Fear God

If you would turn with me this morning to the end of the book of Ecclesiastes Ecclesiastes chapter 12 verses nine through 14 as we conclude this series through Ecclesiastes, would you stand with me in honor of God's word is a read together. Ecclesiastes 12 beginning at verse nine. Besides being wise, the preacher also taught the people knowledge weighing and studying and arranging many Proverbs with great care. The preacher sought to find words a delight and uprightly.

He wrote words of truth.

The words of the wise are like goads and like nails firmly fixed on the collected sayings. They are given by one Shepherd. My son, beware of anything beyond these, of making many books there is no end and much study is a weariness of the flesh the end of the matter. All has been heard feared God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man for God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil is the word of God was pray together or we are prone like Solomon was to put our confidence in plausible arguments and empirical data that we can see and explain with our own minds, we naturally trumps the wisdom of man. The limited and temporal wisdom of this age bodily scene where this path led King Solomon. It ruined him in his testimony robbed him of joy, and it brought shame and disrepute on you his creator, the, the God of his youth, so we pray that you would protect us from going down the same path that he went down. Give us. Instead, the wisdom that comes only from your Holy Spirit give us the grace to walk and not wisdom. All the days of our lives. We pray in Jesus name amen to be seated. For those of you who have been with us on this journey through the book of Ecclesiastes, you know that we've been reading this book as the contemplations of a man whose hearts have been turned away from the Lord. King Solomon had embraced a very immoral lifestyle and it cost him dearly. This is a mighty king who was unrivaled in his wisdom was reduced to a full and his philosophizing about life and meaning reflects this foolishness and hopelessness 30 times. In fact in this book, Solomon has declared that life is nothing more than vanity of vanities, it's empty it's it's futile.

It's meaningless as we fast-forward today to the end of the book. The question we need to answer is this why is this message of of hopelessness and meaningless even in the Bible. Clearly there is purpose in life.

Surely you believe that clearly God's hand of Providence is not arbitrary or malicious.

Surely God doesn't intend us to be simply miserable in life and scared in death.

So why would the Holy Spirit inspire and preserve these 12 chapters of hopeless contemplation. While I believe our text this morning gives us the answer. These closing verses in the book.

Tell us what the point of the book is the point. Ecclesiastes is to make godliness attractive by contrasting it with the alternative, it it it is one is to put such a distant taste in our mouth for the alternative for godlessness that we run to God and stay as close as we can to God when my sisters growing up had the hardest time is little girl breaking the habit of thumbsucking.

In fact, this habit lasted long enough for her to begin to get self-conscious when she would get invited over to friends house to spend the night.

She was afraid she would in her sleep. Put her thumb in her mouth, and they would see it and she would be ridiculed for it. Eventually, my sister discovered this product and you could put on your farm at bedtime to just major thumb taste nasty. It just gave this bitter taste and so she put some of that stuff on her finger.

One night she went to her mom before she went to bed and said if I come to you in the middle of the night and ask for water even if I'm begging for water. Don't give it to me she really wanted to break this habit. Sure enough, she came begging for water in the middle of the night now and neither of one of us remember what mama did.

If she caved or not.

Ask her after the service, but suffice it to say, my sister is no longer a thumbsucker the hopeless reflections of Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes is like that bitter tasting stuff on my sisters thumb. It's intended to put a bad taste in our mouth for the foolishness of man's speculative wisdom in order that we stay away from it and cling tightly to the joy of a God-fearing life before we jump into the tactfully remind you something that I mentioned 10 sermons ago now about the structure of the book of Ecclesiastes. The first 11 verses of the book chapter 1 first 11 verses and then these last six verses of the book, refer to the preacher, who I believe is King Solomon. They refer to the preacher in the third person. It's as if the narrator this anonymous narrator begins and ends Solomon's journal, which is the middle part of the book with just some corrective comments of his own now to be fair, I should mention that not everyone agrees with me on this reading some Bible interpreters see the whole book as written by Solomon and and and a seat is a positive statement that's perfectly consistent with the Christian worldview and therefore they see no inconsistency of of message or tone between the middle of the book and the and the book ends the beginning and the end. Because of this they usually see the narrator and the preacher is one and the same. The preacher just suddenly began speaking of himself in the third person at times, which can be a normal thing to do, meaning sometimes Eugene suddenly began speaking about himself in the third person. It's perfectly normal for him to do that other Bible interpreters like myself believe that this third person narrator.

These third person comments are inconsistent with the general tone and message of of the rest of the book, and so the narrator and the preacher are two different writers with two opposing worldviews, our text this morning then would have been written by this Orthodox Bible believing committed narrator who wants to provide a biblical corrective to the preacher's misguided and and sometimes even on biblical contemplations.

One of the things working against me here is that the majority view today reads Ecclesiastes is a positive message and I've had this conversation with many of you after some of of my sermon so I recognize I'm swimming upstream. Here, the ESV. For example, seems to prefer the positive reading over the negative reading in the way it makes some of their translation decisions and would appoint some of that out as weak as we walked to the text in just a moment.

The new American Standard now. By the way, seems to favor the negative reading in its translation decisions. But what I want you to realize, regardless of which way you read Ecclesiastes, whether it's a tongue-in-cheek Solomon making the case for a Christian worldview or an idolatrous Solomon who just spewing out foolishness, regardless of how you read the book, the conclusion is the same fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. Nestled in a look at this morning our list walk through the text first and and see what it means, and they will spend some time thinking about how we are to go and apply this word to our lives.

In verses nine and 10. The narrator tells us what the preacher intended tells us what the preacher intended to accomplish and what he wrote. Verse nine says, besides being wise, the preacher also taught the people knowledge weighing and studying and arranging many Proverbs with great care. The preacher sought to find words of delight and uprightly. He wrote words of truth now in the ESV this sounds like a commendation of the preacher's message in life he calls them wise. It says he he uprightly wrote words of truth. The new American Standard changes a couple of phrases I want to compare these two translations at which both are valid translations, by the way, but notice how the new American Standard decisions makes the narrator's assessment of the preacher a little less flattering. In verse nine, the NAS turns the character trait of wisdom into just a title or a position it says, in addition to being a wise man, which is a valid translation so this reduces the description of the preacher of Solomon to a mere title to the preacher's position. His job was that of wise man we might describe a college professor as an academic were not necessarily making a statement about his intellectual ability were just describing what he does. What is what his job is Solomon was a purveyor of wisdom, a collector and editor and disseminate her of wise sayings we know for a fact that he himself was not always wise, but he was nonetheless a wise man, a wisdom teacher and that he spent his time has verse nine says weighing and studying and arranging many Proverbs.

That's what he did. Verse 10 then says the preacher sought to find words of delight and uprightly.

He wrote words of truth.

The emphasis here should be on the word sought. He sought to do this is his goal, his intended purpose was to find words of delight. The second half of the verse in the ESV suggests that he attained that goal that he he actually accomplished what he set out to do because the words that he wrote were true, and upright again the NAS colors that a little bit differently. It says the preacher sought to find delightful words and to write words of truth correctly again a valid translation. The NAS makes no claim as to whether or not the preacher succeeded his intended purpose.

It just states that his intention was to find and write words that were true and upright and delightful.

It's interesting that Solomon, by his own admission did not attain his goal.

He says in chapter 7 of Ecclesiastes verse 23. I said I will be wise, but it was far from me. He says again in verse 20 a that same chapter, my soul has sought repeatedly, but I have not Solomon by his own admission, did not achieve this goal of wisdom preacher intended to find wisdom to find truth find beauty and meaning and purpose in life. But all he finds is vanity.

So we see what the preacher intended to Compass. What then did he accomplish through all this searching and contemplating in writing verse 11 tells us what the preacher accomplished. It says the words of the wise or wise man in same verse used in the same word used in verse nine the words of the wise are like goads and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings. They are given by one Shepherd. Now goad.

It is a nail. A sharp object.

It's fixed to a stick of some sort and its use to prod livestock along. Maybe some of you have used that if you grew up on a farm, some sort of goat or or prod. It's it certainly a motivator. It's motivating, but not in any sort of encouraging, enlightening way.

The narrator is comparing Solomon's words to the shark jolting objects that spur us along his motivational in the same way that being whipped with a nap. His motivational so verses 9 to 11 describe the intent and the effect of the preacher's words but now beginning in verse 12 we see the narrator unable to remain silent any longer and so he write some very necessary if brief corrective statements regarding what the preacher has said first gives us a warning in verse 12 and he begins very affectionately by addressing this warning, as if to a son.

He says my son beware of anything beyond these and other words, beyond these goads and nails that the preacher has written for us, of making many books there is no end and much study is a weariness of the flesh, the warning is that there is a limit to speculative wisdom can only go so far it's it's it may be fun to sit around and discuss metaphysics with your friends and and sit alone and contemplate the deep questions that keep you awake at 2 o'clock in the morning it can be enjoyable maybe for some of us to just read through a stack of philosophy books and discover how the most intelligent minds of of humanity have have categorized and analyzed reality in life and meaning. But there is a danger in this. The dangerous verse that there is no end to it. You'll never reach a point where you can save their life's riddles have been solved. There's no end to it.

And so in this process of trying to find answers through speculative wisdom through human reasoning.

You'll either become more and more obsessed with trying to solve life's riddles were to become more more hopeless.

He began to despair of ever finding any answers of making many books there is no end and much study is a weariness of the flesh now sadly for some of the middle schoolers. This does not mean that reading books is bad or that studying hard is bad. It means that reading or studying too much of the wrong thing is back. Ecclesiastes 1212 is not some sort of call to mental laziness. It's not is not a plea for Christians to be anti-intellectual, but we are called to love the Lord with all of our mind, rationality, logic, the intellect are all gifts from God. He invented these things and he is worthy of our using these things to their fullest potential in our pursuit of him thinking and talking and writing deeply about life and reality is not some sort of unchristian worldly endeavor. In fact, thinking deeply about life is mandatory for the Christian. Paul said, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Deep thinking is mandatory for the Christians. Christians are to be a thinking people were to be a reading people. We are to be a rational, intellectual people, but what the narrator of Ecclesiastes is warning us against is a certain kind of thinking and reading and rationalizing that the kind that does not seek to think God's thoughts after him, but rather seeks to come up with his own thoughts's own theories its own ideas of truth and morality in beauty and purpose that sort of thinking, appeals to the flesh, it strokes the ego and church. It is dangerous. So beware. That's the point of this warning. The question arises then why does the Bible preserve this very kind of speculative wisdom right here in the book of Ecclesiastes. Well I think God gives us just enough of it here to show us how futile it really is. That's what he says. Beyond these, beware we might be able to figure out a lot of things. When we get alone with our brains, but the real meaning of life is not one of them.

We need some external input. We need some special revelation from outside of us from an all wise Creator who knows why he made what he made in the way that he made it or we will forever be searching for answers and finding only more and more questions about luck. Ecclesiastes shows us the futility of speculative monistic reasoning book like this also shows us our own susceptibility to speculative wisdom and I think some of us depending on your temperament are more susceptible to this danger than others. You remember who Solomon was right. He was the wisest man to ever walk the face of the earth before Jesus Christ. And yet even this man, the wisest among men fell prey to godlessness of mind, even to the point that he would confess. I hate life because what is done under the sun is grievous to me for all is vanity and a striving after the wind books. If this can happen to Solomon it can happen to me. It can happen to you.

It can happen to anyone who does not guard his mind from the foolishness of human wisdom will after giving us this wisdom, the narrator gives us two commands in verse 13 that gives us two motivations are two reasons for obeying these commands in verses 13 and 14. I will just say verses 13 and 14 are the most important verses in the whole book of Ecclesiastes after 12 chapters of wrong answers. Sloppily we get in these last two verses the right answer. The first command is to fear God, let's think for minute what it means to fear God.

I suspect we don't particularly like that word fear is a really a place in the Christian life for fearing God is that concept even compatible with our life in Christ will of course it is. Or it wouldn't be commanded so many times in the Bible, in both Testaments, by the way, but we need understand that most words don't just have a single meaning to have a range of meaning and we need to remember that when were were studying and interpreting Scripture Exodus 2020 illustrates this really well. The range of meaning of the word fear uses fear twice same Hebrew root and it uses it in very different ways. Exodus 2020 says Moses said to the people do not fear for God has come to test you, that you may fear that you may not sin. Don't fear because God has come to make you feel. How does that work doesn't make sense unless we recognize the same word is being used in two different senses may explain the range of meaning of the word fear. A soldier fears his opponent in war, in a different manner than he fears his commander, for whom he fights the one he may fear with dread or terror. The other he fears with respect and obedience.

The one he is fearing being cut off or punish the other is driven by a fear of losing fellowship, friendship, camaraderie or sweetness. The one is the servile fear of a slave. The other is the filial fear of a son. The fear I have of that policeman. Following my car on the interstate is different than the fear I have of disappointing loving parent now. Christians will experience both kinds of fear in relation to God the knee knocking servile kind of fear is the natural and appropriate response to God when we find ourselves willfully and deliberately breaking his commands. This sort of dread is the right attitude to have and rebelling against our Creator. We should be knee knocking terrified he is holy. He is all-powerful, we should be afraid when we are in sin, reverential and sweet filial fear. On the other hand, is the ongoing attitude of reverence that every Christian ought to have for their Creator and Redeemer. This sort of fear motivates godliness.

It makes you want to be more godly in conduct that drives us to obedience and so as as obedience replaces sin, servile fear is replaced with filial fear and and vice versa.

As sin increases and obedience decreases servile fear increases and the filial suite loving, fear decreases, so unless you have achieved sinless perfection which you haven't, you will experience this whole range of fear in your Christian walk the course.

The goal is to obey God. And so enjoy that.

That sweet, reverential and motivating fear of a son for his father. This first commandment is to fear God and if we grasp what it means to fear God and we will have no problem with the narrator's second command fear God and keep his commandments. Reverence for God, and obedience to God go hand-in-hand.

You can't claim to have the right attitude of worship and submission to the Lord. If you consciously and habitually neglect what he commands in his word, and so the safeguard against against the pitfall of speculative wisdom is to fear God and to obey what he says now very briefly. Notice that the narrator gives us two reasons two motivations to obey these commands. First, we are to fear God and keep his commands.

Because it is our whole duty. It is our whole duty and just like the word fear. Earlier we may not like the word beauty it sound so necessary, so mechanical is duty a legitimate reason for obedience to God.

Sure it is absolutely it is the drawn analogy, it is a husband's duty to be faithful to his wife. Should a husband be faithful to his wife only when he feels like it. No, he should be faithful because it's his duty because it's the right thing to do. Whether he feels like it or not, but he should always be striving to feel like it. We cannot deny the fact that obedience is our duty before God. It is and always will be, but we must also recognize that part of that duty is to obey willingly and joyfully. It sounds like an oxymoron but joy is a command.

We are commanded to rejoice. We are commanded to be joyful in the fulfilling of our duty before God. Joy is part of the duty ruling.

This is part of the duty, so Christians must pursue the duty of obedience and they must pursue it with joy. Nothing mechanical robotic about that. Secondly, we are to fear God and keep his commandments because of the future judgment that's coming fear because it's our duty, fear him because of the future judgment that's coming. Verse 14 for God every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

The realization of a future judgment cuts two ways depending on your relationship with Christ either produces dread or produces delight. We see this very clearly in Matthew 11 Matthew 11 Jesus pronounces judgment against several cities give them woes is saying that it will be more tolerable for Sodom on the day of judgment than it will be for the cities but in the very After pronouncing that harsh judgment, we find those well-known words in which Christ is inviting all who labor and are heavy laden to come to him and find rest for their souls. It's a two-edged sword.

Judgment if you are a believer who sins are forgiven in Christ didn't think about the day of judgment. Let it keep you and all of God in love with your Savior. If you are outside of Christ and still living under the condemnation of your sin and let the reality of a coming day of judgment drive you to the only one who can shield you from the wrath of a holy God on that day trying to run and hide. Trying to deny what you know is coming but trying to live life under the sun, as Solomon did, with no thought of the life to come. Instead run to Christ take his yoke upon yourself.

Learn from him and you will find rest for your souls. After all the philosophizing and intellectual gymnastics. We go through it really is as simple as that folks come to Jesus and find rest for your souls, as we close more known address two groups of people who were here.

The first group is made up of those of you who read a passage like this in the Bible and you come away scared of the future.

You're terrified of God terrified of the prospect of a future judgment if that's you today. I want you to know there is a right way and a wrong way to alleviate that fear. It will be so easy for you this morning to leave Grace Church and go barrier fears in an afternoon of yardwork or television or hanging out with your friends that may alleviate your fear for the present, but will not prepare you for the day that you will stand before God to give an account for your life the right way. The correct way to alleviate that terrifying fear you're experiencing right now is to replace that with the sweet fear that only comes when your sins are washed away by the blood of Jesus Christ, never to be brought up again don't do what Solomon and so many like him have done artificial and outlast. There is only one way to find peace with God and that is by believing and resting in what Jesus Christ has done for sinners through his death and resurrection.

If that's where God finds you today. Come talk to me or one of our elders, or any Christian who is here this morning and give us the privilege of introducing you to the Lord Jesus Christ that you can come to him and find rest for your souls. The other phone address are those here who have already come to Christ and are enjoying that sweet fellowship with God. Christians. This book is not just for unbelievers. It's for us to we need to heed the warning about speculative wisdom we need to grow in our fear of God and in our obedience to his commandments. It's so easy for statements like fear God and keep his commandments to just become white noise churchy words with no content because of our familiarity with these things so I want to give several practical ways that you Christian can do what Ecclesiastes 1213 is calling you to do before I mentioned these practical points of application only say something about the nature of Christian growth because I want. If we don't sometimes struggle with having kind of romanticized view of what spiritual growth in the Christian life looks like. Paul tells us in first Timothy 47. Train yourself, train yourself to be godly. This Greek verb train comes from the world of athletics. It's a reference to the training regimen of athletes training ourselves to be godly requires commitment and and focus and determination and prep. This just like it does for the elite athlete and just because these things are practical and explainable doesn't mean that they're somehow unspiritual godly habits produce godliness in the life of a child who was indwelt by the Holy Spirit that we sometimes convince ourselves that for godliness to be real for it to be authentic. It's got a grow in some sort of mystical way in us and to pursue it through through discipline and good habits makes it insincere folks.

God is a spirit, but he uses means Christianity is a spiritual relationship with Christ. But that spiritual relationship ought to affect every aspect of our existence, including the most mundane actions and habits of our lives is nothing insincere or unspiritual about making our pursuit of obedience and the fear of God, a matter of practical discipline Jerry Bridges. He's an author who's going on to to be with the Lord. He was certainly no moralistic prude but he said this, you can't grow in the fear of God unless you work at it, can't grow in godliness without working at it. So with that in mind here some practical ways we can train ourselves to fear and obey God first developed the habit of reading God's word every day.

Another churchy statement on the blows past, folks, it's real. Take the time to discipline yourself to spend time every day in the world. We can't Rivera God we don't know and he makes himself known to us in his word. We can't obey his commandments. If we don't know what his commandments are and his Word reveals his commandments, his will to us read the Bible meditate on its words and sentences and paragraphs so that they become an indispensable part of your reasoning process and attitudes, and decision-making.

Secondly, developed the habit of stopping to pray frequently, someone wants to find the fear of God as a constant awareness that I am in the presence of a holy God.

The constant awareness that I am in the presence of a holy God of folks we have so many things distracting us from that awareness. We need to stop consciously and remind ourselves I am in the presence of a holy God.

What better way to keep yourself consciously aware of God's presence than to stop and talk to him in prayer. If you have to set reminders for yourself to stop and pray we we use all sorts of devices and apps to remind us to exercise and to drink water and to breathe deeply and to stand up for 30 seconds and let's put that technology to use in the area of spiritual discipline, reminding ourselves to stop and pray, thirdly, develop the habit of making time in your prayers to praise God for who he is, not just ask him for things, but to praise him for who he is, so that your focus is on your circumstances. It's on him, his character, his miniature his being.

This perhaps sounds obvious, but I think it warrants being sad because it's so easy to focus almost exclusively in prayer on the things that we need and to stop and and and would we forget to stop and remember who God is and what he's capable of. Now this is another one of those areas where Christian familiarity area can breed disinterest way okay. I praise God, I get it, we move on. We don't stop and and deliberately learn to do this and to do it well when I find myself going through the motions of praise without adequately appreciating the God him on praising. I have found it helpful to jumpstart my affections by reading the writings of of godly, knowledgeable Christian authors books like W pinks, the attributes of God. Knowing God, Stephen char knocks the existence and attributes of God. In fact, let me in a brief excerpt from one of these books as we close and and see if this doesn't just heighten your sense of all of God's from Stephen char knock consider first that everything which is the object of God's knowledge was once only future there was a moment when nothing being but himself. He knew nothing actually passed because nothing was passed.

Nothing actually present because nothing had any existence, but himself. Therefore, only what was future and why not everything that is future now. God indeed knows everything is present but the things themselves known by him were not present at creation, but future did not God know what he would create before he created it. Was he ignorant before he acted and in his acting not realize what his actions would produce or did he not know the nature of things in the purposes of them until he produce them. And Solomon, to being creatures must be known by God before they are made and not known because they are made. He knew them in order to make them and did not make them in order to know them and by the same reason that he knew what creatures would be before they were.

He knows still what creatures shall be before they are such as to increase your all of God learn to praise God highly by thinking of God deeply and as we discipline ourselves in these things. We will increase our fear of God and our obedience to God in all the right ways.

Solomon turned inward to make sense of this fallen world. These closing verses exhort us to turn upward upward to a God whom we should fear and obey. Only then will we begin to find meaning and purpose and even joy under the sun was bright father. You are worthy of our total and absolute worship. Yet even in giving you that which you are worthy, we need your grace, so help us to fear you rightly and obey you. Sincerely, for the sake of your glory and our joy. We pray it