Read Ecclesiastes 5:1–7
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.
Ecclesiastes 5:1
Solomon had visited the courtroom, the marketplace, the highway,
and the palace. Now he paid a visit to the temple. He watched the
worshippers coming and going, praising God, praying, sacrificing,
and making vows. He noted that many of them were not at all sincere
in their worship and that they left the sacred precincts in worse spiritual condition than when they had entered. What was their sin? They
were robbing God of the reverence and honor He deserved.
Even though God’s glorious presence doesn’t dwell in our church
buildings as it did in the temple, believers today still need to heed this
warning. The worship of God is the highest ministry of the church
and must come from devoted hearts and yielded wills. For God’s
people to participate in public worship while harboring unconfessed
sin is to ask for God’s rebuke and judgment.
Sacrifices are not substitutes for obedience. Offerings in the
hands without obedient faith in the heart become the sacrifice of
fools, because only fools think they can deceive God. Fools think they
are doing good, but they are only doing evil. And God knows it.
Something to Ponder
How can you ensure that your own worship comes from a yielded
will?