The Divine Dementia Intervention

Let's pray, Father God, we need Jesus because it's not easy to live

for you. We're sinners by nature. Evil is in us, and so

we need Christ in us. Help us to find the good example of Solomon

in our lives. And Lord, as I speak to the youth of the

church today, I pray that you'll give them holy spirit power to be godly

people in their generation. Nothing less and thank you for the chross in Jesus's

name. Amen. Now, the video on YouTube went viral with over ten

million hits this last week. That's a lot in a week. An eighteen

year old boy, Cameron Robbins was on Blackbird's Revenge Sunset Crews in the Bahamas

Islands and he did something that he would never live to regret. He had

just graduated from high schools having fun with his friends, celebrating life. They

were getting drunk, swearing, partying, livit it up, irreligious, doing

things, screaming out things young people often do when they feel like they will

live forever and there are no consequences. Now, I used to do that

kind of thing when I was younger. It's part of the DNA to just

forget God in your youth. There's something about being young that makes you at

times feel like you're never gonna die, that you just couldn't come to the

end of your life early. He then took the challenge. You see,

some of the young people said, well, look, why don't you jump

overboard into the ocean there and see if you can get the buoy and just

come back and you'll prove your brave. So he took the challenge of his

friends. He jumped into the water. It was night. Someone had an

iPhone video taking a picture of him, and when he jumped overboard to the

night, that would be the last time he jumped anywhere. On that viral

video, his friends are screaming at him to come closer to the buoy,

but he seemed to swim away, and then the video goes dark and no

one knows what happens because he sank, and no one knows how he sank.

He was gone. Experts have speculated that sharks were there, that was

shark infested water. As soon as they saw him with the lights coming down,

they pulled him down and his life ended suddenly. Cameron's body was never

found, and his moral service was recently held without a body. Cameron died

like too many young people die today who do not remember their creator in the

days of their youth, who think that it doesn't matter how they live,

it doesn't matter what they do, that somehow they're all got all right.

God's love covers them in a state of rebellion and they don't realize, No,

it doesn't work that way. Now, I want to tell you,

when I was fifteen years of age, I lived in a state of rebellion

against God. I was actively involved in crime in my hometown. I would

steal, I would stay up at night, I would vandalize, and the

thrill of that I thought was awesome. Man, just the thrill of it.

But when I hit fifteen, something in me clicked and I realized,

if I go down this route road, I'm going to die like the man

my friend John Paul killed. And if I hang around these friends that I

have, my life will be forever altered. And the Holy Spirit began to

work on me, and I made a life change at the age of fifteen

that altered my destiny. God help me, and I'm very grateful for that.

Cameron died, but he didn't do that. Now. Dementia hits people

when they're older. How maybe you've noticed he hit sixty. You don't have

quite the good memory you have when you were fifteen. Anybody here, I

mean that neuroplasticity that makes your memory fly right doesn't work as well when you

get a little older. I'll raise those hands higher again. Okay, I'm

in a happy club here. Good, I'm grateful. I'm not alone now.

No one wants to get dementia. Our memories aren't as good. But

dementia's when it all falls apart and you can't remember hardly anything. People you

love, people, you know what happened last week? He tends, it

goes and you're in trouble. That's the case now. Many people to day

don't realize it, but they're suffering spiritual dementia. They've come to the time

of their life where they forgot God and they can't remember him anymore. They've

left him out and that sweetness of God, that the presence of God in

their life has left a vacuum and a void that only God can fill.

Solomon was one of those rare people who turned to God when he got older,

even though he had known God when he was younger, and he lost

God in the Middle. Very often people don't do that. When Salomon was

an old man, he had led Israel into idolatry. He had actually participate

in child sacrific vice on the Mount of Olives. He had lost his way.

The man who built the temple profaned the very mountain that Jesus would die

on the Mount of Olives, which would become Gaalgatha. And so he lost

his way. But in his old age, the Holy Spirit reached him.

The preexist in Christ, the living Angel of the Lord, the Word of

God found him, and he came back to God. He came back to

God. And as he was writing, without the brilliance of his youth,

but with the wisdom of having learned from his mistakes, he wrote down a

book called the Book of Ecclesiastes, which is meant for a younger generation,

so they won't mess up like he did. So let's look at it.

Before we do, let me go to the person of Billy Graham. Billy

Graham once shared with the world why he held a firm confidence for the future.

Billy Graham is one of the greatest of angelists the world has ever seen.

Like John Wesley, millions of people accepted Christ to the minister Billy Graham.

Mark Finley followed Billy Graham and Russia at the Kremlin and worked off of

his great as to open up that eastern part of the world to the three

third Angels message. So Billy Graham has a meaningful legacy, and he said

this, I'm not going to heaven because I have preached to great crowds or

read the Bible many times. I'm going to heaven just like the thief on

the cross who said, in that last moment, Lord remember me. Now.

That takes humility. He didn't say, well, I'm a great preacher,

I know how to move the crowds. Now he says, no,

I'm a sinner like the thief, and I want God to remember me.

How many of you are in that club you want God to remember you?

Okay? Solomon offered the Divine Dementia intervention Ecclesiastes for the next generation so they

would not forget God and friends, if you don't forget God, God will

not forget you. Did you hear me? If you're in the business of

latching on to God, God will latch onto you and you will be saved.

Ecclesiastes twelve, Verse one, Remember now your creator, and what does

the tech say? And what days the days of your youth before the difficult

days come? Now, how many of you can say the difficult days have

started? Anybody in that club you bend over, Oh that hurts, or

you run with you're fishing with the kids, and I'm sore, they're not.

I've noticed I can't work for eight hours on end without having to take

two days to recover. So before the difficult days come and the years draw

near, when you say I have no pleasure in them, Psalm is not

writing here to older people. He's writing his book for a younger generation that

doesn't know what it's like to get old, lose God in your midlife,

and come to the end and feel everything falling apart. He's writing to the

youth who think they'll live forever, who are strong forever, who have the

same gifts forever, who think they will always be that way, and they

don't realize that a time is going to change in their life. The New

King James version calls the older days the difficult days. The Revistandard version agrees

with the Hebrew in verse one, and it translates it the evil days.

The Hebrew literally reads the days of the evil. That's what old age is,

the days of the evil. Not moral evil is meant here, but

a time when life is hard, the time when life seems bad because you

aren't pulling it off like you, where you're struggling to get the illness and

weakness. The Greek septuigent translation uses the word for bad, which can also

mean malice, suggesting the days when you regret life because it's hard, and

you regret the days you have to put up with. The musical artist Roy

Clarks sang the song Yesterday. Now. Roy Clarks one of the greatest guitarist

to ever live. That's just a fact. Talent flowed through his hands like

few people have. And he was famous for one song more than any other.

He was on Heehaw and other things on television. But he wrote,

he didn't write the song, but he captured it the best Yesterday when I

was young, and he was that old when he sang it. He wasn't

old at all. He was a younger man. He turned that song into

a hit song. It's really philosophy and music. The lyrics, it's philosophy

of music. It has been sung by many, but not as well as

Roy Clark. It starts with the lyrics here it is yesterday when I was

young. You can almost hear it, yesterday when I was young. It

starts that way. The taste of life was sweet like rain upon my tongue.

I teased at life as if it were a foolish game, the way

an evening breeze would tease a candle flame. The thousand dreams I dreamed,

the splendid things I planned. I always built a last on week and shifting

stand. I lived by night and shun the naked light of day. And

only now I see how the years have gone away. And then he ends

his song this way. There are so many songs in me that won't be

sung. I feel the bitter taste of tears upon my tongue, and that

time has come for me to pay for yesterday when I was young. That's

very sad. That's how Solomon felt he was paying for yesterday when he blew

it when he was younger. Solomon Verse two continues while the sun and the

light, the moon and the stars are not darkened, and the clouds do

not return after the rain. What does that mean? Well, the sun

and the moon are things you see with your eyes right And if you go

out today, they say, if you expose yourself to the sunlight, it's

good for your brain. It fights dementia. We senior citizens. By the

way, have you ever gone to a thrift store and someone says, they

don't ask you, are you a senior citizen? They say, you're a

senior citizen. Have ever happened to you. It happened to me last week.

I went to a thrift store and I like to say, well,

I'm a senior citizen, and they say, well, we know that's not

a good thing to feel. You know, well, when the sun and

moon are darkened, when your eye sight gets bad and you can't see as

good as you used too, those are bad days this year. That has

happened to me to a small extent. I've had hard time reading right now

unless I close my right eye. I read by closing my right eye.

It's not fun. I don't have cataracts, but it's something which creates a

similar effect. Cataracts are like clouds in your eyes, and you get older,

your eyes cloud up. They say it starts at sixty. By seventy,

you gotta have surgery. Most likely a retina can fill you. Also

in the optic nerve can weaken. The bright sun becomes dark for eyes.

If you have neuropathy, can affect your eyesight. Floaters fill the eye.

And I have a piece of tissue my right eye that broke away from the

optic nerve nor the retina, and it just creates this blob in the middle

of my eye, and it's blurry and darker. And they say, well,

I might go away in a year and a half. If not,

they got a lasers appet Now. I don't like the idea of lasers in

my eyes, so I'm kind of enduring it for a while. Now.

Solomon is caught on young people to remember the Creator when they had good eyesight,

not just physicalized. Do you realize, as a young person you are

able to perceive spiritual things. You are capable of moral clarity, and you

can develop that while you're young. Jesus said, the eye is the lamp

of the body. If the eye is sound, the whole body will be

full of light. So we need sound eyes, We need sound spiritual perception.

God has given every one of us the ability to have a correct spiritual

insight and sound thinking. Based on the Bible. See this book. Yeah,

maybe you have in your hand, take it out, Bible, Bible,

you bring the Bible. Church, Do you realize that you can become

as wise as God in some ways if you listen to God through the Bible,

that your brilliance can be opened up by the study of the Bible,

that you can have clarity, You can speak to issues as God would if

you study God's thoughts in the Bible. And so we have in this book

the key to giving us understanding Proverbs three to seven. Do not be wise

in your own eyes. Fear the Lord. And what is the fear of

the Lord? Now? Okay, it is to do what depart from evil?

Now do you guys? Is that projector on in the back? No,

it's okay. Then I'll stick to my manuscript here. Sometimes they put

the verse one right up in the back and it helps me so I look

at the thing, so I don't have to look behind me. Now,

we live in the pornographic age, when all you gotta do is take out

your little device. You can look at any evil pornographic picture you want to.

The statistics are this happens on a massive scale in our school systems that

children. Young people are exposed of this by peers and others. It is

perhaps one of the greatest challenges to our modern culture. You can go to

the theater and watch the wrong stuff at home, it's easy to bring things

into your mind and heart. Hollywood knows just how to put just enough good

in something awful, so you'll endure the awful, and the awful will affect

your character. Watching a little evil with a lot of good or viceversy,

you think, wow, maybe it's okay. And yet people expose themselves to

the F word. They expose themselves the images where there's too much skin,

where the Lord's name is taken in vain, or the Lord has put down,

religion is mocked, or spiritualism is embraced. So what Solomon would be

saying to us today is use your spiritual and physical eyes to study your Bible.

When your mind as bright as a young person, boys and girls,

you should be in your time memorizing the Bible. You can memorize most of

the New Testaments with that brilliant mind that God has given you before you hit

twenty. To read the spirit of prophecy. When I was a young person,

I used to take Sister White's books out, the five volumes of the

Conflict series. And I was a janitor, and I'd be moving with my

dusk mop back and forth and reading them. And I read the entire Conflict

series. And they let me do it. At Fletch, your academy as

a janitor, to grow in God by the study of nature and science.

We got telescopes back here, probably about five thousand dollars of great telescopes.

At Reaching Hearts, we can study astronomy, look up at the sky,

the iryan nebula, and get to know the universe around Reaching Hearts. And

you know, you know what else you can do. You can pursue the

great thoughts of God, learn his character, his ideas, the philosophy of

salvation as a young person. So Solomon is saying, remember your Creator,

when your eyes are young, your mind is sharp, and when you look

upon the world with wonder and awe, remember God. That's the golden time

Verse three and Ecclesiastic swelve continues this good thought. In the day when the

keepers of the house tremble, the strong men bow down, when the grinders

cease, because they are a few, and those that look through the windows

grow dim. A strong man guards his house. We all have a house.

It's our head, it's our life, it's our home. But when

he's old here it's hard to guard the house. When you are young,

you have the best energy in life to guard your house, your mind,

your life. Use that youthful energy and strength to resist evil and live for

Jesus Christ. Before you get older. You know it's easy to give in

to the world, isn't it. How many things it's easy to give in.

Yeah, it takes a young boy and a young girl of courage to

stand up and say, I'm going to be a Christian no matter what.

I don't care if all my peers do this. If Jesus wants me to

do that, I'm going with Jesus. I don't care how much pressure I

get from this. That another thing. I'm going to stand for the Lord

in my life. Proverbs four twenty three. Here is the text. Keep

your hearts with all village vigilance, for from it flows the spring of life.

So don't believe anyone who would tell you that you don't need to be

careful in the choices you make in life. You do. Every choice you

make shapes your character. Who you hang out with, who you watch,

what you read, what you say and sing. They affect who you are,

who you will become, and what you choose the value in life.

It shapes you for the future, for good or evil. Let's go to

verse three of Ecclesiastes twelve. And the strong men bow down when the grinders

cease, because they are a few, and those that look through the windows

grow dim. Strong men get back aches, and they stooped down in their

latter years, and no one remembers that they could run a race and win

it. Now, do we have any track experts here? Used to run

in high school? Oh, if you're afraid to even say, aren't you

how maybe you ran the mile? Okay, you ran the mile? How

maybe won the mile race at your high school? Well? I did.

I was the fastest to Fletcher in running the mile and the four forty the

quarter mile race. But you know, if I got out there today and

try to run that race, I'd look pretty pitiful, it really would.

Those days are gone. Then the grinders here are teeth that fall out of

your out you know, take your teeth going here, grind right, So

the grinders here are the teeth that fall out of your mouth, so you

can't eat well anymore. And the grinders that look through the window of your

mouth grow dim because teeth get rotten, and they no longer have the beautiful

white look they had when you were young. And then so that your young

smile, of your youth is God. And so what he's saying is,

remember the time when you smile and everybody like looking at your teeth. Those

days are going to pass. It won't always be that way. They didn't

have dentists back then. So friend, praise God with those teeth, lips

and tongues of yours, and eat and drink for the glory of God in

the door that is your mouth. That's what he's saying. Ecclesiastes twelve four

continues. When the doors are shut in the streets and the sound of grinding

is low, now your eyesight will fail you in later life, and you're

hearing can also go. And that's what he's focusing on here, not the

loss of sight, but the loss of hearing. When the doors are shut

in the streets and the sound of the grinding is low refers to the ears

that can no longer what they used to hear, or ears that hear in

a different kind of way. Scientific empirical studies have shown hear me out here

that people who attend loud rock concerts and musicians who performed for many years and

these concept SARTs lose large portions of their hearing over time. Did you know

that music that is over eighty five decibels will cause a hearing loss? Rock

concerts often hit decibel ranges of one hundred, one hundred and fifteen decibels.

Sister White referring to this kind of problem that came into the churches after eighteen

forty four, where it was nothing but like a show, and she writes

about we should avoid display. She called that a synagogue of Satan. And

so we live in a time when much of this is at present in our

modern culture. It doesn't sink with good Bible instruction. She encountered this kind

of thing like many of the early abdence did shortly eighteen forty four, and

the Holy Flesh Movement and those early Avenists faithful the Bible opposed in their writings

and use of scripture this kind of worship because they wanted the next generation to

worship and to praise God with their minds and hearts in perfect harmony with Heaven's

atmosphere, in Heaven's blessing. And it's easy to forget our roots in this

matter. So choose your music well so your hearing won't be lost. Make

choices that preserve that part of you that you need for the rest of your

life. Learn to appreciate the best music that will save your ears. Honor

God and help save your soul too, Adapt to learn and grow. God

didn't make your ears to be ruined by the noise of the world offers instead

of the sweet praises that angels appreciate and participate in. In one of her

places, she says that we should model the music, and she describes it

that angels will come into because they will bless us and they will not depart

if we are sacred in our context. And I look at verse four.

It says when one rises up at the sound of a bird and all the

daughters of music are brought low, that's the future. When you get old,

sounds that wouldn't bother you when you were young and suddenly startle you when

you're old. How many if you've noticed that you get startled by a sound?

No one's raising their hand. Well, I'll tell you what it is.

When my dog barks, I jump out of my seat like this.

He's now with my son and Tennessee smoke him go oh you know, and

I go, what happens? I've noticed I didn't do that as much too

many years ago. Familiar sounds can startle you and cause you to jump.

Music plays a major role in our lives, especially when you're young. But

it doesn't last forever, And so he says here, all the daughters of

music are brought low. The best songs of one generation are soon lost and

mean nothing to the next generation. The music convented by one generation is quickly

forgotten by another, and the thought and thought of his quaint old or obsolete.

Now. In contrast, the songs that really last from one generation to

another are those songs that define the soul with clear Bible truth, clear moral

virtue, songs that shape us to be better for God. Now we have

in our hymnal songs that were sung in the Reformation, songs that were sung

in the Second Great Awakening, because they have survived the centuries, and they

have brought hundreds y eight thousands of people to Christ they still affect us.

We can bring creativity to those songs, we can reinvent them in a way,

but we should cherish them also. Songs that lift up the truth and

drive it deep within our hearts, inspiring us to purity of life and greatness

of character, that sharpen our characters for Heaven, our intellects for service,

and that glorify God instead of our entertainment desires and the clamor for pleasure and

self gratification. When we learn Heaven's ways, we will like God's instruction,

and we will see our character's desires transformed by the renewing power of the Holy

Spirit. It Psalms one hundred and forty seven, Verse one, David says,

praise the Lord, for it is good to seeing what What does the

tech say praises through our God? Now? What kind of music is proper

praise music? Here? It's buoyant, happy music. Music shouldn't make a

sad all the time. It should also up lift us because God wants a

happy people praising Him. And then it defines it, for it is pleasant

and praise is beautiful your heart. God wants us to praise God in a

way. It's beautiful Now that has to be defined. It has to be

discovery. Has we struggled with every generation, but it should be sought after.

God wants us to seem pleasant, positive, beautiful praise music that is

not like the din of noise. The role produces the modern rock cords to

her time, and I'm gonna say it's not like the clangy classical music either.

That's so high falutin you can't connect God with it. Neither of those

work. He wants every generation to create this kind of music, and the

keyword is to create new music for their generation. Artists should arise within the

Christian Church who struggle with scripture, who write, who come together with music

and God inspires them. He'll make it surviving, inspire future generations, and

it may become their hymns if it comes together in the church through your creativity.

So we should be open for young people to explore along biblical lines how

to pull that off. It's a high bar Psalms one hundred forty nine,

Verse one, praise the Lord, Sing to the Lord. And what does

it say? A new song and his praise in the assembly of the saints.

You know, young people, use your beautiful voices and harmony. Sing

to glorify God. Don't be afraid to try, but don't mimic everything out

there. Seek God's way and see what he can do with that. How

many musicians do we have here? We have a guitarist at reaching hearts.

I'm a guitarist, okay. How any songwriters are reaching hearts? I'm a

song writer. I've written four or so songs on my guitar. You write

songs, too, Daniel. You should bring some of that Christian music that

you've worked with. I've heard one of your songs and share it with us,

Daniel. But God wants a creative generation. Why before the daughters of

music are brought low, before the music of youth ends, every generation must

express themselves correctly. Verse five continues. Also they are afraid of height and

of terrors in the way. How many have you ever climbed up in a

ladder and afraid you'll fall off? No one's ever afraid to fall off a

ladder. Look. I've had to climb up a ladder to clean the leaves

out of the gutters of this place. I don't like doing that, and

others have taken over that. Now it's scary. The terrors in the way,

the terrors of the night. Solomon continues when the almond tree blossoms.

Now, what's he getting at here? Almonds have white blossoms, and all

men's look like eyes. So what's white with eyes? Your head of your

hair? Your hair? Yeah, your head of hair. The Hebrew word

shahade for almond is built off the Hebrew bird, meaning to see schacade.

This white almond metaphor refers to the gray hair of your head where your two

eyes are found. I cut my hair frequently because my almond tree is blossoming.

Someone is falling out. How may if you have almond trees here,

a few of you, Okay, yeah, The cure for that is baldness.

You know, well, you've you've arrived. I guess they're a little

bit right. I'm losing it here and here a little bit. Ladies,

you can keep your gray hair, and it's fine. You're beautiful gray or

not. Solomon continues in verse five when the almond tree blossoms. The grasshoppers

of burden and desire fails, You will one day drag yourself along like a

grasshopper on the ground with this burden. When you're old and no longer able

to walk like you used to. You have a stick that looks like a

grasshopper leg and use a cane as you walk a own. That's the picture

here. And no matter how much you can fall in love when you are

young, according to Solomon, when you get old, desire fails. The

Hebrew word here for desire is derived from the Hebrew word for a cape berry,

which was an aphrodisiac, a sexual desire booster. So you aren't attractive

like you were. You'll realize that you look at the marriage says, I'm

not a knockout like I was when I was fifteen. And you'll look at

you, and you'll look at yourself as a man, my hair, and

why would anyone want to love me? And very often women try to overcompensate

for that rather than grow gracefully old. Viagra won't work, cape berry won't

work, he says, desire fails. So remember God when you're young,

when you fall in love with vigor, and let your mind in spiritual principles

guide your desires to make good decisions. Use your youthful energy and service and

praise, making a difference in your community in the world. Don't date to

have a good time or feel good someone I want to go date so they

can hug up and get all this good affection and smothered with kisses when they're

fifteen to eighteen years of age. Have broad and clean relationships in the church,

and from those wholesome friends in the church. Let God guide you to

a life companion and keep yourself pure all the way in the midst of this

evil age. Now, if you've messed up, or if someone has messed

you up, you know what God forgives you. Make the choice. Now,

I'm going to get it right from to day on, and that's when

you start over with the Lord. God forgives. God directs your life.

God makes you pure. Sagham Solomon, chapter eight, verse four. I

charge you, o, daughters of Jerusalem, do not stir up or awaken

love until it pleases. Now what does that mean? He says that a

number of times in the book Song of Solomon. Here it is, and

I'm talking to young people who are wanting to know how to have relationships.

Here it's an inverse relationship. First before marriage, as physical affection increases before

marriage, are you following me, communication goes down? Did you get that

idea. As physical affection increases before marriage, what goes down communication. You

mess up your ability to get to know that person and to communicate. When

you're petting or kissing, hugging and all that, you're enamored with the feelings,

but you're not communicating in it sabotages your ability to communicate. Now,

if you want a successful life companion, you need to have good communication before

you get married. So that's why the Bible says, don't do that,

keep the affection down, don't go there and talk, so he be friends

now after marriage, when you're married, After you're married, when physical affection

increases after marriage is God is blessed it. Communication will increase and affection will

enhance communication. So the other messag is up your ability to get it right

after you're married. Holding hands after you're engaged, but nothing more than that

until you're married makes a lot of good sense. Now, in I counseling

with young people, I've set with a number of couples, many of them

who are married here, and one of the very first things I'll say is

stop this interaction where you're having you know, heavy PDA. It just messages

you up. And then they start communicating right there in pre marriage counseling.

And I've only had one couple in my entire experience divorce over the years,

and I'm very grateful for that statistic. And I recommended that couple not married

actually because there were problems there, so you won't regret it, and your

future husband or life will not regret it either. Now, that goes against

what you're going to hear a lot of people say, some of your peers

and the like, But guess what, that's what God says. It works

best. Make good choices that will help you find the right person and be

the right person for them. So dressing provocatively, now I've seen this,

and you know this can be boys and girls where they want to dress in

a way to look like they're attractive and they use the word sexy. I

want to look sexy and attractive. Why do you want someone marrying you or

getting to know you because you look that way or because you're a good person.

See, so it sets you up for the wrong thing. So proactively

dressing provocatively short skirts or pants or bus lines down, stuff that jangles and

jangles to make you look like a Christmas tree. It doesn't help live modest,

clean sincere lives now Peter and first Peter. Two, it was a

three three all First Peter. He tells us that we that we the daughters,

should be daughters of Sarah, who, like Sarah, the wife of

Abraham, was beautiful in the ends, and that beauty just came out and

was so obvious that it was marvelous. So we have a high example in

the past. So as long and live as young person, and so we

should young people. You should live as a young person mindful. The fact

that one day you'll be old. Now, how made me feel like I'm

speaking of the youth. You'll never grow Oh, I'm ab So you don't

raise your hand. I had an older person to raise their hands. I

don't feel like I'm growing old. Well, I can guarantee you. When

I hit sixty, I felt like I'm growing older. Come on, you,

dishonest folk. You know what I'm talking about, right, I mean,

you got to be in the camp with me in a little bit.

I felt like I'm getting older. I am getting older. I don't have

the hair here as much. It's white all our way around a lot.

I have that little backache. I mean, I'm not where heat says,

I'll be maybe twenty years from now, but I'm getting there. So are

some of you. Young people don't get the one day you're gonna get older,

that you're laying a foundation for your old age right now. And the

choices you make is youth. So respect your elders and the journey and the

church. Those who have been before you have something to offer you. Don't

ignore them. Solomon continues in verse five, for man goes to his eternal

home and the mourners go about the streets. That one's not hard to figure

out. One day you'll die, and people will cry over you for a

little time, and then they'll move on in life. They'll go into the

streets and they're gonna forget about you. So what matters is what you do

with your life right now. Look at verse six, remember your creator.

Before the silver court is loosed, or the golden bowl is broken, or

the picture shattered at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the well.

When you get older, your spinal cord can fail. When the silver cord

is loosed, the spinal cord and your struggle with paralysis and loss of feeling

can come upon you. Know this hit me in my early forties. I

got out of bed. Now a church member who's not in church to day,

I won't mention who they are called me at seven thirty in the morning,

and I was in a guest room because I had to stay up and

work on something. I'd fallen asleep there, and I jumped out of bed.

I quickly turned to the door and I had the most intense pain I've

ever had in my life, and I fell to the floor. My entire

right leg was paralyzed over twenty years ago. Now before that, I used

to run ten to twelve miles every other night. I was a long distance

runner. And suddenly, with that pain, I could not even get up

to stand. I dragged myself down the stairs. I had to. I

had a backrack. I was able to pull my back out, and I

went to the doctor's steroids a multi year journey to recover the use of my

leg. I've never fully recovered it. I still have paralysis in my foot

lower part. I can't raise my right heel, so if you see me

sometimes I could trip easy. So I moved from running to fly fishing.

So I walked through the stream, and I remember the days I used to

run I like fly fishing, but I really I like running better, he

says, when the golden bowl is broken, So the silver cord is your

spinal cord is your ability to feel. When the golden bowl is broken,

your bladder won't work, and is it used to now? When they my

neurosurgeon took my disc out at L four L five, he told me you

may lose control. I didn't, thank goodness, but that can happen later

in life. And it gets worse when your picture is broken. You break

your hip at the fountain, So he's given the picture of your body breaking

down as you get older. And no one wants a bad fountain or a

broken hip. It's embarrassing, it's shameful. Death follows, and so these

frailies don't last forever. Verse seven. Then the dust returned to the earth

as it was, and the spirit returned to God and gave it. In

other words, one day you die like everybody else who came before you,

and your life comes to an end. So why does he end his book

this way? What does all this mean? The wise man is not speaking

to older people, He's speaking to the younger generation. What is the cure

for divine dementia, the decrease, the disease of forgetting God in your life.

That's what he's focusing on. This wise old man Solomon did not leave

the question and answered for the young to figure out. He didn't want you

to figure it out by the mistakes you would make like he had made in

life. Look at Ecclesiastes twelve thirteen fourteen. If you have your bibles opened

them, I have it on the screen. This is the focal point of

the message. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. What does

the tech say? Fear God? How fear of the Lord? And the

Bible means to love the Lord? Dud drive me ten twelve, to love

him and keep his commandments. That is the fear of the Lord. To

turn away from evil is the fear of the Lord. Fear God and keep

his commandments. For this is man's all. Do you see that their vice

daniversion says the whole duty of man. So, young people and older people

alike, we are called to be obedient Christians. Right everything we do adds

in our relationship to God. Not legalists, loving faith filled obedient Christians verse

fourteen. For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing,

whether good or evil. He knows we failed. The Bible says all

have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But nothing will be

hidden. And you know God needs to see you in your younger years,

confessing your sins to the Lord, thanking him for salvation, making good choices

in your life, choosing to be a righteous man and righteous woman in your

generation. And if you remember God when you are young, God remember you

when you're old. So remember God in the days of your youth, before

the evil days come, when your soul has no delight in them. Live

for Jesus right now before you can't. When I was fifteen, before I

came to Fletch your academy, I remember distinctly, as if it was yesterday.

I had a good friend named Jeff, Jeff Hutt. I've prayed for

him over the years. I haven't met him since I was fifteen. He

led me into a lot of those bad activities that I was involved in before

I became a Christian. I was baptized near the end of my fifteenth year

into christ. I never looked back, but I remember going fishing with Jeff

and Freeze Virginia. At the damn that was there was late at night.

The fine morning, I would be with my dog Fang, I'd be going

to fletch your academy. I was turning a new leaf in my life.

I was no longer going to be a part of what I was doing.

And as we were fishing there, we caught a big catfish, you know,

nightcrawler. As we caught and we were talking together and I said,

Jeff. I turned to Jeff and I said, Jeff, why don't you

go with me to fletch your academy. Why don't we leave this behind what

we've been doing, and let's start over. And Jeff turned to me.

I'll never forget what he said. He says, Mike, you're a fool.

He says, you're going to run your life. You're going to run

your life. I've already seen what's happening you. You're making a choice to

become a Christian. I said, yeah, I am. I'm making a

choice become a Christian because I need a new life. And he said,

you know what, he says, I'm not going to do what you do.

He says, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to join

the New York Yankees. I'm gonna be a world class baseball player. I'm

going to be a writer and an author, and I'm going to travel the

world. And you're running your life. That's what you're doing. And I

pleaded with my friend, come with me. Now. I had no idea

what would happen to our life journey. After that, I went to Fletcher.

I met my father who was praying for me. I discovered a family

I never had. My life changed. I was baptized into Jesus Christ by

Elder Donald Valmer, who's still my pastor, called me this week to pray

for me. Lifetime connection established. I googled my friend. He's still there

in that local town. I can tell by by the Facebook stuff that he

has no place forgotten his life. He has a hardness to him and I

hope he changes. But he didn't become the writer. He didn't join the

New York Yankees. He didn't travel the world. I've helped author books,

I've traveled the world. I'm a writer. And when we won the litigation

for this church, I'll never forget what Judge tid has said. It's like

a little league game going up against the New York Yankees and reaching hearts are

national one. You know, God has a way of making us our lives

turn out when we don't know what will be the outcome. I look back

and I'm horrified to think what would have happened if I'd stayed in town with

my friend Jeff. I'd have kept drinking, I'd have kept stealing, I'd

have kept living an awful life. I don't know if i'd be alive today,

And you know how I view that that's another life, another place.

I praise God for the Church and for God's word. Young people, remember

your creator in the days of your youth and make a difference. God bless

you your Father. May you blessed every young person here today who in their

hearts says I choose Jesus right now and Father, just before in this prayer,

if that's what you have chosen, raise your hand. Everybody's eyes are

closed, including mind, raise it the God and say, I choose you

Lord. I want to be a man of God, a woman of God

in my generation. I want to grow up and live right for the Lord

and shine Father. You know the ones who raise their hands, you know

the ones who need to But Lord save us, save our kids, save

us for your future. And Christ comes in those clouds of glory. He's

not coming for anyone left us than the totally committed person. So give us

Christ with no legalism but faith, love, joy, peace, kind spirit

towards others. And thank you for having loved us with love, joy and

peace forgiveness in Jesus name, Amen,