What a glorious confession we get to make together. Hallelujah, what a savior that we serve. Let's go to him in prayer and ask for his help as we come to the preaching of his word. Our great God and Father, we thank you that you've brought us here. We thank you for the promise to equip us to do what we are unable to do on our own. that which is so fundamental and basic to our very existence as human beings, we were created to worship you, and yet even that we cannot do, unless you assist us, unless you give us power and ability that we don't possess in ourselves. Father, praise we open your word to Ecclesiastes 5, and as we wrestle with life under the sun, even in your church, and even as we confront painful realities, both in this glorious institution and also in our own hearts, or that you would give us eyes to hear, eyes to see and ears to hear, and that you would help us to see ourselves clearly, and having done that, that you would give us the mercy for which we must long. We ask this in Christ's name, amen. You may be seated, and we'd ask you to continue our study through the book of Ecclesiastes. We've been going through this chapter by chapter. This is the sixth message so far. We'll be dealing with the first seven verses of chapter five. And I won't ask for a show of hands, but if I were to ask, How many of you have been harmed in the church or by a church? I suspect every hand would go up. In my introductory sermon on Ecclesiastes six weeks ago, I mentioned one of the reasons I wanted to study this particular book is that it pictures life as it really is, not as we would imagine it to be. And we're often tempted to seek a paint-by-numbers approach to life, but Kohelet tells us the truth. You'll recall from chapter 1, our speaker here introduces himself as the preacher. And it's a Hebrew word, Kohelet, and that word means preacher, teacher, philosopher, king, gatherer. But rather than saying all that, I'm just going to use the Hebrew word, Kohelet. Kohelet, it's a shorthand here, but it's his title. It's probably Solomon, but we don't know for certain. He doesn't identify himself, except as Kohelet. And our preacher, teacher, philosopher, king wants us sober in our expectations of life, even when it comes to the house of God. In fact, he talks often about this life, he says, under the sun. It's a phrase he uses more than two dozen times. In fact, every chapter through the first 10 chapters, except chapter 7, has this phrase, under the sun, or the alternate, under heaven. And it's talking about life in this present world, in the flesh and blood, in this tangible, carnal, earthly creation in which we live. And he wants us to be sober about that. So the Bible, the Word of God is honest with us about how life really is under the sun. And in my introduction, I used an illustration. My kids love to build Legos, and when they build Legos, if you follow the steps, you're guaranteed to have something at the end that looks exactly like what's on the box. And I recalled my own work as a kid. I didn't do the Lego set so much. I did a lot of model airplanes, model cars, and not once in all my years of doing it, I had hundreds of them, did it ever look like the box when I was done? There's so many variabilities, so many perplexities, and frankly, a lack of skill on my part to make it look like that. And life is like that often. It can be frustrating and perplexing and even painful because it doesn't match up to what we think it ought to look like. But there is one place in which we think that we will escape those difficulties and perplexities in this life, a place that we think will look like the picture on the box. There is one institution in which we assume that the folly and the unbridled self-interest of man that we discovered last week in chapter four doesn't exist. We know of a group of people among whom we think that inhumanity of a man to his neighbor will disappear completely. The church. The church. And see, both we and our neighbors will readily admit to the imperfections of this life, generally. I mean, life out there, it's messy, it's difficult, it's perplexing, it's mixed with both joy and sorrow, we get that. But here, surely it would be different here. Surely in the church, we should expect something otherworldly. Is it right to expect that? Is there anyone here, I'll phrase the question differently, and again, I'm not asking for a show of hands, but is anyone here who has never been hurt by church people? Some of you have been wounded severely. Your spirit's been bruised, your soul has been lacerated repeatedly. And for some, those injuries may never have healed and maybe continue to grieve you, perhaps even years later. we probably all could roll up our sleeves or pull off our shirts and show the scars, so to speak, of life under the sun in the church. Our Heavenly Father is a wise counselor. He's the original psychologist, psychology being the study of the soul. He's the original psychologist, and because he's our maker and through his word, he confronts us, like any good counselor does, with the truth. And he confronts us with things that maybe we wouldn't on our own want to deal with. Frankly. In this passage, our teacher, Kohelet, continues his examination of life under the sun. And he turns his careful perception, his sober thoughts, now to the house of God, to the house of worship, to the church. And here, as with the rest of life under the sun, he's unflinching in his honesty about what he perceives and what he observes. The title of the sermon today is the peril of the church. The peril of the church. That may even strike you as an odd title for a sermon. Let's read together Ecclesiastes. I'm gonna read beginning in verse one and go down to verse seven. 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 busyness, 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's 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. May the Lord bless the reading of his word. And this section is unique compared to the previous chapters in Ecclesiastes, where he's making philosophical observations. He's surveying the world around him, and he's saying, you know, I see this is true, and I don't like what I see. Or this is true, and that part's good. But here, he actually gives imperatives. He gives commands to us. We find commands to God's people, and the very first command that we find is, guard yourself when you go to church. Does that strike you as odd? It does me. Guard yourself when you go to church. So what he says, guard yourself when you go to the house of God. Guard yourself when you go to a dangerous part of town. That makes sense. We train our children. If you're climbing up high in the tree, some of your mamas are going, Be careful. Guard yourself up there. When the little ones are playing near the street, you train them, guard yourself. The cars are out there. They'll run over you. When you're in the parking lot at Walmart, watch yourself. You're in a parking lot. The car is buzzing around. Guard yourself. But church? Guard yourself when you go to church? That doesn't seem right. Isn't that the safest place of all? Well, Kohelet tells us that under the sun, it's not as safe as it might appear. And there are two reasons for that. The first reason to guard our steps when we go to the house of God is because fools are present in the church. Guard yourself because there's fools there. The second reason to guard our steps is much more profound, and I'll address that later in the sermon. But let's consider the presence of fools first as a reason to guard our steps. And again, you may recall one of the reasons I wanted to preach this particular book, the book of Ecclesiastes, is because it may help us cultivate an empathy and a charity toward our neighbors, many of whom, most of whom probably don't go to church. They're non-Christians. And when people explain to us that they've been hurt by the church or by church people, how do we respond? We may be tempted to sort of explain that away, make excuses for it, whitewash over it, or make promises we can't keep, like, well, that won't happen again. But instead, Kohelet gives us an example of sober honesty. Yes, we should say to our friend, I understand your pain. Severe wounds can happen in the life of a church community. In fact, I myself have received those wounds. In fact, I'm sad to say I've given some. There's an honesty there. It establishes an integrity when we speak with people. So what are the characteristics of the foolish churchgoer? What are the characteristics? Well, the very first one we find is a blind hypocrisy. a blind and sometimes ignorant hypocrisy. Look what he says. There in chapter 5, beginning in verse 1, "'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 number one, we see there are fools in the church making sacrifices. They're there worshiping, or at least pretending to, maybe even genuinely believing that they are. The fool can be known by his outward religion that's not matched with a genuine love for God and for others. And worse, he may not know that he's doing evil. He may not even be aware of his own pain that he's inflicting upon others, or upon his own soul, for that matter. And many people in churches want to, quote, make a sacrifice to please God. They want to show up, they want to serve, they want to be part of things, they want to be active and visible. And sometimes they're so self-absorbed that they don't even realize that they're hurting other people by their words, by their actions. Often their sacrifices are not a genuine effort to worship God, but rather to impress other people, to make themselves appear really righteous, to make themselves feel really important. Sometimes it's a person who's never really had authority in their life and they want to wield it in the church with a heavy hand. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, warned us not to imitate such people. In fact, He says, beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward, but when you give to the needy, Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so that your giving may be in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is giving us an exposition. He's giving us a detailed account of this is what life as a true disciple looks like. And one of the things you're going to be tempted as a true disciple is to imitate the ones who seem to be gaining all the attention. The ones who have the nice robes and the phylacteries and these little things that would hang off the sides of their hats and their garments to show how much scripture they knew. And he says, don't imitate them. They're hypocrites. Jesus wasn't afraid to call them such. The great Puritan writer, Matthew Henry, comments this. He says, they are fools, for they consider not that they do evil. They think they are doing God and themselves good service, when really, They're putting a great affront upon God and a great cheat upon their own souls by their hypocritical devotions. Men may be doing evil even when they profess to be doing good, and even when they do not know it, when they do not consider it. The man, the woman who is thoughtless, careless, so self-focused that they don't even look up and see the impact around them. And ignorance is no excuse. The fact that they don't know this doesn't take away their condemnation. Ignorance is no excuse, even in our common courts of law. If you're blazed down this street here and you're doing 70 miles an hour and you get pulled over and this officer says, do you know how fast you were going? Well, I don't know what the speed limit is. That's no excuse. And certainly not when it comes to the things of God. We are accountable to God for our foolish actions, especially when our actions are pretended worship. Zach Eswine adds an important insight. He says, ironically, foolish churchgoers recognize a need for sacrifice. I mean, even those who don't know the scriptures, who don't understand Christianity, will recognize sort of intuitively, I ought to be doing something here. I ought to be making a religious show. He says, the foolish churchgoer recognizes the need for sacrifice, but they look to themselves and to external appearances, woefully unaware of their true selves, They put people off by their way of relating to people and doing business. Persona becomes a way of life for them. They think that dislike for them is due to the fact that they are persecuted for righteousness' sake, when in fact, their arrogant behavior warrants the rancor. In other words, they think, I'm this righteous guy, I'm doing all these good things, and people don't like me for that. No, it's because you're a jerk. Because you're unkind. It's because you're a hypocrite. That's why they don't like you. Don't hide behind your so-called righteousness. But there's a second mark of a foolish churchgoer that we see here in Ecclesiastes 5. It's this, it's his love of religious talk, his tendency towards excessive words. Look at verse 2, "...be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore, let your words be few, for a dream comes with much busyness and a fool's voice with many words." The religious fool, just like the non-religious fool, frankly, is rash with his words. She's hasty in her speech. And once again, Jesus warns us about trying to appear righteous by using a lot of words. Again, in the Sermon on the Mount, he says, when you pray, don't heap up words and empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. They think because they stand on the street corner and they pray loudly and they pray these long prayers, that that will be pleasing to God. Further, the religious fool does not understand the lesson of chapter three. Remember chapter 3, there's a time for everything under the sun? For everything there's a purpose? Sometimes the religious fool doesn't understand the seasonality of our words. Even true words spoken at an insensitive time can wound and pierce, can they not? And worse still, Verses three and seven correlate the idea of dreams here with the foolish. Look at verse three. For a dream comes with much busyness, and a fool's voice with many words. And then in seven, for when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity. But God is the one you must fear. Here, Kohelet correlates the imaginations, the dreams of men, with their religious speech. Now think this through. He's saying, just because you dreamed it doesn't mean it's so. Just because you imagine something doesn't mean it's true. And just because you imagine something in the name of God doesn't make it so. Just because you thought something up that'd be really good and say, I think God said to do this, it doesn't make it so. And we harm others when we wrap our own opinions in religious garb, claiming to speak for God when he has not spoken is no small crime. To say God requires this of you when he hasn't said that. To say you must come and do certain religious exercises when God hasn't said that, that's nowhere in the Bible. That's no small crime. And to say you're not righteous unless you do like I do, because I do this or that or the other thing in my religious expression. That's what righteousness is. Did God say that? Well, no, but it works for me. It's a problem. We've redefined righteousness. We've shifted the mark now. And it actually ends up being an abuse of the word of life intended by God to release his people from bondage, and we want to enslave them all over again. And the foolish churchman assumes his views must be God's views. The foolish church woman fails to see that her dreams are just that, her imaginations, not the Word of God. And sadly, the hypocrisy about which Kohelet speaks here, the vain and rash words, the binding words where they should not bind, those kinds of words often come from teachers and leaders in churches. In our prayer meeting today, Kyle took us to chapter 3 of Malachi, and we see that where God particularly condemns the leaders of Israel on this very point. They led the people astray. They bound the people to things to which God had not bound them. Now listen to Zac Eswine once again on this point. He says, foolish churchgoers assume that what they think and feel is synonymous with what God thinks and feels. If they think it, they must say it. If they feel it, they must relieve it by means of orality. Dreams, those day and night imaginings and goals, are always from God and never indicative of something potentially illusory within them. They are first draft people living daily on unmeditated speech. Patience is a nuisance. Taking time to think is a waste of time. Plans must be made, visions enacted, great things must be quickly done. For them, haste, constant talk, and busying oneself identify the hallmarks of those who should be in church. That's a picture of the religious fool. Now you understand, don't you, that Kolahet's beef here is not with true words that cause an offense. I mean, he's not speaking of offense taken by stubborn sinners who refuse to hear and obey God's true word. That's not his point. He's talking about the offense that we add unnecessarily. The barbs that we add to the word that weren't present. And Kohelet is wrestling with the reality that the self-interest that we discovered in chapter 4, that he meditated upon, that same self-interest that leads to oppression and abuse in politics and in governments and even at the individual level, is found in the church as well. He grieves over it. He's honest about it. He doesn't whitewash this. And none of us are immune from these wounds. In fact, none of us are immune from being offenders ourselves, are we? And this can happen either because of carelessness and thoughtlessness, or because of self-righteousness. The result can be the same. And Jesus tells us plainly that self-righteousness is a constant danger for us religious people. In Luke chapter 18, Jesus tells this parable. Jesus also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt. That's Luke. Dr. Luke sets up the parable this way. He's out one day, he's teaching, and he tells this parable specifically, Luke says, to those who considered themselves righteous and treated others with contempt. And Jesus says, two men go up to the temple to pray. One of them is a Pharisee. He's a recognized leader in the religious community. He is known as the pinnacle, the ultimate expression of righteousness. He's fastidious about everything he does religiously. He ties even his mint and dill, he strains it out and gives his temp off of even that. He goes up to pray. Another man, same time, goes up to pray. He's a tax collector. A tax collector was a traitor to the Jewish cause. He was considered the worst of the worst. The two men go up, not together, they go up, they both end up at the temple on the same day to pray. And he says, the Pharisee stands and prays, Lord, thank you that I am not like other men. Thank you I'm not like, for instance, this tax collector. I do all my religious duties, I tithe, I'm here all the time, I do this, I do that, thank you. but I'm not like these others. The tax collector, Jesus says, would not even gaze toward heaven. He beat his breast and says, God have mercy on me, I am a sinner. Then Jesus forges a spear-shaped conclusion and thrusts it into the hypocrite standing before him. The sinner is the one who went home justified before God rather than the Pharisees. Jesus concludes, everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. The self-interest we encountered in chapter four inhabits all of us as well. The problem is not an other people problem, the problem's an us too problem. Perhaps you've heard the fictional story, the man who was deserted on an island for a number of years, and when he was, years later, he was finally rescued, and he's packing up his belongings, and the ship captain asked him, what are these buildings? And he said, well, that one's my house. It's where I live. Oh, what's this one? That's my church. It's where I worship. Oh, well, what's this other building? Well, that's where I used to go to church. Even by ourselves, we can't get along. Now, we must consider the much more important reason to guard our steps when we go to the house of God. There's a danger of foolish people hurting us. There's no question about that, both inside and outside the church. That's true at the Rotary Club. It's true in the Little League game. I mean, it's one of the most violent conflicts I've ever seen. We're on a soccer field refereeing six-year-old games. The church isn't unique in this, but his point is that the church isn't unique in this. We still live under the sun. Our Lord talked about the tares, meaning weeds, being sown by the enemy, by Satan himself, among the wheat. And he had a discussion about it with the disciples, with the apostles. They said, well, should we go root that out? And he said, no. If you try to root it out now, you'll pluck up the wheat. You'll pluck up the good stuff. Just wait. Just wait. Persevere. And in the end, the Lord will sort these things out. So there is a danger in the church from one another. Certainly it's true. The Word of God is honest with this fact. But there's something else that's much more perilous. Indeed, someone much more perilous. We find here that God is to be feared above all men. And despite the fact that foolish and even wicked people can be found in the church of Jesus Christ. We persevere for the sake of the one to whom we owe worship, the one to whom we owe praise and adoration. Let's look again closely at verse one. Come back to verse one. 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." Kohelet is honest, again, about the people dangers, and yet he says, when you go, when you draw near, you would think, having surveyed that kind of danger, he would have said, would you avoid that place? Here's what you do. When you find something else, here's what you do. But he doesn't. He says, when you go to the house of God, When you draw near to listen, this isn't optional. This is the reason for which we were made. This is the reason for which we exist to give honor and worship to the one who made us. The goal here, the answer isn't to avoid the house of worship. When confronted with the perils of this world, including the true perils of life in the church, we reach a fork in the road. And the sign above the road heading to the left says, people are sovereign, negative experience is keen, go your own way, God and his house are one in the same, so avoid them both. That's the road to the left. The road to the left looks safer. The sign above the road to the right reads, God is worthy of our worship at any cost. It reads, God's grace revealed in Jesus Christ is sufficient for our sorrows. It reads, God is reshaping his people and making them more like him. But the road to the left looks easy. Jesus tells us it's a broad road. It's a crowded road. It's a smooth road. It's a six-lane highway. And the road to the right is narrow, it's steep. Gohelet's already honest with us. There's some potholes on that road. There's some false people on that road. But the book of Proverbs, twice in the book of Proverbs, in chapter 14 and chapter 16, we find this, there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. And Jesus described these two roads. Again, one narrow was sparsely traveled, the other broad and crowded. And despite his very sober and wise reflections, Kohelet says, take the steep road. He commands us, take the narrow road. The word of God urges us to persevere in the household of faith and to draw near to God, believing by faith that he is transforming us into His own image. And He urges us to fix eyes of faith upon a vision of God's grace and a vision of God's power to change and shape sinful men into something glorious. When you go to the house of God, that's the command, and guard your steps. And this idea of when, when you go, this testifies to our pursuit of something new, something better, something above the sun. And when we encounter folly in the church, and we will, we will, will we commit ourselves to something higher? When we embody it in ourselves, the folly of the world in the church, and again, we will. Will we purpose to submit ourselves to the promises of God that he will perfect us as a community for his own namesake? What does that look like? Well, let's look at two ways that we find here in which the exercise and sacrifice of faith contrasts with the worship of fools. The first we see is genuine worship is the opposite of the sacrifice of fools because it's marked by listening. It's marked by listening. To draw near to listen is better, is what he says. And we go to church to learn how to slow down our tongues. The apostle James, the writer of the book of James, he meditates on this. He says, think about the tongue. It's one of these small muscles in your body, and yet it's like a rudder on one of these massive ships on the sea. The whole big ship gets steered by that one little instrument. Or he says, think about what kind of a big forest fire gets lit by one small spark. He said our tongue is like that. It's great power, both for blessing and cursing in the tongue. And going to church, again, when you go, when you persevere, when you repeat this process, you learn to slow down your tongue. You learn how to put your hand over your mouth, how to listen. Listen to one another, certainly, but far more to listen to God. Hasty speech, vowing vows that we can't repay or won't repay, and then claiming, hey, it was just a mistake. I spoke out of turn, I shouldn't have promised that. Or, I just misspoke. That's a mark of foolish worship, and our incessant need to talk contrasts sharply with attentive listening. Sure, you'll remember Mark Twain's observation, if we were meant to talk more than listen, what, we'd have two mouths and only one ear. Listening well is one of the very hardest skills to learn and to master. It takes diligence, it takes practice. Well, at least it's hard to listen to a voice outside of our head. That takes diligence, that takes practice. The one inside of our head we can listen to, we like that voice. Listening to God requires us to be quiet, the thing that we do not want to do. Submitting ourselves regularly to the means of grace in the church of Jesus Christ, it transforms us. It's often not immediate, it's not sudden. Jesus describes this growth, he says, the kingdom of God is like yeast. Yeast, when it's put into the dough, ends up permeating the whole thing, in fact, and then it grows. I learned this lesson the hard way. My first job was a sales rep for Cisco Foods, and I sold to hospitals and restaurants and those kinds of things, and one Friday afternoon, it was a summertime, and my air conditioner on my car was out, so I took Gina's car. She had one of these little sporty two-door coupes, and I had gone, and for some reason, on Friday afternoon, I had to pick up. A customer had some frozen dough balls. These things are less than the size of a golf ball. There's probably a couple hundred of them in this little case. It's about the size of maybe two shoe boxes put together. And I'd gone to pick it up and I was intended to take it out to, we had a storage trailer that had a freezer in it out on the interstate. I meant to take it there and I forgot. Saturday morning, I went out to get the paper and it was Bryan College Station in the summertime. It was about 80 degrees and humid. Well, if you know anything about baking, that's the perfect condition for making dough rise. So these 200 little dough balls had filled the entire back end of this car, pressing up against the glass, busted the box open, and I thought, oh no, I'm in trouble. I got it all back in there. That's a whole other story. I got it cleaned out. I had this vivid picture in my mind of the yeast growing just overnight. It's not immediate. It didn't happen when I was, if it had happened before I got to the house, I would have seen it. Happened slowly. And again, Zac Eswine nails this concept. He says, instead of asserting ourselves and filling the space with what we propose it needs, we encounter a space that's already purposed by a being who has already asserted himself. Wise church-going apprentices us in humility. It teaches us to listen. According to the preacher, churchgoers become humble listeners who possess a stamina for waiting, a capacity for patience, and esteem for the time that true reflection requires. But there's a second way in which genuine worship is the opposite of the sacrifice of fools. It is marked by humility rather than self-promotion. It's marked by humility rather than self-promotion. What did the fool do? He exalted himself. He says, look at me, look at me, look at me. The wise worshiper, the genuine worshiper is marked by humility rather than that self-promotion. Look again at verses 2 and 3. 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." I mean, stop and think about what he's saying. He said, when you go into the house of God, you're going into the house of God. You think you've got something to say? the one who made you, you stand in front of him, you stand in his presence, and you think you have something to say? We need to respond as Job did. Job spent most of the book arguing with God and lamenting these terrible things that had happened, and finally, Job says, you know what, I'm gonna put my hand over my mouth. Who am I to answer to God? Who am I to question God? And then in verse 7, for when dreams increase and words grow many, there's vanity. So here's this other theme that we're tracing through the book of Ecclesiastes. He begins the book with vanity of vanity, all is vanity, and the idea of futility and of vapor and mist and the brevity of life. And he says, it's actually when dreams increase, when our imaginations go wild, our words multiply, so that's what's fruitless. That's what's vain. God is the one you must fear. We can rightly say, in some very specific ways, we want to qualify this, but we can say that there are ways in which man is like a God. The book of Genesis tells us that on the sixth day of creation, God made man, male and female, he made them in his own image. He breathed into Adam's nostrils, breathed the breath of life into him, and created him in his own image. Now, there's a lot that's mysterious about that that I can't explain. But this I do know. There is a sense in which all of human beings are said to be like God. We saw this in chapter three, for instance, God has placed eternity in the heart of man. We think about what comes after us. We think about things like what happens after I'm gone? Does your dog ever have such thoughts? Does your horse ever have such thoughts? Well, no, they don't. God has placed eternity in the heart of man. Part of what distinguishes us from the animal kingdom, from the rest of the animal kingdom, is that image of God, the imago dei. So we can rightly say in those specific ways that we're like God, and then as those who come to faith in Christ, those who are born again in Christ, the Bible tells us that we progressively, bit by bit, become conformed to the image of God's own Son. So it is right there, even more specifically, to say that we become even more like God. Progressively, bit by bit, we become more like God. But here's the catch. We can never, ever, ever, ever say that God is like us. The opposite is not true. God is not like a man. And Kohelet reminds us that as we think about and contemplate, and he does, and he does so honestly, the difficulties and the perils that exist, even at church, he says, think about this, God is not like you. God is in heaven and you are not. He's speaking of God's, what the theologians would call God's transcendence. He is above all things. He is outside of his creation. God doesn't exist as we do under the sun. He exists above all things. So to behold God as he actually is will necessarily produce in us a humility that is inconsistent with the self-promotion to which we are naturally inclined. I'm gonna give you two examples. We could go to a bunch of them. Two examples in the scripture, one from the Old Testament prophets and one from the book of Revelation. Let's turn first to Isaiah. Here in Ecclesiastes, turn to the right, a few books, to the book of Isaiah, Isaiah chapter six. Both of these passages that we're going to consider give us a glimpse We get to peek through the window, as it were, into the throne room of God. Isaiah chapter six, in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim, each had six wings, with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said, woe is me. For I am lost, I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the king, the word of hosts. Isaiah's response, seeing even a vision of God in his glory, what was his response? Did he have a lot to say at that point? Did he have a lot to add here? Did he multiply his words? Did he give a dream and a vision? No. The first thing he recognized was the uncleanness of his speech. And we see the mercy of God. One of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said, behold, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away, your sin atoned for. This is true and right worship. The humble doesn't promote himself. The wise worshiper doesn't promote herself. Then turn over to Revelation, the book of Revelation, chapter 5. And once again, we find ourselves in the throne room of God. Once again, by way of vision, the Apostle John in the Spirit on the Lord's day. And I'm going to start and pick up in the middle here, but in verse 11. Then I looked and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders, the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing. And I heard every creature in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and in the sea, and all that is in them saying to him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, to be blessing, and honor, and glory, and might forever and ever. And the four living creatures said amen, and the elders fell down and worshiped." Now here we do have some speech going on. What was it? Praise. It was praising God as He is. So we find here in Ecclesiastes 5, Kohen says, Friends, if we will listen to God, If we will humble ourselves by contemplating God as He is, not as we imagine Him to be, but as He has revealed Himself in the Word of God, then day by day, week by week, bit by bit, we will find the folly of our own hearts melting away. We ought to praise God for that. We will then be less of a threat to ourselves and to others. As we persevere, when you come to the house of God, when you draw near to listen, progressively, over weeks and years, we will become less dangerous. The church itself becomes less dangerous. And as I study this passage, this week and meditated upon these things, there were two emotions that prevailed upon me. Number one was anger against those who cause harm to others in the church in the name of Christianity. It is right for us to be angry about that. Right. And there's a second emotion that prevailed upon me, grief over the harm that I have caused. By my own self-righteousness, by my careless words, thoughtless actions against others, things that have happened pastoral, even on my watch, where people have been hurt and wounded in the church of Jesus Christ. God is not pleased with this. And I shudder to think of the unknown harm that I have caused others, perhaps even to some of you. And I want to close by considering the kind provision that God has made for both the foolish and the humble. Both the remedy for the anger that we should rightly feel towards those who have abused others in the name of Christianity, and perhaps our own grieving hearts as we consider the folly that remains in us. This whole section here, These two paragraphs, one through seven, Kohelet is contemplating, in this life under the sun, even the church is often stained by the folly of men. But God remains worthy of our worship and our fear of him must transcend our fear of man, believing that one day his righteous judgment will overcome the folly of all men. And Kohelet closes this section with these words, God is the one you must fear. as we rightly consider, yep, this road, the road to our right, it's a perilous one, it's steep. God is the one you must fear. The nature of God's revealing himself to mankind is progressive. God did not give us the whole Bible at one time. It's progressive. And over generations and even millennia, he's revealed himself until finally and completely he revealed himself in the person and the work of his son. So that means as great and as wise and as educated and as astute as Solomon was, we have more light than he did. You'll remember earlier in our study in the book of Matthew, Jesus says that today, the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater, even than John the Baptist, who was the greatest of the Old Testament prophets. Why? Because we're better, smarter, why? No, because we have more information. God has revealed more to us than even John the Baptist knew. John the Baptist was not alive for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He was not alive when on the third day Christ was raised from the grave and the ladies came back and reported the empty tomb. John the Baptist wasn't there at Pentecost when just as Jesus said, the spirit of the living God was poured out upon his church. Saints, we have a completed canon. We have the full revelation of God. We have more light. So when we have to interpret this closing statement, God is the one you must fear in light of... See what I did there? In light of that greater light. In John's gospel in chapter 14, we read the words of Christ. Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on, you do know him and have seen him. But Philip, the one who had been with Jesus for three years, says, Lord, show us the Father and it's enough for us. And Jesus said, have I been with you so long and you still don't know me, Philip? Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you, I do not speak on My own authority, but the Father who dwells in Me does His work. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me, or else believe on account of the works themselves. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in Me, will also do the works that I do, and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son." So to fear God means to believe in His Son and to obey His commandments. If we know the Son, we know the Father. If we don't know the Son, we don't know the Father. We can't fear God if we don't fear the Son, if we don't come and bow ourselves to the Son. To fear God means to humble ourselves to listen to Jesus and to his apostles. To fear God means to confess our sinful nature and our known sinful deeds and cast ourselves onto the mercy revealed in Jesus Christ. In the New Testament, in Paul's first epistle to a young man named Timothy, his protege, Paul writes autobiographically. And in 1 Timothy 1, the apostle Paul says, I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor. and insolent opponent, but I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus." The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason. that in me, as the foremost sinner, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. To the king of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. Now, I can't tell you that Paul was reading Ecclesiastes 5 as he wrote that. I can't tell you that, but he could have been. because Paul recognizes his own folly. Saul of Tarsus, when he says, I was a blasphemer, I was a persecutor, Paul, by his own testimony, had harmed psychologically, bodily, even to the point of death, people in the church. He did it out of his own religious zeal that was wrong-headed. He says, I acted foolishly and in unbelief, ignorantly, in unbelief. Just like we saw what Kohelet said, people are doing these things, they're offering this sacrifice of praise, but they don't even know what they're doing. They're doing evil and they don't even know it. Paul says, yeah, that was me. But you know what? I received mercy. As an example to those who would come after me, if they would believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, they too would receive the same mercy that I received. And Paul's testimony is, if it can work for me, the foremost of sinners, surely there's hope for the rest of us. So by his own testimony, no one was a bigger fool than Saul of Tarsus. And yet God rescued him from his own mistaken ambition. He saved him from his own folly. He ransomed him from the prison of his own sin and purchased him with the blood of his own son. So I'd ask you, will you listen to God today? Will you draw near and listen? Will you humble yourself before the God who is in heaven? Will you contemplate God in heaven as he actually is? And will you admit that you're not in heaven? Will you seek mercy while it may be found? And if you will not, Kohelet is clear. God is angry, he says, with your voice and will destroy the work of your hands. Friends, don't presume upon tomorrow. Cry out to the living God today by the blood of his son. Let's pray. Father, we rejoice in You. We thank You even for these difficult passages of Scripture. We thank You that there are portions of Your Word that captivate our hearts and our affections, and we want to read them over and over again, and we want to dwell upon them and rejoice in them. And then there are other passages, like this one today, that were hard. and I pray that you'd be gracious to us. Grant us the humility to see ourselves as we ought to see us, to encourage one another in these things, to rejoice in the mercy that's available to all who will come to you. All who will call upon the name of the Lord Jesus will be saved. Help us to believe that, increase our faith, Fathers, we prepare for the Lord's Supper. I pray that you would stir these things up in us. As we sang earlier, that your son has given himself for our heavenly food. Bless us and keep us in your word and by your spirit, amen.