Grace and peace to you each from God our Father. Please turn with me this morning to the book of Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes and we'll begin reading in chapter 11. Ecclesiastes chapter 11, and I'll begin reading at verse 9. 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. Therefore remove sorrow from your heart, and put away evil from your flesh, for childhood and youth are vanity. 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. While the sun and the lights, the moon and the stars are not darkened, and the clouds do not return after the rain, 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 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 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. Remember your Creator before the silver cord is loosed, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher shattered at the fountain. or the wheel broken at the wheel, then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it. And the verse I'll particularly preach from this morning is this first verse of chapter 12. Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth. Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth. Well friends, we have here a call, a call particularly directed at those of relative use. It addresses those who are young in years, because those who are young in years are often prone to a particular way of life that here the preacher, as is the speaker, speaks of. Look at chapter 11 from the middle of verse 9. He describes it here, walk in the ways of your heart and in the sight of your eyes. This is an attitude that is particularly common in those of us who are perhaps around our age, fairly young. We walk according to whatever our hearts desire. We follow a way of life that is governed by our own wants. We do whatever is right in our own eyes. Youth is often a time when we have great strength, energy, enthusiasm, when perhaps our brains and our minds are particularly active. And these things can lead us to think that actually we can plot our own course through this life. We can follow our own ways. And yes, perhaps we do spare a thought for God here and there, perhaps we attend church on the Lord's Day or we come to chapel like this morning, but very often we are living lives which are not surrendered fully to the Lord Jesus Christ, where we walk according to our ways and not His. These, perhaps, benefits of youth often cheer our hearts, as he says here, but they can also fool us into thinking that we can live this life in our own strength. Perhaps we think, oh, I'm going to graduate soon, the future's looking good for me. Maybe we think, wow, look, I've come to this university, I have a good education, life is surely going to be smooth when I leave this place. But friends, when life is most vibrant, we spare little thought for eternity often. and the writer here of Ecclesiastes has a wake-up call for us. He's going to warn us of the dangers of that way of life and show us how life actually is as it progresses without the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's have a look then through some of the pictures that he brings to us in this chapter 12. 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. These words are a picture of mounting problems that very often happen. As we are young, we are healthy. Perhaps we have few cares in life. But as we go through life, maybe we will have children, a family. Perhaps health deteriorates. Increased responsibilities in life bring more challenges. And here he says how when the sun and the light, the moon and the stars are darkened and clouds do not return after rain. These things, as we get older, as we go through life, become more and more and more and they begin to dominate our thoughts and our time is taken up by resolving problems we think we have in life. And still more, still more, we push Jesus out of our mind. We are distracted from those eternal things. What a danger it is. Verse three speaks of the keepers of the house. This speaks of the arms of the body here, those which we use to defend ourselves. And here he says how they grow feeble, they lose their strength. Our ability perhaps to push back against the temptations of the devil reduces. Perhaps we are no longer having that clarity of mind and our hearts become hardened to the temptations of this world. Soon our defences fall. What a dangerous, dangerous thing to have. Then we read that the strong men bow down. This probably speaks of the legs of the body. As we go through life, perhaps our desire to stand up weakens just as the physical legs do. No longer do we have that same passion to stand up for what is good, to separate between good and evil, to stand up for what the Lord calls us to in this life. Friends, our ability to serve God effectively reduces as we lose that energy, as we lose that vigour of youth very often. Now is the time to seek the Lord. Then we see in verse 3 again that the grinders cease. This speaks, of course, of the teeth. And perhaps no longer does an old person, as the teeth fall out, find such a pleasure in eating, in tasting those great beautiful things of this world. Will that be the case for us? I'm sure it will be. Those things which we love to enjoy while we are youthful and we appreciate about God's world, perhaps the novelty of them will soon pass away and then our hearts will become hard and unthankful. We read then that those that look through the windows grow dim. This, of course, speaks of the eyes. The eyes no longer delight in the beauty of our Creator's work, the creation that we see around us. Perhaps now, while we are young, we marvel at the things we learn about these things. But as we grow older, these things again, they lose their edge. No longer do we see them as such great wonders of God. Also, there is no doubt that as age goes on, spiritual blindness grows. As we have seen the wonders of God again and again and again, as we've read his word repeatedly but never allowed it to affect our lives, we become more and more blinded to the truth. And then, of course, he continues and speaks of, a little further down, the daughters of music, Lourdes, This speaks of the ears which become deaf. And as the ears of old age often lose their effectiveness, so can our spiritual ears do the same thing. No longer do the cores of grace have such an effect on us. We have heard Christ's call in our hearts perhaps so many times in these chapel services and other things, but have failed to respond, that no longer do the words of the gospel have such a cut to them, no longer do they cut our hearts. This is a dangerous, dangerous situation to allow ourselves to get into. At the beginning of verse, sorry, in the middle of verse four, we see here about when one rises up at the sound of a bird. This speaks of a lack of peace, how perhaps an older person at the first tweet of a bird in the morning is woken from their sleep. Peace, friends, is something which is found in Christ. And as we go through this life, we will find peace more and more lacking if we live without him. In the same verse he speaks of when doors are shut in the streets. Often the elderly stay indoors. They don't like to go out so much and stress their bodies. They don't like to go and serve and to spend time with others but rather keep themselves to themselves. That is not the life that the Christian is called to live and it is not the life by which you will find the Lord. And then we come down to verse five, and we have this description of a number of fears here. Also, these who become older in life, they are afraid of heights and of terrors in the way. People become fearful. They no longer want to trust things. They no longer perhaps want to have faith in what warrants our faith. Will one of those things be the Lord Jesus Christ? I fear it will. If we lose faith in many things in this world, how much more might we lose the opportunity to place our faith in Jesus as the years go by? Friends, while we have our minds about us, while we are in this part of life that is youth, we must hear the call of the Lord. And then we see the grasshopper becomes a burden. Those small, tiny things in life, like a grasshopper making a noise, perhaps it barely irritates you now. But as life goes on, these small things become burdens, these small things begin to irritate, to dominate your thoughts perhaps. And friends, if these small things irritate you, how much more will suddenly having to comprehend your sin, the things of eternity, the need of salvation, these things will surely be something you will not be willing to think about in the same way as years go by. And then we see, desire fails. When we are young, we often have passions and desires for many things. And perhaps some of us here have desires to seek the Lord, to find the Lord, to serve the Lord. Those desires often fall with older age. Life begins to wind down and no longer are those passions there which drive us into God's way. Again, this is a fearful situation to fall into if we do not have Christ. And then finally, man goes to his eternal home. Death comes at the end of this life. Life hangs on a thread, we are told here, on a silver cord. At any time it can be cut off and fall away. And then, in the situation here, the mourners are found in the street, mourning, no doubt, over a miserable end. An end that, if we do not have Christ, is in eternal suffering in hell, as the opportunity for the grace and the love of Christ and his salvation is finally gone. Well, friends, I trust that this way seems unappealing to us, that this does not seem to be a path which we would want to walk. How can we escape from this seemingly inevitable course of life? Well, the preacher says it here, remember now your Creator in the days of your youth. This does not mean just call God to mind. When God says in the Ten Commandments, remember the Sabbath day, does he just mean that you need to bear it in mind sometimes? No, it's a call to take action, to live it out, to do it. Are you remembering your Creator actively in your life? Does your life show that you are indeed someone with a life surrendered to Christ, who has placed your faith in Him and found your salvation wholly in Him alone. Have you remembered your Creator? His majesty, His glory, how He is the Creator of heaven and earth, has designed the way in which this world works. The one who has His right, the perfect right, to give us the commandments by which we are to live. to tell us the plan which he would have us to walk by. He is our rightful Lord and owner. We owe him all if he is our creator. Do we fear and reverence him as we should? Friends, remember your creator in the days of your youth. But as we think about these things that we owe to God, surely we all realise that we are guilty of falling short of these things. Every one of us are sinners. Every one of us is under the wrath of God if we are not forgiven by Him. We are guilty. I think there's not a single person in this chapel today who cannot confess before God your guilt in these things, in failing to remember him as your Lord, as your owner, as your creator in every aspect of your life. But I want to bring something much more positive and amazing, because I think as we come to read this verse with our New Testament knowledge, surely we can read something slightly different. Remember now your recreator. Remember now Jesus, the one who can create us anew and transform our lives totally. Remember him, the spotless, perfect Son of God, who came into this world to pay the price for our sin, who came to remove the power and the guilt of our sin. If only we will receive him as our saviour. Remember him who is now risen from the dead and said that he would rise so that we can follow him in that, so that we can have a new life, a new way of life with everything transformed by a work, a spirit, a work in our hearts. Remember him who will create again. the hearts and the minds and the lives of all who come to him, entrusting their lives to him and turning with his help from their sin. Is this you, friends? Is this you? The physical challenges of old age will not all be removed by believing in Jesus, by being converted, but wonderful promises are in the Scriptures of that new life which we can have in Him. Let's just do some comparisons, perhaps, to the life that we saw here in these verses and the Christian life that awaits those who will hear the call of Jesus and trust in Him. Rather than these difficult days, these challenges that we saw in verse 1 and 2, Surely there will be great spiritual victories as we work for Jesus, as we find our sin becoming conquered, as we find ourselves becoming more and more holy, more and more conforms to the image of Christ, as we find that our foe is ultimately defeated, that the power of the devil no longer has ultimate control of us, but we have a new Lord ruling in our lives. the rest of those trials. James speaks that we should, as Christians, count it all joy when we encounter various trials. With the Holy Spirit in our heart, we can have ultimate joy in God, whatever life may bring us in our physical situations. Instead of those knees, those legs giving way, and the arms that defend us, failing us. We can stand firm in the truth, say the scriptures. We are to keep guard against the attacks of the devil. We can have victories through Christ Jesus. We are given the armour of God to put on to defend ourselves. While this physical body may fail, God gives us all the spiritual tools we need to live this life in a way that glorifies him, builds his kingdom, strengthens his kingdom and is indeed truly a joyful existence. He also speaks of how of how the grinder cease, as we saw earlier, but instead when we are in Christ, as our eyes perhaps dim, as our teeth might fail, and those joys that perhaps we once had pass away. We are told that we can taste and see that the Lord is good, that he's doing wonderful things in our lives, that he is truly working through us and in us and using us for his glory. Rather than being shut in and not going out, the gospel calls us to go and preach the gospel to every nation, to go out in whatever way we can and bring the good news of Christ to all who will hear, with the promise that Christ goes with us even to the ends of the world. Our help is from above and it will not fail. Instead of those sleepless nights, that lack of peace, we are promised everlasting peace that passes understanding in our hearts and in our minds as we know that Jesus Christ is the one who rules. And those fears, that are so typical that we read of. Oh, how many of those will be gone. The scriptures tell us that the righteous shall be bold as a lion, that we shall stand strong because our confidence is not in our weak flesh, but in the strength of having our creator, our maker on our side, working in our lives. Those desires which were fading away earlier, suddenly anew as the power of Christ burns within us. Was it Jeremiah, I think, who said that the message of God was burning within his bones and he could not hold it back? These are the new desires, the transformed desires, the new wills that we have as our lives are transformed by a true encounter with Jesus Christ. And then, of course, the eternal home is something completely different. It is heaven. It's the eternal presence of God, of us physically with Jesus, enjoying face-to-face communion with Him. It is sorrow turns to joy. It is rejoicing where previously there was weeping and gnashing of teeth. Friends, what am I saying this morning? There are two options here, two types of life. What is the difference between them? It is remembering your Creator. It is turning to God. It is acknowledging Him in every aspect of our lives for who He is, trusting Him, having faith in Jesus and living the way He calls us to. Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth. Most of us here are perhaps at the peak of our lives physically. We have strength and energy and enthusiasm perhaps beyond anything that we will have in the rest of our lives. We will probably never be stronger. Life in the physical will probably for many of us be a passage of down, down, down from here on. But do you see that there is a difference here. If we remember our Creator, perhaps even today, for the first time, we receive a new life, a transformed life in Him. And perhaps today will be the beginning of a new spiritual life that is just up, up, up from here until we reach glory with our Lord Jesus Christ in heaven. Time is short, friends. Life is uncertain, says this passage, but it also warns us life is only going to get harder. Coming to the Lord will perhaps be a more and more difficult thing, humanly speaking, as we grow older. Will we come to him now? Will we bow the knee to King Jesus? Will we repent? and trust in him and find new life with that positive outlook of the days we have left here on earth being used for the honour and glory of God. Remember now your creator in the days of your youth before the difficult days come. Remember your creator before the silver cord is loosed and the spirit will return to God who gave it. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for these warnings of your word. We bless you, Father, that you are our creator. And we thank you for all that means, that you have power and majesty to, Lord, work in our lives, to transform us, to change us. We thank you that you offer to recreate us in the gospel, that Christ came and paid the penalty for our sins, that he rose again so that we might embrace a new life in him. A new life of being seated in the heavenly places, beginning now and continuing into eternity. Father, may we all see the wonders and the attractiveness of a life in Christ today. Show us the emptiness of a continuing life, just serving this world, the pleasures of this world, and the emptiness that is in. And Lord, we pray, turn our hearts to serve you, to believe in you, to trust Jesus, and to live in his love, both now and forevermore. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.