Please turn with me to Ecclesiastes, chapter 12.
Today is our last message in our series through Ecclesiastes. It has been a great Fall!
Our passage today is a kind of epilogue. Solomon has finished giving his observations about the world in the first six chapters, and then his advice to us in the next six, and in today’s passage we jump out of that into overall observations about Solomon, and a final conclusion. The book so far has told us that life is uncertain and unpredictable. There’s only one thing that’s for sure and that is death. And the conclusion of the book is that with death, judgement is coming, so we should fear God and keep His commands.
Let’s read.
Ecclesiastes 12:9–14 (CSB)
9 In addition to the Teacher being a wise man, he constantly taught the people knowledge; he weighed, explored, and arranged many proverbs. 10 The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and write words of truth accurately.
11 The sayings of the wise are like cattle prods, and those from masters of collections are like firmly embedded nails. The sayings are given by one Shepherd. 12 But beyond these, my son, be warned: there is no end to the making of many books, and much study wearies the body.
13 When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this: fear God and keep his commands, because this is for all humanity. 14 For God will bring every act to judgment, including every hidden thing, whether good or evil.
The Teacher
The first two verses give us a very brief biography of someone called “The Teacher”. This is the voice we’ve been hearing the whole book. King Solomon the Wise is given this label “Qoheleth” (Hebrew) or “Eccelesiastes” (Greek). Which literally means “Gatherer” - translated here as “teacher” or “preacher” in other versions.
We are told that The Teacher is a wise man. This is the understatement of the millenium. Solomon was the wisest (and wealthiest) man to ever live.
1 Kings gives us Solomon’s backstory, and says that God gave Solomon wisdom, wealth, and power, so that no other king in his lifetime would be greater than him.
1 Kings 10:23–24 (CSB)
23 King Solomon surpassed all the kings of the world in riches and in wisdom. 24 The whole world wanted an audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom that God had put in his heart.
Ecclesaistes 12:9 also tells us that not only was Solomon wise, but he taught people knowledge, and collected wise sayings together. And verse 10 says that He did so very accurately and beautifully. We can see that in his writings here in The Book of Ecclesiastes, as well as The Book of Proverbs.
The picture we get of Solomon, the greatest of Israel’s kings, is that he held the Law of God in one hand, the wealth of the nations in the other, and wisdom given by God in his mind. And yet his problem, just like us, was that he also held sin in his heart. So near the end of his life—full of knowledge, achievement, failure, and grief—he looks out at the world and writes down the God-given wisdom so that we can benefit from it as well. This is how we got the book of Ecclesiastes.
The Shepherd
Verse 11 says that the wise sayings act like cattle prods and like nails. And in fact its not just the wisdom sayings that are like this, but all of God’s word is like this!
A cattle prod serves several functions. But the primary function is to keep the ox on the right path. It inflicts a little pain in order to protect from greater harm. It also gets the ox moving if it has decided to stop. God’s word is like this.
If you aren’t bothered from time to time in your Bible study, if you aren’t occassionally uncomfortable with what God’s word is saying when listening to preaching, it’s possible you aren’t letting the Word do its work in your life! God uses His Word like a prod to make us a little uncomfortable for our protection, to keep us on the right path, and to get us moving when we have decided to give up, or stubbornly refuse to obey our master.
Firmly embedded nails are an image of stability. Of being built up and strengthened. God’s word, and maybe especially Ecclesiastes confronts our false hopes, and our false ideas, our false truths, and tears them away. That’s the discomfort we feel from the cattle prod of God’s word.And if we will listen and let it, His word will also fix in place, with firmly embedded nails, solid truth that build us up and strengthen us!
Notice that verse 11 also says that these sayings are given by one Shepherd. Who is he talking about? Psalm 23:1 says “The Lord is my shepherd.” The prophet Ezekiel refers to The One Shepherd: God’s coming Messiah. These sayings in Ecclesiastes, as with the rest of God’s Word (the Bible) come from God’s Word - Jesus.
2 Timothy 3:16–17 (CSB)
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
These are not man’s words that poke and prod you. You aren’t just listening to some dude’s ideas. When you read the Bible you are hearing God speak! And our Good Shepherd Jesus gives us words that prod us and build us up. Truths that are firmly fixed and reliable.
Let yourself be prodded by your shepherd.
But then verse 12 gives us a bit of a warning. What are we being cautioned about? “But beyond these… be warned, there is no end to the making of many books…” Is he saying “…make sure you don’t read any other books than Ecclesiastes”…? Surely not that. “Don’t read anything but the scriptures?” No not that either. He’s giving a reality check, I think on two fronts. First is listen to the words of the One Shepherd! He has wisdom and answers that you are seeking. Beware of all of the other answers that the world out there will give you. There are literally millions of books published every year. Only a few of them are actually helpful, and you should read and study those!
But C.S. Lewis had a great thought on this idea — remember what questions are for: finding answers. In your search for meaning, Solomon says, if you are going to try and find the meaning of life for yourself by considering every idea and every philosophy, and every great idea that anyone has ever had: be warned, that task is vanity, hevel, meaningless, chasing after the wind. There are constantly new ideas being invented and put down into books, and if you try to read them all you are going to get tired and sore. As someone who reads a ton of books, I can testify personally that this is true!
If it’s answers you want, Solomon says, the words of the One Shepherd are the answer you are looking for. Firmly fixed like deeply embedded nails. Remember that Ecclesiastes is Solomon saying “I have explored every idea and every philosophy and every pursuit, and here is my conclusion:…”
The Conclusion
Verse 13: “…fear God and keep His commands. That word fear means “worship”, revere, respect, pay attention to.Worship the One Shepherd. Listen to His words, and Follow Him.
He gives two reasons for worshipping God and keeping His commands.
First, “This is for all humanity.” This means “…this is what we humans are for.” This is why we were created. This is why we exist: to Worship God.
Second, verse 14, “God will bring every act into judgement, including every hidden thing.” As chapter 11 verse 9 says, remember that you will have to answer to God for everything! Judgement is coming! You are going to stand before the judgement throne of God and have to give an account for your life. When you are standing there, what will you have to say for yourself?
Think of every moment of failure, every time you knew the right thing to do and did not do it. Every time that you knew the thing was wrong and did it anyway. Every selfish motive. Every move you made to gain at someone else's expense. Every lie. Every withheld truth. Every excuse. When God opens the books on all of your sin and asks you to answer for it, which he will do according to Revelation 20, how will you plead?
Every single one of us in this room has failed to live up to God's holy standard. His clearly revealed commands to us. All of us stand under God's judgment without excuse.
That’s the uncomfortable honesty of Ecclesiastes. We are not just sufferers in a broken world, we are also sinners before a holy God. And that’s why so much of life feels like chasing at the wind. We are trying to find meaning, worth, worthiness, and justification in all the wrong places, refusing to face the God who will one day ask us to give an account.
And so we search everywhere else. We chase success, pleasure, knowledge, relationships, wealth, even religion! …hoping we’ll have something to show for ourselves at the end. Surely this will count for something. Surely this will be enough.
Solomon tried all of it. He had more wisdom, wealth, power, and opportunity than any human who has ever lived. And at the end of his life, he tells us plainly: it’s all hevel. Vapor. Weightless. Unable to save.
“Fear God and keep His commands.”
But here’s the problem: none of us do.
The Gospel
Solomon urges us to find true meaning and wisdom in worshipping God and keeping His commands. The greatest wisdom we can find from that pursuit is the discovery of our innate rebellion against our creator, a despair at our ability to follow God’s law perfectly, and our need for a savior.
Here’s the gospel: Jesus Himself said, “Something greater than Solomon is here.” (Matthew 12:42)
The One Shepherd who Solomon spoke of has come.
Jesus brings greater wisdom than Solomon: the solution to our universal problem! He lived in perfect obedience to the Law of God where every one of us has failed. He feared God perfectly. He kept every command. And then He went to the cross to bear the judgment that Ecclesiastes warns us is coming.
For those who trust in Christ, who turn from self-rule and self-justification and cling to Him by faith, judgment day is no longer a day of terror. Not because we kept God’s commands perfectly, but because Jesus did. Not because we found meaning on our own, but because we were found by the Shepherd.
And now, freed from the need to prove ourselves, we are finally able to live wisely. To fear God. To keep His commands not to earn His love, but because we already have it.
And what commands are we to keep? Solomon has the Old Covenant/Old Testament law in mind. The 613 commands of Moses that he would have made a personal hand-copy (flesh this out) of as the King of Israel. Jesus, the True King of Israel declared that all of those laws could be summed up in two commands: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and Love your neighbor as yourself.”When we have these two in mind in everything we do, we do well.And he shows us how to do it: “Love one another, as I have loved you.”
That is the conclusion of the matter: Follow the Shepherd. Worship God with everything you have and are. Love your Neighbor.
Resource Info
