Please turn with me and your Bibles to the Book of Haggai,
the next Minor prophet, and our series this summer in the Minor
Prophets. You can find Hey Guy on page 791
in the Chair Bibles. This this little book only takes
up one page front and back of your Bible, so it can be hard to
find. It's the third to the last book
of the Old Testament, and you'll find it in between two Z books
between Zephaniah and Zechariah. Hey Guy, it's only two chapters
long. We'll be studying three of its
four prophecies, but for now we're going to read verses the
1st 8 verses of chapter 1 and hear the Lord's calling the Jews
who have returned to Jerusalem from exile to Persia.
He's calling them to rebuild the temple.
So I'll be together. I'll begin reading here from
Hagai chapter 1, starting in verse one in the second year of
Darius the king, in the sixth month.
On the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the
hand of Hagai the Prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Sheel
Teal, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak the
high priest. Thus says the Lord of Hosts.
These people say that the time has not yet come to rebuild the
House of the Lord. Then the Lord, where the Lord
came by the hand of Hagai the Prophet.
Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses,
while this house lies in ruins? Now therefore thus, says the
Lord of Hosts, consider your ways.
You have sown much and harvested little.
You eat, but you never have enough.
You drink, but you never have your fill.
You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm, and he who earns
wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.
Thus, says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways.
Go up to the hills and bring wood, and build the house, that
I may take pleasure in it, and that I may be glorified, says
the Lord. Let's pray our God as we come to
this little book, we pray that by your Spirit You would stir us
up to the work that you have called us to do.
We thank You that you are with us, that we can be strong in
You. We ask Lord that you would shape
our hearts to worship You above all through Your word.
Now this we pray in Jesus name, Amen.
Learn to say no to the good in order to say yes to the best.
Maybe you've heard that that phrase before.
Learn to say no to the good to say yes to the best.
These these wise words come from John Maxwell.
He's a former pastor and and one of the most prolific authors on
the topic of leadership. The idea behind this quote is
that we all get caught up in doing so many good things that
we neglect to invest in what's most important, our most
important relationships, our most important callings, our
most important goals. And in the book of Hagai, the
Jewish people in Jerusalem were doing many good things, but
neglecting what was most important and the most important
thing for them is also the most important thing for us.
And what's that? It's the worship of God.
We exist to worship God. There is nothing more important
in our to our existence than to know God and to love Him and to
magnify Him with every ounce of our being.
Worship is far more than what we do here on this hour on Sundays.
It's an all-encompassing way of life.
And this corporate worship on Sunday is the crown jewel of all
of our worship. But we often say no to worship
because we've become distracted and overwhelmed, consumed,
busied by by just a million good things.
The Jewish people in Hey guys, they had a similar problem.
They weren't prioritizing the worship of God.
They were doing many good things.
They were reestablishing their lives in Jerusalem, building
houses and and trying to resurrect the lost culture of
Jerusalem. All good things on the surface,
but they were neglecting to rebuild the temple, the House of
the Lord, the place of worship that mediated the relationship
between them and their God. Because of this sinful neglect,
they continued to experience the covenant curses.
And so in 520 BC, God sent not one, but two prophets to wake up
the Jewish people to what was most important for them.
Those two prophets were Haggai and Zechariah.
These prophets started prophesying in the same year,
just two months apart. Next week we'll consider the
much larger book of Zechariah, but know that both Haggai and
Zechariah, they share the same post exilic context starting in
520 BC. So as we start to work through
the book of Haggai, we'll first look at what's going on before
and during the time of Haggai. Then we'll consider his message.
Then one with a few ways that hey guys message applies to us
today. So let's start by considering
Hey guy, the man prophet Haggai is named in verse one, but we we
don't know his family line or really much about him.
He's also mentioned in the book of Ezra.
The book of Ezra was written during the same time period as
Haggai, and it says in Ezra chapter 6, it says this.
The elders of the Jews built and prospered through the
prophesying of Haggai, the prophet and Zechariah.
So that's great. Many prophets faced hard hearts
and rejection, but Haggai's message was well received.
So that was great. So that that's just a little bit
of what we know about Haggai the prophet.
Now before we get more into the context and message of Haggai,
it's going to be helpful to understand the back story of the
temple. There's three kinds of temples
we need to know about the the temple like Garden of Eden, the
Tabernacle of the wilderness, and then the breathtaking Temple
of Solomon. So first the the temple like
Garden of Eden. The the story of the temple, it
really begins in Genesis 1. God created a people for
himself, Adam and Eve, and he established a relationship with
them as their God. And because they were sinless,
they enjoyed an unmediated relationship with God, who
walked freely in their presence in the garden.
God called Adam to work and to keep the garden, to work it and
keep it to Hebrew words that were also paired together to
describe the duties of the priests in the Book of Numbers.
So. So Adam was an archetype priest
and the garden was in a sense a temple, his place of worship and
and fellowship with the presence of God.
Adam failed in this role though, when he and Eve ate the
forbidden fruit. And since sinful people can't
dwell with God's holy presence, Adam and Eve were banished from
the Garden of Eden. But despite the sin of his
people, God still desired to have His Spirit dwell amongst
his people. And so after God saved his
people out of slavery from Egypt, he established his
covenant with them at Mount Sinai with Moses on this
covenant with and in this covenant with Moses, God
commanded for a Tabernacle to be built for him.
This this mobile tent for sacrificing and purification and
and community communicating with God.
God's glorious presence would dwell in in the holy of holies
over the ark of the covenant in this tent.
And God established the sacrificial system with
purification laws so that the sinful, unclean people could be
made clean and dwell in the midst of a holy God.
And then Leviticus and Deuteronomy.
God promised blessings for obedience and curses for
disobedience. God's glorious presence dwelt in
in the Tabernacle for hundreds of years until King Solomon
built the first Temple in Jerusalem, where the the Temple
of Mount in Israel is today. This temple was exquisite.
The gold, the silver, the bronze, the cedar.
It was a sight to behold, but sadly after throughout the the
400 years that it was in use, it was it was often neglected and
it was even misused at times. Idols from other nations were
brought into Solomon's Temple and worshipped in it.
And so in 586 BC, when Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to
Jerusalem and overthrew it, he destroyed Solomon's Temple and
took all the precious instruments of worship.
He took them all to, to Babylon. He also exiled the Jews to
Babylon. And so the people of God left
the promised land in shambles to go to a foreign nation where
they would have to follow and worship God without a temple for
70 years. So you can read about some of
that in in the book of Daniel. So that's kind of the that's,
that's the brief back story of the temple.
So now we come to the time of Haggai and Zechariah in 19 years
prior to Haggai's prophecy in in 539 BC, the Persian king Cyrus
the Great, he overtook Babylon. And then the following year
after that, he issued A decree permitting Jews to begin
returning to Jerusalem, and he commanded them to rebuild their
temple. It was amazing, it was a
miracle, it was an act of God. And so we read about this in the
book of Ezra, and the Jews did just that.
They started to rebuild the temple, but then they stopped.
Why did that happen? Why'd they stop?
Well, there's other people who lived in Jerusalem who weren't
Jews. They were, had been sent there
by the Assyrians and they, they, they, they, they wanted to help
rebuild the temple. And they, they asked the Jews if
they could help. But the Jews turned them down,
knowing that they should not be unequally yoked with unbelievers
in the building of God's temple. This, this kind of ticked them
off, ticked off these foreign transplants.
And so they caused problems and they made the Jews afraid to
continue rebuilding the temple. And then a new Persian king
named Arctic Xerxes came into power and they influenced him to
send a letter to the Jews to stop rebuilding the temple.
So that work on the House of Lords stopped for many years.
All right, so that brings us all up now to 520 BC.
Here, the book of of Haggai. And we see from verse one of
Haggai that Darius became king. Darius, he was in his second
year as king of Persia. Persia had power over, you know,
vast amount of land and and, and so the land of Judah was just a
small portion of it. And so because Darius was king,
that means that the Jews couldn't have a king of their
own. Instead they had a governor.
That governor's name was Zerubbabel, the son of Sheel
Teal and Zerubbabel. He was the grandson of King
Jehoiachin. So he was, he was of the kingly
line of David, but here he was in Jerusalem with with no throne
and limited power. The book of Hagai was written to
Zerubbabel the governor, and also to Joshua the high priest.
And then also it speaks of being written to all the remnant of
the people. All right, so that's a brief
context of hey guy, let's let's not take a look at his message.
As I mentioned, there are 4 prophecies in this little book
and they're all dated very specifically because we have
these dates and because of other archaeological discoveries that
mentioned King Darius. We know down to the very day
when each of these prophecies were made.
It's pretty cool. They occur between August 29th
and December 18th of 520 BC. Another thing we see in this
little book is that the name the Lord of Hosts is the preferred
title for God. In this book.
It occurs 14 times in 38 verses. To just hear it again and again.
So but, but why? Why that specific title?
Why is that specifically used here?
Well, I'm not, I'm not 100% sure, but here's my guess.
Maybe it's used that to remind the Jews that that although they
have no military to protect them, they have the Lord of
hosts on their side, the Lord of armies.
He is the God who commands a vast army of of heavenly angels
and in his hand are all the armies of the earth.
They Israel, Judah, this army list people, they are safe and
secure if they're in a right relationship with him, no matter
what army comes against them. Now let's take a look at the
first prophecy, a call to resume building the temple.
This prophecy took place on August 29th of 520.
Read along with me verses 2, verses 2 through 11.
Thus says the Lord of hosts. These people say, the time has
not yet come to rebuild the House of the Lord, and the word
of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet.
Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your panelled
houses, while this house lies in ruins?
Now therefore thus, says the Lord of Hosts, Consider your
ways. You have so much and harvested
little. You eat, but you never have
enough. You drink, but you never have
your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no
one is warm, and he who earns wages does so to put them into a
bag with holes. Thus, says the Lord of Hosts,
consider your ways. Go up to the hills and bring
wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that
I may be glorified, says the Lord.
You looked for much, and behold, it came to little, and when you
brought it home I blew it away. Why, declares the Lord of hosts,
because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies
himself with his own house. Therefore the heavens above you
have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce.
I have called for a drought on the land, in the hills, on the
grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on
man and beast, and on all their laborers.
This first prophecy is a wake up call to the Jews that their
priorities are out of whack and they're still experiencing
covenant curses because of it. Twice in this message, the Lord
calls His people to consider their ways.
They're to stop, and they're to question what they've been doing
and how they've been living. The philosopher Socrates, who
would be born 50 years after this prophecy, he famously said
the unexamined life is not worth living.
The unexamined life is not worth living.
It's foolish to go about life thinking and not thinking about
what you're doing or or, or or why you're doing it and just
never reflecting on your life and never repenting from sin.
And here God tells the Jews to stop and think about what
they're doing. Examine their lives.
Notice how they've gotten off course.
The end goal of God bringing the the Jews back to Jerusalem
wasn't just merely for them to live there, it was for them to
worship God there. And so they needed to get their
priorities straight and rebuild the temple.
Verse 4 says that the Jews had made themselves paneled houses
and well, we're not really, we're not exactly sure what that
means. It does mean that the people
prioritized their own houses over the House of the Lord.
Now, it was good for the Jews to restore their houses and build
new ones, but this good thing became the most important thing
then then worshipping God. And when a good thing becomes
the most important thing, it becomes a bad thing.
It becomes an idol. And I think we're often blind to
this as Christians. We figure if something isn't
inherently evil, then then hey, it's, it's, it's good or find it
to do that or to or to have it. We often don't think through if
if a good thing is going to take up way too much priority in our
lives and and and suffocate out the worship of God.
Have other priorities become more important to you than to
worship the Lord? To worship the Lord on on the
Lord's Day? Is it sports or hobbies or, you
know, staying up way too late on on with Saturday night
activities that just make you too tired for Sunday?
Now, many of you have jobs that require Sunday shifts like in
the hospital system, and those are important jobs of mercy for
our neighbors. But maybe you've been picking up
shifts on Sundays that you don't really need to.
Now, there's certainly challenges to getting to worship
when you have little children or if you're sick.
And there's certainly, certainly grace for those seasons.
But no matter what season we're in, God wants us to make worship
our highest priority. Jesus says on the Sermon on the
Mount. But seek first the Kingdom of
God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added
to you. We aren't to be anxious about
our lives and getting crazy busy in all sorts of other stuff.
God wants us to seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness.
God not only commands the Jews to rebuild the temple, He also
wants them to connect the dots between the drought of that
their land was in and the spiritual drought of their
worship. Verse 6 says that they had sown
much but harvested little. They didn't have enough to eat
or drink, and they lived like they had holes in their money
bags. This language is reminiscence of
the language in Deuteronomy 28 of the covenant curses for
disobedience. So, but you know, remember the
Jews are are under the old covenant, the Mosaic covenant.
They're not under the new covenant here.
And so they, they're so there were these covenant curses for
not maintaining a right relationship with God just
because they were back in the land.
They couldn't assume that everything was good with their
relationship with God. Now they needed to rebuild the
temple and restore the worship of God as their highest
priority. Now, if you if you don't
understand the old covenant here, you could cook up the
prosperity gospel really quick. All right.
God is not a vending machine. His blessings are not a
mechanical transaction where we give him good works and worship
and then he spits back to us material blessings.
Even for Israel, the the the the covenant blessings and curses
were were not a mechanical, predictable exchange.
God was patient with his people for literally hundreds of years
while they were wicked, without bringing his curses on them, and
while continuing to bless their land.
And in the same way, when Israel lived rightly before him, all of
their problems didn't just go away.
There are still many challenges. The New covenant doesn't work
like the old, as as Christians in the new covenant, we we
should expect, we should expect to live like heirs, not like
kings and Queens. So what do I mean by that?
An heir is a child who will one day receive the wealth of his or
her family, but but they haven't received it yet.
He or she might be quite poor until the day they receive their
inheritance. So it is with the Christian life
in Christ. We are blessed with every
spiritual blessing in Christ, and that's Ephesians 1.
And we are, we are heirs of the new heavens and new earth.
But as we live on this earth, we face sufferings and trials.
Our obedience does not earn us material blessings
automatically. Rather, Jesus wants us to to
focus on storing up our treasures in heaven.
So live like an heir and don't expect your best life now.
So how did the Jews respond to hey guys, first message here.
Let's look now at verses 12 through 15.
Then Zerubbabel the son of Shaltile, and Joshua the son of
Jehovah, Zadak the high priest, with all the remnant of the
people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God and the words of
Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him, and the
people feared the Lord. Then Haggai the messenger of the
Lord, spoke to the people with the Lord's message.
I am with you, declares the Lord.
And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, the son of
Sheel Till, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son
of Jehozadak the high priest, and the spirit of all the
remnant of the people. And they came and worked on the
House of the Lord their God, the Lord of hosts, their God, on the
24th day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year
of Darius the king. This is a wonderful model for
how God's Word should impact us. The people heard God's word, and
together they obeyed. They properly feared the Lord
knowing that that he had the power over nations to exile
them. They knew that full well and he
had the power of the land to bring drought upon them for
discipline. And verses 13 and 14, we see how
they had we see how they had the the strength to to obey.
In verse 13, the Lord comforts his people saying, I am with
you. Even though they didn't have a
temple, God was still with them. Even though they had sinned, God
was still with them. God still loved them, and they
were still His chosen people. The people repented and obeyed
because God was with them. In verse 14, it says that the
Lord stirred up the spirits of Zerubbabel, Joshua, and all the
remnant of the people so that they obediently began working on
the temple. When God gives us commands, he
doesn't just passively wait for people to obey.
He gives commands, and then he gives the will and the strength
to obey those commands. As Agustin once said, give what
you command, O Lord, and then command what you will.
Give what you command, O God. God commanded the temple to
rebuild, and then he gave what He commanded.
He gave them His presence, and He stirred up their hearts to
obey. He gave them willing spirits.
So may we hear God's commands with that same hope.
May we not see God's commands as burdensome, but may we, by God's
Spirit, hope in the strength from God to obey His commands
willingly and eagerly. May the Lord stir up our spirits
to do His will and to make His worship our greatest joy and our
greatest priority. So that's the first prophecy.
Let's move on now to the second present strength and future
glory. This prophecy takes place about
a month and a half later, on October 17th.
Look with me at chapter 2, verses one through 9, in the
seventh month. On the 21st day of the month,
the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet.
Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shell Teal, governor of
Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehovah, Dak the high priest,
and to all the remnant of the people.
And say, who is left among you who saw this house in its former
glory? How do you see it now?
Is it not as nothing in your eyes yet?
Now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord.
Be strong, O Joshua son of Jehozadak the high priest, be
strong. All you people of the land,
declares the Lord work. For I am with you, declares the
Lord of Hosts, according to the covenant that I made with you
when you came out of Egypt. My spirit remains in your midst.
Fear not for thus says the Lord of Hosts.
Yet once more, in a little while I will shake the heavens and the
earth and the sea and the dry land, and I will shake all
nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in,
and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of Hosts.
The silver is mine and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of
Hosts. The latter glory of this house
shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of Hosts.
And in this day and in this place I will give peace,
declares the Lord of Hosts. As the Jewish remnant gathered
to hear God's second word from Haggai, it seemed that they're
gathered together at the construction site of the temple.
There were there were four more years left to of building the
temple and it would eventually be finished and dedicated in 516
BC, 70 years after Solomon's temple had been destroyed.
But at this point there was a long way to go to finishing the
temple and it was clear from the get go that it wasn't going to
be as grand as the previous temple.
In verse 3, Haggai speaks to a few of the aged elders who had
seen Solomon's temple when they were children, and he points out
to them what they probably were all thinking, that this temple,
there's really nothing in comparison to Solomon's.
But in verses 4 through 9, the Lord is going to surprise them
with a bright future. Just as he told Joshua before
going into the promised land, He commands them all to be strong.
He reassures them once again that he is with them.
They are to work because he is with them.
They're not to be afraid because His Spirit remains in their
midst. Even though this temple wouldn't
have all the gold and all the glamour, the people would have
God's Spirit in their midst, and that's all that mattered.
Worship isn't about. Sometimes God brings us back to
the heart of worship, and He. Sometimes God simplifies our
worship from all the glitz and all the glamour that it used to
be. Worship isn't.
It's not about having the the best worship band, the largest
choir, the biggest attendance, the most historic building, the
the most epic stained glass, the largest.
You just stop it. Or even really, you know, the
largest pipe organ or really having the most reformed dish
liturgy. There are a million ways to
distract our worship from focusing on God.
And sometimes God simplifies our worship so that we remember what
it's really all about. It's about seeing the glory of
God in the face of Jesus Christ. That's what it's all about.
There's a lot of other distractions, but at the end of
the day, that's what it's all about.
And sometimes God simplifies our worship so that we stop hoping
in our present worship and we start looking forward to our
future worship. And that's what the Lord does in
the in the next verses. Here in verses 6 through 9, He
tells them about the future glory that's coming.
In verse 6, the Lord says something shocking.
In a little while, He plans to shake everything up.
He will shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry
land. The Lord of hosts will shake all
the nations, and nothing will be the same after that.
God will shake all things, and all nations will come to His
temple and bring their treasures to it.
All the silver and all the gold that was stripped away from the
temple belongs to the Lord. God promises to fill His house
with His glory, and then in verse 9, the Lord promises
something almost too amazing to believe.
The glory of the latter temple will be greater than the former
temple. How could the smaller temple
have more glory? The answer would be in the
coming of Jesus Christ 500 years later.
Into this temple would come the glory of God in the person of
Jesus Christ. John 114 says, And the word
became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory,
glory as of as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace
and truth. The Word for dwelt in John 114
is actually the word for Tabernacle, Jesus.
The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.
He would be the greater temple that all other temples were just
mere shadows of. Jesus explicitly calls Himself
the temple in John chapter 2, and in John four he taught the
Samaritan woman that at the well, that worship wouldn't be
about location anymore, it would be all about worshipping the
Father in spirit and in truth. Jesus was about to shake
everything up. Jesus became the place of
worship for all nations, not just the Jews.
And he, he isn't just our He isn't just our final temple.
He is also our sinless High priest who lives forever.
He's our spotless sacrificial lamb who by one offering on the
cross was able to perfect for all time all of God's people.
The old sacrificial system was fading away and the glory of the
New Covenant in Jesus Christ was coming.
And people from all nations would see that glory, the glory
of Jesus Christ. And to him they would bring
their treasures and their worship for the Jews and
Haggai's day, even though they, even though what they saw was
small and humble, what they heard with their ears and what
they believed in in their hearts was a far greater glory than the
glory of Solomon's temple. We're not going to, we're going
to skip over the third prophecy in verses 10 through 19, but let
me just briefly summarize it in In this third prophecy, the Lord
declares A gracious shift for the Jews from curse to blessing.
These last two prophecies, actually, they occur on the same
day, December 18th, but they're just addressed to different
people. Now the third prophecy is
addressed to the priests, and he asked them a question about that
that has to do with the Torah, the law, and what what it says
about cleanliness and uncleanliness.
He then says that the Jews are unclean and as a result, they're
experiencing the covenant curses.
But then at the very end he says this.
But from this day on, I will bless you.
I will bless you. So a shift was happening, a
shift in the relationship between God and his people.
A shift in worship was happening in their hearts even before the
temple was was built. And so because they were living
in a right relationship with him, they would expect covenant
blessings, the covenant blessings of Deuteronomy 28
instead of the curses. That's the third prophecy.
The the last prophecy takes place on the same day as the
third. This one is addressed just as a
rubble the governor and the rightful heir to the throne of
David. So look with me at chapter 2,
verses 20 through 23. The word of the Lord came a
second time to Haggai on the 24th day of the month.
Speak to his rubble, governor of Judah, saying, I'm about to
shake the heavens and the earth and overthrow the throne of
kingdoms. I'm about to destroy the
strength of the kingdoms of the nations and overthrow the
Chariots and the riders and the horses, and the riders shall go
down everyone by the sword of his brother on that day,
declares the Lord of Hosts. I will take you, O Zerubbabel,
my servant, the son of Sheel Teal, declares the Lord.
And make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you, declares
the Lord of Hosts. The prophecy of A of Haggai ends
on a high note. The Lord once again prophesied
that he is going to shake the heavens and the earth, and this
time he mentions overthrowing the throne of kingdoms and
destroying the kingdoms of the nations.
And verse 23 the Lord uses the phrase on that day.
It's a phrase that Hagai only uses once, but it's a phrase
used very often throughout prophetic literature to describe
the final day of the Lord. So it seems that that this is a
prophecy of God shaking the kingdoms of the world on the day
when Christ returns. Another reason why I think this
is because of the Lord's prophecy to Zerubbabel.
In verse 23, it says that on that day when he shakes up the
nation's, he will take his chosen servant Zerubbabel and
make him like a signet ring, like a signery.
Now what does that mean? The signal ring was a was a
royal ring worn by a king that had a seal for giving his
approval, his authority, his authoritative approval.
And so here God is declaring that on that day of shaking he
will, would, would, he will make Zerubbabel like his kingly seal.
This I believe is a prophecy of Jesus Christ second coming, when
he will reign as God's forever king as the book of Daniel
prophesied. A Kingdom is coming that will
destroy all other kingdoms, and that Kingdom is the Kingdom of
heaven. But why does God say Zerubbabel
will be that signet ring? Zerubbabel was of the kingly
line of David and so he is the ancestor of Jesus Christ.
We see Zerubbabel's name in in Jesus genealogies in the Gospels
of Matthew and Luke. Zerubbabel is representative of
the restoration of the Davidic throne because from him would
come the forever King. And so the book of Haggai ends
on a high note, prophesying the end of all kingdoms in the
beginning of the new Kingdom of heaven ruled by Zerubbabel, by
Zerubbabel's son Jesus Christ. Jesus is the glory of God, He is
the forever temple, and he is the everlasting king.
That's the message of Haggai. So how are we to live in light
of this little book? I always love it when New
Testament authors interpret and apply the Old Testament for us.
It makes makes a pastor's job very easy.
Well, the author of Hebrews does does just that in Hebrews
chapter 12. In that chapter he calls Haggai
chapter 2 about God promising to shake the earth and the heavens.
Then he says in this in verses 28 and 29.
Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a Kingdom that
cannot be shaken, and let us offer to God acceptable worship
with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.
The author of Hebrews wants us to apply Hagai in a few ways.
First, we're we're to be grateful.
We're to thank God that he's given us a Kingdom that cannot
be shaken. Although the kingdoms of this
world seem strong and secure, like Russia and China, in our
own country, although they may seem immovable, there are no
match for the power of God. When Jesus returns, all the
kingdoms will be shaken, and the only Kingdom to remain unshaken
is the Kingdom of heaven. We have received this Kingdom
now in part, and one day it will come in its fullness of Christ's
return, and it will be the only Kingdom left standing.
The Kingdom of Heaven is the only secure Kingdom.
I love how CS Lewis in his book the Great Divorce depicts heaven
as a place incredibly real and solid.
The grass is as hard as diamonds to these these these ghosts that
are visiting it. It's you know, and and and the
water is like stone. The Kingdom of Heaven is
incredibly. Solid.
It's unshakable and it's more real and lasting than anything
imaginable. And so let us be grateful that
God has given us this Kingdom and he's given it to us already.
We are as secure as its citizens, even even even though
we live in a foreign land, right land right now.
The author of Hebrews also calls us to OfferUp to God acceptable
worship. We do this by worshipping with
reverence and awe. We aren't to worship God on our
own terms and and we aren't we aren't to worship a God made in
our own image. Our God is a consuming fire.
He's the same God that appeared to Israel on on Mount Sinai and
shook that mountain before the people.
He's the same God whose glory consumed Aaron's sons Nate, AB
and Abihu when they offered a disobedient worship when His
glory appeared at the consecration of the Tabernacle.
Our God is love, and our God is a consuming fire.
Let's worship Him with reverence and awe.
And finally, let's prioritize our worship of Him above
everything else. Make the needed changes in your
life, the needed changes in your family's schedule to make
worship number one. Everything else is temporary,
shakeable and breakable, but worshipping and enjoying God is
something we will do forever. Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have given us a Kingdom
that cannot be shaken, a Kingdom with a king who will live
forever, our Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, I pray that you would stir
up our hearts, that we would work for your glory, that we
would worship you with willing and joyful hearts.
Lord, I pray that you would work in our hearts, that we might
prioritize your worship above all as we pray in the name of
Jesus our King, Amen.