We’re going to be in Ecclesiastes chapter 5 this morning. If you have your Bibles, Ecclesiastes chapter 5.

Ecclesiastes chapter 5.

And here’s what the preacher says in Ecclesiastes 5. He says, 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. 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. For a dream comes with much business and a fool’s voice with many words.

I mentioned it before, but one of my favorite books is The Pilgrims. Progress.

Charles Spurgeon read Pilgrims Progress over a hundred times in his life. So I absolutely love that book. And in The Pilgrims Progress, it’s an allegory of the Christian life. It’s a story about a man named Christian. And he’s on a journey, on a pilgrimage from the city of destruction to the celestial city. So an evangelist comes to him and preaches the gospel. And so now he’s on his way to Christ, to the eternal city. And it’s a series of temptations. It’s a series of tests for him. Sometimes he does well. Sometimes he doesn’t do so well. But towards the end of the book, Christian and his friend Hopeful are walking on this path. And the path’s narrow and it’s hard and it’s not smooth. And they see on the other side of this wall, there’s this very, very smooth path. And it looks like it connects back with their path down the way. So Christian says to Hopeful, let’s just get on that smooth path. Let’s do that. It’ll be better. And Hopeful’s apprehensive, but he gives in. So they follow a man named Vain Confidence on this smooth path, but not too long down the road, it becomes pitch black dark. And Vain Confidence falls into a pit. And then they’re washed away by a flood. And they suffer much because they did not stay on the path like they were told. And though that’s allegorical, it very much so is true to life. The reason why we so often live in a way, think in a way, do in a way that doesn’t please the Lord is because we don’t obey His Word. We don’t revere God. We revere God, meaning we obey God. But sinful flesh says, you know what? In Vain Confidence, I’m going to do things my way. But friends, doing things our way always leads to inevitable destruction. So probably King Solomon, King Solomon prayed for great wisdom from God when he became king. He most likely wrote Ecclesiastes. And Ecclesiastes basically is one big book saying this, life is vanity. Whatever pursuit you have, whatever pleasure you could have, whatever accomplishment you can make in life, it’s all going to amount to nothing because in the end, we all go into the ground. You can’t take anything with you. Nothing lasts. So his big plea throughout the book is this, revere and fear the Lord. Live God’s way. Because if you live God’s way and you fear the Lord as holy, it will end well for you. If you don’t revere the Lord and you live in vain confidence according to your own pride, it will not end well for you. So that’s the simple, really, admonishment from Ecclesiastes. And that’s what I want us to consider here this morning. How do we live with, not time to time, how do we live with a holy reverence? How do I walk in the fear of the Lord? That’s what we’re going to consider here in chapter 5. So again, verse 1, he says, 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. So when you hear that phrase, house of God, and I’ve talked about this a little bit before, house of God mostly meant, especially for Solomon’s audience, the temple. The temple was the very center of cultural life, religious life for all of God’s people, for all the Israelites, the Jews in this time. Why is that so? Well, because the temple, the temple was actually, not kind of, it wasn’t like symbolic or metaphorical, it was literally the place where the presence of God rested. So you wanted to go to the temple, because in the temple, in the holies of holies, the very real presence of God resided. So if I love God, I want to go to the temple to be near God. And you go to the temple to do what? Make very and very, read the book of Leviticus, very particular sacrifices, animal sacrifices, grain sacrifices, for very particular sins. The priests were supposed to do it, they were supposed to do in temple life, take care of the temple in a very particular way. So the temple was God’s place, and things happened the way God wanted them to happen. The priests would have instructed and taught on the law. So I’m going to the house of God to do two things. Be in the presence of God and hear God’s word. That’s why I wanted to do it. Now more informally, um, the house of God can refer to a synagogue. And a synagogue was a place where Jewish people would have gathered to hear. Men would have just instructed on the Torah. That’s our, you know, first five books of the Bible. So it was an informal place to go. Prophets went there to teach. Jesus and his ministry largely taught in synagogues. Paul used synagogues in his missionary journeys to evangelize. So at the end of it, particularly the instruction is, when you go to this geographical place, when you show up in God’s presence, when you hear God’s word, act this way. But I want us to see the principle behind it. It’s less about geography.

And friends, it’s far more relevant for us to consider posture.

The posture of our hearts. The posture of our minds before God. And that’s true for them as Old Testament saints. But for us on this side of the cross, it’s far more relevant. And we’ll see why.

So he says when you come into the presence of God, when you hear the word of God, he says guard your steps. Be really careful. Watch your path. So it’s not a fake warning. It’s like, hey, if you go out in front of a car, you’re going to get run over. It’s not a fake warning. If you do it, you’re going to die. So in the same way, it’s not a fake warning, which means what? There is a possibility people can, people do, go into the presence of God, listen to the word of God wrongly, and so sin, and so suffer the consequences.

It comes back to the question, friends, of reverence. It comes back to fearing the Lord and recognizing who He is, the right posture of heart and mind before we come into His presence and hear Him. And now I want to say on the words fear and reverence, these things, I think we hear fear and reverence in our 21st century sensibilities, like, hey, God’s, you know, God’s love. It’s all acceptance. Let’s, you know, everything’s fine. Well, let’s have a biblical, working biblical definition of fear and reverence. When we talk about fear, we’re not talking about like something that’s against you, something that’s going to hurt you. Something that’s going to tear you down. It’s not like some guy with a knife. It’s not like fear of ruin. In this sense, it’s two things, fear and reverence. It’s first reverence as in sense of revering and authority. Now, some people can relate to this better than others because some people have good earthly fathers and others don’t. But the reason why I fear or revere my earthly father is because he has good character, meaning he’s generally going to give me good instruction. So I want to listen to my father because he’s a good authority. In a perfect world, all authority would be good. That’s not the world we live in. Still yet, we’re called to revere and respect authority over us because authority is supposed to be for our good. I want to hear what my dad says. I fear him. I revere him because he’s for my good. I want to respect him. So that’s one. But here’s two behind it. While God is loving father, while Jesus is our shepherd king who is kind and gentle as we sang, friends, we have to also always live with the tension of the fact that Jesus is also eternal. He’s an eternal judge. He will judge every soul. Revelation 19 talks about Jesus coming back on a white horse with the armies of heaven and a sword’s going to come out of his mouth and he’s going to cut down all the nations and all of his enemies who have not submitted to him as holy, as God. And when that happens, it says there’s going to be so many dead bodies everywhere that the birds are going to gorge themselves on flesh. So Jesus is not this passive pushover. He’s loving and he’s meek, but at the same time, Jesus will enforce, hear this word,

God’s inflexible holiness, God’s inflexible righteousness. We will all be judged to that standard. So as I follow Jesus, I remember, friends, God is holy. God is righteous. He’s not bending that for me. The good news of the gospel isn’t that I get away with sin. The good news of the gospel is I’m set free from the penalty of sin because of what Jesus did and I’m free to fear and revere the Lord. So those are good words. Those are good words for us as Christians. If these things are so, how do we maintain the fear of the Lord? The first thing that he says to us here in verse 1 is you must listen much. Listen much. That’s really the first command he gives. And what I want to do is walk through a couple of scriptures with you where we see this play out. I’m going to look first at Exodus chapter 3 considering Moses.

It says, Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and he came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, I will turn aside to see this great sight while the bush is not burned. When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called him out of the bush, Moses, Moses. And he said, here I am, or have your way with me, I’m listening. Then he said, do not come near, take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. It’s holy because God was there. And he said, I’m the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

And now look at Acts chapter 10.

It says, at Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian cohort, a devout man, a man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God. About the ninth hour of the day, he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God come in and say to him, Cornelius. And he stared at him, Cornelius says, and terror. What is it, Lord?

And he said, your prayers, your alms, have ascended as a memorial before God. Now send men to Joppa and bring one, Simon, who is called Peter. So I want you to see this simple pattern here play out there.

Moses, he sees, he recognizes God, he fears God, and it moves him to do what? Obey God. Now Moses was knuckle-headed and he argued with God, but he obeyed God. Cornelius, he came into the presence of God. He was afraid when he recognized how holy and good God was. And then what did Cornelius do? He obeyed. And he went to Peter. And that’s the incredible story of the Gentiles receiving salvation. So see the very simple biblical sequence here. I see God for who He is. I fear Him, which leads me to obey Him. That’s always the end goal. I’m not fearing God just to fear Him. I’m fearing Him to be changed.

And I think that kind of godly simplicity is sometimes a bad taste in our mouth. I want to do things my way. And pride, I want it to be about me. But friends, I want you to see on the opposite side, negative examples of this. And I think if listening, if that’s like anticlimactic, I want you to see what happens when people don’t listen. So let me go to Leviticus 10.

And it says, Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized, or you could translate that, strange fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them. And they died before the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, Aaron, this is what the Lord has said, Among those who are near me, I will be sanctified. And before all the people, I will be glorified. And Aaron held his peace. So what’s going on here? We’ve just been given the law. The tabernacle’s just been built. The presence of God has just fallen on it. And the great high priest Aaron, his two sons who are priests, what are they doing? We don’t really know. They’re doing something that God did not tell them to do. Maybe they put, they put fire in their censer that wasn’t coals from the altar. Maybe they used the wrong ingredients. All that to say, they were doing something that they wanted to do, something God did not tell them to do. And did God say, hey guys, I just gave you the whole book of Leviticus. It’s really, you know, really boring to read through. All those laws. I just gave it to you, but I’m going to give you this grace because we just started out. Don’t do that again. That’s not what happens. Fire comes out from the altar and consumes them.

And then what is the, the word that God gives Aaron through Moses? It’s not, hey, I’m very sorry, you just lost your sons. It’s, hey, Aaron, you’re a priest, and if you come in my presence, you’re going to do right and you’re going to be right. I will be glorified as holy among my people.

So you see the sobriety there. You see the seriousness of God’s holiness and the seriousness when we don’t take it seriously. Let me give you one more example.

2 Samuel chapter 6. It says, 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. 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. And the anger of the Lord was kindled or broke out against Uzzah, and God struck him down there because of his error. And he died there beside the ark of God. And David was angry because the Lord had broken out against Uzzah. And that place is called Perez Uzzah to this day. And David was afraid of the Lord that day. And he said, How can the ark of the Lord come to me? So again, I’m thinking, Lord, can you be a little, like, show some mercy, there’s some kindness. It stumbled. The ark fell and he was going out to catch it. Like the guy was trying to keep the ark of the Lord from falling. But consider this. The law never said put the ark of the covenant on a cart. And the law never said that anyone can carry it. The law says only priests can carry it. And priests can carry it on their shoulders. So before this event even happens, David’s already deep in sin because he’s ignored how God has said this is how you transport the ark. So when it falls,

Uzzah sinned. Because Uzzah did what God’s law said don’t do. And so we’re back to the issue of God’s inflexible righteousness. God’s inflexible holiness. Walter Brueggemann notes, the fear generated by this event was positive. For when people are, no longer awed, respectful, or fearful of God’s holiness, the community is put at risk.

I think all that overwhelming biblical evidence should do what, friends? It should remind us that we are at danger of thinking, being, doing, acting in a manner that God deems evil because we did not take the time to revere God as holy and then listen to what He has to say to us. That’s what it means. It means we have to be a listening people to our God. And the truth of the matter is, I think listen is probably a great understatement for us as New Testament saints and here’s why. We don’t rely on buildings to be New Testament Christians. We don’t need a temple.

And here’s what that means. If you knock down all church buildings in the world, God’s house still stands. You know why? Because you are God’s house. I am God’s house. We together are the house of God. Peter says in his first epistle, and you come to Him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious. You yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Friends, when we place faith in Jesus, the Scripture tells us that we actually become the temple. We become the place where the very real and literal, not symbolic, not metaphorical, the very real presence and power of God rests. So work. Work it out. If it’s true that every moment of every day you are in the presence of God because the presence of God is in you, does it not mean every second of every day we should be living in the fear of the Lord so that we can hear Him right, so that we can obey Him right? Life becomes, when you receive the Spirit of God, life becomes one giant opportunity to praise and glorify God by walking in the fear of the Lord and living right according to His commandments. That’s both a privilege and it’s both a very high responsibility that, friends, we can’t take lightly. Paul says in Romans 12, I urge you, I beseech you, brothers, by the mercies of God, offer yourselves as dead sacrifices like animals according to the old law. That’s not what it says. Paul says you now offer your actual bodies, offer your lives, your thoughts, everything you say, you do, everything you have, everything is a living sacrifice to God. You fear the Lord, you live right before God because you have the spirit of God. You have the spirit within you moving you to do it. We are the house of God in how we live and we glorify God, friends, when we fear and revere and obey in everyday life.

James says it was the implanted word that brought salvation. And, friends, the Spirit of God that has applied that word is growing us more and more into Christ’s likeness. And I think that this text, along with so many other texts, would be really bad news if God gave us His commandments, but He didn’t give us His Spirit. Because if God gives us His commandments, this is a damning text because as much as God shows me what’s right, I have no power within myself to obey it. And I’ve kind of talked about this for the last few weeks. Until I actually love the truth, I’m never going to rightly obey the truth. So God is gracious and kind in this. He has both said to me, this is how you’re supposed to live. This is who I am. But He’s also given me His Spirit to have, as Paul talks about, the spiritual eyes to see God for who He is. The spiritual ears to hear God for who He is. And the spiritual power to actually live out and obey God. God has given us the Word and He has given us the Spirit. That’s the good news of the Gospel for us. This text is not damning, not cussing, damning, but friends, it becomes life-giving because of what Christ has done for us. So the Bible is not a book. It’s the living, active Word of God. And when the Spirit applies this to us, He’s applying Christ to us. He’s growing us. He’s growing us in the fear of the Lord, which means He’s growing us in holiness, which means He’s growing us in obedience, which means He’s growing us to glorify God more and more. Think about the old hymn, Amazing Grace. Grace that taught my heart to fear.

It is a grace from the Lord that we would fear God and recognize Him for who He is. And so what I’m not trying to do at all, I’m not trying to flatten the text. Everybody read your Bible and we’ll all be fine. Just read the Bible and life will be good. I’m talking about posture. And so kind of biblical sequence here, again for us, grace has taught me to fear. Fear has led me to listen. And the Spirit of God then has led me to obey that. And obeying leads me to right worship. And right worship leads me to glorify God. How can I glorify God? Worship Him. How do I know how to worship Him? Obey Him. How can I obey Him? The Word and the Spirit teach me how. You see that? You see how God is kind to say it, but then by the power of the cross empower us, for it. It is only the pride of man. It is our vain confidence that stands in the way. I read this last week. Churches in the United States have about $80 billion invested in real estate, mostly in church and Sunday school buildings. This represents about 80% of total resources of religious bodies in the country. It has been estimated that America’s nearly 400,000 churches show a facility utilization rate of about 1%. This means that the average church makes full use of its property and equipment about one hour every 168 hours in a week. No architectural structure is used so sparingly in the world.

Now, I’m not knocking buildings. Buildings are good. Nobody loves the church gathered more than me. I don’t think. I love gathering. I love doing what I’m doing right now because I believe this is one very real way that we fear the Lord and we hear His Word. It’s through the preaching of God’s Word. But friends, what we cannot do, is live as if Christ never died. Live as if Christ never was risen again. Live as if the presence and Spirit of God didn’t come upon us so that not just here when we’re gathered, but friends, out there we’re worshiping God. Out there we’re being living sacrifices. I have an opportunity. Every day when I get home, when I’m tired, and I’ve got a six and a three running up to me and want to play with me and talk to me, I have the opportunity to worship God by saying, hey, let’s play. What is it? How are you doing? I have the opportunity to say to my wife, how could I help? Do I fail at this? Yes. Quit making faces.

I have the opportunity to take the money that I have and say, Lord, what do you want me to do with it? I have the opportunity when people offend me and wrong me to respond in the right way. Literally, there’s so many avenues between mind, heart, soul, body, possession, action, thought. My whole life is one big spiritual act of worship. If, if, and it’s a big if, if I’m living in the fear and reverence I should of who God is.

So friends, repent of an apathy for the Word of God. It’s not a religious book. The Word of God is the means by which we grow up. With the right posture of fearing God for who He is, love it and obey it. It is truth. It is life. And on a super, super practical level, how busy are you? Are you too busy? To sit down and fear God and listen to His Word? I think we’re so busy all the time the act of listening is a lost art.

If you love the Lord your God, if you fear the Lord your God, you will make time for the Lord your God.

How do you study the Bible? Do you know how to approach the Bible? And you say, I have no idea how to approach the Bible. I would love to show you how to approach the Bible. Friends, we gather on Sundays to fear the Lord, to hear Him. But every day after and in between is a wonderful opportunity to live a life of worship. Listen to who the Lord is so that you can obey right.

A holy reverence. Look back with me. Chapter 5.

Verse 2, he says, 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. So, there’s no need, and here’s what he’s saying with rat, there’s no need to talk real fast. There’s no need to try to get something out of your mouth as quick as you can when you talk to God. There’s no need to start throwing out, hey God, I need this. There’s no need even to start throwing up adoration and praise just because you think you’re supposed to, which I think we do sometimes. Again, the issue is not actually what you’re saying. It has more to do, again, with heart. The posture of the heart. It’s a hasty heart. The challenge is not, hey, when you pray, see how few words you can get away with saying. That’s not the challenge. The challenge is consider what you’re saying and why you’re saying it. So, it’s not quantity. It’s quality.

Several months ago, we looked in Proverbs, and the Proverbs writer says, what you say, if you remember this, it’s undeniably linked to who you are. So, in what you say, you’re going to be held accountable. People are made in the end. You’re going to be held accountable for the image of God. So, the way that you talk to and treat people, you’re going to be accountable for that. Solomon’s raising the bar. He’s saying, hey, you’re not even just talking to somebody, which you will be accountable for. When you pray, you’re talking to God. How much more should you be slow when you dare open your mouth or utter something to the Lord? He’s not someone else. God is God. And again, on the time thing, it’s easy, I think, to just go through the rhythms of life, and you don’t pause to let the truth, about how great and grand and wonderful God is, really sit on your heart.

So again,

it’s probably easy for me to say, let’s all get up at 6 a.m. and sit in prayer for two hours, and maybe that’s what you need to do, but what you need to do is one of the most spiritual things you can do, and that’s be a good time manager, just to reemphasize that, so that you’re not neglecting the Lord as holy in your schedule. But all that, that to say, friends, God is not one of our peers. The psalmist says God is in heaven, and He does whatever He pleases. We need to take that into consideration. God is the eternal God. God is the uncreated God. He’s always existed. He will always exist. He created the heavens and the earth. He created all creatures. He set galaxies in place. Planets in orbit. He knows the stars by name. God has fixed all times and seasons. He’s sovereign over human history. He’s sovereign over the rise and fall of every nation. He is aware of the most mundane, what would seem to be insignificant moment of your life. God knows it well. God is God, friends, and we are not like Him. His ways are higher than ours. His thoughts are higher than ours. Past, present, future, God holds it in the palm of His hand. God has formed you and I from the dirt of the earth. How do you like that? And the Bible says, God says that the earth is God’s footstool and the heavens are His throne.

So again, when you sit and you think about who this God is, friends, we’re not just going to stroll up and say, what’s up? I just want to sit in the weight of how beautiful and powerful this God is so that the who shapes my what.

The who shapes the what. And Job understands this well. If you know the story of Job, God allowed him to experience, it meant suffering, and Job eventually had a righteous indignation, so he thought and complained to God about what was going on. And God lovingly puts Job in his place.

God reminds Job just of who he is, and so Job can testify and identify with what the writer is saying here in Ecclesiastes. You see it in Job chapter 42.

It says, Then Job answered the Lord and said, I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours, yours can be thwarted. Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge? Therefore, I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. Hear, and I will speak. I will question you, and you make it known to me. I heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. Therefore, I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.

Friends, again, it’s godly simplicity.

Should we not just join Job in the dust and ashes and recognize who God is before we open our mouth? Allow the who to shape the what of our prayers. Because if you allow the who to shape the what, the what’s going to look a lot different. It’s not going to be, Hey God, I would like to see this work out. And hey God, I need this. Hey God, hey God. It’s going to be, Lord, because you are all I want and you are all I need and I’ve dwelt on you, my what’s going to please you? My heart is going to be lined up with your heart, which means my desires are going to be lined up with your desires. So prayer becomes what prayer is supposed to be. Me asking God to flood all of my life with all that He is. If that’s not what prayer is about, then prayer is useless. Prayer is not our means to treat God like a genie. It’s an opportunity to come into the presence of God and enjoy Him, praise Him for who He is, and then ask God for those things that are going to please Him so that He has brought more and more glory in our lives. I think Jesus says something very similar, doesn’t He, in Matthew chapter 6? He says, And when you pray, don’t heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. And Jesus goes on to give us that very simple, pray like this. You want to talk to God? Here’s what it looks like. Adore God.

Recognize God for who He is. Confess sins that you know are against God. Ask God for things that line up with His Word that are going to please Him. Thank Him for the good things that He’s done. Trust in the Lord your God. That’s what prayer is. Prayer is communing, fellowshipping, and yes, asking for things that God desires to give. And Jesus says that, doesn’t He? Jesus didn’t say, Hey, God is so much better than you, stay away. God is so much better than you, you better really have something good if you’re going to pray. No, Jesus says, Come to this grand, great, unchanging God who dwells in unapproachable light. He says, Because of me, I want you to come to Him and I want you to talk to Him often and I want you to ask and know that because you’re coming in my name and you’re asking things that are going to please God, know that God desires to give those good things, to you. God desires to satisfy you with Himself. So when you come, knowing who this God is, friends, you will be satisfied with Him.

The way of wisdom is to start by recognizing who God is. The way of the fool is to offer vain, meaningless, rash words. So here’s the rule of thumb when I’m praying. What does what I’m saying have anything to do with the Bible? Does it have anything to do with God’s mission to save all nations, to bring Himself glory? What does what I’m saying have anything to do with seeing Christ raised up more and more in my life? You know, a candy apple red Ferrari has nothing to do with God being glorified in my life. A bigger house has nothing to do with that. Even oftentimes praying that God would relieve suffering has nothing to do with it. Oftentimes the suffering is God’s means for raising us up in Christ’s likeness. So again, if I’m going to the Word, I’m seeing Jesus pray, Father, not my will, but I want Your will to be done. Even if it’s sometimes things that I don’t necessarily love or want in the moment, I know it’s good because it’s coming from You.

John Bunyan says, In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.

And so again, I’m not attempting to flatten the text. Just pray more. Everybody pray more. I’m saying, fearing the Lord right, revering God as holy, changes the desires of what you would dare pray for. And those prayers, you can be assured, will be answered.

For in His prayer, it means for you to get something or an opportunity to know someone.

And I will say also, a healthy prayer life is fueled by a healthy intake of Scripture. How can I know God’s language of what to pray to Him if I don’t know His Word? God says, this is what I’m about. You want to know what it’s like to talk to Me, to live like Me, to live around Me? Here you go. I’ve got 66 books for you to find out and increase your prayer language. It’s all right here. So again, I must be listening, listening much, and speaking little so the fullness of God comes into me by the Spirit and the Word.

In verse 3,

the preacher says, for a dream comes with much business and a fool’s voice with many words.

So people that are hasty and they’re living for the affairs of this life, they’re dreaming, they’re anxious, they’re worried. That’s always going to accompany the life that’s so busy. Just like it is with the fool that he will always have many words.

So the psalmist says, look, here’s the chief end of man. I want you to see it. And this is the very end of the book of Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes 12.13. He says, look, the end of the matter. It’s the end of the matter. Here’s the whole point of life. Here’s the whole point of existing. Here’s the whole point of being a person. Here’s the whole point. All has been hurt. He said, look, I’ve, sought the deepest wells of wisdom, of knowledge, and he had. He says, I’ve been there and back again. I’ve learned everything. I’ve seen everything. I’ve had everything. And Solomon did have everything in his time. All physical wealth. All wisdom. He said, I’ve had it all. But he said, here’s the whole thing about being a person. Fear God and keep His commandments. For this is the whole duty of man. Not the partial duty. It’s the whole duty.

For God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

Friends, Solomon gives us that kind reminder this morning. Living in the fear of the Lord is the pathway to life. It is the only pathway to life. Getting outside of reverence and fear is getting outside of God’s will. Getting away from who God is and so becoming who God has made you to be. Friends, listen to the voice of the Lord and obey. Speak little and ask for those things that please Him. And I think we say, well, what about judgment? Because I’m 29 and I know in my 29 years I’ve done things wrong. I’ve done things as evil. I’ve sinned. But friends, the great grace of this text is that Jesus Christ has bled and died to atone and cover over our evil things. Our secret evil things. All has been exposed and at the cross of Christ we’ve been washed clean from what we’ve done wrong. And by the cross of Christ we have been empowered to speak little and listen much. We have been empowered by Jesus and by the working of the Spirit. To love the Lord our God. To fear Him all of our days. And so then it will go well with us in the end if we do this.

That’s the word from this text for us this morning. Let’s be a people. Peoples individually. And let’s be a church that lives in the fear of the Lord. Careful to guard our step. Careful to do that which pleases the Lord. That which Jesus asks of us for His name, for His glory. Okay? Let’s pray together.

Father this morning

I don’t want to I’ll give you a bunch of words.

I pray that You would expose as evil in our hearts and our minds the idols that we have that keep us from fearing You. That keep us from honoring You. That keep us from obeying You.

Lord I pray that we would be really sensitive to the working of Your Spirit as we

consider Your Word. Lord we would be convicted about those things that don’t please You Lord.

That we would be a people that live in holiness and pray for that which will make us right before You. Things that are going to grow us in Christ. Things that we need to live out Your will. Lord we want to glorify You and we thank You for Jesus that even in our failures He is ever present bearing with us and forgiving us and growing us Lord. Lord again I just pray that for us as a church. That we would walk in Lord fear of You. Loving You. And finding all life and joy in Jesus. So I just pray that this morning in Christ’s name. Amen.