Sermon Bible Commentary
Ecclesiastes 11:9
(with Philippians 4:4)
We may accept these words as in very deed the counsel of the Preacher, as embodying the wisdom which he had learned from God. As such they assert a truth in which all of us, whether young or old, have some share.
I. They tell those who are called to the work of teaching or of guiding youth that all systems of education which tend to repress or coerce its natural elasticity are at variance with the Divine order as well as with man's nature.
II. Again, I read in the Preacher's words a warning against a fault into which as we advance in life we are all liable to fall. We allow the cares and anxieties of middle age to possess us wholly; we are careful and troubled about many things. The grave responsibilities of duty or the eager striving after wealth are dominant in us; and we lose our capacity for enjoyment, and become intolerant of the overflowing life of joy which for us has passed away. And so we lose the blessings which God designed for us in making youth the season of enjoyment and clothing it with so much grace and brightness.
III. But the chief lesson of the words is for those to whom they are addressed. The young man is told that he is to rejoice in his youth. That is God's gift to him; and he should neither reject it by yielding to dark, sullen, moody thoughts, nor waste it in thoughtless profusion, nor defile it by acts of sin.
IV. There are, however, memorable words that accompany this counsel words which have sometimes been allowed to darken and overshadow it, but which we must not on that account ignore: "Know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment." That cheerfulness and joy of thine does not exempt thee from the great law of retribution which runs through the whole order of man's life. These words are designed to regulate and purify that which, in the absence of that remembrance, so soon overpasses its right bounds and becomes tainted with evil.
E. H. Plumptre, King's College Sermons,p. 1.
Was this a strain of savage irony? Was it the mocking wail of one who had done all these things in the very worst sense you can put upon them, and found out, in unspeakable bitterness of heart, what came of it all? Looking before the text and after it, thinking of the general scope and tendency of the whole book of Ecclesiastes, one would say that all the text conveys is this great truth, which we all find out as we grow older, that the reckoning always comes. There is no harm in rejoicing in hopeful youth; God made youth for that. Only remember for steadying and sobering, not for saddening, that the reckoning will come; that through all these things you are sowing, and that you will reap by-and-bye.
I. Solomon was right in this sense, that for all enjoyment, ay, for all you do, for hard work, and privation, and trial too, the reckoning comes, the painful reckoning; for all these things God will bring you into judgment as for the enjoyments of your early days: and the reckoning may be a very heavy one. Even where the present frost is not the direct outcome of the past sunshine, no more sorrowful experience can be known by any human heart than the awful blankness which is expressed by the one word "gone." To have had and to have lost that is Solomon's judgmentin the text.
II. But you will not escape the reckoning, go which way you may. Rejoice or not rejoice, God will bring you into judgment. We must through much tribulation enter into what home soever we may reach at the last. The text does but tell us that the troubles tend to increase towards the journey's end. There is but one choice we can make, and be sure we shall never repent; it is the choice of Christ, the choice of life and good in Him. Make that choice. As for every other choice you make, you will have to enter into judgment for it. But this will abide the trial of that great day.
A. K. H. B., From a Quiet Place,p. 1.
I. There are perhaps two senses in which a portion of these words might be understood. (1) It may mean that youth is the appointed season of joy and gladness, and that God will have it made so. It may say, Rejoice, O young man for it is God's will in the days of thy youth. Only remember, amidst thy mirth and gladness, that coming judgment which will one day take account of all. (2) Or the sense may be not so much in the spirit of encouragement as of warning. If thou rejoice in thy youth so as to resign thyself without check or reserve to its pleasures, then know thou that, bright as earth may seem to thee, full of joys and tolerant of forgetfulness, yet in due time for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.
II. Each of these interpretations has a just and true meaning. "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth." God will have it so. If youth were not a season of joy, of few cares and abounding pleasures, who would live to old age? nay, who would be fit for the burden and heat of life's middle day? Rejoice then while you may. But if thou wilt forget God and enshrine thyself in the sanctuary which was built and furnished for Him, then take with thee this thought, to be thy counsellor if thou wilt, thy scourge if thou wilt not: that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment; and if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?
C. J. Vaughan, Harrow Sermons,2nd series, p. 523.
What is the Christian application of the words, "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth "?
I. They may warn those who have the care of youth not to lay too much on the young. Sadden not the hearts which God would not make sad. Let there be at least one period of life on which the memory may rest hereafter gladly, a fountain from which the heart may perpetually renew its faith that unalloyed happiness is not unattainable.
II. Let the young believe, what all experience shows, that it is possible to rejoice in youth and at the same time to remember judgment. For pleasure is not life, but the reflex and incidental evidence to us of the life that is there. And while there are most certainly springs of gladness, which may prove hereafter to be the means of enriching life, let the heart which thinks it can discern such blessings be very careful in the use of them. How much may depend on the strength or weakness shown in this, the experienced alone can tell.
III. Let the young rejoice in youth, for it is the beginning of all things; it has possibilities which may well seem infinite. The strain, the conflict, the dust and strife, the heat and burden of the day, are to come afterwards; meanwhile the young are gathering strength in abundant leisure, that in the evil day they may be able to stand. Let us see that it is strength that they are gathering, and not weakness, and then we will not grudge them the brightness of moments which we can never know again.
IV. Let not the young be too ready to imagine that they are able to stand alone and to be a law unto themselves. It is one of the purest sources of joy in youth that it has the power of leaning upon an example, of looking up with reverence to another. It has the belief in human goodness unimpaired. It would be a sad thing if the disintegration of society were to proceed so far, that even this feeling should lose its freshness.
V. It would be wrong to forget that there are some to whom youth is not a time of joy, to whom their first severe trials come at a time when they are least able to bear them, a time when to feel sorrow is to think it impossible ever to smile again. It would be mockery to teach them to rejoice, perhaps even to speak to them of joy. But in fact life is full of compensations; and though the traces of early sorrow may long remain, yet it may have opened depths within them which long afterwards may become a source of truest blessing.
L. Campbell, Some Aspects of the Christian Ideal,p. 134.
We interpret this verse as a simple precept, containing no irony, nor bitterness, nor threatening, but merely an injunction to Christian joy in youth Christian joy in youth limited, tested, and directed by the prospect of judgment. When we turn to St. Paul to know the principles on which we are to make our rejoicing a Christian one, we find that in the passages in which he urges the duty of rejoicing he puts forward two principal reasons of joy. The one is in the Epistle to the Philippians: "Rejoice in the Lord;" and the other in the Epistle to the Romans: "Rejoicing in hope." Consider how these grounds of Christian rejoicing affect the young.
I. "Rejoice in the Lord." The familiar phrase "in the Lord" is one which really contains very deep and solemn meaning. It signifies that Christians are, in some signal and mysterious manner, "in Christ." Being in Him, they must stand fast in Him; being in Him, they are alike in Him, whether they are alive on the earth, standing fast in Him, or whether they sleep in Him. In Him they thank God acceptably; in Him it is their life to be. We then are in Christ, and St. Paul tells us that we are to rejoice therein: "Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say, Rejoice;" "Rejoice that ye are in the Lord, and being in the Lord, rejoice." This rejoicing belongs to the young Christian as fully as to the old. If he has not yet had the time or opportunity for great advances towards Christian perfection, at least he is less far removed from the days of his baptismal innocence. Grace is yet unclouded by inveterate sin. His heart is still open to the freshness of early lessons, to the depth of first impressions, to the heartiness of childish duty. Thus he may rejoice in his youth, and let his heart naturally cheer him in the days of his youth.
II. "Rejoicing in hope." The hopes which are the ground of Christian joy are: (1) the hope that our present state of privilege and blessing "in the Lord" shall continue to us while we live, and (2) that in the final judgment we shall be received to the fulness of that inheritance of which we are heirs already. Hope might almost be called the natural privilege of youth. The loving and happy Christian hope often shines as brightly in infant and youthful hearts as even in mature and aged saints. If it be less of a deliberate and reflective feeling, it is more spontaneous and simple, insomuch that many a child who has been early trained to know God, His constant presence, His power, and His love, leans upon Him and trusts Him with the same unhesitating hope and cheerful confidence with which he trusts his earthly parents.
G. Moberly, Sermons at Winchester College,p. 209.
References: Ecclesiastes 11:9. F. W. Farrar, In the Days of thy Youth,p. 89; G. Dawson, Sermons on Daily Life and Duty,p. 105; W. Spensley, Christian World Pulpit,vol. vii., p. 20; J. Sherman, Thursday Penny Pulpit,vol. iv., p. 97. Ecclesiastes 11:9; Ecclesiastes 11:10. R. Dixon, Penny Pulpit,No. 631; B. Jowett, Contemporary Pulpit,vol. vi., p. 204; J. Bennet, The Wisdom of the King,p. 406. 11 C. Bridges, An Exposition of Ecclesiastes,p. 263. 11, 12 G. G. Bradley, Lectures on Ecclesiastes,p. 123.