SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/1/2013
5:35 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Don’t Rob
the Lord
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Eccl. 5:1-7
Message of the
verses: We begin looking at the
fifth chapter of the book of Ecclesiastes and Warren Wiersbe entitles this
chapter in his commentary “Stop, Their!”
I suppose that if there was one person who knew about material wealth it
would be Solomon, for he was undoubtedly the richest man who ever lived in
material wealth. However there are more
riches than material riches and there is more ways to be poor than to be
materially poor. Dr. Wiersbe states “In
this chapter, Solomon issues three warnings that relate to the values of life.” The first warning we will begin to look at
today.
“1 ¶ Guard your
steps as you go to the house of God and draw near to listen rather than to
offer the sacrifice of fools; for they do not know they are doing evil. 2 Do not be hasty in word or impulsive in
thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God. For God is in heaven and
you are on the earth; therefore let your words be few. 3 For the dream comes through much effort and
the voice of a fool through many words. 4
When you make a vow to God, do not be late in paying it; for He takes no
delight in fools. Pay what you vow! 5 It
is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. 6 Do not let your speech cause you to sin and
do not say in the presence of the messenger of God that it was a mistake. Why
should God be angry on account of your voice and destroy the work of your
hands? 7 For in many dreams and in many
words there is emptiness. Rather, fear God.”
We have been following Solomon’s visits to the courtroom,
the marketplace, the highway, and the palace, and now we will follow him as he
goes to the temple. Solomon received materials
and instructions on how to build this wonderful building from his father David,
and now he will visit it to see how people are using it. Solomon would watch those who came to worship
the Lord, and he would see things that were not right for in many cases the
people would leave worse off than when they got there. What was the reason for this? Solomon’s conclusion was that these people
were robbing God. They were robbing God
of the reverence and honor that God truly deserved. Dr. Wiersbe states “Their acts of worship
were perfunctory, insincere, and hypocritical.”
I looked up the word “perfunctory” and found that the opposite of this
word would be “thoughtful,” so these worshipers were not being thoughtful in
their worship of the Lord, but were doing it in a mechanical or automatic way
that was actually not sincere.
In verse one we see the words “Guard your steps as you go
to the house of God,” and that term guard your steps means to watch your
steps. Dr. Wiersbe states these very
wise words “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
worships while harboring unconfessed sin is to ask for God’s rebuke and
judgment (Isa. 1:10-20; Amos 5; Ps. 50).”
Believers today do not offer animal sacrifices today like
they did in Solomon’s day. Solomon was
watching the different aspects of worship as he went into the temple and the
first one he saw as the offering of animals.
Jesus Christ fulfilled the requirements of all the sacrifices that were
needed as He offered Himself on the cross for our complete salvation, however
believers today can offer sacrifices to the Lord as part of their worship to
Him. First we can offer ourselves as a
living sacrifice to the Lord as seen in Romans 12:1-2. We can offer a sacrifice to the Lord for
people we have won to the Lord as seen in Romans 15:16, “to be a minister of
Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, ministering as a priest the gospel of God, so
that my offering of the Gentiles may become acceptable, sanctified by the Holy
Spirit.” Next as part of our worship we
can offer our money to the Lord as seen in Phip. 4:18 “But I have received
everything in full and have an abundance; I am amply supplied, having received
from Epaphroditus what you have sent, a fragrant aroma, an acceptable
sacrifice, well-pleasing to God.” We can
also offer praise and good works to the Lord as a sacrifice as seen in Hebrews
13:15-16 “15 Through Him then, let us
continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips
that give thanks to His name. 16 And do
not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.” Let’s now look at the sacrifice of a broken
heart as seen in Psalm 51:17 “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A
broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” Lastly let us look at the sacrifice of our
prayers of faith as seen in Psalm 141:1-2 “O LORD, I call upon You; hasten to
me! Give ear to my voice when I call to You! 2
May my prayer be counted as incense before You; The lifting up of my
hands as the evening offering.”
As we look at some of the stories in the OT about
offering sacrifices to the Lord we can see that many times when it is mentioned
that people did not have their heart in the right place and were doing the
sacrifices out of duty, as Solomon put it they were acting like fools. Saul is seen doing this in 1 Samuel 15:12-23. Why would Solomon call this the offerings of
a fool? Because only a fool thinks that
he can deceive God. Dr. Wiersbe states “The
fool thinks he is doing good, but he or she is only doing evil. And God knows it.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I see God as the all
knowing God who knows everything. We use
to have a personality on TV when I was growing up (black and white TV), who
said at the end of his kid’s show everyday “You can fool some of the people all
of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool mom.” Well I don’t suppose that this statement is
entirely true, but if you are talking about God then it is true, for you can
never fool God.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
Offer sacrifices that are pleasing to
God as a part of my worship.
Memory verse for the
week: 2Cor. 5:17
17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new
creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
Question: “He became a leper.” (2 Kings 5:20-27)
Today’s Bible
Question: “What are three things that
abide in First Corinthians?”
Answer in tomorrow’s SD.
5/1/2013 6:57 AM
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