"Remember now your Creator." (Ecclesiastes 12:1)
Remember Him as Creator. "There are gods many and lords many," (1 Corinthians 8:5) but there is but one Creator, and He is the one living and true God. It is by this fact that in His own word He distinguishes himself from all other gods; as in: "To whom then will you liken God? or what likeness will you compare unto Him? The workman melts a graven image, and the goldsmith spreads it over with gold, and casts silver chains. He that is so impoverished that he has no oblation chooses a tree that will not rot; he seeks unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image, that shall not be moved. ... To whom then will you liken me, or shall I be equal? says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who has created these things, that brings out their host by number; He calls them all by names by the greatness of His might, for that He is strong in power; not one fails." Isaiah 40:18-20,25-26)
And again in Isaiah, 37th chapter, the king of Assyria wrote a letter to king Hezekiah, in which he said: "Let not your God, in whom you trust, deceive you, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. ... Have the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed, as Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden which were in Telassar? ... And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord. And Hezekiah prayed unto the Lord, saying, O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, that dwells between the cherubim, You are the God, even You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; You have made heaven and earth. Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which has sent to reproach the living God." (Isaiah 37:10,12,14-17)
And in answer to that prayer, "the angel of the Lord went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thousand." (Isaiah 37:36)
The fact that He is Creator is the primal reason given why all should worship Him; and why He should be worshiped. "Serve the Lord with gladness; come before His presence with singing. Know you that the Lord He is God; it is He that has made us and not we ourselves." (Psalm 100:2-3) "Worship Him that made heaven and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." (Revelation 14:7) "You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for [because] You have created all things, and for your pleasure they are and were created." (Revelation 4:11) "In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind." (Job 12:10) "In Him we live and move and have our being." (Acts 17:28)
Therefore, "Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth," (Ecclesiastes 12:1) and all your days. The fact that He performed the wonderful works of creation does not stand separated from Him and us. He not only made these wonderful works, "He has made His wonderful works to be remembered." (Psalm 111:4)
The proper remembrance of Him as Creator can only be by remembering the creation. And He has not enjoined upon us the duty to remember Him without fully showing us how to do it. He has established an institution, the observance of which will ever keep in the mind the remembrance of the Creator--an institution by which, if properly observed, it is impossible to forget Him. That institution is the Sabbath of the Lord. "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shall you labor, and do all your work: But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God: in it you shall not do any work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger that is within your gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it." (Exodus 20:8-11) "And hallow my Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that you may know that I am the Lord your God." (Ezekiel 20:20)
It is by hallowing the Sabbath that it becomes a sign by which we know that He is the Lord. And it is thus a sign that He is the Lord, because "in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested." (Exodus 31:17)
By hallowed observance of the seventh day we remember the "wonderful works" of the creation, and thus remember the Creator. This is God's own appointed way for us to remember Him. It is the truth that the hallowed observance of the seventh day, the works of creation, and the remembrance of the Creator are inseparably connected. "What, therefore, God has joined together, let not man put asunder." (Matthew 19:6)
Again, the Lord's appointed way of bringing things to remembrance is by memorials. "For it is ... an offering of memorial, bringing ... to remembrance." (Numbers 5:15)
Of the Passover the Lord said: "And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt. And this day shall be unto you for a memorial." (Exodus 12:13-14) "The censers of these sinners against their own souls, let them make them broad plates for a covering of the altar; ... and they shall be a sign unto the children of Israel. ... And they were made broad plates for a covering of the altar: To be a memorial unto the children of Israel." (Numbers 16:38-40)
Therefore when we read in the Bible of the Sabbath as a sign, we may lawfully read it as a memorial; thus: "And hallow my Sabbaths; and they shall be a memorial...that you may know that I am the Lord your God." (Ezekiel 20:20)
He desires that we shall ever have Him in remembrance; to that purpose He established a memorial; that memorial is the Sabbath, and: "The seventh day is the Sabbath." (Ezekiel 20:10) "Your name, O Lord, endures forever; and your memorial, O Lord, throughout all generations." (Psalm 135:13) "Remember now your Creator. ... The preacher sought to find out acceptable words: and that which was written was upright, even words of truth. The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd." (Ecclesiastes 12:1,10-11)
The Lord is that one shepherd. "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." (Psalm 23:1) "We are the sheep of his pasture." (Psalm 100:3)
These words are the words of the Lord, and are therefore words of truth. "And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments; for this is the whole duty of man." (Ecclesiastes 12:12-13)
In all the millions upon millions of books that have been or shall be made, there has not been a single principle of ethics set forth that is not contained in the ten commandments. And although many books are valuable, and worthy of deep study, yet the sum of all that is said in the books, and the most worthy subject of all study, is the law of God. Study it, therefore, ever and always with the prayer of him of old, "open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law." (Psalm 119:18) "For God will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." (Ecclesiastes 12:14)
The law of God being the rule of life, it must be the rule of judgment. "As many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law; ... In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel." (Romans 2:12,16)
They who shall stand in the Judgment are those whose "delight is in the law of the Lord; and who meditate in His law day and night." (Psalm 1:2)
Oh, how carefully we must meditate herein, for it is a discerner of the very "thoughts and intents of the heart," (Hebrews 4:12) and in that day the Lord "will make manifest the counsels of the heart," (1 Corinthians 4:5) "with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil." (Ecclesiastes 12:14)
Oh, that we might realize how fearfully searching the Judgment will be! Then, too, we could realize the blessedness of that salvation, and the riches of that precious blood which blots out all our transgression, so that it is remembered no more forever. (Hebrews 10:17) But realizing, faintly as we do, the awful importance of that event, we may pray with David: "Cleanse me from secret faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins, let them not have dominion over me. ... Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer." (Psalm 19:12-14)--Signs of the Times, December 4, 1884--Notes on the International Lesson, December 21--Ecclesiastes 12:1-14
A.T. Jones