Remember now your Creator(전도서 12:1-8) Ecclesiastes

·         나의 창조자를 기억하자(전도서 12:1-8) Ecclesiastes

·         Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth,
Before the difficult days come,
And the years draw near when you say,
“I have no pleasure in them”:
² While the sun and the light,
The moon and the stars,
Are not darkened,
And the clouds do not return after the rain;
³ In the day when the keepers of the house tremble,
And the strong men bow down;
When the grinders cease because they are few,
And those that look through the windows grow dim;
⁴ When the doors are shut in the streets,
And the sound of grinding is low;
When one rises up at the sound of a bird,
And all the daughters of music are brought low.
⁵ Also they are afraid of height,
And of terrors in the way;
When the almond tree blossoms,
The grasshopper is a burden,
And desire fails.
For man goes to his eternal home,
And the mourners go about the streets.

·         ⁶ Remember your Creator before the silver cord is loosed,^[a]
Or the golden bowl is broken,
Or the pitcher shattered at the fountain,
Or the wheel broken at the well.
⁷ Then the dust will return to the earth as it was,
And the spirit will return to God who gave it.

·         ⁸ “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher,
“All is vanity.”

Intro) There is a funny story

 1. God standardized every animal’s age limit to 30 years. one day, donkey came and said “I don’t want to work for 30 years for human, so please make it to 10 years.” God accepted donkey’s request.

Next time a dog came. He said “I can’t spend all 30 years of my life for stay up all night to protect house from thief, and eat leftover food from owner. Thinking about living 30 years like this gives me dizziness.” So, he asked God to minimize his life time to 10 years, and God accepted.

Then, a human came. He said “God, you created human as lord of creation, but having a same life time like any other animals is a shame for human, so please increase human’s life time.

Therefore God gave human 60 years more to human that he took from dog, and donkey. This is the story about how human increased their life time to be able to live 90years old.

So, human lives life just as a human from year old to 30years old, from 30 years old to 50 years human have to work like a donkey, because human got life from donkey, and from 50years old to 70years old human lives like a dog such as cannot sleep, snips around, and spend time by talking other’s story. In 70 years old to 90years old human lives like a monkey, lives life by attracting others by senile.

Life is bless but if you can’t live life with bless it is easy to seem like a donkey, dog, and money to others.

Sometimes, someone calls somebody like “you are less than a dog, or you are a monkey!” is shows that life can be blessing or also can be a curse.

 

There is an advertisement company of England, and the company put up the big prize to citizen whoever can solve the quiz first. The quiz was about what is the fastest way to get to London from Edinburgh in Scotland. Many people submitted their answers, because the prize was so big. There are many opinions, about which one is the fastest such as take airplane or ride train and transfer to bus at certain point or ride car, and take short cut at dawn etc. However, many people thought many ways, and claimed their way is the fastest by actual time. But the person who got the prize, his answer was ‘going with lover.’ If you go with someone that you love no matter how far it is, it will feels like very short. That is the way how love calculates distance.

We must live by distance formula of love.

No matter how long and far is our life history, if we live with the feeling of loving God, and love neighbor. It will feel like a moment and live with joyful mind.

Body) The story that we just read is about giving a very important lesson about living life.

a)  This is the word that premised about judgment

Let’s read Ecclesiastes 11:9-10

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 in the sight of your eyes;
But know that for all these
God will bring you into judgment.
¹⁰ Therefore remove sorrow from your heart,
And put away evil from your flesh,
For childhood and youth are vanity.

This is the bible’s lesson about after life you must have to face God’s judgment.

In Matthew 12:36 says

³⁶ But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. ³⁷ For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

According to Revelation 20:11-12 it says

¹¹ Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. ¹² And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God,^[c] and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books.

There are two books that is opened on God’s throne, one is saint’s name is written, and another book is about actions that people made between god and evil. Every human goes to white throne judge when they die, and in front of white throne judge you will be judged. Depends on what you have done before you will get either punishment or reward.

 Therefore Ecclesiastes shows us about when young people should not waste their life by enjoying pleasure as much as you like, because there will be a judge on what you have done.

Jesus told us that we will be judged on what we spoke and what we have on our mind. This means he knows what is on our mind. Therefore saint have to live holiness life by sharing grace of God.

Word premised about life’s vanity.

According to Ecclesiastes 12:8 it says

⁸ “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher,
“All is vanity.”
What is so vain? It means youth is vain. The one only life is vain.

Time can break human miserably.

No matter how young, pretty, or healthy you are. You will break as time goes.

This content that we read, and it’s about how Salomon explains metaphorically about phenomenon of collapse well

According to Ecclesiastes 12:3 it says

3 In the day when the keepers of the house tremble,
And the strong men bow down;
When the grinders cease because they are few,
And those that look through the windows grow dim;

1.      ‘In the day when the keepers of the house tremble,’

The word house in this stanza means human’s body.

When we get old the muscles are going to shrink, lose energy on your body, and shiver you body. Your body shivers too much later you won’t be able to put the thread into needle. When surgeon gets to age of 50 they won’t able to do good job on delicate operation.

2. ‘And the strong men bow down;’

When people get old their upright back involuntarily bends itself, so we might have to use a stick.

3.’ when the grinders cease because they are few,’

When your tooth is loose it fells out easily.

We have denture, and when tooth falls out we can implant fake tooth, so it’s less pressure, but in the old days there was a no single solution when teeth fall out. When all the teeth fall out you have to eat foods with your gum, so you can’t eat tough and hard foods, then it won’t be easy to digest, and your stomach will get sick. .

4.’ And those that look through the windows grow dim;’

It means eyes get darker. As your eye sight gets worse an object will looks blurry.

This means presbyopia has come.

When presbyopia comes you have to wear glasses to read a bible.

Let’s look at the Ecclesiastes 12:4 it says “⁴ When the doors are shut in the streets,
And the sound of grinding is low;
When one rises up at the sound of a bird,
And all the daughters of music are brought low.”

5. ‘When the doors are shut in the streets,’

It means the phenomenon that you can’t hear well

When you get old your hearing ability get weaker, so can’t really hear outside of street from inside of house, then you have to using hearing aid, but when you get older even hearing aid can’t be a help.

6. ‘And the sound of grinding is low;’

This means the chewing sounds isn’t powerful enough like it used to.

When you become an old man you can’t eat powerfully and taste very well.

That is because you have problems on your teeth, but also you are losing your appetite. So you have to eat rice with soup, and later you have to eat porridge, and lose your digest ability.

7. ‘When one rises up at the sound of a bird,’

What is that mean? It means when you get old you don’t sleep much at dawn.

In young age, people usually fall asleep as soon as they lay down, but when people get old they become sensitive, so when bird twits old people wake up.

Old people don’t get sleepy easily so they go to daughter’s room, and grand children’s room etc. So, can be easily become an object of hatred.

8. ‘And all the daughters of music are brought low.’

The voice changes, sounds changes, they start talking about stuff that people can’t really understand. Old people think they make right sense and sound (note), but it is not like what it used to be. When you get older, you cannot sing very well like when you were young.

Let’s look at the verse 5 it says “⁵ Also they are afraid of height,
And of terrors in the way;
When the almond tree blossoms,
The grasshopper is a burden,
And desire fails.
For man goes to his eternal home,
And the mourners go about the streets.”

 ‘Also they are afraid of height,’

It means even stairs can be the hardship to old people. To old people, going up the church’s stairs makes breathe hard, and dizzy. When you get old all joint starts hurting and it’s so hard to go up the staircase. Just looking at the high place brings fear. Even the people who loved to go hike can’t go hike anymore.

10. ‘And of terrors in the way;’

What is that mean? It means it’s afraid to go out, and can’t even Imation go to travel, so you have to go travel when you are young. What about we work 11months and go to travel for one month in year? We should pray for this.

11.’ When the almond tree blossoms,’

When you get old your hair color become white, so we have to dye our hair and sometimes we have to wear a wig.

12. ‘The grasshopper is a burden,’

This means even a little gross hopper can makes you feel heaviness, in other word it means little object can be a heavy burden. Even moving your body is hard. Carrying something becomes really hard. It is hard to bring a bible to church in old age, so it’s wise to bring God’s bible when you still can.

13. ‘And desire fails.’

It means when you get old you will lose your all desire. Desire is what human wants other than needs. Its Gluttony, we eat to not to die but it makes people to eat because it’s delicious. Its Lust, losing sex hormones means marriage become wane. If these happens what is going to happen next? Life gets boring, and death comes.

D) This word premised about death.

The end of verse 5 it says ‘For man goes to his eternal home,
And the mourners go about the streets.”

At last the death comes. Death means separation of body and soul. Body turn into dirt and soul goes back to God’s world, and then we will be judged on what we have done in the past. To saints it means we are going to get rewards depends on how much of God’s work have you finished. People who believe in God go to heaven and others go to hell forever.

 

Con) bible suggests us to remember Jesus since we are young. Remember him means accept his word and believe and follow, and live on his word.

People say life starts at age of 60. In fact, that could sound little bit stubborn, but compare to old age we can say we are young. Age of sixty is still prime days. At age of seventy, it’s little tiring. At age of eighty it’s tiring. Some people still can be active when they turned 90 years old, but it is not easy to stay active at that age.
Even massive amount of money can’t buy the time. No matter how much money you have, it just flows. So, before it’s too late you have to spend time wisely and remember the mission that God gave us, when you still have the opportunity, time, health, and energy to do.