Remember the Creator

"Remember the Creator" – Ecclesiastes 11:9-10; 12:1-8 Know that you must give an account to God by the way you use the vigor and opportunities of youth. Do whatever your heart desires and satiate your eyes with what you can. But just remember that in the end, God will judge you (behavior is judged, it is against the law and it is sentencing what is appropriate, it follows Monday, precedes Tuesday). God judges. Solomon was a wise man, famous inside and outside his country for his extraordinary (extra) wisdom.

I. As long as you possess youth, you maximize (increase) enjoyment, purity, so that you have less distress (anguish, sorrow) and difficulties.

A. Adolescence (10 to 18 years) and youth (14-26) are vanity because of their brevity, (27-59) adulthood and (60 – onward, old age).

1. There is no literary excerpt (summary, writing, substance, essence) that contains a more classical description of old age than the first half of Chapter 12.

2. It is presented as an allegory (fable = animals), but it does not take long for a wrinkled old man to appear on the scene, a walking geriatric museum (care for the elderly), dragging his feet in his irresistible walk towards the grave.

3. By avoiding abuse, a young person can avoid the consequences that debauchery (self-freedom, without regard for the rights of other people and without assuming the consequences derived (as a function of time) brings to the mind and body.

4. Adolescence and youth are ephemeral (elusive, brief) therefore, it is not worth enjoying the pleasures of youth.

5. (12:1) The sad picture of old age, senility (old age) is a warning for young people to remember their Creator in the days of their youth.

6. Solomon calls Creator the only way that could know God from his vantage point under the sun.

7. His perfect advice.

8. Young people must remember their "Creator" before the sunset of life, when the days are bad and difficult and the years are totally devoid of pleasure and contentment.

9. How can we expect God to help us when we are old, if we do not serve Him while we are young?

10. Describe the weaknesses of old age with beautiful metaphors (symbols).

11. (2) Old age is the time when the lights, both physical and emotional, are dimmed.

12. The days are heavy and the nights are long.

13. Depression and sadness appear.

14. Even in previous years there was a lot of rain, that is, problems and discouragement.

15. But the sun would rise again, and the spirit would soon revive.

16. Now it seems that sunny days are behind us forever and after each discharge of rain and clouds appear promising more.

17. Youth is the time when we must remember the Creator, because it is then that the sun, moon and stars have not yet darkened and the clouds do not return after the rain.

18. The ups and downs of lucidity and darkness, of relief and pain that follow one another in old age; one discomfort is relieved and soon another comes to replace it.

19. (3) Now the body of the aged man is presented to us in the form of a house.

20. The guardians of the house are the arms and hands, once strong and active, now wrinkled, crooked and trembling, suffering from diseases (Parkinson's).

21. The strong men are the legs and thighs, which are no longer straight and static, but arched as if they were parentheses, bending under the weight of the body.

22. The molars will cease because they have shrunk, that is, the teeth can no longer chew because there are too few upper teeth and they cannot meet the remaining lower ones.

23. Those who look out of the windows will be darkened.

24. The eyes have gone from bad to worse.

25. First, they needed bifocals, then trifocals and then cataract surgery.

26. Now you can only read the extra-large print with the help of a magnifying glass.

27. (4) Street doors will be closed.

28. This refers, of course, to the ears.

29. Everything must be repeated two or three times.

30. High-pitched sounds, such as the noise of a tooth, are low and indistinct (without distinction).

31. The old man suffers from insomnia.

32. He gets up early and is wide awake when the first bird starts chirping and the rooster starts to crow.

33. All the daughters of song will be cast down; The vocal cords are seriously damaged.

34. The voice is hoarse and insecure and there is no room for songs.

35. (5) Some elderly people suffer from "acrophobia" which is equivalent to fearing what is high, whether it is stairs, panoramas from tall buildings or air travel.

36. And there are terrors along the way.

37. They have lost all self-confidence and are afraid to go out alone or to go out at night.

38. Generally, the almond tree in bloom is understood as a figure of white hair, first in rich profusion (abundance) and then falling off.

39. "The locust" can be interpreted in two ways.

40. First, the locust will be a burden, that is, lighter objects are too heavy for the old man.

41. Or the locust crawling may caricature the old man, found and deformed, advancing in clumsy and stumbling motions.

42. "You'll lose your appetite."

43. In the sense that natural desires diminish until they vanish.

44. Food no longer has flavor or appeal and the other basic instincts wane.

45. Everything is lost because man goes to his eternal abode of death and grave and soon his funeral procession will be seen appearing in the streets.

46. (6) Therefore, the counsel of the wise man is to remember the Creator before the silver chain breaks and the golden bowl breaks, and the pitcher breaks by the fountain, and the wheel is broken over the well.

47. "The breaking of the silver chain" probably refers to the breaking of the delicate thread of life when that spirit leaves the body.

48. But oh! The joy of waking up, in the palace of my King.

49. The golden bowl is usually understood as the cranial cavity (space formed inside the skull) and the one that breaks is a poetic figure of the cessation of the mind at the moment of death.

50. He is already soul and spirit that will go to Him for whom he lived; God or the misery of the flesh that has another place.

51. What is done, it is paid.

52. "The pitcher and the wheel" broken together could be a reference to the circulatory system (heart, blood vessels and dying blood throughout the body) with collapse (sudden failure of an organ's activity) of systolic blood pressure (blood pressure in the artery when the heart contracts) and diastolic (minimum pressure).

53. (7) The severity of death is established.

54. Then the body begins its return to the dust, while the spirit returns to God, if He is served at all.

55. In the unbeliever, the spirit goes to Hades, where it awaits the Great White Throne Judgment.

56. (Revelation 20:12-14) Then the spirit will be reunited with the body and the whole person will be cast into the lake of fire.

57. (8) Life under the sun is vanity, meaningless, futile (insignificant), and empty. Amen