1 Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil. 2 Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few. 3 For a dream comes with much business, and a fool’s voice with many words.
4 When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. 5 It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. 6 Let not your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands? 7 For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity; but God is the one you must fear.
— Ecclesiastes 5:1-7, ESV

The plan was conceived in the heart of the man after God’s own heart.  King David’s incredible passion for God, however, was compromised by his in intense passion for killing on the battlefield, and by his inexcusable passion for another man’s wife.  Therefore, the Lord did not permit him to build “the house of God.”  That assignment fell to his heir, the young King Solomon.

And so it was that in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign, construction got underway on “the house of God.”  It took seven years to build under a daily, rigorous construction program supervised by the son of David himself.  No corner was cut.  No expense was spared.  Nothing compared to the outcome.

Solomon’s Temple, as it came to be called, was one of the great architectural wonders of the ancient world.  It stood for four centuries, from its finish in approximately 986 BC until it was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC.  It was rebuilt seventy years later, but Zerubbabel’s Temple could not hold a candle to Solomon’s.  Just prior to the first coming of Christ, King Herod elaborately remodeled and remade the Temple.  Though the Lord’s disciples marveled at it, that structure never approached the glory of the original. 

There simply has never been another building like “the house of God.”  And yet, there are a million places just like it today, places where a person can go to meet with the supreme being of the universe.  In an Ecclesiastes philosophy of worship, it is not the meeting place that matters to God, it is the meeting that takes place that matters most to God and God’s people.  

Commandment: “Guard Your Steps”

To be a right worshipper of God is to be constantly preparing for worship with God.  This entails living a life guided and guarded by the Spirit of God and the word of God.  Go weekly to “the house of God” and be sure to “guard your steps” before, during, and after your visit.

The present tense imperative verb “guard” is “shamar” in Hebrew.  It is a commandment to watch, to keep a record, to protect and preserve.  It requires a willing obedience and a careful self-examination that is mostly lacking from modern life, even contemporary Christian life.  

I track my steps as a part of my daily health regiment.  But I’ve been doing it for spiritual reasons for years.  God knows where I’ve been, where I am, where I’m going.  What I need to know is whether or not the places my steps take me are pleasing to God.

Where did your steps take you this week?  I hope in and out of a godly home, whether it lodges a single, a couple, or a family.  Work that is meaningful and profitable is always a good place to walk in and out of.  God can meet you at most restaurants and stores and ballparks and walking trails and in a million other places your steps can take you.  

Be honest.  God knows.  Did your steps please Him this week.  Did they gain you rich blessings for which you can praise Him when you come to “the house of God?”  Or, did they stray, and do you need to bring repentance to the next meeting?

Did your steps lead you to the bedroom of someone to whom you are not married?  Or did they stop at your computer to scan the internet like David on the rooftop, casting an eye towards Bathsheba in the bath?  Did they take you to buy too much drink or unnecessary drugs?  Did they take you to the ear of someone where you could share a little gossip or slander?  Did they take you places you know God does not want you to go?

Solomon had known the confidence of a man walking with God.  Solomon had known the shame of one whose steps had strayed.  He was back now, having his steps ordered by God, in the Ecclesiastes season of his life.  He is turning his attention now to right worship, meeting with God, and step one is preparation.  

“Guard your steps.”  Be honest.  God knows.  Bring him the praise and repentance He is due.  It will make your worship real, rich, and rewarding.

So, get ready.  Then, go!

Commitment: “When You Go”

The key word here is “when.”  It is not “if,” but “when.”  

I often call Andrea before going home in the evening to see if I can bring her something.  Can you imagine what she should do if I called at the end of the day and said, “Can I bring you something, if I come home?”  “If,” not “when.”  She’d crush me like a bug?!

When I served larger churches with multiple pastors and administrators, we always had a weekly staff meeting.  We picked a day and time when everyone could be present, sickness or travel excepted.  It was vital for our relationships, for our work, for our service to Christ and His church.

I do not wish to call what we do on the sacred hour on Sunday mornings a staff meeting.  It is so much more.  But it certainly is not less.  It is a meeting to be kept, for our relationship with God and others.  There are matters to take care of in keeping with our worship and service to the Lord.  Every child of God and church member should be present, providential hinderances excepted.  

Again, there was a season when Solomon had bailed.  He tried the false gods of false religions and even no religion for a while.  But he came back, in his Ecclesiastes season, observing worship and observing others at worship.  

As a spokesperson for God and writer of Holy Scripture, he has issued a commandment that requires a commitment.  We are to get ready, get up, and go to “the house of the Lord” for worship.  And when we arrive, Solomon contemplates what we are to do.

Contemplation: “The House of God”

In a British drama, a clergyman was called on to defend his vocation, as we often are by those who think we work one day a week.  I like what he said about being a Pastor, and I think it should apply to every Christian.  He described it as a daily life of compassion and contemplation.  

The one for whom you have the most compassion is the one on whom you will give the most contemplation.  Remember your first love, when he or she was all you could think about?  Throughout Ecclesiastes, Solomon is calling us to “remember [our] Creator,” our God, our Lord, our Savior, and to think about Him, especially in public worship at “the house of God.”  We are to contemplate His greatness and glory correctly, scripturally, meaningfully, by listening and speaking.

“When you go to the house of God,” go for God’s word.  “Listen” rather than engaging in the kind of modern blather that is nothing but “the sacrifice of fools.”  In proper worship God’s word is heard, often, and given space to breathe.  It is preached, properly, line by line and verse by verse.  It is echoed in proper “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” without the distractions of light shows, rock bands, designer sneakers, spiked hair, skinny jeans, and “dreamers” espousing only earthly entertainment and prosperity.  “They,” says Solomon, “are doing evil.”

“When you go to the house of God,” speak to God.  He is here.  He can hear.  But, “let your words be few.”  Then, “pay what you vow.”  Mean what you sing, say, and pray.  Obey the gospel and the word of God.  Experience the sacraments with clean hands and a pure heart.  Keep your audience at one, “for God is in heaven and you are on earth” and “God is the one you must fear.”

The meeting you have with God in “the house of God” is the most important one you will have this week.  It will set your spiritual clock aright, or you will risk being wound too loose or too tight.  It will set the tone for every other meeting you have this week, and cast them in a godly, joyful, meaningful light.  Helping to fill the house will fill you with the Holy Spirit, or convict you of the Spirit’s low ebb or absence in your life.  

When Solomon built this “house of God,” there was a beautiful and meaningful dedication service.  It encompasses 2 Chronicles chapters five through seven.  It culminates with the most remembered verse, a God-prescribed prayer fit for every worship service:

“If my people, who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
— 2 Chronicles 7:14

We often forget the next verse:

“Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place.”
— 2 Chronicles 7:15

“This place” is “the house of God.”  But remember, it is not the meeting place that matters most to God, it is the meeting that takes place, between you and God.  We are “the house of God.”  God is here in our midst.  How will we respond?