“While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain” (Ecclesiastes 12:2) As you get older you start putting stronger light bulbs in the socket. My first awareness of my need for glasses is when the light wasn’t bright enough and I had to get a brighter light in order to read. And somehow the lights go dimmer as you get older. The muscles of your eyes don’t contract as they should in the adjustment of the pupil and all. And so you need more light in order to read.
“In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble” (Ecclesiastes 12:3a) That’s when you begin to get the palsied shakes of the old age; your knees and your legs begin to shake. You walk sort of shakily. It’s hard to have a smooth script as you’re writing, you know.
“…and the strong men shall bow themselves and the grinders cease because they are few” (Ecclesiastes 12:3b) You begin to hunch over your back. The grinders are your teeth, we lose them in old age .
“…and those that look out of the windows be darkened” (Ecclesiastes 12:3c) The reference to the eyes, the windows of your body, the eye, and you begin to lose you vision.
“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 music shall be brought low” (Ecclesiastes 12:4) Your hearing gets bad, and the singing, “Yeah, what?” It’s a great life to look forward to, isn’t it? You start waking up early in the morning, the first song of the bird. You don’t sleep so long anymore. You don’t need so much sleep.
“And when they shall be afraid of that which is high” (Ecclesiastes 12:5) When you get old, you start getting all these fears.
“Now let’s 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 is good, or whether it is evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14)
Your Personal Pastor -Bil Stockham