Religion Is Meaningless without Jesus

Ecclesiastes 5:1-7

Main Idea: Religious ritual without the fear of God is meaningless; instead, we should approach God reverently through Christ.

1. Religious Ritual without the Fear of God Is Meaningless (5:1-6).
   1. Offerings (5:1)
   2. Prayers (5:2-3)
   3. Vows (5:4-6)
2. Through Christ, We Can Approach God with Confident Reverence (5:7).

Many Christians shared through social media a video clip of Victoria Osteen saying,

When we obey God, we’re not doing it for God . . . we’re doing it for ourselves because God takes pleasure when we’re happy. . . . When you come to church, when you worship Him, you’re not doing it for God really, you’re doing it for yourself.

That clip was paired with a scene from the film Billy Madison where a man says, “What you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard” (Blair, “Victoria Osteen”). When we hear a religious figure say out loud that we do not worship God for God, we know that is patently absurd. It is a complete reversal of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Instead of saying that “man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever,” now contemporary Christianity seems to say that God’s chief end is to glorify man and enjoy him forever.

While it is easy for us to give Mrs. Osteen a hard time, the problem is we all think this way sometimes. Our thoughts may not be as overt as Mrs. Osteen’s, and we may not utter them out loud, but American Christianity has become me centered rather than God centered. We consume devotional books that are chock-full of tips on how we can have a better day but say little about the transcendent glory of God. Bible study lessons abound that act like we are the main characters of the Bible and need to become brave like David, strong in prayer like Daniel, or a better father than Eli. Even preaching has become less about God and more about five ways to be a better husband, six ways to manage your money, and three tips to a godly sex life in marriage. As Mark Driscoll said, “It is possible to go to church and hear little about God and much about you” (“Guarding Your Steps”). Church has become all about us. The music and the programs are not about worshiping God or ministering to people but rather about my desires and likes. Did I like the sermon? Did he tell enough jokes? Did he stick to the Bible? Was it practical enough for my life? Was the music the kind of music I like? Was there an organ? Were there drums? Do they have a children’s choir? Entire worship services are planned around the thoughts and concerns of the worshiper rather than the One being worshiped. Instead of awe, church leaders turn to gimmicks and entertainment to gain new consumers.

Worship has become all about me—my desires, my likes, my preferences, what I want—and that is nothing less than idolatry. Two men have exposed this reality with what they call cat and dog theology (Sjogren, “Cat and Dog Theology”). A dog says, “You pet me, feed me, shelter me, and love me; you must be God,” but a cat says, “You pet me, feed me, shelter me, and love me; I must be God.” So much modern Christianity looks just like those. God is no longer the Almighty Sovereign King of the universe; He is personal shopper, life coach, homeboy, and genie all rolled into one. We see God as a means to an end and not an end in and of Himself. We use God to get what we really want. Some come back to church, start giving money regularly, and have perfect attendance in Bible study because they hope God will take their cancer away, fix their family, provide them wealth.

I met with a man years ago who was experiencing a crisis of faith. He was 40 years old and single, and he was thinking of walking away from the church. He said he had been raised in church, had gotten away from it in early adulthood, and then came back at 35 because he desperately wanted to be married. He told me that for five years he attended worship, tithed regularly, and volunteered in ministries, and yet God had not given him a wife.

He did not want God. He wanted what God could give him. Religion has become a means to use God for what we really want rather than an experience of standing in awe of the living God. Solomon exposes that kind of religion as meaningless here in Ecclesiastes 5:1-7.

Religious Ritual without the Fear of God Is Meaningless

Ecclesiastes 5:1-6

Throughout Ecclesiastes, Solomon has repeatedly exposed the meaninglessness of life in this cursed world. If this cursed existence under the sun is all there is, then nothing you do has meaning. Nothing you attempt to build your life on will work, and you cannot find satisfaction or meaning in pleasure or work or success or politics. But now Solomon looks beyond the sun to God and asks the question, What about religion? Can we find meaning in religion? He tells us that religion can also be a dead-end street. Why? Religion can be empty when we do not fear God. Instead, we fall into a formalism that is either rote routine or foolish attempt to manipulate God. Solomon exposes three religious rituals that are meaningless apart from faith.

Offerings (5:1)

The text starts with a command of warning: “Guard your steps when you go to the house of God” (5:1). Approach God with great caution. Why? God created man to have an intimate relationship with Him, but man’s rebellions severed that relationship. Now man is separated from intimacy with God. Genesis 3 makes this clear when God casts Adam and Eve out of Eden and places cherubim outside with flaming swords to keep humanity out of paradise. Yet God still loves people and desires a relationship with them. The tabernacle, and in Solomon’s day the temple—the house of God—was the place where God lived among His people to reverse what happened in Eden, if only in a small and initial way.

But still sin separates. There were specific regulations and divisions for drawing near to God in worship. After all, the cherubim show up here too. Cherubim were woven into the veil at the entrance to the most holy place where God’s presence stayed (2 Chr 3:14). The most holy place in the temple symbolized a return to Eden, but sinful man had to be cautious in approaching a holy God. The divisions make this separation clear as well. Gentiles could only go so far (not a biblical restriction), women could only go so far (also not a biblical restriction), Jewish men could only go so far, and only the high priest could go into the most holy place itself, and only one time a year, and only with blood (Heb 9:25). The process of approaching God in worship and offering a sacrifice was clearly regulated in the law because it was dangerous for sinful man to come into the presence of God Almighty. Death could occur, and it did occur. So the whole sacrificial system was put in place so Holy God could live with sinful man in a reconciled relationship, but it required the shedding of blood and specific rules.

The problem was that the system put in place to allow men to approach God could be turned into formalism and legalism. The prophets repeatedly corrected the idea that the ritual itself without accompanying repentance and faith was profitable. God refuses ritual without repentance. We see a form of that correction here in Ecclesiastes. Solomon says it is better to draw near to listen than to offer the sacrifice of fools because the fool does not know that he is doing evil (5:1).

Let us begin our analysis with the negative first—the sacrifice as fools do. To what does this refer? It refers to formalism and manipulation. The sacrifice of fools is a formalism that performs the ritual in order to gain God’s favor, when the heart of the worshiper is actually far from God. No faith in or fear of God accompanies the ritual. Fools believe the sacrifice will automatically cancel out their sin without the need to repent (Greidanus, Preaching Christ, 131). Or the worshiper was simply going through the motions because “this is just what you do if you are an Israelite.” Religious form without spiritual substance is the notion. This too repulses God.

We do the same thing. We can fall into the rut of just going through the motions because “that’s just what we do.” We do religious things, but our heart is not in it. It is possible for people to show up for worship week after week, year after year, and decade after decade, but their lives not really be changed. They are still cruel to others, harsh to their spouses, perverted in their jokes, and indifferent toward their children, as they have always been.

Not only can we fall into the rut; we can also adopt the mind-set that our religious rituals will somehow gain us God’s favor. We can offer something to God like money, our service, or our attendance at religious events because we think it will cause God to give us what we want. This is an attempt at manipulation. I remember talking to a guy who had just started coming back to church and bringing his family. He told me that the reason he did was because he was having financial struggles and had an invention patent pending, and he was thinking that if he got his family back in church then God would bless him with his patent being approved and his invention becoming a huge success.

We can all fall victim to this way of thinking. And this way of thinking is even reinforced sometimes by our revival and crusade testimonies. At these huge revival meetings popular celebrities and successful athletes get up and tell about how when they started walking with Jesus, the Lord blessed them and gave them all of this success. We come away with the idea that if I just start tithing, then I will become rich like that person. That is a form of paganism or magic where you perform rituals for God so that He will give you what you really want in return. God is a means not an end in this scenario. That is not the gospel. That is not authentic Christianity. As Mark Driscoll said, “Just because you go to church and worship God does not mean you are not a fool” (“Guarding Your Steps”). What is so bad is that the fool is ignorant that he is doing wrong, angering God, and adding to the separation. He is not helping a thing. He may actually be making things worse.

God, through His prophets, repeatedly criticizes this mind-set. In 1 Samuel 15:22 Samuel says,

Does the Lord take pleasure in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? Look: to obey is better than sacrifice, to pay attention is better than the fat of rams.

The word obey in that verse can be translated “listen,” and the idea is listening with the result that you obey what God says. That leads to the first part of what Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 5. The key to worship is listening to and obeying God. Part of the sacrificial process was the priest reading from God’s law and explaining it as an accompaniment to the sacrifice (Greidanus, Preaching Christ, 131). Revelation is the key to Christian worship. The God of the universe wants us to worship Him for who He is and what He has done, and He has revealed that to us in the Bible.

Unfortunately, we often reduce worship to merely singing, but worship is all of life (Rom 12:1-2). Worship has to do with whether you obey the revealed will of God laid out in the Bible. You can come to as many worship gatherings as you want and raise your hands high in the air, but if you cannot obey God’s Word, then you have a worship problem. The Bible authoritatively tells us what to do with our time, our money, our families, our sex lives, and so much more, and we are called to submit to it. The problem is that instead of listening and submitting, we tell the Word what we will obey. We find it easy to submit to the parts we like and agree with, but we conveniently find alternative interpretations for the things we do not like. “Well, that’s not what that verse actually means.” “Well, my situation is different.” “Well, that is not how I interpret the text.” Later in this passage Solomon talks about optional promises (i.e., vows) that we make to God and that we must keep.

It reminds me of a friend in high school who was sleeping with his girlfriend, and when I confronted him about it, he said, “I never made that promise to God. I never promised to save myself for marriage.” Well, it does not matter whether you promised that; it is right there in the Bible. It is not a negotiable situation. It is not up for debate or a vote. God has revealed Himself to us in the Word, so we must listen and obey. That is why we spend so much time on the sermon in our worship gatherings. That is why preaching rather than singing is central to our worship gatherings. We are here mainly to listen to God, not to talk or sing back to Him. Why? Because, when the Word is rightly preached, our God is speaking from heaven, and He is speaking to us. So we must draw near to Him and listen to Him.

Prayers (5:2-3)

Solomon moves to the topic of prayer (Longman, Ecclesiastes, 151). He says not to be hasty with your mouth or with words in your heart before God. He is speaking of both verbal and internal dialogue with God, which has to do with prayer. He commands us to be reserved with our words in our prayer lives because of God’s awesomeness in heaven in contrast with our sinful frailty here on earth. He is the judge and king of the universe, so address Him with respect and restraint.

Part of the problem here again is an attempt to manipulate God. People think if they just pile up word after word after word, then God will hear and answer their prayers. Jesus warns about the exact same situation when He says,

When you pray, don’t babble like the idolaters, since they imagine they’ll be heard for their many words. Don’t be like them, because your Father knows the things you need before you ask Him. (Matt 6:7-8)

The presumption is that one can be in a position of control (Garrett, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, 311). The person thinks because of how they pray, what they pray, or how many words they use that God will be favorable toward them. Some people think they must pray in King James language for God to actually listen and answer. Others think they have to be casual and refer to God as “Daddy” to be heard. What you say or how you say it is not the issue. The issue is your heart. But we so often think our heavenly Father is like earthly parents who can be asked at the right time or in the right way and we can get the answer we want.

Our children learn this. One Saturday my daughter Emma wanted a chocolate cupcake, but instead of coming up to us and asking, “Can I have a cupcake?” to which we probably would have replied, “No, you will ruin your dinner,” she asked, “Do you think I ought to taste test that chocolate cupcake to make sure I like it before you pack it in my lunch Monday?” After we laughed, we said, “Sure. You can have the cupcake.” The problem is that we think God can be manipulated like that. The answer to your prayer does not depend on what you say, how you ask it, how many words you use, or even the formality or casualness of your words. Rather, it depends on a heavenly Father who knows what is best for you. We have nothing to barter with or to offer God. We just ask with humble hearts, and we trust that how He answers is best.

Solomon says the reason to be reserved in prayer is because dreams come from much work and “a fool’s voice from many words” (5:3). Proverbs is clear that fools speak a lot and love the sound of their own voices, but what is the connection here with the dream? Much work makes one tired, which leads to sleep and dreams, but dreams are not real. Thus, you are living in a fantasy world if you think your many words will affect God (Longman, Ecclesiastes, 152). Instead, come like the tax collector who beats his chest in Jesus’s parable and says, “God be merciful to me a sinner” (Luke 18:13-14) (Eswine, Recovering Eden, 151). Just like our children, when they are hurting, do not have to wrangle us for us to bend down and help them, neither do we have to wrangle our heavenly Father. He knows the things we need before we ask Him.

Vows (5:4-6)

Solomon now turns his attention to vows. He says, “When you make a vow . . . don’t delay fulfilling it,” because God “does not delight in fools.” Vows were pledges worshipers would make to God as part of the offering or sacrifice process. The vow was made so that God might answer a specific request. Deuteronomy 12:11 states,

then Yahweh your God will choose the place to have His name dwell. Bring there everything I command you: your burnt offerings, sacrifices, offerings of the tenth, personal contributions, and all your choice offerings you vow to the Lord.

Deuteronomy 23:21-23 adds,

If you make a vow to the Lord our God, do not be slow to keep it, because He will require it of you, and it will be counted against you as sin. But if you refrain from making a vow, it will not be counted against you as sin. Be careful to do whatever comes from your lips, because you have freely vowed what you promised to the Lord your God.

Look at one clear example of how vows worked. Numbers 21:2-3 says,

Then Israel made a vow to the Lord, “If You will deliver this people into our hands, we will completely destroy their cities.” The Lord listened to Israel’s request, the Canaanites were defeated, and Israel completely destroyed them and their cities. So they named the place Hormah.

So vows were made to gain God’s favor in order to urge God to grant a specific request. The worshiper could offer God a sacrifice, money, or property in exchange for God meeting the request. Thus, it was a kind of “I will do this for You if You do this for me.” Another example is barren Hannah, who asked the Lord for a child and vowed that he would be a Nazarite. When she weaned Samuel, she took him to serve at the tabernacle with Eli (1 Sam 1).

Even today during a crisis people often make vows or promises to God. “God, if You will come through for me, then I promise I will do this for You in return.” If God will take away the cancer, get you a job, give you a spouse, or get your children out of a jam, then you promise to walk more closely with God. The danger today, as it was back then, is that once the crisis is over, the vow might go unfulfilled. Now you want to hold on to that costly thing you promised or wait on doing what you vowed, and that delay angers God.

This reality can happen to all of us. I remember reading a book titled I Told Me So, in which the author talked about self-deception and how one of the ways we deceive ourselves is through procrastination. We say we will do something, but we do not do it immediately, and then ultimately we fail to do it at all. The author talked about sitting in a worship service looking at a commitment card for a mission endeavor his church was doing, and he thought to himself that there was only one week left to turn in the money he had committed. He determined in his heart to write the check as soon as he got home. He put the commitment card in his Bible, and a year later when he opened up to that same passage, he again saw the card and realized that he had forgotten to give to the mission cause (Elshof, I Told Me So, 43–45). People can get caught up in a moment of enthusiasm or crisis, and in that moment they make a promise to God or some kind of vow. You can hear a sermon and be convicted, and inside you say, “Yes, I need that. I need community. I need to confess my adultery. I need to get rid of my hidden sin so I can be free of it” (Chandler, “Approaching the Divine”). You leave the service with the best of intentions, but you never follow through on them.

Solomon says in verse 5 that it is better not to make a vow than to vow and not pay it. Hold your tongue. Keep your mouth shut. One example in our culture where we make vows is marriage. It is better to be single and unmarried than to get married and break your vows. In addition to marriage vows, we make private and public promises to God—like dedicating ourselves that we will raise our children to know and love Jesus, that we will be a better spouse, that we will give to some church campaign, or that we will not lose our temper anymore with our children—but we fail to keep our promises. We dedicate ourselves in front of God and the church to raise our babies right, and we start out so well, but once they grow up and ball games or recitals start happening on Sundays, we get out of church. You make a promise not to yell at your kids on Sunday, but by Wednesday you are tired, and they grate on your nerves so you explode.

Solomon says not to let your mouth make you sin and not to tell the messenger it was a mistake to make that vow. The messenger most likely refers to a temple official who ensured vows were fulfilled (Enns, Ecclesiastes, 68). So when worshipers would make a public vow at the temple, the messenger would go to the houses of people who had delayed in keeping their vows and point out their failures.

So your mouth dragged you into the sin of making a vow you could not keep, but do not try to excuse yourself by saying it was a mistake (Longman, Ecclesiastes, 154). That will anger God all the more. The words you voice to God matter to God. He hears them all! People do this type of thing with their vows all the time. Again, they do it with marriage. “We were in sin and should not have gotten married. This is not a godly marriage, so we need to end it.” People do it with other vows and promises to God, and this leads God to destroy the works of their hands (5:6; a major concern throughout Ecclesiastes). Do not try to excuse yourself; instead own it and confess it.

Do not try to hide it either. The story in Acts about Ananias and Sapphira illustrates this (Acts 5). They sold some property and said they were giving all of the proceeds to the church, but they secretly kept back some for themselves, and God killed both of them. It would have been OK for them to keep some of the money; they just should have been honest about it.

Solomon exposes throughout this section the meaninglessness of religion that tries to manipulate God. The idea is, “I’ll do this ritual for You if You will come through and do this for me.” So much of American “Christianity” is this same kind of paganism. We try to bargain with God to get what we want. We think if we do what God wants, then He will do what we want. I even see this in church signs that say things like, “God blessed America because America blessed God.” Do what God wants, and then He will do what you want. That is idolatry or sorcery. That is not the gospel!

Through Christ, We Can Approach God with Confident Reverence

Ecclesiastes 5:7

The author concludes the passage by again mentioning the fantasy of thinking our words affect God, and then He calls us to fear God. We have a hard time understanding the concept of the fear of the Lord because we live in a culture that has no reverence for authority. We no longer approach parents, teachers, or coaches with respect. Lack of respect and honor has bled over into a new casual Christianity where Jesus is our homeboy or copilot and not so much our absolute, formidable King and awe-inspiring, sovereign Master.

We should humbly submit to and stand in awe of God who knows all of our sins and empty promises. People may try to object to this idea and say, “Well, that is just the Old Testament,” but Jesus warns us to fear Him who can destroy soul and body in hell (Matt 10:28). We are called to reverent awe of God.

The only way we can appropriately approach God is through Jesus. We are separated from God because of our sin, and the temple system gave specific regulations for approaching God. However, that system was temporary because it could never once-for-all cleanse the worshiper and reconcile him with God. But Jesus is the better priest and the better sacrifice who can cleanse and reconcile us for all time! When He died on the cross—not only for all of our sins but also for all of our empty religion and promises—what happened? The veil separating man from God’s presence was torn in two from top to bottom, showing that man once again had access to Holy God (Matt 27:51). No longer was the way to paradise blocked. Now we can come with both confidence and awe before the living God. Hebrews 10 makes this so clear:

Therefore, as He was coming into the world, He said:

You did not want sacrifice and offering, but You prepared a body for Me. You did not delight in whole burnt offerings and sin offerings. Then I said, “See—it is written about Me in the volume of the scroll—I have come to do Your will, God!”

After He says above, You did not want or delight in sacrifices and offerings, whole burnt offerings and sin offerings (which are offered according to the law), He then says, See, I have come to do Your will. He takes away the first to establish the second. By this will of God, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all.

Every priest stands day after day ministering and offering the same sacrifices time after time, which can never take away sins. But this man, after offering one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God. He is now waiting until His enemies are made His footstool. For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are sanctified. . . .

Therefore, brothers, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way He has opened for us through the curtain (that is, His flesh), and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water. Let us hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. (Heb 10:5-14,19-

Hebrews 10 recalls the critique of the sacrificial system. The sacrifices did not automatically cancel sin. They needed to be accompanied by obedience, and even then they could not deal with sin permanently. They had to be repeated again and again. Hebrews explains that Jesus fulfilled both the requirement of obedience because He did God’s will (10:8-9) and the requirement of a better sacrifice because His dealt with sin once for all time (10:12). Therefore, we can boldly enter the sanctuary (10:19).

Despite our careless words and empty religion, Jesus brings us back to God. He fully cleanses us and allows us to come boldly before God’s throne. We do this individually in prayer and private worship. Jesus makes this clear in John 4 with the woman at the well. You no longer have to go to a specific physical location to worship God. You can pray and worship Him anywhere. But while we can approach God in private worship, we approach Him in a special way in corporate worship. Now, according to Ephesians 2, we are the new temple where God dwells. Hebrews 12 says that when we gather for corporate worship, we gather at Mount Zion in the presence of God Almighty, innumerable angels, and the saints who have passed on. But we are still called to listen and fear! Hebrews 12 states,

Make sure that you do not reject the One who speaks. For if they did not escape when they rejected Him who warned them on earth, even less will we if we turn away from Him who warns us from heaven. . . . Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us hold on to grace. By it, we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. (Heb 12:25,28-29)

We draw near to God’s presence in corporate worship to listen to God and to make an offering with reverence and awe. But now we do not offer animals; we offer our bodies! Romans 12:1 says, “Therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your spiritual worship.”

Conclusion

Christ has changed how we approach God, and He has revitalized our religious rituals. Now in Christ we can boldly approach the throne of grace to pray anywhere and anytime, and our Father hears us for Christ’s sake. We do not have to take off work, spend lots of money on a plane ticket, fly to Israel, and walk into a physical structure to draw near to God (Driscoll, “Guarding Your Steps”). We can come anytime we want, privately.

Now there are no sacred structures, but there is a sacred people that gathers together. As Alistair Begg argues, there is nothing special about the buildings we worship in except that God’s people are there (“Concerning Worship”). When we gather corporately at Mount Zion, we listen to God’s Word, we sing of His glory, and we offer our lives to Him. All that we are is offered as worship to our God: our bodies, our money, our praise, our confession, our love of our brothers, and so much more.

And now, in Christ, we let our yes be yes and our no be no (Matt 5:37). We keep our word and make good on our promises. How glorious would it be if the church of the Lord Jesus Christ was the one place in all the earth where people kept their vows and made good on their promises?! If that is not true of us, then we need to repent and confess. Let us stand in awe of our great God through the grace of Jesus Christ, and let us offer our whole lives and all of our words as pleasing sacrifices to Him!

Reflect and Discuss

1. What are some ways we have made worship all about us? How are the dog and the cat both wrong?
2. Certainly man-centered worship appeals to our ego, but what might be some other reasons we resonate with it?
3. Why do you think awe at God’s magnificent transcendence has been replaced in our culture with Jesus as our homeboy?
4. What are some ways we try to manipulate God to do what we want?
5. Have you ever gotten into a rut in your religious rituals? What did you do to get out?
6. If worship is more than singing, what does it look like to worship God and bring Him glory whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do (1 Cor 10:31)?
7. How can you pray without attempting to manipulate God?
8. In what kinds of situations do you usually bargain with God? How has that worked?
9. Why do we procrastinate on fulfilling promises we make to God? How can we fight against this?
10. How should the fact that you have free access to God revolutionize your worship life?