them. We saw their great godliness, and we saw their deep and abiding love for one another. They were full of joy in the Lord, and they were full of just godliness.

4:32 We looked up to this couple, and we just loved to spend time with them, to learn from them. One of my enduring memories is them pulling up outside the church, maybe just a tiny bit late on a Sunday morning, and their great big old people car, you know, those giant cars that are just really big. They pulled up in one of those cars and parked out and then parked outside and then walked into church hand in hand, still in love after I think it was about 60 years of marriage at that point. We loved them. We looked up to them. We spent time with them. Of course, by now they've gone to be with the Lord and are happy in heaven, I'm sure. But Elaine and I determined we wanted to be like the Lubberts. This was a couple we aspired to be like, and we still do. That was true 26 years ago when we were engaged and just kind of looking around and saying, what should our marriage be like? And it's true now after 25 years of marriage. We want to grow to old age being godly like this couple was godly. We want to grow into old age being in love like they were

5:35 in love. We want to grow into old age being joyful just as they were joyful. And this is a couple who had suffered. They had every reason to not be joyful, and yet they truly were. So at different points through the years, I found myself reflecting on age and reflecting on godliness and just asking how could we be like them? What would it take to reach our final years with the joy and the godliness we saw displayed in that couple? The Lord gives us these models of godly old age.

6:09 He's good to give us those models of godly old age, especially in the local church. And it's good for us to want to aspire to that. But I've also had to think about this. Old age is no guarantee of godly character. I've known some elderly people who grew into old age hating one another instead of loving one another. I've known some people whose lives were marked by anger or by bitterness. people whose children reflected on their parents with with a kind of lament instead of a kind of pride people who would talk about what they wish their parents had been rather than what their parents actually were so whenever i consider things like this my mind goes to this book the bible and to this book within the bible ecclesiastes and especially to this passage i return to it again and again. You know that Ecclesiastes is written by someone who calls himself the preacher.

7:11 From what we discern, what we understand about what he says about himself, it's likely that's either King Solomon or somebody writing in the voice of King Solomon, something along those lines. But either way, here's a great and powerful man, a great and powerful king. He's now come to very near the end of his life, and he's taking off his crown, and he's speaking now not as a king, but as a sage, as a source of wisdom. So, this isn't the young man, the temple builder, the one romancing his lover in the Song of Solomon. This is an old and wise man who's saying, this is how God wants you to live your life. From my vantage point in old age, I've done it all, I've seen it all. I've experienced it all. Now I know. Now I see. Now I can tell you, here's how God means for you to live. So here's how the book of Ecclesiastes, in this passage especially, challenges me. Godliness does not just happen.

8:16 Godliness does not simply arise through the slow march of time. If you want to be godly then, in the future, you've got to learn to be godly now, in the present. If you want to be joyful in the years to come, you've got to learn to be joyful now. If you want to be respected in those closing stages of your life, you've got to live a respectable life now. Who you are today today is determining who you will be in the years to come. So you're making a decision today. Who do I want to be? How will I live? What will I live toward? So there's two things I'd like us to see this morning from this passage. First, if you want to be joyful then, you've got to learn to be joyful now. And if you want to be godly then, you've got to learn to be godly now. So we'll consider joy and will consider godliness.

9:17 So the first thing I think the preacher would have us see is that if we're going to be joyful then, we've got to commit to being joyful now. And he wants us to be joyful. People who live in this world, who live before the Lord with a deep sense of joy. He wants us to live life to the full. He wants us to delight in the good things that this world brings to us. He wants us to appreciate a beautiful sunset or linger over a cup of coffee or look deep into the eyes of the person we love. These are all pleasures that God has given us, and He means for us to enjoy them and embrace them. This honors Him. God made this world. God made all that's delightful in this world, and we're meant to enjoy these things. We glorify God when we delight in His good gifts. As He calls us to enjoy this life, He begins with a sunrise. So verse 7, He says, light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun. I'm off to Alaska next week,

10:24 and if I were to go not just to Alaska, but further north in Alaska, then I'm actually going and eventually come to a part of the world where in the winter it's always night, and in the summer it's always day. And in some parts, you go so far north, it can actually be night for several months at a time. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine how you would feel seeing the sun set, knowing you wouldn't see the sun again for days, for weeks, even for months? Then imagine how much you'd look forward to the sunrise when finally those months had passed and the sun was going to rise again.

11:01 Some of the communities there, they have celebrations when finally the sun rises again after all that time of darkness. Do you think there's anything wrong with looking forward to the sun and enjoying the warmth of the sun when it comes again? Of course not, because like he says, light is sweet. It's pleasant for the eyes to see the sun. This world is beautiful. This world was created for us to embrace, for us to enjoy. But our preacher here is a poet, so he's talking about more than simple sunlight. He's speaking about the days of youth. Every sunrise lays a new day before us, and it just asks us, what will you do with this day? And the days of youth, they lay a whole lifetime before, lay a whole lifetime before you and ask, what will you do with this life? Who are you going to be? The brightness of that sun as it kind of cuts through the night sky. That's just like youth. It's like the radiance of youth with all the excitement and

12:06 all the energy it brings with it. Youth is good, and it's pleasant, and it's meant to be enjoyed. It's sweet, and it's meant to be savored. So the preacher looks out at us, especially those who are young, and he says, enjoy these days. Enjoy the days when you're young. Enjoy all the excitement of being young. Enjoy these days and live them to the full. He wants to reinforce this to make sure we get it. So verse 9, rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Rejoice. Rejoice in these days. Rejoice in the strength you have. Rejoice in the energy you have. Celebrate life. Enjoy life. Enjoy all the opportunities that this time of life is bringing you. Preacher demands that you enjoy these youthful days, that you don't let these years go by and be wasted. He says, walk in the ways of your heart and in the light of your eyes. You're young. You're youthful. You're energetic. So take advantage of this time to do

13:12 those things that bring you pleasure, those things that make you happy, those things that you're passionate about and bring you joy. These are the days when you're young and you're strong, when you're energetic and optimistic. These are the days when the possibilities are just limitless before you. The whole world lies open before you. So do what you love and love what you do. In all these commands to enjoy life, He gives three joy enhancers, three ways of helping you find the greatest pleasures and the truest pleasures. Here's the first one. Enjoy life, but acknowledge that the years of youth will come to an end. So enjoy life, but acknowledge that youth will end. So there's something you need to understand, something you need to keep in mind if you're to really enjoy life to the fullest. He says, if a person lives many years, let him rejoice

14:15 in them all, but let him remember the days of darkness will be many. So we're meant to savor life as we live it. If we're granted many years, we're free before the Lord to live them all without sadness, to live them all without regret. This is good, and this is glorious. But even as we take joy in life, even as we live with that kind of youthful exuberance, even then the preacher calls us to have this awareness that eventually the light of day gives way to the dark of night. The sun that rises will eventually need to set again, and darkness will come. The joy of youth will be followed by all the difficulties of old age, and all the difficulties of old age will eventually give way to death. It's got to be realistic. And so it's good to really live. It's good to live

15:21 all the way. But we live best when we keep an eye on eternity, when we keep in mind that even these good days will come to an end. And really acknowledging the end helps us. Acknowledging the end reinforces we get just one chance. We have just one opportunity. This life cannot be lived well in retrospect. You can only live well in the moment, the moment God's giving you right now. You don't get a second chance to live life well. You don't get a second chance to live today well. So you need to live today well. You need to live it with joy.

16:05 There's a second way to enhance your joy. The first is to remember that eventually the end will come. Eventually, these years of youth will end. The second is this. Enjoy life, but acknowledge a coming judgment. Enjoy your life, but acknowledge there will be a time of judgment. So, you might think it's risky for a preacher to call a young man to live according to the ways of his heart and according to the light of his eyes. It sounds like a risky thing to say to a young man, live according to your heart. Live according to the light of your eyes.

16:41 That could easily be seen as a call to hedonism, right? Life is short. You may as well just go out there and just bring every little bit of pleasure you can from it before the evil days come, before the end of it all. But of course, he's not saying that. He offers this warning. Know that for all these things, God will bring you into judgment. Which means that our joy in life is meant to be an innocent joy. Our joy in life is to be a pure, a moral, an ethical joy, one that accords with Scripture, with God's revealed will.

17:21 If we look elsewhere in Ecclesiastes, elsewhere in wisdom literature, elsewhere in the Bible, we find that God gives us boundaries, and God tells us to live within them. Why would God do that? Because God made us, and He knows where the greatest pleasures are found. He knows that the greatest and truest pleasures are found within the boundaries, not outside of them. We always think the true pleasure comes from outside the boundaries, but God knows, restrain yourself. Live within those boundaries, and there's where you can truly enjoy the greatest pleasures there are to be had. So, God cares for our joy so much, He tells us what to avoid and what to pursue in order to find the highest joys. These days of youth, all of their pleasures, they're lived out before the God who will weigh, who will assess, who will judge each one of them.

18:21 And here's a third of those joy enhancers. Enjoy life, but acknowledge the vanity of it. Acknowledge the vanity of it. Look at chapter 11 and verse 10. Remove vexation from your heart and put away pain from your body, for youth and the dawn of life are vanity. Twice the preacher tells us life is vanity, all is vanity. youth and the dawn of life, vanity. The ESV translates, that word from the Hebrew is vanity, but as you look at other translations, you can see people do it in a whole bunch of different ways.

19:00 Some say meaningless, some say pointless, some say futility. The meaning is somewhere in there, the actual meaning or the literal meaning is vapor. All that comes between the moment of your birth and the moment of your death, according to the preacher here, vapor. It isn't quite meaningless. It isn't quite futile, but it is vapor, something that's here and then gone, something that's like just dust blown away by the wind. See, what we do in this life matters. It has real, true significance, but nothing here will ultimately satisfy, because nothing here will ultimately last forever. Earlier in the book, the preacher has said, God has put eternity in our hearts. So, how could anything that's temporal, anything that's less than eternal,

20:01 how could it give us ultimate satisfaction? We were made for this, but we were made for much more than this. So, this is a warning for us. This is a warning that we are always surrounded by false joys. We're always surrounded by fraudulent joys, things that will try to convince us this will satisfy, but in the end it will just leave us empty. Things that will try to convince us, if I just have this, finally I'll feel fulfilled, finally I'll feel satisfied, finally that hole will be filled. But we know from experience, again and again, we try and it fails. We take it and we're still empty. We're still aching. So, this is really just a warning that we're all tempted to be idolaters, to make the gifts of God into God Himself. Do you want the fullest

21:02 pleasure that food offers, then enjoy it in moderation, not with gluttony. Enjoy it as a gift, but don't allow it to be the God that controls you. You want to enjoy the fullest pleasure that sex can offer you, then enjoy the wife of your youth. Find satisfaction in her. Don't move around from one person to the next, always hoping to find that satisfaction. Enjoy all of these things as good gifts from God himself. Because every joy in this life is meant to point you beyond itself, isn't it?

21:35 Every joy in this life is meant to point you beyond itself to the God who gives you those joys, the God who gives you those pleasures. So let me speak to those younger people. Are you living well? Are you living with joy? Are you living these years to the full by pursuing what brings the greatest, the truest, and the most lasting joys? Of course, it grieves me how many young men are just spending their teens and their 20s pursuing false joys and fraudulent joys. So many young men dedicating these years, These formative years, these important years, these years given to you as a gift from God Himself, dedicating them to just the relentless pursue of smut.

22:32 Who do you think you will be in old age if your youth is filled with this? If instead of really living these years for the glory of God and the good of other people, you're living these years selfishly, just locked away in your room with your computer and your pixelated girlfriends. is that who you want to be when you're older? And if that's what you're committing yourself today, why would you ever be anything different? How could you expect I'll ever be someone other than this? Or other young men spending their youth and pursuing theological controversy and debate rather than joining in the life of the church and just learning to love and to serve and to minister to other people. Instead of using their strength and their excitement and their creativity to serve other people. They're just using it to fight and to quarrel and to try to win the occasional argument. There's so many who have a head full of knowledge, but hands that have never

23:33 learned to serve. So, where do you think that'll leave you in 40 or 50 or 60 years? Just kind of follow the trajectory you're setting and see where that will be. See who you'll be if you just stay on that trajectory. Don't pursue false joy. Don't waste your life. Don't waste your youth. If you're going to be joyful then, you've got to learn to be joyful now. You've got to learn to pursue the highest and the best and the truest joys right now. It's not just the young men. It grieves me, of course, how many young women are wasting their teens and 20s as well, wasting these years and letting them pass by without really living. If you spend years, decades just doing little more than engaging on social media or chattering away there, look, there's nothing wrong with social media. It's something we can, nothing intrinsically wrong with it. It's something we can use well and use to serve others and bring glory to God. But what kind of trajectory are you

24:38 setting for yourself if you're just relentlessly committed to it? If you're spending so much time living online and not really living in the real world, not loving and serving other people here now, the people around you. So young men, young women, don't waste your life. Don't pursue false joy. Don't waste your youth. If you're going to be joyful then, you've got to learn to be joyful now. Because you're not just wasting today, you're wasting the future as well. So you need to look into those days as best you can. Look deep into the future and say, who am I then? Who am I now? And why would I expect to be any different?

25:22 Who you are today is a very, very good predictor of who you will be when that day comes. Before he moves on, the preacher gives one more command, one more instruction. Verse 10, remove vexation from your heart and put away pain from your body. Put away whatever it is that's hindering you from fully enjoying life to the glory of God. Don't be depressed. Don't be sad. Don't be bitter. Don't miss the beauty of the sunrise because, well, now you know the sun will eventually set again. Don't let these good gifts God's giving you, don't let them spoil.

25:57 Don't let them be wasted. Embrace them. Enjoy them. So my young friends, live. Really live while you're alive. Well, you've got energy and ability and enthusiasm. Live a full and enjoyable life. Pursue pleasure. Pursue your passions. This is a limited time. It's a beautiful time that's meant to be enjoyed. Youth is a gift from God. He wants you to accept that gift and treasure that gift because these days are preparing you for days that will come. These days are a training ground.

26:36 this is where you're setting the trajectory of character that will take you into and then take you through the days that will come days that will inevitably prove difficult so let's turn to that second instruction then the preacher wants us to see as well that if we're going to be godly in old age we've got to be godly now chapter 12 verse 1 remember your creator in the days of your youth. Remember Him today. Remember Him when you're young. Remember Him before you get old. If you're 15 years old, here's what the preacher is saying to you. Remember your Creator now. Do something about Him. Commit yourself to Him. Acknowledge Him and live as if He's real, as if he's created you, as if he's called you to himself. If you're 25 years old, the preacher challenges you, don't neglect your creator in the days of your youth. Don't forget him.

27:41 Don't set him aside until you're old, until you've already lived, until you're half used up. The Lord wants you to turn to him today. God wants the best of your life, not what's left over later on. And of course, you don't even know if there will be a tomorrow. If you're 35 or 45, the preacher says, you need to grab a hold of these days right now because a day will come, and it may come sooner than you think, when your mind will begin to fade, and your strength will begin to fail, your best days and your most productive days will now be behind you, inevitably, verse 1, the evil days will come and the years will draw near of which you will say, I have no pleasure in them. You will know and you will confess that you've wasted your life. Life will be almost over and you'll be looking back with sorrow and regret. So whether

28:45 you're 15, 25, 35, whatever. You need to see the picture the preacher gives us here, a picture of a storm. Verse 2, remember your Creator before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain. This guy's a poet. You can see the poet at his craft here. We can feel the chill of a fall morning in the air, and you can see that the day is gray and overcast and the rain is falling and it's not letting up and the sun has been shut out by the clouds and then the sky darkens still a little bit more and evening comes and night falls and everything goes dark. That's a glimpse of the future, your future, my future, trying to present a time to come, a time of old age when sorrow after sorrow comes upon you. The joy of youth we've talked about already, the joy of youth has been replaced by a soberness that comes with

29:50 just all the pain and all the sorrow and all the failure that life has brought. Friends we once loved have already lived and died and we've stood at their graveside, and we've said our farewells to them. Children have left home. The house is now big and empty. The world has changed. We've become uncertain how to live well in this world. We don't understand it the way we used to.

30:20 It's intimidating now. Not only that, but things we hope to accomplish, we know now they'll be left undone. Things we thought we might become, we know we'll never become it. So many of those things that we dreamed of doing, we know they won't happen. When you're young, you can look at those things and say, that's just a setback. Better days are ahead. But a day comes when you're older. You understand the best days are now behind you.

30:55 The day darkens. The night falls. So remember your creator before this time comes, before your mind grows dim with age and with all the cares of a long and difficult life. You've got to carry godliness into these days. If you want to live well then, you've got to live well now. If you want to be godly then, you've got to commit yourself to godliness now so you can carry it with you. The picture of the storm gives way to the picture of a household that's fallen into decay. So, it was once a great house full of people, full of servants, full of activity, but now it's in decline, and the poet describes these few sad relics scattered about that tell us what's been lost. This broken-down house is a picture.

31:51 It's a metaphor for the weakening and for the decay of each one of us as old age approaches and falls upon us. So you might be young today, you're 25, strong, healthy in the prime of life, or you're 35 and you're at that point where you realize if you were an athlete, you'd already be like well into decline and you think, but I'm only 35. Here you see this dim and distant preview of what will come. You need to see yourself here. It's not talking about somebody else.

32:22 This is you reading your own biography, looking into the future, reading about yourself. God is good to give this to us. It's sobering, it's hard, but it's so helpful. Remember your creator in the days of your youth, so you'll remember him still, verse three, 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 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. Okay, let's pause and understand what's going on here. In this picture of a crumbling house, this household that's falling into decay, we're meant to see the crumbling body of an old man, an old woman.

33:16 And it's a hard thing to see. It's a sad thing to see. But it's your biography. It's not somebody else. It says, the keepers of the house tremble. So the arms, the hands that used to be strong, now they're feeble. Now they tremble. The strong men are bent, he says. So the legs that were strong, powerful, fast, now they're bowed. Now they're weak. The grinders cease, for they are few. don't have as many teeth as he used to. Those looking through the windows are dim, so the eyes are beginning to lose their sight. The doors are shut, he says. As the body ages and capabilities fail, that person's world is becoming smaller and smaller. They can't just go out, out into the world in the way they used to. The sound of the grinding is low, which means you can't hear as well as you once did. One rises up at the sound of a bird because life is, life is full of sorrows and

34:18 cares and fears. And here's the irony, when you want to hear, you can't hear. When you want to sleep, the slightest little noise wakes you up. It says all the daughters of song are brought low, so even the pitch of the voice changes. So what may have once been a beautiful singing voice is now weak. There's more. It says they are afraid of what is high and terrors are in the way. So you can't go outside the way you used to because the world is moving so quickly, but now you're moving slowly. The world becomes just too intimidating. It says the almond tree blossoms.

35:02 The almond tree blossoms all in white and looks like a head of hair that has changed white. says the grasshopper drags itself along. What a picture. Grasshoppers jump, they leap, they fly, but here's a grasshopper just dragging itself along the ground in that kind of slow shuffle of a very elderly person. Even desire fails. So, desire, perhaps especially sexual desire, once so powerful and motivating, now no longer interesting, maybe no longer possible.

35:39 this is quite the picture the preacher is giving us here not all of this will apply to each one of us of course but the contrast with the joy and with the freedom of youth well we just can't miss it can we and here's the thing this day will come this day will come upon you who will you be how will you bear up under all of that if you're going to be godly then you're going to be joyful then if you're going to live that time well you've got to learn to be godly now so think about it are you finding your greatest joy in your appearance and being sharp or beautiful or sexy or whatever it is just just read what the preacher wrote to us here and see what time will do to that If you find your greatest joy in sexuality, you know, in pornography or be in a play or whatever it is, someday desire, ability will fail you. And then what? What will you have left if you've lived

36:45 for that? All the pain and all the trouble that life will bring you will just leave you bitter and angry. Don't let it come to that. Don't wait. The preacher is telling you, remember your Creator now. You've got to be godly now, so you'll have godliness to draw upon when those days come. So what will you do with your life? Who do you want to be? The preacher's calling you to live with joy, to live with godliness, so you can carry that joy and carry that godliness into those years, those days that will come. But there's still another thing that's difficult about old age, it's the knowledge of what will soon come. When you're 25, 25 years old, it's easy to believe you've got lots of tomorrows left. As far as you're concerned, your death is in all likelihood still decades away, and it probably is. But not when you're significantly older than that. Now there's

37:48 no denying that death is approaching, that death is near. In old age, you need to acknowledge, verse 5, man is going to his eternal home. We see this little glimpse of a funeral, the mourners going about in the streets. They're wailing, they're weeping for a life that's come to an end. And in case we're still not getting it, the preacher shows us the thin grip we've got on life in two more pictures. And through these pictures, again, remember your Creator now, he says. So verse 6, remember your Creator before the silver cord is snapped or the golden bowl is broken. So I guess here we see this precious golden bowl that's suspended by a silver chain, and you know it takes just one link in that chain to break, and that bowl falls to the ground, and it's dented, it's wasted. Remember your Creator before the pitcher is shattered at the fountain or the wheel broken at the cistern. There's the most mundane of all things, just a

38:50 pitcher hanging over a well, and you crank it up and down, and you do that day after day, month after month, year after year, but slowly that rope is getting decayed, slowly that rope is getting thinner, and then one day it snaps, and the pitcher plummets to the bottom of the well, and it's smashed in its brakes. There will be one final time that you do the most mundane, the most unremarkable of tasks. One final time you wash the dishes. One final time you sit here in church. One final time you kiss your husband or wife goodnight, and then the rope will snap, the chain will break, it'll be over, and what then? Verse 7, and the dust returned to the earth as it was, and the Spirit returns to God who gave it.

39:45 This final act of creation, God gathered man from the dust and breathed life into him. Now man dies, and that act is reversed. Creation gives way to destruction. The body that was taken from the dust returns to dust. The spirit that was given to his body is taken from his body. It returns to the God who gave it. Vanity of vanities, says the preacher, all is vanity. This life is a vapor. It matters. It matters so much. It has such significance, but realistically, this life is short. This life doesn't last forever. This life will soon be over.

40:34 So why do we love people and admire people like old Mr. and Mrs. Lubberts that were so meaningful to myself? And I'm sure many of you can think of people that you've aspired to be like as well. Why do those people mean so much to us? Why do we love people like that? Well, they were joyful, and they were godly in old age, because when they were young, they learned to pursue life's best joys and life's truest pleasures. When they were young, they pursued godliness. They pursued the Lord Himself, and that joy and that godliness that sustained them through the dark days that came upon them, the dark days of old age.

41:20 We see that, and we love that, and we want that, and by God's grace, by obeying God's Word, by trusting in God's Son, by repenting of our sin and believing in Him, by trusting Him, we can have it. We can be those people by the grace of God. And so enjoy this life. Young Christian, enjoy this life. Enjoy it all the way. Pursue pleasure.

41:54 Pursue the best and the highest and the truest pleasures. Pursue God Himself. He is the greatest pleasure. He is the greatest treasure. Pursue Him. Don't waste your youth. Don't waste your life. Amen. Let me pray that God would make it so. Our Father, we thank You for Your Word, and we thank You that You guide us through Your Word. You could very easily have left us in this world without guidance, without speaking, without giving us the way we should go, but we thank You that You do direct us, that through Your inspired and inerrant and infallible Word, we can know how to live in this world in a way that brings You glory.

42:39 And I pray that we would. I pray especially for the young people here, that they would take it upon themselves to live life well, to live life toward the greatest and truest pleasures. Please enable them to do that. And I pray they would do that not so they can have some great list of accomplishments that will make them proud, but they can do that for the glory of Your name. Grant that they can love and trust and depend on the Lord Jesus Christ. Grant that they can live well. I pray that You would help all of us to think about these things, to ponder these things, to entrust them to You. Please change us. Please do that work within us, we ask in Christ's name. Amen.