I'm going to give you the dictionary.com definition of a word. I'm going to give it to you two times. You see if you can tell me what it is. All right, here we go. The cosmic principle, according to which each person is rewarded or punished in one incarnation, according to that person's deeds in the previous incarnation. Well, I don't even need to do it twice. Larry got it. The cosmic principle according to which each person is rewarded or punished in one incarnation according to that person's deeds in the previous incarnation. Yes, it's called karma. Now that's a principle of the Hindu faith. Christians don't believe in karma, right? Except I think sometimes we do. Not the incarnation part, you know, one incarnation into another. But I think we often hold the belief, the expectation, that if we do things right in this life, then life will go pretty well for us. Sometimes it takes on the incarnation of the prosperity gospel, promises of riches if we only believe. But other times we have, some people have called it the soft form of the prosperity gospel, that we may not think we're going to get rich, but we think we'll have a happy, comfortable, satisfying life where things generally go well. But then when things don't turn out that way, as things often do not, as many of you know that things don't often turn out that way, what happens to us? Well, I think we get confused, sometimes disappointed, frustrated, even fall into despair. And if you open your Bible, if you read your Bible, you should know you're not alone in that. I mean, this is what the whole book of Job is about. Job and his friends wondering, why have these things happened to you? Job's like, I know I don't deserve this. His friends say, oh yes, you must, or else it wouldn't be happening. All these trials. Just a couple of weeks ago, we were in Psalm 77. You remember the psalmist Asaph? Cries out to the Lord in the midst of trouble, and it doesn't get better. to the point that by the middle part of the psalm, he's questioning whether God even hears. Lord, have you forgotten to be gracious to me? I've done everything I'm supposed to do, and I'm still experiencing this trouble. Well then, last week, we were in another part of the Bible. We were in the prophecy of Haggai, Haggai chapter 1. This is where the Jews are coming home from their exile, coming home from Babylon, back to Jerusalem. They're rebuilding their temple. It's a new day. Optimism has sprung up. There's hope for the future because it seems like God's promises from long ago that He wouldn't leave them in exile forever, finally those promises are coming true. It's time to rebuild. Their homes are finished, but wait, what's happened to the temple? The work on the temple has stopped. There was local opposition, local enemies. These local enemies then bribed corrupt Persian officials. They misinformed the king, slandered the king that they were trying to rise up against the Persian king so that this misinformed king shuts down the work. And years pass, 15, 16 years pass, and no progress on the temple. But then, then the Word of the Lord comes to Haggai. Now, this is what prophets do. This is what we saw back in 1 Corinthians chapter 14. Prophets receive the word from the Lord and then they declare God's word that they've had revealed to them. They declare it to God's people. This is where I told you, if you remember in 1 Corinthians, I'm not a prophet. I don't receive God's words. And I don't declare God's words to you coming mediated through me to you. I stand up and teach the word of God that you already have. All right. This is the prophetic word that we have, which is reliable and trustworthy. You've got it already. It may be helpful. I trust it is helpful that he has gifted people to teach it, to explain it. But no, this is the direct word from Haggai to the people of Jerusalem who are frustrated and disappointed by the end of the work. Now, when the Word of the Lord comes, what you need to understand is that human opposition to the Word of the Lord is irrelevant. When God speaks, it does not matter what God's opponents say about that Word. God's message in Haggai 1 was, it's time to build. Time to get started again. Time for the people to hear, and the people do hear. The people obey. The Lord then stirs up their spirits, and the work begins again. All right, this is what obedience looks like. And so now, everything's gonna be just perfect. They all lived happily ever after. Except that's not what we see in chapter 2. In fact, you look at verse 1 here, in the seventh month, on the 21st day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet. This is the third time now that the word of the Lord has come to Haggai. And if you look at the dating, the months, and the days of the months, you can see it, in fact, on page seven, that chart in your bulletin. This is about seven weeks later, from August to October, according to our calendar. October 17th, as a matter of fact. Happy anniversary, dear. This is the day that the Word of the Lord came to Haggai. It's harvest season. The people have been busy. And so not a lot of work, it seems, has gotten done on the temple. Maybe they've had just enough time to clear out some of the rubble and organize the construction materials that they have for the next phase of the work. This day was near the end of a special feast in Israel's calendar, the Feast of Tabernacles. Do you remember what the Feast of Tabernacles was intended to remind them of? It was intended to remind them of how God brought them out of Egypt and how they lived in tents. They dwelt in tents for 40 years. In fact, even God's presence dwelt among them in their midst in a tent. And so during this Feast of Tabernacles, the people of Israel would live in tents for a few days. Well, this prophecy comes in the middle of that time when they were supposed to be building a temple. They're living in tents, and they're looking at this temple that they want to rebuild, and it's just a pile of rocks. And so after seven weeks, it seems that people are looking at this project and seeing what an immense project it will be and how little progress they've made, and their hopes begin to fade. Thousand years after they built, after that tabernacle, and they're going backwards. There's not even a tent for God to dwell amongst them anymore. And so it seems they're impatient. They're disappointed, and God sees this disappointment. Look at what God says when He speaks through Haggai here in verse 2, "'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?' Now, if you want to read Ezra 3 sometime, a different book, Ezra 3 describes kind of the same time period. It's a little broader than what we have in Haggai, tells more of the story. But Ezra 3 reflects this same story. In fact, a few years earlier, when they had rebuilt the foundation of the temple, And when they rebuilt the altar before the work stopped, it's now restarted. Back then, 15, 16 years previously, there were shouts of joy at the work that had begun in rebuilding the altar, in rebuilding the foundation of the temple. Shouts of joy, but there were some old men there, old enough to remember the former glory of Solomon's temple before it had been destroyed. And those old men seeing the work beginning again, they wept. So that Ezra says that the sound of the weeping and the sound of the shouts of joy, you couldn't tell what was what. There was so much joy and so much grief at the same thing. They're looking at the same thing with two vastly different perspectives, some of hope and some of crushed hopes, disappointments, so that they could not tell the difference. So now in this moment, years later, when there's not even any progress, after that time of grief, Israel needs encouragement from God. They need to know that if they will be patient, their disappointment will evaporate someday. And in order to find this encouragement, they need God to speak. Now, what do we find in chapter two? Let me just give you a quick overview of chapter two. Follow along, I'm gonna move quickly. Verse one, the word of the Lord came. Verse two, the word of the Lord Haggai is to speak now and say. the beginning of verse four, yet now declares the Lord of hosts. Lord of hosts means the Lord who has invincible armies. Then in the middle of verse four, declares the Lord. Again, at the end of verse four, declares the Lord of hosts. Three times, just in that verse, God is reaffirming to them that these are His words through Haggai. Then, in verse 5, He reminds them of the covenant, His ancient words, that He had established with them back at their exodus from Egypt. This is the covenant God made with them in Exodus 19, 20, the Ten Commandments, the covenant that follows it. The covenant that they broke, and by breaking it, went into exile in the first place. God's reminding them that His promises aren't failing despite their failures. Verse 6, back in chapter 2 of Haggai, "...thus says the Lord of hosts." The end of verse 7, "...says the Lord of hosts." End of verse 8, "...declares the Lord of hosts." Beginning of verse 9, "...says the Lord of hosts." End of verse 9, "...declares the Lord of hosts." Now, is that needlessly redundant? It kind of seems that way, doesn't it? Why does God have to end every phrase He's speaking through Haggai with, says the Lord of hosts or declares the Lord of hosts? Well, it's redundant unless there's a point. And I don't think you'll be surprised that I think there is a point to all this. God wants it to be unavoidably clear to them that He is still speaking to them. He reaffirms His promises, and His promises will not fail. His work will be done, even if it's not on their time schedule, and they need not be disappointed. This is what God's people need to hear when we are disappointed, when we're impatient, when we're doubtful that things will turn out well. We need to hear from God. So friends, pause for just a moment. Ask yourself, what has disappointed you? What's disappointed you? What were some expectations from life that you had that haven't, at least not yet, panned out the way you thought? You thought you'd be married by now. Or you're married, but your spouse has not provided the perfect life you anticipated. Parenting has joys, but also lots of stress and frustration. The kids get older and the anxieties get bigger, don't they? Your career hasn't progressed the way you hope, maybe the way you deserve, neither has the money. You're past your prime physically, and you're facing the reality that there's things you love to do, things you wish you could do that you just can't do anymore. Facing the reality that there's stuff on your bucket list, that's never gonna get checked off. Maybe your church hasn't become all that you hoped for. There's something you experienced, enjoyed, benefited from in a previous church that you thought we'd have by now. You thought we'd own a building by now. You thought you'd have more close friends, more people your age, more people your kid's age. Shorter sermons. No, you didn't seriously believe that one. I know you didn't. But listen, when we dwell on those unmet expectations, our minds tend to drift, don't they, towards better days, towards days in the past when we had whatever it was that was so sweet to us, maybe so beneficial to us, when we were healthier, when we had some extra money, when the kids were little, when we were newlyweds. When you were in a church that was just right for that moment in your life, you felt like you really fit. When America was different, things now just aren't the way they used to be. And so you're not just disappointed, you're tempted to fear that the future will be even worse. This is an instinct that you're familiar with. I'm gonna name it, okay? This is the Make America Great Again instinct. Now, understand this. I'm not talking about one guy. I'm not interested in speaking about one guy. I'm talking about us. Because that guy put his finger on the pulse of American Christianity, and he read it. He read our fears, He read our frustrations, and He read our disappointments. And He figured out, didn't He, how to speak to those fears and how to gain a following that leverages fears. Friends, I'm here to tell you that MAGA is a cheap substitute for what God promises. It's like you want Coke, but you go to a party and somebody brought like the Big Lots knockoff version of Coke. and it's stale, right? That's what make America great again is. I'm all for America being a great country that honors the Lord and fears Him, okay? I'm for it becoming that more and more. But our hopes are not in the past. The problem with it, the problem with that mindset is that it sets its sights way too low. God promises something far better. Yeah, the Bible tells us to remember the past, but never to be satisfied in the past. You know, Haggai says, you're trying to fill a bag full of holes, and it's all slipping out because you're focused on your experience, your desires, your prosperity. We look back to the past, not because those days were better, not because they're the good old days that we're trying to get back to, no, because the past is evidence, it contains evidence of God's promises, that He keeps His promises, that He never fails. So friends, what we need to realize as 21st century American Christians is that the best days aren't behind us. Our best days are on the horizon. We better learn to look forward, way far forward, not back. And that means we need to answer a simple question. Do we trust God's faithfulness? If not, we'll be looking back, longing for old days, trying to rebuild the old days. like these people at Haggai are, who are disappointed that the present glory of the temple is just a faint whisper of its previous glory. What we need to understand is that if we trust God, we will look ahead. We know that the best day we've ever had in the past is worse, infinitely worse, than the worst day we'll have in the new Jerusalem. You understand that? The best day you've ever had in the past is incalculably worse than your worst day in eternity. So how can we deal with these disappointments? The ones we feel in our individual lives, in our corporate church life, maybe in our national, cultural life, these disappointments, as it feels like things are spinning out of control and there's no way back. Friends, hear the word of the Lord. That's why we read, what, nine, 10, 12 times, declares the Lord of hosts, thus says the Lord of hosts. You need to listen to the Lord God, not your own heart, not the commentator, Not the person who thinks he knows what's going to happen politically or culturally or socially. Hear the Word of the Lord, and you can help each other this way. This is why we pass out all kinds of copies of reading the Bible one-on-one, because it's not complicated. Okay, you don't have to be a trained, you know, thoroughly prepared Bible study leader to open God's Word and read it with somebody else. and look to see how God promises to keep His Word, how God is always faithful to His people through everything. Learn how to read the end of the story. If you can't figure out what the trumpets and the seals and all that stuff are in Revelation, that's fine. Read the end and you can figure out how the story ends. You'll be encouraged by that. Read the Bible together and build each other up in this faith. Impatient, disappointed people need to hear from God. we need to hear from God. But impatient, disappointed people also need to work courageously. God is at work. He is working. He's got things under control. So, impatient, disappointed people need to work courageously. In chapter 1, there's no work happening. Now, in chapter 2, the work is happening and it's still disappointing. What would that tempt you to do? What are you going to be tempted to do when you're working hard and it feels like you're getting nowhere? When it feels like the task that, you know, there are just are not the skilled craftsmen for this work like there were in Solomon's days. You know, silver isn't as abundant as gravel as it was in Solomon's day, let alone the gold. The work's getting hard. We're getting nowhere. You can see it's going nowhere. No matter how long this takes, why wear yourself out? What's God say? What's God say to a disappointed, frustrated people who are tempted to give up? Simple message. Look with me at verses four and five here. 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. You see, it's simple message. Three imperatives, three commands here. Be strong, work, fear not. How can they do that? Do you see that there at the end of verse five? Actually, it's in verse four and verse five. Work for I'm with you in verse four. My spirit remains in your midst there at the end of verse five. They can do it because they know that God is with them. You know, decades earlier, Solomon had led them to build God's temple, but they had turned that temple into a center of idol worship. So what do we read about in Ezekiel? Ezekiel's vision, the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel, that the presence of God lifted up from that temple and went away, abandoned his house because they turned it into a place for idols. no longer presence among them in Jerusalem in a tangible way. But that day when God is not with them, it's gone. God's Spirit is back in their midst. Now remember, folks, we've got to think about how this matters to us. What is it, 2,500 years later, after this is happening? Well, this is 500 years before Christ. 500 years before Christ, 500 years before God with us, Emmanuel, arrives. God who abandoned His temple back in the days of Ezekiel now came to His people in the person of a temple. Jesus said, my body is the temple. Destroy this temple and in three days I'll rebuild it. And Jesus has rebuilt that temple. That's 2,000 years in the past now. And for 2,000 years since, Jesus has been building His church through the person of His Holy Spirit, who He promised, John 14, John 15, John 16, I will send my Holy Spirit. And in Acts chapter 2, that's exactly what happens. God pours out His Spirit on all flesh so that men and women prophesy, so that the Word of God goes forth in multiple languages, so that people respond and thousands repent and believe. That work has begun, and God's Holy Spirit remains among us. We are baptized, filled with God's Holy Spirit. So God doesn't show up. God doesn't wait to show up until after His temple is finished. You understand that, right? You don't have to finish the work on you in order for God to dwell in you. No, God shows up, and because He shows up in the person of Christ, God with us, in the person of the Holy Spirit who indwells us, that's what causes we, His temple, to be built up into the image of Christ. This is good news for us, friends. Jesus doesn't save you after you put your life in order. No, He came while we were still slaves. Paul tells us in Romans 5, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. That's how He shows His love for us. He doesn't show His love for us by loving us after we've made ourselves lovely. No, He loves those who are rebels. who broke in His law, who deserve His wrath," Ephesians 2. We are by nature, from birth, from conception, children of wrath. We are the people whose lives were rubble, every bit as much as the rubble in Haggai, 520 BC. But the Spirit is finishing the job. The Spirit stirred them up to do the work in Haggai 1. He stirs us up to continue that work, building up one another. Like living stones, the Spirit is finishing God's work among us. Now, I know God's timeline will not satisfy you. It doesn't satisfy me often, if I'm being honest. Progress will seem slow. Maybe it is slow. But ask yourself this, is it possible? Is it just possible that God's plan doesn't run on your timeline, but His plan is way better than yours would be? if you got it. Would you be okay with that? Would you be okay with waiting on God's timeline for you, for your church, for your nation, for the world? Would you be okay with waiting on God's timeline instead of getting your own if you had the assurance that His plan for the end is better than yours would be? Well, that's what we have, right? We have an assurance that God's plan for our eternity is better than our plan for our present. And last week, We saw the relationship between Haggai building this temple and our work to build a temple today. Not a physical building, not a church structure. In this age, we saw last week, God's house is a people. We went all the way through the New Testament to see that. We're building a church together, not as a physical structure, but as living stones. Can we be okay, Cedar Point? Can we be okay if the glory that God is building among us, if it unfolds more slowly than we would prefer in a different way? Can we trust? Can we really trust that God's promises about the end are better than our plan for our present? What if this church never cracks 100 people? What if we never own a building? What if we never have a 15-piece band or a thriving large youth group? What if we never have those things but we trust God's Word and we make disciples? We build each other up. We encourage each other. We hold each other accountable. We read God's Word together. We gather and pray together. And we pray fervently for one another even when we're not gathered. What if we raise up children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? we see a generation rise up after us, whether we're physical parents or spiritual parents. You know, if we see generations rising up after our generations begin to fade, who will hold fast to Christ, who will spread this same faith to the ends of the earth. What if there are more gospel workers that go out from this church in generations that are yet unborn than there are amongst us living today? Can we be okay with that? What if we send out generations of pastors and missionaries, strengthen struggling churches around different parts of the city, our whole region even? What if that happens? Can you be okay with that? Can you face the Lord Jesus one day and say, Lord, it didn't seem like we accomplished much in our day, but we saw a lot happen after we were gone. Can you be okay with that? I mean, I want to encourage you, it wasn't that many months ago, what, five months ago, Cade stood right here and preached on January 1st. Cade's now a church leader in New York City. I mean, forget supplying pastors for our region, we're supplying pastors for New York, right? That's what God has done through this little tiny church. And I think He's already calling up another set of men to lead churches behind Cade. What if the fruit of what God is doing among us now, He's at work now, what if that fruit only ripens after most of us are gone? Can we be okay with that? Can we trust God's plan for the future? Remember, none of this happens because of our plan, because of our skills, our wisdom, our knowledge. It depends wholly upon, same thing they depend upon in Haggai 2, God's spirit in your midst. So there is no need for us to be afraid as long as God's spirit is among us. Understand this, Israel did not need political power to see this house built, did they? I mean, in fact, it was a Persian king that had stopped work on the temple project. Persian king launched it, Cyrus, but then years later, another Persian king stopped it. But you know what? God doesn't care what the king says. Okay, his work is going to get done whether the king likes it or not. Read Ezra 5, okay? Shed some additional historical light on what's happening here in Haggai. Israel started rebuilding the temple, Haggai 2. They started rebuilding before the king gave them permission. Eventually he does, but he's only ratifying the permission that God has already given. The work starts whether the political leaders are in favor of it and supportive of it and encouraging of it and authorizing it and funding it, whether that all happens or not, it makes no difference to God. Be strong, work, fear not, for I am with you. Now, if you studied American Christianity over the past decade, go back further if you want, would you see this kind of unshakable confidence in God? Would you see an unshakable commitment to make disciples? Would you see in American Christianity a conviction that religious freedom is a good thing, but we don't need it? Or would you see instead fear of people grasping for power? Friends, faith means that you know you don't need the support of political leadership or cultural influencers to see God's work advance. Faith says you see God at work in small things, imperceptible movements, and you join that work. I mean, Zechariah is talking about, the prophet Zechariah, the next book in the Bible, talking about this same time in Israel's history. And Zechariah says, don't despise the day of small things. Think back to the prophet Elijah, after he has that contest with the prophets of Baal, and they look like fools. They're cutting themselves, trying to get their god, their false god, to hear them. Elijah's making fun of them, just scorning them. He builds an altar, pours water on it, and fire comes from heaven, and it devours the rocks and the water, right? And then he goes off, and he gets depressed for some inexplicable reason. God says, no, no, no, no, no. Look up in the sky. What do you see? He says, I see a cloud the size of a man's hand. And that cloud, the size of a man's hand became the torrential downpour that restored Israel from its years of famine, its years of drought. So friends, faith, faith means we see God at work in tiny ways, knowing that God turns little things into big things so that He gets all the credit. Now faith isn't passive. Faith works. Work, work on the temple, he says, while it seems like it's going nowhere. Faith works. Faith also expects God to empower the work and guarantee its success. So impatient, disappointed people must work courageously. And we can work courageously because God's Spirit is at work among us. Spirit is with us. But then finally, impatient, disappointed people need to trust God's plan for the future. We need to see it. We need to anticipate it. We will be afraid if we think our future is in doubt. And the only way we can believe that our future is in doubt is if we don't listen to God's words. If you're listening to God's words, you will not doubt the future. What does God say about the future? Look back at Haggai chapter 2, let me pick up in verse 6, back right at the end of verse 5. "'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 my 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." Yet once more, God will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. I want you to think for just a moment about that phrase, yet once more. What's that imply? It implies that he's done it before, right? Hebrews tells us about one of those times. We'll get there in a moment. I mean, Exodus chapter 19 is where we see this. God gathers his people. He's brought them out of Egypt. He gathers them together around Mount Sinai and God shakes a mountain. He gathers together a people around this shaking mountain and the people shake too. God is making them into a nation that God is coming down to them and they fear. But that's not the last time God shakes, even before this time. Amos 9, God shakes His people because they rebel. Here in Amos 9, God shaking His people is a symbol of judgment. It's not a symbol of God's presence for blessing, it's a symbol of God's presence in wrath. In Haggai chapter 2, God shakes the nations, and we'll see next week that this shaking is in part a shaking to judgment, but it's also a shaking in which God gathers the nations together to be His own. In fact, Zechariah chapter 2, God says, many nations shall join themselves to the Lord in that day, another day of shaking, and they shall be My people, and I will dwell in your midst. So it's as if, you know, my kids and I, we were sifting some compost the other day, about a week ago. We're separating the not yet composted leaves from that nicely composted compost, I guess. It becomes that fertile soil additive, right? We're sifting the two out. It's as if God's shaking does that. We're shaking the leaves over the wire mesh, right? We're shaking it all out, put the leaves back into the compost, into the decomposing compost and put the good compost out into the garden, out into the grass. It's as if God is doing that. He's shaking and sifting, bringing some into His presence for blessing and sending others away into judgment. God gathers the nations when He shakes them. In fact, this is what happens when we see Christ on earth, when we see God with us in the person of Jesus, there's a shaking. There's a shaking in Matthew chapter 20, Matthew chapter 26 and 27, when Jesus dies, and what happens? The earth shakes. The centurion and the others are shaken as well. Truly, this was the Son of God. There's a shaking three days later when the women come to Jesus' tomb. Matthew chapter 28 says, there was a great earthquake. For an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. But the angel said to the women, do not be afraid. Don't be afraid, just like in Haggai. Don't be afraid for I know that you seek Jesus who is crucified. He is not here for he is risen just as he said. And we read from Hebrews chapter 12 earlier. Maybe you caught it, that Hebrews chapter 12 quotes from Haggai chapter 2 verse 6, "'Thus says the Lord of hosts, yet once more in a little while.'" Haggai tells us that that once more in a little while, it's not yet, it's still coming. From the perspective of the author of Hebrews in the church age, we're still waiting on this final shaking. We're waiting just like Israel was 2,500 years ago. We experience similar disappointments, similar temptations to impatience. The same question remains for us. Will we trust God's plan for our future? And understand this, Christians, we experience more of the fulfillment of God's promises than Haggai, Zerubbabel, Joshua, the high priest, and the remnant of the land. We experience more of it than they did. I mean, Hebrews chapter 12 says, you have come to Mount Zion. They came to a pile of rubble in Jerusalem. You, friends, you have come to Mount Zion. You've come to the city of the living God. You have come to the heavenly Jerusalem. How's that? Because we are already experiencing a foretaste of heaven. We are already united with Jesus in His resurrection. You've come to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and you've come to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven. And you have come to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect. And you have come to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant. and that a sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel." Friends, you have redemption. You have the taste of redemption and resurrection that Haggai and Zerubbabel and Joshua and the remnant of the people could only look forward to and anticipate with some limited understanding that God would redeem them once and forevermore. This doesn't happen because of our righteousness, because of our works. No, no, he says it's even a better word than the blood of Abel, right? Abel brought a sacrifice of blood and then shed his own blood. But Christ has shed blood not just as an innocent sufferer. He suffered with the guilt of our sin placed upon Him so that it could be removed from us forevermore. You have come to Jesus. Haggai came back to an earthly Jerusalem, but we have come to the heavenly Jerusalem. Our covenant is better. Our promises are advanced in their fulfillment, but it's not enough yet. It is not enough yet because it's once more coming. God will shake the earth. Not enough yet, so we wait for it all. Haggai says in verse 7, that 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. I understand this to be the shaking of the nations that began at Pentecost and spread throughout the book of Acts as the gospel goes forth from, just like Jesus says, from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria, and by the end of Acts, we're getting into the ends of the earth. And that progress of the gospel, that work of the Holy Spirit continues to the ends of the earth in our generation. I was talking with Zane Pratt a few years ago. I think a few of you will remember him. He was our first guest preacher here at Cedar Point back in 2016, seven years ago. He trains all the missionaries for the International Mission Board. 35, 3600 missionaries have been through training with the IMB. And we were talking about the spread of the gospel in one particular nation in South Asia, I think I can name it, the nation of India, where it seems that remarkable things are happening, where local believers are working are working hard and the Holy Spirit is bringing in a harvest in the nation of India, rapid advance of the gospel through Hindus, through Muslims alike. And I said, you know, what you're describing, Zane, has to be one of the most remarkable works of God's Holy Spirit in human history. And he said, yeah, but you know what? What's happening there doesn't even compare to what's happening in, I think I shouldn't say the name of this country, in another country. where what God is doing in this other country exceeds even what He's doing in India, which to me is remarkable. God is shaking the nations right now. gather people from every tribe and tongue and language together with Him. In fact, that's what we should expect. That's what John sees in Revelation chapter 7. John sees a great multitude that nobody could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, crying out with a loud voice, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. In fact, when Paul, when Haggai speaks the word of the Lord here in verse seven, I will shake all nations. Their treasures will come in and fill this house. The silver's mine, the gold is mine. The latter glory of this house will be greater than the former. God is building a house, a temple for himself out of living stones that will be infinitely more glorious than Solomon's temple despite all its glory. that caused the richest people from all across the world to come in and stand amazed at what God had done in Jerusalem. No, no, no, no. That's that's just a hint of what God is still doing, because we read in Revelation chapter 21, this is like the end of the Bible, the very end. The kings of the earth will bring their glory into the new Jerusalem. Its gates will never be shut by day and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. I think Haggai is pointing us towards that. I think that's the riches. This is the way God fills His house with glory, a glory that vastly exceeds the first temple, that first temple that was filled with rich tapestries and ornate carvings and everything is overlaid with silver and gold. This temple, the Haggai temple, is just a shadow of that. But that first temple is just a shadow of the final temple, the revelation temple, where God fills it with something far more precious than ornate wood and tapestries and gold and silver. He fills it with His image bearers. He fills it with people that He created in His image to reflect His glory, to display His glory over all His creation. So God fills, for one final time, His house with His glory. And so when we read Haggai and we wonder, is God ever going to take us to the day of glory? Or are we going to be sitting around here staring at rubble for the rest of our lives? Is it really even worth it in the midst of our disappointment and frustrations and unmet expectations and our impatience? We have to ask ourselves, do we believe this? If so, you can rest at peace. In fact, that's what Haggai promises. Did you see that there in the latter part of verse 8? In this place, I will give peace, declares the Lord of Hosts. Peace as we see it in the Old Testament. It's more than just, you know, war has ended. It is a right relationship with God that results in whole life well-being, where all is right, all is reconciled to God, all is good in the way that He has designed it. Where do we find this peace? Where do we find this peace? Well, we've studied Romans. Romans tells us that having been justified by faith, we have peace with God. through our Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, Ephesians chapter 2 pulls, I think, pulls it all together. It says, now, now in Christ Jesus. Then in Haggai, they're looking towards the temple, and it ain't so great, but we can look towards something in the future where God shakes it all up while that shaking has begun. So that in Ephesians 2, we read, now, now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off Gentiles, further away even than the Jews in 520 BC in Jerusalem, you've been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace. He unites Jews and Gentiles together into one body. So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens of the saints. You are members of the household of God, built. on the foundation, not of rubble in Jerusalem, no, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In Him, in Him, you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Jesus says, I'll build my church. And then he fills it. Friends, what are you gonna do when you're disappointed? When you're impatient? When you think that God's timetable suggests that he's not gonna be faithful? What are you gonna do when you're tempted to quit? Brothers and sisters, we better hear the word of the Lord. We better be strong. We better keep working. We better not fear. Yes, God is with us. Jesus has walked with us. He has died for us and raised, giving us hope that we will rise with Him as well. And while He is ascending to heaven, while He ascends to heaven and sits at the throne of His Father, He sent His Holy Spirit to remain among us, to empower us, to build us up, to keep us faithful. So fix your eyes on the end. It is drawing near. God is filling His house, He is building His house, and He is building it with His image bearers. He is filling it with glory, and the glory is you. Let us pray. Father, we are made of dirt and we find it so hard to believe. We find it so hard with our eyes of flesh to look beyond what's around us and to see with eyes of faith, Your faithfulness, Your glory, Your building project. We find it so difficult to trust that Your timeline is good. We are so quick to think that we are wise and that our plans are superior to yours. We'd never say that, Lord, but our hearts and our actions reveal it. Father, forgive us. And because Your Spirit is with us, we ask that Your Spirit would encourage us, would instruct us, would guide us into the truth that we need to fix our hopes on the last day. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.