Kaleo San Diego Church

INTRODUCTION

As Solomon rushes towards the finish line of this book and his life, he speaks to his young listeners and exhorts them to pay close attention to their present decisions which will determine their future joy.

Here we get an inside look at Solomon’s old age as he speaks from the perspective of a burned out, debauched, remorseful and repentant old pervert. Solomon’s goal is to urge us to seek God early in life and to stick close to Him each day so that we don’t end up writing these types of letters to our grandchildren.

What Solomon is commending is going to be difficult for some of you as you will quickly see. For others, this will be a breath of fresh air as we are called to enjoy our days and remember our God so we don’t end up old and weird like good ole Solomon.

Think about what Hugh Heffner would say if he were to become a Christian and feel led to write to the young men that bought his magazine. Now multiply that by a thousand and you might begin to see how far Solomon fell as he started strong but forgot His God and therefore lost his ability to connect wisdom with joy until he was old, grey, and had to take fiber pills to keep himself regular.

Our author is going to tell us that life moves quick, you’re going to grow old and die, so hurry up and live. Sound familiar?

Yes, we are going to pick on old people for a change today. It might not be nice, but boy is it biblical!

We’re going to work on how to get the most out of this life, every ounce, before we die, and how to do it in a way that honors God, so that the sum total of our days which are numbered will be days we enjoy instead of despise.

The age group of our church is the perfect audience for Solomon.

STUDY

Verse 7- The light is pleasant, and it is good for the eyes to see the sun.

Solomon has already told us in chapter three that there are seasons and times in our life for everything. What he is doing is using the summer of our life when light is sweet, we are strong, our days our long and glorious, healthy and full, as a contrast. He juxtaposes the summer of our life with that of our winter, when our days are dark and cold, when things are dying, and life is barren and lonely.

Our life goes through seasons: birth-spring, maturity-summer, aging-fall, death-winter. Our spring, summer, fall and winter describes the cycle of our existence.

Verse 8a- Indeed, if a man should live many years, let him rejoice in them all,

What Solomon is saying to those of you that are young, is that you don’t know how many days you have to live, and you don’t get to decide. God has already numbered your days, so whether it is a long life or a short run, both are in the hand of God.

What you do have a responsibility for is the quality of your days. Your days may be short, but they can be full. Your days may be long, but they can be empty. Ultimately God knows the number of your days, but you have the opportunity to see that every one given by God are enjoyed.

Verse 8b-and let him remember the days of darkness, for they will be many. Everything that is to come will be futility.

The seasons of life will change no matter how much we want it otherwise. I can wear shorts and flip-flops, I can put on a tank top, but if the season changes and it snows, no matter how much I fight it by wearing clothing of summer, I can’t sidestep the next season. So will our days of darkness as winter sets in. And doesn’t it always seem as if summer is short and winter is long? Why is that? Because light is sweet, darkness is bitter, and we remember difficulty of dark days more than the length of light ones. All comes quickly like a vapor.

Verse 9a- Rejoice, young man, during your childhood, and let your heart be pleasant during the days of young manhood. And follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes.

This is a good word for you and I because we are getting at the crux of our purpose for existing.

It seems odd that the rest of Scripture speaks to us much about our purpose being to glorify God, and Solomon here seems to indicate that we are supposed to rejoice during our youth, have hearts filled with pleasure, and follow our hearts and desires.

For many of you the idea of following pleasure, pursuing joy, going after the impulses of our hearts and the desires of your eyes, sounds totally foreign because you were told that if it feels good it’s probably a sin.

But what we see in Scripture is that God has fashioned our days for enjoyment. That is the beat that runs steady through this book and through the Bible. Enjoy your life with God, enjoy your days with God, enjoy every opportunity that God allows for you to pursue pleasure in Him. Temperance is never suggested when pursuing pleasure in God. You can go hard after Him with all your might and you will hear “go harder” as you find your joy in Him.

Are God’s glory and our joy at odds with one another?

God’s passion for His own glory and His passion for my joy in Him are not at odds.

Solomon learned that our joy and God’s glory are not at odds from his father David who wrote many of the Psalms.

Psalms 16:11 You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

That’s were joy and pleasure come from, God’s right hand. And God’s kind of joy and pleasure are eternal.

Solomon also learned, but ignored, Psalms 37:4 Where his father tells us to: “Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” This is the goal of our life!

Some of you hear this and assume that you can get whatever you want. Money, looks, women, and stuff, are all yours to be had now that you’re a Christian. That’s not what this verse means.

This verse means that if you delight in God, find joy in God, walk with God, through Jesus Christ, God will change your desires.

Often times when we sin, we do so because we don’t have the right desires, we don’t delight in the right things, and sin is what we do when our hearts are not satisfied with God.

No one sins because of duty. We sin because it holds out some promise of happiness or joy, some promise of pleasure or satisfaction. That promise makes us slaves until we believe that God is more to be desired than life itself.

The power of the promise of sin is broken by the power of the promises of God. All that God promises for us in Jesus stands over against what sin promises to be for us without him. Being satisfied in God, delighting ourselves in the LORD, is what will crush sin and all its lies. Knowing this will free our hearts from slavery and the fleeting and temporary pleasures of sin so that we can have eternal joy and pleasure from God’s right hand, and we are given the desires of our heart.

Whatever you treasure and enjoy most is what you will become like. If you worship and find your greatest pleasure in sexuality, you will become perverted and your life will be a crooked mess. If you worship money, you will become greedy and idolatrous, and your desires will be for a pursuit of the promises of things instead of God.

As you and I learn to delight in God, to be satisfied in God, to enjoy God, He gives us desires and passion and then compels us to live passionately and freely to pursue those things.

Augustine said to “Love God and do whatever you please.” This is how we are supposed to live as God’s people. We should be able to do what we want to do. But it is only after delighting in God.

Our problem is that we spend most of our days pursuing things, without previously drawing near to God and delighting in Him. When we delight in Him first, we are given His desires upon our hearts and His passions which we want to pursue, and we can then be cut loose to pursue them. This ensures that our desires are His desires.

We spend an inordinate amount of time arguing over what God’s will is for these three jobs we were offered, or these two apartments we could live in, or these ministries that all look equally good. We say things like “what’s Gods will in this?” That’s the wrong question.

We will know God’s will if we are delighting in Him, walking with Him, living for Him, loving Him above all else. God will take His will and place it in our hearts so that God’s will and our will are not at odds, but in agreement.

This will kill that fight against your will and His will. If you are a person that struggles with obedience to God and His will, it’s because you are probably not delighting in Him as He calls you to. And your problem is not with God’s will, your problem is with God.

If you knew God, if you enjoyed God, if you walked with God, if your affections were rooted deeply in God, your passions will would be God’s passions and His will.

This is so much superior than duty-driven religion because you get to enjoy the desires of your heart and do whatever you want because you want what God wants. You know you’re loved by God and you love Him back, and that causes everything to be ordered to be pleasing to Him, which ultimately gives us our greatest pleasure.

If you are stuck between making decisions in your life that don’t seem to have neat little prepackaged answers for them, don’t run around trying to find out what God’s will is from your friends, you need to find God. When you find God, when you spend time with Him, when you know Him, He will give you desires which are in accord to His will.

Does this mean we chuck out the Bible? No! It is only in the Bible that we know truly who God is and what He has revealed about Himself to us. Delighting in God is synonymous with delighting in His word. A person who says they love God, are passionate for God, desire God, delight in God, and find ultimate satisfaction in God, is a person who knows the God of their Bible.

When decisions must be made, we often times spend more time on the decisions rather than on God. When we spend time with God, the decisions become much easier.

Do you know why I am your pastor? Because I love it, because God has given me a desire for it. Do you know why I love to read my Bible? Because I love it, because God has given me a desire for it. That is the reason I married my wife, because I love her and have a desire for her. That is the reason I love my kids, because have a desire for them.

When we lack emotions, or affections, or desires, it’s almost always because we lack God. When we are full with God, right desires don’t seem to be a problem.

A verse that instructs you to follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes is only frightening if you don’t delight first in God. If you do, this verse is liberating. You’re governed by a greater delight and that causes your impulses and heart to be filled with desires that are God glorifying.

Some of you are too cautious, too tame, too reserved. You walk around with your pocket version of excel and a facial expression that looks as if your constipated.

Some of you need to rely less on what your hands and strength will accomplish and more upon delighting in God. Let your affections grow. Don’t stifle them by analysis paralysis. Listen to and follow your heart more. Put down your graphs and spreadsheets.

I know what you’re thinking. What’s going to keep me from sin? Sin is not only doing what you shouldn’t be doing, it’s not doing what you know you’re supposed to do. So, if you know you’re supposed to delight in God, and you’re not, that’s sin. James 4:17

Some of you don’t look at apathy and passionless faith as a sin because you assume that faith and your relationship with God is about what you don’t do. You define Christianity by the things you don’t do.

Faith and your relationship with God should be about what you do, not what you don’t. You think that just because you don’t have a lampshade on your head, drunk, with your pants down, that you are a pretty good Christian.

Not being hammered, or not sleeping around isn’t exclusive to Christianity. The mark of a Christian is someone that loves Jesus so much that they live a life of worship to Him which includes being like Him. It is more about who God is, what He’s done and how we live in response to that positively, not just negatively.

Follow the desires of your heart! But here’s the question- what’s on your heart? Whatever it is, if God is central, sin is absent.

Whatever is on your heart, pursue it with vigor, passion, and great enthusiasm. Isn’t that dangerous? Only if you aren’t first delighting in God above all else.

For those of you that struggle with following Godly impulses and desires, you should memorize this verse and pray through how it applies to you.

For those on the other side of the coin, the rest of verse 9 is just for you.

Verse 9b- Yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things.

There is an emphatic declaration “Yet know.” In other words, pay attention! Don’t forget! Think about this!

In God’s great wisdom He has given us a brake and a throttle. Some of you are all brake. Some of you are like 8^th grade cheerleaders and you’re all throttle.

Pursue God, pursue a wife, pursue a husband, pursue a job, pursue a ministry, pursue a sport, pursue friendships…and be careful.

One day you’re going to come out of your grave and look Jesus in the eyes and empty your colon and you are going to have to explain to Jesus what in the world you were doing.

This is a good warning for those of you that are more impulsive.

What we’re you doing? I was chasing my heart and following my impulses.

Mixing Tang and Mad Dog and calling it a tequila sunrise as you got hammered and ran outside in nothing but your cowboy hat and boots as you lit off fireworks, wasn’t exactly what the Bible was speaking of.

You have to delight in God first! From that will flow reverence and fear for God that is appropriate. You might need to hit the brakes. Solomon has already told us that the man who fears God avoids extremes.

There running hard and fast, but it’s a one way street to a dead end at 100 mph. You’re moving, but you forgot about God. Big crash ahead!

Verse 10- So, remove grief and anger from your heart and put away pain from your body, because childhood and the prime of life are fleeting.

Are young people prone to depression and anger? Solomon tells us that we’re supposed to banish, or remove grief/depression/sadness and anger or bitterness from our hearts.

He’s speaking to us about our emotional health. It’s hard to delight in God when you are depressed and angry isn’t it?

Now, there are legitimate times when depression is very clearly related to a physiological cause. In those cases we need to be very careful not to sound like Job’s friends who kept insisting He did something wrong to deserve His pain.

Often times however, emotional depression is caused by a lack of delight in God. We’re bored, we’re tired from nothing, we have too much of our basic necessities, we think about ourselves too much, and because of our attention moving from God to ourselves, we’re depressed.

You and I were created as a being that finds its greatest joy in making much of God. Our sin was forgiven so that we can be freed to make much of God, not ourselves. Those that insist on making much of themselves find themselves depressed and angry.

If you are someone that struggles with depression, I want you to check and see if first things are first. Are you doing all that you can to seek God first, love God first, pursue Him first? Are you delighting in Him first? If not, today is a good day to confess that to Him and being anew.

Solomon also commends us to not only consider putting away depression and anxiety for our emotional health, he speaks to us practically about our physical health.

He tells us to put away pain from our body.

Those of you that didn’t wear a helmet when you rode your BMX bike, those of you that refused to wear your pads when you skateboarded, those of you that didn’t stretch before your sports, are the same people that 25 feel 50. How do I know? I’m that guy. Everything on my body cracks.

These are the guys that eat whatever they want now because they have a fast metabolism, but then they hit 40 and they can’t get a penny out of their pocket and have to put on a belt with a boomerang.

A mark of foolish youth is a view of immortality.

When you’re young, you’re not as prone to take care of yourself. Your eating habits are poor, your stretching is poor, your warm-ups are poor, your safety is poor. Now you walk like a war vet and your still young. It’s because we don’t really believe we’ll every get old.

 

Solomon tells us that we should consider our emotional and physical health because even though we don’t think our depression or anxiety is effecting us, even though we don’t think our scars and wounds will catch up to us, they will because the prime of our life is fleeting. Our summer season will change quickly.

The decisions we make in our youth, in these days and in this season, will echo through the rest of our lives. Our emotional and physical luggage may be like Samsonite and never departs from us.

Verse 12:1- Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, "I have no delight in them";

Young people are the most likely to forget God. They forget that they are a creature who is created by their Creator. Just like a young person attempts to forget about mom and dad in their defiance and rebellion, so they try to forget about the God who made them. This is why those that are 20-28 are the least likely to go to church than any other age group.

They get so busy enjoying the gifts of creation that they forget about God. They spend all their time pursuing things made and in their assumption of immortality and in their youthful strength, they think it will last forever.

What happens to a person that forgets God in their youth is often misery in their latter years. Their summer is brief, but their fall and winter are looooooooong. Since they did not acknowledge and pursue, desire and delight in God in their days of youth, they will find themselves disconnected and not truly satisfied in their days of maturity.

In the summer of our lives we are called to make certain decisions for our career, for our spouse, for our children, for our school, that have lasting impressions for decades to follow. If we forget to delight in God so that our desires are His desires, we end up with really poor decisions which we will look back on in regret.

If you forget your Creator in your days of youth, you will destroy all your days to follow and those days become evil and dark days.

Solomon says we will end up saying to ourselves that we “have no delight in them.” Why? Because we had no delight in God.

We get some flak because we have such a young crowd, the kind of crowd that isn’t expected to attend church today. And though we love and want people of all ages to come to Kaleo, we realize that instead of spending all of our time, energy and resources creating counseling programs for people that have lived long lives of folly and abuse, we don’t want to simply be reactive and deal with problems as they come, we want to be proactive and in wisdom teach the next generation to pursue and delight in God so that the pattern of abuse and destruction isn’t repeated.

This doesn’t mean we won’t counsel older people, it simply means that we want a bulk of our ministry to be forward thinking and going after the youth of our day so that we can affect the same group that Solomon is speaking to in this passage.

I want us to have preventative wisdom that remembers the Creator in the days of their youth. And instead of trying to manage our culture with government programs, we build redeemed people who live redeemed lives to the glory of their Redeemer.

Did Solomon forget His Creator? How could a man who was the son of King David, who was the wisest man next to Jesus that ever lived, who was the richest and most powerful that ever lived, and who wrote incredible proverbs, who built the Temple were God came to be worshipped and dwell, go astray, start having sex with 1,000 women who worshipped other gods and enticed Solomon to do the same? How is it that the writer of books of the Bible went so far as to worship the gods of his lovers who sacrificed babies? Solomon didn’t do what he is now imploring you to do- “Remember now your Creator…”

Solomon forgot about God and instead of delighting in Him, delighted in things. He exchanged the glory of God for something else.

I have watched this happen. Don’t pick up your Bible, don’t pray, don’t have fellowship with God’s people, and before you know it, you’ve forgotten about God and your days are now darkened.

This is why it’s so important for you and I to not only know God, but to remember Him always. There is a saying that we are to live “Coram Deo” which is a Latin word for “in the presence or face of God.” We are to always remember our Creator, each and every moment. This is essential to delighting in Him.

Our culture tells you that you’re young and healthy and indestructible, so drink, party, have as much sex, trash your body, spend yourself into debt, because you’re only young once.

This is far from God’s instruction through Solomon.

Verse 2- before the sun and the light, the moon and the stars are darkened, and clouds return after the rain;

We’re getting older every second. At this point in the message you are considerably older than when I began.

I’m 36 and getting older. I’m not officially old, but I’m definitely in my early fall.

Those of you in your spring, when all is new and you’re a child don’t think about being 36. Those of you that are in your summer, in your prime of strength and energy, don’t realize that your fall is coming sooner than you think. Those of you in your fall, when things hurt, you stop growing up and begin to grow around, you start losing hair and growing it out of your ears, don’t realize the days of darkness are close and your winter is setting in.

You move from diaper, no teeth, you babble, bald, drooling, having to have someone feed you and change through spring, summer, fall, and now in winter you’re back to being in a diaper, no teeth, babbling, bald, drooling, and having to have someone feed you and change you. Except this time it isn’t as cute.

Only an old man could talk about being an old man. Solomon gives us a humorous and poetic look at old age.

Verse 3- in the day that the watchmen of the house tremble,

When you get old your arms and legs start to shake like you’re having your own private 7.0 earthquake.

One day your steady hand will go, and your hand eye coordination will be gone. One day your grandchild is going to want to play catch with you and he’s going to throw the ball and before you could get your hand raised in inch it’s going to bounce off your forehead. It’s coming.

…and mighty men stoop,

Before you know it you’re going to have the posture of a ski jumper. The older you get the more stooped over you become until you could walk and tie your shoes at the same time.

…the grinding ones stand idle because they are few,

By the time you can afford good steaks with your senior discount, you can’t chew them because your teeth have all fallen out except one to remind you what they looked like.

No more peanuts, no more beef jerky, now you have to gum everything or drink soup. It’s sad when your teeth look more like a broken picket fence than a good row of white teeth isn’t it?

…and those who look through windows grow dim;

Your eyesight goes. You buy a 70 inch tv and you have to press your nose against the screen to see what’s happening. You drive with your seat moved all the way forward and your nose pressed on the steering wheel because you can’t see.

You go to the doctor for an eye test and he tells you to read from the top of the chart down and you can’t even see the chart.

Verse 4- and the doors on the street are shut

This is my second favorite because we’re not really sure what Solomon means here. Commentators are in disagreement so I’ll give them both to you.

Either Solomon is speaking about your entrance and your exit being shut up because neither work very well, or he’s speaking of old peoples lips as their pursed together. Neither of these sounds good. But if you think about it, they both make sense.

This is why Metamucil stays in business, this is why prune farmers are still around, this is why bran muffins with lots of fiber are still being baked, because things to move as smoothly as they should.

Or, it could be because you lost all your teeth and your lips have sunk in and you look like you just sucked on a lemon wedge.

This is a great plea to delight in God while we have senses that are still working.

…as the sound of the grinding mill is low,

Since your teeth are gone, the sound of biting, crunching, chomping, of food is low. Now you put something in your mouth and pray for it to melt.

…and one will arise at the sound of the bird

I’m experiencing this right now. I don’t sleep in like I used to. I’m up at 6:30 and I don’t have to wake up till 8:00. I don’t know why I’m up, it doesn’t really make a difference what time I go to bed. All of the sudden, the slightest noise wakes me up at that time and I can’t go back to sleep, even if I’m tired.

Old people don’t sleep in like drunk frat guys. They are up early. Why? I don’t know, they have nothing to do. They can’t see, they can’t eat much, they can’t run, they can’t cook breakfast, but their up doing nothing at the crack of dawn!

…and all the daughters of song will sing softly.

Your lungs, your throat, your teeth, your mouth, your lips, your tongue, those body parts you use when you sing will not be of much use in your old age, at least not for singing.

Verse 5- Furthermore, men are afraid of a high place

When you were young you could jump off a roof, out of a tree, climb a huge rock, and if you fell it was no big deal because you bounced right back up and you were ready to go again.

Now, even getting a glass from the top shelf is a dangerous task. You feet are strong, your legs are shaky, you feel like you’re made of balsa wood and if you fall everything would break.

…and of terrors on the road;

Have you noticed that old people don’t like to get out much? They have time and money, of which they never had when they were strong, but now that they do they can’t enjoy it because they’re afraid if they go outside someone will hurt them or they’ll trip on a rock, or a young person will bump them and they’ll fall over and break.

…the almond tree blossoms,

Your hair turns grey, then white. You see a car full of old people and they look like a box of q-tips.

…the grasshopper drags himself along,

The young grasshopper that could leap so far, now has to use a walker to get around.

…and the caperberry is ineffective (his desire fades).

This sounds exactly like it’s supposed to. You’re libido takes a vacation. Before you had no time for your wife, now you have all the time in the world and can’t do anything about it. Before your wife could run away, now she’s no faster than you and you’re like a dog that chased a parked car and doesn’t know what to do with it. Your desire fades.

For man goes to his eternal home while mourners go about in the street.

People come out and say nice things about you and cry because your gone, but you’re still dead.

Verse 6- Remember Him before the silver cord is broken

You better remember God and live before you fall and break your spinal cord.

…and the golden bowl is crushed,

You better remember your Creator and live before you fall and crack your head open.

…the pitcher by the well is shattered

You better remember God and delight in Him before your heart gives out.

…and the wheel at the cistern is crushed;

You better remember God in your youth before one day your veins collapse and you die.

Verse 7- then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.

After all of this there are only two options after you die. The spirit leaves you and returns to God and you either go with Him for eternity and continue your love for Him and from Him or you go to hell and are forever separated from God and suffer for your years of folly forever.

Verse 8- "Vanity of vanities," says the Preacher, "all is vanity!"

Vapor of vapors is this life. So while we have it, we need to hurry up and live, hurry up and enjoy life, that is only done if we hurry up and delight in God above all else so that He will give us the desires of our heart which is more of Him.

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