Iringa Central Church: November 2015

By.
Mr. Wafula Noah
Vice Chairperson
Ndejje University Christian Union
Bachelor of Civil Engineering - Year 4.

Mr. Wafula Noah with his translator Mr. Emmanuel Damalo at ICC Lugalo

Ecclesiastes 12: 1

Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and years approach when you will say I find no pleasure in them.

Remember: The choices you make now, will determine how you will go through the rest of the life ahead of you. God is not going to force Himself, His will, His word nor His Spirit on you, because you are a free moral agent, You have ability to distinguish between evil and good. Genesis 6:3 My Spirit shall not always strive with man…

The bible teaches that ‘No one is wiser than God.’

1 Timothy 1:17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever, Amen

King Solomon according to the scriptures was the wisest man who lives before Jesus Christ. God endowed Solomon with superior wisdom beyond what any man could comprehend.

Now this very wisest man on earth comes in our opening scripture after he had searched for wisdom and sought to understand life; and says

‘Remember you creator in the days of your youth before the evil days come…’

Brothers and Sisters, this is a warning that we ought to take at heart and consider in our lives.

Verse 3 says; ‘In the day when the keepers of the house tremble…

In my little understanding, the keepers of the house are the hands,

…and the strong men bow down

The strong men here he means the knees/feet/legs, so he means when the knees/feet/legs can no longer support you upright.

…the grinders cease because they are few

The grinders are simply the teeth, so when you teeth can no longer chew food because many of them have already been removed.

…those that look through the windows grow dim

These are the eyes, so when the eyes become weak and can’t see any more.

Verse 6 …before the silver chord is loosed, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher shattered at the fountain or the wheel broken at the well.

Here, he is talking about you very life and he expresses the fragility of life. And King Solomon is teaching saying that these days determine how the rest of your life will be like.

This brings me to a very important part of this message, which I have referred to as:

THE CHOICES YOU MAKE IN THESE DAYS: THE YOUTH DAYS

I come to realize through observation that the men God used to impact their generations; were men who looked at life during the days of their youth and made some very critical decisions that guided the rest of their lives and got them into their divine destiny.

PROPHET EZEKEIL

Ezekiel 4:9-14

13 Then the Lord said ‘so shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the gentiles, where I will drive them,

14 So I said, ‘Ah, Lord God! Indeed I have never defiled myself from my youth till now;…

I moved to believe that the reason God chose the Prophet Ezekiel was that while he was still young and energetic like many of us here, he chose not to defile himself with anything that was unclean and unwholesome, because he must have discovered the secret in Ecclesiastes 12:1

APOSTLE SIMON PETER

Acts 10:11-14

And saw heaven opened and an object like a great sheet bound at the four corners, descending to him and let down to the earth.

12 In it were all kinds of four footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things, and birds of the air.

13 And a voice came to him, “Rise Peter; kill and eat.’

14 But Peter said, “Not so Lord! For I have never eaten anything common or unclean.

Before Peter ever met Jesus and quit fishing to follow the Lord, he had already made up his mind not to indulge himself with what is common or unclean.

JOB

Job 3: 25 for the thing I greatly feared has come upon me and what I dreaded has happened to me.

According to the scriptures, Job was materially blessed and the bible declares he was the greatest man in the whole of the eastern part of the world in his days.

But despite this, Job understood before all this greatness, that there was going to be a day, an evil day that will come to him and he also understood that this day or these days were allotted to every man. So even when he became great, he always remembered the evil days that were to come, and I believe this moved him to make some critical decisions early enough that were going to sustain him in those days of evil. And this why in chapter 1:5 he used to offer sacrifices for himself and his children so as he stayed clean and in good terms with God.

And here is an insight of wisdom, the scriptures says in

Ecclesiastes 6;10,..Whatever exists has already been, and whatever is, has always been

Meaning, as the days of Job were, so are the days today in this generation, nothing has changed about life, a man will always have the evil days just as he also has the days of his youth.

Now the wisdom of God is telling us today that it is the choices you make during the days of your youth that will determine whether you will overcome the evil days.

CALEB

Joshua 14:10-11

10… So here I am today 85 years,

11 I am still strong today as the day Moses sent me, just as my strength was then, so now is my strength for war, both for going out and coming in.

At a very old age, Caleb was still as strong as his was in the days of his youth when God assigned him a task and he chose to do it as the Lord commanded and he did not choose how the other spies decided to perform the work of God. He deliberately made some critical decisions that he was going to serve God with all his heart.

MOSES (The Man of God)

HEBREWS 11:24-25

24 By faith when Moses became of age (youth), refused to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter,

25 choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin.

No wonder God used Moses in an abnormal way! He brought the children of Israel from slavery with an abnormal working of miracles and wonders.

Now in Deuteronomy 34:7

Moses was 120 years, yet his eyes were not weak, nor his strength gone.

All this was only possible because in Hebrews 11;24 &25 explains the secret.

When Moses had grown to the youth age where he would discern good from evil, he decided deliberately to go the path of good.

THE GENERATION TODAY

There exist many pleasures of sin today than there has ever been.

I would like to direct this to the young people in this church today, Now that you are here you have strength and are still energetic and you know what is good and evil,

What decisions are you going to make? Or what choices are you making now?

What are you choosing; the pleasures of this generation or pursuing a life with Jesus Christ?

The choices you make now, will determine how you will go through the rest of the life ahead of you.

And it is in such Church meetings and gatherings that you make such decisions, when your mind is under the influence of the power of God.

If you make your decisions outside the will of God, you will choose what everybody in this generation is choosing to do and be.

Now you have to remember that God is not going to force Himself, His will, His word nor His Spirit on you, because you are a free moral agent, You have ability to distinguish between evil and good.

God says in Genesis 6:3

My Spirit shall not always strive with man…

God will always send His Spirit to warn you and whisper to you which direction you should take but if you resist Him or ignore Him, He will not persist. So it is purely your deliberate decision to choose to go with the Lord or Not.

Finally…

Jesus taught in Matthew 7:13-14

13 Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction

14 For narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life and there be few who find it

As you make those choices concerning the direction and path you are taking in this life; this should be your checklist, this scripture should always ring in your mind each time you plan to make a critical decision.

Jesus teaches that only a few will find this narrow path to eternal life.

So the average person, the normal person will not find it. Meaning the normal person in this generation is on their way to destruction.

This implies that if you choose to do things that everybody is doing, you are on the broad path and Jesus says it is the path that is leading to destruction.

It is a small elite group that chooses to seek God that will find this “MYSTERY” path to eternal life.

In verses 7 and 8, Jesus says: “Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and it shall be opened. For everyone who asks receives, everyone who seeks finds and to everyone who knocks it shall be opened.

Now we’re are at the most important part of the service, and the question to us is;

WHAT IS YOUR DECISION?