Guarded Steps, Glad Hearts | Ecclesiastes 4:13-5:7 (10-1-2023)

ice, for he went from prison to the throne, though in his own kingdom he had been born poor. And I saw all the living who moved about under the sun, along with that youth who was to stand in the king's place. There was no end of all the people, all of whom he led, yet those who will come later will not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and a striving after the wind." Follow your steps when you go near 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. The grass withers, and the flower fades. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you even as we just read. You are on heaven, and we are on earth. And here we are, nothing more as frail children of dust. And yet we praise you that you have given us eyes to see and ears to hear, and we pray once again that you would lift up our eyes to behold Jesus Christ, the King and His beauty, that we would see that He truly has become unto us wisdom from God. We pray as we do so that we would be more and more likened unto Him, and for your namesake and for your glory. Amen. You may be seated. Don't chase the bears. Don't chase the bears. That may sound like an obvious warning, sort of like saying, don't eat broken glass or don't drink lead paint. But in Yellowstone National Park, just this last summer, park rangers had to deliver that warning because tourists were chasing after, indeed sprinting after, bears, namely a mama bear and her cubs. And such tourists were doing so in order to get a closer look, to get a better photo, who knows, maybe even to get a selfie with a bear. And the bears did what bears do best. They unleashed total carnage upon the tourists. Whatever false sense of security these tourists had from being in a national park, it quickly left them the moment they felt the first slash of the bear claw. And in much the same way, Ecclesiastes gives us a warning this morning. Because Solomon says, as we just read, guard your steps when you come to God's house. Now that, too, is a warning that may seem obvious to anyone who has ears to hear and eyes to see, anyone who knows something of God's holiness. And yet in our folly, it's a warning that we, just like those Yellowstone tourists often charge right over, even carelessly sprint right past it, forgetting that we are approaching the God who is an all-consuming fire. We are approaching the God who dwells in unapproachable light. And so it's this very thing that Solomon wisely warns us against. But as always, as much as Solomon says, put off that foolishness, he also gives us the good news, the right orientation, that God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore, put on the fear of the Lord. May the fear of the Lord guide your steps when you come to God's house. Kids, you can probably fill in the blank for me when I say that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Indeed, wisdom literature, it teaches us that there are two types of people. There's the fool and there's the wise men. And both of these types have their identifiable traits. The fool is very much known by his folly. He's quick to speak. He's slow to listen. He considers himself wise in his own eyes. He enjoys hearing his own opinion. And he scoffs at the opinions of others. And overall, he fancies himself wise in his own eyes. The wise man is also identifiable by certain traits. He's slow to speak. He's very quick to listen. And when he receives a fitting rebuke, he's actually thankful for it and he grows even wiser still. Of course, above all, he does not consider himself wise in his own eyes. And the bad news is that foolishness is an equal opportunity employer, right? All of us start off as fools. We are born fools, you might say. As Proverbs says, folly is bound up in the heart of a child. So, just a word to young parents, you don't need to be overly discouraged when you see folly bound up in the heart of your child. This is the way God made life under the sun. But the good news is that we can make the long journey from folly to wisdom. And the trailhead is the fear of the Lord. If we start at and stay on the path that is the fear of the Lord, we can make progress in our wisdom. And so, we're going to walk through chapter 5 in three parts, all having to do with guarding. Firstly, guard our steps. Secondly, guard our words. And thirdly, we are to guard our vows. But before that, Solomon sets us up nicely with this little story at the end of chapter 4, this parable that whets our appetite for wisdom. And first we meet the fool in verse 13. Solomon says, better the poor wise youth than the old foolish king who no longer knew how to take advice. And so, we learn many things here already. Firstly, we're reminded that age is no guarantee of wisdom. You cannot simply add years and birthdays and think you are therefore adding wisdom. You see, we have this king who is old and yet his many years have not locked in wisdom. Secondly, you see more clearly the nature of his folly is that he no longer knows how to receive counsel and admonishment from others. The ability to listen, the humility to heed counsel is a trademark of wisdom. As Proverbs says, in the abundance of counselors, there is victory. And whoever listens to reproof will be wiser. The scoffer, by contrast, really has no interest in correction. Correcting a fool would be like trying to explain the value of gold to someone who cannot comprehend its preciousness or its worth. Right? If you offer them a pile of gold, they would refuse it and say, why would I load myself down with this large and dead weight? And in this little parable, we have this formerly once great king whose ways are now right in his own eyes. Of course, the sad implication is that there was a time when it seems he knew how to listen and how to take advice, which surely contributed to his success. Now he's bought into his own hype, as it were. Think of that great verse about King Jeshurun, the king who waxed fat and then grew proud. And so, just a word to our older saints, you see a unique temptation of age is to put off a teachable spirit. Gray hair, of course, very often does bring wisdom, but, of course, gray hair can bring an unyielding spirit. Gray hair refuses counsel and rests in complacency. And so, as the story unfolds, this old king is supplanted by a young man, and not just any young man, but you see, he's this poor young man. And the poor, verse 13 says, the difference maker, indeed the decisive factor, is that this young man was wise, as Proverbs says of wisdom, by me kings reign. Well, verse 14, the plot thickens even more. You see that he's not only poor, he was also in prison. And we don't know how, but this young man went from prison to power, shaking off the chains of poverty. And so, you have here the most unlikely of candidates to take the throne, a man who's young. He's poor. He's in the jailhouse. And you could perhaps look to Joseph or David and maybe find some parallels in their life. As every ounce of worldly wisdom would indicate, a man with this resume is not destined for the crown. Everything is stacked against him. But the one thing that he did have in his ledger was that he had wisdom. And so, Solomon shows us once again the superiority of wisdom, that as a man lowers himself, God exalts him at the right time. And so, just a word to our kids, kids, you want to set your heart now on getting wisdom. Know that nothing can compare to her. And kids, the good news about wisdom is that she wants to be found. She cries out and says, here I am. Come and get me. Come and buy me. Come and have me. And our great God loves to give generously to those who ask for wisdom. But all that said, if you like happy endings, this is not your story. Because we've got this great rags to riches, poverty to power story. It's an American tale if there ever was. I'm sure you've heard that cliche, everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame. That cliche is actually tied to this little parable, the stardom of the young king. And we, of course, chase similar stories today of the rise of popularity. You see it in social media, so-called influencers, their number of clicks and likes that have us all believing of their seemingly unshakable popularity. Of a true-to-form, Ecclesiastes burst this bubble and says, even this is just vanity. Even this rise of the poor king proves to be nothing more than an empty cycle. As verse 16 says, there was no end of all the people, all of whom he led. So it sounds like the king is winning his re-election, so far, so good. But yet Solomon says, those who come later will not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and a striving after the wind. You, of course, need only look at the book of Kings and be reminded just how fleeting, how inconsequential the rule of any one king is. As Augustine put it, the dead are always replaced by the dying. And so, with an election season on the horizon, we're to be reminded that Christians are as guilty of anyone, they're getting swept up in the hopes of the political process to save you. As if Solomon is saying rather bluntly, if you're waiting for an elected official to save you, you are a fool. It is an empty cycle. For just as we can set our hopes on pleasure, on wealth, on power, so too we can set our hopes on earthly rulers whose popular rise is just as quick as their demise. Now what the people of God truly need is a king whose rule is without end, whose dominion is forever and ever, a king that all peoples and all generations can rejoice in. I trust you see how Jesus Christ fulfills this little parable, that he came from ultimate poverty, that he had all riches and yet he emptied himself, taking on the form of a servant, that he humbled himself and he increased in wisdom and favor with God and man. And unlike the king in this parable, Jesus Christ is no disposable king. A lot of his 15 minutes of fame, no, his reign is forever and ever. As Hebrews says of him, your throne is forever. That's why one theologian rightly said, the Christian church can afford to be patient. Our king is not up for re-elections ever. Our king has risen to never fall again. Our king has been installed on his forever throne. And so what that means is that the church can play the long game. When it comes to discipling the nations, working the leaven into the loaf, with the highest confidence that God's glory will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. For he has been installed on his forever throne. Well that brings us nicely to the next section. And we ask this question, okay, well how then should we approach this great king? How do we worship this God above? And you see right away, chapter 5 verse 1, that warning we spoke of earlier, that says guard your steps when you go to the house of God. You can recall when Moses approached Yahweh on the mountain. Out came those terrifying words, take off your sandals, for this is holy ground. And friends, the New Testament reality is not less, but even more sacred. Because as New Testament worshipers, we go to the heavenly Mount Zion. We go to the heavenly Jerusalem, that by the Spirit we ascend into the heavens, joining all the hosts of heaven to worship the triune God. And so Solomon says, guard your steps, guard your approach in God's house. You don't just saunter into the Holy of Holies as if it's your living room. Right? That's a good way to get yourself killed. And Solomon tells us the cost of this careless worship. You see it in verse 1 as he continues, to draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools. They don't even know that they are doing evil. Just as those Yellowstone tourists did not realize they were charging headlong into danger, so too the foolish worshiper does not realize he's rushing in where angels would only dare to tread. And so Solomon gives us these two options, giving the foolish sacrifice versus the listening ear. Option 1, the foolish sacrifice, you can think of prophets like Malachi who rebuked worshipers who were coming before God, sacrificing animals, but of course those animals were lame, they were blind, they were even sick, polluted food as it were. And Malachi's rebuke was, do you really think God is going to be pleased with these offerings? Do you really think this is fooling God? Do you think God even needs these? In our vernacular we might call it a quote, just going through the motions, kind of empty ritualism, a dead orthodoxy that we would draw near to God with our lips while our hearts, in this case our ears, are far from Him. Now you can compare that approach to say Father Abraham, who did the exact opposite. Father Abraham gave no sacrifice. He did not sacrifice Isaac on the altar, but what Abraham did do was he listened to God with his whole heart. His ear did not waver concerning the promises of God. And between those two approaches, our God says, I will take the listening. Our God is seeking worshipers who would come before Him with fear and trembling. And should we think that our God will be pleased with a checked box or empty rituals, we're as guilty as we are delusional. And so Solomon shows us just how important the organ of the ear is to the soul, that we can guard our steps by keeping a good ear. It's just as Romans 10 says, faith comes from hearing. And so in the Lord's day, you'll want to come into gathered worship with a ready heart, with an eager ear, an eager expectation, certainly not to hear any one man, nor to put faith in the words of man. But as Romans continues on to say, faith comes from hearing, hearing the Word of Christ. Because Jesus Christ Himself, by power of His Spirit, He continues to speak to His people, to build them up, to encourage them, to edify them through faith and through the ordinary means of word and sacrament. And Satan's very simple scheme is to take that Word and pluck it up, oftentimes by distraction. It is not true how often our thoughts wander, our mind roams aimlessly. We start to wonder, what am I going to do tomorrow? What am I going to eat later today? What am I going to do later on this evening? And our God says, give Me your heart Sunday, so that you'll be ready for Monday. And friends, the good news is that we approach God, our great God, through Jesus Christ, our Mediator. As Hebrews paints that wonderful picture, that here He is in the midst of the congregation, standing up saying, Father, here I am with the children that You have given Me. Well, we go next from the ear and now we go to the mouth. As you see, Solomon continues on and he says, not just keep a good ear, but next he says, guard your tongues. As you saw earlier, James gives us that precise order. Be quick to hear, be slow to speak, be slow to anger. It's more simply, it's just as Mama told you. God gave you two ears and one mouth for a reason. And Solomon says this in verse 2. Don't be rash with your mouth. Don't let your heart be hasty to utter a word. And you see the fundamental reason why that is so? Because God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore, let your words be few. That God is God and we are not. Therefore, let all mortal flesh be silent. It's just as the Lord Jesus instructed us. But don't heap up empty phrases like the Gentiles do, who think that they will be heard for their many words. There's that pagan mindset that thinks God is like a man who can be manipulated. I can talk God into something. I can bend God's will to my will. If I say just the right thing in just the right way. It's a kind of superstitious, idolatrous approach to God. Unless we think that's uniquely a pagan problem. Now it's actually the religious man who loves to put on his own show. Believing that as much as he can impress his onlookers, he can impress God. With his religious displays, with his sizable word count. The Pharisees being the poster boy of this pretense. Always putting on a flashy display in order to be seen. Now, of course, this does not mean that we should not be earnest in prayer. Our Lord Jesus prayed through the night in prayer. And, of course, He never did so out of ostentation. He never did so in order to be seen. And this is great wisdom for us to guide us in our own worship. Because at this church, in case you have not noticed, in case it's not obvious, we are committed to thoughtful, formal liturgy in our worship. You have surely noticed that Reformed liturgy has a distinct progression. It's got these defined elements. And we do have many words that we come together and we recite on the Lord's Day. We just recited together the Apostles' Creed this very morning. And there's no doubt a temptation to mindlessly string word upon word together and think God will be impressed with our pageantry. And the solution, of course, is what is not often proposed in the evangelical world. Which is just, okay, more skits, more lasers, more jokes, more entertainment. The more casual, surely, the better. Instead, a way to think about liturgy is that it brings order to my excitement. Liturgy is not unbounded freedom but guided freedom. Liturgy is saying here are the guardrails of Scripture so that I can worship God with reverence and with awe and not worry about saying something rash or hasty or even worse, irreverent. Now you can think of it this way. Worship is often rightly described as warfare. And I trust you would never want to fight in a war with no order. Imagine the command. All right, everybody start shooting. Ready, go. No, that would be complete chaos. Now instead, you'd want the heat of war regulated by the rules of combat. And that is what good liturgy can provide, a guarded step and choice words that are anything but hasty and rash. Now that said, of course, you can still have good liturgy, but it would be dead, lifeless worship, nothing more than a skeleton. And so what's true of war is very much true of worship, but it must be carried out with a burning zeal for the cause. In our case, zeal for the Lord of hosts. Well, that said, if we're to be careful with our words, it applies doubly so with our vows. As verse 4 says, And when you vow a vow to God, do not delay in paying it. God has no pleasures in fools. Pay what you vow. It's better that you should not vow than you should vow and not pay. You see, just as easily as the fool utters careless words, the fool utters a careless vow. You can think of Jephthah's extremely rash vow that cost him the life of his own daughter. A vow is that sacred. A vow is that serious. Now that said, the abuse of a good thing does not cancel out its goodness because vows are very much part of the Christian life. We're reminded we are not Quakers who refuse to take vows of any kind. Because verses 4 and 5 are not saying don't ever take vows. The point is when you do take a vow, be sure you fulfill it. And if you don't think you can fulfill the vow, then do not take it. You are better off not vowing. Of course, on top of this, the modern day has greatly blunted our approach to vows. We have souls that are full of loopholes. We have a no-fault divorce. We have contracts with escape clauses built into them. They're reneging on covenants and on business deals. I'm reminded even of the abstinence movement. It was very popular when I was a teenager. It was a time when countless young people made vows to be sexually abstinent until marriage. And though those percentages vary, it seems that the majority of folks who made those vows failed to keep those vows. So you walked into your wedding night with no small amount of shame and guilt. Many of those vows were made under compulsion and in an emotional frenzy, not during a solemn occasion as the Westminster Confession says. And so this greatly helps our posture towards making vows. Because maybe it's never dawned on you, but to just think of the vows that you either have made or will make someday. The covenant vow of marriage, for instance, most obviously. A husband vows to love his wife. A wife vows to reverence her husband. How many marriage ceremonies contain those vows and yet really nothing more than a formality? It's just a perfunctory ritual. But such a vow is quorum Deo. It is in the presence of God. And God says, I am the chief witness between man and wife. And so wives, you just think how respectable it is that your husband vowed, he promised, that he would love you and only you in a very unique way. Husbands, just think how awesome it is that your husband vowed and promised to love you and for a wife to honor and submit to her husband. These are rich vows, promises that transcend time, circumstances, sickness, health. It's a love so fierce that only death could annul it. It's as sacred as it is awesome. Well, right behind that you could think of what comes next. Our church membership vows that each of us pledge to one another that we are not plain church here, as it were. Just think what an awesome thing. That if you are a member, you are promising to your fellow members that two are better than one and that they are not alone and that you will bear and strive with them in peace and in purity. And so you can see whether it be things like marriage or membership, such vows are of great value when used rightly. Namely, vows give us a virtuous sense of our duty. And duty, of course, is something that has fallen on hard times in the modern day. But duty absolutely is worth recovering because duty can do what nothing else can do. Because I'm sure you would agree there are times when emotions are stale. Our affections have grown cold when we just plain don't feel like doing it anymore in the moment. It is in those moments that duty rises to the occasion. We can get a sense of duty's power from the military. It would be unthinkable for a commander to turn to a sergeant and say, Sergeant, take that hill, charge that bunker, march out and move out and have the sergeant respond by saying, Well, commander, you see, the thing about it is I just don't feel like doing it in the moment. My heart is just not in it. Check back with me tomorrow. I know that is unimaginable because what would compel a soldier in such a heartless moment would be, Yes, commander, I will fulfill my vows. It is my duty to do so. And that is the sacred power of fulfilling one's vows. And what distinguishes duty from the empty ritualism that we saw earlier is one that is thoroughly God-centered, thoroughly God-honoring. It is just as we read that the Lord Jesus encouraged His disciples, saying, When you have done everything that there is to do, when you have poured all of it out, you have only done what is your duty. Ecclesiastes knows us all too well. Verse 6 exposes our human propensity. And when we're called on a failure of duty, our first impulse, of course, is to scuttle around it. You see there he says to say it was a mistake. In our vernacular, we start cranking out lame excuses. It turns out my fingers were crossed when I made that vow. And Solomon is saying, Sure, you might fool others, but God is not fooled by our excuses. And He will judge us if we travel down the road of careless vows and lame excuses. You see, as verse 6 says, He will destroy the work of our hands. And so you see the gravity, and you see also the great benefit of vows. That when we can make good vows with a good conscience, it sets us up for a good duty done unto our good God. And that is of great use for the Christian life. For is it not true that there will be times when for a husband to love a wife, it's quite difficult? She might be rather unlovable in the moment. There are times when for a wife to honor and respect her husband will be quite difficult. He might be quite the fathead in the moment. There are times when to love a fellow brother and sister in Christ might sound about as much fun as jabbing a fork in one's eye. So where does one turn? The Christian could say, I will fulfill what I have vowed, not by my strength, not by my might, but by God's Spirit. And that's just what Solomon says in verse 7. You see there those very plain words. God is the one you must fear. For our steps are before Him. Our words are before Him. Our ears are before Him. Our vows are before Him. And when we fear the Lord, He promises to lead us, to guide us, to strengthen us to the rock that is higher than I. And friends, you see that nowhere more clearly displayed than in the Lord Jesus Christ. That as Isaiah said of Him, the fear of the Lord is His delight. For what was it that would compel the Lord Jesus to set His face like flint to go to Jerusalem? What was it that would compel the Lord Jesus to give His life as a ransom? What was it that would compel the Lord Jesus to go to the cross when everything in Him would want to shrink back from the judgment of His God and His Father? It was nothing less than the fear of the Lord. If you're here this morning and not a Christian, you might wonder, what does the fear of the Lord even mean? That's an odd and unusual phrase if you're not familiar with it. Are we saying that Christians are scared of their God? And one says we could simply say yes and no. For Scripture says that God is an all-consuming fire. It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. And so sinners who sin against this God, only a fearful expectation of judgment awaits them. Unless, unless this same fearful God would provide a sacrifice, a once-for-all sacrifice to cover man's sins. And that is the joyful news of Jesus Christ, that God so loved the world that He gave. And so maybe this morning your conscience is stirred. Maybe you're saying, I've made vows to loved ones, but I've not kept them fully. I've spoken words, but I've spoken them hastily or hurtfully. And you might even find yourself drifting from God and you begin to think, I don't know if I've guarded my ways. If I really have walked in the fear of the Lord. Is there any hope for such a Christian? Now once again, let the fear of the Lord be your delight. What does the psalmist say? With you, O Lord, there is forgiveness, so that you might be feared. As you hear those words, this fearful God is the forgiving God. The God full of grace and mercy. The God full of steadfast love. The God whose mercies are new every morning. The God who brings forgiveness in the most fearful and awesome way of all. The cross of Jesus Christ. And so it's through Him that with all confidence we can guard our steps. And even approach God's house with the confidence to draw near and receive grace upon grace. Let us pray. Our gracious God and Heavenly Father, we do praise you, Lord God, for who is like you. You are in heaven and here we are in earth. Nothing more than frail children of dust. And that we praise you that you would have us draw near to you. We praise you how this is so that the Lord Jesus Christ truly did give Himself as the once for all sacrifice. That He has become unto us wisdom from God. And so, Father, we do pray that we would increase in the fear of the Lord. That it would even be our very delight. That we would cut off all paths of worldliness, of sin, of our lust. And instead that we would take a fullness of joy in what it is to know you and to be known by you. And we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.