Fear God and Be Quiet

Ecclesiastes 5:2 ESV

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.

One thing that I have been made aware of time and time again throughout my pilgrimage on earth is that while man is quite capable of amassing much knowledge, it is exceedingly difficult for him to not only put what he knows into practice but to even properly articulate how he may put what we knows into practice.

And so, it’s difficult for us, naturally sinful as we are to not only do what we know we ought to do, but it’s extremely difficult for us to even know how we should do what we ought to do.

It is for this reason that I am very grateful for what we call the “Wisdom Books” in the Bible, because in them, we learn how to be what the genre of these books are classified as, we learn how to be wise. There are five biblical books that are classified as “Wisdom Books”. They are the books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon.

Now, in Job, Psalms, and the Song of Solomon, the wisdom is there, but you have to do a little bit of work to dig the wisdom out of what is written in them. The books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, on the other hand, essentially do all of the work for you, they lay out, in simple, straightforward terms, the practical ways in which a saved man or woman should live their day-to-day lives.

The reading that we are looking at today from the book of Ecclesiastes is no exception to this rule, for in our reading, Solomon, who is wiser than any man who lived before or after him, teaches us a lesson that is simple, should be well-known and personally applied, but yet is incredibly deep and places us in our proper position before God. But best of all, the lesson that is conveyed to us today, if we sincerely and seriously adhere to it, will cause the communication that we have with God to be sincere, devout, and most precious.

The first thing that we see Solomon teach us is a caution, when he says,

Ecclesiastes 5:2a ESV

2a Be not rash with your mouth,

Now, this is a lesson that I know all of us can learn and apply to ourselves. In fact, I can personally and confidently say that there have been many times in my own life where I wish that I wouldn’t have been so rash to speak and would have just kept my mouth shut.

Webster’s Dictionary describes being rash as, being, “hasty in council or action, resolving or entering on a project or measure without due deliberation and caution, and thus encountering unnecessary hazard”.

So, to be rash with your mouth is indicative of hastily speaking certain words without first thoughtfully considering what you are speaking. It is essentially hurrying and saying whatever comes to mind right as it comes to mind, or perhaps even saying things that aren’t sensible, but just saying them to be saying them.

But worst of all, being rash with your mouth indicates possibly putting yourself in danger with the rash words that you speak. There is an old saying that says, “Don’t write a check with your mouth that you can’t cash”. In other words, don’t say something that you don’t mean, don’t make a promise that you can’t keep, because if you do, consequences will inevitably follow.

Now, this is certainly the case when it comes to our fellow man and the institutions of the world. I most certainly should not tell someone, perhaps a friend, that I can do something for them when I don’t really know for sure if I can do it. Or if I go to the bank and take out a loan I should not say, “Yes, I promise that I will pay this loan back to you” if I don’t know for sure that I can actually keep my promise.

Now, if this is true with those in the world and the institutions in the world, then it is infinitely truer when it comes to the words that we speak to God. Therefore, when we speak to God in prayer, we need to speak sensibly and sincerely.

Solomon continues to speak of this and caution us on how we speak to God, when he says,

Ecclesiastes 5:2b ESV

2b nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God,

Now, we need to always be mindful of the fact that when we bid God in prayer, we are in the presence of the God of heaven and earth. Think of that for just a second… when we bid God in prayer, though we cannot visibly see it, we are truly before the majesty and splendor of God.

We see this as Solomon speaks of uttering a word “before God”. Now, when we think of speaking before certain people, we know that we speak differently to different people based on two different things: 1. Our level of comfortability around someone, and 2. Our level of respect for someone.

And if I respect someone greatly, I will not address that person in a hasty manner. And so, if we properly reverence and love God, we will not be hasty when we come before Him.

To be “hasty” is much the same as being “rash”, it indicates hurriedly and eagerly doing things without much thought or examination. But, in our reading, Solomon specifically mentions not letting your “heart” be hasty to utter a word before God.

Now, when we think of the heart, we may think of the biological heart, the organ that pumps blood throughout our body, but the scriptural and spiritual identification of the heart can be defined as “the center of emotions, intellect, and moral character”.

So, when Solomon speaks of being hasty with your heart to utter a word before the Lord, he speaks of unwisely letting your emotions dictate what you say to God without thinking through the implications of uttering such words.

In other words, we can be overly emotional and come directly into the sublime presence of God, saying things that are irrational or perhaps even dangerous.

This should never be done, and Solomon tells us why this should never be done. The reason as to why one should not rashly and hastily utter a word before God is simple, but it is also infinitely profound, when he says not to rashly and hastily utter a word before God because,

Ecclesiastes 5:2c ESV

2c God is in heaven and you are on earth.

Now, as I said, this is basic knowledge, and it shouldn’t really come to a surprise to any of us. What this essentially says is that God is God, and we are not. It essentially means that God is infinite, and we are finite.

Now, much like I was just saying a few moments ago, we speak differently to different people based on our level of comfortability around someone, and our level of respect for someone. Now, let’s say that I have a meeting with the president of the United States. Now, just like me, the president is a finite being, we’re on the same level there, but because he’s the president and I’m just a country preacher, the president holds much more authority than I do.

So, because that’s the case, when I have this meeting with the president, I’m not going to just say whatever comes to my mind and kick back and talk to him like he’s one of my buddies, no, if I had such a meeting, I would think carefully of about what I’m going to say and speak respectfully.

Now, if we would do something like that, if we would behave that way if we spoke with the president, or the governor, or a state senator, or your boss at work, how much more should we reverence the holy, eternal One!

And even more than that, if we spoke with the president or someone else in authority, and not even someone in authority, but anyone in general, if we speak with someone, we don’t just randomly and senselessly babble. If we did that, we would think that we wasted the time of the person who we spoke to and we would think that we wasted our own time.

Yet so often when we speak with God, when we address Him in prayer, that is exactly what we do, we rattle off whatever and babble things that we don’t even mean. You have the attention of the most high God, you are before Him, addressing Him, and yet we so often just rattle off nonsense.

We wouldn’t do that to anyone else, so why would we do that to the God of heaven and earth?!

Solomon plainly tells us that because we come into the presence of God most high, we need to “let (our) words be few”.

Beloved, our God is in heaven, and we are not. He is the most high, and we are not. He is to be worshipped, and we are not. And so, because we know this, may we approach God as God. May we come to Him in reverence and fear, knowing that we address the King of kings.

Amen?