Let us open our Bibles this evening
to the book of Ecclesiastes. Tonight we are looking in chapter
five, and there are three subjects in this chapter that I call our
attention to. The first subject concerns going
to the house of God, verses one through seven. Keep thy foot
when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to
hear than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they consider not
that they do evil. Be not rash with thy mouth, and
let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God. For God is in heaven and thou
upon earth, therefore let thy words be few. For a dream cometh
through the multitude of business, and a fool's voice is known by
a multitude of words. When thou vowest a vow unto God,
defer not to pay it, for he hath no pleasure in fools. Pay that
which thou hast vowed. Better is it that thou shouldest
not vow than that thou shouldest vow and not pay. Suffer not thy
mouth to cause thy flesh to sin, Neither say thou before the angel
that it was an error. Wherefore should God be angry
at thy voice and destroy the work of thine hands? For in the
multitude of dreams and many words there are also diverse
vanities, but fear thou God. To this point in the book of
Ecclesiastes, Solomon has spoken about many vanities, many vain
things which are done under the sun. Now, he cautions us about
bringing these vain things, that is vanities, into the house of
God. In Solomon's day, the beautiful
temple that he had built would be the house of God. It was beautiful. It was well designed. There was
not a hammer heard. as it was being constructed.
Everything was designed. The stones were quarried and
brought on site and put together. It was a beautiful temple, a
beautiful house of God. In our day, we should recognize
a house of God as the place where the gospel is preached. I believe
it was Martin Luther who one time said, the church is where
the gospel is preached. And that has to be true because
the church is made up of believers, of saints, and there could be
no believers, no saints, apart from the gospel. So in our day,
the house of God is a place where the gospel is preached and where
the ordinances, and there are two of them, are administered. We have two ordinances that God,
the Lord Jesus, has left for us to do. One is baptism, of
course. And when you look in the New
Testament, you find that people were baptized in this order. They heard the gospel, they believed,
they were baptized. And men have reversed that order
and tried to justify it by using the Old Testament, the ordinance
of circumcision, to baptize babies and say that they're now in the
covenant. But this is the order. If we
go by the New Testament and the Word of God is what we believe
and what we practice, the Word of God. not the traditions of
men. But one of those ordinances is
baptism. And in baptism, we have the gospel
pictured by a person being put under the water and raised, put
into the hands of the administrator, even as the Lord Jesus Christ
was delivered and how he died and was buried and rose again
the third day. The other ordinance, of course,
is the Lord's Supper. And what a blessed time it is
when we observe the Lord's Supper, isn't it? When we show forth
the Lord's death till he comes. And every time that we do so,
that's what we confess, that our faith is in Jesus Christ
and his one sacrifice. that his one sacrifice has put
away our sins, and we look forward to the day when he comes again. So the house of God, it might
be under a tree. I've worshipped with people under
a tree, and it was the house of God. That's where the gospel
was preached. It might be in a private home.
We were reading just a few minutes ago back in the study the little
letter of Philemon, and the Apostle Paul saluted the church which
was in his house. It might be as we have a building,
and I thank God for the building we have, don't you? It keeps
us dry when it's raining, keeps us cool when it's hot, and warm
when it's cold. We've been blessed in having
this building here, and I need not remind us tonight of the
sacrifices that men made and women in building this building
over the years. I can still remember Bob Pume
up on the top of this roof, if you can imagine that. Now that
was very impressive to me because I'm not going to get over six
feet high, you know that. But God's given us this place,
hasn't he? But what Solomon is warning about
is we must use caution when we come to the house of God. Things
out in the world where there's vanities done under the sun,
when we come into the house of God, these vanities done under
the sun should be exposed in the house of God. When we come
here to worship, then we should be made aware, we should be reminded
of the vanity, of the vain things in this world. As the Apostle
John said, love not the world, neither the things that are in
the world. You people are out in the world all week working,
no doubt dealing with people that maybe you would rather not
associate with, hearing things and seeing things and And when
we come here together, it's a time that we should be reminded of
the vanity of the things in this world. Love not the world, neither
the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the
love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world,
the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, And the pride of
life is not of the father, but is of the world. And I would
remind us of the words of the Lord Jesus Christ when he said,
for what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world
and lose his own soul? So Solomon sounds two warnings
here in these verses when we come to the house of God. First,
he cautions us about hearing. Remember the Lord Jesus Christ,
he also said, be careful, take heed what you hear. And also
he said, take heed how you hear. But Solomon cautions here and
he says, be more ready to hear than to give the sacrifice of
fools. Hear the word of God. The word
that is preached, that is proclaimed in his day by the priest that
was part of their work, the priest, the tribe of Levi, and by the
prophets that God raised up, hear the word of God. And in
the scripture, hearing is often put for obeying. Hearing, obeying
the word of God. Even as the Apostle James in
the New Testament wrote, But be you doers of the word and
not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. In other words, hear
when you come to the house of God. Keep thy foot when thou
goest to the house of God and be more ready to hear. Hear so
as to practice. hear and to put into practice.
Don't just hear. It's like a man who beholds himself
in the mirror and then he goes his way and he forgets what he
saw in the mirror. And when we come and hear the
Word of God, but we do not practice the Word of God. That's what
the Apostle James tells us. Now the sacrifice of fools, you
notice he says, keep thy foot when thou goest to the house
of God, be more ready to hear than to give the sacrifice of
fools. Well, the sacrifice of fools,
no doubt, was to bring an animal. Under that old dispensation,
they brought animals to be sacrificed. And many of them, no doubt, it
was just a habit. They would bring an animal, deliver
it to the priest, but they did not look by faith to what that
animal pictured. And it was of no use, of no value
whatsoever. All the cattle on a thousand
hills are already the Lord's. And so just to bring an animal
and many wealthy people could bring many animals. Solomon,
I forget how many animals he sacrificed the day that they
dedicated the temple. But just to bring an animal,
sacrifice of fools, if a person doesn't look to the end of that
sacrifice, to the object of that sacrifice. To bring an animal to sacrifice
without faith in Christ and to think that these, apart from
obedience, would please God. Man might be a thief, he might
be a liar, he might be a covetous person, he might be an adulterer,
he might be this, that, or the other, and think just because
he brought an animal to be sacrificed that that would be pleasing to
God. God looks at the heart. Sacrifices of God, a broken heart,
a contrite spirit. These are the sacrifices that
God will not despise. What do you and I in this dispensation
have to do with offering sacrifices? Well, first of all, let me reiterate,
we have nothing to do with offering a sacrifice for sin. That would
be a blasphemous action on our part. If somehow we thought there
was something left undone, by the Savior and by his offering,
his sacrifice, wherein he did effectually put away the sins
of his people. The writer of Hebrews in chapter
10 said, but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice
for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God. And for
any person, I don't care who he is, how religious he may be,
but to suppose that there's some sacrifice for sin that we can
do, that is needful, that's the sacrifice of a fool. But the
sacrifices we have to do with, these are mentioned in the New
Testament, we do have the sacrifice of praise. This is what we read
in Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 15. By Him, therefore, and that's
important, isn't it? By Him, even our sacrifices of
praise for them to be accepted and received by God, they must
be through Him. through His righteousness, through
His blood, for our sacrifices of praise to be accepted, even
as our prayers we pray in His name. By Him, therefore, let
us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is,
the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name. And then
we are also called upon by the mercies of God in Romans chapter
12 in verse 1, Paul writing to the believers there. He besought
them by the mercies of God to present their bodies a living
sacrifice unto God. So the sacrifices that we offer
are the sacrifices of praise, giving thanks unto the Lord and
those through him, but also we are to present our bodies as
a living sacrifice unto God. And notice Paul says, which is
our reasonable service. It's just reasonable that we
give ourselves body, soul, and spirit unto him who gave himself
for us. So Solomon sounds a warning there,
be cautious when you go to the house of God concerning hearing. Be more ready to hear than to
give the sacrifice of fools. And then secondly, he cautions,
be not rash with thy mouth. Verse two, be not rash with thy
mouth and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before
God, for God is in heaven and thou upon earth. Therefore, let
thy words be few. This, of course, applies to our
prayers. But here, I believe that it especially
concerned vows, vows that men and women would make. But first,
concerning our prayers. The model prayer that our Lord
gave his disciples, you remember how it begins. Our Father, which
art in heaven, hallowed sanctified be thy name. Remember when we
pray, we're not talking to a buddy next door. We're talking to God. And even though we are commanded,
let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace. But that
boldness is not irreverence. I like the prayer that is recorded
of Abraham, don't you, when he took it upon himself to intercede
for Lot and for Sodom and Gomorrah. He said this, Behold now, I have
taken upon me to speak unto the Lord. Oh, that's a lot, to talk
to God. I've taken upon me to speak unto
the Lord. which am but dust and ashes. That's all I am, dust and ashes. And here I am speaking to God
Almighty. He's in heaven and we are upon
earth. We cannot be too reverent, my
friends, when we approach unto God. But this especially, I believe,
what Solomon is speaking of here when he says, be not rash with
thy mouth. I believe it especially concerns
vows, because this is what he mentions in verses 4 through
6. When thou vowest to vow unto God, defer not to pay it, for
he hath no pleasure in fools. Pay that which thou hast vowed.
Better is it that thou shouldst not vow than that thou shouldst
vow and not pay. Suffer not thy mouth to cause
thy flesh to sin. neither say thou before the angel,
that is, before the priest, that it was an error. Wherefore should
God be angry at thy voice? In other words, a man makes a
vow, a woman makes a vow, and then they do not want to follow
through on their vow, and they go to the priest, and they say,
Well, I made a mistake. No, it's better not to vow than
to vow and not to pay. You and I, I believe, are most
familiar with the Nazirite vow. The Nazirite vow was a vow in
that dispensation in which a man or a woman, for a period of time,
they separated themselves to the Lord. And they could have
nothing to do with grapes during the time of their vow. They could
have nothing to do with grapes, not a fresh grape, a moist grape,
not a dried grape, or anything made from grapes, such as wine
or strong drink. That was part of the vow of the
Nazarite. The Lord Jesus Christ was not
a Nazarite. He was a Nazarene. And we believe
the reason he was called a Nazarene is because he lived in Nazareth. That's where his residence was
during his teenage and young adult life, Nazareth. And you
remember when Philip found Nathanael after the Lord had found Philip.
one of the first disciples, and Philip went and found his brother
Nathanael and said, we have found him who is the Christ, Jesus
of Nazareth. You remember what Nathanael said? Can any good thing come out of
Nazareth? In other words, it was a place
evidently that had a stigma about it. It had a stigma about Nazareth. And that is part, no doubt, of
the humiliation of our Lord Jesus Christ when he came into this
world and made himself poor for you and I, for our sakes. For the man who took this vow,
the vow of the Nazarite, they could not use a razor for the
time of their vow. If they vowed for six months
or for a year, some for a lifetime, they had this vow. They could
not use a razor upon their beard or their hair or anything like
that. Some believe that Paul had taken this vow. If you look
with me in Acts chapter 18. In Acts chapter 18 in verse 18. Some of the writers believe that
this was a vow that the apostle Paul had taken. In chapter 18 in verse 18 we
read, and Paul after this tarried there yet a good while and then
took his leave of the brethren, and sailed thence unto Syria,
and with him Priscilla and Aquila, and others, having shorn his
head, cut his beard, or his hair, at Centuria, for he had a vow,
and as long as he had that vow, he would not have a razor upon
his hair. Now Solomon tells us that it
is better not to vow than to vow and not pay it. Now look in Acts chapter 5. We
don't have the word vow here in this chapter but it is possible that this is what Ananias and
Sapphira had done. Maybe among themselves they had
vowed if we can sell this property we're going to give it all to
God. God will just let us sell this property. We're going to
give it all to God. Well, they sold the property,
but they had agreed among themselves. Look here in chapter five, but
a certain man named Ananias and Sapphira, his wife sold a possession,
kept back part of the price. His wife also being privy to
it and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles feet.
If you ever deal with anyone who says, well, the Holy Spirit
is just a power, he's not a person, he's not a member of the Trinity,
bring them here to this passage. Bring them here to Acts chapter
five. Peter said unto Ananias, why has Satan filled thine heart
to lie to the Holy Ghost? You can't lie to a power. lie
to a being, a person, and to keep back part of the price of
the land. While it remained, was it not
thine own? And after it was sold, was it
not in thine own power? Why hast thou conceived this
thing in thine heart? Now notice, thou hast not lied
unto men, but unto God. You lied to the Holy Spirit.
You lied to God. What can that mean other than
that God the Holy Spirit is God, that He too is a member of the
blessed Trinity, just as the Father and as the Son. But read
on. Was it remained, was it not in
thy power? And after it was sold, was it
not in thine own power? Why hast thou conceived this
thing in thine heart? Thou hast not lied unto men,
but unto God. And Ananias, hearing these words,
fell down and gave up the ghost. And great fear came on all them
that heard these sayings. And the young man arose, wound
him up, carried him out, and buried him. It was about the
space of three hours after when his wife, not knowing what was
done, came in. And Peter answered unto her,
tell me whether you sowed the land for so much? And she said,
yea, for so much. And Peter said unto her, how
is it that you have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord?
tempt the spirit of the Lord. It's better not to vow than to
vow and not to pay it. Behold, the feet of them which
have buried the husband are at the door and shall carry thee
out. Then fell she down straightway
at his feet. There used to be a church here
in Houston that advertised a lot about this fellowship of excitement. I always thought this fellowship
in Jerusalem, it was a fellowship of excitement, especially the
day that both Ananias and Sapphira were killed by God for lying
to him. So that's the first subject here
in this fifth chapter of Ecclesiastes concerning going to the house
of God. Now the second subject I want
us to look at begins in verse 10. Even though verse nine, we're
not going to say much about that, but it's a wonderful verse of
scripture that reminds us that even the king, he's dependent
upon the fruit of the land. No matter how much gold and silver
he has, he still has to have something to eat. No exceptions. He that loveth silver shall not
be satisfied with silver. What I want to do in these verses
10 through 17, I just want to point out six truths, six truths
about the wealth of this world. The first truth is found in verse
10, he that loves wealth will not be satisfied with it. Verse
10, he that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver.
Or he that loveth abundance with increase. This is also vanity. So the first thing we see about
the wealth of this world is that the person who loves it will
not be satisfied with it. Now every one of us, we all need
a certain amount of wealth to live in this world. And it's
right to work and to obtain it. but for a person to have an inordinate
love for the wealth of this world. That's when the love of money
becomes the root of all evil. That verse of scripture is, excuse
me, many times misquoted. And people say, well, you know,
money is the root of all evil. It's not. Money is a blessing. Money may be used in a very good
way, but it is the love of money that is the root of all evil. And what Solomon tells us first
of all about the wealth of this world is that a person who loves
it He will not be satisfied with it. He will still want just a
little more. No matter how much he has, he
accumulates, he will still desire just a little more, a little
more. Like the horse leech that cries
give, give, never satisfied. Look at this over in Proverbs
30. Here's a lesson for all of us.
to learn Proverbs chapter 30 in this prayer of Agar in verses
eight and nine. He said, remove far from me vanity
and lies. Now notice, give me neither poverty
or riches. That's a good prayer, good request. Give me neither poverty or riches. The scripture says godliness
with contentment is great gain. Give me neither poverty nor riches,
feed me with food convenient for me, lest I be full and deny
thee and say, who is the Lord? Or lest I be poor and still and
take the name of my God in vain. We need enough to live. And the
Lord has blessed those of us here in this building tonight.
I know he's blessed us well, and we live well. But the love
of money, a person who loves wealth, will not be satisfied
with it. An inordinate love of wealth. The second thing he tells us
in verse 11 is that He that increases in wealth will have more obligations. When goods increase, they are
increased that eat them. And what good is there to the
owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes? He that
increases in wealth will have more obligations. His wealth
will produce more mouths to feed. And this would not only include
his family, but this would include others that would would be demanded
of a person who had wealth. He would need more workers. He
would have more friends. Everyone is a friend of those
who have money. The poor, they don't have many
friends. The poor would be those that
he would be needing to help. To a person who loves silver,
Solomon says this is a vexation. It's a vexation to him to realize
that those who are dependent upon him that they enjoy his
wealth as much as he does. They enjoy his wealth as much
as he does. And that is a vexation to a man
who loves wealth. The very fact that he's having
to take care of others. And I see this, you do too. Some
of these professional athletes I mean, they make millions of
dollars. And they have what they call
hangers-on. And they have a lot of friends.
And that's the reason many of them, after just a few years
of taking care of all their friends, all the people that are asking
them for help and depending upon them, they end up in poverty
themselves. You say, how could that be? A
man made all that money. One of the ways is with the increase
of wealth, there's an increase of people that depend upon it. And what pleasure, notice what
he says at the end of that verse. What good is there to the owners
thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes? Can
you imagine, I would think at that time, they didn't have banks
like we have, so a person would put his money in bags, gold in
a bag, and silver in a bag, and have it all bundled up there,
you know, and just sit there and look at it. Would that give
anyone any pleasure? Well, we wouldn't do that today,
but people get pleasure in looking at their bank statement, their
401k, as some people say. Sometimes they get displeasure
also in looking at that. What pleasure is that? Now here's
the third thing. He that increases in wealth will
increase in cares. Verse 12, the sleep of a laboring
man is sweet, whether he eat little or much, but the abundance
of the rich will not suffer him to sleep. He can't sleep because
he's concerned about his wealth. He may be troubled over the way
he got his wealth. Maybe he deceived people and
took advantage of other people, and now his conscience gives
him trouble. He may be troubled over how he's
going to keep his wealth, because there's always that which would
take it away. I had a hard time sleeping the
other night, and I told Pat, I said, you know what that scripture
says, The sleep of a laboring man is sweet. I just haven't
been working hard enough. A man works out on his job, works
with his muscles and his strength and woman, and it's easier to
go to sleep, isn't it? Get a good night's sleep. But
a person that's concerned, and notice what he says about dreams
in this passage of scripture. or you wonder sometimes about
your dreams. The reason you're dreams is because
you've been thinking about this thing. You've been thinking,
I've, well, I shouldn't give these examples about myself,
but forgive me. But you know, Linda Howard, she
fell and broke her hip. Brother Henry Mahan fell and
broke his hip, thinking about these people who have fallen
and broke their hips. I've dreamed about that several
times in the last week or two. about trying to help people with
broken hips. We think about these things and
then we dream about them. And they trouble us, don't they?
And take our sleep away. Wealth will do that. And then
number four, he that increases in wealth may do so to his hurt. Verse 13. How can wealth hurt
a person? I'll tell you one way it can
hurt a person. Many people grow proud. When they get wealthy,
they get proud. People they used to be friends
with, people they used to associate with, now they are on a different
level. And it's all because of money.
Pride, and you know how God hates pride. That's one way it can hurt. And with wealth, many times comes
those who want to hurt the owner to take the wealth, to rob him. Number five, he that increases
in wealth may have nothing to leave his son when it's all said
and done. Verse 14, but those riches perish
by evil travail and he begetteth a son and there's nothing in
his hand. We've all read stories and seen movies, no doubt, when
parents passed away and everyone was there for the reading of
the will and they all thought they were going to be wealthy
and they find out they left nothing but bills. Wealth is gone. All the wealth they thought they
had, it really wasn't there. We all want to leave our children
something, don't we? But you know, the best thing
that we can leave our children is a good testimony for Christ. That's the best thing we could
possibly leave our children. that when they see us being placed
in the ground that they're able to say that he or she, they love
Christ and they've tried to serve him the best of their ability.
That's the best inheritance we could leave our children. And
number six, the last thing, he that increases in wealth will
leave it all in the end. Verses 15 through 17. As he came forth of his mother's
womb naked, shall he return to go as he came, and shall take
nothing of his labor, which he may carry away in his hand. And
this also is a sore evil, that in all points as he came, so
shall he go. And what profit hath he that
hath labored for the wind? The wind, nothing. Can you hold
on to the wind? Of course not. All his days also
he eateth in darkness, and he hath much sorrow and wrath with
the sickness. We watch a program on television,
sometimes it's called Strange Inheritances. I don't know if
any of you have ever seen that, but I tell you, some people leave
some strange things. But what I want to mention is
at the end of every one of those programs, the moderator says
the same thing. Remember, you can't take it with
you. You come into this world naked
and that's the way you're going to go out. Now the last subject,
and I'm not going to say anything about this because this is the
third time that he has brought this up, verses 18 through 20.
Behold that which I have seen, it is good and comely for one
to eat and to drink and to enjoy the good of all his labor that
he taketh under the sun all the days of his life which God giveth
him, for it is his portion. Every man also to whom God hath
given riches and wealth and hath given him power to eat thereof
and to take his portion and to rejoice in his labor, this is
the gift of God. For he shall not much remember
the days of his life. There've been good days and there's
been evil days, bad days, good days, but by far the most have
been good days. For he shall not much remember
the days of his life because God answered him in the joy of
his heart. I pray that the Lord would bless
these words to all of us here tonight. David.