The Whole Matter

Ecc 12:13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
Ecc 12:14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

Exo 20:20 And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.



The conclusion of the WHOLE matter. We like conclusions. We like knowing what the whole matter is. We like knowing the end from the beginning especially when it concerns our eternal life. The matter is this… life. Isn't that what the matter is? Seriously. We live. We want to keep living. We want to live in health. We want to live in happiness. We want life as we imagined it was meant to be upon our creation. Life in peace, in wonder, in awe, in love. People will say that love without angst isn't love, but that's our warped minds playing that old tune. We've become so twisted and sin sick that we tell ourselves we need the bad to know what the good is. We are so wretched in our thinking that we can no longer believe that there can be good without evil. We imagine a life of pure boredom without any obstacles to overcome and that's how Satan would have us believe. As long as we continue in our sin sickness we are His.


The whole matter is life. Without life there is nothingness. We've most likely all seen depicted on television a person dying. Some of us may have even witnessed a death in real life. Certainly most of us have read this somewhere or other, that you can see life draining out of a person's eyes. The dead stare remains, the empty look into nothingness. Without life there really is nothing. The whole matter is life and not only life now, but life everlasting.


The absolute conclusion, the end of the whole matter is-- Fear God and keep His commandments. Whether this is reverencing God or actually fearing God it doesn't matter. To reverence God is to believe in His authority, respecting His authority as Creator, as Redeemer. To fear God is to understand that He holds all the power in His hands, power over our eternal life, power over our mortal life. The whole matter concluded is fearing God and keeping His commandments. Understanding that God is ruler over all and His commandments must be kept. God is a ruler, God has commands for us. Has God forever had commands to follow? God existing from everlasting to everlasting is the same from everlasting, right?


Psa 90:2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.


God is God. His ways haven't changed. God isn't going to change from one moment to the next making laws one day that are meaningless the next. In all He's done, God has done so with purpose with love His driving force.


If you had the power to rid the world of evil, would you?


Think about it, seriously. Would you destroy all evil? I'd love to say, of course you would. I'd like to think I would in a heartbeat. I can't see the end from the beginning though, and certainly not all life in between. God can see it all. To destroy sin is a much more complex matter than simply speaking it gone and it's gone. God has done all He can do, God has done everything within His power to save mankind. All that would be saved by a loving God, all that fear Him and keep His commandments which he's not kept secret, will be saved.


This is the WHOLE matter. Fearing God. Keeping God's commandments. God's commandments --


1Jn 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.


We imagine them to be so though, don't we? Commands that are just TOO hard to keep. Commands that are IMPOSSIBLE for us to keep. If we are caught up in sin and have no love for God, then yes, His commands will seem impossible to keep. Through His love we can keep His commandments. Through His love we automatically keep His commandments. The question was raised not too long ago about God's commandments in heaven, with sin being this--


1Jn 3:4 Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.


The question was - did God have laws in heaven? If Satan sinned then He had to have transgressed the law of God. In a world where love abounds sin would be foreign to it. God's laws wouldn't have needed to be given like we have been given them.


There are a lot of questions, a lot of things we can't understand. God's love is real. God's love is revealed in His laws- and His laws are only burdensome when we would transgress them and do away with that love. We need to fall on the mercy of God. We need to beg forgiveness. We need to understand the whole matter and in understanding we need to determine through the righteousness of Christ to fear God and keep His commandments now and always.


Psa 103:17 But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children


By Your Grace!


Amen.