Fear God (Ecclesiastes 5:1-7)

Ecclesiastes 5:1-7

Fear God

Sunday, June 11, 2021

Intro

What fears do we have? How do we handle these fears?

Recap

Over the last month we have been working our way through the book of Ecclessiastes. Throughout our study so far, we have learned that life is vanity. We have seen that our lives quickly go by and that they are without remembrance. WE have seen that there is an evil under the sun in which we wrongly toil after in this world. And yet, we have seen that God has called us to delight in him, that this is our God-given task.

Main Point: A fear of God is essential to following God and walking in his ways. To neglect this fear is foolish and will lead to destruction.

Points

Guard your steps

Pay your vows

Fear your God

Guard your steps

The house of God

In the days of Solomon a massive temple was built in Israel as the place of God. David had desired to build the temple, but the LORD told him that he would not, but that his son would build it. From the moment the temple was completed until it was destroyed in A.D. 70 when Nero burned the temple down. For the Jews in this time, to see when you go to the house of God, they would immediately think of the Jewish Temple. This would be what they understand the house of God to be. But what about today? What is the house of God? Some argue that the house of God is the local church building. But that is not even close to being right. And the reason that I argue this is found in the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians 3:16 says: Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?

The people of God are God’s new dwelling place. It is no longer a physical building where all are to go to the house of God, but that God now dwells in the midst of his people. Therefore, when we read in Ecclesiastes 5:1, Guard your steps when you go to the house of God, we as Christ followers should take double heed to this warning. For the Jews, they had to physically go to the place of God’s dwelling, and yet here we are with the Spirit of God dwelling in us. Therefore, as we have the Spirit of God dwelling in us, we are to continually guard our steps.

To guard our steps means to keep a close watch on our feet, keeping them from going to the left or to the right away from the ways of God. However, we are given very specific steps to keep guard at the end of verse 1. For it says….

Draw near to listen

First, let’s look at the call here to draw near to listen as we guard our steps. One who draws near to listen is quick to hear and slow to speak. This is exactly like what we read in James 1:19 where it says: Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. This is what is being emphasized when it says there in verse 2: Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few.

Because God is the creator and the sustainer of the earth. Because He is holy and over us as our creator, we should be slow to speak when we come before him. Too often we approach God in such casual disregard to who he is. If the cherubims and seraphims that we sang about in Holy, Holy, Holy this morning bow down to the Lord God Almighty, how much more should we as man who had rebelled against our God and even in coming to Christ still have sin dwelling within our flesh? We come to rush words to God without taking time to listen to what it is he is trying to speak to us. We are too often rash with our mouths and hasty in our hearts towards trying to speak on things before considering who our God is and what he has called us too. We as mankind have forgotten who it is that we come to worship, who it is we are speaking to when we pray. We often are like what is said of Israel in Isaiah 29:13-14 which says: And the Lord said “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men, therefore, behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.”

As we are rash with our mouth and our heart is hasty to utter a word before God instead of hearing God, we fail to rightly worship God. We are often like Aaron’s two sons in Leviticus 10 who come and offer unauthorized forms of worship to God, in particular for them the unauthorized fire. God is not silent on how he calls us to approach him and to worship him. In fact, the first five books of the Bible are called the Torah for a reason, they are the books of the law. In the Torah God gives his people specific instructions from laws regarding sacrifices, regarding the details and measurements of the temple, to clean and unclean things, how to live in community, details of specific feasts and festivals, and forbidden forms of worship. God is not silent on these things. However, we miss these things when we are rash with our mouth and let our heart be hasty to utter a word before God. There is a need for us as the people of God to draw near to God and listen to his given word on these things.

One example of where we fail to draw near and listen to God today, is in how we gather to worship God. Look around at churches around us and see what is the primary focus of their gathering. Take a close look at ours too. What is the center of the gathering? This will reveal to us what is of top concern to the people. The question for us though, is it right according to the ways of God? If God’s word is not the center of the worship gathering, then we have missed what Solomon is teaching us here. He again writes, draw near to listen. As we gather to worship, the center of our gatherings is to be the word of God. This is why you hear me say most weeks that we have gathered to sing the word, read the word, pray the word, and preach the word, with the addition of see the word on weeks of baptism or the Lord’s Supper. The word is to drive all that we do as it teaches us about our God and his ways. To show more evidence of this, just hear what is written in God’s word in 2 Timothy 3:16-4:5 where it says:

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

God’s word is what is profitable for us. It is the word that will help us be complete in the ways of God. Therefore all that we do is indeed meant to be word centered. God’s preached word is to be the very center of our worship gathering. Often we mistake worship as only the music part. Where instead the preaching of the word is to be the very center of our worship as we are pointed to the glory of our God and the splendor of his holiness. Let us here at Central City Baptist Church be a church that is driven by drawing near to God and listen carefully to his word. Let us be a people that goes deeper into his word and let that word get into our hearts and form us and shape us in all we do. Likewise, let the word drive everything else we do in our gatherings. From the songs are what we are to sing to the word being both read and prayed as we focus on hearing from God. How are we to listen carefully if all of these are not word centered and shaped?

Another way we fail to draw near and listen to God is in how we come to God in prayer. We pray for whatever comes to mind, instead of allowing God’s word to shape our prayers. We ask and receive not, because too often our prayers are misguided by things that aren’t in line with who God is and his will. We pray aimlessly and wonder why God feels absent in our prayers. Imagine if we were to pray in the manner of Jesus, of Paul, of David? How would our prayers change? Imagine if Paul’s thanksgiving for others filled our prayers? Or Jesus’s prayers to the Father in John 17 for the Father to keep us in our faith, to sanctify us? One of the things that would best help us as Christians is to pray the Bible back to God. Especially praying back what we see in the gospels or the prayers of the apostles back to God. Reading and praying the Psalms is another great way to help shape our prayers in a better way, ensuring we have first listened carefully to God. By praying the word back to God, our hearts are reshaped by the word and our prayers become more focused and pleasing to God as they grow to be inline with his given will.

Brothers and sisters, we need to guard our steps as we come near to the LORD. We need to listen carefully to his words and be slow to speak. We are not God. For he is in heaven and we are here on the earth. He is infinite, we are finite. He is the creator, we are his creation. Let us Behold our God and be careful how we come before him.

Pay your vows

Likewise, because of who our God is, we are charged to pay our vows. This is where we shift in point #2 there in verses 4-6. In part, this continues to unfold being rash with words and hasty in heart to utter a word. But, it also ties back to what was mentioned in verse 1 of the sacrifice of fools. The sacrifice of fools is that of making vows and grand gestures to try and appeal to God to gain more favor. In the Bible we find a variety of different vows that are made. We have vow offerings related to sacrifice and different gifts to the Lord. We have special vows of man and beast being vowed to the LORD. For instance we read in Leviticus 27:28-29: But no devoted thing that a man devotes to the LORD, of anything that he has, whether man or beast, or of his inherited field, shall be sold or redeemed; every devoted thing is most holy to the LORD. No one devoted, who is to be devoted for destruction from mankind, shall be ransomed; he shall surely be put to death.

A follow up to this example is a rash and foolish vow that is made is that of Jephthah who made a vow to the LORD in Judges 11:30-31. He asked for the Ammonites to be delivered into his hand and then in return offered whatever came out first from the doors of his house to be offered up as a burnt offering. Much to his surprise the Lord did give the Ammonites into his hand, but the first thing to come out of the doors of his house was his own daughter. Oh the foolishness of Jephthah’s vow and the foolishness of us being hasty to make vows to the LORD.

Jephthah vowed whatever first came out from the doors of his house and was forced to offer up his own daughter as a burnt offering to keep his word and promise. For this was God’s judgement against the folly of his vow. As mankind, we are tempted to make vows to God in order to try and sound sincere and show devotion towards God. But we need to be careful in seeing the foolishness of making rash vows that the Lord does not require or ask of us, such as that with Jephtah. The same could be said of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. This couple sold their land and then decided to keep part of the sale for themselves, but then lied to the church about how much they had sold the land for. This resulted in both of their deaths. They died for their deception of a false vow offering to the LORD. And they were struck dead for it.

The reality of the matter is, the LORD does not require us vow offerings. However, when we make them, we are meant to keep them. In fact, it is said there in verse 5: It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. If we make a vow to God, it is expected that we honor our vow. Failure to do so leads us to sin and destruction. That is what we see in verse 6 where it says: Let not your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands?

Yet, we read these warnings and we are still too quick to make rash vows to the Lord our God. We make rash vows to him and then at best, half keep our vow and at times downright ignore and forget what we had vowed to the LORD. For instance, how many of us have ever said to the LORD, if you will deliver me from this trouble, I will never do this thing again. And yet weeks later we are repeating the same folly again? Other times we vow our whole lives to the LORD, promising that we want to be used by him. And while this seems like an honorable vow, it is folly. Because as we make this vow, we fail to see what it is that the LORD has already required of us and therefore fail to keep his already given ways. These are the types of rash vows we make when we are quick to approach God and speak without first drawing near to listen.

In making lots of vows we try to convince ourselves that we are more religious than we are. And yet, the reality is God is not looking for us to make vows, especially that of rash and foolish ones that are not following his already given ways. God does not ask us to make large, extravagant vows to him. He wants us to draw near and listen to his word and then for us to obey his word. God’s aim is not to have our vows, but our hearts. Christian, our obedience to Christ and following God’s commands is his desire for us. Realize that in order for us to do big things for God it means for us to do the little things faithfully. For it is in these daily things that our faithfulness will be measured by.

Doing big things for God comes in being faithful in the ordinary things of life. These ordinary things of faithfulness come as we are faithful church members. Those who commit themselves to the local church, to serving one another. For some, this faithfulness comes as they use their skills to serve the church. One can’t say they want to change the world for Jesus and be unwilling to serve children or in discipling relationships. We can’t say we want to reach the world for Jesus, but be unwilling to invest in the lowest hanging fruit right in front of us in these kinds of relationships and care. We can’t say we want to have young people, but not be willing to serve those young families and the children that come with them.

Being faithful in the ordinary means being faithful in our work, doing it well and to God’s glory. Being faithful in the ordinary is by being faithful in our marriages. Being faithful in the ordinary is by loving our neighbor in serving and caring for him as the Good Samaritan did. And remembering our neighbor is all that comes across our path, not just our physical next door neighbor. And part of loving and serving our neighbor is to ensure that we are sharing the good news of Jesus with them. For how will they otherwise hear the gospel and repent and believe? If we truly believe those who do not come to faith in Jesus will die and go to hell, how do we sit here silently, withholding this from others?

Being faithful in the ordinary means that instead of making vows and promises, we hear and obey what God has given us to do as church members, as neighbors, as fathers, mothers, children, as employers, employees, and as children of God. So instead of us trying to be hasty and make vows that the Lord has not required, how about we be faithful in what he has required and given to us in the pages of the Bible? For it is in doing these ordinary things faithfully that we bring honor and glory to God.

Fear your God

And now we come to our final point this morning in point #3: fear your God. We are to guard our steps and pay our vows because we are called to fear our God. In verse 7 we read…

Our many dreams, our many vows, our many words do not produce anything worthwhile. They are vanity. Instead of chasing after vanity, we are called to fear God. As Isaiah saw the glory of God in his holiness in Isaiah 6:5 we read: And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”

Our God is a holy God. And as we enter into his presence we will recognize our complete and utter unworthiness to enter into his presence. Moses’ face shined after simply seeing the back of the LORD. And yet, when we are rash with words and hasty in heart to utter words before the LORD, there is a lack of fear of God. And I am not just talking about those on the outside, I am talking about those on the inside, who profess to follow Jesus.

For it is this fear of the LORD that guides us and shapes our lives. In fact, it is the fear of the LORD that is the beginning of all wisdom and knowledge. We read in Proverbs 1:7: The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction. We cannot walk in true wisdom in living out our Christian life apart from the fear of the LORD. For it is in this fear of the LORD we learn to see truth and righteousness.

In Psalm 19:9 we read: the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous together. A fear of the LORD will last, it will show that we truly believe God’s rules and ways are true and right. We cannot walk in the obedience of faith apart from this fear.

A right fear of the LORD drives away evil in us.Proverbs 8:13 says: The fear of the LORD is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate. Proverbs 16:6 adds: By steadfast love and faithfulness iniquity is atoned for, and by the fear of the LORD one turns away from evil. A right fear of God leads us to hate and flee from that which is evil, that which God stands against and is contrary to his given ways.

And as it turns us from evil, it turns us to obey: Deuteronomy 5:29 says Oh that they had such a heart as this always, to fear me and to keep all my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever! Deuteronomy 13:4 adds: You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. For as we have already seen, God wants our hearts, he wants our faithfulness in the ordinary of our daily lives.

A fear of God is also a measurement of our friendship with the LORD. Psalm 25:14 says: The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant. To be a friend of God is to fear him, because we know him as one who is holy. To be a friend of God is to recognize in humility who he is and our unworthiness to be before him. And yet, knowing that at the same time we can find refuge in this holy God. For it says in Psalm 31:19: Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you and worked for those who take refuge in you, in the sight of the children of mankind!

One great example of one who feared God is that of Abraham in the moment that he offered his own son to God. In Genesis 22:12 it says: He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son from me.” Abraham feared and obeyed God in this process. He was willing to even offer that of his own son to the LORD if that is what the LORD required.

And just as Abraham was called to offer his son as an offering, so God offered his own Son as an offering on behalf of our sins. Like Isaac was laid down for an offering, Jesus laid down his own life as he was nailed to a tree, crucified, dead, and buried on our behalf. Because our God is a holy and righteous God, he cannot allow sin into his presence. For the wages of sin is death. And yet, Jesus went to the cross to become sin for us. He drank the full cup of his Father’s wrath for our sake. He who was righteous became sin that we who were unrighteous could be made clean. Apart from this atoning sacrifice, then we would remain separated from God for all eternity. For what can wash away my sins, nothing but the blood of Jesus.

And the fact that God’s own Son was not spared for the sake of sin, how much less can we expect to be spared apart from coming to Jesus? Friend, if you are here today and have never trusted in Jesus alone for your salvation, then I plead for you to wake up and see that he is your own way. As we have just looked at, God is a holy God. He is to be feared and we cannot enter his presence of our own efforts. The only thing that can wash away our sin is the blood of Jesus. Therefore trust in Jesus, trust his death on the cross was sufficient to cover your sins and believe in him. And believe that because he was raised from the grave on the third day that there is life found in him. Will you believe this today?

Likewise for us who have already trusted in Christ, we too should still fear the LORD. For we must understand that apart from Jesus, we would still be left without a way to enter the presence of our great God. Our only boast then can be that of Christ Jesus and what he has done for us. Knowing this truth should lead us to fear God and to humble ourselves. And it is this fear of God that will help us stand firm in our faith and continue to hold fast to our hope in Jesus. Hebrews 4:1 says: Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.

When we continue to fear God in recognizing him, as we grasp the reality that our only standing before this God is in Jesus, then we are forced to hold fast to Jesus. For it is through an enduring and lasting faith that marks the life of the Christian. Those who continue to hold to the promises of Christ will enter the promised rest on the day we enter the gates of heaven before the glory of God above. There is security, there is hope, but it is only found in Jesus. And it is this reality that a fear of the LORD teaches. It keeps us from becoming arrogant and boastful. At the same time, it gives us much room to boast in our Savior, making much of Him! A fear of God will lead us to make little of ourselves, but much of King Jesus in all his glory!

Conclusion

Therefore, as we behold the glory of our God almighty, let us fear him. We have no right apart from his precious grace to us in Jesus to draw near to him. And yet, by faith, he cleanses us from all our unrighteousness. Therefore, let us draw near and listen to God’s given word to us through the pages of Scripture. We must be slow to speak and not have a hasty heart that utters words before God. Us remembering that he is God and we are not.

Let’s pray…

Benediction: Romans 16:25-27; Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith—to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen.