Ecc 12:1-7 - Settling Out of Court

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.

The life of regret is a terrible thing and plentiful are those who have pierced themselves with many sorrows. But the ultimate sorrow is to have lived a godless life unto the self, to have drunk greedily and without acknowledgment from all God’s goodness in the easy times, when we seemed immortal, and we felt ourselves capable of anything. But God is not mocked - for whatever a man sows he will reap.

When we are "immortal" we think this reaping, if it exists at all, is afar off. God is slow to anger and He forbears much in both the saved and lost. The lost may foolishly say in his heart, "There is no God." The saved may have that sort of attitude which asks, "Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation" {2Peter 3:4}

Yet God’s patience is not without limit. He Has drawn a line unseen by us, in each and every life. It is a line of death. Not only has He ordained the means, the day and the hour of the death of every man, but He has also set the limit upon each man’s hardening of his own heart; He alone decides when a man had hardened himself to the point of eternal damnation.

Every man has an eternal home (verse 5). And time inexhorably draws him towards that place. It is certain. It is inevitable. It will be sooner than any of us thinks. It might be with the next breath - a stroke, a heart attack, an accident... Solomon is fully aware of the principle at work in the world - that all things are subjected to futility by God. All things decay. All things wind down, break, lose their uselfulness. Even desire and pleasure fade.

What will be the nature of my eternal home? Will it be heaven with God or will it be the lake of fire with Satan and his angels? Will it be eternal bliss or eternal torment? Let he who has ears to hear seek the Lord while He may be found, for now is the hour of salvation.

For the thing all natural men rebel against, and absolutely refuse to either acknowledge or accept, is that their spirit - their breath, their being itself - is not and never was really their own. Not in an absolute sense. Everything belongs to God and always has.

Who is there beside Him? What can there be that He has not made and does not own as Maker? The fall and the redemption are surely illustrations of this strong delusion that hangs like pall over humankind - the illusion that we are our own; that even if there is a God we have been made separate and equal to Him in rights, if not in power. Our will is on a par with His will. We see ourselves as independent beings whose choices carry the same authority as the Maker of all.

The lie is put to this in the simple phrase,"...and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God Who gave it." Where’s the choice in that? We are all to appear before the judment seat of Christ. Better to make peace with our accuser before we get to court. Repent and believe the gospel.