Please turn in your Bibles to Haggai 2, 20 to 23. This is the fourth and final message in the book of the prophet Haggai. Let's remember where we are. At 586 BC, the southern kingdom Judah was carried off into captivity to Babylon. 538 B.C., nearly 50 years later, they began to return, the first wave of former exiles returned. By 520, the year that Haggai is prophesying, The temple had not yet been rebuilt. They had started the foundation and they had begun to offer sacrifices, so they had built the altar, but they had not yet completed the temple, even though they had built their houses and even paneled their houses. And so what Haggai has been addressing first was their priorities. Why were their houses built and God's house hasn't been built? Then he dealt in chapter two with their despondency because what they were building seemed inconsequential compared to the temple that preceded it, that is Solomon's temple. And then a third of his prophecies, he dealt with their motives. They were now doing the right thing, but were they doing it for the wrong reasons? And so he addressed matters of the heart so that what they were doing and why they were doing it would all be consistent one with the other. And now we have this final word of encouragement to these former exiles who are now back in the promised land. So how does he encourage them? Well, he's going to cast a vision for the future. In other words, he's going to impart an eschatological perspective. Eschatology is important. You know, it was extremely important in the circles that I grew up in. And then it became far less important as I grew older. And then I began to see again that the broad outlines of your eschatological perspective make a big difference in how you go about the work of the kingdom. That is, what do you think is the ultimate aim or goal or result? What will be the fruit of our labor as we look ahead and anticipate the completion of the work that God has called us to be engaged in? And their view is, There's so few of us that are back in the promised land, and our work, it just seems so meager, especially compared to what preceded it in Solomon's temple. We don't have the gold and the silver and all that adorned the temple. And so they're struggling with whether or not they're really going to make any difference at all. Is what they're doing really consequential? Or are they just, by and large, at best, not going to make very much difference? And Haggai's contemporary, who is also addressing these same exiles, Zephaniah, chapter 4, verse 10, urges them not to despise the day of small things. Now that was a great word. Don't despise the day of small things, small beginnings, small progress. The grain of a mustard seed, that thing will grow. Don't lose heart, don't become discouraged. Because at the moment we seem so few, we seem so small, we seem to be not making any impact, we seem to be making no progress. And so this word of encouragement comes to those who are tempted to be discouraged in their outlook. So he takes them to the end of things. What will it be in the end? And his answer is, number one, your enemies are going to be defeated. Number two, you will be saved. All right, so let's take those in order. Your enemies will be defeated. Verse 20. The word of the Lord came a second time to Haggai on the 24th day of the month. So that's December 24th, 520 BC. Speak to Zerubbabel. So Zerubbabel is the governor. He is the secular, as it were, non-religious or political leader of the country, a better said political leader. We find him in Matthew 1, verses 10 through 12. uh... the genealogy with which matthew begins his his gospel and uh... what it says there that after the deportation to babylon that's the exile uh... jaconia the last of the judas kings was the father of sheltiel, sheltiel was the father of zerubbabel so he's in the direct davidic line and then as matthew continues to trace down to verse sixteen of his first chapter Then comes Joseph and Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is the Christ. So Zerubbabel stands in this genealogical line. It goes back to Adam, that line that passes through David and the Davidic monarchs, to Hezekiah, to Jeconiah, then to Zerubbabel, and then to Christ himself. In other words, he's the son of David. That's the important thing that we need to return to again and again as we're working our way through this passage. The Zerubbabel is a direct ancestor of Jesus. And so the implication is all that is promised here is going to be fulfilled through a son of David. So continuing, speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I'm about to shake the heavens and the earth and to overthrow the throne of kingdoms. I am about to destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations and overthrow the chariots and their riders and the horses and the riders shall go down, every one of them, by the sword of his brother. On that day, declares the Lord of hosts, I will take you, O Zerubbabel, my servant." He doesn't call him a king. He doesn't at this point even call him governor. Governor was just an honorific title. Besides, probably he never had much authority to begin with anyway. Son of Sheltiel declares the Lord, and I will make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you. So my servant, that's a messianic title, repeatedly used in Isaiah 40 through 53, which Haggai would have known, which the exiles would have known. chosen. That's also a messianic title, Isaiah 52 verse 1. And so ultimately what's being promised here is going to be fulfilled in Zerubbabel as a son of David, as in the Davidic line, but also it points beyond Zerubbabel to that which God is going to do with finality in Christ. In other words, Zerubbabel is a kind of anti-type, he's an anticipation. of what God will do, which he does on a smaller scale with Zerubbabel, but which he will do on a grand scale in Christ. So how is this work of defeating enemies and saving Israel, how is that going to take place? Number one, by divine action, and number two, by human agency. So let's go back up then to verse 21. The word I, God speaking, is repeated four times from verses 21 through 23. Three verses, four times, something is being emphasized here, something is being underscored, what God is going to do. Verse 21, I am about to shake the heavens and the earth. Verse 22, I am about to destroy kingdoms. I am about to to destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations. Verse 23, I will take you, O Zerubbabel. The end of verse 23, I have chosen you, declared the Lord of hosts, meaning the Lord of armies. What is God going to do? He's going to shake the heavens and the earth. Back up to verse 21. In other words, he's going to do this thing that's of cosmic proportions. And in verse 22, I'm going to overthrow the throne of kingdoms. In other words, I'm going to overthrow the political powers that are arrayed against you. I'm about to destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations. So I'm going to overthrow the political power that is in opposition to you and I'm going to overthrow what represents the military powers and overthrow the chariots and their riders and the horses and their riders shall go down every one by the sword of his brother. So it's the political power and the military power. And the terminology that's being used is rich in biblical past in that the word overthrow is used five times of Sodom and Gomorrah. The word destroy echoes the Exodus. The word strength is used three times of the Exodus. Go down, I'm going to overthrow the chariots and their riders. That is used explicitly in Exodus 15, 1 through 5 of the Pharaoh's army being overwhelmed as the Red Sea collapsed upon them. So what God is saying to Zerubbabel and to the exiles who have returned to the Promised Land is, as I dealt with Sodom and Gomorrah and as I dealt with Pharaoh and Egypt, I am going to deal with your enemies in much the same way. In December of 1941, The outlook was very, very dark for the Allies. Hitler had overwhelmed all of Western and Central Europe. His armies had overwhelmed Belarus and Ukraine and Western Russia. All of that, the land of the former Soviet Union, a geographic area as large as Western Europe itself. The British had been defeated at Norway, in Greece, and in Crete, and their army at Dunkirk, of course, had been driven off of the continent. On December 7, the American Pacific Fleet was sitting at the bottom of Pearl Harbor. The British, again, early in 1942, they were being chased all over North Africa by Rommel. Singapore, the Gibraltar of the East, had been overtaken by the Japanese. Australia and New Zealand, part of the British Empire, were at risk. But once the United States declared war on Germany and on Japan, Churchill said he never again doubted but that they would be victorious. Churchill said he had no more dark days. He was confident that victory would be certain. His outlook was utterly transformed because the Americans had entered the war with all of their industrial might and the size of the population and the determination they brought into the war. Never doubted again. In other words, the certainty of victory utterly transformed his outlook. That's the point. And that is the point that God is making with his people, ancient and today. Victory is assured. You are on the winning side. Your enemies will be defeated. All of Christ's enemies will be placed under his feet. 1 Corinthians 15 25, Jesus will return like a thief in the night and he will subdue his enemies. Revelation 6 15 through 16 says that the people will be crying out for the rocks and the hills to fall on us, they will say, to hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. That would be the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and everyone. have allied themselves in opposition to God, they will be defeated. And Revelation 19 pictures a lake of fire into which the devil and all of the supernatural powers of evil and all those who were the followers of that evil shall be cast in. And so the people of God ought not to be discouraged. Why? Because the defeat of our enemies is promised. Now, I think if you look at the last 100 years or so, I think there's every reason to be discouraged as the people of God. In fact, I was lengthening the time frame for the inquirer's class this morning. I think you really need to go back 200 years, at least 200 years. That should be our frame of reference. You look at the influence of Christianity over the last 200 years and watched it shrink one step at a time in the West. the influence, as measured by the influence of Christian thought, say, in the media, in the moral outlook of the people, in the universities, in all of the, you know, the institutions of power, in the corporations, and popular culture, and, you know, everywhere you look, in every direction that you look, you can see that the trajectory is one that is very discouraging for the people of God, as might have been the outlook for Zerubbabel and the people of God then. We are just a few. The faithful, they seem to be fewer and fewer a number. Fewer and fewer people agree with us. More and more seem to be against us and don't think as we think and don't hold to the convictions that we hold. who are in fact angered about our religious absolutism and our moral code and our traditional beliefs and outlooks that we believe we find in the Bible. And so there's every reason to be discouraged when we look around at the world around us and see that the influence that the church had had, it is waning, it is shrinking. And yet the promise here is, no, that God is going to defeat our enemies. And notice again the parana, I am about to shake the heavens and the earth. God has power that extends to cosmic proportions. And there's no one that can thwart his purposes. There's no one that can restrain him. There's no one who can stay his hand. And he is promising, your enemies, the enemies of God and the enemies of the people of God, they will be defeated. Whatever might be the appearance of things today, they will be defeated. And then secondly, just interestingly, he also points to human agency. And so at the end of verse 22, the horses and the riders shall go down, everyone by the sword of his brother. So it's rather typically God does not necessarily act directly, but providentially he acts through human agents. So it's by the sword of his brother that he's going to act in cosmic proportions to overthrow the political and military power of those who are opposed to the people of God. And it really indicates two things. One, that there's this self-destructive element in evil itself. Sin and evil can only be indulged for so long. Eventually, the enemies of the people of God turn on each other. Eventually, evil has within itself implicitly this self-destructive element, and God uses evil in order to destroy evil. The war against God and reality can only be successful for so long. It can only ever be victorious temporarily. So if you don't have any oil in your car and you turn the key and you start heading down the street, you'll make some progress. Not long. It won't take long. You'll make some progress. And during that time, you may think everything is just fine. Everything is operating wonderfully. I'm just journeying down the road. But it will very quickly burn up. But between the position between when you started the engine and when the engine burned up, you might think, well, things are just fine. That's the way it is in the world. People will get along in war against God and war against the people of God. They will only thrive for so long. And then the engine will burn up. so that the writer of the Hebrews can speak of the passing pleasures of sin, to which we can add the passing profits of sin. They're all short-lived, so you can only abuse alcohol and drugs and people for so long, and then it catches up to you, and it contains within itself its own destruction. You can only cheat and lie and steal profit by that for so long and then eventually you're going to sow the seeds of your own destruction. You can only indulge a gluttony or perversion or indolence or materialism for so long and then eventually the idols consume the idolaters. And so he envisions here everyone will go down." How? By the sword of his brother. Evil turning on evil and destroying itself. So one, it has this self-destructive element to it, but then also we need to see the providence of God in this. In Isaiah chapter 10 verses 5 and 6, there God refers to Assyria as the rod of my anger. So Assyria was being used by God to destroy nations. But there were limits on that. And Assyria was going to come down and threaten Judah, and then God was going to turn it back up. He likens Assyria to a rod. Assyria was a very, very evil empire, Assyrian empire. It's a rod. What's a rod? A rod is an inanimate object. It is as a rod in the hand of God. That's how God overrules providentially human history. It is like a rod in his hand. He uses it for his purpose. And then in Isaiah 37, it's like God riding this horse. He then puts the bit back in the mouth and turns it back up where it came from. Habakkuk chapter one, the prophet complains about all the evil that was going on in Judah. the southern kingdom. He complains about various evils that were current at that time, and then God answers him, Habakkuk 1 verses 5 through 11. He says, right, so I'm going to bring down the Chaldeans, that is the Babylonians, and I'm going to use them to destroy the southern kingdom Judah. And this throws Habakkuk into a crisis. He cannot understand this. He says, how can you use, you who are a holy God, how is it that you can use the evil Babylonians, who are more evil than Judah is, how can you use those who are more evil to destroy those who are less evil? And the answer that God gives is that the just shall live by faith. You just have to trust me that I know what I'm doing, but this is what God does at times. He will take evil to destroy evil, even take more evil to destroy those who are less evil, because the evil in itself needs to be destroyed. And so God is going to overrule providentially. In Isaiah 44, God refers to the Persian King Cyrus as my shepherd, my anointed, a pagan king, as God rules the nations, providentially determining the direction that history is going. And so what is the word of comfort for us today as it was then? I think the word of comfort is nobody gets away with anything in God's universe. There is a day of reckoning, a day that will come when all the wrongs will be set right, when justice will be established, when righteousness will reign, when evil will no longer run rampant through the world. All that will come to an end. The political power, the military power, all of it will be destroyed and the kingdom of God will be established. So number one, our enemies are going to be destroyed. Number two, God's people will be saved. So if you've caught what I've said already, when The enemies are destroyed. The flip side of that coin, as it were, is the salvation of his people. In other words, judgment is a two-sided event. The enemies of God and the people of God are destroyed. At the same time, that is a saving event for the people of God. So for example, when Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, Lot's family was saved. In the Exodus, God visited the plagues, the judgments upon upon Egypt, but the people of God, the Hebrew people, they were delivered. So what is at the same time a judgment event is also a saving event. And so as the enemies of God's people are destroyed, it's the people of God who are being saved. Now listen to this, 2 Thessalonians 1, 7 through 9. The Apostle Paul there speaks of the Lord Jesus being revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, inflaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God, on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. He then speaks of the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might when he comes on that day to do what? To be glorified in his saints. So all this flaming fire, all that judgment language, vengeance, fire, destruction. The other side of the coin is, he's saving his people. He's going to be glorified in his saints on that day. So in verse 23, when we see on that day, that's eschatological language. What day is that? That's judgment day. That's the day of the Lord. And so there's an immediate event that's being referred to in Zerubbabel's day, but it looks beyond that to this ultimate and final salvation of the people of God as the enemies of God and his people are saved. And so it says in verse 23, O Zerubbabel, you leader of the exiles, my servant, I will make you as a signet ring. What's a signet ring? Well, it's a ring in which the royal stamp could be found and the king could stamp a document. Wax would be poured and put his stamp on it. So it's a seal of a document. It confirms royal authority. It guarantees the fulfillment of divine promises. And so Zerubbabel, as a member of the house of David, he is as they were in his person, is a signet ring, signifying, guaranteeing the judgment of the enemies of God and the salvation of the people of God. And so when God shakes the nations, if you look back at chapter two, verse seven, he's shaking them in order to draw out the treasures and glory from the nations of those who will be saved. 221, he's shaking the nations in judgment. Like I say, on a limited scale to Zerubbabel, but Zerubbabel is a type of Christ. He anticipates, he foreshadows what will come on the final day of judgment. What happens on a limited scale then will take place on an international and cosmic scale one day in Christ, and there will be a new Israel, and there will be a new people of God. So what does Zerubbabel represent? Well, in my newly acquired expertise regarding the Lord of the Rings, Zerubbabel is like the hobbits. He's just this weak, he's not even a king, he's just a weak little governor of a people that are surrounded and few in number and without power and building this pitiful little temple. He's also like Gandalf, he's like the hobbits in that weakness. Salvation of the world comes through the weakest Inhabitants of the universe, as it were, these little hobbits in weakness. Christ comes in weakness. He doesn't come in royal robes. He's not born in a temple. He's born in a barn, in a feeding trough. So he comes in weakness. Hobbits are weakness. Gandalf dies and is raised again. They're both Christ figures. Well, that's what Zerubbabel is. He's this type that anticipates there will be this immediate victory that takes place. The enemies will be defeated, you know, and it happened. So 500 years later, when Jesus is born, there's a Judah, a Judea. So they survived and they began to thrive and flourish. And when Jesus is born in Bethlehem, the Jews are in the land. And so the promise that they would be delivered from their enemies and that they would be saved, that was fulfilled. And 500 years later, when Jesus comes into the world, that's the sign that we have that the promise made to Zerubbabel was indeed fulfilled. Their enemies were defeated and they were saved. But ultimately, these promises will be fulfilled in Christ. In fact, 2 Corinthians 1.20, says that all the promises of God find their yes in him. And this is why it is through him that we utter our amen to God for his glory. And so there's one more, there's one more fulfillment of the promise made to Zerubbabel. And that will happen with the return of Christ. Again, there was an immediate fulfillment in the incarnation, the ministry, the death of Christ. But there's another day of reckoning coming in which Christ will return, and he will raise the dead, the trumpet will sound, the saints will be raptured, he will judge the world, and he will establish his eternal kingdom. And what will that look like? Well, Revelation 20 envisions a lake of fire, which we noted earlier, in which the devil and all forms of evil will be cast in and forever destroyed. Revelation 90, what's envisioned on that return of Christ is a supper, a feast, celebration. What's envisioned in chapter 21 of Revelation is God is with His people. That gets repeated over and over. That God will be with His people. He will dwell with them. They will dwell with Him. And as a result, there will be no more tears, and no more death, and no more mourning, and no more crying, and no more pain. And Christ Himself will say, behold, I am making all things new. So we should be encouraged as the people of God and not be those who despise the day of small things, small beginnings here in this little place in Savannah and little remnants of faithful people all over the globe. So the Bible's word to us is, be steadfast. We cited this last week, but I want to repeat it again. He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, what? Therefore, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that our labor is not in vain. We may be small, we may be despised, we may be rejected, we may be scorned and ridiculed as the people of God. They may reject our theology, they may reject our ethics, but be steadfast. Why? He gives us the victory, so continue to work, continue to pursue gospel work. At the end of Romans 8, we are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus. Well, you say, but I'm not seeing the conquest. That's right, we're not seeing it right now. But the conquest will come. Zerubbabel wasn't seeing it either right then. There was a lot more to endure. There were enemies to overcome before that first victory was accomplished. The disciples were expecting the conquest when Jesus came the first time. And they were very disappointed that a political kingdom wasn't established and the military mind of the Romans wasn't overcome. But they didn't understand God's timetable. But there is coming a final victory. And because that is inevitable, because that is irresistible, therefore, we go about the work of the kingdom. We don't despise the day of small things. We remain faithful and vigilant and energetically promoting the kingdom of God, knowing that in the end our enemies will be defeated. We will be saved and the kingdom of God will be established and he will reign forever and ever and ever as we pray together. Our Father in heaven, we rejoice, O Lord, in the coming day. that day when the kingdom will be consummated, when your enemies will be vanquished, when the devil will be destroyed, and there will be no more tears. we pray, our Father, that you would deliver us from despondency and discouragement as we see the downward spiral of our civilization into greater and greater decadence and ungodliness. Oh, that we would be faithful in Jesus' name,