Let Us Know the Old Age

FROM: OCTOBER 2 @ 8, 2018

TOPIC: "Let Us Know the Old Age" Ecclesiastes 12:1-8 Verse 1 says: "Remember..." You are not your proper OWNER; you are God's property because He created you. Psalm 100:3 "Know that the Lord is God. It is He who made us, and we are His... "In Mark 12:30 "Love the Lord your God with ALL your heart and with ALL your soul and with ALL your mind and with ALL your strength. This is the main commandment." Therefore, you have to serve Him with your ALL and with your best days, not with your scum. In Proverbs 8:17 "I love those who love me, and those who seek me EARLY find me." Do not boast about your makeup, your seduction, or your strength in your youthful days, take glory in your God. Ecclesiastes 12:1 "...before the days of trouble come..." The calamity that is felt in old age will come! When one can no longer serve God as in youth! When you no longer have contentment, the shameful pleasures will remain in the past. Bad days! (Vs. 2) "...before the sun grows dark..." In old age there will be no sun (light) as in youth, nor the feeling of prosperity. There will be pain in the body, the calamity will be felt. "...and the clouds return after the rain..." After the rain it is expected for "the sun to come out" (the consolation) for the old man, only a brief glance and the dark clouds of pain return quickly to him.

I. These verses show the end of man in his life on earth.

A. There is talk of old age, of the steps towards death (Vs. 5) "Then man goes to his eternal life..."

1. (Vs. 6) The silver cord breaks (death is compared to a lamp hanging from the ceiling with a silver chain, a cord of silk and woven silver). The lamp is shattered when the cord breaks, this is what happens to man when death comes. A "man's lamp" is of fragile material!

2. "And the golden bowl is broken", a container that represents the skull of a man; for the vital PRECIOUSNESS of its content is called GOLDEN. It is the cessation of the mind in the moment of death!

3. For the man who is wise the advice is to remember the Creator before the SILVER CORD breaks; before the delicate thread of life is broken when the spirit abandons the body.

4. The PITCHER and the WHEEL broken at the same time is when the circulatory system collapses, the blood pressure (systolic and diastolic). It is like the source from which water is drawn in a pitcher with a rope placed on a wheel; if the pitcher and the wheel are broken, you can no longer get more water. Thus, life ceases when the vital energies are exhausted! (The SPRING may mean the right ventricle of the heart, the WELL the left ventricle; the PITCHER the veins and the WHEEL the anatomy.)

5. This grim picture of old age applies to those who did not remember their Creator in their youth!

6. They don't have any of the consolations of God that they could have obtained in their youth; after death it is too late to look for them!

7. A good old age is a blessing for the pious! (Genesis 15:15 "You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age.") Abraham reached 175 years and Job much more than 140 years (Job 42:16, 17). (Job 5:26 "You will come to the grave in full vigor...") (Proverbs 16:31) "Gray hair is a CROWN of SPLENDOR..." Proverbs 20:29 "...gray hair the splendor of the old.")

B. (Ecclesiastes 12:7) The dust returns to the ground (Genesis 2:7)

1. The dust of the ground; the body was formed from the dust.

2. The spirit that survives the body; the body envelops the immortality of the spirit.

3. The rigor (the inflexible) of death is established (enforced to return to the ground what was made from the dust: the life of man).

4. Then the body begins its return to the dust, while the spirit returns to God who gave it!

5. God decides where your spirit is going: to eternity with Him or to eternity in punishment (Revelation 20:11-15).

a. Dead, great and small, standing before God!

b. The books are open.

c. And another book were opened, which is the Book of Life.

d. The dead were judged by the things that were written in the books according to their deeds.

e. The sea gave up the bodies, death and Hades, and each one was judged according to their deeds.

f. Death and Hades were thrown into the Lake of Fire.

g. Those who were not inscribed in the Book of Life were thrown into the Lake of Fire. (See note below)

6. (Ecclesiastes 12:8) Life under the sun is VANITY, lacking sense, futile (unimportant), empty. Note on Revelation 20:11-15

1. This judgment is in eternity, it is the Judgment of the White Throne.

2. The list of the redeemed is in the Book of Life.

3. The other books are about the deeds of the lost, they contain a detailed register of their deeds.

4. Those who appear at this trial are not recorded in the Book of Life. They have no chance!

5. The fact that their names are not in the Book of Life already condemns them, but the register of their evil deeds that appear in these books will determine the punishment they will have.

6. The sea and Death will deliver the bodies of all the unconverted who have died.

7. Hades will give up the souls of all who died in disbelief.

8. The bodies and souls of each one will be reunited and thus each person will stand before the Judge!

9. There will be degrees of rewards in Heaven! And there will be degrees of punishment in Hell according to the deeds!

10. Death and Hades are thrown into the Lake of Fire; thus, the spirit, the soul and the body of each one.

11. This is the Second Death! Amen.