Fear God and Keep His Command

We will be in Ecclesiastes, that's in the Old

Testament. If you can find Psalms, that's kind

of in the middle, turn a little past that, Proverbs,

Ecclesiastes, they're all right there pretty

close together. Ecclesiastes, chapter 12, last

Ecclesiastes 12 · chapter mention

chapter of the book of Ecclesiastes, last couple

of verses of the chapter, very end of the book.

Ecclesiastes chapter 12, verses 13 and 14. If

Ecclesiastes 12:13

you've never read the book of Ecclesiastes, you

should read the book of Ecclesiastes. But you

need to be prepared. It kind of will bum you

out, I'll be honest with you. You might wonder,

if you've never read it before, why this is in

the Bible. This seems kind of depressing. And

if I could sum up Ecclesiastes, it would be to

say that... It just kind of reminds us of the

reality of life, that life is hard, that one

day we'll get old and we'll die, and life is

tough, and it's not going to be good to you,

and that is, in fact, true. But then there's

a conclusion here at the end of Ecclesiastes

that we're going to talk a little bit about this

morning. Ecclesiastes chapter 12, we'll read

Ecclesiastes 12 · chapter mention

verses 13 and 14. Then we'll pray and get started.

When all has been heard, the conclusion of the

matter is this. Fear God and keep his commands,

because this is for all humanity. For God will

bring every act to judgment, including every

hidden thing, whether good or evil. Let's pray.

God, we come to you today and we thank you for

the powerful truth of this word, God. I pray,

dear Lord, that this morning that we would be

free of the worries and of the distractions and

of just the stress and the struggles of this

world, even the happy stuff this morning, dear

Lord, that may be competing for our mind. I pray

that you would free us from those distractions.

I pray that your Holy Spirit would meet us where

we are. You know what we need. I pray that you'd

grab ahold of us, dear Lord, help us to grow

in you today. I pray that you help me to preach

and teach in a way that brings glory and honor

to you, that you take away any nerves or pride

that are within me, that every word that is spoken

here today will be for your glory. I pray, God,

that we would be a people that after being here

this morning and reading these words would be

a people who would fear you and keep your commands.

And I ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

I've been working on something this week. I'm

pretty excited to share it with you guys. Now,

I know that you all live in the world, and you

know that the world is not always a good place.

But I have come up with a solution, and I'm going

to tell it to you all today so that we can solve

the world's problems. I've decided there's a

lot of bad that goes on in the world. And so

what I have come up with is that we will make

laws to make things that are bad illegal. And

I'm going to start this morning with Highway

24 between Liberty and Macomb. There's a lot

of stuff that happens on that road that is not

good. So I have decided to solve the problem.

I'm going to make it illegal for people to go

too fast and to pass going up a hill. That's

against the law. Can't do it no more. And since

sometimes you've got to get to work and there's

some old fool, he's driving about 30 miles an

hour all the way from Liberty Macomb, I'm making

a law that you cannot go under 50 miles an hour.

It's against the law. I'm also going to make

it against the law to own an electric vehicle.

I'm outlawing electric trucks and cars. You cannot

own them. You have to own a V8. That is the new

law. You cannot own an electric vehicle. If you

drive an electric car, I'm sorry. Even a golf

cart, I'm coming for you. It's going to be against

the law to tell a lie. Cannot tell no more lies.

Can't lie to your employer. It's going to be

against the law to steal from somebody. You can't

steal from your neighbor anymore. It's wrong

to steal. People work hard for what they get,

and you can't steal from people anymore. It's

going to be against the law to do that. It's

going to be against the law to harm anybody.

It's a bad deal when people get hurt. It's going

to be against the law for you to hurt somebody.

It's going to be against the law. For you to

kill somebody. It's going to be against the law

for you to get high on drugs and to get drunk

on alcohol and to cause problems. You see, I

have figured out the solution to all of our problems.

Everything that is bad, I'm simply going to make

a law against it, and that is going to solve

our problems. And you may say to yourself, I

don't think that's going to work. But that's

where you're wrong. Because, see, here's the

law of all laws. And that is, it will be against

the law to break the law. Now, with all of these

laws in place, surely that's going to solve our

problems as a society, is it not? Well, you know

it's not. Because you laugh as I say these things.

Because you say to yourself, well, he's either

an idiot or he don't know what he's talking about.

These things are already laws. And you're right,

they are laws. Throughout our civilization, throughout

the history of man, what do we keep doing? We

keep making more laws and more laws as if that's

going to fix our civilization. As if that's going

to fix humanity. To create more laws and to say

that more things are wrong and to make more laws

against things that we already know are wrong

is an exercise in absurdity. It's not going to

fix our problem. Laws are not going to fix our

problem. Rules that we make are not going to

fix our problem. I'll tell you today what will

really fix our problem and what our problem is.

Our problem is this. We do not fear God. If we

as a people feared God, we wouldn't do half the

things that we do. But the problem that our...

that our society has faced, that humanity has

faced since its creation is we do not fear God.

When we fear God, we will keep his commands.

When we do not fear God, we will live for ourselves

and we will have no regard for the commands of

God and the people around us. You know why Adam

and Eve sinned? Because they didn't fear God.

God said, don't eat from this tree. They didn't

fear God. Throughout the Bible, people knew the

commands of God. The commands that we give today

are no different than the commands that God gave

years ago. For the most part, there are many

of the laws that we have today that are just

built upon the very things that God said. And

yet we still have problems in our society. And

we still wonder why our world is falling apart.

And we still wonder why there is evil. And it's

because we do not fear God. And I ain't just

talking about the non -Christians. I'm talking

about us in this room. I'm not talking about

them. I'm talking about us. I'm asking you today,

do you fear God? Oh yeah, I fear God. Oh really,

is that so? But you better stop and think real

close of whether or not you fear God. Because

if we fear God, there's a lot of things that

we do that we wouldn't do. There's a lot of things

that we just continue to do time and time again,

day after day, month after month, year after

year of our life, and we say we fear God? You

can gauge how much you fear God by how long it

takes you to turn from what you're doing wrong.

And there are some sins in our life that if we

feared God, we'd have stopped doing them 50 years

ago. And yet we keep doing them. And you know

why? Because we don't fear God. When you don't

fear God, you live in foolishness. Here's what's

said in Job chapter 28, verse 8. It says this,

Job 28:8

The fear of the Lord is this, wisdom. And to

turn from evil is understanding. You know why

our world is evil? You know why we do evil things?

It's because we are fools. Because we are not

living in wisdom. Because we do not fear God.

Proverbs chapter 3 verse 7 says, Don't consider

Proverbs 3:7

yourself to be wise. Fear the Lord and turn away

from evil. That's our problem. We consider ourselves

to be wise. We don't see a need for God, and

so we live for ourselves, and we have no care

about those around us. We have no care about

the Word of God. We have no care about our brothers,

about our neighbors, and we cheat them, and we

steal from them, and we lie to them, and we cheat

on our spouses, and we abuse our children, and

we give in to our temptations of sin because

we do not fear the Lord our God. the creator

of the heavens and the earth, the one who we

will have to stand before one day. There will

be a judgment day that will occur. God gives

us in his word, his instruction and his commands

and how we are to live and we have to answer

for ourselves today, are we living by the commands

of God? When Jesus was asked what law was the

most important, what did he say? He said to love

the Lord your God with all your heart, mind,

soul and strength. And the second is like it,

to love your neighbor as yourself. That is the

law of Jesus Christ. That is the law of love.

And when we fear God, we'll keep those commands.

When we fear God, we'll love our neighbor. We

won't harm those around us. We won't cheat those

around us. We won't steal from those around us.

We need to have a fear of God. God is good. Praise

the Lord. He's good. He's gracious. I praise

God for that. A lot of people say, oh, it's just

fear of the Lord. It doesn't really mean fear

of the Lord. Like, not really fear Him. Just

a reverential fear. Well, yeah, we should have

a reverential fear of God. We should respect

God. But I think there's a real fear there that

needs to come upon us that we need to realize

that one day we will stand before the Lord our

God. And you can sit on this pew every day, but

if we still are living in sin, then we don't

fear God. And he knows what we're doing. The

rest of the people in here may not know what

you're doing. Y 'all might not know what I'm

doing. But God knows what we're doing. And one

day we'll stand before God and you may say, well,

I follow Jesus Christ and my sins are forgiven.

Okay, well, praise the Lord. But that's going

to be a pretty scary day to stand before God

and he's going to say, you know you did this

thing? That's going to be pretty scary. Now,

when I was growing up, I feared my father. It

was not just a reverential fear. It was a real

fear. It was a fear that the genuine leather

of his belt was going to touch the soft skin

of my bottom and the two were going to become

one flesh. And so when I got this urge and these

temptations to do things I shouldn't do, it wasn't

like, oh, I respect my father so much and I don't

want to disappoint him. Now, sometimes there

is that in life. But the fear was, I don't want

the belt to touch my butt, so therefore I'm going

to do good. That was a fear. He was my father.

And I didn't walk around every day going, I'm

so scared of my father. No, I knew he loved me.

And I loved him. And I didn't walk around in

fear. But there was a real fear there to know

that he has spoken and he has told me not to

do what I was doing and I better listen to him.

That's the same kind of fear I think we're supposed

to have of God. A real fear that we respect God

and we know God. We know God loves us. I don't

walk around every day thinking God's going to

strike me with lightning, but there's a fear

there when I'm living in sin and doing what I

shouldn't do, especially repeatedly for a long

period of time, and there's no peace in that.

And so our real problem in life, as individuals

and as a society, is sometimes the very fact

that we just don't fear the Lord. Maybe if we

really started to seek God and His commands,

if we really began to just humble ourselves before

God and realize that we are sinners and we are

in a bad way, and that God is the creator of

the heavens and the earth, and that he spoke

everything to existence, and that he sees everything

that we do, and he hears every word that we say,

and he knows every thought that we think, and

one day this is the God that we will stand before,

then maybe if we stopped and thought about that

a little more than we do, then our actions would

change. If you think about that for a second

and your actions don't change, then you need

to do some more thinking. Because maybe you don't

know the fear of the Lord. You can tell pretty

quick, you can tell pretty easy, if a child has

a fear for their parents or not, because the

parent will say, you better not do that. And

if the kid don't do it no more, then you know

that, well, that parent, they probably got a

good fear of them. So many times you better stop

doing it. And the kid just keeps on talking,

just keeps on doing what they want to do. And

then the parent does what I'm talking about.

They really drop the hammer. You know what the

parents do? They say, if you do that one more

time, I'm going to count to three. Oh, you can

see the kids, the fear. They're shaking in their

boots. I never learned how to count to three.

My daddy never did that. But I learned what a

belt was like. And I learned what fear was like.

And you know what that fear caused me to do?

Not as much as it should have. I needed a lot

more weapons. But that fear caused me to do what

was right. At the end of Ecclesiastes, the scripture

says, when all is said and done, this world is

full of all kind of evil and all kind of horrible

things, and it is depressing, and it is just

rotten. Because it's full of people like us and

we're just rotten to the core. On our own, we're

just rotten, evil people. And when all is said

and done, the only solution to our problem, the

only thing that we can cling to, the only thing

that we can find hope in, is to fear God and

to keep His commands. That's what we're called

to do, is to fear God and to keep. His commands.

Maybe we failed at that. Maybe we have failed

at that miserably today. Now look, you can't

be perfect. I'm not telling you you can be. I

wish we could do better than we could do. And

we can do better than we can do, but we can't

be perfect. And I'm not saying that you're never

going to fail. And I'm not going to say that

if you fail once, that doesn't mean you fear

God. But the fact of the matter is that we need

some help that is beyond us and our help comes

from Jesus Christ. That's where our help comes

from. He is the one who can be obedient to God.

And when we sin, we should never be okay with

our sin and just keep sinning and say, well,

Jesus has died for me. I'll just keep sinning.

We don't fear the Lord and we don't really understand

and appreciate and respect and love Jesus Christ

in the way we should if our excuse is, well,

let sin abound all the more so grace can abound

all the more. Paul says absolutely not. There

needs to be a love of God there. And a fear of

God there that we realize that we cannot do it

on our own. We are powerless on our own, but

through the power of God, through the power of

Jesus Christ, God can help us to overcome the

things that we fail at. And it's when we seek

Jesus Christ that our hearts can really begin

to be changed. And it's only when we really fear

God that we will begin to keep his commands.

That's why it's so important for our world to

hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. People in our

world are not going to change. You can outlaw

guns and knives and melt them all down. You can

do anything you want to. You can take away any

weapon that anybody can get their hands on, and

guess what? They'll still have their hands. And

you cut their hands off, and they'd still find

a way to kill somebody because evil comes from

the heart. That's our problem is evil comes from

our heart, and we don't fear God, so we're willing

to do anything to those who are around us. We'll

lie, cheat, and steal and won't think twice about

it because we don't fear God as a people. And

until we know who God is, until people know who

Jesus Christ is, until they begin to trust in

Him, until we realize that we are sinners in

need of a Savior, until we realize that one day

we are hopeless and helpless and we will have

to stand before God and apart from Jesus Christ,

that's going to be a bad day. Until we humble

ourselves and realize who God is, we cannot fear

Him. But the moment we begin to fear God, he

can begin to change our heart, he can begin to

change our lives, and he can begin to change

our world. So whatever laws or whatever rules

we make as humanity, they will fail. Only the

law of love will succeed. If we would love the

Lord our God with all our heart and love our

neighbor as ourself, our world would change.

And we can experience such a love when we experience

the fear of God. So when all is said and done,

the end of the matter is this, to fear God and

keep his commands. Let's pray. God, we come to

you today and we thank you for being good to

us, dear Lord. And maybe sometimes we just get

so lax in our lives that we just kind of forget

who you are. We think about your goodness and

your grace and your blessings, and those things

are awesome, God, and they are who you are, and

we praise you for them. God, you're a pretty

serious God, too. And you don't wink at sin and

turn a blind eye to it. You forgive us for it.

We praise you for that through Jesus Christ.

But you're not okay with us, God, just continue

to live in it. You don't desire for us to, dear

Lord. Even if it is forgiven, you don't desire

for us to live in the burden of that sin. And

so, God, I pray that today that we would fear

you and humble ourselves before you this morning,

God. That we would not be so foolish to think

that we would come up with laws and rules that

are going to change our world, God. God, our

world will only be changed when our hearts are

changed. And our hearts will only be changed

through Jesus Christ. So God, our world is in

such a mess today, God. There are so many people,

dear Lord, that are in darkness and they are

seeking and they are searching and they want

deliverance and they want help and they don't

even know where to find it. They don't even know

that they need it sometimes, God. But we know

that your word tells us that we need Jesus Christ.

And it's only when we come to you and seek you

and fear you and humble ourselves before you,

God, that we will find you and that we will begin

to listen to you and that we will stop seeking

to be wise in our own eyes, dear Lord. But that,

God, I pray today we would realize that the fear

of the Lord is wisdom. God, help us to be a wise

people today. so that we would be those who would

turn away from our foolishness and turn away

from our evil. I pray that you can start with

us, dear Lord. Let us not look around at everybody

else that may need these words. I pray that you'd

help us to look at our own lives, God. Maybe

we're the one that needs it today. Maybe there

are some things in our life and we just need

to repent and we need to turn away with them

and we've been just dabbling with them and going

along in these sins for far too long. I pray,

God, today that we would... repent of our sinfulness

and come to you, God. We know you're a loving

Father, but God, we also know that you deal with

us sometimes, but your word says that you discipline

the one that you love, and so God, I pray that

you would help us to feel that love today. I

do pray for our world, dear Lord, that they would

know of Jesus Christ, that they would know of

love, that they would know of grace, that they

would know who you are, God, that they would

fear you, And keep your commands. And I ask these

things in Jesus' name. Amen.