The Old Man's Last Word to the Young

A turn toward action, even without certainty — sow your seed, you don't know which will grow. Then the most tender lines in the whole book. An old man speaking to someone young enough to still choose:

"So remember your Creator in the days of your youth — before the difficult days come, and the years draw near when you will say, 'I have no pleasure in them.'" — Ecclesiastes 12:1 (NET)

He tells you, in pictures too gentle to be clinical, what is coming. Hands that will tremble. Eyes that will dim. The work of grinding that slows down because there's almost no one left to do it. A father leaning close to say the one thing you'll only understand once you've lived it. I have read this chapter more than once with my own years in mind. It does not get easier. It is not supposed to.

He closes the book where he opened it.

"'Absolutely futile!' laments the Teacher, 'All of these things are futile!'" — Ecclesiastes 12:8 (NET)

And then, almost like there is nothing else left for an honest man to say:

"Fear God and keep His commandments, because this is the whole duty of man. For God will evaluate every deed, including every secret thing, whether good or evil." — Ecclesiastes 12:13–14 (NET)

He does not let you look away from that last line, and I won't either. Every secret thing — not just what someone else saw. I don't think this is the end of an argument. I think it's the only door an honest man could find, after searching every room in the house, with empty hands and no key. That door, standing alone, could not survive the verdict just pronounced over every hidden thing — which is exactly why what comes next had to come.