Join Dr. David Jeremiah as he concludes his enlightening series, ‘Searching for Heaven on Earth.’ In this final episode, explore the timeless wisdom of Solomon, whose reflections guide us through the mysteries of life and the value of enjoying every moment. From the vibrancy of youth to the wisdom of age, find out how these stages teach us to both live fully and be prepared for the life beyond. Don’t miss this opportunity to dive deep into Ecclesiastes and discover how to navigate life’s journey with faith and insight.
If you’re finding that life is a mystery, you’re in good company. Solomon came to that same conclusion, but he wasn’t content to leave it at that. Today on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah wraps up his series, Searching for Heaven on Earth, with a timely reminder that the mysteries of life are well worth examining. Listen now as David introduces the conclusion of his message, Before It’s Too Late.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, thank you for joining us. And today, thank you for being with us throughout this series. Some of you haven’t missed one session. When I ever go to rallies or speak at events, people come up and tell me how long it’s been since they’ve missed a daily Turning Point program. It’s quite amazing to me. You’re faithless and faithful. We are so grateful because the way you learn is you come back every day and grab hold of the next group of verses in the next part of the Bible and keep studying. And little by little, you work your way through the truth. Today is our last lesson in Ecclesiastes, and we’ll have some of Solomon’s concluding thoughts in just a moment. This is also the last day for me to make available to you the book on Ecclesiastes, which is called 31 Days to Happiness. It’s a 323-page book titled, that will take you through this book. And if you’ve been listening, everything I’ve said is written in this book, and you’ll be able to follow it along as you move forward. We want you to have this book, but today’s the last day we can make it available. When you send your gift of any size, simply say, please send me the book, 31 Days to Happiness, and it will be on its way. And I hope you will take advantage of that while the opportunity is still here. Don’t forget Turning Point’s Alaska Cruise Conference, July 12th through the 19th. We’re going to be cruising the Inside Passage, the icy straight point. We’ll be in front of Hubbard Glacier in Juneau, Ketchikan, and Victoria on a beautiful cruise ship. with a bunch of wonderful people, and the Word of God at the center, and worship, and all of the beautiful sights of Alaska. It’s a great way to spend a week, and I hope you’ll come and join us. Find out more about it at davidjeremiah.org. Now, here’s the last lesson from Ecclesiastes chapters 11 and 12. It’s called Before It’s Too Late. Do you begin your day with a prayer of gratitude for God for the gift of life? Maybe you should realize that until you have life threatened a little bit, you won’t do that probably. But when you think about the fact that you might not have days to live, you get up in a different way. And every day, if you looked at my journal, almost every journal entry says the very same thing. Thank you, Lord, for this day and for a good night’s rest and for the privilege of being alive one more day on this earth to serve you. experience each day totally. Then Solomon says, enjoy your youth thoroughly. Rejoice, oh young man, in your youth. 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 things God will bring you into judgment. Now, I’ve been telling you throughout this whole series that Solomon’s got one little string he likes to play in this book, and that is enjoy life. Here he’s telling us that young people especially should enjoy life. He admonishes those who are young to enjoy their youth and to live with great adventure and excitement because these are some of the best days you’re ever going to have. You know, if you watch young people, you get amused, especially as you get older. You watch them and, you know, they’re 16, but they want to be 18. then they’re 18, they want to be 21, and then they’re 21, they want to be 25. Somewhere along the way, that process starts to reverse itself. I’m not sure where it is, but somewhere it starts to reverse itself. Well, what Solomon is saying here is that when you’re young, it’s the best time of life. And I think that we ought to be saying that to our kids more than we do. They keep thinking, oh, it’s going to be so much better later. Well, it’s good along the way, but youth has so many advantages. Not as much responsibility, lots of energy, many good friends. I watched our kids come up through the schools here over the years. And I remember after my two boys went away to play football, we were talking one day and we kind of all agreed together that That as much fun as it was to play football in college, the high school days are the best of all. Because you’ve got this camaraderie, and it’s not a business, it’s a game, and it’s fun, and everybody gets together. Can I get a witness? Isn’t that true? Your high school, your young days are great. So Solomon says, don’t try to always be getting past where you are. Enjoy where you are, young people. This is a great time in your life. And you will look back on this later and say, those were some good days. So Solomon says, remove sorrow from your heart. Put away evil from your flesh. Walk in the ways of your heart and in the sight of your eyes. He’s not saying go out and sow wild oats. He’s not saying that. In fact, he’s reminding us that whatever you do while you’re having a good time as a young person, you’re going to have to give an answer to God. So here’s the way you look at it. I’m going to enjoy everything in my life that I can enjoy that won’t get me in trouble with God. Amen. That’s a good way to start out, isn’t it? I’m going to enjoy everything I can in my life that God will smile on. And you think, well, that’s going to be boring. Oh, no, it’s not. You let God be your entertainment director along the way and you’d be surprised how much fun it is to live for the Lord and not have guilt hanging over you for stuff you know you shouldn’t have done, but just to enjoy the exuberance of being young. Let me just say a word here to parents that I think is very important. Please allow your kids to be kids. Let them enjoy their childhood and their youth. Don’t make them grow up too fast. Don’t always try to push them beyond where they should be. I know kids who have lost their entire adolescence because of parents wanting them to be older than they are. And then they end up feeling like they’ve lost something and they go back and try to recover it and it destroys their marriage. So let your kids be kids. And remember, kids are crazy. They do weird stuff. And Mark Twain said, if you’ve got a kid, you put him in a barrel and you put a top on it and you cut a little hole in the barrel. And when he turns 16, you plug up the hole. That’s what he said. That’s how you get through teenage years. And he only said that because he was trying to make the point that growing up is like a whitewater. But those are great days. And parents, let your kids be kids. Amen. and understand that why don’t you act more mature? Because I’m not more mature. But I will be someday. So just give me some hope. So experience each day totally. Enjoy your youth thoroughly. And then the third thing is express your faith thoughtfully. Solomon says in verses one and two of chapter 12, remember now your creator in the days of your youth before the difficult days come and all the years draw near when you say I have no pleasure in them when the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are not darkened and the clouds do not return after the rain. Solomon says two times in this last chapter, remember your creator in the days of your youth. And that just runs against the grain of the way most young people think. A lot of young people think that, you know, I don’t need to be serious about God now. There’s time for that later. I’ll get serious about God when I’m older, you know. when I’ve lived more. No, Solomon says, here’s the key. Here’s the key to life. Get your stuff with God together when you’re young so you can carry that into your adult years and you will have this foundation that will give you such stability. People will marvel at who you are and how you function. Remember, he says, your creator. He’s not just talking about having a memory of him. The word remember means to get involved in mentally and committed to him. Be committed to your creator when you’re young. When the days are not dark. when the clouds don’t come back after it rains. In other words, in the good days of your youth, when you’re enjoying your young days, don’t forget to embrace God and spend time with God. Learn what it means to be disciplined and spend some time in devotions every day and get somebody to partner with you and be accountable to one another. Get in a small platoon, whatever that you do that can help you. Wrap your spiritual arms around Almighty God when you’re young so that you carry that foundation into your life. adolescent years and on up into your young adult years. We all who grew up in Christian homes look back and see how many times we came close to really messing up good. But what would have happened had we not had the foundation that we had to start with? I’ll tell you the truth. I don’t want to go there because it’s scary. Get your stuff together with God, kids, when you’re young. And don’t wait until you get old. Remember your creator in the days of your youth. Now, he’s talked about experiencing every day totally and enjoying your youth thoroughly and expressing your faith thoughtfully. Now he comes to verses three through seven, and he’s going to talk to the rest of us who aren’t young. And he’s going to say, embrace your aging, thankfully. And verses three through seven could be depressing if they weren’t so picturesque and accurate. Take a deep breath, everybody, over 40. Solomon is going to give us a little picture sort of poetically about getting older. And I want to read this to you. And what I’d like you to do is look down at your Bible. Instead of my reading the text like it is one phrase after another, I’m going to read the phrases and tell you what they mean metaphorically. So you follow. I might miss one or two, but you’ll be able to stay with me if you stay in the text. He starts out by saying in verse three, in the day when the keepers of the house tremble, Well, the keepers of your house are your arms and your hands. And he says, as you start getting older, they start to tremble. The strong men, those are your legs, your knees and your shoulders weaken and you walk bent over. And then it says, when the grinders ceased because they are few, that means you’re losing your teeth. And then it says, when the windows grow dim, that means your eyesight isn’t very good. And the doors, it talks about the doors shut in the street. That means you can’t hear what’s going on outside anymore. And then it talks about grinding again. You can’t chew your food. And it says, you rise up with the birds. Soon as the bird starts chirping, four o’clock in the morning, you get up. Do you ever notice how early old people get up? My parents used to stay at our house. No matter what time I got up in the morning, my dad was sitting at the kitchen table. And I asked him several times, dad, did you go to bed last night? Oh yeah, I just like to get up early. Old people get up early and they go to bed early. And some of you are, yeah, right, yeah. Then it talks about music. It says your voice starts to quiver and weaken and you’re afraid. You’re terrified of heights and you’re afraid of falling when you walk down the street. And then I love this one. It says when the almond tree blossoms, your hair turns white. That’s really what it’s talking about. You get white hair. And it says the grasshopper is a burden. It’s a picture of a grasshopper at the end of the summer. It’s all worn out. It can hardly pull itself up. This little creature that was so invigorated in the beginning of the summer is pulling itself, just barely making it across the ground. And then it says, and this one here I got to be careful with, and desire fails. You can take that wherever you want to. And then it says, man goes to his eternal home and mourners go about the streets. What’s that? That’s a funeral procession. Now, then you get to verse six and he says, 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 well. Then dust will return to the earth as it was and the spirit will return to God who gave it. Now, remember what our point is here. Our point is, Life is short. Enjoy it. What Solomon is trying to do is he’s taking us on a little journey from being real young to the very last days of our life. And he wants us to understand that we’re supposed to enjoy life. I heard a story about a fella who loved to play golf, but he was over 80 and his vision wasn’t very good anymore. His windows weren’t working. And he always had these guys that would go with him to the country club to help him. When he went out to play, they would watch where he hit the ball and they would tell him where it went and then he’d go hit it again. Well, one day he went to play golf and his buddies didn’t show up. And it was such a beautiful day. He wanted to play golf so bad. So he just hung around the clubhouse groaning and moaning. And the more upset he got, the more people began to notice him. And finally, this other guy in the clubhouse walked over to him and said, what’s wrong? You look so depressed. And he explained his predicament. He said, I was looking forward to playing golf today, but I don’t see well anymore. So I got to have somebody to watch the ball after I hit it. Well, the second man was older than he was. But miraculously, he said, that’s no problem. I’ll ride around with you. I have 20-20 vision. I can see like a hawk. You just hit the ball and I’ll watch the ball fly down the fairway. So they went out on the first tee and the old man hit the ball right down the center. He turned to the spotter and he said, did you see it? He said, I saw it all the way. I watched it all the way till it stopped rolling. I saw it every inch of the way. He said, where did it go? The older man paused for a moment. He said, I forgot. That’s what it’s like. I read about a little boy who asked his grandmother how old she was. She said, I’m 39 and holding. And the little tyke thought for a moment and he said, how old would you be if you let go? Well, you know what I think Solomon would enjoy today? Because what he’s trying to tell us is we need to enjoy life. It’s pretty short. You better not let it pass without understanding how important it is to enjoy it. And then he says thirdly, life is mysterious, so examine it. Verses 9 through 12, he teaches us that life is like an exam, only the exam comes first and the learning comes second. How many of you noticed that? In school, you study and then you take an exam. Well, in real life, you get the exam and then you study. You get the test first and then you figure out what is God doing here? And he has a little kind of an outline here, and I’m just going to give it to you quickly, and we’ll go on. But he talks about the fact that wisdom comes through instruction. He says, moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge, and he pondered and sought out and set in order many proverbs. And wisdom comes through insight. Verse 10, the preacher sought to find acceptable words, and what was written was upright, words of truth. Solomon’s teaching, by the way, was like our Lord’s. His words were acceptable and they were words of truth. Jesus was full of grace and truth and Solomon taught the same way. And then wisdom comes through inspiration, verses 11 and 12. He says, the words of the wise are like goads and the words of scholars are like well-driven nails given by one shepherd and further, my son shall be admonished by these. And of the making of many books, there is no end and much study is worrisome to the flesh. A lot of young people and college students love that last verse. Amen. Study is wearisome to the flesh. In the making of the books, there is no end. Solomon points us at the end of this treatise to the fact that there is some wisdom that comes, and he calls the one who gives it the one shepherd. Look down at your Bibles and notice the shepherd is capitalized. He’s talking about God. He’s saying, get your wisdom from God. Just remember, he’s the one who nails wisdom and clinches it in your heart. Get your wisdom from God. He says, don’t get into many books. A lot of people think, well, what that means. I’ve actually heard preachers say what Solomon meant was the only book you should ever study is the Bible. So they never read a commentary. They never read a history book. They just read the Bible. Well, you know, you can say what you want to about that. I read the Bible every day, but I read everything I can find. It helps me understand what the Bible says, too. What Solomon is saying, I believe, here is that Christianity and knowing God is not primarily about searching. It’s about finding. It’s not about questions. It’s about answers. How many of you know people, and I meet them all the time, who when you start talking to them about their faith, they’ll say, Oh yeah, I’m searching. Well, why are you searching? Let me show you where the answer is. They believe that reality is in the search, not in the answers. I remember reading in C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce, a little story about a confrontation that happened. One of C.S. Lewis’s characters, and he captures the tone of what I think this passage is saying. Listen carefully. In the scene in his book, they’re on the borders of heaven. A lifelong searcher is outside of heaven and he’s being told to come in. In the story, the person who meets him at the border is called the White Spirit. So that’s just in C.S. Lewis’ story. It’s not a biblical story. It’s a paradigm. And the white spirit invites him in and he says to him, only thing I can give you when you come in is forgiveness for having perverted all of your values and all of your brain and all of your intelligence. There is no atmosphere in this place called heaven for inquiry. I am going to bring you to the land, not of questions, but of answers. And you will see the face of God. He says that to the inquirer. Well, the inquirer answers and he says, oh, but we must interpret those beautiful words in our own way. Sound familiar? For me, there is no such thing as a final answer. The free wind of inquiry must always continue. It must always continue to blow through the mind, must it not? Listen, said the white spirit, once you were a child, once you knew what inquiry was for, there was a time when you asked questions because you wanted answers and you were glad when you had found them. Become that child again, even now. Ah, said the inquirer, but when I became a man, I put away childish things. And the encounter ends when the inquirer mentions that he has an appointment. and he makes his apologies, leaving the borders of heaven and hurrying off to his discussion group in hell. That’s how the story ends. Do you get the message? He was right next to the answer, but because he thought reality was in the quest, He wouldn’t accept the fact that there are answers. Solomon says, take the wisdom from the one shepherd and don’t get so caught up in the many inquiries that you forget about the fact that questions are for answers and the answer is already out there. The answer is almighty God and his son, Jesus Christ. Amen. That’s the answer. That’s where you’re going. Amen. And so if you want to spend your whole life on a journey going nowhere, well, let Solomon tell you what that’s like. He spent a lot of years there. Finally, Solomon comes to the very end of his book and he says, life is uncertain. Embrace it. Life is short. Enjoy it. Life is mysterious. Examine it. Life is obedience. Express it. Notice what he says in verses 13 and 14. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Here it is. Fear God. Keep his commandments, for this is man’s all. For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing. Solomon says that the answer to the search is to fear God and to obey what he has to say. You want to know where meaning is found in life? We just read it. Meaning in life is found in a relationship with Almighty God. When it says to fear him, it means to have awe and reverence for him, to stand in awe of who he is and what he has done. And when it says to keep his commandments, it means exactly that, to find out what God wants and do it. Do you know how to be happy in life? We have a little song that we used to sing. It goes something like this. Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey. The verse is even more powerful. When we walk with the Lord in the light of his word, what a glory he sheds on our way. When we do his goodwill, he abides with us still and with all who will trust and obey. You want to be happy? You want to find meaning? God created you. Listen to me now. God created you with a place in your heart that only he can fill. The third chapter says God has put eternity in your heart. Solomon said he spent the majority of his older years going through this process of trying to find something to stuff in that place that would give him meaning and he couldn’t find anything because nothing will give you meaning until Almighty God is at home in your life. And God comes into your life through his son, Jesus Christ. When you receive him into your heart and into your life, he becomes your savior. And as you give him lordship and control over your life, you find that missing joy and peace that you’ve been searching for. Here’s the conclusion of the matter, said Solomon. Fear God. Keep his commandments. God’s gonna bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil. Walk with God faithfully. I’ve been testing that out for a bunch of years. I’ve believed that for a long time. I want to tell you that my joy and my peace and my excitement about life is directly proportionate to my obedience to God and my reverence for who he is. If I ever get very far away from that little circle, I start to fall back into the disappointment and discouragement that can take you down the wrong road. But when I fear God and I keep his commandments, it’s high five time. There is joy in this life. Solomon wants us to know it. It’s found in a person. That person is the Lord Jesus Christ. about whom we read in the New Testament, I have come that you might have life and that you might have it, you know the rest of it, more abundantly. God wants you to have abundant life. Solomon says life without God is vanity. The Bible says life with God is abundance. It’s joy. It’s walking in adventure with the Creator of the universe. So if you don’t know Him, I hope that you’ve been drawn to Him by realizing what life is like without Him, because God is at the very center, and the Bible is all about Him and His Son, Jesus Christ. You can receive Him, as I mentioned at the end of this message, by simply putting your trust in Him, asking for forgiveness of your sin, and accepting Jesus Christ as your Savior. When you do that, everything changes. You become a Christian, a part of God’s eternal family, and you will spend eternity in heaven with Him. I hope you’ll make that decision today if you haven’t done it. Hey, it’s Friday. Get to church on Sunday. Watch Turning Point on television if it’s in your area. And then be sure to join us on Monday as we begin a brand new series called Where Do We Go From Here?
SPEAKER 01 :
The message you just heard originated from Shadow Mountain Community Church and senior pastor, Dr. David Jeremiah. Turning Point is also on radio and TV this weekend. To learn where to find it, visit our website, davidjeremiah.org slash radio. That’s davidjeremiah.org slash radio or call 800-947-1993. ask for your copy of David’s book, 31 Days to Happiness. It’s filled with Solomon’s wisdom, and it’s yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard, New International, and New King James versions, complete with notes and articles from Dr. Jeremiah’s decades of study. Your notes of encouragement mean so much, so please write to Turning Point, P.O. Box 3838, San Diego, California, 92163. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us Monday as Sheila Walsh and Dr. David Jeremiah preview the series, Where Do We Go From Here?
