Ecclesiastes 12:1-8

Service recording Sunday 8th November looking at Ecclesiastes.

Watch the service — 8 November 2026

▶ Jump to the sermon (Ecclesiastes 12:1-8) — 0:44:20

Chapters

0:00:00 — Start of recording
0:02:15 — Song: Here I Am to Worship
0:05:40 — Song: Bless the Lord O My Soul (Psalm 103)
0:09:35 — Song: Above All
0:14:01 — Children's talk
0:17:24 — Children's song: This Is the Day
0:18:30 — Prayer
0:19:17 — Introduction & call to worship
0:19:17 — Song: Praise the Father, Praise the Son
0:22:35 — Prayer
0:23:58 — Song: As the Deer
0:27:39 — Song: I Give You My Heart
0:29:25 — Offering & prayer
0:31:28 — Notices
0:32:42 — New Testament Reading: 2 Timothy 4:9-18
0:34:27 — Prayer
0:37:52 — Song: Behold Our God
0:42:06 — Old Testament Reading: Ecclesiastes 12:1-8
0:43:54 — Prayer
0:44:20 — Sermon
1:09:48 — Closing prayer
1:10:48 — Song: Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
1:13:50 — Benediction
1:14:25 — Benediction song: To the Praise of His Glorious Grace

New Testament Reading: 2 Timothy 4:9-18

This time in the New Testament, let’s read from 2 Timothy chapter 4, verses 9 through 18. Here the Apostle Paul is writing to Timothy at the end of this second epistle.

Make every effort to come to me soon; for Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica; Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Pick up Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for service. But Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus. When you come, bring the cloak which I left at Troas with Carpus, and the books, especially the parchments.

Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds. Be on guard against him yourself, for he vigorously opposed our teaching. At my first defence no one supported me, but all deserted me; may it not be counted against them. But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that through me the proclamation might be fully accomplished, and that all the Gentiles might hear; and I was rescued out of the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed, and will bring me safely to His heavenly kingdom; to Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Sermon Text: Ecclesiastes 12:1-8

Please open your Bibles or turn your devices to Ecclesiastes, this time chapter 12, reading together verses 1 through 8. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of God endures forever. This, we believe, is God’s Word.

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”; before the sun and the light, the moon and the stars are darkened, and clouds return after the rain; in the day that the watchmen of the house tremble, and mighty men stoop, the grinding ones stand idle because they are few, and those who look through windows grow dim; and the doors on the street are shut as the sound of the grinding mill is low, and one will arise at the sound of the bird, and all the daughters of song will sing softly.

Furthermore, men are afraid of a high place and of terrors on the road; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags himself along, and the caperberry is ineffective. For man goes to his eternal home while mourners go about in the street. Remember Him before the silver cord is broken and the golden bowl is crushed, the pitcher by the well is shattered and the wheel at the cistern is crushed; then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it. “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher, “all is vanity!”

Prayer for Illumination

Let’s pray. Father, again, as we open Your Word together, we ask, Lord, that You would help us. Be pleased to pour Your Spirit out upon us as we consider these sobering words. We ask, Lord, that You would speak to us, and that You would work in us to will and to work for Your good pleasure. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Remembering Last Week

Just take a moment, for those of you who weren’t here last week. We finished up in chapter 11, and we said that a wise man gives attention, firstly, to the opportunities that God gives him. In other words, the time that is ours, particularly in our youth. It starts to get less and less, of course, as we get older, and I’ll let you judge where you are on the scale. Energy starts to dissipate as well, but we need to give attention to the fact that if God gives us energy, we need to use it for His glory. And also, the desires He gives us. Remember that we have desires because we have unfinished lives. If we didn’t have desires, we would be complete; we wouldn’t need to desire anything. But even as believers, because we are not yet what we want to be, we have a desire to be changed more into what the Lord would have us to be.

Secondly, a wise man gives attention to the accountability we have before God. Remember: if judgment begins with the household of God, what will it be like for those who are not of the household of God? So, there is a judgment for us as believers. Fortunately, because of God’s grace and His covering of our sins, we’re not going to be judged in terms of our eternal destination. But nevertheless, God does see and note all the things that we do. We noticed that even a cup of cold water given to a saint is something God notices, let alone whatever else we do for His church and for His glory. So, there is a judgment coming; remember that. There’s an accountability to our lives.

There’s also a responsibility to our lives, not only to God but to our brothers and sisters, that we represent our Lord as we ought to.

And so, in application we said that we should take care not to waste our time or procrastinate through life. Don’t do that, particularly young people. For us older ones, maybe it’s a little late to start thinking about that now, but I suppose it’s never too late. But listen, if you are a young believer today, don’t waste or procrastinate through life. Life is a lot shorter than you think, and you only get to know that when you’re of an age. The goal is to use whatever God in His providence has given us to the best of our ability, for His glory and for His honour. Goals in life are an aid to achieving that success. Every decision we make in life ought to give reference to the mind of God: what would He want us to do? And everything we pursue in life ought to take into account the message we give to others outside the church, and the encouragement we bring to one another. That was last week, just to encourage you.

Remember

Now again, you’ll notice that the passage before us in chapter 12 begins with this: “Remember.” And again, it’s referring to young people. Here we have the older Solomon. Perhaps he’s been through life, perhaps he’s made some mistakes, and what he wants to do is remind young people particularly how they ought to go about the business of life before the Lord. That is his intention.

Previously, as we’ve been working through the Book of Ecclesiastes, we’ve given great emphasis to living your life as before the Lord, because we never know the time when life is going to end. We’ve focused much on the Lord’s parable of the rich man who had a good harvest and said, “Well, I’ll build bigger barns and I’m going to fill them, and then I’m going to have an easy life.” And the Lord finishes that parable off and says, “You foolish man. You don’t know that your life is going to end tomorrow.” So, all his building, his empire, is to no avail, because you never know. So, Ecclesiastes has been emphasising, as it were, the sudden changes that can come in life.

My sister-in-law, at fifty, ran into a truck, and life was ended much sooner than she thought. My father-in-law made big plans for his retirement but got leukaemia and died at fifty-four. So, you never know the time or the season. And you all know, don’t you, that I went to the funeral of a colleague earlier this week. Even though he was an older man, it wasn’t expected, and it was only seven days before he died that it was obvious he wasn’t going to live. The cancer he had was inoperable and couldn’t be helped, so it was very, very quick. We must remember those sorts of things.

Wearing Out Bit by Bit

However, here the Preacher is teaching us something else, which is actually probably more relevant to most of us, because most of us here are probably not going to die suddenly. We’re going to die slowly, bit by bit. And that’s an unfortunate thing. If you want to be reminded of that, go and do a good deed: go to an old people’s home and have a look and see what occupies the lives of those people, and how long many of them have been sitting in that chair with the granny-square knitted rug over their laps.

This passage is more relevant to most of us, perhaps, than a sudden death, because this is going to be the lot of most of us here. That’s why the Preacher wants to remind the young people particularly that this is going to be your lot. And in being your lot, it’s going to be difficult. It’s going to be hard. It’s going to be a grind. He uses a whole lot of metaphors to describe what it means and the sort of thing we can expect as we grow old and wait to die.

So, he talks about diminishing sight. Read it again with me: “before the sun and the light, the moon and the stars are darkened, and clouds return after the rain.” Diminishing sight.

Fading physical strength. Well, I know about that. It’s a bit of a pain to me now, carrying things up our thirty steps. I used to leap and bound up the steps with my groceries, but now, with a couple of bags of groceries, I’m grinding my way up the stairs. I’m not as fit as I used to be, and I’m not as strong. It rather annoys me. I used to enjoy fighting my sons, but as soon as they became stronger than me, I didn’t enjoy fighting my sons. So, we don’t enter into that now. We look after old Dad. But it’s a fact: I’m not as strong as I used to be. When I started out in life, I felt almost invincible and would lift and carry almost anything. But now I find myself in what I’d call my later years, because, as you know, I just had a birthday, and I’ve got one more year and I’m going to get the pension. I’m really looking forward to getting my tax back there. For all you who are already getting it, congratulations. So, there you are. It just happens. Our physical strength is fading.

Teeth decay and fall out. Well, if you’ve got lots of money, that’s wonderful. But the last cap I got cost me one thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars, and if you haven’t got one thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars, as I fortunately had, then you’re going to be toothless and they are going to disappear. That’s part of growing old, isn’t it? If you want to keep your teeth, young people, remember to brush them, because it’s going to cost you a lot of money when you grow older. And don’t drink too much Coca-Cola. That would be my advice.

Hearing declines. Well, that’s obvious. Some of us here have already got hearing aids, haven’t we? It’s just a natural process.

Fears increase; we’re not as balanced as we used to be. When I came back from Samoa, my ears were totally blocked from the aeroplane, so I went to see the ear lady. The ear lady’s lovely, and she got that thing that sucks all the junk out of your ears and clears them out; it’s like a little vacuum cleaner. They stick it in, and it sucks all the stuff out of your ears if you’re blocked up. And I stood up and all but fell over, because I had a lack of balance after having my ears cleared. Those are the sorts of things we go through.

Bodily functions fail. We won’t go there, but you can imagine. If the caperberry isn’t getting up there… well, we’ll leave that up to you. But there’s stuff there in relation to our beings.

Finally, our bodies break and are crushed and are shattered, and our dust will return to the earth, in other words finally we will die after along strenuous time of growing old. That is the time of growing old. I hate to be depressing here, but it’s the truth. This is what most of us are going to go through. It’s not going to be sudden. It’s not going to be quick. It’s going to be slow, and you’re going to wear out bit by bit. Finally, your dust will return to the earth, and your spirit will return to God who gave it.

An Old Head on Young Shoulders

What is the Preacher trying to teach us here? Well, I want to suggest this: he’s trying to put an old head on young shoulders. That’s a very difficult thing to do, because when you’re young, you don’t think about these sorts of things. But he begins by saying, “Remember. Remember what’s going to happen later on in life as you do grow older. You’re going to wear out, and some of it’s not going to be very nice. Remember that.” He’s trying to put an old head on young shoulders, an almost impossible task, because when we’re young, we don’t really stop to think about these things. It’s only when it starts to happen that we start to consider them.

And for all of us it’s a different time. Some people age more quickly than others. We don’t know. How is the providential cookie going to crumble for you? What’s it going to be like? Well, fortunately perhaps, we don’t know.

What the Preacher Is Trying to Achieve

So, what is putting an old head on young shoulders, what is the Preacher trying to achieve? I want to suggest some things. They’re not really in order; they’re just as they came to my mind. But consider this.

First, he is trying to get young people, and all of us, because we’re all young here really, I suppose, to set our eyes on eternity rather than on the short, limited time here. To lift our eyes to eternity instead of the short time we get here.

Secondly, we need to understand that a lifetime of gradual physical failure actually helps and grows us in humility. God wants a people who are humble: not people depending on their own strength, their own ideas, wisdom and abilities, but a people humbly serving God.

Thirdly, remember that a lifetime of sinning prevents us from judging others too harshly. I was thinking here of the time a woman was brought to the Lord by the Pharisees and the Sadducees. They had rounded up a woman they’d caught in adultery, placed her before the Lord, and said, “Well, what are You going to do about this, Lord? Here’s a woman caught in adultery. We know what Moses says: such a woman should be stoned. She should be killed right here in this place.” And remember, the Lord stooped down and wrote on the ground. When they pressed Him, He lifted His head and said, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” And then there’s a line that comes just after that. The people who were accusing her started to disappear. They were starting to think, “Well, I’m not without sin. I can’t throw the first stone, can I?” But it says this: it began with the older ones, not the younger ones.

You see, as young people, we tend to be harsher. We tend to be more judgmental of others, and I know that’s true of my life. But as I’ve grown older, as I’ve seen my own weakness, and as I see before me my own sinfulness in comparison with what I preach from week to week, I’m less likely to want to throw the stone at someone else. Part of growing old, part of our lives being ground down, reminds us of our sinfulness, because remember, it is our sinfulness that is the cause of our bodily death.

Fourthly, pain and suffering are an aid to help us trust God and His grace. Have you thought about that? Some years ago, it might have been the election before last, we had two referendums, didn’t we? Did you want to make marijuana legal, and did you want to make euthanasia legal, whereby a person can take their own life? And of course, we did pass the euthanasia one; it became legal in New Zealand. The great argument of those who supported euthanasia was to avoid suffering.

But for us as believers, and I know it’s a difficult thing to say, and I feel a bit of a hypocrite here, because when I get a cold, I want to die. I’d prefer to die than get a cold. I dislike being sick, and I especially dislike pain. I’m not for it at all when it comes to me. I don’t mind if you suffer, but when it comes to me, I’m not for it. And I’m very quick to say, “Lord, take my life. I’m sick, and I’m over this.” But honestly, suffering and pain can be a benefit to us. The Preacher is talking here in Ecclesiastes 12 about much suffering and pain, and if that’s the case, there must be a useful benefit to it. And of course there is: that we might trust God in the end, and His grace to save us. Is that not true?

Then again, restricted circumstances create an urgency in life to finish well. When difficulty and old age start to settle in, it’s like a little flag that goes up and says, “Not long now.” Soon and very soon, we’re going to be crossing the river. It’s not long now. And so, we want to use the time we have left, being urgent to finish well before the Lord and to deal with those things in our lives that we know are not pleasing to Him.

Again, honest meditation on the certainty of old age should help us to establish a purpose for it and a plan for ministry in it. Here’s just a note for those of us who are getting a little bit older and think, “Well, is life just winding out and finishing?” That ought not to be the case. When we find ourselves winding out, it should be another little flag that says to those of us getting a bit older, “Get on with it. Get on with it.” There’s a reason why. Indeed, Ecclesiastes is just such a book. I believe it was penned by Solomon, who came back to the Lord after a time away from Him; it would seem to me that that’s the case. What he wants to do here is establish, in himself, a purpose for all the difficulties and times he’s been through and the situation he finds himself in at this particular time. And so, it ought to be an example for us.

Then again, it’s also a warning to use one’s lucid faculties, because often our minds in old age will not work as well as they used to. I’m not as sharp in the mind as I used to be, and I forget things I never thought I’d forget, and I’m not that old, but it’s true. I am not as sharp as I used to be. I just have to accept that. But what should the lesson of that be? Well, I should take warning, to use what God has given me in these days.

Then again, it sharpens our realisation of the inevitability of physical death. Do you ever think of that, that growing old and wearing out is just a few more steps towards what will ultimately be our physical death?

So, you can see what he’s doing here. The Preacher is trying to put an old head on young shoulders: remember these things in the days of your youth, because the days are going to come when they are upon you, and then the time for thinking about it will be over; you’ll be living in it.

The Apostle Paul at the End of His Ministry

Why did I read 2 Timothy in the first instance? You probably know by now, as you’ve thought about it. 2 Timothy is the Apostle Paul’s outro, as it were, to his ministry. He’s waiting in Rome, probably in jail again, and, according to tradition, not far away from getting his head chopped off by Nero according to tradition. If you go to Rome, you can visit St Paul’s Basilica, and there’s a bit of a hole you can go down where supposedly his bones still lie. I went past there when I visited, but I didn’t go down; there was somebody there praying to the bones, so I thought, “Well, I’ll leave that alone.”

But nevertheless, here is the Apostle Paul, getting to the end of his time. He’s in old age. Now, I say old age; he probably got his head chopped off at about sixty, so that’s a warning for those of us who have made it past there. But in those days, he would have been an older statesman’s situation. He’s coming to the end of his ministry and to the end of his life. And what are the things he’s experiencing?

Well, he’s experiencing loneliness. “Demas,” he says, “has gone, having loved this present world. No one stood with me when I had to go to court the last time.” So, he’s feeling a little isolated and a little lonely, and that’s true of many people who are growing old, and it may well be true of us. We get forgotten, or people get busy and go about the rest of the business of their lives and forget that we’re there. I’ve heard many elderly people express that sort of thing to me.

He’s lonely.

He’s cold. “Bring my cloak. Bring my cloak; I’m cold.”

He’s in pain.

Alexander the coppersmith did him much harm. And if it wasn’t Alexander the coppersmith, it might have been one of the five times he received the thirty-nine lashes, or it could be the time he was cast into the sea in a shipwreck, or it could be the times he was beaten with rods, or it could be back in the past when he had been stoned and left for dead. But it would seem that he’s in pain at this time, as he gets to the end of his life.

And trustfulness. Notice verse 18: “The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed.” I just think that’s marvellous. Here’s a man who experienced far more than you or I could even begin to endure. And yet, at the end of his time, he says, “Look, I’m going to trust the Lord. I know that He will rescue me from every evil deed.”

So, I believe that what the Preacher is doing in Ecclesiastes, and what Paul realised at the end of his ministry, is to challenge anybody who is younger, and I’ll let you interpret what that means for you, anyone who is younger, to put an old head on young shoulders, and to become what the Lord would have us to be in these days.

Closing Prayer

Let’s pray. Father, thank You again for Your Word. Thank You for the encouragement it brings to us. Thank You for the conviction it brings to our hearts, because we’re not yet what we ought to be, and we’re prone to waste our lives and not think about the fact that we have such a finite time in this life. It’s not long at all. Seventy, eighty years. Seventy or eighty years to decide where we’re going to spend eternity. Seventy or eighty years to work out how we might please God, who is our Maker, and who loved us and gave His Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our sins. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.