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0:36My name is Nathan Giesenslog. I teach with Pat Johnson over there at the hallowed halls of Blenn College, and so I am a historian by trade. And we're coming into the 4th of July weekend, or 4th of July week. And I couldn't help but bring in some history. Now, I did promise Brother Tom when he asked me to preach, he said, you can preach and you can talk a little history, but you have to preach. You just can't give a lecture. And I said, that's fine, I'll do it. But when Brother Davis was preaching this morning, and he was talking about the fall of Gideon, he talked about Gideon, and I swear John stole half my sermon.

1:21I'm kidding, mostly. But I am going to say this: is that when you talk about Gideon falling, and he was, that was good words. I told him this morning, and those were. Good words this morning. I would also add this: in American history, we had a man in our history who did not fall like that. Who that when he was tempted with great power and great honors and great, well, everything, he said no. And some of you know that I'm referring to George Washington. And you may thank God, and I mean that sincerely, you may thank God that we were blessed with a man like George Washington at the most propitious moments at the founding of this nation. When others would have reached for glory and power, Washington did not. And I want you to note this, and I'm just going to say a few words. This is part of the history.

2:15This came this afternoon, what I'm saying now. This is not the sermon. But I wanted to say this on the fourth of the week coming into 4th of July, George Washington, he was dealing with an ineffectual Congress. If you know anything about that Confederation or Continental Congress, by 1783, they weren't a very august body. Early on, they were pretty good, but then it went down from there. But yet, Washington dealt with them, and he dealt with them faithfully, and he submitted to civilian authority. And when John this morning was talking about words and actions not meeting with Gideon, they met and worked with Washington. Washington took no money. He just was reimbursed. So he never had his hand in the till. He never. Stole money. He never did it for that. Now, Benedict Arnold, whom you many of you know, is synonymous in American English with treason. Benedict Arnold, one of the things he did was he stuck his hand in the till all the time. And that was part of why he was the traitor that he was. But Washington never did that. Washington was simply reimbursed. And no man is indispensable. And Washington knew that, but in reality, we look back in history and maybe he was the indispensable man for a brief moment of time in American history. And the reason I say that is that Washington, at two very dangerous moments, one in particular in 1783, he saved American, the American Revolution from veering wildly off course into some sort of civil war. It's called the Newburgh Conspiracy, and the U.S. Army was about to, the U.S. Army, Washington's Continental Army, was about to march, or at least say it like this, not follow civilian orders. The Newburgh Conspiracy was basically the Army was mad that they hadn't been paid properly, they had been treated poorly, and those were all true. The Army had not been done well by that Congress. Yet in 1783, there was a conspiracy, a horrible conspiracy that hatched in the Army officer corps that basically said, if the Congress tells us to fight the British anymore, we won't fight. The Congress tells us to go home or sends us home, we won't go home. And that is a dangerous moment in the life of a republic.

4:39Washington stepped in. Washington strode before a meeting of his officers he was not invited to, and he comes and he gives a speech that falls flat. And then Washington reaches into his coat and pulls out a letter and he starts to read it. But he can't read it and he's quiet. It's that pregnant pause. And Washington was a lot of things, and he was also a great actor. And he stops and he says, as he reaches back into his coat one more time, and he pulls out a pair of glasses. His men had never seen him wear glasses before. The only people who had seen him wear glasses was Martha, his wife, and his, as he called them, his military family. Hamilton Knox, a few others. All that to say is he says to his officers, some of whom had served with him since 1775, this is 1783, and he said, gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles. I've not only grown gray, but nearly blind in the service of my country. And he broke the conspiracy right there, and he saved it from an army uprising. We came within an eyelash of losing a republic and losing our liberty in there. But I think the greatest thing that Washington did that Gideon could not do, and most men in history cannot do because they are not virtuous. Washington was virtuous. Washington was the good man. Washington went and discovered. December of 1783, December 24th, 1783, and he went before a Congress that was not a very respectable Congress, made up of a lot of shabby men. And Washington went before that Congress and he did what most men would never dream of doing. Gideon didn't.

6:16Washington resigned his commission to that Congress and he went back to Mount Vernon, a private citizen. He was not Caesar. Washington was not Caligula. Washington was not Nero. He was Cincinnati. And when King George III heard the report that Washington handed in his resignation of his commission to that Congress, King George III of England said, My, my, if that is true, he is the greatest man of the age. He, Washington, is the exception. And so when you see the 4th of July and the fireworks burst, perhaps here at Steep Hollow, at Emmanuel, or you're at some other 4th of July ceremony, let your mind wander to the blessings this country has received by having George Washington as our first president and as our first American, in a sense. So, I just wanted to say that, and I needed to get it off my chest because there was Gideon and then there was Washington.

7:20Now, if you would, the sermon. How many, let's see, 6:31. I'll get you out of here by 7:30 or 8 o'clock. You never know. And I would also like to say this to Keith and to the band. Thank you. Thank you for playing. That was beautiful. And I threw a couple of curveballs at him because there's going to be some music in here as well. Anyway, so if you would turn in your Bibles to Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiastes chapter 11. And here we are in the life of old Solomon, Ecclesiastes chapter 11, picking up at verse 7, and we'll read through chapter 12 to verse 8.

8:10The light is pleasant, and it is good for the eyes to see the sun. Indeed, if a man should live many years, let him rejoice in them all. Let him remember the days of darkness, for they will be many. Everything that is to come will be futility. Rejoice, young man, during your childhood, and let your heart be pleasant during the days of young manhood, and follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes. Yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things. So remove grief and anger from your heart and put away pain from your body, because childhood and the prime of life are fleeting.

8:51Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days draw nigh and they come near, when you will say, I have no delight in them. The sun and the light, and the moon and the stars are darkened, and the clouds return after the rain. In the day that the watchmen of the house tremble, and mighty men stoop, and the grinding ones stand idle because they are few, and those who look through the 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 the 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 capperberry is ineffective. For man goes to his eternal home while the mourners go in the street. Remember him before the silver cord is broken, 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 vanity, saith the preacher, all is vanity.

10:06Ecclesiastes. And I will assume on a Sunday night with a crowd here that many of you have heard a sermon or two preached out of Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes is its name, just to give a brief review, its name comes from the Latin Vulgate, old Jerome's Vulgate. And he took the word Ecclesiastes from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. And then the Septuagint took its name Ecclesiastes from the Hebrew word kohelet. So tonight when I use the term kohelet, the preacher or the instructor, I'm referring to old Solomon. So it's going to be an interchangeable term. And tonight we have two major themes to look at in the book itself, but specifically in these verses that I've just read. There are two themes I want you to make note of here as we go in. And the one you've already heard, vanity of vanities. All is vanity. Vanity. And that word in the Hebrew is the word Hebel, H-E-B-E-L, Hebel.

11:15And the second major theme is under the sun, under the sun, under the sun. So when we talk about vanity of vanities, it is the word hebel. Now, it is, and it will be seen throughout Ecclesiastes in various ways and in various manners. It is not happy. As you've already kind of gotten a drift and a flow from Ecclesiastes, this is not an uplifting passage of Scripture, and it's a melancholy book. The word Hebel in translate is vanity. It can also be translated as purposelessness and as enigmatic. Life is an enigmatic event, life is mysterious. Serious. And oftentimes, perhaps in the more modern translations, like I'm using the New American Standard or your English standard, you'll see it as futility or something like that. Futility, futility. And even the word meaninglessness, that's also there too. Hebel has that overtone. And in the book of Ecclesiastes, that word hebel, vanity, is used 38 times. It is sprinkled liberally by Solomon throughout the book. And it is seen from the first chapter all the way to chapter 12, verse 8 that I've just read. And it is the overarching theme of Ecclesiastes. And it renders this book a melancholy book because this is an old man, an old Solomon, who is looking back at a life in the ashes, as it were. And at times, also, when you read through Ecclesiastes, and many of you have read it once, twice, maybe a dozen times in life, but when you read Ecclesiastes and you read it close, there is a bitterness at times, a cynicism. There is an under-the-sun approach.

13:09But when we talk about this issue of vanity of vanities, hebel, to be fair to Coalette and the preacher, looking back at a life, some of us in this room, maybe including myself, at times struggle with life. Why do things happen like that? To do? Why have I lived as long as I have? What did this do to me? And you worry and you feel a little bit perhaps like Kohelet. And it seems to me, as I have read in life and as I have lived life, and now I'm now coming up on my 48th year, I turned 48 in August. It's getting older as I go. But if you've seen me recently, I've shaved off the beard, so I'm not as old as I once looked. But all I have to say, though, is that it is a perennial theme of the life of man.

14:02And also, on top of that, it's also a theme that you sometimes find with a wealthy man, a prosperous man, who is seemingly blessed beyond all measure. Hebel. Hebel. And the second theme here tonight is this theme under the sun. Under the sun. This phrase is used in Ecclesiastes 29 times. It too is used liberally. And it is the perspective of old Solomon, old Cohelet. And this is the thing that when we talk about under the sun, whereas Solomon is perhaps Hebel is caustic, Hebel is bitter. Hebel eats at you. But the under the sun perspective of Solomon is also just as deleterious to the life of a believer. Now, this is why I say that. If you think about it from our perspective as Christians, you think about it from our perspective, one of the things we must always do. Is we look up. Is it one of the things we look up to heaven and sing praises unto God? We pray unto God. We worship God. God who is above all. God, and we try to see above the sun. But yet, at the same time, as we as Christians also must do too, is we don't just see above the sun, we don't just love our God with all our being, we also love our fellow man. And so we also have a horizontal perspective as well.

15:26And with Solomon, Coalette, old Solomon, his perspective is cut off. He just has that horizontal view, nothing vertical. And in that sense, when it is nothing but a horizontal view, in comes that bitterness, in comes that darkness, in comes that cold blood that pumps through what should be a rich heart, but it's not. And then we think about Solomon, and many of you know the story of Solomon. And I remember also thinking back sitting over there when John was preaching this morning, and I thought about him talking about how when you hear about Gideon, you hear about Gideon, you know, the first part about Gideon where he does well. And then there's what chapter 8 and Judges where he does not. I remember the same sort of thing as a kid growing up in a Baptist church over in Burleson County, right down the road from here, Lone Oak. I heard Gideon's story, but I rarely heard the second part. And too, like that with Solomon, I heard the stories about Solomon the Wise, the.

16:31The great decision with regard to the child, people coming to see him. But sadly, for when I grew up at Sunday school there at Lone Oak, we didn't always hear the rest of the story with Solomon, just like with Gideon. And we think about Gideon, excuse me, we think about Solomon with his blessings, and they were certainly blessings. God blessed him immeasurably. God blessed him with chariots and horsemen, galore. He blessed him with golden vessels and a throne made of gold. And of course, we think about Solomon. I'll keep wanting to call him Gideon. Perhaps there's just a whole lot of echo. But when we think of Solomon, we also think of his wives and then also the concubines that came with him. And so when you think about the wives, many of you know this by heart. He had how many? 700. And he had 300 concubines. As was remarked this morning, shall be remarked again. Those 700 wives, many of whom were political wives, but yet they took his heart away. And I would also add this too: I would add this for you to think about and to chew on as well. The wisdom of Solomon also took his heart away from God. And the reason I say it took his heart away from God is that when people are coming to see you and people are begging you for knowledge and begging you for wise decisions and saying, oh, how smart you are. Are. Oh, how wise you are. Doesn't that puff your pride up just a little bit? And it did with Solomon, in addition to the wives, in addition to everything else. So his perspective became very much an under-the-sun perspective that we see here in Ecclesiastes.

18:21Did he apostasize late in life? It sure seems like he backslid a whole lot. Use the old term. And I think ultimately, when you look at Solomon, and I'll keep coming back to this theme a little bit here or there, but I think when you look at Solomon, he did what Adam did. When you get to the garden, what did Adam do? He was tempted. I mean, obviously, Eve was too, but Adam was there, and you will be like God. And there was Solomon, and it was something he reached for, and he failed.

18:56So, as we now turn particularly, that's an introduction. Now, we turn particularly to the first bullet point. I think they teach you in a seminary that you have to have three bullet points in a sermon, and if you don't have three, there's something not right. So, we'll have three tonight. The first one is, strangely, the way I've introduced this, is the word or the phrase, rejoice in life. Verses 7 through 10 is where we are in chapter 11, Ecclesiastes, but the first one here is rejoice in life. And this is directed toward everybody. Everyone, rejoice in life, enjoy life. Is another way you can say it and translate it. Rejoice in life. So, verse 7 talks about the light is pleasant, and it is good for the eyes to see the sun. One of the things that we must always remember, and this is where I think old Solomon looking back at a life that has been burnt to ashes, and even with that under-the-sun perspective, he still can see and see where he went wrong. We always remember, and we need to remember when we look at life that life is a gift from God. God gave us life, he breathed life into our nostrils, he knew us in the womb before we knew ourselves, and that we should always, always, always thank God for life, even when times are hard, and even when it seems that the world is against us. Thank you, Lord, for life. Light is pleasant. And if somebody may see somebody tomorrow at work, or maybe it's later this week, and you say, How are you doing? And he says, I'm not six feet under. And in a sense, that's kind of the way we're thinking here with that under-the-sun perspective of Solomon.

20:37Life is good. But when we look at this, though, he is always, when you talk about Solomon and Ecclesiastes, one of the things with Solomon and Ecclesiastes is that you're going to get the, yes, life is good. Enjoy life. Love life. God gave you life. However, when you look at Ecclesiastes, Messies say in verse 8, you see what always comes back, the word hebel, hebel. Verse 8, at the very end of verse 8, in the New American Standard, is the word futility. And there he is always talking about everything that is to come will be futility. Hebel, hebel.

21:18Now, as we transition on and move on to verse 9 and 10, let's look again in this idea of enjoying life with the under-the-sun perspective of Solomon. In verse 9 through 10, he says this: Rejoice, young man, during your childhood, and let your heart be pleasant during the days of your young manhood. And follow the impulses of your heart and desires of your eyes. Yet know that God will bring you judgment for all these things. Now, several things I'd like you to observe with me just for a few minutes. When we talk in verse 9, one of the things that you may have, for those of you who have read your Bible very diligently and very closely, Solomon seems to maybe be contradicting another passage of Scripture. When you talk about following your eyes, following your heart, the impulses of your heart, the heart is desperately wicked, is it not? I think Jeremiah had something to speak about that. But I'd ask you to let's look elsewhere. Let's look in Numbers, the book of Numbers. If you would turn with me to Numbers chapter 15. Numbers chapter 15. And this is Moses writing. The Lord speaking through Moses and speaking to the children of Israel.

22:32Picking up at verse 39, chapter 15 of Numbers, this is what the Lord says through Moses. Actually, I'll just back up and read verse 38. Speak to the sons of Israel and tell them that they shall make for themselves tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and that they shall put on the tassel of each corner a cord of blue. It shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord so as to do them and not to follow your own heart and your own eyes, after which you played the harlot.

23:09There seems to be a confluence or a disagreement here between Solomon and Moses. I don't think there is, and I'll explain that more in a second. But at the end of the day, we always, when we read the Old Testament, what's one of the stories of the Old Testament, one of the great themes throughout the Old Testament? You heard it this morning, you're hearing it tonight. The children of Israel, they followed after foreign gods. They played the role of a harlot. They were, to borrow the Old King James Version, they were in spiritual whoredom.

23:42And Solomon seems to be giving that advice: be hedonistic. I don't think so. Solomon is not saying that. Solomon is not an optimistic man late in his life, to be sure, but it is not, not hedonism. So, as we think about how do we untangle this seeming knot of Moses versus Solomon, I think what we need to consider is two things. Well, number one, Solomon is an old man looking back at life in Ecclesiastes. He is burnt down. Now, Solomon, as you well know, and we know that Solomon in his prime of life, at the zenith of his power, he did play the harlot. He did run after foreign wives. But this is not him now. This is the old man. This is the old man looking at a misspent life, perhaps. But it's also fair to remember, too, that when you read Coalette in Ecclesiastes, Coalette, or Solomon, never says, go out and sow your wild oats. He never says, do hedonistic things. He never does that. He's not optimistic. He's not happy. And he may be dark and jaded.

25:04But he never says, go and recklessly do things. He never tells you to sin. So that's the first thing that we look at. The second observation we need to, there's a second observation that we need to talk about here in chapter 11 of Ecclesiastes. And this is at leavening when you read Ecclesiastes. And fall of the implosion. Pulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes. Just did that. But yet, know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things. God will bring you to judgment for all these things. One of the questions we have to ask and try to answer tonight also is very briefly: what sort of judgment? What sort of judgment are we dealing with here? Remember, what type of perspective is Solomon working on? It's an under-the-sun perspective. And throughout the book, it's been under the sun, under the sun. He's never reached into the heavens, as it were.

26:01And considering that under-the-sun perspective, and it's also fair to remember that when you look at Coalette as he's writing in Ecclesiastes and chapter 9, particularly, it seems to be that Coalette or Solomon thinks that when you die, you die. There seems to be a finality in it all. There is no hope beyond the river. But with that under-the-sun judgment of Coalette, it seems to be that the judgment that is working and playing and is most explicable in Ecclesiastes is a judgment for what you do and the perils that you, or the sins that you commit, will be judged on this side of the grave.

26:48And this last observation is a question that I'm posing particularly to the young in the room, but also to the congregation as a whole. In these passages, What is the greater risk? And that is the question here. Is the peril of enjoying life the greater risk, or the peril of not enjoying the life God gave you the greater risk? Something to think about. Something to think about. Especially when you're young. Because that's one of the things, as I said, I'm pointing this to the young in the room, whether that's 15, 20, 25. I want you to think about this when you are young.

27:28Is it dangerous to enjoy life? I would adver that I think Solomon here is telling you, enjoy life. But you who are in this room and in this congregation tonight, many of you, if not most, if you, if not all of you, grew up in a household where the moral law is laid before you, what is right and what is wrong. You have been instructed. You have been brought to the church. You have been instructed at the table in your house, and you have showed this is what we do as Christians. This is what we do not do as Christians.

28:01Yet, it seems to me that Solomon, Coalette, is saying to you, enjoy life. Enjoy life wholesomely. Enjoy life rightly. Enjoy life when you go to Enchanted Rock. Enjoy life when you go and you see nature before you. Enjoy life when you go, to use a more spiritual term or a spiritual idea, when you go and see a great preacher, John Piper, preach. Enjoy life. Life. Enjoy your family. Enjoy what God has given to you and blessed you with. Don't fear life, to use the negative. Yes, there can be, there is perils along the way, shoals and whatnot, but go and enjoy and live life and enjoy it while you can. Because, well, if you look with me at verse 10, The very last word in verse 10 is the word fleeting in the new American standard, bleeding. And that word is hebel.

29:05Futility. Futility. The prime of life are fleeting. I will say this to the young in the room, especially the young in the room. You may look out and you may see sunlit uplands ahead of you. Your body feels great. Unlike a 32-year-old, remember the first time I picked up a trash can and I thought it was going to be just fine, and all of a sudden my shoulder popped and didn't feel so good anymore. Some of you were older than that, maybe closer to my age at 47, almost 48, and you pick up something and you turn the wrong way and all of a sudden you're in your bed for a day.

29:54We don't know what the future holds for us. So in that sense, I would say enjoy life that God has given you. While you're young, not because you're young, because you don't know what is coming. And this brings me to the second point tonight. Remember your Creator. And we transition to chapter 12. Remember your Creator in the days of your youth before the evil days come and the years draw nigh where you will say, I have no delight in them. Remember your Creator.

30:23In 1863, about this time in 1863, the U.S. Army was preparing to engage the Confederate armies of Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg in one of the great battles of the Civil War. But six months before, at Falmouth, Virginia, or just outside of Falmouth, Virginia, the Army of the Potomac was in winter quarters, and it is known historically as the Valley Forge of the Union Army. I want to just take a moment of our time. This is really the history lesson that I've worked on for the last few days, not what I started out with. But I wanted to talk about America in the mid-19th century. And I say that because I'm looking out there, and I've looked out that way several times when preaching or just driving up. There's that cemetery right there. In the 19th century, say 1850, the United States was a growing nation. Territory was being added in.

31:20Texas comes in in 1845. And then, of course, the Mexican session of 1848, the Gadsden Purchase, Florida, and on and on. I can go. All I have to say is, we are a growing nation. It is a fiercely independent nation. I have the right to vote. I have the right to make my own choices. I can do this. I can do that. It is fiercely independent. The United States is also factional, too, especially over the issue of slavery and the coming of the Civil War. And oh, by the way, just I'll be very quick about this, it has the effect of splitting. So, if you've ever wondered why Baptists are referred to sometimes as the Southern Baptist Convention, that comes out of the 1840s when the Baptists split over the issue of slavery and sectionalism. It also split the Methodists. But also, it's worth noting, too, is that this is the great era of democracy, and also, most importantly, to us in church tonight, this is the era of the Second Great Awakening. The Second Great Awakening is what made the Methodist Church, it's what made the Baptist Church. The Baptist Church, at the time of the American Revolution, was a small and disaffected, persecuted, frankly, sect. By the time you get to the Civil War in 1861, the Baptist movement, in addition to the Methodist movement, is growing and growing and growing and growing exponentially. You have preachers going forth all over the place. You have itinerant preachers, you have seminarians, and they are going and they are spreading the gospels all over the southern United States and the western United States. And at the same time, not only is the Baptist movement and the Methodist movement growing and growing quickly, but also you have new ones, which we were talking about earlier this evening before church started, the Stone-Campbell movement. Also known as the Church of Christ, and also the Disciples of Christ came into being with Alexander Stone and others at this time period. Others that were heretical, the Unitarians and the Universalists, came out at this time, basically. And also, of course, most heretical and most apostate is the Latter-day Saints, the Mormon Church. But this was a rambunctious era in American history. But it was also a time when it would be hard to be alive. And so this is worth considering, too. Today, life expectancy of the United States for a man is 76 years old. Life expectancy for a woman is 81. In 1850, I looked this up, in 1850, life expectancy for a man is 40. It's about the same for a woman. So think about it this way, friends in the room. When a Solomon is writing years before, or I'm talking about in American history here, we get two lives, whereas our ancestors got one. Think of it that way, perhaps. And ladies in the room, you know this instinctively, and we are very thankful unto God that we live in the day and age in which we do, but life, excuse me, for women particularly, it has to be women, obviously, childbirth is a dangerous thing. And some of you in this room, like my wife, would not be here if it wasn't for living in 20, in our case, 2015.

34:25Then, of course, on top of that, to drive the point home of the The melancholy that sometimes comes in life that Coalette understood in his own troubled way is that the infant mortality rate in the 19th century to 1850 was approximately this. 217 children did not 200 27, excuse me, 217 per 1,000 children died before they reached the age of one. And that was for whites. For blacks, especially because of their enslavement, it was higher at 340 per 1,000 births. Infant mortality is extremely high. And that cemetery across the road was established in 18, I looked this up, it was established in 1870. And the first child, the first person born in there, excuse me, interred in that cemetery, Steep Hollow across the road, was a six-year-old boy, John Peters.

35:23You've been to an old cemetery, you know the story. You've looked around and you've seen it. Disease was everywhere. Whooping cough, lockjaw, diphtheria, malaria, yellow fever. Yellow fever wrecked Texas and Memphis and Galveston and New Orleans, Mobile, Veracruz, Mexico, and on I can go. Typhoid, cholera, pneumonia, measles, mumps, dysentery, and of course the worst of them all was tuberculosis. That claimed many and probably many of our ancestors in this room. Tuberculosis. Bad water, poor. Sewage. Nobody understood at that point in time in 1850. They did not understand germ theory, and it was hard.

36:10How did you get by in this time period? How did you live? And how did you live? The answer is very simple. You lived on faith, you lived on hope, and sometimes you asked hard questions. One of the things, the reason we sang the songs we sang tonight was by my request. The Wayfaring Stranger, which we sang a few minutes ago, that came out in the early 20th, early 19th century, excuse me. About 18, we don't really know, honestly, when it came out, but it's somewhere in the early 19th century, is what we think. The song on Jordan's Stormy Banks was initially written in the minor key, so that's why they played it in the first two verses that way, kind of that pensive thought. Here, in about a minute or two, we're going to hear a song called Idomia that was written by Charles Wesley in the 18th century but sung in the sacred harp style in the mid-19th century, in 1850. And I would say this too: one of the things you see in the 1840s and 1850s that really takes off is the issue, is the singing of hymns in hymn books and tune books. By the way, one of the things that our ancestors did that I don't think we do much of anymore is that when a man or a woman was getting ready to cross over the Jordan and go to their eternal reward, it was often common that the family And friends would gather around the dying man's bed and they would sing to him. And they would sing hymns to him because that was a shorthand way of singing the gospel to him, reminding them and reminding him of where he's going and what awaits him.

37:48They didn't preach to him, sometimes they did, but often they sang to him. And so, if you look at that piece of paper that you have in your lap, it's from the sacred harp. The sacred harp refers to the voice of man singing unto God. It's the beautiful voice. And it was established, the sacred harp singing style was established in 1844. At first, when you hear them play, and it's going to be an audio of the first version, it's going to idomia. It's not very, if you read the words, or if you're reading the words now, it's not exactly a happy song. But if you lived in this time period, or you lived in Solomon's time period, it might not be that happy. The origins of the sacred harp are in Georgia, though it has antecedents probably in England. B.F. White and Elisha King are the founders. And so when they start off to sing, they'll start singing. You'll hear them sing, and it sounds discordant, but they're going to be singing Faso Law, Faso Law, Mi Fa.

38:46And then they'll pause, and then they'll start to sing the words on your piece of paper. If you want to sing, I would appreciate it. And if you do not, I understand that too. But in the back, if you would, This is just going to be audio this time. We'll show them out of Ireland in the second one, but in the first one, it'll just be audio only. Itemia, sir. Your ancestors and my ancestors, some of which in this room, sang this and sang this way. It's all a cappella. The words were Charles Wesley's words, and we know him to be one of the great writers in the Christian history and the Christian religion. Yeah, and though it starts out dark, you also see at the end of those words the trump, the trump of God sounding, and up we go. That is a very Christian thing.

39:38And we look at verse 1: remember your creator in the days of your youth. We do that, and we tell our children to remember God and remember our creator because there is no guarantee that there will be a long life. We aren't guaranteed 80 years. We're not guaranteed 76. And I think of the soldiers of the Civil War or other wars who maybe a year or two before were thinking marriage, children, so on, life. And then the war intervened, and there was no more. Remember your creators in the days of your youth, young men and young women in this room. And for some of you, and I hope none of you, but though it will come for one or two, maturity will hit you, and because events in life will make you mature faster than you ever thought reasonable, some tragedy may befall you.

40:30And then there may be that time where you will say, I have no delight in them. Remember your Creator in the days of your youth. And also, I would say this too, and echo the great words of Solomon here late in his life: Remember them before the evil days come, and you have no delight in them. There is something to be said for living so long that you no longer rejoice in life. And some of you in this room have seen men or women who have lived a long time, and they have lived 80 years, 90 years, 100 years perhaps, and it seemed like the joy of life went out of them. And it seemed to be a futility. I'm thinking particularly here of also an example from J.R.R. Tolkien out of The Lord of the Rings. And I'm thinking of Bilbo. And some of you know exactly the quote about the writ rattle off. This is Bilbo talking because the ring made him live so long. He says, I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread. And for some, that's that. I will say, however, though, and in a personal note, I've got a grandmother-in-law who's 99 years old.

41:38She is not like that, and she has held on to her God and to her faith very tightly. And this is despite many tragedies in her life. And if she could, she might still dance at Charleston if she wanted to. But she's a Baptist, and she's got that blue hair. And some of you know those cotton tops in some churches. I say that. I'd laugh, but Martha, Big Mama, as we call her, Big Mama, she's about this tall, but she's our big mama. She's a southern woman. But it's fair to remember, too, as we move on, and I've seen my time on the wall, so I better move quickly on, that when we think about remember your creator in the days of your youth, sometimes the blessings of life, the material blessings, are in fact actually a curse with regard to spiritual life. Some of you may, before it's all said and done, make thousands and thousands, if not millions, of dollars with some sort of invention, some sort of job or something. And then you will be perhaps like Solomon in the horns of that dilemma. You have all that money. Can you be like the rich young ruler and give it up? Or will it be the camel passing through the eye of the needle? So, remember your Creator in the days of your youth and don't take a chance. And then also, I'd say this too: sometimes when you remember your Creator now, it's because you don't have that many chances later. Famously in the New Testament, there is the example of blind Bartimaeus. Blind Bartimaeus had nothing, and he's on the side of the road, and Jesus is going from Jericho up to Jerusalem. And Bartimaeus cries out and says, Jesus, son of David, excuse me, son of David, have mercy upon me. And what does Jesus do? He stops. The King James says he stood still. And at that moment, it was Bartimaeus who came to Jesus because Jesus stood for him and stopped for him. But I don't want you to think, young folks in the room, that you, I hope you are like Bartimaeus. Because how many thousands, hundreds, if not thousands, of men, whether they were blind or beggars or not, saw Jesus pass by and they never cried out, have mercy upon me, son of David. Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days draw nigh, and you say, You do not have any joy in them.

43:56And so, I want to end on this note. And I want to end on this note here, like this. Point number three is simply this: the blessing of hope and joy. If all we had is Coalette to speak to us, it would be very dark indeed. But we don't. In the Old Testament, there were men who were not like Coalette. And so, in this sense, Coalette may be more of a warning. There was David, who, in chapter 16 of Psalm 16, verses 11, talks about the glory and the joy of his Lord. Job, in fact, actually, I would ask you to turn with me very quickly to Job. It's the famous expression out of Job 19. Some of you know exactly where I'm going. Job 19, verse 25, he says this: Job does, in the middle of ashes and sackcloth, and sores and boils, he says this, as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he lives. Will take his stand on the earth. Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God. Yet from my flesh I shall see God. Even in the depths of despair, there is Job, an Old Testament patriarch, singing the praises of the Almighty. And yet for us as Christians, we have, even as it were, perhaps, more hope. We are in the post-cross. We are in the empty tomb.

45:28When we die, we have the hope that God will call us home, and God will call us before Him, and God will give us the crown of glory that has been stored up, and then we'll cast it at His feet. We have the hope that the tomb is empty, and it is the fact that our tomb will be empty as well. The trump will sound, and we will come forth out of the grave. And on top of that, too, unlike Coalette, who in his way found everything to be futile, even death to be futile, we find wisdom to be enlightening with reason, and not just with reason, but more especially with spiritual revelation, with the Word of God and the fear of God guiding our way. We find love to be so enrapturing that Paul writes about it, of course, in chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians. And we find that our labors aren't fruitless. Our labors aren't worthless. Our labors are a testimony unto God who saved us. And we find that our life is redeemed by God Himself through Jesus our Lord.

46:38That is the hope we have. And so I would be remiss to end on a negative note, on a down note with QLF, though I spent so much time there, I know. But we are Christians, and we are hopeful, and we have joy. This surpasses all understanding. The last song we'll sing, and I will sing to, I'm going to turn this thing off so I can leave, is the sacred harp isn't just dark as Idomia is. The other song is called Antioch. If you'll see the words there, we'll sing this song, and this will be our benediction. So if you would put the video on the board as well, because this is what you'll see. This is how they sing. This is from Ireland, but it could be just in America all the same. Antioch.