We are entering a time where no one has been before. It is to be certain that New Year’s Day 2000 will probably be just as any other routine day, but nevertheless we are on the doorstep of not only a new century, but a new Millennium made up of approximately 365,250 days. Even the most optimistic would not dare to surmise to what the year 3000 will be like, or if there will even be one. As we assume our time it is being consumed. A second’s time can change or even end a life time. Each day contains 86,400 seconds providing plenty of time for our time to end.

The Words of the Preacher as recorded in the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes is recommended reading for all who are living prospects for the new year as well as each new day. In verse fourteen of chapter one he penned, “I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and indeed, all is vanity and grasping for the wind.” Our efforts are as empty and futile as clinging to the Dakota winds that boisterously roar by, only to return as in hide and seek with a childish snicker in the grass at the thought that we could even begin to triumph.

The Preacher continues in chapter nine and verses eleven and twelve, “the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favor to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all. For man also does not know his time: like fish taken in a cruel net, like birds caught in a snare, so the sons of men are snared in an evil time when it falls suddenly upon them.”

Remind yourself of those that you have known that prove this Scripture so well. Recently, the world noted the death of former Chicago Bears standout, Walter Payton. He was only 45. Many described him as the greatest football player that has lived. But even our discussion of Mr. Payton is past tense, showing the brevity of time, of life. As mist moving through a dusky sky, so is life.

The Preacher wrote in chapter two,verse eleven, “Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled; and indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind”. The very term, vanity, which is used here time and again, has as a literal Hebrew meaning, “breath or vapor”. The Preacher further laments in verse sixteen, “For there is no more remembrance of the wise than of the fool forever, since all that now is will be forgotten in the day to come. And how does a wise man die? As the fool!”

The temporal value of a world trapped in time should be enough to drive all to find more to life. Most still attempt to remedy the situation on their own terms. As many have searched for the ever out-of-reach “fountain of youth”, many delay it. There is only one route that will allow us to achieve an acceptable and promising answer.

“Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:”as all good preachers say and as recorded in the last two verses of the last chapter of Ecclesiastes, “Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether it is good or whether it is evil.”