Well, the book of Haggai, or it is also pronounced, as Pastor Brown said, Haggai, either one is acceptable. So if you'll turn back there, we want to continue this short series that we're doing in this small book that we have entitled Consider Your Ways. Consider Your Ways. We began last time by stating that This small book is important, and the prophet Haggai was important because, first of all, he was the first prophet in the post-exilic period after that 70 years of captivity through whom the Lord spoke. And so God gives his message through Haggai, and of course uses others along with him to rebuild the temple in God's house that we find is the central focal point of his emphasis and his message. We also see that it is through his preaching that this temple is completed. And through his exhortation, once again, The central focal point which should have been part of Israel's existence was once again part of their lives as he preaches and he delivers God's message to them. The book consists of four messages and it centers around that word or that phrase in the word consider or consider your ways. The word consider in the Hebrew is the word sum. It is an imperative, which means that it is not a request. God is not preaching through or speaking through Haggai and saying, here's what you need to tell them that is an option for them. This is something that might be good for them. He's saying, this is a command. And all four messages begin with that word, consider. And it is the idea that we are to examine, study, reflect carefully and introspectively into the heart. Oftentimes we are very good, as were these people in Israel, we are very good at inspecting others, but introspection is a different thing. And this is one of the reasons why they had lacked or that they had fallen in their purpose of doing what? Building and centering their lives once again around God himself and that which represented his presence, which was the temple. There's many lessons for the modern reader. There are many principles for which we can learn. One of the first message that we looked at, and I don't want to re-preach it, but the first message that we find in verses three through five is consider your purpose. Consider your purpose. Again, human nature tends to do what? It tends to distract us from God's overall purpose. In other words, folks, we often have struggles with remembering or understanding the big picture. We can get so caught up in our life and our lifestyles, as was the case here, in the minutia of life, in our own things, our own schedules, our own ways, that we don't take time to consider the purpose for which God places us here. We will never be able to do anything effectively for God if we forget this. I mentioned to you that as a part of this understanding of our purpose, God has worked with me personally in the last several months on understanding this personally in my own life. And I mentioned to you and we kind of based this first message on what God has been doing in my heart as far as understanding my overall purpose. And it fits well with what we find in the present situation as Haggai records it and indeed the history of Israel itself. But God gave me a personal purpose statement and it goes like this. My purpose is to love God supremely, to learn and live His word consistently, to advance His kingdom diligently, and to serve others humbly. That is what God has given me and I've taken that and applied it here to Israel because this is exactly what they missed. They had forgotten that God was over all and that He was to be loved supremely above everything else. They had no problem loving themselves or their things. You note in the verses that were read in our hearing, in verse 4, He says, Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your sealed houses, and this house lie waste? They had loved their lifestyle and their living and their things. And do not misunderstand, a lot of these things are necessary for life and they're not wrong in and of themselves, but they are if they become idols. The word sealed is, again, the idea of fancy paneling or woodwork, and it's used, I think, in a symbolic way here. God is basically saying this. You have prepared your houses and your things, and you have nice places, but I do not have a place to dwell. You've let it lie waste. What a lesson that is for us. Why could they, or how could they do this? Was not God central in their lives or was he not supposed to be? Yes, but they had forgotten their purpose. They were supposed to love him supremely, to learn and live his word consistently. They had been given the law and in that law was the message of redemption and yet they'd forgotten it. And the history of this nation is replete with the fact that they had forgotten God's law. I was reading in my Bible reading the other day in the book of 2 Kings, and I was reading about one of the exceptions to the rule, so to speak, of the kings, and that was good king Josiah. And it's very interesting to me. Every time I read it, I'm amazed. But every time I read that section, Here they go and they go into the house of God, the temple, they start cleaning up. That's of course before this one is restored. But they had let it go to pot as well. And the guy comes back and said, hey king, we've discovered something interesting. We've discovered the word of God. He comes and he reads it and immediately it causes conviction upon Josiah and he sets out and he does a lot of reform in the kingdom of Judah. But it always strikes me, where did they think that it was? Why did they have to go and find it and blow the dust off of it and say, oh, this is God's word. We should be reading it. We should be heeding it. And in fact, we should be living what it tells us. But that's exactly what happened. We, again, will never, listen to me this morning, folks. You and I, individually and corporately, will never ever have revival apart from a consistency in God's Word. It will never happen. And yet we try to do that. We try to live our lives and we'll say, well, I'll get around to it. Or it has a place in my life sometimes. My friends, it needs to have a place in our heart and our life every day. Every day. Something Israel didn't learn. To advance his kingdom diligently, what were they here for? They were to be testimonies before God. They were supposed to be those that others around them would look at and say, God is doing a special work in them. There is something unique about them. That's why he gave them all of those interesting laws in the book of Leviticus and elsewhere. It wasn't just to keep them busy. It was not God's busy work for Israel. It was there so that others would know that here is the God, the true God, that is working through them. There must be something to it. To advance his kingdom diligently. What are we doing to do that? What are you as an individual doing to advance his kingdom diligently? Don't ever wait for a church program to advance his kingdom. You and I are to be doing it as soldiers in the army of God. What are you doing to advance his kingdom? and to serve others humbly. They became very haughty and proud. It was all about themselves. And we see where that led. It led to a group that eventually arose out of the children of Israel by Christ's time that were known for the externals. They were known for the things that they tried to dress up outwardly, but inside, as our Lord would say, you are full of dead men's bones, the Pharisees. And I would submit to you again this morning that oftentimes our problem that we have is Pharisaism because we're very good at dressing up the outside but God knows the heart. And we had better do some introspection. We had better, folks, listen to me this morning, we had better consider our ways. We'd better consider our ways. The second message takes place in verses 7 down through verse 15. The second message is this. Consider your priorities. Consider your priorities. This is right where we live. And no matter what age we find ourselves, you and I struggle oftentimes with our priorities. And as children of God in particular, we struggle oftentimes and the warfare is ongoing where we struggle with what? Keeping God in first place. Keeping Christ enthroned upon our heart where he needs to be. And certainly Israel is a prime example of those who definitely struggled with this. Again, I believe that that's why God has preserved all of these accounts in the Old Testament. One of the reasons, and again, Paul reminds us, you know the verse, he says, these things were written aforetime and they were written for our learning. They've been preserved so that we will oftentimes know what to do and more often than not, what not to do. As we see Israel's history unfold before us, Consider your priorities. What, child of God, today is not only your purpose, but if you had to stand before God and give an account, and you had to do it honestly and with integrity, what would be your priority? Or we could ask it this way, who is your priority? For again, Israel certainly was not God. What was the message of Haggai? Why did God bring him on the scene? Because again, their purpose was missed long ago, but that also affected their priorities. They were so busy about themselves and their daily task and their occupations and their lifestyles. Again, some of those things were not wrong in themselves, but when God takes a back seat, it becomes sin. And that's exactly what happened. Their priorities. Their priorities. And so what do we find here? They lost that purpose. And so they lost their priority. God was to be the center of their lives. In fact, it's very interesting. If you look back upon Israel's history, and they were supposed to know this, there was a prescribed setup, if you will, for the children of Israel when they were actually going to the promised land and during their wilderness wanderings. I do not think it was an accident that in the very center of the camp in which God had prescribed and they were supposed to encamp all around in specific places, at the very center of all of that was what? The tabernacle. I don't think that that was necessarily a coincidence. I think the idea was this, is that at the center of your very existence is God. Is God. You know, it's interesting, too, that down through history we can see that there is, there was this idea back many, many hundreds of years ago. You can go back into colonial America, even, And you'll find that in the colonial days in the small towns and hamlets, when they were first built, one of the first things that they would build, in fact, the pilgrims, those groups that came over in the 17th century, one of the first things that they built was an assembly house. And it was as if everything was centered around that. Or later on, the church or the church building itself was that which was the center of that village and it was the most important building of the community. It's not that way anymore. The buildings in our communities now that have the most consistent attendance oftentimes are the fitness centers. The ones that have the most cars parked out in front of them are those places. No longer is the church central. And I believe part of it is because, again, let's apply it to our own nation. But America's forgot its purpose, and thus America's forgot its priorities. But let's take this down even further. We cannot simply look outward and say, yeah, Pastor, you are right. You are absolutely correct in the fact that our nation, this is exactly where we are, and this is exactly the message we need. Wait a minute, let's consider our ways. In other words, let's bring it down even further into our own individual heart and life. While we can certainly apply this and observe that this is a national problem and international issue, listen, where is our heart? Where is our priorities, Christian? Can I ask you a question? And I must ask this of myself. Is God, is Christ central in my life? Is He? Everything I do, everything I say, well, he must be. He must be central. Again, the people looked only to themselves and their needs. Again, look at verse 9. He says, ye looked for much, and lo, it came to little. And when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. That's very, again, symbolic language there. He says, you are gathering unto yourself all of these things. Even back then, we find that there were those in the nation of Israel that had a very consumer, materialistic mentality. And as long as they had these goods and these things that were coming into their life, everything was okay. Human nature hasn't changed a whole lot, has it? Again, I think sometimes we are that way. Our Lord condemns that. In fact, there was one church that was an example of this. He says, you better be warned. He says, those who have this materialistic idea, those that only think of themselves, he says, spiritually speaking, he says to the church at Laodicea, he says, you don't realize, spiritually speaking, that you are miserable and poor and blind and naked. Don't even realize it. We can go so far in forgetting our priorities, in setting God aside that it comes upon us so subtly, and that reveals how apathetic we really are. It happened to God's own, His chosen, His elect. Can it happen to us? It sure can. It sure can. We had better consider our ways. What is your priorities? What are your priorities? Who is your priorities? But Haggai is faithful. He preaches this message. He says, you consider it. And again, that word is an imperative. And it could be rendered, you consider this. It is a command. And my friends, again, that is what God is doing today. He's saying, you consider this. What are your priorities? Listen, you want your home to be right? You want your marriage to be right? You want your church to be right? You better have God in his proper place. Otherwise it will not work. There was a, by the way, can I get just a little grunt, okay, this morning? Okay, thank you, all right. Look, there was a king who wrote about this. I think he did it reflecting in his older years, perhaps, even who preceded this time period, and it was King Solomon. who after going through all of these, this philosophical meandering and trying to figure out what is life, he tried to gather unto himself all of these things and things and property and pleasure became priority to him. But he comes away and at the end of all of it he says, you know what, the life is very simple. It is to love God and keep His commandments. There was his philosophy. It was his purpose and he remembered his priorities. We have a hard time with that. It is a daily struggle. And you know what? Even the great apostle Paul admits this. When Paul writes, and we use this phrase and sometimes out of context, but Paul writes about the fact that he had to die daily. He had to die daily to this old flesh. Yes, he was a new creature in Christ. Old things are passed away, all things have become new. He is a new man. However, there's one thing that he still has and he battles with on a daily basis, and it won't be eradicated until he sees the Lord, and that's his old flesh. And you know what? You and I still battle that ourselves every day. We have to put self in its place. And we, as a good soldier, cannot be entangled with the affairs of this life. And so every day we do what? We report to the commander and we say, what are my duties today, sir? And we keep him first. You know what's going to happen when we do that? We will find that everything else will fall into place. What does the verse say? I shared this with the teens this morning. A verse that I hear over and over again, and whenever I hear it and think about it, I always hear my mother's voice. And the reason why, she quoted it to me quite often. As I was struggling with many things as a young teen and a young boy, she would quote this verse over and over, and it has to do with priorities. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all of these things will be added unto you. We know that, but do we live it? But do we live it? Maybe the fact is that you as a child of God are miserable today because Christ is not the center of your existence. And for the child of God, if he is not, then life is designed to be a miserable experience. You say, how do you know that? Because I have experienced it personally. Have you? Have you had those times? where God is not central, other things are important, other things take our time and our attention, and we're miserable. You say, I'm a child of God, but I still am not happy. Why? Maybe because he's not central. Maybe because he hasn't had the attention that he needs. But again, what does the prophet do? He faithfully preaches. It's a difficult message. It is not one I'm sure that the people wanted to hear. Who wants to hear that we're self-centered? That's hard. And in fact, I would say this, I admire all of these prophets of the Old Testament because the message that God said, you go deliver, they were hard and they were difficult and it was unpleasant. But I admire these men because they did it faithfully anyway. And some of them did have a whole lot to show for it. And there's a lesson in and of itself, by the way, folks, that we don't do it for the results. We leave that up to God. All he requires of us is to remain faithful. That's not always easy. We like to see results, don't we? We like to see the result of our work, of the things that we've done. I don't know about you, but I like to see things accomplished. We don't always see that in the work of God. But here he was faithful. And notice what happens here. Again, well, let me back up and look at that last sentence in verse 9 again. He says, this is what's happened. because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house." Again, what's he saying? Very simple. Very straightforward. He is saying, here's my house, the place that was to be central, the place that was to be the lifeblood, as it were, of your whole life and existence. And it's not a priority. It's not a priority. I think sometimes we are afraid in our priorities that the church is going to ask us to do too much. Look, we have the philosophy here that we don't have an event every night of the week because we understand how important family life is. We don't have events going on continually because of that very thing. But listen to me. Church, for every one of us, needs to be a priority. Worship in God's house needs to be a priority. Can I just say this once again? Those of you who have been here for a number of years, you've heard me give this exhortation, but I feel compelled to do it again. If you, as a parent, do not put a priority on the house of God, your children never will. Ever. If, let's take it one step further, if they see mom and dad and or hear mom and dad who have nothing but negative things to say about the pastor, the assistant pastor, the deacons, the leadership, and others, they will never see how good God's house can really be. It'll never happen. If you diet on roast preacher every Sunday, they will continue to diet upon that continually as they grow older. There's not a doubt about it. It should be, and I know this is hard because I've had little ones too, okay? And it seemed like if anything was gonna go wrong, what day of the week did it go wrong? Sunday morning. The kids could be good all week and then Sunday morning an east wind would blow and it would blow through that home and everything would go wrong, right? I don't think that's an accident. I think Satan sometimes likes to do that, doesn't he? Because He wants to keep us from doing what we're supposed to do. But parents, you have a lot of control over the attitude. And by the way, your attitude always determines your blessings. If you come to church with the doldrums, you will not get anything. If you go to church and say, I am going to look for one thing, one principle, one nugget, one thing that God can speak to me, and I'm going to consider my ways, He'll give it to you. And so on Sunday mornings, parents, it should be, hey, we get to go to church this morning. Not, all right kids, get in the car as quick as you can, let's go. And hopefully we'll be on time. and maybe the pastor will notice. And hopefully he won't be too long today because I'm really hungry. Never mind that we could watch sports events for three or three and a half to four hours and not blink an eye. Look, again those things They're not wrong, it's just where are our priorities? Where's your priority, parents? Is it upon the house of God? If they see mom and dad and they have a love for the Word, they'll love the Word. And by the way, they should see you in the Word. One of the precious possessions I now have is I have both my mom's and my dad's Bibles. What a treasure. And they are full of markings and notes and things that they learned over the years. But I saw both my mother and my father in the word. And it was a constant reminders to me about the word. Parents don't just give correction, give the words of life to your children. And grandparents, you have a responsibility as well now to your grandchildren. Look, can I just say this? And I say this because I'm getting close to that senior age, so don't get mad with me. But as you grow older, don't become old and crotchety. You know what your grandchildren should see? They should see an older senior saint who is still happy in the Lord. And who has Christ in his life still. After all of these years, he still is priority one in my life. And I love it. and I enjoy it and I want you to grow up the same way. That's what we need to do as grandparents. Is that always easy? No, it's not. Just as it was not easy for the children of Israel. We're sometimes very hasty in judging them, but we're exactly the same way. What happened here? He preached and there was a response. There was a response, look at verse 12. He's then Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Josedek, the high priest with all the remnant of the people. And what's that next word? Obeyed the voice of the Lord their God and the words of Haggai the prophet. They obeyed. It's not enough to come into God's house and have that a priority and just sit soaking sour. We have to do something with what we hear. And what do we do? When the Holy Spirit comes and He does give you that nugget or that principle, we obey. If He convicts, we obey. If we go to God's house, We come into God's Word on a daily basis and we simply read it and go through the motions. We come here, we go through the motions. It is a waste of time. And it becomes of no value. Look, we have to put feet to what we know. We have to obey what He tells us. It is not obeying the pastor. or the associate pastor. It is obeying God's word. What is he telling us to do? What is he telling us to do? We see also that there was, well, let me finish that verse before I go on. So they obeyed the voice of the Lord, the words, and Haggai the prophet, as their Lord, their God had sent them, and the people did fear before the Lord. Notice how that accompanies the obedience. The fear of God, boy, that's a whole different subject. That's a whole very complex subject, if you will. The fear of God, what is it involved in? It always involves love, reverence, and submission. Those three elements together are the biblical admonition to fear him. And listen, if we truly fear God with that love, that reverence and submission, it will always in our own life and potentially the lives of many more, it will always lead to revival. Always. And that's what happened here. The people feared. They obeyed. And what happened? They begin, as we will see, they begin to build. This was around 520 B.C. that Haggai comes and delivers these messages. And by the year 520, excuse me, 520, he delivers these messages. By 515 BC, the temple is once again rebuilt. That does not mean that everything was going to be okay, now we got a new building, we're gonna be all right, no. They still had to keep God central where? Not just in the physical location. but in their heart. Some did it and some didn't as the history unfolds and as we can view it. But again, what is your priority? Who is your priority? Our Lord addresses this again in the Gospels. Not only that verse I shared with you in the Sermon on the Mount, but there's some other verses that, again, every time we read them, I think they make us cringe a little bit. Our Lord says this, and I'm paraphrasing. He says, those who really want to be my followers, and you do not hate your father, your brother, your mother, your sister, you cannot be my disciple. Those verses make us recoil a little bit, don't they? But I think it's because we don't understand the intent and the emphasis of our Lord. He was not saying that we have to have a violent hatred towards others. That's not what the gospel is all about. What he is saying is he's saying in comparison and in priority. the love that you have for me compared to the love for even your family. That is hard. That is tough, almost to the point we almost can't relate to this. But he says it needs to be there. Your love for me should be so intense and so important that in comparison, That is a tough thing. And so if that's the case, again, I would ask this of all of us as children of God today. Where is our priorities? Where are they in the whole scheme of our daily lives, in the busy schedules? Israel was running to their own priorities, their own places, in fact, their own houses. They were safe. that were, at least they thought so, they were secure, or at least they had the mindset that they were. But spiritually speaking, they were far from it. What is our priority, but more importantly, who is our priority? I cannot answer that for you today, Christian. I cannot look into the recesses or the corners of your heart. Your spouse cannot do that either. Your friends, your co-workers, your family members cannot. No one, no human has the capability, but there is one person who knows it, and that's the Lord Himself. We think that we can, and oftentimes we do, fool others. Everything is okay. I've got everything lined up. All my ducks are in a row. When God knows, He sees and He examines our hearts. Maybe it's time this morning, Christian, that we consider our ways. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for Your reminders, we thank you for that which you have preserved so that we may learn. And Lord, we would ask today that you would forgive us for not keeping you first. Lord, we know that even your chosen people had difficulties. And Lord, in their hearts, oftentimes it was very self-centered, as it is with us. And I would pray this morning, oh Father, that you would forgive us for these times in our lives where we are inwardly focused upon our wants and our needs. And Lord, we're not focused upon you and keeping you in first place. Oh Lord, forgive us for the times in which the temporal things, though often necessary, have become idols of the heart. Lord, forgive us for these things. And Lord, I would pray that in this preacher's life, and Lord, in the life of others here this morning, that you would send us revival. And Lord, that can only happen when we're considering our ways, when we're looking at our priorities. Indeed, Lord, help us this morning to seek first and foremost your kingdom. And, Lord, you have given us the promise, and we trust you for it, that you'll add all the things that are needful and necessary. So, Lord, I pray that as we close this time together, Lord, that Thy Holy Spirit would come, that He would convict, and that when He does, we would listen, and that we would obey, and that we would fear You. Do Your work in our hearts, we pray, in Jesus' name.