Ecclesiastes 5:1-7 Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than to offer 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. Therefore let your words be few. 3 For a dream comes with much business, and a fool’s voice with many words.
4 When you 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 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? 7 For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity; but God is the one you must fear.
INTRODUCTION
Our passage for this morning is one of the many reasons I believe that Ecclesiastes seems to have been written for today. Of course, on one hand, it was—all of God’s Word is for all of God’s people always. But I mean something different than that. What I mean is that everything about the Preacher’s words reads like something every pastor should be addressing from the pulpit right now. It is a rebuke of a belief that is as prominent today as it has ever been—the belief that we can come to God on our own terms. There is currently a swell, inside and outside the Church, of people who are generally religious and believe that to be a form of worship that is acceptable to God.
In these few verses, the Preacher gives us one of the more above the sun passages in all of Ecclesiastes. He helps us understand how we ought to draw near to God by sharing both how to and how not to do so. That is, He tells us the kind of approach to God that is displeasing and pleasing to God.
The big questions this text thrusts upon us are: Does God care how we come to Him? And, if so, what does He want and how do we know? In other words, as you come to church each Sunday, does it matter what we wear, how we carry ourselves, or how we pray, listen, and talk? Does it make any difference how we sing, give an offering, or respond to what happens in the service? Do volume levels matter? What about where we sit? Does our level of eagerness or sincerity matter? What really matters to God in our worship?
The big idea of this passage is that God alone establishes how we must draw near to Him. Only fools believe they can come to God on their own terms. The wise and faithful fear God and come as He calls. The main takeaways, then, are to consider carefully your approach to God, repent of any man-made ways, and look to Jesus who alone provides access to God.
HOW TO DRAW NEAR TO GOD
I grew up in a high church setting. Symbolism was everywhere. Liturgy was everything. The building was essential. Virtually no part of the church or services I attended were accessible. Everything seemed to be focused on the transcendent (holy, other, different) aspects of God’s nature.
I came to faith in Jesus in a ministry context that was on the opposite end of the spectrum. There was no symbolism or meaningful liturgy. Creativity and novelty were key. It made no difference where worship happened (often in the same campus classrooms I’d been in earlier that day listening to a godless lecture). Accessibility was a paramount virtue—things needed to be immediately understandable. Everything seemed to be focused on the imminent (near, personal, similar) aspects of God’s nature.
Fast forward a few years. I became a youth pastor at the time in which “seeker-sensitive” worship services and contemporary worship songs sung within churches were just beginning. The big idea was that people were leaving the church and so the church needed to adjust her methods to win them back. The most prominent method-adjustment was to create a worship service that non-Christians would want to go to—high on performance (concert-like music and lighting), high on environment (trendy, coffee shop-like design), high on understandability (topical, felt-need sermons, and PPT), and high on comfortability (little talk of sin or repentance).
The underlying assumption of the church I grew up in seemed to be that God cared about only and every external aspect of the worship service. The underlying assumption of the ministry I came to Christ in seemed to be that God only cared about the sincerity of the internal aspects of the worship service. And the underlying assumption of the “seeker-sensitive” churches seemed to be that God is most concerned with what works in getting people to the services.
These three approaches to worship introduced me to many of the questions I mentioned earlier. By God’s grace, I knew that as a pastor I had to figure this out for myself and for those I was called to lead.
In large measure, the Preacher wrote these seven verses to answer those questions and insodoing (at least indirectly) addressed all three of the assumptions I’d encountered. Most specifically though, Ecclesiastes 5:1-7 is directed at those who feel like they are free to come to God however they wish.
The primary context of this passage, as the opening verse indicates, is coming to God in formal worship (the temple in the Preacher’s day; Sunday morning in ours). And the primary audience is the church-goer who foolishly does so flippantly or casually, as if he and God were on equal plains.
One commentator writes (Ryken, PTW, 120), “[The Preacher’s] exhortations are for people who do go to church but sometimes find it hard to pay attention, whose thoughts wander when they pray, and who are full of good intentions about serving God but have trouble following through”… which, of course, is all of us at times.
The opening and closing clauses of our passage get us right to the heart of the matter. Together, the bookends help us to see that drawing near to God is a serious matter and that God is most certainly not indifferent to how we do so. Along the way, we find seven above the sun principles on how and how not to draw near to God (in a manner pleasing to God).
So, how should we draw near to God when we gather each week? Grace, let us offer silent prayers for the Spirit’s help to consider our ways as we do.
First, guard your steps (1a)
Our passage opens with a stern command that is almost certainly also a somber warning.
Guard your steps when you go to the house of God.
This is the opposite of being casual or flippant. It is the opposite of coming to God however we see fit. To come into the presence of God as He requires means doing so in a careful manner. We must “watch our step” when we approach God. God is not indifferent to the way in which we approach Him.
There are a number of NT parallels, one of which we hear every month when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper together, “Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself” (1 Co 11:28–29).
This too is why we have an exhortation and assurance of pardon as a part of our weekly worship. We mean to warn you against all manner of falsely stepping into God’s house—most notably, against believing you can do so on your own merit and, on the other end of the spectrum, that even in Christ you might not be welcomed.
And this is why it matters how we order our service, what we sing, how we pray, who we put up front, as well as how we dress, what we bring with us, how we conduct ourselves during the service, what we let our kids do (or not do), and what our expectations are. We need to guard all our steps.
Grace, the point for us to see, to joyfully and humbly receive, and to sacrificially live out, is that coming here as a gathered people, on the Lord’s Day, in His presence, must be on God’s terms. We must come as He has called. And we must be on guard against any step in any other direction.
Much of the rest of this passage unpacks what, specifically, we are to be on guard against. But before we get to it, let me admonish us all to heed this command. Guard your steps, Grace Church. God bids you come, but learn this morning more about how He bids you to do so, pray that He’d grant you a tender heart toward it, and fight in the Spirit’s power to come each week with more guarded steps for God’s glory and the good of everyone.
Second, draw near to listen (1b)
The second worship principle given to us by the Preacher, the first way in which a well-guarded heart comes to God, is that when we come into God’s house, we must draw near to God to “listen”.
To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools…
To “listen” in this sense has a double meaning. First, it means to tune in in order to comprehend. It means really hearing what God has said and thinking carefully on it. It means writing down your questions and finding help to find the answers. It means, as we learned yesterday at Masculine Mandate, disciplining our minds.
We simply cannot honor God apart from a true and legitimate understanding of what He has said. It just does not honor God for us to believe we understand what God has said if it isn’t what He has said. To draw near to listen in the first sense means pressing into God’s Word until you have understanding.
The second aspect of the meaning of “listen” is putting whatever we hear from Him into practice. To listen as the Preacher commends always connects genuine understanding with faithful application. It always means combining right doctrine with right actions.
I’ve said this before, but this is of the most significant aspects of a Jewish understanding of what it means to “know” something—the inseparable connection between concept and practice.
We tend to separate the two. We might say “I know that I should honor my parents” apart from any actual honoring. But for the OT Jew, for the Preacher, you simply can’t talk about knowing something that doesn’t directly impact your life. In that sense, you don’t really know that you should honor your parents until/unless you actually do so.
This is similar to that. The Preacher’s point is that you aren’t really listening to God if you don’t really understand what He has said AND if your life isn’t changed in light of what you hear.
This is why preparing your ears for worship is so important. This is why it is so hard to fill your ears with worldly things (sports, movies, entertainment, social media, etc.) all week and have ears that can hear God on Sundays. This is why it is so hard to come in distracted, having listened to bickering in the car the whole way here, and then hear God. We’re not made to be able to simply flip this kind of “listening” switch. We need to cultivate good ears so we’re ready to hear.
Before moving onto the next principle, let me say one more thing about this one. Listening like this when we come to church week after week after week is challenging. We’ll only be willing to put in the kind of work necessary to really hear/listen week after week after week, when we really believe He is worth listening to—more than anything else in the universe.
Psalm 19:9-10 says, “…the rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether. 10 More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.”
Are those words the genuine cry of your heart? Do you really believe them to be true? The more you do, the more you give yourself to drawing near to listen as the Preacher exhorts.
To hear God’s Word is a gift of inestimable worth. When you hear it read or prayed or sung or preached this morning (and every Sunday), heed the Preacher’s words and listen! Take it in. Mediate on it. Ask for the Spirit’s help to really understand and really be transformed by it. Don’t let a drop of it fall to the ground undrunk. More than water in a desert, every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord is precious.
Don’t mishear (pun intended) me, Grace. Come as you are. God’s grace is sufficient. Come hurting, come late, come confused, come having heard nothing but junk all week, come with worldly appetites, come deaf. God’s grace in Jesus is more than enough for you. And, at the same time, come knowing that God’s grace meets you where you are in order to bring you where you need to be. He is already at work in you to transform your coming.
If this sounds serious, you’re hearing it rightly. Guard your steps, Grace. And the first way we’re told to do so is by making sure we are here to “listen” to God when we draw near to Him.
Third, don’t make flippant, ignorant offerings to God (1b)
The third principle is the alternative to the second. If we are not listening to God when we come to church, we are talking to Him. We wouldn’t word it that way because we don’t think of it that way, but the fact of the matter is that if we are not ordering our worship according to what God says, then we are essentially telling God how He will be worshiped. The Preacher calls that the evil sacrifice of fools.
To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil.
Are you tracking, Grace? The point is that when we come to worship God, when we gather here on a Sunday morning, one of two things is happening. Either we come (1) with our ears wide open to consider what God has said so that we might live more fully in light of it or (2) in some other way of our own evil, foolish, detrimental-making. The first way is pleasing to God and the second is the pinnacle of folly. There are no other ways. There is no third alternative.
This draws to mind 2 Samuel 6:5-7. It does not take place in the context of a formal worship service, but it is one of the most startling and blatant displays of the fact that God is anything but indifferent to the manner in which we come to Him.
“And David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before the Lord, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals. 6 And when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. 7 And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and God struck him down there because of his error, and he died there beside the ark of God.”
Uzzah almost certainly thought he was offering a good service to God by keeping the ark from falling to the ground. How terrible would that have been to watch it crash down? Common sense says that what he did was right. But his death tells us in no uncertain terms that our common sense is not God’s standard.
That sounds harsh, but it is simply the Preacher’s admonition played out. His point here is that good intentions are not inherently pleasing to God. Not knowing that you are offering evil sacrifices doesn’t make them not evil. Our ignorance of God’s Word is a second sin, not an excuse for an initial sin. Our worship must be in spirit and truth. What we offer to God must be based on knowledge of God, which, once again, comes from listening to God.
As you know, Grace, none of us have listened well enough. And even if we did, none of us are smart enough to understand it all. Jesus came to bring justification for our sins of ignorance and sincere but misguided “obedience” as much as every other sin. And yet, that is not the same as justification for us to go on in ignorance. The good news of our forgiveness in Christ compels us to listen even more carefully to God’s will, it does not free us from it. This is why we come to Berea, and listen to sermons preached, and have quiet times, and carefully study the Word of God. This is why God has given us parents and husbands and elders to guide us.
In faith we seek to come as God calls, in the power God provides, accepting His forgiveness for our failings.
Fourth, don’t be rash, hasty, or many with your words in prayer (2a, c, 3, 7a)
Several times in the next few verses, the Preacher focuses on the speech of those in the house of God. Since the context is approaching God in worship, the idea here is primarily prayer. While it is always wise to be careful with our words, the Preacher has prayer in worship in mind.
With that, look at vs.2, “Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God… Therefore let your words be few.”
In addition, the Preacher comes back to this in v.3 and again in v.7 with some interesting words.
3 For a dream comes with much business, and a fool’s voice with many words.
7 For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity
In all of this, something Jesus said comes to mind, “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words” (Matthew 6:7).
When we pray together this morning, we are not informing God of things He doesn’t already know. Likewise, when we pray, we cannot impress God with our ability to string together words, either in quantity or quality. Therefore, do not pray things you don’t mean. Do not pray things God has forbidden. Do not pray mindlessly. Do not pray just for the sake of talking. Do not pray just for the sake of being heard.
All of that is equally true when we “pray” the assurance of pardon together, “pray” creeds together, “pray” songs together. And “pray” Psalms together.
The Preacher’s point is not to keep track of our prayer word count. The Preacher’s point is not that you need to be a Bible scholar before God will hear your prayers. The Preacher’s point is not to make us timid in our prayers.
His point is to remind us to guard our steps whenever we come before God. His point is to remind us to tell the truth when we pray. It is to remind us that our prayers are meant to be an expression of our dependance on God and satisfaction in God, not a chance to check out or to impress God (or others). It is to remind us that God delights to hear from us when we come to Him knowing that He is God and we are not. And that leads us straight to the next point.
Fifth, know your place (2b)
The fifth worship principle is to always come before God knowing our place before God.
…for God is in heaven and you are on earth.
We are not God’s equals. We are not first His buddies. Talking and listening to God is not the same as talking and listening to your softball teammates or bandmates or coffee friends or spouse. God is always first God, Creator and Sustainer of all, King of kings, Lord of lords, the Alpha and Omega, sovereign ruler of the universe. And you are never any of those things.
The passage that always comes to mind when I consider this principle is Job 38. In it, God replies to Job’s belief that he understood what God was doing and should have been doing in his suffering. The whole chapter is a scathing rebuke and a fierce charge for Job to know his place. Vs.4-7 are a good summary.
Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. 5 Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? 6 On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, 7 when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
Drawing near to God in a manner pleasing to God means guarding your steps. And guarding your steps necessarily includes seeing yourself in relation to God as He really is and you really are.
It’s hard to overstate this one, Grace. You can never know the freedom that is yours in Christ if it doesn’t begin with and remain in the knowledge that God is in heaven and you are on earth. You will never come before Him, listen to Him, make right offerings, or pray in a manner pleasing to Him if you don’t begin those things by making a distinction in your mind and heart between you and Him.
He has always been and will always be God and you never have been or will be. Knowing this is what makes His offer to approach Him so sweet. It is only once you know why Isaiah believed himself to be ruined in God’s presence (Isaiah 6) that you can come into it in a manner pleasing to Him.
Sixth, keep your word (4-6)
The next worship principle is an interesting one. Unlike the first five, we don’t tend to think as much about this one…at least not in the way the Preacher talks about it. The sixth method of guarding our steps when going into the house of God is to make sure we pay our vows when we do. Look at v.4.
When you 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 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?
We see this idea echoed in passages like Psalm 50:14, “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High…”.
We see it in practice in Hannah (1 Samuel 1:11) and Jephthah (Judges 11:29-40). (I just read the story of Jephtha’s vow in my quiet time this week. Every time I do, I wonder what he was thinking. What did he think would come out of his house?!)
So, what does it mean to “pay what you vow” or “perform your vows”?
“The Bible assumes that there are times when it is appropriate for us to take spiritual vows, like the vows of covenant matrimony [marriage], for example, or the promises people make when they become members of a church” (Ryken, PTW, 125). Similarly, there are times when, within the context of a worship service, the church is rightly called to vow to give a certain amount of money toward a missionary or the adoption of an orphan.
The Preacher’s point is that rightly coming before God means keeping your word in these righteous vows. It is dishonoring to God to be dishonest. It’s better not to make a vow at all than to make one and not keep it before God. It is so serious, in fact, that failing to do so angers God and brings about His discipline (“destroy the work of your hands”).
One of the keys to grasping all of this is that there is a heightened significance when God’s people gather. When we assemble as a church there is a higher standard and higher blessings. There is more accountability and more grace. That’s an uncommon perspective in the Church today, but it is unmistakable in the Bible. Our private devotions are important. God works regularly in them. But God has always held the gathering in higher esteem and chosen to manifest His presence and give His grace in even more significant ways in it. The Preacher’s language in this passage is a lot harder to understand without this understanding.
Seventh, fear God (7b)
Finally, the other bookend of this passage is the seventh worship principle. Once again, it, along with the first, help us see how seriously God takes our entering into His house. To guard our steps toward God means listening to God, avoiding ignorant or flippant offerings, being careful with our prayers, knowing our place, keeping our word, and properly fearing God.
…but God is the one you must fear.
The idea of the fear of the LORD is one of the most important and confusing principles in the Bible.
It is confusing because there are two kinds of fear. One is good and the other is bad. To explain the difference, consider a simple illustration from parenting.
One child fears his dad because he never knows what to expect from him. Sometimes his dad comes home from work and everything is fine. Other times, however, he comes home angry or drunk. And when he is angry or drunk his words are harsh and his expectations are ever-changing. It takes very little for the child to receive his father’s unpredictable and undeserved whip. This causes the child to be anxious every time his father comes home as he waits to find out what awaits him that evening. That kind of fear is rooted in an aversion to his father’s strength being used to sin against him.
Another child fears his father, but only in the sense that he knows his father loves him such that he is jealous for him to walk in the path of righteousness, safety, and joy. As such, the boy lives in complete confidence that as long as he heeds his father’s instruction, he will receive only loving praise, and encouragement. And in equal confidence that should he veer from it, out of the same loving heart, his father will correct him in a manner proportionate to his wandering and always for his highest good. He too fears his father, but his fear leads to an aversion of sin, knowing that his father’s strength will be used to protect and, if necessary, restore him from it.
The Preacher, of course, has the second kind of fear in mind. We catch a glimpse of it in Psalm 89.
Psalm 89:6-7 For who in the skies can be compared to the Lord? Who among the heavenly beings is like the Lord, 7 a God greatly to be feared in the council of the holy ones, and awesome above all who are around him?
It is the failure to distinguish between these two kinds of fear that has led some to think the fear of the LORD is only for the unbeliever. Rightly understood, however, the fear of the Lord is one of the greatest gifts God can give us. Until we learn to rightly fear Him, we will never be able to draw near to Him in a pleasing manner; for it is only on the other side of a God-given fear of God, that we will turn to Him for the God-given grace of God in Jesus.
Guarding our steps when entering the house of the Lord comes from a proper fear of God. And once we have that, we have nothing to fear.
WE COME TO GOD THROUGH CHRIST ALONE
Everything we considered so far, everything the Preacher knew and shared, all pointed to something greater. Everything he said was true and good, but anyone who has been granted an honest look at their heart and life knows that we continually fall short of all of it. None of us perfectly rejects God’s prohibitions or embraces His requirements. The gist of the Preacher’s teaching was that only those who come to God in humble faith are acceptable to God. But how does that work? Let’s consider Ephesians 3 for our answer and in closing.
Ephesians 3:8-12 To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9 and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, 10 so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. 11 This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him.
Today, on the other side of the death and resurrection of Jesus, we are able to come before God with boldness and confidence. Indeed, He has torn the veil of the holy of holies in half. And faith in Jesus is the conduit through which God has chosen to carry this grace to us.
The freedom of Christ is not, however, a freedom to come however we see fit. Instead, as the Preacher has helped us to see so clearly, it is a freedom to love to come as God commands and delights in.
Come, therefore, Grace, draw near to God, enter His house, gather with His people. But do so through faith in Jesus, with guarded steps, in order to listen to God, not to instruct Him, with humble, biblical prayers, in full acknowledgement that God is God and we are not, as promise-keepers, and in reverential awe of God. This is what it means to come before Him in a manner pleasing to Him. This is what we are to guard our steps for. This is what our worship service is meant to be. This is our great, gracious gift of God in Christ.