Haggai chapter 2 beginning in verse 1. 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 Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, 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 place, I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts. Grass weathers and the flower falls, but the word of our God abides forever. Please be seated. Let's pray. Lord our God, we ask that you would bless us as we come to your word. Help us to understand it rightly. that we would be diligent in our use of it. Oh Lord, we come now with prayer to your word asking that you would give us understanding and teach us. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Well, it has been a little while since we were in Haggai and in Ezra as well. So by way of refresher, we have been in this book just for a couple of sermons in Haggai. The reason we are in Haggai is because we are going through Ezra. And in the process of going through Ezra, we found Haggai the prophet bringing the word of God to the people, a people who had stopped building the temple. So the Babylonians had taken Jerusalem and its dwellers away. It had torn down the walls, torn down the temple. Everything was gone. The people had been taken away and God had promised through Jeremiah that it would be 70 years before anyone came back, but that they would come back. there were promises that God made to his people. And they came back, not a terribly large group, nothing like the original Exodus, but the group came back led by Zerubbabel in the line of David. And he's a governor, he's not a king, so there's still, this isn't a full restoration yet, but they're building the temple. And of course, then they had that that episode that we looked at in Ezra where there was great rejoicing, they laid the foundation stones and the younger people are rejoicing, they're joyful that the temple is being rebuilt. God will dwell among his people in that special way again. But then the older men, the older priests, they had seen the Temple of Solomon, It's seen its glory, the gold, the bronze, the beauty of it. And they saw this temple that it was diminished. And they saw the limitations on their resources. And they realized they were never going to come close to what Solomon had built. And so they mourned, they wept, they cried aloud. And we saw there the weeping was mixed in with the shouts of joy, just this chaotic tumult of joy and sorrow. And then they stopped building. In their dejection, they stopped building for a good number of years. They went off to do what they were able to do with their hands, to build their own homes. And so then they began to build their town, to build their own homes and make places for themselves. So God sends Haggai, and he also sent Zechariah, but Haggai is where we're at, and he sends Haggai to tell them to continue the building. Is this really the time for you to be working on your own homes, to panel your houses with cedar, rather than building up the temple, rather than working so that God might dwell in your midst. Because remember, this isn't just a civilization. This isn't just a people group. This is the covenant people of God. They were a called out people. They're supposed to be completely different from anyone else in the world. They are called to be a holy people. And everything about the law of Moses was designed to make that evident. The way they dressed, the way they cut their beards, what they ate, everything was to make them different. To show that they were different. And here they are, looking at what they might do with their own hands, with their own funds. And there's a lack of faith here. There's a lack of belief in God. There's a lack of priorities here. There's a lack of understanding that God is the living God, the one who brought them out of the land of Egypt. He brought them out of Egypt when they had not been a nation. They'd been a family. And then he made them into a nation and he made covenants with them. He gave them the law. He brought them to Sinai. He brought them to the promised land and on and on the mighty works of God. And they had forgotten it all as they looked at their money that was running out and realized they couldn't plate these stones with gold. So God calls them. to work, to work in faith, fear not, work for I am with you. And the promise of the blessing of God is upon them. So Haggai is commissioned to bring a word of rebuke and of encouragement to the people, both of those things together. And we often see that with the prophets. God rebukes sometimes very sharply. It's necessary. but he also gives words of hope and encouragement. He gives promises. So we're returning to this. So chapter two is three separate words, three separate mini sermons of Haggai. And we looked at the first one, verses one through nine previously, but we're coming back to it because there's quite a bit more meat on this that we need to chew on. A very, nearsighted, very bland reading of this section of Haggai would limit this prophecy to an encouragement in building the second temple. And I think there's some application to the second temple. But here you see God telling them to go ahead and build work for I am with you. But then there are some special promises in here that ought to catch our attention. And we looked at it briefly, but that's what we're coming back to especially. In verse six, 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. All right, so something big is happening. Verse seven, 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. All right, so it sounds as though we could find application. in God's glory coming back to this second temple once it's rebuilt, and that there will be funding from the Gentiles. You look at verse 8 as well. The silver is mine and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts. So they're lacking in funding. They're looking at that. That's the limitation they're seeing right now. But God says, it is all mine. The silver is mine, the gold is mine, and I'm going to do a great work. I'm going to bring in, as the ESV translates it, the treasures of all the nations. They will come in. I will fill this house with glory. So I'm gonna build it, and it's going to be beautiful, and I'm going to fill it with glory. In Ezra 6, we haven't gotten there yet in Ezra, but Ezra 6, King Darius, he's alerted to their building project, and instead of stopping the project, he decides to further fund the project. And we might see that as sort of a shaking up of things, and God bringing the funding from the nations, perhaps that's the treasures of the nations coming in. But I think this is quite deficient to limit it to the second temple by way of gross understatement. It is deficient. Let's think about the temple and what it is. Why is it here? Let's kind of rewind. Let's go all the way back to Eden. Back in Eden, God had made man for his own glory, making man in his own image. Eden is sort of a sanctuary. It's a pre-temple sanctuary. a garden sanctuary. There, God spoke to man. He had fellowship with man. It was God dwelling with his people. That's the ultimate in human existence. That promise that God gives, we read in Hebrews, we read of it. I will be your God, you will be my people. That's the ultimate in human existence. God dwelling in our midst. And there in Eden, you see that. And of course, that's broken, it's lost, and Adam and Eve are sent out, and they're going east from Eden. And then you see God appearing again. We're gonna jump quite a few years. Go to Sinai, children of Israel. God meeting with the people, and they're terrified. But what does he do on Sinai? He gives instructions, and we read about it in Hebrews 8. God gives instructions to Moses to make this tent, this very special tent, very specific tent with its almost concentric circles of holiness. He had the outer courtyard. That was limited who could go in there. You had to be a certain type of person to go in there. And then he had the tent itself where only the priests could go. And then that first room, the holy place, only the priests could go in there. What was in that? You have the table of showbread, the altar of incense, and that very special lamp. What did the lamp look like? It looked like a tree. Some have speculated perhaps a picture of the tree of life. The light of God shining there. upon His people. The 12 tribes represented in the bread. And then you have the Holy of Holies. That place through the curtain. In there you see the cherubim. The cherubim are depicted on the curtains, on the walls, but especially that very, very special place on the mercy seat. God dwelling above the cherubim. And so it was a place for God to dwell, but there's an unmistakable similarity to some of the pictures from Eden. Especially you see the cherubim and the tree and the life, and then even the orientation. It was always to be placed in an east-west orientation. So you were going back to Eden when you entered the tabernacle. It was a picture of heavenly realities, yes, but also of the garden, the place where God had dwelt with men without sin. And excuse me, the temple was an imitation of the tabernacle. The tabernacle is actually much more detailed in God's instruction. And when you see Solomon's temple built, The emphasis is on Solomon building the temple and you don't see God giving those step-by-step instructions. And so there's, even when you go to Hebrews and you start reading, it doesn't speak about the temple. It speaks about the tabernacle, the tent of Moses, where God was very specifically, personally involved in every step of that process. Everything being shown to Moses on the mountain. But it was all toward fulfilling man's chief end. Glorifying God and enjoying Him forever, being His people. I will be your God, you will be my people. I will dwell in your midst. And that's what everything was geared towards for that. For the people of Israel, that's why they had to be holy. They couldn't have unclean things in the camp. They had to throw them out of the camp. They couldn't even have the lepers. They couldn't bring them in the camp. They had to have it outside of the camp because God dwelt among them. Even down to using the restroom. How did they do that? Even that detail in Deuteronomy, it says, because the Lord walks in your midst, you must be hygienic because of that. Anything that recalled sin and evil, The decay of our flesh because of sin had to be kept out. It was a holy place in an unholy world. Psalm 24, who shall ascend the mountain of the Lord? It's the one who is clean, who is pure. Natural man cannot approach God. And you see there, Sinai, No one can touch the mountain. If they touch the mountain, put them to death immediately. Do not touch the mountain. God is unapproachable because he is holy and we are not. And so how can we dwell with God? How can we fulfill that ultimate, that ultimate thing that man, man needs to fulfill, man ought to fulfill, We can't because we're unclean, because we're sinful. How can we get to God's presence? We can't even approach Him. We can't even look on Him. If God were to rend the heavens open and display His glory to us right now, we would all die. Moses himself could not look upon God. Listen to Exodus 33. Moses, that holy man, no one else could go on the mountain. A couple of times God gave permission, once for the elders to go up, but Moses was the one who could go up without dying. And God says to Moses, Moses says in Exodus 33, please show me your glory. And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim Before you, my name, the Lord, I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But, he said, you cannot see my face for man shall not see me and live. Moses, you can't see me. I'll show you a bit of my glory, a bit of my goodness. And even that was almost too much for him. He had to be hidden in the cleft of the rock. And then his face shone for the rest of his life. And he had to veil his face. Moses, cover your face. The glory of God reflecting in his face. If we're to be in God's presence, for God to dwell in our midst, we need to be holy and we need to be in a holy place. So it's a place for man to meet with God, a place for God to dwell. Of course, we're speaking in terms here that are given to us in scripture, but with the understanding that God is everywhere present, even in the building of the temple and Solomon's prayer, he acknowledges that the temple is very limited. He says, this is Solomon, but will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, and how much less this house that I have built. But it's God's special presence. God there in a special way, one author has suggested, God there with greater intensity. not hiding from us for our own survival, veiling himself from us. So the temple was a place for man to meet with God, to be closer to God, that God had ordained and everything had to be done exactly according to instructions. But there were severe insufficiencies with that original temple. There were severe insufficiencies. There were limitations with the sacrifices. And you see that just in the nature of the sacrifices. They're animal sacrifices. It wasn't animals who had sinned, it was man. So you have the symbolism with that. The life being shed. The lifeblood being poured out in man's place. You have the symbols. There was never enough blood to cover the sins. And it was done continually over and over. So the sacrifices were limited. There were the limitations of the priests. They themselves were sinful men who needed sacrifices. It was heavily regulated in order to try to keep some of that sinfulness away. But it was a holy space in an unholy world. And constantly you come up against the problem of its being prone to defilement. Even by those priests, those who are called to serve. Almost immediately you have Nadab and Abihu. No sooner is the tabernacle constructed and you have the priests ordained through the ceremony, these sons of Aaron who would have been in line to be high priest and you have them go in with strange fire and now the temple or that tabernacle is defiled with human bodies as the fire of the Lord went out and killed them. In the book of Judges, you see again the high priest's sons, Hophni and Phinehas, And that great shame at Shiloh and the curse upon Eli and his house because they were evil men using the tabernacle of God as a place for their own enrichment and a way to get pleasure for themselves. Sinful, evil pleasures. since all who served in the tabernacle and the temple were sinful, it was in constant danger of defilement. And then you get to the Gentile defilements. And on and on, just the defilements of the Jews, this second temple that's being built in the time of Christ, Herod's son, Archelaus, slaughtered 3,000 Jews in the temple. Blood ran in the temple, defiling it. Human bodies were an unclean thing. And the Gentile defilements, of course, you have it desecrated by the Babylonians, torn down entirely and all of the sacred furniture taken away. But then this new structure, It's going to be defiled by Antiochus Epiphanes of the Greeks. I believe it was in 168 BC. He set up a statue of Zeus in the temple and sacrificed swine to it. And then you have under the Maccabeans, so the Maccabean rulers, the Hasmonean rulers, of the Jews after they defeated the Greeks, they sent them running, but then they sort of made this priestly king class, this sort of ruling priest, and it became more of a political office. And then as a couple of the Hasmonean rulers, their brothers, they were brothers and they started bickering and which one would be the greatest and the ruler of the people, they began fighting and called in the Romans. And the Romans came, Pompey came and laid siege to Jerusalem to settle this dispute among the Jews. And Pompey, after he laid siege to Jerusalem and then was allowed in, he laid siege to the temple and has said that 12,000 Jews were slaughtered in the temple. 12,000 This is the second temple that This one that that God has said to Haggai said through Haggai or has he is he really promising that this is the one This building is the one that will have greater glory than the former Then of course there's the problem The greatest glory of this second temple comes when Herod, Herod the Great, begins adorning it and does this 50-year renovation of it. And it's supposed to be quite beautiful. We've talked about that before. Well, this is Herod. Herod the Edomite. Herod the monster. Herod the one who killed the children of Bethlehem in order to try to keep the Messiah from coming. And that's not recorded in history. Some have doubted that and said, well, we don't see that in any of the records of the time, but all historians agree that it sounds just like him, Herod, who would kill his own children to keep them from the throne. Is he really the one that's going to bring God's glory to the temple? I would argue no. God is pointing us in Haggai to something much greater. Something much greater. He is definitely looking ahead. He is certainly looking ahead. I would point you first of all to Verse six, 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 the nations so that the treasures of all nations shall come in. If you would turn over to Hebrews chapter 12, Hebrews chapter 12. Look at the end of Hebrews chapter 12 and see how the author of Hebrews uses this passage where he quotes from Haggai chapter 2 verse 6. And there's a warning here in verse 25. We'll come back to that, Lord willing, later. Verse 26, at that time, his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, yet once more, I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens. This phrase, yet once more, indicates the removal of things that are shaken, that is, things that have been made in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. He's looking ahead. He's looking to greater realities. It's not just going to be this world. It's not just going to be something that is glorious for the Jews in Jerusalem. But this is taking us even to an eschatological place, an eternal place. Then you have in verse 7, a rather contested passage, in the ESV we have, and I will shake the nation so that the treasures of all nations shall come in." That's not how it's typically been translated. That's interpretive. And you may recognize more the desire of nations. The desire of nations will come. In Charles Wesley's song, Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus, you see it used this way. Israel's strength and consolation, hope of all the earth thou art, dear desire of every nation, joy of every longing heart. And so this passage has been interpreted as speaking directly of the Messiah that Jesus himself is the desire of the nation's handle. in his masterpiece, The Messiah, he uses it. He quotes from Haggai, thus saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts, and here I'm quoting from Handel's rendition of it, yet once a little while, and I will shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land, and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come, and he pairs it with Malachi chapter 3 verse 1, the Lord whom you seek shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant whom you delight in, behold, he shall come, saith the Lord. And so traditionally, this has been attributed to the Lord Jesus himself, that he is the desire, and is here singular, the desire of the nations. It's difficult grammatically. And so there's argument back and forth. Is this really speaking of Christ as the desire of nations? Or is it better to think because he's speaking here of the gold and the silver, God says the silver is mine, the gold is mine in the very next verse. Is it really speaking more of the treasures of the nations? and I am going to leave you completely dissatisfied by not coming down dogmatically either way. But I think those men are on the right track. They're exactly on the right track, even if this isn't this word here, so that the treasure or the desire of nations shall come. Even if that is not speaking of the Messiah, this prophecy is. Here as he points, God points through Haggai to the eternal things, the greater things that are coming. He speaks not only of this world, but of the next. He brings us to the point of the new temple and the glory that comes into it. The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place, I will give peace. This was not fulfilled in the second temple. One of the things you notice, and I've already mentioned, the Ark of the Covenant is absent. What else is absent? The Shekinah glory. You don't see that. God here is calling them to build this building, this stone building. Yes, they are to do that. And God blesses it for that time, for that period. But you never hear of the glory of God descending on it. You see that in the tabernacle, so that Moses himself could not approach. Moses, the one who'd spoken to God, face to face, He was not able to approach because the glory of God descended on it. God also blessed Solomon's temple. Even if it was not as grand in many ways as the tabernacle, the tent, still God blessed it with his glory. But then the prophet Ezekiel, you see in the prophet Ezekiel, the glory of God being removed. God moving out of the temple. And you see it by stages as he moves to the threshold and he moves to the courtyard and he moves out and he goes out away from the temple. The glory has departed. Of course, Ezekiel. How does Ezekiel end? If you're familiar with that prophet, there's the really puzzling, long section of measurements on the temple. And then there's this picture of the temple where the water flows out from the temple, down from the threshold and goes out. And it's all the way to the sea, the water rising and rising and rising. It's just this stream, this fountain, this spring from the temple. And it gives life to everything around it. And it's obviously, Not talking about that physical temple being rebuilt and having that happen to it. It's something far greater. In the Bible, when God comes to the second temple, it is in the person of Jesus Christ. It is in the person of Jesus Christ. That's when you see God in this temple building. What again is the purpose of the temple? God with His people. Him being their God, them dwelling with Him in His presence. God with us. God with us, Emmanuel. And John turns us very quickly in the gospel according to John, very quickly he turns us to God Dwelling with us in John chapter 1 verse 14 and the word became flesh and dwelt among us And we have seen his glory glory as of the only son from the father full of grace and truth the word became flesh and tabernacled among us And then the very next chapter Jesus cleanses the first cleansing of the temple and And they said, what sign, what authority do you have? What do you give as a sign that you have the authority to come in here and cleanse the house of God as though you are in charge here? And of course there, he gives them a sign. John chapter two, verse 18. So the Jews said to him, what sign do you show us for doing these things? Verse 19, Jesus answered them, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. Then the Jews, the Jews then said, it has taken 46 years to build this temple and will you raise it up in three days? But he was speaking about the temple of his body. And therefore he was raised from the dead. His disciples remembered that he had said this and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. This is God's temple and the greater glory. We get distracted by the stones and the precious stones, and we get distracted by the metals, the precious metals. We see the shiny things, sort of an animal behavior about them, like the birds that like to collect the shiny objects and put them in their nest. We see those things and we find value in those. Is that not what they were doing in Haggai's day? Well, if we can't adorn the temple like Solomon did, what's the point in building it? If it can't be as big, if it can't be as grand, if it can't be as pretty or shiny. But what was the value of the temple? All of those things were nice. God had commanded for the tabernacle construction, he had commanded that everything, that certain things be coated in gold and that certain things be built in very fine ways. It was very regal and fine twined linen and all of that. It was very beautiful. It was very small, it was mobile. Even the Ark of the Covenant, very small, a small box. The scale was not what mattered. Making it bigger did not make it more glorious or more holy. It was the presence of God. That was the importance of the temple. It was God dwelling with his people. And so the stones were not what mattered. The disciples themselves got distracted by that. What marvelous stones these are, they said to Jesus. Look at the beauty of this. And Jesus wasn't in the least impressed. Instead telling them that not one stone would remain on another. It would all be destroyed because that wasn't the main point. Having this grand meeting place. If that were the case, then our buildings ought to be adorned with beautiful things. It ought to look like something shiny and flashy, something out of Las Vegas or something. God's not interested in the shiny and the flashy and all of that. Is he royal? Yes. But it's the presence of God. Holiness is what matters. And in Jesus Christ, God is dwelling with man. Jesus in himself then fulfills not just the function of the building, but every function that the temple had. The priests, they're no longer necessary. because the great High Priest has come. The One who is sinless, who offers the sacrifice without needing to bring sacrifices for Himself. The One who is in the order of Melchizedek without beginning of days or end of life. The sacrifice that is perfect. Sacrifice for man. Jesus giving Himself as human nature for our sins. Hebrews chapter 10 verse 19. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is through his flesh, since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith. In Christ the way to God is no longer barred, it is no longer veiled. And you see with the death of Christ, you see the veil torn, the temple and all of its, the symbols and the meaning, the shadows are gone and so it's ripped open. We don't go to God through Levites in a temple. We go to God through Jesus Christ and his sacrifice. Again, Hebrews in here chapter nine, taking it out of order, yes. But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, not made with hands, that is not of this creation, he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by the means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. We read last time from Revelation chapter one, but I think it parallels nicely this prophecy from Haggai, where you see the eschatological, that which is of the end of time. You see the future, the heavenly future, where God is dwelling with his people. There is people, he their God, dwelling in their midst. And you also see the riches of the nations coming in. I will shake the nations, he says to Haggai, so that the treasures, the desire of all nations shall come in. I'll fill this house with glory. The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. Turn, if you would, to Revelation 21. Revelation 21, verse 3, I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God. There is no higher honor, there is no greater purpose for humanity than this. Verse 22 of the same chapter, Revelation 21, verse 22. And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb. And the city has no need of the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day. And there will be no night there, and they will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will ever enter it. or anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. We are dealing with holy things, and I come to these prophecies with a measure of hesitance, rather haltingly, because It is my great desire not to speak a false word about this. But here you see the great hope of humanity. God pointing ahead to the time when the stone building will no longer be relevant in any way. It will no longer be necessary. It was always a shadow at its greatest, most glorious point. It was a type. It was pointing to heavenly realities. The stones were cold. The gold was cold and worthless compared to the living God who came and tabernacled among his people. The salvation that Christ brings is so much more glorious. It completely outshines it. It is absolutely puzzling to me. We have so many people in the church today looking for a third temple, looking for rebuilding. Why? What purpose would it serve? God Himself has come and tabernacled among us. Christ is the Great High Priest. Christ is the Great Sacrifice. Christ is the Temple. Where Christ is, there His people will be. Hebrews uses warnings, severe warnings. And again, as it comes to Haggai, speaks of heavenly and future things, he gives warning. See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refuse him who warned them on earth, how much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven? We're speaking of heavenly things. God Himself speaking to us. Speaking of the greater temple that's coming. This is what I'm doing. God sending His only begotten Son. Is there anything more important than that? No. All of these ceremonies, all of it was pointing forward, pointing forward to the great reality of Christ. How shall we escape? We neglect this great salvation. He goes on after quoting Haggai, therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe for our God is a consuming fire. These promises are urgent. and apply to us today, to you. God has worked a great salvation for his people. He has brought the greater glory. He has given his only begotten. He's made a place for his dwelling with man. Something that's not corruptible. The Greeks cannot reach him. The Romans can't defile this temple. It's an incorruptible temple, an undefilable temple, an eternal place where God's people can meet with Him, not just temporarily, not just on feast days, but forever. We're looking at heavenly things. I was reading a little bit from John Bunyan, and said, we don't stop at the cross. At the cross we're justified, yes. But we look where Christ is now, and we see him dressed in great glory. There we see him as the mediator, as the one who intercedes, the one who brings us to the great glory as the eternal life. that we have in him. Do not neglect this. Do not harden your hearts against this. The author of Hebrews is urgent. that we have soft hearts and be pursuing Christ and be pursuing and growing in the knowledge of Christ, that we not become callous to this, because how can we escape? If we neglect the Son of God, this God who is a consuming fire that is holy and whose presence we ought not to dwell by our very nature. If we ignore him, if we turn our backs on his Son, and choose instead the treasures of this world, pleasures that last only for a season. If we choose Egypt, how can we escape his judgment? We look at the golden jewels. We look at the baubles. We look at the shiny things. We look at the physical. But God has given us something of inestimably higher value. his blessed presence in his own beloved son. And in his presence, there is fullness of joy. Let's pray. Oh Lord, we thank you for Jesus Christ, the perfect one, the incorruptible one, the one who cannot be destroyed or taken away, his kingdom that cannot be exiled. by Nebuchadnezzar, the Assyrians, or any other empire. Temple that cannot be desecrated by Greeks and Romans and idol worshipers. Lord, we thank you. We thank you that the greater, that the latter glory of this house is far, far greater than the former. Not just a physical place, God himself with us, even dwelling in us. Oh Lord, we thank you. Help us to understand at least a little bit, a little edge, a little corner of these great truths, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.