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Ecclesiastes 4 and 5 show us a nation, people, city or region left to itself in the vanity of sin and corruption will ALWAYS move on to oppression. Both chapters highlight the horrid results of oppression. However, in the midst of these two chapters, there is a pause. Ecclesiastes 5:1-7 highlights the only real solution that breaks the mold of sin- oppression- corruption: and that solution is the house of God, the Congregation of the Lord.
God’s people are warned in Ecclesiastes 5 to “guard their steps when they enter the house of God.” The Hebrew word for guard is shamar. Just as Adam was to guard the Garden and failed, so God’s people are the ONLY solution to the corruption to oppression of the world.
As you will see in this message, “guard your steps as you enter the house of God” calls for a peculiar stewardship and responsibility for the Christian. The passages warns us that for failure to “guard our steps” the loss can be severe, because of the angels. The angelic host is God’s police force. They are not mere symbols of religion. The angelic house is designed to uphold the testimony of Jesus Christ among His people.
The Congregation of the Lord (hereinafter the Church) in both the Old and New Testaments is surrounded by “a miraculous stewardship”: the sacraments of both testaments, were “signs and seals” of Christ’s Righteousness. The Church itself- Old and New Testaments- is called to be the “Pillar and Ground of the Truth” (cf I Tim 3:15). As such, we are to “guard our steps” concerning our use of the House of God today. Indeed, the Apostle Paul warns us, for failure to take heed to our ethic (our “steps”) can invoke deadly sanctions against us. when the Church fails to bear godly testimony before men. I Corinthians 11 makes it very clear, for such unholy ethic, “many are sickly among you and some sleep.” Again, the Angelic Host are indirectly invoked as this message proves.
