9 Not only was the Teacher wise, but also he imparted knowledge to the people. He pondered and searched out and set in order many proverbs.10 The Teacher searched to find just the right words, and what he wrote was upright and true.
11 The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails —given by one Shepherd. 12 Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them.
Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body.
13 Now all has been heard;
here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is the whole duty of man.
14 For God will bring every deed into judgment,
including every hidden thing,
whether it is good or evil.
One way to gain wisdom is by listening to wise teachers - those who are not only honest and transparent, but repentant. Those who have lived through the experience you're needing wisdom for, those whose lives you admire, whose experiences and life lessons learned have resulted in the outcome you want in your life.
Another way we learn is through pain, hardship and correction given by our Shepherd, in love.
Books are wonderful sources of wisdom - but, just like who you listen to, you need to be careful who you read. Just because it's written down doesn't make it accurate or truthful. And above all, read and study your Bible - the ultimate source of wisdom.
And then, Solomon's conclusion on the matter....
Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.
Fearing God does mean to respect God. But it also means exactly what it says - fear God!
Mark Driscoll had another fantastic sermon on this passage, Fear, Judgment and Obedience. I'd encourage you to listen to the whole thing but here are some excerpts...
God is the kind of God that you truly don’t want to mess with...
Some people think that because they know some facts about God that they actually are in a right relationship with God, and that’s not the truth. You can know lots of things about God, but if you don’t fear God it doesn’t make a hill of beans. It doesn’t matter. It says in James that even the demons know there’s one God and they shudder. They have – good at facts and information. Here’s the bottom line. Some of you know about God. You don’t fear him at all, and I’ve told you repeatedly, there is a corresponding scale. You think highly of God and low of yourself; or you think high of yourself and low of God....
God looks at you, and you ignore him? He gives you a command and you give him the finger, as if you were peers? And we do it all the time. No fear of God at all and it’s bizarre, because you’d have to ignore huge sections of your Bible to not be afraid of God. You look in Genesis. Adam and Eve sinned. The wage for sin is death. Everyone dies. Oh. Move on to Noah. Only a few chapters in, God says, “I’m so sick of everyone, I’m flooding the earth. You’re all dying except for one family.”
Move a little further into Genesis, you hit Sodom and Gomorrah. “You’re all perverts, you’re all dead.” You keep going. Nations are slaughtered; people are killed, all the way into the Exodus, where all of a sudden the first born male child in every family that doesn’t worship God is slain by God in a single night. Some of you say, “Well, yeah, that was the Old Testament, but the New Testament, Jesus is nice."..... No, Jesus speaks of hell more than anybody in the whole Bible and Jesus says, “Don’t just fear people that can make your life cumbersome and difficult; Fear him who can take your life and throw you into hell.”...
You go to Revelation and there is a judgment where those who do not love God are sent forever into a torment called hell that is lonely and painful and unending. Some of you screw around with God, and you ignore all of the obvious consequences. You say, “But I’m a Christian – I’m a Christian.” Well, great. That’s what they thought in Corinth when they came up for communion and they had not confessed their sins to God and they hadn’t rightly feared God, and they died at communion. Can you even fathom what that would be like today? You come up, you do your intention, you take your bread, you put it in the drink and you die, and the next guy has to step over your corpse to take communion in hopes that the pile doesn’t continually grow up to the ceiling.
Or Ananias and Sapphira, who made a financial pledge to God, and in the book of Acts it says that when they lied and withhold some of that money that they had pledged to God, God killed them in church; and it says that great fear seized the whole church. No kidding. That was the best offering a church has ever had.... Some of you are saying, “Well, this is the hard message.” They’re all hard messages. I believe that hard words produce soft people. Soft words produce hard people. Some of you are hard people. You fear everything and anything but God. You fear the opinion of a boyfriend or girlfriend, of a mother or father, of a boss or friend. You fear failure.
You fear success. You fear appearances. You fear pleasures. Some of you freaking fear bugs. You’re scared of spiders and not God. I mean, do the math.... we all fall into this, and it’s a terrible and grievous sin. Hebrews tells us, “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Fear God.... If you are deeply afraid of God, that changes how you live your life. I tell you this; I love my wife with all my heart. I love you. There are times, though, that what has kept me faithful to her and faithful to you is nothing less than a deep and profound fear of God. There are days when everyone in this room doesn’t feel like walking with God – doesn’t feel like obeying God.
Those are days where our rebellious nature comes up and we become fools running headlong towards sin and death and folly, and it is a fear of God that restrains us. It is a fear of God that keeps us. People who don’t fear God, eventually it shows up in very practical ways to their own demise. Some of you say, “Yeah, but I struggle with sin.” No, you don’t. You struggle with one thing: You have no idea who you’re dealing with. If you knew who you were dealing with, you would shape up far more quickly. It’s absolutely true. If you knew exactly how serious God is about sin, you would be more sober in your judgment and in your lifestyle. And I know I’m not supposed to say this. I know I’m supposed to tell you, “Look, God knows. God understands. You’re doing the best you can. You’ve made progress. There’s people worse than you.” It’s not true.
The truth is that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and fools despise wisdom, knowledge and discipline,” Proverbs 1:7. That’s the truth. Fools make excuses. Fools blame other people. Fools take their time, because they have no idea who they’re dealing with. Fear God. Fear God. If you don’t fear God, it’s because you haven’t read your Bible to see who you’re dealing with.
“Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” It’s about God, and it’s about what he says, and it’s about what he wants; and if you don’t like that, that’s because you think you’re God. It’s an old problem. Since our first parents in Genesis, God spoke, “Don’t do this.” That’s a command.
Our first parents said, “Well, we think otherwise” – sin. A seed of rebellion comes into our nature, and every one of us since comes to that place where we wanna be God. We wanna know good and evil. We wanna make good and evil. We wanna be the umpire who calls good and evil. We want to make the rules, and some of you do this. You say, “Well, I read the Bible.” Do you read it as commands or suggestions? Some of you say, “God’s a sky fairy who’s not paying attention, and the Bible is filled with suggestions.” Really? Really? Some of you would never say that, but that’s how you live so that’s how it is. Some of you don’t obey God. You know right now exactly what it is that you’re doing habitually that you’re not supposed to be. You know, and you don’t stop, and maybe like Solomon, you have a brilliant, air-tight, legal brief defense.
“I have a reason. I have a reason. I have a motive. I even have verse out of context. I have the whole thing buttoned up ready to go.” I’m sure that Solomon, as he was having sex with a thousand women – like some of you guys download that many photos on your computer – I’m sure that as he was drinking to the point of drunkenness and eating to the point of gluttony – and I’m sure that as he was gossiping and worshipping false gods and being a complete imbecile, I’m sure in his great brilliance as people confronted him, he was able to defend himself with an airtight case. I’ll tell you what; I don’t care how well you argue. I care how well you live, and I don’t care whether or not you are able to convince yourself or someone else, it is very simple to obey God. You need not be a genius to obey God, and when you obey God, you don’t need an enormous defense of your life and conduct....
You know how you stop doing something that you’re not supposed to be doing? Do you know how you stop? You stop. I’ve had a million conversations with guys who can’t keep their hands off their girlfriend. “What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?” Stop! I don’t care. “How?” Take a ball-pin hammer to your head. I don’t care. Stop. When Jesus says things like, “Go and sin no more,” he doesn’t follow it up with an enormous manual. Go and don’t do that. He’ll say it’s so complicated. It is – it’s incredibly complicated. No, it’s not. Sin is complicated.
Obedience, pretty straightforward, quite honestly. Love your wife – hmm. Respect your husband – hmm. Pay your bills. Read your Bible. Say your prayers – hmm. Even reading this verse – fear God and do what he says. Wonder what that means? Probably something like fear God and do what he says ...
God is smarter than we are.
God is also more loving than we are. God knows what happens when we sin better than we do, and when God gives us a command it’s like a parent giving an order to a child. It’s out of love and protection, and only a foolish and rebellious child and only a foolish and rebellious Christian would ignore the commands of a loving parent thinking that somehow they were wiser and better informed and more astute than their own loving parent. If you struggle with sin, you really struggle with fearing God, and that fear of God leads to a disobedience of God. It all comes back to a misunderstanding of God. That’s why you need not chase all your root issues – drugs, alcohol, gossip, covetousness, pride. Don’t chase all your effects. Stick the cause. The cause is, “I obviously don’t know who God is. Otherwise, I would respect him and I would obey him.”
And it’s back to relationship and trusting in the words of your dad....
Fear God. Obey God. God’s going to judge you...
Judgment for many means nothing because judgment is in this lifetime delayed. Peter tells us as much in the New Testament. He says that, “God is not slow as some of you would reckon him to be slow.” God is – what’s the word? Patient. Patient. See, because you sin and you don’t get instantaneous consequence, you think that judgment is not just coming but it is negated. That’s why when a guy puts his hands all over his girlfriend, his head doesn’t blow up, because God’s patient. When a husband is walking down the street, sees a hot woman, looks once, looks twice, his arm doesn’t fall off, because God is patient.
When a woman nags her husband, knows that she’s not supposed to nag him, and nags him again, she doesn’t explode, because God is patient. God is patient, but because he’s patient, some people think that he doesn’t care about sin and he doesn’t care about their lifestyle in the least. Nothing could be further from the truth. He cares immensely, and he tells us right here that he will bring what into judgment? Everything, whether hidden or known.
God will judge between those who are saved and those who are unsaved. And those who have not been covered by the blood of Jesus, will go to hell. That is the truth.
But Christians will also be judged. There will be a judgment of works.
if you’re a Christian, your life matters, because God has good works prepared in advance for you to do; and you’re going to be judged as to whether or not you about those good works that he prepared in advance for you to do. This is in accordance with a story that Jesus tells in the New Testament where he says that there’s a master who has people who are working for him. He gives them responsibilities and duties. He departs for a while and he comes back to see if they’ve followed up on what it is that he had given them to do; and some were faithful and some were not faithful. Jesus is our master. He came. He saved us. He commissioned us into life with him. He’s going to come back one day and see what we’ve done with the talents and money and time that he’s afforded to us...
some of you will hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Come into your rest.” My life mattered? Yes. And some of you will hear, “I never knew you.” Be careful. Be intensely careful to work out your salvation with fear and some trembling. I want you to obey God. God is no one to play with. Everything counts....
If I don’t hammer the holiness and the majesty and the beauty and the magnificence and the weightiness of God when I say that God loves you, it doesn’t mean a thing.
It just sounds like yet another sentimental greeting card filled with mush, but to know that this God also is a loving God who loves people, now it truly means something....
you and I are enemies of God; and when God has chosen to love us, he has chosen to love that which is unlovely and make us lovely through his love....
And it says that God demonstrates his love for us in this, when we were still sinners, Jesus Christ died for us....
Obedience is an effect, not a cause. Here’s the cause, John 14:15. Jesus says, “If you love me” – you’ll what – “you’ll obey me. You’ll obey me.”
If you’re a parent, you know exactly how this works. Your goal is not to get your kids to be obedient. You’re goal is to get your kids to love you and love the Lord; and if they do, they’ll be obedient kids. God’s a great dad. Here’s what he wants from his kids: He wants them to love them in a way that is fearful and respectful and obedient. Why? Because he’s a good God, seeking to care for, protect and provide his kids. The way we get there is through repentance – turning from ourselves, turning to God; turning from folly, turning to wisdom; turning from sin, walking in obedience by grace. This stands in utter contrast to everything you’ve ever been taught. You have been taught the reason that things are hard is because you don’t love yourself enough. You don’t value yourself enough. You don’t esteem yourself enough. You don’t exalt yourself enough.
You worship yourself pretty good, but you gotta worship yourself better. You’re a pretty good god; you could be a better god, and the truth is, fear God, obey his commandments. This is the whole duty of man. He’s not kidding around. He’s patient today. Judgment is somewhere on your horizon. Take advantage of that grace.
Wow, I have learned so much from Ecclesiates. It is so much more than 12 chapters of "everything is meaningless" like I always thought. I really liked Driscoll's explanation that meaningless is better translated vapour, as that makes the book make so much more sense. Life is fleeting. We need to accept the lot God's given us and enjoy it. Live our lives. Delighting in God. Fearing God. Obeying God. It really is that simple.
Tomorrow we start in Matthew!
Tomorrow's scripture focus: Matthew 1:1-17
1 comment:
I completely agree with your last paragraph. And what a sobering post this was! He didn't say anything we don't already know, really, but to read it all spelled out in so many words puts thing in perspective in a hurry.
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