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WEEKLY
Volume 1 Number 36
4 February 2007
Fear God and Keep
His Commandments
(Message
delivered by Pr Hien Nguyen at the Sunday Worship Service, 2 pm, Jan 28,
2007)
Text:
Eccl 12:13-14
What are some final words of
conclusion you and I may write and say to our children or to the younger
generation before we leave this world? Here in the book of Ecclesiastes,
with his rich life experience as the wisest and wealthiest king, Solomon
wrote, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God,
and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man”
(12:13-14). Then why must we fear God and keep His commandments? What
does it mean to us? And how can we put it into practice in our lives?
May God graciously help us not only understand His will but also do His
will so that we may be blessed.
Why Must We Fear God and
Keep His Commandments?
There are two reasons: the
first one is mentioned in verse 13, “for this is the whole duty of
man,” or “the whole man,” and the other is in verse 14, “For
God shall bring every work
into judgement,
with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil,”
or briefly, “God
shall be the Judge.”
The Whole Man:
To fear God and
keep His commandments is not only the whole duty of man but also the
whole man, the whole human being: his heart, his mind, his beliefs, his
devotion, his commitment, his motives, and particularly his chief end of
life. Our Lord Jesus loved His Father, trusted in Him, obeyed Him,
submitted to Him, glorified Him and His chief end is, “I have
glorified thee on earth: I have finished the work which thou gaveth me
to do” (John 17:4). Without this godly purpose in life, you and
I are only living for ourselves and doing everything for ourselves
regardless of God’s will and glory, and then you and I will experience
as Solomon did, “Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of
vanities; all is vanity” (1:2). The terms “vanity” and
“vanities” occur 37 times in only 12 chapters of the book of
Ecclesiastes! Let us learn from Solomon’s life experience and pay
attention to the first personal pronouns “I” and “me” and “my” in these
seven verses: “I made me
great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards;
I made me gardens and orchards, …: I made me pools of
water…: I got me servants and maidens, and had servants born in
my house; also I had great possessions …: I gathered me
also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the
provinces: I gat me men singers and women singers, and the
delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all
sorts. So I was great, and increased more than all that were
before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me.
And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not
my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my
labour: and this was my portion of all my labour. Then
I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and
on the labour that I had laboured to do: and behold,
all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit
under the sun”
(Eccl 2:4-11). What a precious lesson for our lives! Nothing can make
you and me truly satisfied or our lives and work and labour truly
meaningful and blessed if we do not do God’s will and live for Him and
for His glory! When we live for the Lord and “do all to the glory
of God” (1 Cor 10:31), do everything “heartily as to the
Lord, not to men” (Col 3:23), God will fill our hearts with His
joy, and we will see our lives meaningful and our “labour is not
in vain in the Lord” (1 Cor 15:58).
God Shall Be the Judge:
We must fear God
and keep His commandments because we shall give Him an account of what
we have done. We can see many people do not fear God at all, “There
is no fear of God before their eyes” (Ps 36:1; Rom 3:18). They even
challenge God’s existence, His omniscience (infinite knowledge) and His
omnipotence (infinite power and authority), blaspheme His holy Name,
blame God for all the evils and disasters, and question or criticize
God’s Word! How dare they do that? “Because sentence against an
evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart
of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil”
(Eccl. 8:11). Exactly! If anyone who blasphemes God and His holy Name or
criticises and misinterprets God’s Word is struck with dumbness or death
right away, who then would dare blaspheme God and criticise His Word? It
is God’s mercy and longsuffering that He does not destroy sinners right
away, “but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any
should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter
3:9). Sadly, people take God’s mercy and longsuffering for granted,
“despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and
longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to
repentance?” However, due to God’s holiness and justice, “God
shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret
thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.”
Can anyone escape God’s
righteous judgment? Nowadays, many commit serious crimes or do wicked
things secretly, thinking that no one sees them, and without any
witnesses or evidences, they can escape human judgment, thinking that
when they die, it is finished, no judgment, no Hell! But is it true that
they can escape God’s judgment? Absolutely not! God’s Word confirms in
Hebrews 9:27, “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after
this the judgment,” and in Romans chapter 2, “And thinkest
thou…that thou shall escape the judgment of God?” (v 3),
and “The judgment of God is according to truth” (v 2), “Who
will render to every man according to his deeds” (v 5), “For
there is no respect of persons with God” (v 11). Those who have the
law “shall be judged by the law” (v 12) but no one is able to
keep the law and be saved by it (Rom 3:20; Gal 2:16; 3:11), and “In
the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus
Christ
according to my gospel”
(v 16), which means, “He that believeth on him (Jesus
Christ) is not condemned: but he that believed not is
condemned already, because he hath not
believeth in the name of the only begotten Son of God”
(John 3:18).
Who shall be our Judge? It is
God our Saviour Jesus Christ and His Word, “For the Father
judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son:
That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the
Father…And hath given him authority to execute judgment also,
because he is the Son of man” (John 5:22-23, 27), and “The
word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day”
(John 12:48). Due to human sins, God the Son humbled Himself to be a
man, a servant, to die for mankind and rise again to be the living
Saviour of the world. Sadly, many still despise Him, reject Him, and
even blaspheme His Name, not knowing or believing that some day they
will appear before Him, the righteous Judge, to give account not only of
what they have done but also of what they have spoken, “But I say
unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give
account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt
be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned” (Matt
12:36-37).
My dear friends, whether you
and I believe or not, none of us can escape God’s judgment. In the end
all shall appear before Him. Unbelievers shall appear before the Great
White Throne and be “judged out of those things which were written in
the books, according to their works” (Rev 20:12). Faithful believers
shall be judged before the judgement seat of Christ, not to be
condemned, but to receive rewards or rebuke, “For we must all
appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive
the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it
be good or bad” (2 Cor 5:10). Then do you and I always “prepare
to meet thy God” (Amos 4:12)?
What Does It Mean to Fear
God and to Keep His Commandments
Have faith in God and in
His Word: “But
without faith it is
impossible to please him:
for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a
rewarder of them that diligently seek him”
(Heb 11:6), and “Whoso despiseth the word shall be destroyed: but
he that feareth the commandment shall be rewarded” (Prov 13:13).
When we doubt God’s Word, we doubt God Himself! When we despise God’s
Word, we despise God Himself! “For whosoever shall be ashamed of
me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he
shall come in his own glory, and in his Father’s, and of the holy
angels” (Luke 9:26).
My dear friends, you and I do
not fear God at all if we doubt His Word, question His Word, criticise
His Word and disobey His Word! But nowadays, many so-called Christian
leaders and scholars say, preach, and write against God’s Word! Do they
fear God?
Love God and Keep His
Words: Our Lord
Jesus summarises God’s commandments, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself”
(Luke 10:27). To love God means to keep His commandments and His words
(John 14:21, 23). It means to worship Him alone, honour His Name, keep
His day holy (Exo 20:3-8), and to believe in His Son Jesus Christ,
“And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of
his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us
commandment” (1 John 3:23). When Abraham obeyed God, God said to
him, “now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not
withheld thy son… because thou hast obeyed my voice” (Gen
22:12, 18). But God spoke to King Saul through Samuel, “Because
thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee
from being king” (1 Sam 15:23). When we fear God’s Word, we fear God
Himself! “to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a
contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word” (Isa 66:2).
Depart from Evil:
God is holy and He hates sin and evil. When we fear God, we have to hate
what God hates, “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride,
and arrogance, and the evil way, and the forward mouth, do I hate” (Prov
8:13), and “by the fear of the LORD men depart from evil”
(Prov 16:6). That is Biblical separation in Christian life from sins and
all forms of evil unto holiness (2 Cor 7:1). How about you and me? Are
we walking on the path of sanctification? That is the fear of the LORD.
The Blessings
“Blessed is the man that feareth the LORD, that
delighteth greatly in his commandments”
(Ps 112:1). God surely blesses those who fear Him:
wisdom, knowledge, and understanding (Prov 1:7; 9:10; 15:33), honour and
life (Prov 14:27; 19:23), God’s help and protection (Ps 34:7; 115:11),
be praised (Prov 31:30), be pitied (Ps 103:11,13), be pleased (Ps
147:11), be heard and written in His Book (Mal 3:16), etc. Shall we not
fear Him so that we might be blessed?
Conclusion
Fearing God and keeping His
Word can only come by way of God’s gracious work
in a Christian’s life. To know what is good is not
enough, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no
good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that
which is good I find not” (Rom 7:18). It is not from human
efforts and we have to humbly pray, “Teach me thy way, O LORD;
I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart to fear thy name”
(Ps
86:11). Let us commit our hearts to the Lord and look
unto the Lord for His gracious work as He has promised, “For it
is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good
pleasure” (Phil 2:13), “And I will give them one heart,
and one way, that they may fear me for ever, … I will put my
fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me” (Jer
32:39-40). Our Lord Jesus says, “Without me ye can do nothing”
(John 15:5), so we have to look unto Him with full submission and
dependence so that He may control us and help us fear Him and keep His
commandments, which is our chief end of life, and then “when he
shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at
his coming” (1 John 2:28). Amen.
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