Rev. David Holwick H Ecclesiastes Series
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
February 23, 1997
Ecclesiastes 12:1-8
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I. How long do you want to live?
A. I've always wanted to live to be 100. With real candles.
1) Most do not.
2) Old age has lots of problems.
B. But we're not too crazy about the alternative, either.
1) Only after months of illness are most ready to die.
2) Our natural desire is to hang on to this life.
C. Facing facts.
1) None of us is getting any younger.
2) Death is coming.
3) Will you grow old gracefully - with God on your side?
II. What it is like to grow old.
A. An experiment.
Ted Engstrom tells the story of Pat Moore.
One day in May, 1979, Moore, who looked like she must be
85-years-old, opened the door of her New York apartment
and stepped nervously into the hall.
She put her cane out in front of her and hesitantly felt for
the first step on the stairs.
Her legs moved gingerly, awkwardly.
One step... two... three... all the way to the twelfth step.
So far so good.
When she arrived at the bottom of the stairs, she saw her
landlady who exclaimed,
"Oh, I'm sorry, I was expecting somebody else."
"Don't you recognize me?" asked Pat, her voice strained and
cracked.
"No, ma'am, I don't," said the landlady, staring at the frail
woman.
"I'm Pat Moore," she said laughing.
As she saw her landlady's mouth widen in disbelief, Pat
knew in that flash of a moment she passed the test.
You see, Pat Moore was not eighty-five years old at all.
Not even close.
She was an attractive twenty-six-year-old specialist in
industrial design.
She was also concerned about the needs of the aged.
At least once each week for the next three years, Pat put
on her masquerade of facial latex foam, a heavy fabric
that bound her body, and a convincing gray wig.
She visited fourteen states as an old woman.
She met hundreds of people who never once discovered her
true identity.
Pat Moore wanted to have a first hand experience of what
it was to be elderly in America.
What do you think she found?
#1663
B. An allegory of decrepitude.
1) Differences in interpretation.
a) Some see mixed metaphors of storms, and houses, and death.
1> Others see a funeral coming from a home.
b) Still others see an allegory of old age.*
2) All agree it is a beautiful, if melancholy, poem.
III. What we have to look forward to.
A. Days of trouble. 11:1
1) No feeling of pleasure.
2) "Clouds after rain" - depression? 11:2
B. Keepers of house tremble = hands.
C. Strong men stoop = major muscle groups. 11:3
D. Grinders few = teeth.
1) Neat thing about my grandma - took her teeth out!
E. Windows dim = eyes fail.
1) Darkness of sun, moon may be related to eyesight. 11:2
2) No glasses or cataract surgery back then.
F. Shut doors = ears (grinding sound fades). 11:4
1) (Some see as frail and homebound)
G. Rising up = insomnia.
H. Fears. 11:5
1) Elderly often speak of fear of crime, illness,
loss of independence, high taxes.
I. Almond blossoms = white hair.
J. Grasshopper = (obscure) bad joints.
K. No desire.
1) (Paraphrase of Hebrew)
2) Romance sputters out.
IV. Going to the eternal home. 11:5
A. Grave in view, not heavenly mansion here.
1) Silver cord, golden bowl; pitcher and wheel. 11:6
2) Cord holds up bowl, which is a lamp.
3) Picture of cistern from which one draws the water of life.
B. The dust of death. 11:7
1) "Dust" alludes to Gen 2:7 and 3:19.
2) Result of our disobedience.
3) God alone gives life, and he can give it eternally.
C. Death should filter our passions. 11:6
1) Remember God before it is too late.
The seventeenth-century French mathematician Blaise Pascal
wrote a spiritual diary in which he says,
"To render passion harmless let us behave as though we had
only a week to live."
All of us are captive to various passions; some good,
some bad.
Which ones will we follow?
William Law suggests we pick and choose according to how we
will feel upon our death.
What man or woman in their right mind would continue an
affair if they really believed they might not wake up
in the morning?
What person would risk entering eternity in a drunken stupor?
What fool would ignore his loved ones and God for one last
night so that he could make another quick ten thousand
bucks just before he died?
#3621
D. It's all meaningless - apart from faith.
V. The conclusion of the matter. 12:13-14
A. To obey God is to be truly human.
1) Some see this as a later editor "improving" the book.
2) Misses the point.
B. The secret is not in morality or knowledge but in trust in God.
1) Meaninglessness of life does not have to lead to
despair, but can lead to faith and true piety.
2) Keep his commandments - don't presume upon his kindness.
======================== Study Notes ============================
I. Kidner.
A. Fading physical and mental powers.
B. Desolation of old age.
C. Lights go out -
1) Old friends taken.
2) Familiar customs change.
3) Long-held hopes abandoned.
D. Best to confront death in youth, not old age.
E. Metaphors.
1) Anatomical allegory.
2) Impression of winter, storm, nightfall.
3) Household going into mourning.
4) *Combination.
F. Grasshopper = stiff walk, ungainly.
G. Almond tree = white hair.
H. Eternal home = finality, not heaven.
I. Silver cord - captures beauty and fragility of the human frame.
1) As delicate as any work of art.
a) Cord, bowl - probably refers to lamp held by silver
chain, in which one broken link sends to ground.
2) Breakable as a piece of earthenware.
3) As useless in the end as a broken wheel.
J. Tragedy behind the sequence - you are dust, will return to it.
1) Allusion to the fall of man. cf. 7:29
2) Spirit returns to God - means less to him than it does to us.
a) Life is not at our command. cf. Psalm 104:29
K. Creator - we are invited to respond to him, beyond anything
"under the sun."
II. Garrett.
A. Not a unified allegory but a series of metaphors.
1) Remember Creator before days of age and death set in.
2) Perverse to limit metaphors to decline of one's estate.
a) Darkness, silence gives surreal, even apocalyptic,
atmosphere.
B. Metaphors of aging.
1) Keepers of house tremble = hands.
2) Strong men stoop = major muscle groups. 11:3
3) Grinders few = teeth.
4) Windows dim = eyes fail.
a) Darkness of sun, moon may be related to eyesight. 11:2
b) No glasses or cataract surgery back then.
5) Shut doors = ears (grinding sound fades). 11:4
a) (Some see as frail and homebound)
6) Rising up = insomnia.
7) Fears. 11:5
a) Elderly often speak of fear of crime, illness,
loss of independence, high taxes.
8) Almond blossoms = white hair.
9) Grasshopper = (obscure) bad joints.
10) No desire. Paraphrase of Hebrew.
11) Going to the eternal home. 11:5
a) Grave in view, not heavenly mansion here.
b) Picture of cistern from which one draws the water of
life.
c) "Dust" alludes to Gen 2:7 and 3:19.
C. Conclusion. 12:13-14
1) To obey God is to be truly human.
2) Surprisingly, he affirms that the whole of humanity consists
not in its morality or ignorance but in its dependence on
God.
a) Flows naturally from all that has gone before.
b) Book's final look at Gen 2-3.
1> Binds all themes together.
2> Meaninglessness of life does not have to lead to
despair, but can lead to faith and true piety.
A> Obedient trust, not empty vows.
c) Keep his commandments - don't behave with self-satisfied
arrogance of religious presumption.
III. Ryken.
A. Decay of old age serves adds urgency to the command to remember
God.
1) 12:1-8 is most amazing poetic performance in whole work.
2) Genre known as the character.
B. Generalized description of old age as "evil days."
1) Sun, moon, stars: weak eyesight or loss of sensitivity to
flow of life.
2) Clouds: tears from eyestrain or inability to rally after
setbacks.
C. Physiological description.
1) Keepers of house = hands and arms.
2) Strong men = stooped shoulders.
3) Grinders = teeth.
a) [grandma took her out]
4) Windows = weak eyes.
5) Doors shut = weak hearing.
6) ..grinding..rise..bird = loss of appetite, sleep and speech.
7) High = fear of high places.
8) Almond = white hair.
9) Grasshopper = probably loss of sprightly walking.
D. Death itself pictured.
1) Concrete symbols of cessation of activity and dissolution.
2) Cord = cord holding up a lamp.
IV. Hubbard.
A. Funeral motif.
1) Death, not old age, in view.
B. Christians face death with confidence.
CATEGORY: Aging, Old Age, Suffering, Death, Meaning Of Life, Weakness, Fear,
Abandoned, Hope
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TEXT: Rom 14:8, Isa 40:6-8, 1 Pet 1:24-25, Ps 71:9
Number: 920 Hard copy:
SOURCE: Christianity Today
TITLE: The Riddle Of Aging
AUTHOR: Arthur Becker
PAGE: 18 DATE: 11/6/87 Typist: ENTERED: 6/10/89
DATE_USED:
ILLUSTRATION__________________________________________________________________
: [For hard copy, see #903.]
Anxieties of growing old. It often involves suffering but hope can result.
Fundamental realities of human existence:
1. Our essential loneliness as humans - we need love and companionship.
2. Our freedom to choose.
3. Our limit as creatures.
4. Our anxiety of awareness.
#920
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