Ecclesiastes 5:1-5
Guard your steps when you go tothe house of God. To draw near to listen is better than tooffer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil.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. Thereforelet your words be few.3 For a dream comes with much business, and a fool’s voice withmany words. 4 Whenyou vow a vow to God,do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools.Pay what you vow.5 It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay.6 Let not your mouth lead youinto sin, and do not say beforethe messengerthat it wasa mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands?7 For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity;butGod is the one you must fear.
Do you know God? This is the question we began asking yesterday. Do you know this dangerous God who would ask Abraham to sacrifice his son? Do you know this God who is ambiguous in His ruling of this world? Do you know this God who cannot be domesticated, who is NOT safe, who is dangerous, unpredictable and wild?
Listen to this paragraph from Douglas Jones: “In our pietism we tend to insist that God is primarily Nice. Period. God is nice and nicer and nicest. The chief end of God is to be nice. I believe in God the nice. Maker of Niceness. In heaven, we will all be nice. Pilate wasn’t nice. He was mean and mean people suck. This whole modern Christian litany is so tedious and tiny. Of course, other people equally foolish think the solution is to be rude and mean…But God is not nice or rude, He is dangerous and unpredictable. He is Trinity, He is fire and fire is hard to contain…Fire’s edges won’t stand still, its borders aren’t easily traced…whatever God wants in our relationship with Him, it certainly isn’t respectability.”
Jones concludes speaking about Job, and could be speaking to many of us when he writes, “The Lord’s complaint against Job is not that Job didn’t respect authority. Job did. It was more of a gross failure of friendship. Job claimed to be a friend of God but he wasn’t. He didn’t really know the character of Yahweh. He wasn’t familiar with God’s style. Job knew from a distance…he knew God as a catechism answer…but that tells us nothing about God’s character…he didn’t know that God plays with knives…that He is dangerous, and that he makes straight things crooked.”
This is what Solomon is telling us…remember who God is…truly know into whose presence you think to come…and guard yourself, don’t be evil and don’t be a fool. There is some debate as to what exactly the sacrifice of fools is a reference to. It could be the sacrificial system, the giving of self to the sacraments but doing so without thought…just going through the motions, saying the right things, doing the right things, but with little heart and little devotion.
God calls this evil. And as mentioned this takes us back a bit, and the reason is because we don’t think like God, we don’t have our minds set on that which is above, and so our judgements are earthly and worldly. Whoever would have thought that Jesus would refer to the man with one talent who buried it in the ground as wicked? He did not bring honor to the master and did not use that which was given to him for the glory of his Lord, and for this, for this nothingness, Jesus calls him wicked!!!
This draws us back a bit, for this wicked man, this unprofitable man, is also called a servant. He is not in the category as those who hated the master, refusing to accept his rule and who are then in the end, judged and destroyed in the wrath of the King. NO, this one is called a servant and it is never denied that he was anything but a servant. He was given the same as the others, and was expected by the master to do as the others had done. But he does not, and for this Jesus calls him wicked.
This is something that makes Christians uncomfortable, isn’t it? It is something that we just as soon ignore and not talk about. And after all, what evil, wicked thing did he do so that this sentence would rest upon him? What crime did he commit, which of the Ten Commandments of the law of God raise up to damn him? He did not take the mina and spend it on himself. He was not a thief. He was not irresponsible just setting it down somewhere and losing it.
In this way it seems to me that he excels many today who profess to be servants of the Lord Jesus Christ, who use their talents, resources, energy and time simply to promote their own good.
There are many to be sure, who take all that God has done for them and given to them and use it for their own pleasure and then make us listen to their elaborate justifications and excuses for doing so. There are plenty of people who would profess to be servants of the Lord Jesus who would never be found doing much of anything that even remotely looks to be self-sacrificing, cross bearing, and loving neighbor for the sake of Jesus. Rather, find all efforts for their own betterment and advancement. They are not adulterers, or drunkards, they in fact are decent and orderly, educated and may be well-spoken and admired. And yet, they begin and end with self, and every mina they can get their hands on is used to serve themselves.
But that is nothing like the man in Jesus’ parable at least we have no reason to think so. He does not stoop to such open sin, NOR to such deception as to cover over what he is really up to with his mina. And yet, still, he is called wicked. He did not go and mis-spend it. He is not like the prodigal son, wasting his father’s money with sinful indulgences. He never touched it for his own fleshly desires. He had not used his mina for himself or for sinful living, but there is another issue, another concern, and one that has eternal implications. We can draw no other conclusion from Jesus’ words.
We don’t make judgements the way the Lord does, we don’t see things the way that He sees them, and brothers and sisters, the way you come to worship, the way you approach God, the words that you speak revealing much as words do, as to what is in your heart…are drawing the attention and gaze of our God.
Are we just going through the motions? Are we just speaking so our voice is heard? Do we mean anything of what we are saying? If not, then this is evil…even as the man who did nothing was wicked, that is not my conclusion, that is God’s conclusion.
The sacrifice of fools that Solomon mentions must be a reference to the very words that come from the mouths of worshippers. There is to be a connection between the mouth and the heart, for out of the mouth the heart speaks. Your words are a window to your soul, not just in a qualitative sense but in a quantitative sense as well.
The Bible says a lot of things about the words we speak and it could be that for some the reason you don’t guard your words when coming before the face of God, is because you don’t ever think to guard your words period. Many Christians have no gate-keeper at their lips, they say whatever it is that they think, they don’t know when to be silent, when to listen. And sadly, often Christians are found not only talking too much, but talking about nothing but themselves!
Someone says something and immediately I have something to say back to it, about me. About my family, about my life as if God never said that in the multitude of words there is much sin.
Fascinating that even the speech of Christians illustrates the principle of Christian spirituality, that life comes through death…dying to self and seeking to serve others. And so why would there be a surprise that before God we would rattle on without thought AND why so many want the worship service to meet personal preference…after all, everything else is about me, why should it change when I come to worship?
The second aspect of this from our text has to do with taking and keeping vows, verses 4-5. This is pretty straight forward, but it too is in the context of worship. If you make a promise, a vow before the face of God to do something, then you better make sure you take this as seriously as God does. Verse 5 makes it pretty simple; it is better to NOT vow than to vow and then not fulfill it.
If you are a member of our church, you have vowed, you have promised God that you will pray for the covenant children who are in our fellowship. How are you doing in that regard? We do have the opportunity for this Wednesday evening prayer meeting to help us be faithful to this promise. Or do you think it, if truth be told, to be of little consequence to have made such a promise?
If you are a member you have vowed to support this church in its worship and work, not to complain or grumble or sit in judgement of her. You have vowed to give yourself to the discipline, the instruction of this church and to do nothing to hurt her purity or her peace.
Again, the point is in being careful and thoughtful with regard to what we say to God. Some struggle with this more than others. Some are wonderfully careful. The fool makes promises, and vows and has much to say and then can’t seem to figure out why things do not go as he had hoped. Or why after plenty of words, things finally catch up to him.
If you are struggling, if things are not right and you feel as though you are kicking against the goads, if worship and the means of grace seem empty and lifeless. Interestingly, the text ends the same way that Solomon concluded his thought in chapter 3 verse 14. There, in the context of God’s doing what He pleases, and that our response to God’s Sovereignty, is simply to fear him…here there is a direct link to the many words that we speak, specifically, the many words that we utter in the presence of God and whether or not we fear Him.
He is saying, look, don’t babble on, don’t run your mouth, don’t come to worship without careful thought as to what you will and what you are saying to the Lord Almighty…Know who it is that you speak to and remember He is fire and fire is hard to contain…its edges won’t stand still.
If you know God, you will know him as a God who is not safe, who is not tame, but as CS Lewis says, one who is good. AND, you will fear Him, because God is heaven and you on the earth, therefore, let your words be few…and walk prudently when you go to the house of God.
Prayer: Father, I pray that I would see things more the way You do instead of drawing conclusions according to the wisdom of man. I confess that my words are often too many and careless. Forgive my foolish speech and the heart from which they come. Give me grace that I would let no unwholesome speech come out of my mouth but only that which is useful to build up my own heart and the hearts of others, through Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen.
Hymn: O God You Are My God
