The End of the Matter (Eccl. 11 & 12)

Spring 2026 - 3/4/26

Week 8 of "Ecclesiastes: Seeing Good" sermon series.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. Give portion to seven or even eight, for you know not what disaster may happen on earth. If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves on the earth. If a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie. He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap. As you do not know the way the Spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything. In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, whether both alike will be good, light is sweet, and it is pleasant to for the eyes to see the sun. So if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all, but let him remember that the days of darkness will be many, all that comes is vanity. 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 the sight of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. Remove vexation from your heart and put away pain from your body, for youth and the dawn of life are vanity. Remember also the Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near, of which you will say, I have no pleasure in them. Before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened, and the clouds return after the rain, in the day when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those who look through the windows are dim, and the doors on the street are shut, and the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low. They are afraid also of what is high, and the terrors are in the way. The almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along, and desire fails, because man is going to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the streets, or for the silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is shattered at the fountain, or the wheel broken of the cistern, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. Vanity of vanity is the preacher, all his vanity. The creature also taught the people knowledge, way of studying, and arranging many proverbs with great care. The preacher sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote wrote words of truth. The words of the wise are like goes, and like nails firmly fixed are the collective sayings. They are given by one shepherd. My son, beware of anything beyond these, of making many books, there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. The end of the matter. All has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

Amen. A hard book takes us into some hard territory. But Ecclesiastes really is at bottom a wake-up call, as we said, to life in the light of the truth. Life in the light of the way things really are. And it's showing us, and in this passage in particular, the preacher, the author of this book, is showing us that when we learn to see things, ourselves and our world, as they really are, then we can learn how to live differently. We can be transformed. Admittedly, the way things really are, facing it, can be hard. It's like a blinding and disorienting light after a long sleep in the darkness. But through 12 sometimes agonizing chapters, the preacher has graciously given us time for our spiritual eyes to adjust, if you will. And tonight, he kind of drops his final hammer in showing us how we are now to live. We've seen the way things really are, and we'll talk about that a bit more again tonight. But the emphasis now, as we come to the final words, is on how we are to live. And perhaps kind of eerily or spookily, or perhaps very tenderly, depending on where you're at tonight spiritually, Solomon is actually speaking almost directly to you tonight. And I mean college students. In chapter 11, verses 8 through 10, he indicates that the primary target of his audience is those who are young, those who are in the prime of life, youth. And that would include us. I would include myself in that as we'll see. And so the question before us tonight that wraps up this most powerful wake-up call of a book is this how do you and I live faithfully while we're young? What does that look like? And so three points tonight. Big surprise. First of all, just do something. Secondly, accept your own vanity. And thirdly, live in the light of your end. So let's unpack those three points tonight. First of all, just do something. When you're young, I mean, this is like just kind of standard wisdom across the ages, the world is full of possibilities, right? And the world is your oyster, whatever. I don't know. It's full of options. And I mean good options, not even not even including the bad options that you know are wrong. I mean good and legitimate, God-honoring options. But if we're honest, often it cripples us to have options without having any corresponding way of certainty about which option to take. Like it can feel at times like you're the bomb squad guy looking at a tangled web of wires and you know you've got to cut one, but what if you cut the wrong one? Do you ever worry that you're gonna make a choice that's gonna blow up your life? Blow up in your face? Like, what if you go on that date and it only leads to the pain of rejection? Or, I hope this isn't too close at home. What if you say no to the date and then like the guy dates your best friend and then she ends up being happier than you or something? You know? Either way, what do you do? How do you know what's right? What if you I know you guys are in this, like I get it. What if you pursue a major, right? You just you declare a major, and then the first hard class that it throws at you is too challenging for you. Or what if you take a job offer in your senior year that seems good and then hate it? Ignorance about what might happen can freeze us and cripple us. And Ecclesiastes, the preacher we've seen, is always confronting us with how little we know. But weirdly, in chapter 11, verses 1 through 6, the preacher uses this ignorance of ours as the very reason for doing something. So three times in these verses, in verse 2, in verse 5, and verse 6, the preacher says, you do not know. In verse 2, you don't know what disaster may happen. In verse 5, you don't know the work of God. And in verse 6, you don't know what will prosper, what will succeed. But then throughout the rest of these verses, his main point is that in light of the fact that you don't know, you should just do something. You should act. And specifically, I have three sub-points for you on this one. He calls you to act, to do something, and to do something, to act generously, decisively, and contently. Look at this. Let's just unpack these verses, verses 1 through 6 of chapter 11. First, act generously. Whatever the exact imagery of cast your bread upon the waters implies, and I confess that I don't really know. When it's coupled with the next verse, which commands us to give a portion to seven or even to eight, it's clear that we are here being invited to consider giving more of our time, talents, and treasures away for the sake of others. These verses echo in Jesus' statement that whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. And he says that this is because, in verse 2, you don't know what disaster, what bad things might come to you or to others. You don't know what's coming. And his point is so stop trying to protect yourself by hoarding your stuff. Stop being stingy. At some point, the logic of self-protection needs to come to an end. And instead, get to work, blessing others however you can and while you can. Of course, this flips the world's logic on its head, especially as it pertains to your youth, which tempts you to stockpile things for yourself while you're young. And then maybe one day when you're older you can consider being generous with your life. On the other hand, though, maybe one day when you're old you'll die unexpectedly and never have the chance to be generous, the preacher would say. Or maybe one day when you're older, you'll have committed yourself to too many other things to be generous. The call is to decisive generosity, to act generously. That's his first thing. So are you generous with your time, with your talent, and with your treasures? Don't hoard, act generously. Second, he says to act decisively or quickly. We're told in verse 3 that if the clouds are full of rain, essentially it will rain. That's basically what it says. And then wherever a tree falls, there it's gonna lie. It's gonna stay there. Like a bit insulting to our intelligence. Thanks for that, Solomon. But the point is simple. It's that you don't have a say in these things. Things, so many things in life, simply are what they are. And you must learn to work with what is rather than waiting for what might be. Because if you wait around for perfect conditions before you do something, you will wait forever. Those perfect conditions are not coming for you in this life. That's not saying that there isn't times for deliberation and considering, but he is calling out that analysis, paralysis, that so often traps us and keeps us from action. In verse 4, he describes the farmer who he says observes the wind and regards the clouds. And what he's saying is that this guy is always analyzing when it might be the right time to plant, but he never actually gets around to putting seeds into soil. He's caught in that trap of analysis paralysis. And he's missed the opportunity he had by looking for the opportunity he might have had. Is that ever you? Are there opportunities before you tonight that you're overanalyzing? The preacher's asking, what are you waiting for? Stop trying to read the tea leaves or whatever. Don't wait. Act. Now, my practical advice for you on this is if you have an opportunity or a couple opportunities before you and you can't make up your mind, go talk to three or four people who you trust, a couple of friends and a couple of older counselors, and then like within a day, make a decision. But act while you're young, quickly. And third, he says, act contently. In verse 6, the preacher adds this that when we act, we must accept outcomes are beyond our total control. That outcomes are beyond our control. He's thinking again of the farmer and says, In the morning, sow your seed, and in the evening, don't withhold your hand, which is essentially saying, in the evening, sow more seed. For you don't know which will prosper, or whether both alike will be good. In other words, do what you know you should do. A farmer knows that he can't reasonably expect any harvest if he doesn't put any seeds into the ground. Do what you know you should do, and then leave the outcome to God and be content. You can be certain of this, friends, that because the world is broken, God will sometimes frustrate your plans. Be content. But you can also be certain that because the world is still good in many ways, and because God is always merciful, he will sometimes prosper your plans. Be content. We don't expect perfect outcomes just as we don't expect perfect conditions in this fallen world. But we act and then we're content. So look, to live faithfully while you're young, you've got to act. You've got to do something. You've got to do what Paul says in Colossians 4. Make the best use of the time because the days are evil. So my question for you, first of all, is what perfectly legitimate choices has God put before you right now that you are stalling on? Are you over worrying about a solid job opportunity that might or might not be good? Just make up your mind. Maybe take the job. Are you wondering whether to bring up your faith with an unbelieving friend who might despise you for doing so? Or who just might be dying inside for somebody to offer them hope? Share your faith. Or are you deciding whether or not to join an RUF community group? Or servant team? Because you think that the people you might meet there are gonna be weirdos. Or it might be a big commitment. Both might be true. But just do it, act. Right? Like definitely join the servant team, right? Make up your mind, commit, do things while you're young, just do something. Because look, we act not because we always know God's exact plans in our lives, but because we don't, but do know that we can trust him. This is one of the final loudest messages that the preacher wants to give you. Just do something. Secondly, he says, accept your own vanity. While you're young, to live faithfully, you've got to accept your own vanity. Verses 7 to 10, shift focus slightly and address specifically youth. Like how to handle the prime of life, the glory days, right, that Bruce Springsteen said will pass you by in the wink of a young girl's eye. Such a good song. And while, look, youth here, youth doesn't only refer to a certain age, like 18 to 24 year olds or something. It really refers to anyone who isn't considered old. But still, it feels to me, doesn't it, to you, as if the preacher has come to a large group tonight and is speaking right at us. And he affirms the goodness of youth. You notice the twice repeated command, rejoice in your youth. It's a command, rejoice in your youth. Verse 9 is the clearest on this note: 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, which is to say, in a sense, do what pleases you. But there are two big butts in this passage, too. We'll do the second one in a minute. But the first one is in verse 8. I want to camp out on this for a minute. He says, But let him remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is vanity. And he makes the same point in verse 10. Youth and the dawn of life are vanity. This is our favorite, the preacher's favorite word: smoke, vapor, something that you can't grab onto and that goes away quickly. Vanity here, as it's been throughout Ecclesiastes, is a fixed, universal reality. It's not just something that some people have in their hearts, as we mean when we say like he or she is so vain. Rather, it's something we all have as part of our fallen humanity. It's that all our lives, even and especially our glory days, are more fleeting and more fragile than we pretend. Youth comes in fast and leaves just as fast. Even the strongest among us are truly weak. And so, if you're going to live rightly while you're young, you have to accept your own vanity. No matter how foolishly and loudly the world tells you that you don't. Because the world will tell you that you can drag it out and prolong it with supplements and routines and diets and injections or whatever that the preacher is inviting us to enjoy youth without clinging to it because it's smoke. And you can't grab that. Look, like I am maybe more aware of the online like social media world than you think, but not as much as maybe I should be. But I do know that there is the kind of silly and dangerous ridiculousness of like what's like the looks maxing community. Like I know that's a thing. I actually know that. Like people who make all their lives about their appearance and about like belittling others who are beneath their level in some way. I know you guys are like shook that I know like what goes on on social media. And that I just said shook, right? Anyway. I know that there's crazy, ridiculous examples of this out there, but I want you to consider tonight in what ways you are denying or hiding from view the fragility of your youth. How are you pretending that your health or your looks or your brain power will last and are all that you really need to get by? Because these things won't last. And in this, in this wake-up call, the preacher is inviting us to truly live while we're alive, but to do so without the drumbeat of fear to which we so often march. This fear persistently that it's all gonna come crashing down and that it's all gonna fade away. Because it is. But in acknowledging that, he's inviting you to live differently, to live profoundly grateful for the mountaintops in life, for the good experiences, for the time in life that you are young and energetic and have a lot of time to use as you please. And when you can like do crazy things and break a few bones and still bounce back, when you can work late and stay up late and make extra money or whatever, eat Waffle House and not be miserable, like be grateful. But you can do so without feeling empty and miserable when those things come to an end. That's the possibility if you accept your vanity to use your youth, but not to idolize it. And that leads to our last point. If you're gonna live faithfully while you're young, finally, most dramatically, most importantly, to close out this awesome book, you have to live in the light of your end. His call, his last call to us in chapter 12 is to live in remembrance of God, pointing out that whether you like to pretend this isn't the case for you or not, we forget God, especially when we're young. And weirdly, to remember God in terms of the future that He has for you. He's inviting you to remember the future that God has. And there's two aspects of this this future, this end. First, the bad years that are coming, and secondly, The Judgment Day. First, like the bad years. Without denying that some of us will die suddenly, let's be real. The preacher reminds us in chapter 12, verse 1, and throughout verses 1 through 8, of the general truth that we all will reach our sunset years, which is a very nice and mild and sweet way that people often put it. But the picture he paints in verses 2 through 7 is anything but nice. They are what he calls the days of no pleasure. He's picturing the end of each of our lives in these verses as being like an apocalyptic and cosmic drama, as being like the end of a world. And as one author said it, when you die, a world is ending. Yours. And it isn't sweet and it isn't fun. The imagery of these verses, most commentators think are referring kind of metaphorically to the things that happen to us all as we come towards death. The darkness and the cloudiness of verse 2. Well, first, it makes me think of this common frailty that I see in all people who are really old, which is that they're always cold. And then also, on the other hand, it may just refer to the many dark and somber aspects of life in old age. Your friends die. You can't remember people. You can't remember stories. This verse pictures a time when you will no longer look forward to better weather. That day is coming. And then verses three and four, taken together, picture a glorious and lively house coming to an end, like a mansion, like an estate, where there was once the normal day-to-day work and pleasures of housekeeping and of yard work, of meal preparation, and of meditating as you stare out your window on a sunny day, like of the little noises, too, that give you a sense of the world being as it should be when you're in your own house. He says, all of that will fade. Your hearing will go, too, he says in verse 4. Or at least you'll become indifferent to the beauty of those noises, of the neighbor's lawnmower humming, of the birds chirping in springtime. He says other weird things, I won't unpack all of them, that the grasshopper drags itself along, a metaphor for those who are once spry and mobile, now struggling to get from point A to point B. He speaks of the almond tree blossoming, which blossoms white as a metaphor for your hair grow going white. He speaks of desire failing, which most commentators think is referring to one sexual desire. And the point is this that there will be a last time for each of us, for each of life's pleasures on this side of the grave. And you need to act in the light of that. You need to know that the bad days are coming and live in the light of them. And secondly, perhaps more scary, but we'll get through this. You need to live in light of the end that's further down, which is judgment day. He has mentioned it throughout the book, but at last, in chapter 11, verse 9, and in his final words, chapter 12, verse 14, he points to judgment day as the final reality we need to face if we're going to live faithfully in this fallen and futile world. He's saying that God, your creator, who's made you for himself to glorify him and to delight in him, he will bring you into the day of judgment. The Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians verse 5, we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. Friends, it would be a contradiction of God's nature to overlook even one fleeting thought of yours and of mine, as if it did not matter. Positively, we certainly want God not to overlook whatever hints of goodness and obedience we offer up to Him by faith. But the same must be true for all of our lives, including our sin. We may not feel the weight of our sin very often, but God always feels it. What you or I would deem a mere light feather of a sin on the scales of justice is felt as deeply by God as much as you or I would feel a heavy weight being dropped on our barefoot. And this isn't because God is emotionally angry as we get angry, but because he is always exactly as he should be, and he cannot be okay with evil in the slightest. And so the preacher says, eerily, steadily, slowly, that the preacher, or I'm sorry, that God will bring every deed with every secret thing, whether good or evil, into judgment. There will be a day of revelation when whatever is hidden, whatever thoughts, words, or actions in our lives, that whether they've been seen by others or unseen by others, that they will at last be revealed. It makes me think of one of my uh favorite books, Oscar Wilde's famous The Picture of Dorian Gray, who at the beginning of the book is a young man who is known about town as one of the handsomest bachelors around, and he has his portrait painted by a well-known painter. And when he looks at that painting, he finds it so perfect and stunning, but he laments the fact that though this portrait will remain beautiful, he will age and grow ugly. And so Dorian Gray makes a pact with the devil to have the portrait age and grow ugly as he stays young and handsome. And then throughout the book, he goes on to live the life of a wild playboy. And while the picture is stored away in an attic without anyone knowing it, it steadily begins to bear the deformities of his own sinister life, of his mean facial expression, and of the accelerated pace of aging that is brought on by his lifestyle. And in the end, I won't give it all away, Dorian Gray faces that picture and is disgusted. Friends, in your youth, it is all too easy to forget your future, to forget the future that your creator has for you, and to forget that the formation of your soul, which sometimes feels like you can't see it, is of the highest importance, and that one day your soul will be laid bare before God. And to live faithfully in your youth, you must live in the light of that future. You must act and you must enjoy your youth, the life you're given, in the light of judgment day. Friends, God will not refuse you and I what C.S. Lewis called the intolerable compliment of dignifying us by taking us seriously, by bringing us into judgment. So do you know that? Do you live like it in your thinking, in your alone time, in your relationships, in your choices, and how you spend the power that you have and the resources that you have in your youth? Friends, here's the thing. Jesus said that that judgment day will come like a thief in the night. It will be, he said, as it was in the days of Noah when the flood came and people were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage, in other words, partying and doing normal stuff, that day will come. That day will come. But today, before, he says, before, right now, before that day comes, is the day of opportunity. It's the day to live in the light of that coming day and to give up your worship of vain things. That's the message. To stop clinging to the gifts of God like they are God Himself, to stop worshiping at the idols of youthfulness, and to face that God is the only real thing that you will ever hold to. Friends, the warning of Judgment Day is not to terrify you only. It is to wake you up, to open your eyes to that vanity, that you might see through the smokescreen of it all and actually enter into the reality, the substance, the graspable thing that is mysteriously fellowship, life with the invisible God, that you can know him and his love. And friends, if your faith is in Jesus Christ, whom God sent to redeem you from all your vanities, then you don't need to fear judgment. In fact, it comes as good news, because he was judged in your place. And so Paul says, there is no condemnation now for those who are in Christ Jesus. And so will you come to him? Will you rest on him alone, who alone is real and substantial, unlike your idols? Jesus said this, and I think the preacher would have said it too, but pointing us to Jesus, he said, Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, who are burdened by this vain world, trying to chase after pleasure, all the things we've talked about, and humanly contrived justice and wealth and status, and even a false and phony religiosity and like hyped up spirituality. If you're weary and worn down by that, Jesus says, Come and I'll give you rest. And the preacher says, Go to him. And will you? If you will, then even though judgment day is coming, you can pray the prayer that the Bible closes with. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. Bring that day, because then I'll get to hold you like I never have before. All the vain things will fade away. And you'll have him. And you'll still have his gifts when he brings a new world, the new heavens, the new earth, and all the bad things come untrue. But you'll have him who alone is real and who can bring you true peace and joy. That's how you live out your youth, friends. Will you come to Jesus? Will you cling to him alone? And live in the hope that comes from that. It's been really fun preaching Ecclesiastes. I'm going to miss it. We're going to do some happier portions of the Bible after spring break. But it's been awesome. And if you have questions about this book, and if you want to talk about what it means to rest in Jesus and how you can do that practically day to day, I would love to talk to you. It's part of my job. I'd love to sit down with you. But there's also other people in this room who can talk to you about that if that feels new to you. But I want to invite you into that. Let's pray and sing one more song together and then get out of this really hot room. Heavenly Father, thank you that you, in your providence, inspired this weird book. It's weird to us. So many of us come to it and we don't know what to make of it because if we're honest, Father, we really are clinging to vain things. But I pray that you would help us right now to do the work in our own hearts of letting go of those things and of clinging to you by faith. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.