LIVING THE BETTER LIFE, UNDER THE SON

“…Before the Rose Petals of Youth Fall Off”
Ecclesiastes 12:1-8
Bob Bonner
June 27, 1999

June really ought to be designated the month for young adults. I don’t know of another month during the year that has more special events such as graduations or weddings, geared to emerging adults than the month of June. If June were the designated month for youth, the timing sure fits well with our last section of study in the book of Ecclesiastes. Beginning with 11:1-12:8, Solomon is directing his comments to these emerging adults as they look to their futures.

Last time, as Solomon was speaking to this group of emerging adults, his focus was upon all of the opportunities they have waiting before them in the future as they go out into the world to make their mark. He encouraged them to work hard, work smart and don’t be afraid to take some risks as it concerns the stewardship of their lives. Although his specific illustration dealt with the work world, his admonitions could have been directed at their future ministries for the Lord as well.

When we finished up the last passage, Solomon did caution them to avoid unnecessary emotional and physical pitfalls that would have prevented them from accomplishing great tasks for the Lord. And the way a wise man or woman could avoid these pitfalls was stated in 12:1a to “Remember their creator…” and according to Colossians 1, that creator is none other than Jesus Christ, Himself.

Now as we look at the second half of his admonitions to the youth, in 12:1-8, Solomon still wants the youth to keep their eyes on the Lord, because if they don’t in their upcoming adult years they could lose perspective and waste these great years of energy, vitality and adventure.

When you are young, you feel immortal. There is no thought of dying. It’s one reason that the sudden death of a high school student is such a shock to his or her peers. When you are young, life seems to stretch out endlessly before you. There is never a though that you are really going to grow old. However, for those of us who have been there, we have discovered that the older one gets, the faster time flies and you suddenly look and feel old. As someone once said, “Just about the time your face clears up, your mind begins to go!”

The Spirit of God speaking through Solomon wants to warn you not to take these days lightly. For he says in 12:1, “Remember, also [or really, “Now is the time to remember and to keep on remembering”] your creator.”

This word “remember” means much more than simply to “recall” something. There is in this word, a strong implication for decisive action. For instance: In 1 Samuel 1:19, Hannah had just prayed to God to give her a child because she was barren. In that verse, it stated that “God remembered Hannah.” God did more than merely, “Oh yeah Hannah, I almost forgot about you.” Instead, God remembered and took decisive action to cause her to conceive. Solomon’s point to young adults is to reflect upon God and what He has done for you, and to act accordingly and decisively. Don’t just brush off the fact that a sovereign, all powerful God, the Lord Jesus Christ decided to create you. Don’t ignore Him or turn your back on Him or live as though He doesn’t exist. Don’t do that.

If you notice in your Bible, two times in this section beginning with verses 1-8, Solomon charges these emerging adults to “Remember God”, once in verse 1 and again in verse 6. With each “Remember…”, there follows the word “before.” After the first “remember” in verse 1, you have one “before” and the second is in verse 2. After the second admonition to “remember God” in verse 6, we have another “before.” The obvious stress here is to remember these things before it’s too late.

In addition there is a sense of urgency in Solomon’s voice as we hear these words. The word, translated “also” can be translated “now” as well. Hence, now is the time to start remembering your creator while you are young. But why?

In verses 1-5, Solomon explains why it is important to remember God now. Let’s look at just verses 1-2. Solomon writes, “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come [meaning those troublesome, distressful days of old age when there is little pleasure] and the years draw near [literally, “strike a blow” or hit you hard] when you will say, ‘I will have no delight in them’: [that word for delight refers to physical pleasures. I.e. eating any foods you wish, playing sports, sexual activity, the pleasure that comes from hard physical labor].” I may have done too much explaining of the verse just then, so let me read Bonner’s semi-paraphrase again: Solomon says, “Remember now your creator in the days of your youth before the distressful days of old age come and the years strike a blow so that you cry out, ‘I have few physical pleasures anymore.’”

Then Solomon adds in verse 2, “Remember your creator ‘before the sun, the light, the moon, and the stars are darkened, and clouds return after the rain;”

In Hebrew poetry light is a symbol for well being, vitality, whereas darkness symbolizes death. A cloudy day in Hebrew poetry, (Joel 2:2) pictures a day of misfortune.

With those Hebrew poetic symbols in mind, the sun, moon and stars are all light producers or reflectors. Solomon’s point is for young adults to enjoy life while there is light or well being physically because sooner than one thinks, darkness or death will set in. And the first sign that death or darkness is approaching will be the returning “clouds” that dim the lights. Those returning clouds represent the recurring rainstorms of physical ailments common to old age.

The word “returning” probably pictures those later years of adult life, when those physical storms come and cause a setback for you physically. Just about the time you get well, boom another storm or physical ailment hits, sidelines you or puts you out of the game.

In the next three verses, verses 3-5, Solomon uses the poetic devise of allegory to further portray exactly what those many physical storms of age are that begin to plague one’s life as we get older. Some of the adults in this room may identify with these pictures more than you would like to admit… but so is life in a fallen world.

The allegory has to do with those things that go along with owning a home, like maintaining it and protecting it. Solomon begins his allegory in verse 3 with these words, “in the day that the watchmen of the house tremble, and might men stoop, the grinding ones stand idle because they are few, and those who look through widows grow dim;…” Let’s stop there and look at these four references to physical old age.

The first is the “Watchmen [literally, the “guards”] of the house tremble.” The “house” refers to the human body. The “watchmen” or “guards” refer to the “arms and hands” that are used to protect and provide for the home. As we get older, our hands tremble and our arms and grip get weaker.

The “mighty men stoop” refer to our two legs that due to weakness, bend and become feeble. As a result of that when we walk we walk with a “stoop.” One dear saint put it this way. He wrote, “One sign of the onset of old age is when your knees buckle but your belt won’t!” [RCS, p. 175]

The “grinding ones” probably is a reference to a mill on the property of the home, where food is prepared. Here in the allegory, the “grinding ones” refer to one’s teeth. As we get older, our teeth tend to fall out. The teeth that remain stand by themselves, idle, because they don’t get much action to chew hard foods, because there aren’t enough of them.

The last one, “…those who look through windows grow dim” is a reference to the weakness of our “eyes”. As one gets older, we are more prone to eye diseases like cataracts, and we start to lose our vision. It goes dim. I don’t believe Solomon had glasses in mind when he spoke of looking through “windows” but it sure fits.

In verse 4, Solomon continues the allegory and goes into even more detail. He writes, “and the doors on the street are shut as the sound of the grinding mill is low, and one will arise at the sound of the bird, and all the daughters of song will sing softly.” The two “doors” refer to the upper and lower lips that give entrance to the mouth. Once again, it is a picture of how the lips fold over the gums or fall in where there used to be teeth, but are no more. And since there are so few teeth to crunch on hard foods like “Grapenuts”, the noise is low. One can hardly hear someone chewing hot oatmeal.

“One will arise at the sound of the bird” refers to the slightest noise or commotion will awaken an older adult. As we get older, we don’t sleep as deeply as we use to. If you have ever wrestled with insomnia, you know how annoying that can be. As a result, you never quite feel rested. Hence you end up taking several naps during the day, because you can’t sleep through the night.

“The daughters of song” refer to one’s ears. Our English text translates the Hebrew as “sing softly” but the Hebrew reads that these “daughters of song are silenced.” Either way the idea is that as we get older we don’t hear as well. Suddenly everyone is speaking more softly and we have to turn the TV or radio volume up.  Hearing aids become more in demand.

I just have to share this birthday card I found over a year ago. I was going to get it for my step-mother, but decided to hold off until I used it for this message. In case you are new here or you have not gathered it by now, we do a lot of teasing in our family and this is one of those cards.

My father has a good eye for choosing a beautiful woman to marry. Both my mother and step-mother in their prime were quite striking women. But time has changed some of that. So I picked up this card. It’s one of those western cowboy / cowgirl theme cards. It has the picture of an older woman sitting in a rocking chair with her feet in a pan of hot water and Epsom salts. She has a bathrobe on, an old nightgown which reveals that her figure has got the “droops.” Her face has wrinkles all over it with a kind of gnarly hardened expression on it. Two cats have just had their tails crunched as this old woman has rocked over them. Her home looks like an old rustic shack.

Inside, presumably, this old woman has written a message for the reader. It goes like this:

It’s time to ‘fess up,

 We ain’t getting younger

‘Stead of gourmet,

 It’s hot broth that we hunger.

Our bones are a-creakin’

 (Though we claim it’s the chair)

And somehow the sheen’s

 Disappeared from our hair.

We droop and we sag,

 Where we used to be tight.

A soak in the tub’s

 A wild Saturday night.

Kinda smarts when you realize

 As we get to this stage

When they say, “What a figure!”

 They’re talkin’ our AGE!

When we come to verse 5, we move from body parts, to issues of motion and activity as it involves age. Solomon writes, “Furthermore, men are afraid of a high place and of terrors on the road; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags himself along, the caperberry is ineffective. For man goes to his eternal home while mourners go about in the street.”

One of the common fears to those who are getting much older and physically frail, is that they are very afraid of high places or more specifically, falling down from any height at all. Our bones get brittle the older we get, and when we break them, they take a longer time to heal than when were young. Furthermore when I was young and broke a bone, the bone was stronger after it healed than it was before the break. But the reverse is true the older we get. When we break a bone in older years, we can’t be sure if they will ever heal to the point that they were before they were broken. So older people tend to fear slippery floors, cracks in sidewalks, climbing stairs and high places like step stools.

Another change in lifestyle as one gets older is how much time you spend out on the road. The older we get the more we don’t like to venture out at night due to punks who want to take advantage of our physical weaknesses. Our eyes don’t see as well, so we don’t want to drive at night any more. Hence, older people begin to feel defenseless in a world that looms as a place of great risks and physical dangers.

The reference to the “almond tree blossoms” points to the whiteness of hair. The blossoms of the almond tree turn from pink to white before they fall off or “out” if you are thinking hair. The “grasshopper dragging its legs” refers to the lack of mobility, the stiffness, the shorter steps we take as we get older. Let’s face it, we just don’t run like a young pup anymore. Instead, as age increases we shuffle along, like a grasshopper dragging our legs.

The “caperberry is ineffective” was a puzzle to me until I did some research. I discovered that this is a reference to sensual desires decreasing with age. The fruit from a caperberry was believed to be an aphrodisiac. Solomon’s point here is that there was no aphrodisiac that was going to aliven sexual desires for this person of old age. They are beyond that. Ray Stedman commented on this: He said, “It may be a great comfort to many of you to see that this is last on the list! It is the last thing to go…” [RSC p. 177]

But if this isn’t bad enough physically, Solomon points to an additional emotional trauma that happened to many in his culture, just before one died. Back then, if someone was about to die, professional mourners would solicit their services to mourn at your funeral. So here is this older person on his or her deathbed and outside on the street are these professional mourners practicing their wailing and crying with hopes that the family will hire them. Man, that would hasten my death!

So in a nutshell what is the point of Solomon’s first charge to the young emerging adults in these first five verses? First, let me say that Solomon is not saying that life ends at 50, 60, 70, 80 or 90. He is not saying that you can’t find joy in life as an adult. You can. But there are certain things, certain advantages of youth that will no longer be yours. So he is not trying to say that you should live hard and die so as to miss some of the pains of old age.

However, what he is driving home is that the emerging adult needs to remember your creator now before you are too old. Don’t wait till you are old to begin taking God seriously. Don’t think you can go off and sow your wild oats until you get to be my age or older before you begin to take God seriously. Now is the time to follow Jesus. When you are young and have the need of a guide to show you how not to waste your life, when you are in need of His supernatural empowerment to do what you know is best, now is the time to submit your life to the Lordship of Christ. Because before you know it you will be old.

These words are equivalent to the words of Jesus in His famous Sermon on the Mount. Jesus said in, Matthew 6:33, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.” What things does Jesus refer to? Those things that we need to provide a meaningful and lasting life. You make Jesus king and He promises to take care of the rest. That doesn’t mean that your youthful years won’t face challenges, but it does mean that they won’t be wasted. You will get the most out of them. Pat attention to the voice of Jesus. Listen to Him with the commitment to obey Him. It’s easy to ignore God in the midst of enjoying life. Be careful not to do so. If you do, you will miss out on the greatest joys possible in life. Start building a good spiritual foundation with Jesus right now when you are young.

Young person, I will speak for many adults in this room, who will tell you that they wished someone had told them what you have heard this morning when they were younger. Some of them will tell you that they heard some of these things and they only wished they had taken more seriously what God has said.

Solomon gives us his second admonition to remember in verses 6-8. He writes, “Remember Him before the silver cord is broken and the golden bowl is crushed, the pitcher by the well is shattered and the wheel at the cistern is crushed;…” In this verse, Solomon gives us two metaphors, each of them presenting an irreversible example of destruction, symbolizing the suddenness and finality of death.

The first illustration is that of a silver cord that is wrapped around a golden bowl. I am not sure, but I think in light of verse 2, that the golden bowl is really a typical oil lamp held up in the air by a silver cord. If it is a lamp, then it could refer to one’s life. The use of silver and gold is a picture of wealth. Over time the cord is weakened, it snaps, the bowl falls to the ground and is crushed into pieces. It is irreparably damaged. Or, the idea is that a life is extinguished and all the wealth in the world can’t stop it from happening.

When Becky and I were first married, one of our gifts was a help rope pottery hanging device. When we moved to our first apartment, we hung it up with some indoor ivy type plants that grew everywhere. Over time the ultra violet rays coming through the window weakened the cord. One day, we came home to find the plant strewn all over the floor, and the bowl shattered. There was no way to know that it was weak or about to fall. When it did fall, it was unexpected, sudden, destructive and final. There was no repairing that hemp rope or hanging pot.

Solomon’s point is; so it is with death. You never really know when it will happen. But when it does, it is final. There is no turning back.

The second metaphor deals with water another key ingredient to life. The picture is one of a well that has a pitcher, rope and a wheel-pulley system for getting the water out of the well. The idea is that over time with much use and wear and tear, the wheel breaks and falls down in pieces into the well. Along with the broken wheel –pulley goes the pitcher and rope. When the pitcher hits bottom, likewise, it breaks. It can no longer get water.

This is a picture of the suddenness and finality of death, or the end of life. Psalm 36 and Revelation 21 speak to the fountain of water as the image of life. Once our bodies are broken or dead, life stops. From that point, as we see in the next verse, our spirit goes to face God, the one who created us in the beginning. Look with me at verse 7, “…then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.” “Returning to the earth…” is a reference to God’s creation of the human race from Genesis 2:7. Don’t miss the picture and book ends of this section. In verse 1, God, Jesus is the creator. Your life begins with His workings. In verse 7, your life ends with God. God is in both ends and in the middle of all your years of existence. This reminds me of Psalm 139 in which God’s omnipresence in our lives, His presence with us was there even before we were conceived. And the thought of that psalm is to pay attention to the Lord’s leading in one’s life. David is so overwhelmed with God’s presence and involvement in his life, that he closes Psalm 139 with these words: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.”

Hence, wise are those young potential filled adults who, - - -as Solomon admonishes us here, - - -who “Remember Him now before: YOU ARE DEAD.” For one day, our spirits will return to our Creator to give account for the lives He gave us. Most importantly, did we submit our lives to the Savior and Lord Jesus Christ? Further, how did we utilize the young adult, prosperous years of our lives? How did we utilize the older years of our lives?

The last verse of this section not only wraps up our passage, but actually is the end of this book. The verses that follow, which we will look at next time, are an epilogue. This verse 8 is a repeat of 1:2 in how Solomon began this book. He closes this section and the book, a section dealing with decay and death, with these words: “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher, “all is vanity!” Solomon’s point throughout this book as well as his point to the youth who will soon be adults, is that only God can give meaning to life. He is the beginning and the end of life. Without having Him personally involved or willfully including Him in your life, you will live a senseless existence. Life will end fleeting and useless. Having proven his case, Solomon, for all intents and purposes, has ended his work.

Let’s wrap it up this morning by looking at three principles. The first is and should be directed to you young emerging adults since this passage is directed at you. I want to caution you once more about a rationalization or an outright lie that I think comes straight from hell. If you are seduced by it, it could cause you to end up in hell. It’s this idea that while I am young, I can live a little crazy, on the edge. I can do those things that I know my God given conscience is saying “No!” to. In my day, this was called “sowing your wild oats.” Getting it out of your system and waiting till you are older before you submit the rest of your life to the Lord. That way, the thinking goes, “I can get the best of this world and still get into heaven.” That’s not only wrong, but it is an insult to your almighty loving creator, God. He deserves nothing and asks for nothing but your best.

A woman heard a young girl say these things about her life, probably around this season of graduation. She was going to get crazy and wild before she gave her life over to the Lord. So, this older and wiser woman sent her a box of cut roses that had wilted and the petals were falling off. When the young girl received them, she was surprised by the condition of the gift, but just assumed that their delivery had been delayed because of an oversight.

Later that same day, she met the older woman who had sent her the flowers and she thanked her for the gift. The older woman said, “I’m glad you liked them. I cut them last Monday and enjoyed them all week, but this morning when I noticed they were beginning to get old and faded, I thought of you and had them delivered to your door.”

Seeing the puzzled and hurt look on the girl’s face, she continued, “The other evening I was sitting in the car while my husband went into the drugstore. As you walked by, I heard you telling someone that you were going to become a Christian later, not while you are still young. You said you wanted to have a good time first. How selfish! You with to give the Lord your life after the beauty, charm and vigor have faded, and you have become old and wrinkled. I thought these roses would illustrate what you are doing to the Lord by waiting.” That young girl got the message and soon after committed her life to Christ. To put this in the form of a principle, give Jesus Christ your rose petals while they are fresh.

Many young people are being counseled today to begin preparing for their retirement, and that is wise counsel. But have you begun to prepare for life beyond retirement? Have you prepared for eternity with God? Solomon is declaring, today is the day to prepare for eternity with God. That’s more than wise, that’s essential.

Well, how does one prepare for eternity with God? By first committing your life to the Lord Jesus Christ. You do that by first admitting to Him that you have been one who has ignored Him or rebelled against God.  The Bible calls it being a sinner. You then ask Him to forgive you, to be your Savior and Lord. At that point, He promises to enter into your life, never to leave you, but to build into your life. From that point on, one prepares for eternity with God by living today in touch with and in obedience to Jesus Christ.

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