LESSONS FOR WORSHIP

Ecclesiastes 5:1 Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong.

Fruitful and acceptable worship begins before it begins. So our passage commences with the demeanour of the worshipper on his way to the house of God. He is to keep his foot; that is, to go deliberately, thoughtfully, with realisation of what he is about to do. He is to ‘draw near to hear’ and to bethink himself, while drawing near, of what his purpose should be.  What likelihood is there that much good will come of worship to people who talk politics or scandal right up to the church door?  The heaviest rain runs off parched ground unless it has been first softened by a gentle fall of moisture. Hearts that have no dew 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. The formal worshipper who goes to the house of God because it is the hour when he has always gone; the curious worshipper {?} who draws near to hear indeed, but to hear a man, not God; and all the other sorts of mere outward worshippers who make so large a proportion of every Christian congregation-get the lesson they need, to begin with, in this precept.

Note, that the right preparation for worship is better than worship itself if it is that of ‘fools.’ Drawing near with the true purpose is better than being near with the wrong one. Note, too, the reason for the vanity of the ‘sacrifice of fools’ is that ‘they know not’; and why do they not know, but because they did not draw near with the purpose of the hearing? Therefore, as the last clause of the verse says, rightly rendered, ‘they do evil.’ All hangs together. No matter how much we frequent the house of God, if we go with unprepared minds and hearts we shall remain ignorant, and because we are so, our sacrifices will be ‘evil.’ If the winnowing fan of this principle were applied to our decorous congregations, who dress their bodies for church much more carefully than they do their souls, what a cloud of chaff would fly off!

Then comes the direction for conduct in the act of worship. The same thoughtfulness which kept the foot in coming to should keep the heart when in, the house of God. His exaltation and our lowliness should check hasty words, blurting out uppermost wishes, or in any way outrunning the sentiments and emotions of prepared hearts. Not that the lesson would check the fervid flow of real desire.  Other people besides the crowds on Pentecost think that men whose lips are fired by the Spirit of God are ‘drunken,’ if not with wine, at all events with unwholesome enthusiasm. But the outpourings of a soul-filled, not only with the sense that God is in heaven and we on earth, but also with the assurance that He is near to it, and it to Him, are not rash and hasty, however fervid. What is condemned is words which travel faster than thoughts or feelings, or which proceed from hearts that have not been brought into patient submission, or from such as lack reverent realisation of God’s majesty, and such faults may attach to the calmest worship, and need not infect the most fervent. Those prayers are not hasty which keep step with the suppliant’s desires when these take the time from God’s promises. That mouth is not rash which waits to speak until the ear has heard.

In guarding our steps, there is a need to prepare our hearts to meet the Lord in His presence. With a prepared heart, the Lord listens and draws closer to us.

Prayer: Lord Jesus be my guard, be my will, lead me so as not to offer a sacrifice of fools but always guarding my steps to You, in Jesus' name. Amen

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The Lady Evangelist Kim

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