Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, “I find no pleasure in them”--
This is the first time God is mentioned as the Creator. He says to remember God in your youth. Why? Because when you are young, this is the most likely time to shrug God off. That’s why it is important to establish a foundation in God when young.
before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars grow dark, and the clouds return after the rain; 3 when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men stoop, when the grinders cease because they are few, and those looking through the windows grow dim; 4 when the doors to the street are closed and the sound of grinding fades; when people rise up at the sound of birds, but all their songs grow faint; 5 when people are afraid of heights and of dangers in the streets; when the almond tree blossoms and the grasshopper drags itself along and desire no longer is stirred. Then people go to their eternal home and mourners go about the streets.
Here Solomon describes the aging process. We are all headed to the same fate. His argument is this: remember God before the hard times in life begin, before you are bogged down with existence, with aches and pains and fear. Remember God, set that foundation, or you may just get bitter.
Remember him—before the silver cord is severed, and the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at the spring, and the wheel broken at the well, 7 and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. 8 “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Everything is meaningless!”
Remember God before the end comes. Before all of those things you pined after in life lay shattered. The things of this world have little meaning in the end. Eternity is what matters. Why? Because eventually, whether you believe it or not, you will return to your creator. And those things you have done in your life will be brought into account.
9 Not only was the Teacher wise, but he also imparted knowledge to the people. He pondered and searched out and set in order many proverbs. 10 The Teacher searched to find just the right words, and what he wrote was upright and true. 11 The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails—given by one shepherd. 12 Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them. Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body.
Solomon continued to teach and instruct to bring people to a deeper understanding of God’s word. He didn’t passively accept but used his knowledge and God-given wisdom to think eternally.
Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind. 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.
What is Solomon’s conclusion? After testing all of the things we chase after in life, after this grand experiment of removing God from the fabric of his life. The conclusion is to Fear God and keep his commandments. Why? Because that is what we are designed to do.
When you use a car like a plane, it doesn’t work. You can jump it off a cliff and get some airtime, but a car isn’t designed to be a plane. It isn’t designed to fly. Like that, we are designed to be in union with God. Most of our life we run away from that truth. We fill ourselves up with things that aren’t God. But our entire life is designed to point back to God, and when life ultimately becomes meaningless and we run out of places to run to, we find that we have to run back to our design. Not filling our life up with pointless endeavors, but with eternal conquests. It is the conclusion king Solomon reached, and on some level, we all reach in our life of experimentation.