Be Still - Ecclesiastes 5:1-7

Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil. Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few. For a dream comes with much business, and a fool’s voice with many words. (Ecc. 5:1-3)

This passage in my bible (the ESV) is labeled “Fear God”. When I first became a Christian I remember reading in Romans:

They [Israel] were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. (Romans 11:20-22)

I read that one morning and it bothered me all day. I didn’t think that we should fear God. Isn’t God love (1 John 4:8)? Doesn’t His “steadfast love endure forever” (Psalm 136)? Isn’t this the God of peace and grace Paul writes of at the beginning of every epistle (like 1 Cor. 1:3)?

The answer is “Yes” – God is love, through him we receive grace upon grace (John 1:16). God sustains us from to death, providing food, sunlight, everything, and through His Son, dead on a cross, risen three days later, we truly see that God’s steadfast love endures forever.

But it’s important to remember the Jesus we worship is “the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (Revelation 22:13). When John the beloved disciple, left for dead on the island of Patmos, sees his friend and Lord we get a true picture of Jesus’ glory:

…and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. (Rev. 1:13-16)

That’s a glorious and terrifying image – this is a King. This is not someone you should cross – He’s got a sword coming out of His mouth and in His right He’s holding seven stars. I can barely palm a basketball.

Our American culture doesn’t like this image of Jesus or God – we like the idea of a guy in the sky with a white beard who is nice to us and gives us what we want. We call on him when we need him, but otherwise we leave him alone. When something bad happens, its his fault because he’s not strong enough to stop things. As for Jesus, he’s a white guy with flowing locks who smiles all the time and only says “Don’t judge” and “Love your neighbor”. His death was about revealing what hatred does – that’s the true evil! – and today he’s in heaven, looking down on us and crying every time someone sins; but he can’t do much about it.

God is love but God is also God. He is the highest, the greatest, the Lord of all! When we think of the President of the United States of America we have awe and respect (if not for the man then at least for the office) and the President’s jurisdiction is only America! God’s dominion is the entire earth, the entire galaxy, the entire universe; from the biggest star, the greatest nebula, to the tiniest electron. There is not corner of creation God did not create or does not have control over. This makes the God of the Bible and the God of Jesus Christ all the more compassionate and incredible, that with so much power and wisdom and depth He would enter Himself into our lives and offer us piece through Christ. The President doesn’t call and ask us how our marriage is going – why does God?

This makes the very person of Christ compelling. Even though “all things were made through him” (John 1:3) Jesus actually comes down from heaven – “for God is in heaven and you are on earth” (Ecclesiastes 5:2) – and lived as a man. How limiting, how constraining! And yet the truth is that He is God. God then surrendered His power at the hands of weak earthly powers who crucified Him. Jesus’ death is His ultimate act of humility.

Yes, through Christ we are made new, our sins are forgiven, the temple curtain is torn, and we can press into God – but it is essential that we understand the full power and majesty of our King.

God is the one you must fear. (Ecc. 5:7)

Without a fear for God we will not be able to truly worship Him or even respect Him. For example, it’s a common literary situation for a person to meet their nation’s leader only to find they are a human being like themselves. In Yevgeny Zamyatin’s “We” (pretty much a Russian “1984” from which George Orwell drew inspiration) our main character, D-503, lives in a totalitarian dystopia called One State run by a man named “The Great Benefactor”. This guy is worshiped and revered, and you can guess that anybody who crosses him or One State ends up dead (in a pretty gruesome way in this book, you’ll have to read it for yourself). Eventually D-503 gets to meet the Great Benefactor and he is surprised to meet, simply, a man. This man, this “fearless” and “wise” leader, is a man – a balding man, at that.

This is a common theme: the wizard is just a man behind the curtain. These feelings of disillusionment with true authority and power are very true in earthly examples – Barack Obama is just a man, the Queen of England is only a woman – but the same cannot be said of God. He has power, He has authority, and we hate it because He is good and we are wicked. We hate it when God tells us “That’s evil”. We tend to shout back “Well, you must be evil”. God is the reason we even know what evil is, that is, God defines good – simply who He is defines “good”. Certain things like love and faithfulness are good only because they are God’s qualities. Certain things like adultery and unfaithfulness are evil because God does the opposite.

So it is very healthy and necessary to hold God in high esteem in our hearts and with much fear. One part of this chapter that really sticks out to me is:

It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. (Ecc. 5:5)

I’ve made promises to God before and broken them later. I should’ve realized who I was making a promise to and the magnitude of such a thing – for if you promise someone who never breaks His promises, how much more will He be able to hold you accountable?

Mark Driscoll says “we take ourselves too seriously and God too lightly”. Too often people who profess faith in Christ say “I’m saved” and they move on with their lives, never living in thankfulness and fear and awe of their King. Too often our Sundays are just tradition – “the sacrifice of fools…they do not know they are doing evil” (Ecc. 5:1) – and we pay no heed to the majesty of God and His divine right to simply kill us as rebels of His purposes and Kingdom. We don’t see the absolute miracle of our salvation, that we deserve absolute death. With the Lord there is “a time to keep silence, and a time to speak” (Ecc. 3:7). Before the Lord we should have awe and reverence and remember it is God’s absolute goodness that allows us to pray to Him at all.

I’ll end with this haunting and beautiful picture from Revelation:

When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. (Rev. 8:1)

Can you image that? Silence in heaven. I’m not sure, but when that happens that might be the first time ever (maybe during Jesus’ death as well, but this is all just speculation) that such a thing has happened. From eternity past to eternity future I would guess heaven’s been rocking and rolling in worship of God – and here we have silence.

Be still and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10).

Father, You are more incredible than I can imagine. Help me to love and fear and revere You with my whole heart. Your grace in light of Your righteous anger is staggering. Please help me live in great fear and trepidation, not compromising here and there for things that I know are sinful. At the same time, help me to live by Your power and not my own and help me not to give You my second best. I need You for everything, God, and only by Your grace will I live a righteous life. Thank You that I will not know Your wrath on me on that day that is to come. Thank You that Jesus is returning and that because of Your grace I will dance – in awe and fear and love – rather than run and hide, sure of my destruction. I praise Your holy name, please fill me with Your Spirit now and use me to glorify You. In Jesus’ name, AMEN.