“The Fear of God is NOT Hevel (Ecclesiastes 12:9-14)” | 11/20/22
Ecclesiastes 12:9-14 | 11/20/22 | Will DuVal
This morning we conclude our study together this fall of the book of Ecclesiastes, and I hope it has been half the blessing to you that it has been to me. Ecclesiastes was ALREADY my favorite book of the Bible heading into this series, and it is even more so now. And whether it’s your favorite or not, I pray that Ecclesiastes has instilled in you a newfound appreciation not only for this wonderful little book, but for life ITSELF! And for the God who GIVES it! And for the promise of ETERNAL life, beyond your life here “under the sun”, that was purchased for you by God’s son, Jesus.
THAT’s what Solomon has been seeking for 11 ½ chapters now: HOPE. MEANING. PURPOSE. You may recall week 3 of our study, when I read a few excerpts from Rick Warren’s book “The Purpose-Driven Life”, and then threatened to light it on FIRE as an act of performance art, to graphically illustrate Solomon’s driving point here that he can’t seem to find ANY definitive, lasting PURPOSE to life here under the sun. He’s tried looking EVERYWHERE! Let’s just briefly remind ourselves - recap - his quest for meaning; he says:
“I tried finding meaning in WORK, but none of it seems to make any REAL difference; the earth’s still basically the same…
I tried finding meaning in CREATION, but even nature just repeats itself, with no real goal, no purpose…
I tried KNOWLEDGE, but there’s always more to know; it’s never enough…
I tried PROGRESS, but “there’s nothing new under the sun”...
I tried to make a NAME for myself, but I fear I’ve already been forgotten…
So I tried WISDOM - that allegedly greatest of ALL pursuits - but if wisdom is the ability to navigate life under the sun WELL, then the wiser I became - the more I truly understood this BROKEN, sinful world of ours - the more “STRESSED” and “SORROW”ful I became.
And that was all just the FIRST CHAPTER!
Solomon would go on to try PLEASURE in ch2, but discovered its joys are short-lived…
He tried WISDOM again in ch2, but realized the wise end up just like the fool: DEAD.
He tried WORK again, but recognized ya can’t take THAT with you either.
He longed for ETERNITY in ch3, only to discover he couldn’t grasp it…
He longed for JUSTICE, but found nothing but oppression…
He longed for an AFTERLIFE, but found uncertainty…
In ch4 he tried ENVY, SLOTH, WORKAHOLISM, ISOLATIONISM, and STUBBORNNESS, but found them all to be folly…
In ch5 he tried RELIGION and POLITICS, but found them both to be lacking, empty… same went for MONEY in ch6…
So by ch7, Solomon resigned himself to simply living the best he could, these “few days of his VAIN life” here under the sun, by pursuing wisdom; and yet, for all his efforts, wisdom “was far from me… who can find it out?” (7:23-24). Moreover, he kept getting DISTRACTED off the path of wisdom by his own SINFULNESS (7:29). And in ch8, he lamented that no matter HOW wise he became, he STILL couldn’t make sense of GOD’S ways, which are not only incomprehensible to us, but are sovereign OVER us; you can be the wisest man in the world - and Solomon was! - but ultimately GOD is still in charge. We answer to HIM!
And least comprehensible of ALL God’s ways, ch9, is DEATH. God allows Death to come for us all: the fool and the wise. The atheist and the believer. Death is evil and indiscriminate.
So Solomon resigned himself once again, in chs9-11, to “just enjoy the little bit of time we DO get here, because “a living dog is better than a dead lion”, and you never know when YOUR time will be up.”
Make PEACE with your lack of control: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can’t change… the courage to change the things I CAN… and the WISDOM to know the difference”, ch11.
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But last week, in Solomon’s CONCLUSION to his sermon, and his quest for meaning, he concluded: “Even IF God grants you the peace, the courage and the wisdom… you’re STILL gonna get old and DIE!” So enjoy life while you’re YOUNG, cuz you get OLD and get stuck with boring adult responsibilities and problems (“vexations of the heart”, 11:10), and then you get even OLDER and you’re left with the “displeasures” of an achy, painful body in the process of returning to the dust from which it was formed, and then you get even OLDER and you finally kick the bucket.
So Solomon ENDED his sermon in ch12 right where he BEGAN it in ch1: “Vanity[b] of vanities, [hevel of hevels]... all is hevel.”
It’s futile. Vain. Sinking sand. Mere breath.
Work and Wealth, Pleasure and Pain, Wisdom and Folly, Youth and Old Age - it’s ALL going “up in smoke”.
And that’s Solomon’s final word. But this MORNING, at the VERY end - the last 6 verses of Ecclesiastes - we discover that Solomon actually doesn’t GET the final word. We’ve heard Solomon’s voice for 215 straight verses now, after the Author opened in ch1, v1, but here at the very end, that same anonymous Narrator re-enters the picture to get the final word.
And ironically, HIS closing message is all about PURPOSE. Solomon’s been on this 11 chapter-long quest - really a life-long quest, since Ecclesiastes is his testimony - it’s a quest for PURPOSE. And yet, we have to wait until the last 6 verses, and the Narrator’s reappearance, to finally learn the PURPOSE of the entire book. Why did Solomon preach it, or better: why did the Author compile these sermons of Solomon, and write it all down for us? There was no PREFACE, no introduction to Solomon’s sermon. I usually open mine with a JOKE, or a compelling STORY, to try and draw you into the main idea of the text, and tee it up for us, tell you why you should bother LISTENING this morning. What’s it all ABOUT, and why’s it so IMPORTANT. But the Narrator of Ecclesiastes makes us wait until the last 6 verses to finally answer for us: “In case you’re still not sure about the whole point that Solomon’s been trying to drive home for 11 ½ chapters now, let me clear it up for you…”
And it’s actually FOUR things. Four purposes that Solomon has had in preaching at us all this time. Four takeaways the Narrator wants to leave us with, as we end Ecclesiastes and return to life here under the sun.
SCRIPTURE: Would you stand… Ecclesiastes 12, vv9-14:
“Besides being wise, the Preacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs with great care. 10 The Preacher sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote words of truth.
11 The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings; they are given by one Shepherd. 12 My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.”
This is the word of the Lord… Let’s pray…
With these final 6 verses, the Author clarifies for us Solomon’s purpose in preaching for 12 chapters now: 4 reasons…
#1 - To make us WISE. It is good to be WISE. (vv9, 11-12)
The Author informs us, “Besides being wise [HIMSELF… Solomon we know was the wisest man on earth in his day; but in ADDITION to that…], the Preacher [Solomon; remember, ch1, v1 identified this 12-chapter long sermon as “The words of the Preacher,[a] the son of David, king in Jerusalem”; and Solomon was the only son and king who fit that description; so besides being wise, he…] also taught the people knowledge”.
That’s why he’s been preaching: to teach US knowledge, wisdom. To pass it on. To help us learn from his mistakes; Ecclesiastes is essentially a record of all the dead-end paths that Solomon explored and found wanting for meaning. Now he’s saying to us, “Don’t waste your time! Don’t waste valuable YEARS of your life living for pleasure, money, influence, reputation; let me save you the time, and teach you HOW to live.” That’s what wisdom IS: it is competency at living WELL.
So that’s WHAT Solomon wants to do here - make us WISE - but HOW does he do it? V9: by “weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs with great care.”
Ecclesiastes has been chock FULL of proverbs - these short, didactic sayings - 100s of them here, not to mention the whole first 29 chapters of the BOOK of Proverbs, plus apparently a whole bunch MORE of them that didn’t even make the cut into the Bible, because 1 Kings 4:32 tells us that all total, Solomon authored “3,000 proverbs”.
Why? To make us WISE. Because it is GOOD to be wise. As Solomon told us back in ch2: “The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness.” (v14) Ch4: “Better [to be] poor and wise… than [powerful] and foolish” (v13). Ch7: “Wisdom is good with an inheritance… wisdom preserves the life of him who has it” (vv11-12); “Wisdom gives strength to the wise man...” (v19) Ch8: “Who is like the wise? …A man's wisdom makes his face shine” (v1). Ch9: “wisdom is better than might… better than weapons of war” (vv16-18); Ch10: “A wise man's heart [guides] him” (v2); “a wise man's mouth wins him favor” (v12); “wisdom helps one to succeed.” (v10)
How SO? How does wisdom WORK, to help us SUCCEED? Solomon answers THAT question here in v11: “The words of the wise are like goads”; Philip Ryken explains (277): “A ‘goad’ is one of the tools of a shepherd’s trade, a sharp stick that spurs a stubborn beast to keep on moving. It is designed… to inflict just enough pain to get the animal’s full cooperation… Think of Ecclesiastes like God’s cattle prod” for your SOUL!
Anyone felt poked and prodded over these past 12 weeks?
Maybe your husband said something a little insensitive on Saturday, but you overreacted and let it fester all day long, until you came to church that Sunday and read in ch7: “Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the bosom of fools.” That’s [**SHOCK**]: God’s cattle prod, his GOAD; “Get off that path of anger, back on the straight and narrow, the path of righteousness for my name’s sake.”
Or you were getting ready to postpone that vacation you had planned, cuz the timing just wasn’t seeming to work out, between your work and the kids school schedule… but then you came on Sunday and heard in ch9: “Eat, drink and be merry… enjoy life the few short days God gives you here…” cuz Death is right around the corner, and there are no vacations in Sheol. And you got [**SHOCK**], shocked back on path.
Or you’d been meaning to get your roof fixed for months, and then ch10 said: “Through sloth the roof sinks in, and through indolence the house leaks” (v18). [**SHOCK**]
I had one brother tell me after LAST week’s message, in ch11, where Solomon told us to “REMOVE vexations and pains” from our lives - quit making life HARDER on yourself than it needs to be - he told me God convicted him about his SPENDING; that he needed to tighten up the wallet, and address his debt issue. God [**SHOCK**] - zapped him OFF the path of pain and vexation, and further debt, back onto the path of financial responsibility and LIFE.
This is how God uses His word, friends, and the proverbs in particular, these pithy little power-packed maxims in Ecclesiastes. Like GOADS.
Solomon continues in v11: “like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings”.
Some of you, if you’re honest, have been trying to hold your life together with SCOTCH TAPE. I’m not very handy. Give me the cheapest, easiest fix possible. I think back to my college days, when I tried to scotch tape my posters up on the dorm room wall; save a trip to the store. But eventually, after the 5th or 6th time RE-TAPING them back up on the wall, I wised up and bought a box of NAILS (although I still probably hammered them in with a TEXTBOOK or something).
Some of you have been trying to hold your MARRIAGE together, with SCOTCH tape. Trying to hold your CAREER together, with scotch tape. Hold your FAITH, your LIFE together, with tape. When God’s got a whole BOX full of heavy-duty, immovable NAILS here, just waiting for you to open it.
The world’s got PLENTY of tape to offer you: “just follow your heart”, “do what makes you happy”, “listen to your inner self” - that’s TAPE.
“Listen to GOD”, “do what makes HIM happy, brings HIM glory”, “Love the LORD with all your heart” - those are “nails firmly fixed”. You can hang your LIFE on those sayings. That is TRUE wisdom.
And in v1, Solomon assures us of how we can KNOW that those nails are trustworthy, these goads, these sayings: because “they are given by one Shepherd.”
Did you know that’s what the Bible is, friends?
The Bible is not PRIMARILY a book of rules, to keep us in line.
It’s not PRIMARILY a historical account, to inform us about important events from the past.
It’s not even PRIMARILY a book of proverbs, to make us wise.
No, more than ANYTHING else, the Bible is God’s WORD. It is the living and active VOICE of the one Good Shepherd, beckoning us, His sheep, back to the fold. The Bible says, “All we like sheep have gone astray” - that “The Lord is my shepherd”, Psalm 23, and he WANTS to “leads me beside still waters”, so He can “restore my soul”; He WANTS to “lead me in paths of righteousness” and LIFE, but as sinners, we have ALL wandered OFF that path, time and time again. And how does God call us BACK? Back to HIMSELF? Back to our Good Shepherd? It is with His WORD.
2 Peter 1:21 assures us that “no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit”; this is GOD’S word.
2 Tim 3:16-17 reminds us that “All Scripture is breathed out by God - this is his WORD - and it’s profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that [we] may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
And speaking of making us “WISE”, v15 just before those famous verses, the even GREATER reason for the Scriptures, even more than “teaching, reproving, correcting, and training us in righteousness”, you now the most IMPORTANT reason God gave us His word? 2 Timothy 3:15: “The sacred writings… are able to make you wise [in what way? wise…] for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”
You want to be TRULY wise, ETERNALLY wise? You need to come to saving faith in Christ JESUS! HE is the Good Shepherd, who laid down His life for the sheep (Jn 10:11), so that WE might have life to the fullest, ETERNAL life with Him (10:10)! Listen to Him, calling you home this morning: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand” (10:27-29).
Friends, don’t settle for sinking sand and scotch tape this morning; you need to build your life on the ROCK, hang it on the firmly fixed NAIL - the One who BORE the nails, on the cross, for YOU!
And v12: “beware of anything beyond these”. Be CAREFUL, trusting in wisdom that is “EXTRA-Biblical,” OUTSIDE the Bible.
Does that mean REJECT it? That Christians should be fundamentally distrustful of SCIENCE, and PSYCHOLOGY, and modern MEDICINE, and POLITICS, and every other arena of life that claims to have any answers to any of the world’s problems today. That if we can’t find the answer DIRECTLY in the Bible, then we better REJECT it?
I don’t think so. When the Narrator says in v12: “Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh” - every student’s favorite verse, around final exam time; can I get an “Amen”, students: “much study is a WEARINESS”.
And yet, is Solomon’s point that we should NEVER study? Never read ANY book, but the Bible? I can tell you: God willing, we’ll be going in for OUR baby’s delivery some time in these next 2 weeks, and I am REALLY glad that Dr. Weinstein didn’t just confine himself to just studying the Bible.
I’m taking my car in for a tune up next week, and I’m glad my mechanic didn’t confine himself to just the Bible.
No, the Narrator doesn’t say “EXCLUDE everything else”; he just said “BEWARE” - be wary, be careful - not of all wisdom outside the Bible, but of any wisdom “BEYOND” it, that is “out of BOUNDS”; any wisdom that is INCOMPATIBLE with the Bible’s, or that claims “superiority” to the Bible’s.
As Philip Ryken puts it (280): “Be careful trying to go farther than the word of God. Are you seeking spiritual truth? …Do not be like the person Paul warned about - ‘always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth’ (2 Tim 3:7). Be content with what the Bible says. Do not accept anything less, and do not demand anything more (cf Rev 22:18-19).”
If the Bible is TRULY the word of God, the voice of the One Shepherd, then every OTHER book, every OTHER voice, every OTHER counselor in your life (myself included!) is only helpful to the extent they are helping you understand, internalize, and apply THIS wisdom, GOD’S wisdom. Don’t go “beyond” it.
Got all that? That was all just point #1. Purpose #1, for the book of Ecclesiastes: to make us WISE.
Solomon’s SECOND purpose for this sermon, believe it or not, has been to make us JOYFUL. It is good to be JOYFUL. (v10a)
The Narrator tells us in v10 that in addition to seeking out words of WISDOM, to TEACH his congregation: “The Preacher [ALSO] sought to find words of CHAY-fets - delight, pleasure”. It’s the same word Solomon used up in v1 of ch12, when he urged us to “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth,” before you get old and can no longer find any CHAY-fets - pleasure - in life. Solomon warned us cuz he WANTS us to be happy; he doesn’t WANT us to end up as that grumpy, crotchety person in our 80s and 90s - we all KNOW one! - who can’t seem to find a single reason worth LIVING for anymore - “My back hurts…”, “When did GAS get so expensive?!”, “I can’t drive anyway…”, “KIDS these days…!” But according to Solomon, “remember[ing] our Creator” has the power to turn our GRUMBLING into GRATITUDE. This is a great Thanksgiving week reminder.
Don’t be the old person who complains about your aches and pains; be the one who MARVELS that ANYTHING still works anymore!
Don’t be the one who gripes about how “milk used to cost a NICKEL in my day…”; remember, Solomon instructed us back in ch7: “Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.” (v10) Don’t waste the few remaining days you have LEFT here complaining about how much better things USED to be; you probably suffer from lactose malabsorption and can’t drink milk anymore ANYWAY; at least NOW you can buy almond milk, soy milk, rice milk, HEMP milk… all KINDS of milk they didn’t have on the shelves back in “your day” - don’t grumble; be grateful.
Because gratitude is the KEY to happiness; the #1 predictor of how much someone ENJOYS life, is how GRATEFUL they are.
Now, some of you are thinking, “Sure, but… ECCLESIASTES?! You’re telling me that Solomon had FOUR PURPOSES in writing this book, and one of them, allegedly, was to make us… HAPPY?! Have you been reading the same book I have?! Cuz it doesn’t sound too chipper to me…”
“Meaningless, meaningless; everything is meaningless” - that’s where he started in ch1 and ended in ch12, and it didn’t get TOO much happier than that in between!
“All things are full of weariness”; I can’t even bear to TALK about it. (1:8)
“It is an unhappy business that God has given [us] to be busy with” down here. (1:13)
“The wiser I became,” Solomon said, “the more stressed and sorrowful I’ve become” (1:18)
So I “gave my heart up to despair…” (2:20)
Because “all [man’s] days are full of sorrow…” (2:23)
“man has no advantage over the beasts”, cuz we all die just like ANIMALS (3:19)
And “the dead who are already dead [are] more fortunate than the living who are still alive.” (4:2-3)
So the best we can hope for, ch5, is to stay happy ENOUGH that we just do “not much remember [our] days” here under the sun...
…these “few days of [our] vain[d] lives, which [we] pass like a shadow”, Ch6. (v12)
Because “the day of death [is better] than the day of birth,” Ch7, and it’s better to MOURN than to feast. (vv1-2)
DESPITE the fact, ch9, there is no HOPE for the dead, “for a living dog is better than a dead lion” (v4), and we all fall into death’s TRAP at an “evil time” (v12).
And once you’re dead, ch11 “the days of darkness will be many.” (v8)
And just remember: after THAT, “God will bring you into judgment.” (v9)
You say, “Now THAT - all THAT - is supposed to make me HAPPY?!” Sounds to me like we need to call the suicide hotline, cuz this guy is in need of some SERIOUS THERAPY! You just wanna give Solomon a HUG, don’t you? (Matt Chandler, “Youth: Ecclesiastes 12” sermon)
Would it surprise you to hear that the words “joy”, “enjoy”, and “joyful” are used more frequently per chapter in the book of Ecclesiastes than ANY OTHER BOOK of the Bible? (Philippians is tied)
And the context is NEVER to say “there is NO joy in life”, or “don’t bother TRYING to enjoy life”; No - 13x Solomon exhorts us:
“be joyful and do good as long as [you] live” (3:12)
To “keep… JOY in your hearts” (5:20)
“I commend joy… eat, drink and be joyful” (8:15)
“In the day of prosperity be joyful” (7:14)
“Enjoy life with the wife whom you love” (9:9)
Now, how can arguably the most DEPRESSING book in the Bible simultaneously call us to JOY more than any other?
I think we find the answer smack dab in the middle, in ch7, v3, where he claimed that “Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.”
See, even the BEST life possible here on earth is relatively SHORT, it’s still filled with SUFFERING, and it inevitably ends in DEATH. And Solomon’s point all throughout Ecclesiastes has been that the sooner we REALIZE that, and we come to GRIPS with it - face the music, get HONEST about life and about DEATH - then the sooner we can TRULY appreciate life here for what it really is: a GIFT. And even MORE than that, life is a GIFT that is intended to point us to the GIVER. Our LACK of satisfaction and fulfillment in EVERYTHING that this world has to offer - the pleasure, the comforts, the money, the power, even the wisdom - if NONE of it can make us TRULY, deeply, eternally happy, then maybe we’re supposed to find our happiness ELSEWHERE. As C.S. Lewis said, “If I find in myself a desire which nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” Solomon says, “You can keep laughing, keep forcing, faking the smile, desperately trying to convince yourself and everyone else around you that you’re content - that if this life is all there is, that if this is as good as it gets, that if you are TRULY living “your best life now”, that you’re perfectly HAPPY with it”, or you can get HONEST about it - about life’s brevity, pain’s pervasiveness, and death’s inevitability, and allow yourself the freedom to be SORROWFUL about it, to LONG for something more, something better; like Abraham, who Hebrews 11 tells us was never CONTENT to just live out of his tent here in a fallen world; he was “looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” - he longed for HEAVEN! (Heb 11:10)
And Solomon’s purpose in preaching this sermon has been to assure us that “It’s okay to NOT be okay, with the status quo, here under the sun,” to long for more. God PUT that desire in you… To point you to Him. “God has put eternity into man's heart”; we were made for life ABOVE the sun, with HIM. (Ecc 3:11)
Only then will we be TRULY happy. And paradoxically, only then will we find joy in the temporary pleasures of this life as well.
Purpose #3 - Gotta be quicker now: To make us ENLIGHTENED. It is good to be ENLIGHTENED. (v10b)
Not only did Solomon speak words of knowledge to make us WISE…
And words of “delight” to make us JOYFUL…
But we read in v10b: “uprightly he wrote words of truth”, to make us ENLIGHTENED.
It took me a while to land on the wording of this point. Did he write words of truth to make us… INFORMED? To make us… EDUCATED? To make us… DISCERNING? I think it’s MORE than any of those. Because the kind of truth Solomon OFFERS us here isn’t just truth like “The sky is blue” or “It’s 32 degrees outside.” No, it’s truth like, “Life is short, and then you die and face judgment, so you better get right with your CREATOR!”
It’s THAT kind of truth! Truth to make us “enlightened”: able to live life in light of the reality of who God is, who WE are, and therefore, what we NEED.
Namely, that “God is SUPREME”...
That “We are SINFUL”...
But praise God: “Jesus is SAVIOR”...
and “Faith in Him is SUFFICIENT” to deliver us!
It’s the truth of the GOSPEL, friends - the most important truth there IS!
Truth, as the apostle Paul put it earlier, that is “able to make [us] wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” Enlightened.
Truth like “There is a real, literal HEAVEN, and there is a real, literal HELL, and one day, not too relatively long from now, you will LITERALLY be in one or the other of them.” Truth like: “Hell is FULL of folks who thought of themselves as ‘mostly good’ people. Who tried their hardest to be kind to everyone and to love others. Hell is FULL of people like that”. Because unless you love God and love others PERFECTLY, you’re not good enough for Heaven, cuz Heaven is a perfect place for perfect people.
That’s the TOUGH truth, that most people don’t want to HEAR. But that we desperately NEED to hear. And that God, by way of Solomon, offers us here in Ecclesiastes.
We are sinful, in desperate need of a Savior. And life WITHOUT Him - even if you’re the richest, wisest man on the PLANET, like Solomon - if you lived 1,000 years BEFORE Jesus, or if you’re living still TODAY friend, without Jesus, your life is HEVEL. Futile. Vanity.
Listen to the word of TRUTH today, repent of your sins, trust in Jesus, and find life, joy, and purpose everlasting!
Lastly, #4 - It’s good to be WISE... It’s good to be JOYFUL… it’s good to be ENLIGHTENED… but it is BEST to be REVERENTIAL. (vv13-14)
More than anything else, Solomon has spoken these words, to make us REVERENTIAL. “Characterized by deep respect tinged with awe; veneration”; “to show DEFERENCE” to another - “respectful SUBMISSION”.
This is the most VITAL point of ALL this morning - of all the past 12 weeks! - but it need not be the LONGEST. You have listened long, now I URGE you here at the end to listen HARD:
“The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.”
Solomon has emphasized the “fear of God” all throughout Ecclesiastes:
Ch3: we fear God for his SOVEREIGNTY (v14); all his purposes will stand.
Ch5: we fear Him for his HOLINESS (vv1-7); God will not leave sin unpunished.
And Chs7-8: we fear Him for his POWER (7:18; 8:12-13): God delivers those who belong to Him.
Solomon has told us WHY we fear God, but he hasn’t told us HOW to fear God. THAT is the Narrator’s job, here in the final 2 verses: we fear God BY “keeping his commandments”. By OBEYING Him. And here’s the thing: 1 John 5:3 reminds us that “his commandments aren’t BURDENSOME”; they are LIFE-GIVING. God wants us to have life to the fullest; but do we trust that HE knows what makes for “the good life” better than WE do? Do we FEAR him?
To fear God is to live your life as if God exists, as if HE’S in charge, as if the only reason YOU exist is because He graciously decided to GIVE you life, and He graciously decides moment by moment to KEEP giving you life, and that therefore you don’t OWN your life, but rather you are a STEWARD of your life, and one day you will stand before him and give an account of how you USED this life that He gave you as a gift: for HIS glory, or for your own. (Wiersbe, OT, 1144)
And friends, living life in THIS way, “coram deo” - before the face of God - living all of your life in light of the reality of God’s existence, His Sovereignty, His Goodness, His Holiness, His Power, and His coming JUDGMENT - living your entire LIFE that way, is your “WHOLE DUTY”. In fact, Philip Ryken explains (280) that “The Bible… literally says, “this is the whole of man.” The word ‘duty’ may well be implied, but Ecclesiastes is making a wider point. To say, ‘this is the whole of man’ is to say, ‘this is all there IS to man.’ In other words, ‘this is what life is all about.’ The most important thing for any person to do is to worship God and obey his commandments.”
Because rest assured, v14, that ONE DAY, perhaps sooner than you think, “God will bring every deed into judgment, with[d] every secret thing, whether good or evil.”
You will stand before the Judge. Actually, you’ll bow, you’ll kneel, you’ll fall FLAT ON YOUR FACE! Because as the Psalmist says, “If you, O Lord, should count iniquities… who could stand?” (Ps 130:2); you can’t POSSIBLY stand before an Almighty, perfectly HOLY God, in your SIN!
UNLESS, you have a SAVIOR. A Redeemer. A Deliverer. Who walks into that Heavenly courtroom, and picks you up off the ground, and looks you in the eyes, and assures you that though your sins - over the course of your ENTIRE life - they were MANY… but take heart: His MERCY is MORE.
Is he YOUR Savior; do you have a personal, saving relationship with Jesus Christ this morning?
Yes, you need to fear God, respect and worship Him, and obey His commands. But when you inevitably FAIL to obey Him as you should, revere Him as you should, HONOR him: do you have the ONLY Defense Attorney who is able to acquit you of ALL your sins?
Fear God. Obey His commandments. But trust in JESUS.