Funeral Service for Uncle
Dale
I have found that when the
word of man fails, the word of God always prevails.
I would like to draw your
attention to a very familiar scripture among men and masons. The 12th
Chapter of Ecclesiastes, beginning at verse one thru seven.
Some years ago a famous
guitarist by the name of George Benson recorded a song title “Everything must
change”, some of the words are;
Everything must change
nothing stays the same
everyone must change
no one stays the same
the young become the old
and mysteries do unfold
cause that's the way of time
nothing and no one goes unchanged
(Changes)
(Youth-manhood-old
age)
Ecc 12:1 Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy
youth, Here is, A call to young people to think of God, and
mind their duty to him, when they are young: Remember now thy Creator in the
days of thy youth. This is, The royal preacher's application of his sermon
concerning the vanity of the world and everything in it. “You that are young
flatter yourselves with expectations of great things from it, but believe those
that have tried it; it yields no solid satisfaction to a soul; therefore, that
you may not be deceived by this vanity, nor too much disturbed by it, remember
your Creator, and so guard yourselves against the mischief’s that arise
from the vanity of the creature. “While
the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, Do it quickly, (1.)
“Before sickness and death come. Do it while thou livest, for it will be too
late to do it when death has removed thee from this state of trial and
probation to that of recompence and retribution.” The days of sickness and
death are the days of evil, terrible to nature, evil days indeed
to those that have forgotten their Creator. These evil days will come
sooner or later; as yet they come not, for God is long-suffering to
us-ward, and gives us space to repent; the continuing of life is but
the deferring of death, and, while life is continued and death deferred, it
concerns us to prepare, and get the property of death altered, that we may die
comfortably when thou shalt say, I have
no pleasure in them; Before old age comes, which, if death prevent not,
will come, and they will be years of which we shall say, We have no pleasure
in them, - when we shall not relish the delights of sense, when we shall be
loaded with bodily infirmities, old and blind, or old and lame, - when we shall
be taken off from our usefulness, and our strength shall be labour
and sorrow, - when we shall either have parted with our relations, and all
our old friends, or be afflicted in them and see them weary of us, - when we
shall feel ourselves die by inches. These years draw nigh, when all
that comes will be vanity, the remaining months all months of
vanity, and there will be no pleasure but in the reflection of a good
life on earth and the expectation of a better life in heaven.
Ecc
12:2 While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not
darkened, Then the sun and the
light of it, the moon and the stars, and the light which they
borrow from it, will be darkened. They look dim to old people, in
consequence of the decay of their sight; their countenance is clouded, and the
beauty and luster of it are eclipsed; their intellectual powers and faculties,
which are as lights in the soul, are weakened; their understanding and memory
fail them, and their apprehension is not so quick nor their fancy so lively as
it has been; the days of their mirth are over (light is often put for joy and
prosperity) and they have not the pleasure either of the converse of the day or
the repose of the night, for both the sun and the moon are
darkened to them. nor the clouds return
after the rain: Then the clouds return after the rain; as, when the
weather is disposed to wet, no sooner has one cloud blown over than another
succeeds it, so it is with old people, when they have got free from one pain or
ailment, they are seized with another, so that their distempers are like a
continual dropping in a very rainy day. The end of one trouble is, in this
world, but the beginning of another, and deep calls unto deep. Old people are
often afflicted with defluxions of rheum, like soaking rain, after which still
more clouds return, feeding the humour, so that it is continually grievous, and
therein the body, as it were, melts away.
Ecc 12:3 In the day when the keepers of the house
shall tremble, Then the keepers of
the house tremble. The head, which is as the watch-tower, shakes, and the
arms and hands, which are ready for the preservation of the body, shake too,
and grow feeble, upon every sudden approach and attack of danger. That vigour
of the animal spirits which used to be exerted for self-defense fails and
cannot do its office; old people are easily dispirited and discouraged. and the strong men shall bow themselves, Then the strong men shall bow
themselves; the legs and thighs, which used to support the body, and bear
its weight, bend, and cannot serve for travelling as they have done, but are
soon tired. Old men that have been in their time strong men become weak
and stoop for age, Zec_8:4. God
takes no pleasure in the legs of a man (Psa_147:10),
for their strength will soon fail; but in the Lord Jehovah there is
everlasting strength; he has everlasting arms. And the grinders cease because they are few, Then the grinders
cease because they are few; the teeth, with which we grind our meat and
prepare it for concoction, cease to do their part, because they are few.
They are rotted and broken, and perhaps have been drawn because they ached. Some
old people have lost all their teeth, and others have but few left; and this
infirmity is the more considerable because the meat, not being well chewed, for
want of teeth, is not well digested, which has as much influence as anything
upon the other decays of age. And those
that look out of the windows be darkened, hose that look out of the
windows are darkened; the eyes wax dim, as Isaac's (Gen_27:1), and Ahijah's, 1Ki_14:4. Moses was a rare instance of one who,
when 120 years old, had good eye-sight, but ordinarily the sight decays in old
people as soon as anything, and it is a mercy to them that art helps nature
with spectacles. We have need to improve our sight well while we have it,
because the light of the eyes may be gone before the light of life.
Ecc
12:4 And the doors shall be shut in the streets, The doors are shut in the streets. Old people keep within doors, and care not for going
abroad to entertainments. when the sound
of the grinding is low, The lips, the doors of the mouth, are shut in
eating, because the teeth are gone and the sound of the grinding with
them is low, so that they have not that command of their meat in their
mouths which they used to have; they cannot digest their meat, and therefore
little grist is brought to the mill. And
he shall rise up at the voice of the bird; Old people rise up at the
voice of the bird. They have no sound sleep as young people have, but a
little thing disturbs them, even the chirping of a bird; they cannot rest for
coughing, and therefore rise up at cock-crowing, as soon as anybody is
stirring; or they are apt to be jealous, and timorous, and full of care, which
breaks their sleep and makes them rise early; or they are apt to be superstitious,
and rise up as in a fright, at those voices of birds, as of
ravens, or screech-owls, which soothsayers call ominous and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low; With them all
the daughters of music are brought low. They have neither voice nor
ear, can neither sing themselves nor take any pleasure, as Solomon had done in
the days of his youth, in singing men, and singing women, and musical
instruments, Ecc_2:8. Old people
grow hard of hearing, and unapt to distinguish sounds and voices.
Ecc
12:5 Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high,
They are afraid of that which is
high, afraid to go to the top of any high place, either because, for want
of breath, they cannot reach it, or, their heads being giddy or their legs
failing them, they dare not venture to it, or they frighten themselves with
fancying that that which is high will fall upon them. And fears shall be in the way, Fear
is in the way; they can neither ride nor walk with their former
boldness, but are afraid of everything that lies in their way, lest it throw
them down. And the almond tree shall flourish;
The old man's hair has grown white, so that his head looks like an
almond-tree in the blossom. The almond-tree blossoms before any other tree, and
therefore fitly shows what haste old age makes in seizing upon men; it prevents
their expectations and comes faster upon them than they thought of. Gray hairs
are here and there upon them, and they perceive it not. And the grasshopper shall be a
burden, The grasshopper is a burden and desire fails. Old men can
bear nothing; the lightest thing sits heavily upon them, both on their bodies
and on their minds, a little thing sinks and breaks them. Perhaps the
grasshopper was some food that was looked upon to be very light of
digestion (John Baptist's meat was locusts), but even that lies heavily
upon an old man's stomach, and desire shall fail: and therefore desire fails, he has
no appetite to his meat, neither shall he regard the desire of woman, as
that king, Dan_11:37. Old men become
mindless and listless, and the pleasures of sense are to them tasteless and
sapless. Some old people bear up better than others under the decays of age,
but, more or less, the days of old age are and will be evil days and of
little pleasure. Great care therefore should be taken to pay respect and honour
to old people, that they may have something to balance these grievances and
nothing may be done to add to them. And all this, put together, makes up a good
reason why we should remember our Creator in the days of our youth, that
he may remember us with favour when these evil days come, and his
comforts may delight our souls when the delights of sense are in a manner worn
off.
Because man
goeth to his long home, Death will
fix us in an unchangeable state: Man shall then go to his long home,
and all these infirmities and decays of age are harbingers of and advances
towards that awful remove. At death man goes from this world and all the
employments and enjoyments of it. He has gone for good and all, as to his
present state. He has gone home, for here he was a stranger and pilgrim;
both soul and body go to the place whence they came, Ecc_12:7. He has gone to his rest, to the place where he is
to fix. He has gone to his home, to the house of his world (so some),
for this world is not his. He has gone to his long home, for the days of
his lying in the grave will be many. He has gone to his house of eternity,
not only to his house whence he shall never return to this world, but to the
house where he must be forever. This should make us willing to die, that, at
death, we must go home; and why should we not long to go to our Father's
house? And this should quicken us to get ready to die, that we must then go to
our long home, to an everlasting habitation. [2.] Death will be
an occasion of sorrow to our friends that love us. and the mourners go about the streets: When man goes to his
long home the mourners go about the streets - the real mourners, and those,
as now with us, distinguished by their habits as they go along the streets, -
the mourners for ceremony, that were hired to weep for the dead, both to
express and to excite the real mourning. When we die we not only remove to a
melancholy house before us, but we leave a melancholy house behind us. Tears
are a tribute due to the dead, and this, among other circumstances, makes it a
serious thing to die. But in vain do we go to the house of mourning, and
see the mourners go about the streets, if it do not help to make us
serious and pious mourners in the closet. [3.] Death will dissolve the frame of
nature and take down the earthly house of this tabernacle, which is elegantly
described, Ecc_12:6
Ecc
12:6 Or ever the silver cord be loosed, Then shall the silver cord, by which soul and body
were wonderfully fastened together, be loosed, that sacred knot untied,
and those old friends be forced to part; or
the golden bowl be broken, then shall the golden bowl, which held
the waters of life for us, be broken; or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the
cistern. then shall the pitcher with which we used to fetch up
water, for the constant support of life and the repair of its decays, be
broken, even at the fountain, so that it can fetch up no more; and the
wheel (all those organs that serve for the collecting and distributing of
nourishment) shall be broken, and disabled to do their office any more.
The body shall become like a watch when the spring is broken, the motion of all
the wheels is stopped and they all stand still; the machine is taken to pieces;
the heart beats no more, nor does the blood circulate. Some apply this to the
ornaments and utensils of life; rich people must, at death, leave behind them
their clothing and furniture of silver and gold, and poor people
their earthen pitchers, and the drawers of water will have their wheel
broken.
Ecc
12:7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit
shall return unto God who gave it. Death
will resolve us into our first principles, Ecc_12:7.
Man is a strange sort of creature, a ray of heaven united to a clod of earth;
at death these are separated, and each goes to the place whence it came. First,
The body, that clod of clay, returns to its own earth. It is made
of the earth; Adam's body was so, and we are of the same mould; it is a
house of clay. At death it is laid in the earth, and in a little time will
be resolved into earth, not to be distinguished from common earth, according to
the sentence (Gen_3:19), Dust thou
art and therefore to dust thou shalt return. Let us not therefore
indulge the appetites of the body, nor pamper it (it will be worms' meat
shortly), nor let sin reign in our mortal bodies, for they are mortal, Rom_6:12. Secondly, The soul, that beam
of light, returns to that God who, when he made man of the
dust of the ground, breathed into him the breath of life, to make him a
living soul (Gen_2:7), and forms
the spirit of every man within him. When the fire consumes the wood the flame
ascends, and the ashes return to the earth out of which the wood grew.
The soul does not die with the body; it is redeemed from the power of the
grave (Psa_49:15); it can subsist
without it and will in a state of separation from it, as the candle burns, and
burns brighter, when it is taken out of the dark lantern. It removes to the world
of spirits, to which it is allied. It goes to God as a Judge, to give
account of itself, and to be lodged either with the spirits in prison (1Pe_3:19) or with the spirits in paradise
(Luk_23:43), according to what was done
in the body. This makes death terrible to the wicked, whose souls go to God as
an avenger, and comfortable to the godly, whose souls go to God as a Father,
into whose hands they cheerfully commit them, through a Mediator, out of whom
sinners may justly dread to think of going to God.
Sam Cook wrote a song and
said, It’s been to hard living, but I afraid to die, I don’t know what’s up
there beyond the sky, its been a long time, a long time coming but I know a
change is going to come. We live with a under the sun mentality. Its not what’s
under the sun, that makes the difference, its who is beyond the
sun. But we will spend all of our time
worrying about things that is under the sun.
Anything under the sun won’t last.
Heaven and earth will past away, but the word of God will last forever.
A few years later Rev. James
Cleveland recorded the same song but changed the words, he said;
Everything must change
nothing stays the same
except Jesus is my friend,
and He’s coming back again
I truly love the Lord
(Hospital)
(Three men on
the cross)
(Saturday, July
3rd)
I don’t want a roof over my
head and nowhere to move my soul.
I don't want a closet full of
clothes and die and my soul is naked.
I don’t want a big bank
account and die and my soul is bankrupt.
I don’t want to work and have
a table full of food, and my soul is suffering from malnutrition.
I’m going where the wicked
will cease from troubling and the weary will be at rest, where all the saints
of ages will set at His feet and be blessed.
I made up my mind to walk
with Jesus.
He walks with me, He talks
with me, He tell me I’m His own
Some glad morning when this
life is over I’m gona fly away.
No more good by
Always howdy, howdy
Hearse wheels don’t roll
No night there
No sorrow there
No funeral homes there
No Hospitals there
No Doctors there
No Nurses
No problems there
The leaves on the trees are
good for the healing of the nation
Every day will be like
Sunday, Sabbath will had no end
Every month will be like May
Every year will be like
Jubilee
I’m on my way, what about
you?