The Conclusion

           I read recently of a an elderly woman whose Bible was continually opened to the Book of Ecclesiastes. She had found that in her experiences in life, the book of Ecclesiastes had the answers for the issues that were in her life. She had found that her experiences and all of the difficulties that went along with them could be answered in that book. The book certainly does have a lot of sayings that can be used in today's issues in life. The thoughts like, “There is nothing new under the sun” are certainly true. The same thing can be said of life as we know it. Books are not even new at times, as the publisher simply changes the cover in order to sell more copies and to dress it up. The contents still remains the same. Another phrase which states, “all is vanity” also is very applicable in today's world. Perhaps Ecclesiastes has more in it than we have noticed. I have always referred to the first six verses of chapter 12 as they describe the life of the senior in today's culture. We can recognize it and laugh at it because we see it happening in our own lives. I was recently reminded of the conclusion of the book. Ecclesiastes 12:13 says, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.”

         There are those books of the Bible that have a clear conclusion. It is interesting to note that the Book of Acts has no conclusion for the simple reason that the growth of the body of Christ, the church, is not finished yet and so is still being written. Ecclesiastes, on the other hand, comes to the last two verses and states what the conclusion is to be. Notice that sentence, “Fear God and keep His commandments for this is the whole duty of man.” Have you ever wondered what you are to be doing in your Christian life? Have you wondered what God's will is for your life? Much has been written on trying to discern the Will of God for any individual's life. The writer of Ecclesiastes through the inspiration of God has given us one mighty and almost complete action for each and every one of us. The two items jump off the page. Number one, Fear God! Number two, keep His commandments. You don't have to be super intelligent to understand what was said. We know where we can find the commandments and we can begin with the Ten Commandments and then progress along until we come to the New Commandment in John 13:34-35. We can look at the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ when He summed up the Ten commandments into two. We were exhorted to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength and our neighbor as ourselves as we have seen in Matthew 22. The first one mentioned in today's verse reminds us to fear God. Our picture of God the Father usually ends up as someone in their senior years, in other words, an old man. We don't know what He looks like but rely on the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. In our own minds, there are those who refer to God as “the man upstairs.” That is not evidence of “fearing” God. If anything, it is very disrespectful of God. There are some things in this life that we should fear and have the highest respect for and God is certainly at the top of the list. Ecclesiastes, then, comes to the final conclusion of all of the thoughts and ideas in the book, all 13 chapters and says, here is the end of the whole matter. Here is the conclusion. Do you really want to know what to do in this life? Fear God and keep His commandments. Julie Andrews sang a song, “Getting to know you, getting to know all about you.” It was a romantic song, but the thought is there about our relationship with God. We should be getting to know Him and to know all about Him. Praise God that He has given us His Word where we can indeed know more about Him.