Someday the silver
cord will break,
And I no more
as now shall sing;
But oh, the joy when I shall wake
Within the palace of the King!
Refrain:
And I shall see Him
face to face,
And tell the story— Saved by grace;
And I shall see Him face to face,
And tell the story— Saved by grace.
Someday my earthly house will fall,
I cannot tell how soon 'twill be;
But this I know— my
All in in All
Has now a place in heav'n for me.
Someday, when fades the golden sun
Beneath the rosy-tinted West,
My blessed Lord will
say, "Well done!"
And I shall enter into rest.
Someday: till then I'll watch and wait,
My lamp all trimmed and burning bright,
That when my Saviour
ope's the gate,
My soul to Him may take its flight.
Thanks: timelesstruths.org
Wonderful Words by: Beloved Fanny Crosby and for the glorious music by George Stebbins.
Thank You Abba Father for these two of Your beloved children for they are such a huge blessing and encouragement in my life and today I want to glean all of my Precious Thoughts from You O God to write this page on the Silver Cord and I ask You to fill me with Your Holy Spirit and to grant me Your Wisdom in Christ Jesus my Master and I want to bring all my memory of Him to life as I have studied over the past years for I need His Understanding O God to please You in everything I do, to know Your will O God and to fulfill Your Purpose and therefore I ask Lord Jesus to sanctify me holy unto Himself and to consecrate me to You O God and to keep me enthusiastically doing that which You require from me for You have called me to fulfill Your Purpose O God and it is my greatest desire while I yet live upon this Your earth O God and I Thank You that You have prepared my work for me to do and as I begin this study I want to move out and I long to encourage all my dear readers for whom I give you all the Glory, to love You more and more and more and to do enthusiastically that which You have called us Your dear children to do in this world and I Thank You that You have given us Your Power to live for You and to do that. Help us each one O Most Gracious Abba Father, who believes in the Peerless Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to move out O God, in Him who alone is our salvation, and I Thank You Father God that He is our Present Help in trouble for He is our Great Intercessor and our Advocate and our Lord and our Master and I Thank You Abba Father for this provision that You have given to us in Him and we long to Praise You and to Worship You in all that we do in our lives and say with our mouths for it is Christ and Christ Jesus alone O God that worketh in us both to will and to do of Your Good Pleasure and we love You Abba Father God for You alone are the only wise God and in Christ alone are we able to Pray and to Worship You and to Adore You for it is in His Strength alone that are we able to fulfill Your Purpose and do Your will Father God
Hallelujah!
Amen!
Ecclesiastes 12:1-14.
"Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; 2While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: 3In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened, 4And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low; 5Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: 6Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.
7Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.
8
Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity. 9And moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge; yea, he gave good heed, and sought out, and set in order many proverbs. 10The preacher sought to find out acceptable words: and that which was written was upright, even words of truth. 11The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd. 12And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.13
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:Fear God, and keep His commandments:
for this is the whole duty of man. 14For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil."
Ecclesiastes 12:3-4 "In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened, And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low; Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it"
This is the description of the body, the physical body, in old age.
"The keepers of the house shall tremble."
Those are the legs.
The old person begins to totter.
Our legs do not move quite as fast as they once did.
When I get up in the morning and I climb up the steps, I groan and I Praise our God that it is scriptural to groan for Apostle Paul tells us,
"For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened …" (2 Corinthians 5:4).
But honestly, I groan because my body hurts when I climb the steps.
"The keepers of the house shall tremble."
I find that I stumble more, fall over quite easily, and I must be more careful when I walk. Many of us need to get a walking stick.
"And the strong men shall bow themselves."
Those are the shoulders. They are no longer erect.
When we were young, we had broad shoulders, and now we are all stooped.
Well, the "strong men" are bowing themselves. They don’t stay back like they once did. The shoulders begin to round off, and I can assure you it is more comfortable that way.
"The grinders cease because they are few."
The grinders are the teeth. We lose our teeth as we get older. We will need to get dentures or have them capped.
"Those that look out of the windows be darkened" -
this refers to failing eyesight. Even with my glasses, I don’t see as well as I did.
"The doors shall be shut in the streets" -
means that the hearing is failing.
Even the noise out in the streets, is not as loud as it once was.
And "when the sound of grinding is low."
The grinding is literally the grinding women.
They don’t seem to make as much noise as they used to.
"He shall rise up at the voice of the bird."
We need a quiet room for we are getting old and we rise up at the voice of the bird.
Any little noise disturbs our sleep.
"And all the daughters of music shall be brought low."
We do not find too many older people singing in the choir anymore. The voice gets thin, and it gets harder to carry a tune. It is no longer the glorious voice that we had when we were young.
"The daughters of music shall be brought low."
Now he continues on as he speaks of old age. And now, to me, it gets to the place where it’s tragic, because we’re looking at the psychological effects.
"Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets" (Ecclesiastes 12:5).
"They shall be afraid of that which is high."
Little things disturb us, little things that didn’t disturb us when we were younger.
"And fears shall be in the way."
We just don’t enjoy things as much as we once did. We don't really enjoy traveling as we did when we were young. We find it more difficult. We worry about things we never even thought of before.
"The almond tree shall flourish."
The blossoming almond tree is white. And the senior citizen is going to turn white on top, or else there won’t be anything left on the top - it is one or the other.
"The grasshopper shall be a burden."
How can a little grasshopper be a burden?
Well, when old age comes little things that never used to bother now become a burden.
Strength fails, endurance fails, patience fails.
Many little things become a burden.
"Desire shall fail."
Romance is gone.
We can try to act as if we are just as young as we were, but we sure do not fool anyone.
"Because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets."
that "long home" is eternity. Death is getting near.
Ecclesiastes 12:6 is a poetic description of death. How the "silver cord" describes the spinal marrow, the "golden bowl" the basin which holds the brain, the "pitcher" the lungs, and the "wheel" the heart. Without claiming that Solomon was inspired to foretell the circulation of the blood, 26 centuries before Harvey announced it, is it not remarkable that the language he uses exactly suits the facts - a wheel pumping up through one pipe to discharge through another?
There is no soul sleep.
I wish the people who try to use verses from this Book of Ecclesiastes to support their idea of soul sleep would just read on until they get to this verse.
The body sleeps, but the spirit, or the soul, returns unto God who gave it.
Let me repeat that the New Testament assures us that to be absent from the body means to be present with the Lord (see 2 Corinthians 5:8).
The soul immediately returns to God.
This body is just a tabernacle, or a tent, that we live in. It is just the outer covering.
The soul goes to be with God.
Asleep, in Jesus! Blessed sleep,Asleep in Jesus! Oh, how
sweet
To be for such a slumber meet,
With holy confidence to sing
That death has lost his venomed sting!
Asleep in Jesus!
Peaceful rest,
Whose waking is supremely blest
No fear, no woe, shall dim that hour
That manifests the Savior's power.
Asleep in Jesus!
Time nor space
Debars this precious "hiding-place";
On Indian plains or Lapland snows
Believers find the same repose.
Asleep in Jesus!
Far from Thee
Thy kindred and their graves may be;
But there is still a blessed sleep,
From which none ever wakes to weep.
Thanks: Orange Pages Hymnal 1.htm
Amen!
There are 3 very interesting statements in Ecclesiastes 1: 5–7.
1. "The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again."
There is a monotony in nature, but also that which we can depend upon. We can count on the sun coming up and we can depend on it going down - we still use that terminology although we know that the coming up and going down of the sun really is caused by the rotation of the earth. We are standing on a pretty solid piece of earth, and it looks to us as if the sun comes up and the sun goes down. The terminology has accommodated man in all ages. The amazing thing is the precise, regular way that the sun appears and disappears; it is obeying certain laws.
2. "The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north."
Today we know that the wind follows certain patterns. Even with our modern gadgets they who do this work are not able to predict it well enough to forecast the weather as they would like to. The weatherman misses the exact prediction about half the time.
Our Lord Jesus Christ said,
"The wind bloweth where it listeth"—
that is, where it wants to blow.
It is blowing according to His laws.
"And thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth …" (John 3:8).
We cannot tell where it is coming from and where it is going. The weatherman tells us that there is a low pressure here and a high pressure there.
There is movement; winds are blowing.
"The wind bloweth where it listeth."
Or, as Solomon put it,
"The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north."
At one place the wind is moving south, and in another place it is moving north.
It is obeying certain laws of God as it is blowing.
How did Solomon know that?
He didn’t have the gadgets which we have nor the background on which to base his conclusions.
3. "All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full."
Solomon is tacitly speaking of the law of evaporation, of the elevation of moisture into the air. Then the wind comes along, blows that moisture over the land, and it pours out on the earth.
The whole process follows certain definite, specific laws.
There is nothing haphazard happening, although we may think so. Including verse 4, we have four remarkable statements concerning the laws of nature that make sense and fit into what we know today.
If we compare this with other writings that come from one thousand years before Christ. We find many false conclusions and superstitions in contrast to the accuracy we find in God's Word.
In verse 8 we have is another remarkable observation -
"All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing" (Ecclesiastes 1:8).
This may not have seemed true before, but since the advent of television it is obvious. Many people watch television for hours day after day.
Why?
"Because the eye is never satisfied with seeing; the ear is never filled with hearing."
Most of us love to go to new places and see new scenes. This is one of the enjoyments of life. They are all wonderful. We live in wonderful countries and in a wonderful universe.
Man cannot exhaust the exploration of the universe.
The more we learns, the more we realize how much there still is to learn.
The physical universe is too big for little man.
Yet man alone of all God’s creatures - as far as we know - is able to comprehend the universe.
The eyes and ears of man are never satisfied. We like to explore.
Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity" (Eccl.12:8).
Young folk, life is just empty if we just live for the here and now.
One day you will find that all you have in your hand is a fistful of ashes, and you will have eternity ahead of you.
The psalmist writes:
"So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom" (Psalm 90:12),
Wisdom is our Lord Jesus Christ.
Thinking of old age, someone has written this:
Thou knowest, Lord, I’m growing older.
My fire of youth begins to smolder;
I somehow tend to reminisce
And speak of good old days I miss.
I am more moody, bossy, and
Think folk should jump at my command.
Help me, Lord, to conceal my aches
And realize my own mistakes.
Keep me sweet, silent, sane, serene,
Instead of crusty, sour, and mean.
- Author Unknown.
O May our Precious Lord Jesus Christ grant me His Grace even more and His Great Mercy even more and help me to grow old gracefully, with my mind stayed upon his Word which is my delight!
"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil" (Ecclesiastes 12:13).
"Fear God."
This is the message of the Book of Proverbs as well as the message here.
In view of the experiment made
"under the sun,"
the wise thing is to fear God, which means to reverence, worship, and obey Him.
"And keep His commandments"
would mean to meet God’s conditions for salvation - in any age - grounded on faith in God. For Cain it meant bringing a lamb. For Abraham it meant believing the promises of God. For the people of Israel it meant approaching God through sacrifice in the tabernacle and in the temple. For us it is to
"… Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved …" (Acts 16:31).
"For God shall bring every work into judgment."
God will judge every person for each person is a sinner, guilty before God.
Christ bore our judgment;
He died a judgment death.
Our sins are either on Christ by faith in Him, or else we must come before the Great White Throne for judgment.
"Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth."
Why?
For a very definite reason:
Because in the matter of salvation our chances of being saved are far greater; and in the subject of service we will have something to offer to God.
Statistics show that more come to Christ when they are young.
This does not mean that old people cannot accept Christ and be saved.
How wonderful! It is never too late.
The second reason why Solomon makes a special appeal to young people is that they have a lifetime to offer to God in service to Him. The men who have had real service, who have had something to give to God, have been young men: Joseph, Moses, Gideon, David, Jeremiah, Saul of Tarsus, Timothy - and the host of young missionaries in the past few centuries.
Dear reader, there is no answer to the problems of life "under the sun."
Our Lord Jesus Christ is the one and only solution for all the problems of life.
Our Lord Jesus Christ has given us His promise to all people of all ages:
"All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me; and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out" (John 6:37).
Election and free will are both in this verse.
"All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me."
This states a truth, and that is election.
And at the same time it is also true, that our free will must operate.
We have a desire to come to Christ
I don’t know how to reconcile them, but they are both true.
The Father gives men to Christ, but
we have to get up and come to Him.
And the ones that come are the ones, apparently, whom the Father gives to Him.
You and I are down here, and we don’t see into the machinery of heaven. I don’t know how God runs that computer of election, but I do know that He has given to us a free will and we have to exercise it.
Because Charles Spurgeon preached a "whosoever will" gospel, someone said to him,
"If I believed like you do about election, I wouldn’t preach like you do."
Spurgeon’s answer was something like this,
"If the Lord had put a yellow stripe on the backs of the elect, I’d go up and down the street lifting up shirttails, finding out who had a yellow stripe, and then I’d give them the gospel. But God didn’t do it that way. He told me to preach the gospel to every creature that "whosoever will may come."
Our Lord Jesus Christ says,
"and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out."
So, my friend, we can argue about election all we like, but we can all come to Him and receive
His salvation. He will not cast us out.
Dear reader, if you will but come to Him even right now, you will be the elect of God.
O how very tremendous this truly is!
I'm
the way and the truth and life,
The only way to
the Father,
There is no other way
to come to God,
As Jesus said.
I'm the way and the truth and life,
The only way to the Father,
There is no other way to come to God,
is what He said.
No one comes to the Father,
unless they come by Me.
There is no other,
Who can bring us back to God.
I'm the way and the
truth and life,
The only way to the Father,
There is no other way
to come to God.
Amen!
Reply to Caryl@cherith.co.za.
THIS PAGE UPDATED: 27-10-2011.