“But Fear God”

Approaching God’s House in Worship

Well, this morning we really complete what we began last week and in some ways what we've been chasing now for several weeks as we began Chapter 5. And Chapter 5, of course, has introduced us to this matter of approaching the house of God, that is, what it means for us to enter into the worship, the public and formal worship of God.

And we began that by just focusing on that phrase, when you go to the house of God, from verse 1. And as we saw, we've delineated the way of the wise, the God-fearing, from the way of the fool, which is the very heart and concern of wisdom literature, generally speaking.

Certainly, that runs throughout the book of Proverbs. And here we have examples of the difference between the one who walks reverently and wisely as opposed to the one who walks foolishly and hastily without any self-awareness or self-reflection.

And so the one that is walking to the house of God, as we saw in verse 1, is to keep a close watch on their life, that is, they are to observe their manner of walking. Walk prudently, walk, in other words, with the gravity of what it means to live before the face of God and to enter into the formal public worship of a holy God.

And then, in approaching God's worship, we are to draw near in a certain way. We draw near in order to hear. We don't come to unload verbal salad, to make ourselves the center stage, to let our own needs and troubles be the focal point of our worship, nor should we devote ourselves to a church structure or a type of ministry that makes us the center stage, makes our troubles, our needs, our hopes, our opportunities the focal point.

The focal point is to be the worship and glory of God and the call he places on his people, and that means we draw near to hear, that is, to listen, to obey, rather than give the sacrifice of fools. They want to do something quickly to get something.

They don't even know what they're doing. They don't know that they're doing evil in their thoughtless, selfish way of going through worship rather than going to worship. So we considered now for several weeks the difference between making worship the means of growing close to God, of drawing near to him and growing in our relationship with him and conforming into the image of his Son whom he sent, as opposed to worship being the end.

Here's what we do on Sunday. Time to tick off another box, empty another calendar for the week. We saw another focus going into verses 2 and 3 is that the impact of drawing near to God in this way begins with our mouth, that we don't draw near in order first to speak, but as we saw, to respond, and because God is in heaven and we are on earth, we let our words be few.

And that carried into what we looked at in verse 4 last week, that part of the worship experience of an ancient Israelite, and what seems to be normative for worship throughout the centuries, is that one draws near in devotion and makes a commitment to the Lord.

And that commitment shouldn't be something hasty, shouldn't be something thoughtless. Again, our words should be few and sincere out of a desire to relate to and respond to God, and for that reason we are to pay what we vow.

That was what we began with last week, and in some ways we're coming full circle to complete it in verses 5 through 7 this morning. Now that passage, verse 4, when you make a vow to God, do not delay to pay it, he has no pleasure in fools, pay what you have vowed, as we said, is almost directly a quote from Deuteronomy 23, verses 21 and following.

Notice again, when you make a vow, not if, that rare unicorn experience once in your life, the normal expectation of an Israelite devotion, according to Deuteronomy 23, would have been to make vows to God, to make commitments to God.

When you make a vow, it's like when the Lord Jesus says, when you fast, doesn't say if, that one time in your life that you skipped a meal, but the idea is this is something regular, something normative for the Christian's life.

When you make a vow to the Lord your God, don't delay to pay it, for the Lord your God will surely require it of you, and it would be sin to you, verse 23, that which is gone from your lips you shall keep and perform, for you voluntarily vowed to the Lord your God what you have promised with your mouth.

So, as we said, if we began with let your words be few, now we turn to let your words be true. A vow did not presume upon God, it was not a way of binding God to act or to respond, it was rather an expression of faith.

It was a way of showing forth your devotion, your piety in response to God, it externalized your faith. You believe that God hears and that God will act, and so you make a commitment to Him. We saw that from Psalm 66, I will go into your house with burnt offerings, I will pay you my vows, the things which my lips have uttered and my mouth has spoken when I was in trouble.

Psalm 50, offer to God thanksgiving and pay your vows to the Most High. Call upon me, he says, in the day of trouble, I will deliver you and you shall glorify me. God is glorified when people follow through on their commitments.

So the experience of drawing near to hear and drawing close to God, it affects our mouth, not only in responding with thanksgiving and praise, but also responding with commitments. That's the idea of paying the vow.

The Meaning of Vows: Fulfillment, Fealty, and Fear

Now we come to verses 5 through 7 this morning. Better not to vow than to vow and not pay. Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin, nor say before the messenger of God that was an error. Why should God be angry at your excuse and destroy the work of your hands?

For in the multitude of dreams, in many words, there is also vanity, but fear God. Those are our verses, three verses, and I think we can look at them in three points, three angles of what it means to fulfill our vows.

And the first is that word fulfill. Verse 5 says something about fulfillment. Better not to vow than to vow and not pay. That is not to fulfill. So the first thing we'll look at is fulfillment. Again, spending a little more time unpacking what a vow is and its rightful place in our lives and worship.

The second point we'll make from verse 6, which is fealty. Fealty, that is a word we need to recover. It's a word that's not very common. The idea is loyalty or faithfulness to one's Lord or one's master.

It comes from the feudal era. The idea of fealty is absolute devotion, absolute commitment to God. And then thirdly, with verse 7, we have fear. So fulfillment, fealty, and fear, and I hope you'll see how these all belong together.

Without fear, there is no fealty, and without fealty, there'll be no fulfillment. So that's really the order, but we're beginning in reverse. First we look at fulfillment. Better not to vow than to vow and not pay.

We looked at James Fisher's catechism last week. Let me go a little bit further than we went last week. By way of reminder, what is a vow? The catechism answer, it is a voluntary and deliberate engagement to God alone, and that respecting matters of a sacred or religious character, some act of faith or spiritual service unto God and unto God alone.

What's the difference between an oath and a vow? In an oath, we make a commitment to men with God as witness. In a vow, God alone is the party. What's the subject matter of a vow? Something that will immediately glorify God or bring about the salvation of our souls.

We should not think there of salvation as conversion merely, but the idea is the experience of salvation that occurs throughout our walk. Remember in 1 Peter, we can meaningfully speak of having been saved, of being saved, and of the fact that we will be saved.

So vows have to do with the latter two. And then question 58, how should we enter into vows? In the exercise of faith, in the strength of the grace that alone is found in Christ Jesus, without which there can be no performance.

We're going to come back to this point, but the idea is, a vow is not something you do in your own strength. Nothing in the Christian life is something you do in your own strength. Jesus says, you can do nothing apart from me.

So a foolish vow, a vow that is not to be made, is a vow that you think you can muster up just by your own effort. You know, I finally see it and I figured out the thing I've been doing wrong all along, and you know, I'm going to make a change now.

I'm going to do it. I'm going to be different. That is a foolish way of thinking. Lord, I can't change the slightest thing about me. Your spirit and your spirit alone is what can renew me, is what can bring about a change in my life.

So though I make a vow by faith, I make that vow entirely dependent upon the grace that alone is found in Christ. Apart from him, I can do nothing. Skipping down to question 60. What is a personal vow?

James Fisher makes a distinction between a social vow and a private vow or a personal vow. Social vow being still to the Lord, but it's done corporately, like when the people of Israel gather together and say, we will follow the Lord, our God, and he alone shall be our God.

That is a vow to God, but it's done corporately. But what about a personal vow? Here's the answer. It's an act of an individual taking hold of God's covenant of grace, God's promises, or acquiescing in it as made with Christ, who is the all of it, and thus engaging to be the Lord's and to the practice of all duty in his strength.

And here's some scripture, Isaiah 44, 5. One shall say, I am the Lord, Psalm 119, 106. I have sworn, I will perform it, I will keep thy righteous judgments. You see the idea here is I recognize what God has promised.

I want to commit myself to the things that he has promised to do in my life. I know that's a result of his grace, the strength that he provides, and I commit myself to it in this way. Skipping down even further to question 64.

This is going a little bit during interaction last week. One of the questions that was raised is, well, why do we have to make a vow? Why should we commit ourselves in this way? We know what the duties are.

We're bound to obey them whether we vow to it or not, so then why vow at all? And part of the answer at the time was, why have a marriage ceremony and marital vows exchanged if you know what marriage is and you both kind of agree to do it?

There's something about the solemnity of entering into that vow formally that raises the stakes as it were, makes it have more weight, and sometimes it's the weight that actually helps us to follow through on the commitment that we've made, and that's partly where James Fisher is going.

He asked the question, is our obligation to the moral duty increased by vowing? In other words, are we only bound to obey what God has commanded if we make a vow? No, of course not. Listen to the answer.

It is impossible that our obligation to what God has commanded is increased by any commitment of ours. God's commands are God's commands. What God requires is what God requires. Vow or no vow, commitment or no commitment, we're held to that account, but by reason of our own voluntary and super-added engagement, what a great word that is, super-added engagement, not the, yeah, yeah, I know what I'm supposed to do, but the engagement of, no, I hear, Lord, and I'm going to respond.

And he says, by this obligation, we make a deeper impression than before, and our sins receive a higher aggravation if we omit that commitment. You see, so we're solemnizing it, we're giving it weight, we're raising the stakes as it were.

It has a deeper impression in our lives. That's the difference between a man and a woman who just move into the apartment and they just start saying, yeah, we're married. There's never anything solemn about it, and guess what?

When things get hard, all of a sudden, they were never married. There's something about the deeper weight, the formal commitment, the super-added engagement. When you raise the stakes in that way, you recognize this has to be something very responsive to God.

What has He placed on your conscience? What has He burdened with your heart? How are you going to respond? Commitments, devotion, acts of service, vows ought to be made as part of the worship of God. I was struggling to think of an example of this from the New Testament, because, of course, the Old Testament is replete with examples of vows, as we saw from the Psalms.

And you could look at 1 Samuel 1 or any of the prophets. And as I tried to illustrate, I think in many ways, the call the Lord puts on those that enter into missionary service would be an example of one who's responding to God and committing themselves wholly, almost making a vow, I will go.

And they fulfill that vow in going. We know that in Acts 18, Paul had made a personal vow to God. There's debate over whether this was a Nazarite vow, which we can read about in Numbers 6. And the completion of that was when you shaved the hair that you had been growing out.

And Paul, whether it's a Nazarite vow or just some other personal commitment, he had been under a vow. Luke does not record exactly what that vow pertained to. This was not a hangover of Paul's Jewish past.

This is Paul as an apostle, as a believer, drawing close in communion with Christ. And he commits himself personally in some devout way that involves a vow. Or we read a little bit further in Acts 21.

He's instructed by James and some of the brethren from Jerusalem to go with four other believers that had taken a vow. So the idea is that it's this commitment. And from that, we can understand it's the kind of commitment that shouldn't be open-ended.

It shouldn't be broad and general. It should be very specific. Maybe the best example of this would be the example of fasting. Fasting is not something open-ended. But maybe you commit or you vow to the Lord.

Lord, you have my attention. I want to humble myself. I want to devote myself to you in a new way. And for the next three days, I'm going to fast. Because you've engaged it in that way, because you've made a deeper engagement, a super-added engagement, somehow it helps you to follow through on that.

This was not something you just thought in your mind, and maybe I'll try. And then you drive by Jersey Mike's, and all of a sudden, you forgot you were trying. A vow, a super-added engagement, something you follow through on.

But here's the danger. A .A. Hodge, the great theologian, talked about the danger of this. He says, well, the first danger is that the vow is something unlawful. We ought only to vow ourselves to what scripture has revealed.

If it's not in God's word, we ought not to commit ourselves to it before God. That would be an unlawful vow. That's part of what our confession does in looking at monastic vows or popish vows. These are seen as unlawful, as unscriptural.

When the matter of the vow is unlawful, it's a danger to the soul, because a vow is binding. And then Hodge goes on to say, our own experience will teach us that to heap up obligations will injure us.

If I turn every little impression or sense of desire or need into a vow, a commitment to God, I'm going to injure my walk and perhaps injure my devotion to the Lord. I'll end up very far from Him, because I'll be ashamed of the failure, because I hastily entered into vows.

The word of God imposes on us His authority. That is to be observed. But the multiplication of self-imposed duties will end up dishonoring Him. See, if we're trying to stir our own commitment, we're trying to do it in our own strength, and now we're imposing on ourselves something that we cannot keep.

And Hodge rightly says, no, no, no. Don't do that. He says, vows ought to be restricted with the voluntary assumption. This is a commitment I'm going to make. And a promise to observe, with the help of divine grace, what God has made known to you.

So it's from His word. It's something intensely personal. Perhaps you and you alone understand what that vow, what that commitment is. It shouldn't be broad and general, and it shouldn't be open-ended, and it shouldn't be the heap of all these other commitments.

But the idea is, where the Lord has made something clear or you desire to act in some way toward Him, you pay your vows. That's fulfillment. So don't fulfill the wrong thing. Don't fulfill things that you cannot keep and you've never been able to keep.

Now it's going to be different, and you're already thinking in your own strength. But you vow, you make a commitment to God, because otherwise, everything is very general. There's no pressure, there's no engagement.

You just sort of float and waltz your way through the Christian life. And those who draw near to hear and listen will be people that make commitments to God. When you fast, when you vow, this is what it means to engage in the worship of God.

Fealty: Keep Your Word Before God

And we see that connected to fealty. That's the second thing from verse six. Fealty, loyalty, absolute devotion. Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin, nor say before the messenger of God that it was an error.

Why should God be angry at your excuse and destroy the work of your hands? Well, if we're thinking of the letter of James, we recognize already there's this connection between the mouth that is worshiping God, the mouth that is able to speak all sorts of things, and one's heart or one's commitment to the Lord.

James says that the mouth is like a bit or a bridle, and by it, the whole body is directed. As he's talking about teachers, if one can control his mouth, he's able to prevent himself from stumbling. So the idea is that the mouth is intimately connected with the body, or here we have the flesh.

Somehow, our body, our way of life, our conduct, ends up being steered by our mouth. Funny how that works. But that's exactly what James says, and that's what Ecclesiastes 5, 6 says. Don't let your mouth cause your flesh to sin.

Don't let the thing you blurted out, the thing you hadn't thought of carefully or cautiously or prayerfully, lead yourself into error or sin. And then don't try to pull it all back. Don't say to the messenger of God, eh, it was a mistake.

That kind of yikes, whoops reaction. What's the messenger of God? Our translation almost assumes that should be like a capital M. Messenger, malak, in Hebrew, could be a way of speaking about a human messenger.

Could be also speaking of a divine messenger, an angel. Some of the Second Temple writings almost take it in that way, that this is somehow involving the angelic witness to public worship. But I think Malachi 2 .17 and other passages help us to see messenger here should be thought of as one serving in the temple of a priest.

Throughout God's law, the priest is one who would hear and record and even remind that the vow was to be fulfilled. So we have certain teachings in God's law related to that. So I think we're safest to say the messenger here is the priest.

And the idea is, the one who heard or understood the vow you made, don't go to them and go, yeah, I probably shouldn't have said that. Yeah, that was a mistake. That was someone who hadn't thought through the commitment they meant and what their words mean for their life.

And when you start speaking lightly in that way, you think, the worst thing I have to do is face that messenger. Face that person who heard me, who understood my commitment and kind of go, whoops, I made a mistake.

But what does verse six go on to say? No, if you're making the sacrifice to fools, if you blurt things out and you have no regard for the way your mouth corresponds to your life, then you'll only be concerned about what the messenger has to say.

You ought to be concerned about how you've provoked the Lord to anger. That's the next part of the verse. Why should God be angry at your excuse? Excuse, a great translation. It's an excuse. Whoops, I was really tired.

Oh, it just couldn't happen. Well, you know, I wasn't expecting this to go on in my life. And the idea is all I have to do is excuse myself before men, before someone who is a witness, before others who might observe or know where I'm at.

If I can just get past that, I'm good. As long as they kind of agree with my excuse, I'm good. But there's no fear of God. There's no regard for God. And that's what verse six is trying to draw us toward.

God is in heaven, you're on earth. You're responsible and accountable for your words. Why should God be angry at the fact that you broke your vow? You didn't fulfill the things you say to do, that you're not loyal.

You don't have fealty to him. And notice what is being said here. James will say it as well. We must all give an account. Why should God be angry at your excuse and destroy the work of your hands? So there's consequences when we break commitments.

There's consequences in this life. This is speaking of the discipline of a father toward his child. It's also speaking of divine judgment. As we said last week, the land mourns because vows are not paid.

And there's divine judgment, there's divine consequences upon societies and upon civilizations for this very reason. So that can happen at a wide scale and it can happen at an individual scale. God can destroy your ambitions, your desires, your hopes.

Maybe the reason you broke that commitment. I can't afford to do that right now. I really gotta do this. It's the work of my hands. And what is God doing? He's destroying that because you didn't follow through on your commitment.

This brings us into a very different idea of the solemnity of our words, of our commitments. That we're not just making excuses before men, but rather God who sees our heart and knows what's driving us or motivating us is the God to whom we must give an answer.

And excuses don't hold any weight with God. You'll get courtesy, you'll get charity from men. But God is the judge who does all things right. There's no hiding, no twisting, no turning about, no gaining some pity or sympathy from a judge who does all things according to the perfections of his holiness.

Lord, who may abide in your tabernacle, who may dwell in your holy hill. We asked it from Psalm 15 last week. Verse four, he who swears to his own hurt. I've got this work in my hands and I just don't see how I can keep serving or going in this way, but I've committed it to God.

How can I afford to break what I've committed? Then the Lord in his own providence will actually retain and preserve the work of your hands. Whereas if you abandon the commitment you've made to God to try to preserve and hold together the work of your hands, what is this verse saying?

God will just frustrate it, disturb it, and destroy it anyway. And it's a good thing when God does that. It's a faithful God who destroys the work of our hands and draws our hearts and our minds toward him.

So do we play fast and loose with our commitments? Is an excuse before men enough to assuage our conscience before God? They understood. That excuse worked on them, so it must work with God. I don't even have to face him or consider it.

All that really mattered to me was what it meant before others. That's the fool who has no fear of God in their heart, no regard for God in their mind. Do we play fast and loose with our commitments in that way?

Or do we have integrity? Because even if excuses could work, we know the commitment we've made to our God. That's the idea. In Joshua 9, you remember the Gibeonites. Joshua, of course, has the command from God that all of the people that are dwelling in Canaan are to be put under the ban.

And you have the Gibeonites, and the word has spread of this mighty people and how they're advancing into the land of promise. And the Gibeonites, quite shrewd people, they make themselves appear as if they've traveled a long way to get there.

They have ragged clothes and used sandals they got off eBay, and they finally come before Joshua and the leaders, and they say, please, you know, it took us a long time to get here. Will you just make a covenant with us that you won't destroy us or do wrong by us?

And we read in Joshua 9, all the rulers said to all the congregation, we have sworn to them by the Lord God of Israel. Now, therefore, we cannot touch them. When they realized these men, these Gibeonites were actually in Canaan, they were not from far away, they were actually part of the peoples that were put under the ban of God, they realized, well, we swore to protect them.

And we made a covenant with them before God, and therefore, we cannot break it. He says, this we will do to them. We'll let them live. Lest the wrath of God be upon us because of the oath that we swore.

That's exactly those who dwell in the holy hill. They swear to their own hurt. We made a commitment, we made a covenant. We don't want God's wrath to be kindled against us. Why should the Lord be angry at us and destroy the work of our hands?

That's the idea. James says the same thing in his letter. Lest you fall into judgment. Consider the third commandment and its implications. The Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

When we invoke the Lord's presence and we call upon his name and we make a commitment to him, he will not hold us guiltless for playing fast and loose and excusing that commitment. Well, things change.

I'm tired, I don't feel like it anymore. The Lord says, I will come near to you in judgment and I will be a swift witness against false swearers. Malachi 3, even if that commitment, that promise, that covenant has long been forgotten, it hasn't been forgotten to the Lord.

Even if other people buy the excuses and turn the blind eyes and you can go on your merry way, we should not presume that the Lord God will hold us guiltless. Jesus says every idle word, not just the formal words, even the idle words, must be given an account on the day of judgment and it's by those words that we will be either justified or condemned.

Of course, we're reminded the Lord saved us to integrity. In Jeremiah, in Jeremiah 4, we read, if you will return, oh Israel, says the Lord, return to me, put away your abominations from my sight and you will not be moved and you will swear as the Lord lives in truth, in judgment and in righteousness.

He's saying, no longer will you say, surely I will do this, surely I will devote myself in this way, surely I will fulfill this commitment. No longer will you do that and then stumble away and backslide from it and the day that I call you back to myself and empower you by my spirit, you will swear in truth.

Your judgment will be righteousness. You will be men and women of your word. Your yes will be your yes, your no will be your no. That's the idea of what God is promising will happen as a result of his spirit.

Well, what's the problem, brothers and sisters? The problem is this, we often think our words are ours to take back, our commitments are ours to keep or to break, that words don't hold water, words don't hold weight.

And what does Paul tell the church at Galatia? God is not mocked, God is not mocked. Sincerity in worship, fealty to the Lord means we will fulfill, we will pay our vows. Do I treat my commitments to God and the words that I speak invoking his name and his presence, do I treat that lightly?

Do I shrug it off? Do I explain it away in my own mind, coming up with something that sounds reasonable so that I can explain it away before others? Well, actually, the reason that it's different now is because of this.

Do I pause to think of the cost of doing that? Is God in heaven and I'm on earth? Do my words hold weight? Am I someone who has to give an account for the things that I've said? Or am I a fool? Do I say, I didn't mean it, I was wrong to say it, it was an error, it was a mistake, and I never pause to realize God sees through that excuse like he sees all things.

What's gonna help me look at my speech, guard my mouth and my life, follow through on my commitments, to be faithful, to have fealty to the Lord? And the idea is really right at the end of verse seven, it's fear.

Fear God: Truth in the Inward Parts

Think of how this all corresponds to worship. Worship is that means by which we draw near to God, and drawing near to God is what transforms our lives. Because we can draw near to God that we are changed.

God doesn't desire the empty, heaped up phrases and speech, he doesn't desire the endless repetitions of pagan prayer, it does nothing for him to offer him sacrifice, the cattle of a thousand hills belongs to him, he's interested in our hearts and our lives being brought near and changed as a result of encountering him in worship.

What David recognizes in Psalm 51, when he repents to the Lord, no excuses, no rationalizations, when he disowns his sin before God, he confesses this in verse six, you desire truth in the inward parts.

We don't mind having the white lies, the soft excuses, the reasonable twists, this is why things are like this, this is why I'm not like that, this is why I haven't followed through in this way. And when David finally comes to an end of himself, after that rolodex of rationalizations, when he's finally caught and confronted by the word of God through the prophet, he recognizes, no God, you desire truth in the inward parts.

If I don't have it there, there's no point in me making an appearance of worship, making a spectacle of praise, giving you the honor of my lips when my heart is far from you, you want truth from the inside out.

The Puritan Nathaniel Vincent says it so well, the spirit takes away the fig leaves of our excuses and presents sin as it really is, naked and bare. Oh, we're so good at sewing together fig leaves, aren't we?

The older we get, the more elaborate and complex our excuses and twisted rationalizations become. You have a ghillie suit of fig leaves. Nothing's gonna get to the core of who I really am and what I'm really like and where I really stand before God but God is calling us, as he called Adam, to get out of the fig leaves and come and stand before him naked, why?

So that he can cover us in his mercy. He desires truth in the inward parts. C .S. Lewis, I think in his own way, captured this so well. In our own case, Lewis says, we accept excuses too easily. In other people's, we do not accept them easily enough.

When it comes to ourselves, the excuse works for us, we're satisfied with that. We think somehow because we're satisfied with it, everyone else should be, including God, right? I think this is a good excuse, so everyone should think it's a good excuse and God should think it's a good excuse.

And of course, he recognizes there's something in our flesh that we can see others' excuses with disdain. Oh, come on, what a lame excuse, toughen up. You know, follow through on that. So we're tough on other people's excuses but we accept our own excuses too easily.