A sermon preached at Covenant Presbyterian Church of Fort Smith, Arkansas on July 2, 2023.
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. When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. 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? For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity; but God is the one you must fear. (Ecclesiastes 5:1–7).[1]
In his book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Carl Trueman describes the age in which we live as “a world in which it is increasingly easy to imagine that reality is something we can manipulate according to our own wills and desires, and not something that we necessarily conform ourselves to or passively accept.”[2] We perceive it to be a world of our making, not God’s. This should not surprise us. Though it seems insignificant, the Disney movies that children grew up watching told them they could be anyone they wanted to be if only they followed their heart. Who knew they would take this mantra literally in interpreting human sexuality? But personal perceptions of self-creation and autonomy are prevalent not only in modern views of sexuality but a myriad of other matters, including Christian worship.
Consider, for example, the modern phenomenon of what philosopher Charles Taylor calls “excarnation,”[3] in which we perceive the digital, for example, as real (thus the name “virtual reality”) and increasingly distort our view of what is actual reality. Can you truly worship as a church excarnationally? When I look at Christian worship in the Scriptures, I see them hearing the Word, eating the bread, drinking the cup, baptizing with water, anointing with oil, singing and praying together, and so on, engaging all five senses.[4] Yet, since the pandemic, all of us know someone who has dropped out of church, seemingly feeding their faith with podcasts, streamed music, online “worship.” Removed from bodily involvement with real people, we feel free to consume at will, or as Joshua Pauling puts it, “Screen and phone win out over skin and bone.”[5]
But our understanding of worship is not only distorted by virtual reality but also how we understand ourselves physically present in worship. Modern worship practices have taught us to ignore community and fixate on feelings. Alan Noble says, in this scenario, “we experience worship much like we experience a concert. It becomes an individual, emotional, and spiritual exercise wherein I try my best to think about the words and praise God. But even though I am surrounded by the saints, I remain comfortably in my own head.”[6] We have been taught to be consumers, which leads us to see worship the same way. If you come to church, are you getting what you want? Is the music entertaining you, are the Bible readings encouraging, is the sermon helpful? Have we forgotten who the focus of worship is?
What may not be obvious, however, is that the digital worshiper and the consumer worshiper are influenced by the same temptation: to be unshackled from dependence upon God and others and liberated to please ourselves. And, this is why we need to hear the preacher of Ecclesiastes, because he shakes us out of our self-consumed thoughts and actions, and grounds us in real, live (not virtual) reality. Solomon assumes that we will go not virtually but physically to the house of worship. And when we go, we will worship reverently: “Guard your steps,” he says, “when you go to the house of God.”
Worship Reverently
How we worship is important, but I’m not talking about your personal tastes; I’m talking about God’s pleasure. In Leviticus we read of Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, the first progenital priests. Perhaps they considered that their ordination warranted freedom of expression, or perhaps they didn’t like the instruction of God’s Word. We don’t know their motive, but we do know that they decided to worship the Lord as they pleased, rather than as the Lord prescribed. Attempting to offer unauthorized incense, or “strange fire,” (Lev. 10:1 KJV) in worship, God responded by instantly burning them both to death. They were literally consumed. No one in that moment thought of worship as flippant. Nor should we, which is why the writer of Hebrews says, “let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:28-29).
Such a warning necessitates a high view of God. As the psalmist declares,
The Mighty One, God the LORD,
speaks and summons the earth
from the rising of the sun to its setting.
Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,
God shines forth.
Our God comes; he does not keep silence;
before him is a devouring fire,
around him a mighty tempest.
He calls to the heavens above
and to the earth, that he may judge his people (Ps. 50:1-4).
This is the view that Solomon is advocating in Ecclesiastes: God is in heaven (5:2), rules over time (3:1-15), judges all (3:16-22), and yet is approachable in worship,[7] not haphazardly but with reverence and awe.
Listen Attentively
An essential part of reverent worship is attentively listening to the Word of God read, sung, preached, and sacramentally administered.God is not silent but has chosen to reveal himself, specifically through his special revelation, the holy Scriptures.Faithful worshipers then are listeners first. But we live in a loud world and in a culture that does not favor the quiet and contemplative.Sadly, many Christians have adapted to the noise, elevating self-expression over attentively listening.
But some may argue that such a critique is merely stylistic: Some like it rowdy! But Solomon says that it’s the fool who rambunctiously rushes on in his sacrificial worship rather than attending to God’s Word, offering strange fire of different kind. We hear something similar in Isaiah, where God tells Israel that their sacrificial worship makes him sick. And in Amos, where God says he not only dislikes their sacrificial worship but hates it. The fool may dream up a myriad of justifications, but when it comes to worship, no one takes God’s worship more seriously than God does.
In Old Testament temple worship, sacrifices were offered in silence followed by a reading of the Law and an exposition. The people would then respond to hearing God’s Word through prayers or songs, which are sung prayers, and sometimes personal vows. Worship concluded with a benediction. Similarly, as the Lord’s living temple, we assemble in worship following the once and for all perfect sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. We assemble on the day of his resurrection, signifying God’s acceptance of the sacrifice offered and the forgiveness we have through it. We assemble as those covered by the blood of the Lamb, worshiping according to and regulated by God’s holy Word. The Word is read, the Word is sung, the Word is preached, the sacramental Word is administered, and the benediction is pronounced to those who by faith have assembled to worship.
This means that as a people governed and directed by God’s Word, we are first listeners and then careful in what we say. In Old Testament worship, a man might make a vow to God in the temple. Solomon’s caution is not against vow making, which has it’s time and place even under the New Covenant, but to take it seriously and act on it. We may think of the beautiful vow that Hannah made and her faithfulness in surrendering Samuel to God’s service (1 Sam. 1-2). She did not return to Eli to renegotiate with God: She made a vow, and she kept it. In contrast, Ananias and Sapphira vowed but did not keep their word, angering God and losing their lives (Acts 5:1-11). Say what you mean, mean what you say, and do what you say: Let your yes be yes and your no be no (Matt. 5:37).
This extends, of course, to what we say in worship. I made a vow before God when I was baptized to live as a faithful follower of Christ. I made a vow before God to be faithful to my wife in marriage. I made a vow as a minister “to be zealous and faithful in maintaining the trust of the Gospel and the purity, peace and unity of the Church, whatever persecution or opposition may arise.”[8] Solomon says, “When you vow a vow to God … Pay what you vow” (5:4), meaning faithfully fulfill it.
Although our world encourages us to treat words as worthless cast aways, lacking substance unless they aid us in getting what we want, we must not adapt to this worldliness. Jesus said, “on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matt. 12:36-37). Words really do matter, especially to God. So, let us listen to the Word of God attentively, let our words be few and substantive, and let us live fearfully before God.
Live Fearfully
As Solomon began this passage with an imperative, “Guard your steps when you go to the house of God,” so he concludes, “God is the one you must fear,” creating a kind of inclusio of caution. In fact, Solomon will return to his admonition to fear God (Spoiler Alert!) at the conclusion of Ecclesiastes: “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” (12:13). But what does it mean to “fear” God, and how does it impact our worship? Certainly, it includes what one commentator calls a “trembling trust,”[9] recognition that our God is “a consuming fire,” necessitating a response of “acceptable worship, with reverence and awe” (Heb. 12:28-29).
But the fear of God is more than reverent recognition and worshipful response. In its very essence, the fear of God is faith, accompanied with obedience. Consider the story of Abraham and his attempted sacrifice of his son, Isaac (Gen. 22:1-13). Scripture says that God tested Abraham by commanding him to sacrifice his son as a burnt offering. As God commanded, Abraham traveled to Mount Moriah, prepared an altar, and went as far as binding his son to be slaughtered. Mercifully, the Lord intervened, Isaac was spared, and a substitutionary sacrifice was provided, a ram in the thicket. But in the moment of Abraham’s obedience and the Lord’s provision, listen closely to what God said to Abraham, “now I know that you fear God” (Gen. 22:12).
The man who believed God’s promise and was justified as righteous (Gen. 15:6), the man who was called the “friend” of God (Isa. 41:8), and man whom Paul presents as a case study of faith (Rom. 4), and the writer of Hebrews points to as an example for us all (Heb. 11), was tested by God and found rightly fearing him. It is a fear that believes that God will fulfill his promises. It is a fear that responds with obedience. It is a fear that leads Abraham to reassure his son, Isaac, that “God will provide for himself the lamb” (Gen. 22:8). It is a fear that James uses as an example of faith (James 2:23), and it is a fear that Solomon connects here to worship.
To fear God is to rightly see God’s promise and provision for us in Christ alone and by his grace trust in him and obey his commands. To fear God then is a right response to the Good News of Jesus Christ, that sinners like you and me, and Abraham and Isaac, are saved by God’s grace, forgiven of our sins, and enabled and empowered to rightly worship the Lord our God. So, “let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:28-29).
[1] Unless referenced otherwise, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (Wheaton: Crossway Bibles, 2001).
[2] Carl Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to the Sexual Revolution (Wheaton: Crossway, 2020), 41.
[3] Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007), 741.
[4] Kelly M. Kapic, You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2022), 61.
[5] Joshua Pauling, “Going Upstream of Streaming Worship: Embracing Creaturely Limits in an Age of Autonomy and Disembodiment,” Modern Reformation, 32, no. 4 (2023), 41.
[6] Alan Noble, Disruptive Witness: Speaking Truth in a Distracted Age, quoted in Ibid.
[7] Douglas Sean O’Donnell, Ecclesiastes (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2014), 112.
[8] The Book of Church Order of the Presbyterian Church in America, 21-5.
[9] Douglas Sean O’Donnell, Ecclesiastes (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2014), 110.
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