Good morning. This morning's passage comes from Ecclesiastes chapter five. I'll start at verse one and go through verse seven. Guard your steps as you go into the house of God and draw near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil. Do not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God. For God is in heaven and you are on earth, therefore let your words be few. For the dream comes through much work, and the voice of a fool through many words. When you make a vow to God, do not be late in paying it. He takes no delight in fools. Pay what you vow. It is better that you do not vow than that you should vow and not pay. Do not let your speech cause you to sin, and do not say in the presence of the messenger of God that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry on account of your voice and destroy the work of your hands? For in many dreams and in many words, there is much futility. Rather, fear God. Happy birthday, Agape. Do you know this is your birthday? Do you know how old you are? Seven years old. How many of you were there seven years ago when we had our first Sunday? The Lord's taken us a long way, hasn't He? All right, let's pray. All glory, all honor, all praise, all power, all to You, Lord. Everything. Forever and ever. You are amazing, God. But what does it mean, really, for us to be amazed at our God? We say that, we speak about your being so amazing all the time, but what does it really look like for a creature to be amazed at his or her creator? What does it mean to really stand in awe, Lord? I pray that this morning through this text, by Your Spirit, You would teach us. Take us one more step closer to true amazement. Lord, enable Your servant to unveil some of Your majesty. Lord, if You are not held reverence and awe here? Where will it happen? If not in your church, where? Lord, enable us to take you seriously this morning. We pray this for your glory and for the glory of your son. Amen. Of all the things that my father taught me growing up, I think Maybe the most valuable was his teaching me how to reverence God. I remember once as a kid telling a joke that involved God, and it didn't mock God or belittle God in any way. It just involved God in the joke. He was mentioned in the joke. And I told that joke, expecting to get a big laugh or hoping to get a big laugh. Instead, my dad said something. He didn't laugh at all and he didn't crack a smile. He just said something like, I don't like jokes about God. They're not reverent. And that hit me like a ton of bricks. I'll never forget that. It forever changed the way that I spoke about God. In our home, God was never referred to as the man upstairs, you know, or the big guy, or any kind of wording that conveyed anything other than deep reverence. Reverence for the Creator. It goes way beyond just natural respect, the kind of respect we have for fellow human beings. Fellow human being, you can tell a joke about somebody else as long as you're not belittling them or insulting them or something like that. If they're just in the joke, then that's fine. That's not disrespectful. But with God, it's different. It's not enough to show God the same amount of respect that we show fellow human beings. When you mention God, it is irreverent to mention him in any kind of frivolous way. Another person who helped set this attitude deep in my heart is John MacArthur, who I used to love to listen to growing up. He made an offhanded comment once in a sermon that I'll never forget. He was talking about people who are just overly familiar with Jesus, and they say the name Jesus, they just throw the name around, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, everything, and it's almost like it becomes empty. They're so quick to utter the name Jesus, and they speak about him the way they would speak about a peer or a buddy And MacArthur went on to point out that in Scripture you don't see that. You rarely see the name Jesus by itself in the Bible. Most of the time it's surrounded with titles of honor. It's the Lord Jesus, the Lord Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the great God and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. These titles of honor. And MacArthur said, I love using titles of honor to refer to my Lord. And I've learned to love that too. I love it that Scripture has given us these titles that we can use so that we can bring Him glory and honor every time we speak His name. Another thing that never happened in our house growing up was anybody ever saying the phrase, Oh my God. That was not done. We were taught very early that if you're going to mention God, you'd better be actually talking about God. The phrase, oh my God, isn't really talking about God, it's just an expletive. It means nothing. And it's irreverent to mention God in connection with nothingness. Now, for some of you, that part might sound, I mean, all of this might sound silly. I don't know where you stand with this. For some people, they might be thinking, oh, come on. Are you getting legalistic here? These are just words. I mean, it's just a saying. I don't mean anything bad by it. I don't mean anything with it. That's exactly the problem. Not meaning something. Saying words that have no meaning is a bad thing to do, because words matter. Words are not small and significant things. They're huge, important things that matter, and if you doubt that, you just glance through the language of this section. Look down at verse 4 of Ecclesiastes 5. He says, When you make a vow to God, don't delay in filling it, because he has no pleasure in fools. That's a pretty strong word. If we don't follow the principles in this passage, we're acting like fools who bring no pleasure to God. Now, remember what the goal of Ecclesiastes is. Remember, the goal of Ecclesiastes is to enjoy life, right? He's teaching us to enjoy life. And how do you enjoy life? By pleasing God. So doing something that brings no pleasure to God is the wrong path. That's not the path to joy, right? It's not going to reach our goal. And not only that, look down at verse 6, there's a possibility that God will actually be angry with our words and destroy the work of our hands. Matthew 12, 36, Jesus said, But I tell you that man will have to give an account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. Our words matter. They're a big deal and so it's very fitting for the writer of Ecclesiastes to include a whole section here to warn us and instruct us about this very serious issue about the way that we speak. especially the way we speak in church. Up to this point, the preacher has been mostly, in the book of Ecclesiastes, making observations. And there's a change in style here when you hit chapter 5. Now, the observations had implications for how to live, but he gets more direct. In chapter 5, it's about to change. He begins with language here that's much more directive. Instead of saying, I saw this, I observed this, he starts giving commands. Do this, don't do that. And it gets more directive and this section here, beginning of chapter 5, comes in three parts. He speaks about before, during and after corporate worship. First, before. He tells us about the approach to the house of God. Verse 1, guard your steps when you go to the house of God. The house of God refers to the temple, the place where people would come and make sacrifices to worship God by giving him offerings, giving him gifts. And the command is, guard your steps when you approach. It means be careful in the way that you approach. Did you know that Scripture regulates your drive to the household of God when you come here? It's not enough to just come. The household of God in our day is the church, right? We learned that in 1 Peter. This is the household of God, the gathering of the saints. And it's important how you come, it's not enough that you just show up. God commands us to come in a certain way because some of the worst sins we ever commit are sins of worship. Some of the worst sins we ever commit are sins of worship. We must have proper reverence and to have proper reverence for God in His house requires some preparation. You've got to get your heart ready. I love the story that Sam tells about his dad. When they were kids, they were driving to church and his dad would turn around and say, did everybody spend as much time preparing your heart for church as you did your body? Matthew Henry has a very interesting statement on this. He says, quote, the heaviest rain runs off parched ground unless it has been first softened by a gentle fall of moisture. Hearts that have no due of previous meditation to make them receptive are not likely to drink in much of the showers of blessing which may be falling around them. She was saying, as you come to church, it's like rain falling down, but it's not going to soak in if your heart is crusted over. You've got to soften it up. You've got to have a gentle rain of preparation to soften up the ground of your heart before you come here. We need to prepare. But how? How do you prepare? What sort of preparation do you need on your way to church? Well, verse 1, he says, "...drawn near..." The Holman says, "...drawn near in obedience." Literally, it's drawn near to listen. Drawn near to listen. That's how you prepare. Evidently, the temple, when they came and offered sacrifices, it wasn't just a matter of offering sacrifices. They came in there and there was teaching. The priests or whoever, the teachers, somebody would be there and they would instruct the people from the Word of God. And so when you came to offer a sacrifice, you need to prepare your heart beforehand to listen, to listen. There's teaching and instruction from God's Word. And so when we come to church, part of the preparation is to get our hearts into a receptive learning mode rather than the default mode of our hearts, which is just wanting to express our opinions, which is Proverbs 18, 2. A fool finds no pleasure in understanding, but delights in airing his own opinions. We need to be quick to listen. That's the point of the beginning of verse one there. We need to be quick to listen. You come to church and you need to be quick to listen, receptive, ready to absorb. Secondly, we need to be slow to speak. The rest of the verse, he says, draw near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice that fools do, for they ignorantly do evil. Don't offer the sacrifice of fools. Well, what's that? In the context, it would indicate that the sacrifice of fools is just offering a lot of empty words. in church. Rash religious talk without much thought behind it. Fools come to church and what happens is they get caught up with what everyone else around them is doing and they jump in and they jump on board verbally without thinking, without really meditating, without meaning what they're saying, they're just saying it or singing it. And they're quick to speak or quick to sing and slow to listen and they end up offering God thoughtless worship. True worship starts with hearing. It starts with listening to the truth. That's how it begins. It's always a response to truth. All worship is a response to the glory of God. If you try to respond before listening, you're going to end up offering a sacrifice of fools. That's what the sacrifice of fools is. It's thoughtless worship. That's why Sam starts out. Right off the bat, he's pointing us to God. Very first thing out of his mouth, he's pointing us to the greatness of our God. so that we have something to respond to. Thoughtless worship is a great evil. It's a huge slap in the face to God. That's one of the reasons why we're careful with the content of the songs at Agape. We're so cautious about which songs we use. And there's a lot of songs that are rejected, much to the chagrin of some people who, you know, we're not doing their favorite song because there's certain songs that there's a lot of wonderful things about them, but there's a few lines that just aren't quite right doctrinally and so we won't do them. And so many songs, there's other songs that we reject because they're so repetitive or they're so incoherent. I think that's the biggest problem with songs these days. So many of the newer songs, they're incoherent. They just jump from one unrelated topic to another. All these phrases, they don't fit together. There's no clear meaning of phrases. When you put them all together, it's just, now we're talking about this, now we're talking about that, now we're talking about something else, and they just rhyme. That's the only thing that holds the thing together. And there's so many songs that are either like that, they're incoherent, or they're so repetitive that they cause the worshipper to stop thinking and just become driven by feeling and emotion rather than thought and rational consideration. In many cases, the songs are designed for that. That's the purpose. There are some people who believe that's the deepest kind of worship. It's when you're just emoting. You're just responding emotionally and by impulse and your thoughts are stopping. That's not a mark of Christian worship. That's a mark of Eastern meditation. Because what happens is the mouth ends up saying things that haven't been thought through by the mind. And that's not acceptable worship. Same thing happens with public prayers. Very often. We open and close everything with prayer, right? You've always got to start with prayer, end with prayer, and it can become an almost completely mindless exercise. You're praying, but there's nothing on your heart to pray. You're just praying because it's time to pray. And so those of us who do this a lot, and we're used to this, and we've got the phrases down, you can find yourself saying a bunch of religious phrases that aren't even expressions of anything in your heart. They're just words. And you find yourself just trying to sound eloquent, just trying to... and you repeat. old, worn-out phrases that, you know, thank you, Lord, thank you for this day, and please bless us and be with us, and lead, guide, and direct, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And somebody asks you two minutes after you're done praying, what did you pray? What did you pray about? And you don't even remember, because you weren't paying attention, because it wasn't any expression of anything in your heart. There's so many times in church when our mouths outrun our minds. And that's not a good thing. We just end up spewing out a bunch of thoughtless words. And it's important to understand here, please get this. The issue in Ecclesiastes 5, I don't think is just the sheer number of words. He's not saying that if you hit under a certain number, you're OK, over that number, you're talking too much. I don't think that's the point. It's not the number of words, it's the number of empty words. Words that run out ahead of your thoughts and affections. Jesus prayed all night long. Was that too many words? No. No, it was perfectly okay for Jesus to pray all night long because they were all words that rose up out of genuine desires in his heart. That's what prayer has to be. It has to come from desire. Matthew Henry had a good statement. He said the shortest prayer, which is not animated by a consciousness of need and a throb of desire, is too long. And the longest, which is vitalized by these, is short enough. The issue is whether it's true prayer. Verse two, do not be hasty to speak and do not be impulsive. Literally, here's what it says. Literally, do not be quick with your mouth or be impulsive with your heart to say a word before the face of God. You got to guard your heart and your mouth when you worship God, your mind has to be engaged and should be working hard. Which is? counter-cultural for our world. We live in an amusement-oriented, amusement-dominated culture, don't we? And thinking hard is just not something people are used to, especially in a setting like this, where you're sitting in rows, facing a stage, and there's musicians up here. I mean, just this setting, it just automatically puts us into entertainment mode. And the mind shuts down, and people aren't used to deep thought. One of the ways you can grow a really big church is by creating a service that just keeps everybody amused the whole time. Everybody's amused and it doesn't require any hard thinking and there's certainly never any periods of silence because periods of silence really make our culture uncomfortable. You can't have silence because silence forces you to either think or be bored. And for many people the first one's not an option. I mean, there's so many people, if they're alone with their thoughts, they're just really lonely. Because there's nothing there. And many times, you know, people come to this church and they come from a background like that, and when they come here, it's just too much for them. It's too much content. They say, you know, I like the people, I like the music, but I can't come back. Because it's just too much mental exhaustion. We live in a culture that makes this hard, but that's something that we have to overcome, folks, because anyone who tries to worship God without thinking deeply and carefully ends up offering the sacrifice of fools. Thoughtless worship, and they don't even know that what they're doing is evil. That's what he says in verse 1. They're sinning against God, but they don't even know it. Did you know it's possible to do evil and just be oblivious to the fact that you're displeasing God? They don't even know they're sinning. It happens all the time to people who offer thoughtless, impulse-based, feeling-based worship that's not governed by careful consideration of the Word of God. And you end up angering God without even knowing it. You know, if you're ignorant and you can't help it, it's not your fault. I mean, you have no way of knowing the truth, and that's different. But ignorance that's just a product of mental laziness? We're culpable for that. That's displeasing to God and we're guilty if we do that. So thoughtless worship is evil because it displeases God. Secondly, thoughtless worship is not only evil but also foolish because it doesn't accomplish anything. It doesn't do anything. I think that's the point of verse three. Verse three is kind of an obscure verse but here's what I think it means. He says, For dreams result from much work and a fool's voice from many words. He's comparing fool's voice and many words with dreams and work. The word work here, it's that same word that's used all through the book that describes a frustrating, exhausting, anxiety-producing struggle to gain control of life. That thing that we've been talking about all through the book, that's this word. He's been telling us all along, don't do that. That results in futility. That gets you nowhere. It's a waste of time. The only thing that that'll get you is a restless night's sleep and a lot of bad dreams. That's what he's saying here. And what are dreams? Nothing. Nothing. They're nothing. They don't do anything. If you're in a dream and you get a thousand dollars, how much of that do you still have when you wake up? None. It's nothing. It's not even there. It's not even real. If you work really hard in a dream, you might wake up with the fatigue, but how much work actually got done? Nothing. None of it's real. Dreams are nothing. There's a few occasions in history where God, on a special occasion, gave some revelation through a dream, but the vast majority of the time, dreams are just nothing. And so, what he's saying here is, just as all of our struggling and toiling to gain control of providence gets us nowhere, gets us nothing but a bunch of bad dreams, so, in the same way, a whole lot of words amount to nothing but a fool's voice. The only thing you get from all that talking is confirmation that the words that are coming out of your mouth are coming out of the mouth of a fool. That's what you say in verse three. That's all thoughtless words accomplish. All they do is expose the foolishness of the one speaking them. Nothing else. Nothing else. I mean, can you ever remember a time when you said, man, that guy, he's an absolute motor mouth, but everything that comes out of his mouth is wise. No, nobody ever says that about anybody. The only time you ever hear people say, man, everything out of his mouth is wise, is when they're talking about somebody who hardly ever speaks. Right? Why? Because no matter how wise you are, nobody is so wise that they can just ramble on and on and on without mostly foolishness coming out of their mouth. Proverbs 11, 12 says, a man of understanding holds his tongue. He holds his tongue a lot because he understands Proverbs 10, 19 says, where there are many words, sin is not absent. but the one who controls his lips is wise. Thomas Corley has written a book titled Rich Habits where he compares, interesting, he's got all these comparisons of the lifestyles of wealthy people compared to poor people. He's polled them and he's asked them all these questions. He's got some interesting contrasts and most of them are things that you would expect. Like 67% of wealthy people write down their goals. Only 17% of poor people write down their goals. Or 88% of wealthy people read 30 minutes or more a day for education. 2% of poor people do that. I like this one. 6% of wealthy people watch reality TV versus 78% of the poor that do that. So those are all statistics you might have guessed. I mean, that's no surprise to anybody. But how about this one? This is a direct quotation. 6% of the wealthy say what's on their mind versus 69% of the poor. That's a mark of foolishness, just saying whatever is on your mind. When you get the idea that just because a thought came into my head, it has to come out of my mouth, that is a mark of folly. That's a foolish way to live and it will bring all kinds of trouble into your life. And I think, you know, if wisdom is a mark of maturity, I think one of the most reliable markers of when a boy becomes a man is when he finally lets go of the silliness of speech. You know, you have boys together. If you've ever worked with a middle school youth group or something, you get a bunch of boys together with their friends, 90% of what comes out of their mouth is just nothing but goofiness and silliness and clowning around. The only purpose is to get a chuckle out of their friends, nothing else. And girls are somewhat similar. It might be a little different. It might be gossip or just chattering on about the most rivial, shallow, inane things in life. And you can tell when a young man or a young woman is finally transitioning into adulthood, when they finally give up that childish chatter and they begin to get serious about their words. But for some people, that just never happens. They never do make that transition. They just go all through life with that kind of chatter, and the Bible calls those people fools. Fools are always running off at the mouth. Proverbs 12, 23, a prudent man keeps his knowledge to himself, but the heart of fools blurts out folly. And the fool might actually say lots of wise things. The fool might say just as many wise things as the wise man, but that wisdom gets lost in the avalanche of chatter. So why control your tongue in church? First, because you don't want to dishonor God by offering the sacrifice of fools. That's evil. And secondly, because thoughtless worship is foolishness. It accomplishes nothing. The only thing it does is expose you as a fool. And it makes your life as empty as a bunch of dreams. And he makes that same point again, down in verse 7 about the dreams. He says, For many dreams bring futility, so do many words. Therefore, fear God. When everything's said and done, a lot more is said than done, usually, right? And that's because it's so much easier to talk than to act. So, prior to coming to the house of God, prepare your heart to be receptive and to listen to the Word of God. That's before worship. During worship, while you're there, be slow to speak. Don't just think I've got to air all my opinions and tell everyone what I think. Be slow to speak. First think, then speak. I mean, if we could just save ourselves a lot of heartache if we could just get that order down, right? First think, then speak. So before worship, prepare your heart. During worship, think before you speak. What about after worship? After worship, follow through on the things that you said when you did speak during worship. Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and then when you do speak, be faithful to follow through. That's verse 4 and following, and he really hits this. Verse 4, when you make a vow to God, don't delay in filling it because He has no pleasure in fools. Fulfill what you vow. A vow is basically when you commit to something. That's what a vow is. In our culture we usually don't use the word vow unless you're talking about a marriage ceremony, a wedding ceremony. The word we typically use instead of vow is commitment. But they're the exact same thing. Commitment, vow, same thing. Same thing. or commitment, is a statement about something that you're going to do in the future that is solid. It goes beyond just saying, I'm intending to do this, or I plan to do this, or I hope to do this. A vow is when you say, I'm making a commitment to do this. Go ahead and put my name down for that. I'll do it. That's a vow. That's a commitment. Now, vows to God generally involve one of two things. doing something in his service or giving him some gift, giving him a gift of money or some possession. Now, before we talk about the vow part of it, let's just make sure we understand why we would even do that. Why do we serve God and give to God? Does God need our help? No. Does he need our money? No. So why do we do that stuff if he doesn't need our gifts or our help? Well, we'll start with the gifts. The reason we give to God is because it's worship. It's one of the most fundamental aspects of worship. We honor God by giving Him things that are valuable to us to show our trust in Him and to show our gratitude to Him and to show our love for Him. It's a way of expressing love. Love has to give in order to express itself. It has to. And there's two ways to give to God. You can do it indirectly or directly. You can do it indirectly by giving to people in God's name, right? For his sake, in Matthew 25, Jesus said, whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did to me. So you give to the poor, for his sake, you're giving to him. That's worship. That's worship. 2 Corinthians 9.12 calls it worship. It calls, the Corinthians were giving a gift, a financial gift to the poor in Jerusalem, and he calls it liturgia, which comes from liturgo, the word for worship. It's worship. Remember the angel told Cornelius in Acts 10.4, your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering to God at worship. This is why giving to the Benevolence Fund is part of our worship service. We do it during the praise time. We put our gifts in the box because when you're doing that, you're giving to God indirectly. By helping the poor, you're giving to God indirectly. And then another aspect of worship is giving to God directly. It's just a sheer act of love, and it doesn't go to feeding the hungry or anything else, it's just given directly to God, not for any particular need. That's also a crucial aspect of worship, to just do that, because if all you're giving is only to achieve some other secondary purpose, to feed the hungry or to do some other particular thing, and you never give directly to God, just out of an expression of love, that puts a question mark on your motives. It makes it seem like, I mean, are you trying to express love for God or are you only concerned about people? In Matthew 26, a woman worships Jesus by pouring expensive perfume on his feet. And verse 8, it says, when the disciples saw this, they were angry. Why this waste, they asked. This perfume could have been sold at a high price and money given to the poor. And aware of this, Jesus said to them, why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. So giving gifts to God, either indirectly or directly, both of those are essential aspects of worship. That's why we do it. You see that everywhere in the Bible. You see it all the way through. You see it in the book of Revelation, the ultimate worship service in the book of Revelation in heaven taking place. What are they doing? They're giving crowns. They're giving their crowns to God in worship. We see it in the epistles when we're instructed to give to the church. We see it in Jesus' teaching when he says, give to God what is God's in Luke 20, 25. And even before that, when Jesus is brought into the world, the very first time the word worship is associated with Jesus after his birth is when the Magi come. And what do they do? There's no record they sang or did anything else. Their worship was giving. They gave gifts. And before that, in the Old Testament, the Mosaic Law commanded all kinds of offerings as part of the worship. And even before that, you go way back, all the way back to the creation, all the way back to the first two human beings ever born into this world. And what do you see? You see them giving gifts to God. The first act of worship ever recorded is giving gifts to God with Cain and Abel. The whole story of Cain and Abel is all about their gifts and God's response. That's the whole story. In Genesis 4-3, in the course of time, Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord, but Abel brought fat portions of some of the firstborn of his flock. So the very first thing that happens in human history after the fall is two people come and they give something of value to God. And Cain's gift was rejected because it wasn't connected with faith. It was just leftovers and God won't accept leftovers. Abel gave firstfruits of his flock which was an act of faith and faith is what honors God. So not all giving is automatically acceptable to God. It doesn't automatically glorify him. It only glorifies God if it's done in the Abel way and not in the Cain way. And if you want to study that further, we covered that in that sermon, Wallet Worship, which is in the Worshipping Church series. But for our purposes now, all I'm saying here is that one of the most important ways to honor God is by giving Him gifts. That's why we give gifts. That's why we have offering boxes in the sanctuary. And it's why we have one right up front on the communion table. It's part of worship. It's a sacred thing in the way that we worship God. So all that explains why we have gifts. But why vow a gift? Why commit to a future gift or future service? What's the what's the deal with that? I think that the point of vows, the point of commitments is they have to do with the future, right? And I mean, if you have an impulse of love, if you have an impulse of gratitude, if there's something you want to express to the Lord, but you're not in a position to express it right here at this moment, then you can make a vow or a commitment to express it as soon as you get a chance. You might make a commitment to do something next week, next year, next rest of your life, whatever. The fact that God allows us to do that and counts it as worship is an amazing thing if you think about it. Isn't it? God lets us make commitments to do things in the future and he accepts that as worship. He's pleased by that. And that's an amazing thing because what it does is it takes the love that we feel for him right now and just enables us to just stretch it out into the future. Which is a great thing, a wonderful gift that God has given us, but a dangerous gift, a dangerous one. It's dangerous. Vows, commitments, dangerous. Why? Because there are severe consequences to making a commitment and failing to follow through. And those consequences are so serious that verse 5 says, better to not even make the vow than to vow and fail to fulfill it. Vows made to God are a good thing. They're a good thing. You see godly people in Scripture making vows, Old Testament and New Testament. And when God wants to describe somebody who's really godly, He'll sometimes say, He's making vows. Like Isaiah 19.21 is an example. It says, They will know the Lord on that day, and they will offer sacrifices and offerings, and they will make vows to the Lord and fulfill them. That's a description of how godly they'll be. They're going to be making vows. Vows are good. They're not commanded. I take it because they have to be spontaneous gestures of love in order for them to be what they're supposed to be. As soon as you turn something like that into a rule, you spoil the whole point of it. So there's no specific vow that's commanded, but they are regulated. So all that to say, we have freedom in this area. You don't have to make any particular vow. You don't. You're free not to make a vow. And it's better to not make one than to make one and fail to follow through. So, what should we do? Some people read that part and say, oh, that's great. God is telling me to be slow to make commitments. That is right up my alley. I don't want to make any commitments. I'll just come to church as an observer and I'll remain unengaged, uninvolved, and then I don't have to risk ever failing to follow through on a vow. Is that what God wants? I mean, after all, we're changeable creatures, right? I mean, we have to understand that. The way things are right now, they're not always going to be that way, and I'm not always going to feel this way. And isn't it better to just avoid tying my hands to the commitment in the future? Shouldn't I just wait and see what happens and then decide in the future what I'm going to do? Why make a commitment about the future when I don't know the future? Isn't that foolish? Why make a vow? Here's why. Here's why godly people make vows. We should make commitments about the future because of the fact that we're so changeable. And in many cases, we change for the worse, right? I mean, our spiritual growth is up and down, is it not? And vows can help smooth some of that out. It can help prevent some of the downward movement. See, the point of this passage is not that we should avoid commitments so that we don't have to worry about faithfulness. That's not what he's saying. The point of the passage is, don't make thoughtless or rash commitments. But thoughtful reasoned commitments, make those. Those are good. We need those. You need those to help you stay on track in the spiritual life. I'll just illustrate. I might be sitting in church some day and listening to a sermon and all of a sudden I begin to see things clearly. Right? Does this happen to you? Sometimes you're in a sermon and all of a sudden the fog clears up and you know with certainty What God is calling you to do? Maybe I'm listening to a sermon on 1 Timothy, the deacon ministry, or something like that, and I'm sitting there and all of a sudden the Holy Spirit, through His Word, opens my eyes and I can see, yes, I'm being called to serve as a deacon. No question about it. I can see that now. I can see this is what the Lord wants me to do. This is where all signs are pointing. It's crystal clear to me at this moment. This is what God wants. And it would bring glory and honor to Him if I would do this ministry, if I would commit to this. But I've got a problem. Here's my problem. My problem is, this is spiritual Daryl who's seeing all this right now, and I know that once I get out of this place and I go back home and I get back into my daily routine, sooner or later, lazy Daryl is going to reappear. And lazy Daryl is not going to like this commitment. He's not going to agree with it. Lazy Daryl wants to keep the option of ongoing inactivity on the table. Right? So how can I handle that? What do I do? Here's what I want to do. I want to somehow find a way that I can get a message to my future self that says, hey, when Lazy Darryl reappears, don't listen to him. Right? Don't listen to his arguments. Right now, I'm telling you, I can see clearly. I know what I'm talking about. I know this is what God's calling me to do. He wants me to serve as a deacon for a year or whatever. I know this is what I'm supposed to do. How can I get that message to my future self? by making a commitment right now and telling people about it. Commit to something, tell people about it, and once I know for sure this is what God wants me to do, I have the power right here and now to commit all future versions of myself to this course of action by making a commitment. Now they're all going to be bound by this commitment. You see, I want to make as many decisions as possible right now while smart Daryl is in control, before stupid Daryl comes back and he gets in control again. That's the value of vows and commitments. So it's a good thing to make commitments. Good, but dangerous. dangerous because of the risk of failure to follow through. Each particular vow is voluntary up until the moment you make it and from that moment on it's not voluntary anymore. It's law. God will hold you to it. Verse 6, do not let your mouth bring guilt on you and do not say in the presence of the messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry with your words and destroy the work of your hands? Evidently, they had temple messengers who would come and actually collect the vows that people made. You make a vow, and they knock on your door, and it's kind of like the offering police. They're there, and they say, OK, you committed to this. It is time to pay your vow. And he says, don't say, oh, you know what? That was a mistake. I can't. At the time, I fully planned on following through. I mean, I was going to pay this. I was totally going to do it. But but now my circumstances have changed and I've suffered a setback. And, you know, I'm afraid I'm going to have to back down. I'm sorry. He says, don't do that. You don't have that option. That's going to make the Lord angry if you do that. Deuteronomy...this comes right out of the law, Deuteronomy 23. Deuteronomy 23...21 says, If you make a vow to the Lord your God, do not be slow to keep it because He will require it of you and it will be counted against you as sin. But if you refrain from making the vow, it will not be counted against you as sin. Be careful to do whatever comes from your lips because you have freely vowed what you have promised to the Lord your God. So he makes it very clear there, you don't have to make the vow, but once you make it, you better take it seriously because failing to fulfill it just because circumstances have changed is sin. And so the temptation to overcommit and to overvow is like a trap. Proverbs 20, 25 says it is a trap for anyone to dedicate something rashly and then later to reconsider his vow. It's exactly the same warning as the writer of Ecclesiastes has given us. I can think of a couple of people who could have saved their lives if they just would have read this. If they just would have read Ecclesiastes 5 or Deuteronomy 23, Ananias and Sapphira. Everybody's all happy, and the church has started, and people are selling their possessions and giving it to the church, and giving the money to the church, and they're all making these vows, and they're doing all this stuff, and Ananas and Sapphira, they get caught up in the wave of the whole thing, and they want to do it, too. They say, we're going to do that, and we'll sell our land and give it, and they sell their land, and they get the money, and they're like, whoa, that's got a lot of money, you know, and then they, maybe we should just keep a little bit of it. And they gave the rest to the church. Now, is that wrong to sell some land, keep some, and give the rest to the church? Is that wrong? No. No, Peter says you could have done that. In fact, he says you could have kept it all. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing the Bible says you have to give anything in that sale of that land. You could have kept it all. What was wrong? What was wrong wasn't the fact that they kept it. What was wrong was the fact that they said they were going to give it. In fact, they said they did give it. And they didn't. They said they gave it all and they kept some back and God struck them dead on the spot. They both just fell down dead. And that happened in the New Testament, lest you think this is just some kind of Old Testament, you know, harshness. This is something God takes very seriously. But a lot of times people don't take it seriously because they don't fear God. They don't take God seriously. In our day, there's such an emphasis on the nearness of God and intimacy with God and the softness of God and He's our friend and He's, you know, He's our daddy. And is all that true? Yeah. Is God nearby? Is He close? Is He intimate? Yeah. But we also remember that God is also a great, awesome King who dwells in a high and holy place. Verse 2 says, God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few. Be careful what you say. Remember the distance between you and God. His throne is in the heavens. Not even the highest heavens can contain Him. And we dwell on earth, which is His footstool. There's a huge distance. He reigns in majesty and sovereignty and supremacy. He is on high. He's the lofty one. He's the great, awesome King that is above all. And He sees all and knows all and controls all. And He does what He pleases, whatever He pleases. And making a commitment to a being like that is a very serious matter. Have you made a commitment to do something, to give something, and you haven't gotten around to doing it? That's a serious matter. Do you need to be reminded and cajoled and everything to follow through on your commitments in the church? That's a serious matter. Why do we get ourselves into trouble with vows? Why do we over-promise? If we don't have to make the promise, we don't have to make the commitment, why do we? Well, there's a couple of reasons. In some cases, it's an effort to manipulate God to get what you want. People use vows to try to control God. Sometimes it's like some last-minute damage control. You commit some sin and you're trying to get out of the consequences. A guy sleeps with his girlfriend and then she's late with her period and all of a sudden he's like, oh, God, please. Don't let her be pregnant. Please, please, just... I'll do anything, God. If you grant this, I'll read Leviticus. I'll give you 11% of my money. You only ask for 10. I'll have to go crazy. I'll give you 11. I'll be a missionary. Just please, just whatever. And then what happens? God grants the request and you're like, phew, I dodged that bullet. And you're on with your life. What about your commitments? Commitments? What? And they just forgot? We make rash commitments that we don't need in order to control God. And whenever people do that, it's not an expression of any joy in their heart. It's not an expression of a desire in their heart. They're not saying, God, I want to honor you with this commitment. I want to worship you. I want to give this to you as worship. It's not that. There's none of that in there, in their heart. And so when the crisis passes, they forget about it because it wasn't any genuine expression of any real desire. Another reason we make rash vows is just simply because we fail to think things through. We have an impulse and we speak rashly without counting the cost, without considering what we're getting into. So often we allow ourselves to be governed by feelings and impulses rather than principles and commitments. And so we make a vow based on how we feel right now, assuming, well, I'm always going to feel this way. And in a very short time, those feelings are gone and we don't feel like following through. But since we're impulse feeling oriented people, now that I don't feel like following through, I'm just going to renege on my commitment. And we falter in our integrity towards God. That's one of the reasons why we don't do altar calls in this church. You know, I don't want to do that. I don't want to get people caught up and swept up in the momentum of an emotional moment, and they see people coming forward and they say, well, I'll come forward too, and then they just get caught up in that and they make a rash commitment to Christ without really counting the cost, without thinking what it really means, and then a few weeks later that commitment is long forgotten, and they're right back to their old life. And this passage says it's better to not make the commitment in the first place than to do that. So what's the final conclusion of all this? only doesn't make it very complicated, end of verse seven, therefore, two words, fear God. Fear God. All that to say fear God. And does that apply still in the New Testament, fear God? I mean, curtain is torn now. We have free access. Do we still fear him? Yes, absolutely we do. You say, but we're living under grace now. How can we fear God if we're under grace? We're under grace, but grace does not negate the importance of fearing an awesome God. The fear of the Lord is a huge theme in the New Testament. It's just as big a theme in the New Testament as it is in the Old. There's no less emphasis on it. I'll just give you a quick, quick survey. Acts 19, 17. All of this is New Testament. Acts 19, 17. We find that fearing God is part of what it means to hold God in high honor. It says they were seized with fear and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor. Do we want to honor the Lord Jesus? We do that through fear. Romans 3 catalogs all the horrendous sinfulness of mankind and in verse 18 it's all summed up in this phrase, there's no fear of God in their eyes. Lack of fear is a whole problem with the sinfulness of fallen man. Did you know that fear of God is the key to church growth? Contrary to what All of the books on church growth probably say, I don't know if you'll ever find a book on church growth that offers this as method, except for God's book on church growth, the book of Acts, which says this, Acts 9.31, it says, Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria grew in numbers living in the fear of the Lord. And the grammar there shows that the reason they grew in numbers is because they were living in the fear of the Lord. It's the key to church growth. It's the key to evangelism. It's the motive for evangelism. 2 Corinthians 5.11, Paul says, Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men. The thing that drove Paul to be so evangelistic, to have such a missionary heart, is his fear of the Lord. Judgment Day. It's the motive for evangelism. You know very much about the wrath of God on Judgment Day. You're going to want to get people converted. Fear of the Lord is the key to personal holiness and sexual purity, 2 Corinthians 7.11. Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness, how? By the fear of the Lord. Fear of the Lord is the evidence of true repentance, 2 Corinthians 7.11. The fear of the Lord is the mark of obedience, Philippians 2.12. Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Fear of the Lord is the key to a strong marriage and other family relationships as well as in the church, Ephesians 5.21. Fear of the Lord is the key to purity in the church and it's the appropriate response to church discipline. Fear, 1 Timothy 5.20, those who sin are to be rebuked publicly so that the others may fear. The entire Christian life is summed up as a life of fearing God, 1 Peter 1 17. Since you call on a God or a father who judges each man's work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear. Fear, it should define the whole way that we live our lives. We're under grace, yes, but grace does not give us permission to take liberties with God. God, the God of the New Testament, is the same God as the God of the Old Testament. He hasn't changed. Nothing about Him has changed. He's the exact same God, which means He's just as worthy to be feared now as He ever was. Listen to Hebrews 12, 28. Let us serve God acceptably with reverence and awe for our God as a consuming fire. He's a fire. You think of God as a daddy, I'm up on his lap. You think of him as a brother, a friend, all this, but do you think of God as a consuming fire? Therefore, let's worship him acceptably with reverence and awe. Be careful around a consuming fire. Now, in case you've forgotten, again, this book, the whole point, live a life, enjoy life, right? He's teaching us how to enjoy life. But the only way to enjoy life is to get the gift of enjoyment from God, and He only gives that gift to those who please Him. And one of the keys to pleasing Him is reverence, reverent worship. So watch your steps when you come to the house of God. And when you come, draw near to listen instead of offering the sacrifice to fools. And then when you have listened and you know what God wants you to do, make a commitment and follow through. Don't make rash commitments. And above all, fear God. Take him more seriously than you take anything else, and you will be on the path towards enjoying life. Let's pray. Lord, make us a people who fear you. I pray that this church would be a respite from the trivia and the banality and the shallowness of this world. don't take big, holy, eternal things seriously. I pray that people could come through these doors and come into a place where holiness is revered. Lord, we pray this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Alright, we've got about ten minutes left before we dismiss. Any questions about the sermon? Okay, so he'd give an offering in the offering box, and you just don't designate it at all. It goes into the general fund, and the elders just decide. We seek the Lord's will, we pray, and we ask God, okay, how would you have us spend this money? We've got a meeting today for that very purpose. How do you want us to spend the money? If it's designated benevolence, then it goes into a separate fund and it's only used for helping people in need. And an example of that, I mean, the benevolence ministry has just been doing phenomenal things lately. The people that, I mean, just one family after another, person after another that has come along and we've been able to help people get back on their feet. Just the latest one, there was a homeless couple, young couple in their 20s who came just before Christmas and didn't have any place to live, didn't have any He was in legal trouble, both of them, I think, legal problems and drug problems and all kinds of stuff. It was a mess. People come like that all the time. There's no way we can help them all. But this particular couple, he was a believer, she wasn't. They came and asked for help and we said, well, we'll give you God's Word. Bob Wyatt offered to counsel them, and they came, and they sat under his counsel, and they did everything he said. And they came to church, and they followed through on all the things, and he's helping them. Okay, now you need to look for work, and they're doing it. They're doing day labor. She found a full-time job now, actually two jobs. He's doing day labor. Then Bob says, okay, there's a warrant out for your arrest. You need to go turn yourself in. He did that, and stood before the judge, and the judge saw all the progress that he'd been making with Bob's counsel, and Vacated the warrant and now they're on their feet where we got him a place to stay and the first night All we did was give him a sleeping bag And it was there's like zero and we gave him a warm sleeping bag and they were grateful They said thank you and they went in the park, you know And now we got him a place to stay and so on by the way if anyone wants to help with this They're still in the ongoing need if you want if you could take them in but a couple days ago She gave her heart to the Lord And so, yeah, it's so exciting. And so, that's the kind of thing that benevolence money goes to. And the reason we allow that, usually we discourage designated giving, but in that case, in missions and in benevolence, we actually encourage it, because God commanded you to care for the poor, right? I mean, that's commanded. And so, you need to be able to stand on Judgment Day, and if He asks you, did you follow that command? Did you care for the poor? You can say, yes, I did. You don't have to say, well, I think I did, I put money in the general fund, might have gone to plumbing, might have gone to the poor, I don't know. This way you can know for sure, this money is going to the poor. That's how that works. Same thing with the missions. You know, that's up to the individual. My own personal practice is I always figure if it took 10% of the people's giving to get to support the priesthood, then it would make sense in the New Testament to take 10% of the people's giving to support the pastoral staff, the pastors, as the New Testament says, so that they work full time. So my personal practice is give 10% to the general fund and then benevolence and missions and that kind of thing is above and beyond that. But, you know, that's just my own personal judgment call. You're free just between you and God, however you want to express your love to Him. I did, like I mentioned in the sermon, that sermon wallet worship. Anyone who has more detail on that kind of stuff? Yeah, Lee. So if you use language that sounds like a typical profanity, but you change it to something else, is that irreverent? My call on that is, if you're trying to sound like the swear word, Then I think that's wrong. I think it just because you change a vowel or two or you know something that when people say oh This freaking thing or whatever to me. That's just that they're they're they're just they're trying to mimic a Filthy word, and I don't I think that's filthy but I don't want to get too legalistic about where I think there's some words that in our culture have become so clean in the culture's thinking that it's actually kind of almost a shock where you're making a statement about clean language. I think gosh is actually in that category now, where if somebody says, golly, you know, or gosh, when you say that in this culture, I think it strikes people as wow, that person doesn't swear. And so I'm actually not opposed to that. I think if what you're saying is making a statement, I'm trying to be clean in my language, rather than I'm trying to mimic a filthy word or a profanity, then I think those are two different things. So that's a judgment call and that changes over time depending on the culture and the people you're around. So clarify what I'm saying about managing laziness by using a vow. If I say, Suppose I know, OK, God is calling me to serve. We need some help in, say, children's ministry. And we need a Sunday school teacher, say. And you sit there and you hear about that and all of a sudden you're convicted. You realize, OK, there's no question. This is something I should do. I know this is something that I should do. I should commit to this. But you also know that come Monday morning, you're not going to feel this way. and your laziness is going to take over, and you're going to tend to back off. Or maybe not Monday morning, but two or three weeks down the road, you're going to say, ah, this is too much work. If I know for sure it's something God's calling me to do, and I make a commitment, then that will remind me. So three weeks from now, when I don't feel like doing my lesson, I can say, why am I having to do this lesson? Oh, because I made a commitment. Why did I make the commitment? Oh, because I sat right there in that chair, and I knew that at that moment God was calling me to this. Does that help? I don't think so. I don't see any difference between the way we use the word commitment and the way scripture uses the word vow. Because typically most people would think, well, a vow is a little bit more formal. That's like a wedding ceremony. Where the commitment is something less and I don't see it that way because scripture talks so often about rash vows and And there's nothing rash about a wedding ceremony, you know, this is I think it's it would refer to it would cover any commitment It's specifically women that it mentions in Deuteronomy. So it says, if a young woman who's still unmarried and she's living with her father makes a vow, the father actually has the ability to, if he sees it as a foolish vow, he can release her from it. And once she gets married, her husband has that power to release her from it. And the purpose of that, I don't think the purpose of that is to say, well, women, they tend to make too many vows. I don't think that's the... I think the purpose is, God is trying to teach us, it's the father's role to protect. a daughter. And then it becomes the husband's role to protect a wife. And I think that's what it is. And that's why when you get into Timothy, and it's talking about the widows and getting on the list, which evidently involved a vow of never marrying again. If you get on that list, I'm vowing to never get married again. Timothy said, if it's a younger widow, don't put her on the list. Because there's going to be too much temptation. She's going to meet Mr. Wonderful one day, and she's going to want to get married. And then she's going to be tempted to break her vow. and dishonor Christ. And she doesn't have the father or the husband, and so the church kind of protects her in that way by saying, don't even put her on the list. Yeah, I think so. I think if you sat down at dinner and you have a rote prayer that you say every single time, and there are some families that just have certain words, and it's always the exact same thing, you know, you sit down and rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub, or whatever, but whatever it is, And it's possible to mean it every single time. That's possible. So just because it's the same word doesn't mean you don't mean it. But it's very easy to fall into not meaning it. When I pray for a meal, to give thanks for a meal, or to start a worship service, or whenever I pray, to start a meeting, as often as I can, I try to pause before praying and let my heart actually start praying. Just remind myself I'm talking to God, and I need to be expressing things that are in my heart. What's in my heart? Oh, nothing. Okay, something needs to be there. And sometimes it takes me a minute to actually make it a real prayer. I think many times in my life I've been guilty of just blah, blah, blah, and I'm thinking about the mashed potatoes. Yeah, so if you have family devotions scheduled a certain time every night, not everyone in the house feels like doing devotions at that moment. I think there's value in committing yourself to do things that you don't necessarily feel like doing, but you don't want to be content to not feel like doing them. So if God calls me to preach a sermon every Sunday, and next Saturday I get, and I'm like, you know what, I don't even feel like going to church. Oh, we have a Sunday morning. I don't really feel like going to church. What should I do? Well, I don't want to be a hypocrite, so I just have to stay in bed until I feel like it. No. No, I get up, out of bed, come, do what I don't feel like doing, but the whole drive here, I'm trying to correct what's wrong in my heart, saying, God, I should be eager to do this. This is a feast. You're calling me to a banquet. Why am I reluctant to do it? My vision is distorted. I need to get this corrected. And so I'm working hard to correct it. But in the meantime, while I'm working to correct the missing affections, I'm still doing the act of obedience. You're talking about Acts 10? Well, all I did, honestly, was just read right out of the NIV. I didn't do a big study of that for this sermon, but I think that the context of Acts 10 is Cornelius, he's not just randomly helping every poor person he comes across. I think he's helping the poor people who he regards as the people of God because they're the people of God. And that would fit with Matthew 25, where Jesus says, I was sick, I was in prison, I was hungry, I was thirsty, and you ministered to me. And they say, when did we do all that? And he says, when you did it to the least of these brothers of mine. And he specifies brothers, believers. And so there's something special about helping someone because of the fact that this is a child of God. And I'm doing it because I want to honor God. It's because of my love for Christ that I'm doing this. And I think that's what Cornelius is doing. He's doing it because of his love for God. And it was God's people that he was ministering to. I mean, it would be kind of a stretch to say that he somehow was finding Gentiles somewhere. In Cornelius' mind, the people of God are going to be the Jews. So that's where he was. There's also value in helping unbelieving poor people. There's the Good Samaritan story where Jesus said that's a mark of love in general. If you have love, you're going to help somebody who comes across your path who's in trouble, whoever he is. So there is some value in helping people in your path just in general. But primarily, the great emphasis in the New Testament is helping God's people who are in need because of the fact that they're God's people. I would have to study the Acts 10 passage and see about the difference in translation. I'm just not familiar with the thing that you're asking about. I mean, it really does spiral. I think the compromise in the Church happens because of a lack of fear of God. We don't reverence His Word, we don't tremble before His Word, and so we say, I'll adjust this and I'll adjust that, I'll throw in my own two cents, and we make adjustments to God's Word because of a lack of fear. And then what is the effect there? The effect of that is lack of spiritual growth and maturity, which results in even less fear of God, and it feeds on itself in a downward spiral. Yes, you can not be afraid to make a commitment because you know that God will provide you the grace you need to follow through on a commitment that you know He wants you to make. So as soon as I know He wants me to make a commitment, I can go ahead and make a commitment without fear because I'll be able to. even though stupid Daryl is going to re-emerge, he's going to be bound by this commitment I make. And by God's grace and the process of sanctification, he's not going to be so stupid that he's going to break this vow. And I think the point that I was trying to make with all that is we just don't want to have an attitude that says, well, I'll make the commitment, and in the back of our minds says, well, I can back out of it if it gets really rough. And I think that's just the attitude. Maybe people don't actually say that to themselves, but that's just the attitude they have. They say, as soon as things get rough, I'll just... They've done it before. And once you've done it once, it's just easy to do it again. And they just say, well, you know, it didn't count. I made this commitment, but I didn't know that this was going to happen. I didn't know about that person being involved in this ministry. I mean, I didn't know it would be this hard. And so, you know, all bets are off. And I think what Scripture is saying is, no, those aren't valid excuses. But what you're saying is right. We don't have to be afraid of, oh, I'm going to not be able to follow through on a commitment that I know the Lord wants me to make. If you know the Lord wants you to make it, then you can also know that he'll grant you the grace to follow through. If you avoid a vow because you're trying to avoid being faithful, that's not a good thing. Faithfulness is a virtue. Yeah, it's a related concept. In the Sermon on the Mountain, Jesus said, let your yes be yes and your no, no. And he says, do not swear. What he's saying there is they had developed a system of where unless I made a formal vow, I don't have to follow through on my word. And so they had this system of tricks. It's like King's Ex. It's like crossing your fingers behind your back or something when you make a commitment. Well, I didn't say the exact formal legally binding vow terminology. Therefore, I don't have to follow through. It's just the exact same thing as today when people say, well, I didn't sign a contract. So I don't have to follow through on my work. Or I sign a contract, but there's some wording in there that lets me sneak out of this thing. And we've got a whole system of lawyers and contracts now where we have contracts designed to allow people to renege on their word. and still not be in legal trouble. And that's the exact same thing they're doing. They had a whole system like that too, but it was a system of formal vow making. So they say, you have to say it this way. If you swear by the temple, then that's not binding. But if you swear by the gold on the temple, then that is binding. And all these kind of silly things. And Jesus said, keep your word. If you say you're going to do something, that's a vow. Keep your word. How do you bridge the gap between a very familiar intimate concept of God and fearing God? And I really think the best way to bridge that gap is with the concept of a godly father. Because a godly father, an ideal father-child relationship, that child is going to have both. He's going to fear his dad, he's going to take his dad very seriously. If his dad gives him that look from across the room, man, that gets his attention. He's serious. But at the same time, he loves his dad and he longs nothing more than to be near his dad. He wants closeness with his dad. He's not afraid of him. He doesn't want to run away. He runs towards him. And if there's something wrong between him and dad, he wants that taken care of so that he can be back to wrestling on the floor with him and having fun and being close. And that's the way we are with God. That's why that father imagery is so prevalent in scripture, so that we can understand both fear and desire and love and closeness. And so when we raise our children, That's one of the things we want to do. We want to raise our children in a way so that when they open their Bible and read about desiring closeness with God and fearing God, it's not a conundrum for them. It makes sense to them because of the relationship they have with us. So, being slow to speak, this whole principle, be slow to speak, this whole thing, don't run off the mouth in church. Let your words be few here. And then all of a sudden Jesus tells us to do what? To pray continually. To be like the persistent widow. Finally the judge says, alright everybody, I'll do what you want, because she's so persistent. And Paul says, pray without ceasing. And Jesus goes out and prays all night long. How do you reconcile, let your words be few, with all of that? And I think the emphasis, that's why I said in the sermon, is not just strictly numbers. If it were just about numbers of words, then those would be contradictions in the Bible. But if you look at the context here, it's not just about numbers. It's about numbers of thoughtless words. Let your thoughtless words be zero. Which means your words are going to necessarily be somewhat few, because if you only say the words that are really packed full of meaning, how many are there really going to be? But if your heart is full, then you can pray a long time and all your words are packed with meaning. I think that's what Jesus did. And that's what we're called to do. I want a full heart. I want to pour out my heart to Jesus. This is one of the reasons why I'm thankful for suffering in my life when it happens. Because when suffering hits me, my heart, there's a lot to pour out. I'll go to prayer and I'm pouring out words, I'm pouring out real words, you know, just angst. There's passion behind my prayer. I'm crying out to God. My mind's not wandering. I'm thinking, you know, it's like, God, please. And it wakes my soul up. And I need that because times when I'm not suffering, A lot of times I'll go to prayer and I'm just so lackadaisical. I'm praying and then I'm thinking about an Oreo cookie or something. It just takes almost nothing to get my thoughts off track. And my prayers become so passionless and so tepid. It shouldn't be that way. It should be that if I'm not suffering then I should be focused so much on the blessings of God that I'm filled with joy and my heart's full of joy. I want my heart to be full of joy, or I want it to be full of need, or full of something, but I don't want it to be just empty, so that when I pray, it just trickles out. But if it is empty, I need my words to be few. I don't want to offer empty words. So I think that's the balance between those two. The warning in Ecclesiastes is not, don't pray too much. It's don't offer shallow prayers. We'll have to give an account for every thoughtless word on Judgment Day. Yeah, I mean, when it says on Judgment Day, you're going to be held accountable for every thoughtless word. And you just think of the logistics of that on Judgment Day. How are they going to pull that off? He's going to go through my whole life and he said, OK, you know, back on March 5th, 1972, you were at McDonald's and you ordered a large fries. Give me an account for that. I don't think it's going to be every single thing. I think rather what he's saying is, Even your careless words matter. And so if you sin, if you say something in an offhanded way, if it's a commitment, it matters. It still counts. If you use the Lord's name in vain, but it's just an offhanded way, it still counts. The things that you say, Everything you can't say, well, that didn't count because I didn't really mean it. Everything matters that you say. And so I think the warning there is not that we're going to have to give an explanation for every single sentence that came out of our mouths. Rather, I think it's that if you say something that is ungodly or wrong, even if it's in a context of goofing around, joking around, messing around, and you're not really it still it still counts. I think that's what that's the point. Your words are few. Good. You don't know how scary it is to have a passage like this and have to stand up here and talk for 45 minutes about let your words be few.