Amen, amen. Another great song service. Thank you all who serve in that capacity. Brandon and Valerie, I love that offertory. The organ is awesome. It's such a worshipful instrument and I love it being part of the service. Thank you for the effort put in by everybody today in the ministry regarding the music that we get to listen to. It draws our hearts into the presence of God. It prepares us for the preaching of the Word of God, which is what we gather in church for, to hear from the Spirit of God. Amen. and he takes the word of God and he applies it to our heart and our life. You can turn in your Bibles to the book of Haggai, and that's all the way at the end of the Old Testament, a book you don't get to very often probably, but there in the Minor Prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. If you get to the New Testament, you're three books too far, so you can just turn back. Haggai's a small book, only two chapters, so it's easy to kind of get past it accidentally. Haggai, one of the minor prophets, those minor prophets were not minor because of the size of the book, they were, I'm sorry, because of the importance of what they were saying, they were called the minor prophets because their books are smaller in scope, they don't have as broad of a topic or as big of a, group of people that they were reaching maybe during that time, and so they're minor in that capacity, which is why we call them the minor prophets. I would like you to look at our text verse here in just a moment. We're gonna be in Haggai chapter number two. Haggai is one of the post-exile prophets. The Israelites had been in captivity for 70 years, of the prophecy of God and His judgment on them. They were put into captivity by the nation of Babylon. They came in and destroyed the city of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. and took all those that were skilled, all those that were gifted in any way, those that were extremely smart, maybe those that were very attractive, They took everybody with value into captivity. They hauled them back and said, we can put these guys to work. They can be a part of what we need. But God's judgment on his people, his nation, was gonna be 70 years. That's what he said it would be. At the conclusion of that 70 years, God allowed the kingdom of the Persians to come in and conquer Babylon. And so Cyrus, the king of the Medes and the Persians, he said to the Israelites, well, hey, if you wanna go back, you wanna go back to Jerusalem, you can go back, you're free, you can go back to Jerusalem, that's fine with me. And so a large group of Israelites went back under the direction of Zerubbabel. Now that's found in the book of Ezra, chapters one through six. Zerubbabel led a group of people back and they began to build the temple. Now Ezra chapter 6 through 10 in the book of Ezra, Ezra brings revival to the people. So Zerubbabel built the temple, Ezra built the people, and then you guys know the story of Nehemiah. Nehemiah built the wall around Jerusalem. So this is three of the six, seven post-exile books. So you have those three, which are historical. Then there are four books which are, well, there's three books that are prophetical. And the fourth one is both prophetical and historical. So the three books that are prophetical are Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Those books go together. They coincide with that time period. Gus, do you have that timeline from Sunday school? I just thought it would be fitting to show this to you. This is a timeline that we are using in Sunday school. And we right now in Sunday school are right here. We're talking about the United Kingdom. We're going to get to Solomon and he's the next king we're gonna look at before we get into the divided kingdom. And so what we're talking about this morning is here, the kingdoms fall and they go into exile. They go into exile for 70 years. Then you have the end of captivity. The captivity ends right here. And here you see Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. Those three books were written right here, post-exile, when they were released. Then you have the three prophetical books, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. We're looking at Haggai. Haggai and Zechariah, they're listed together here, but Haggai and Zechariah are more like right here. They are contemporaries. And then Malachi is right at the end, which closes the Old Testament. Now there's one book that also fits right in here that's a post-exile book that's both prophetical and historical. Does anybody know what it is? Ah, somebody said it. Daniel, it's the book of Daniel. Daniel is the book that is both historical, it gives us some of the history of this time period right here, but it also is prophetical. If you're gonna do a study on the book of Revelation, you pretty much have to study the book of Daniel. Those two books, they go, they fit together like a hand in glove, that what's being talked about in Daniel prophetically describing what's coming, God gave a vision to John in the book of Revelation. And so we're not going that way, but this morning we're talking about Haggai. I just thought it'd be fitting for you to be able to see where it was and historically be able to picture what it is that we're dealing with. And so look now in Haggai and chapter number two, the children of Israel, as I said, they were going back, they're rebuilding their nation, right? They're excited about finally being back home and seeing God's blessing on them again and seeing God do great things and they come home and they plant their fields and and they start rebuilding the temple and things aren't going quite as well as they thought they should. Things weren't as exciting as they thought they would be. They're rebuilding the temple and you can read this chapter on your own time. We're not going to read it all for the sake of time this morning, but they're not as excited about the rebuilding of the temple as they thought initially they get there's some a little bit of opposition arises and they kind of say, man, the temple is not going to be as amazing as it was. It's not going to be as good as it was the first time. It's not going to be that awesome. Well. The prophet comes with a message from God and he ask of them a question, and the question is the question I'm going to ask of you this morning, look at Haggai chapter two and verse number 19. He says. God is asking of them a question. He's saying, you're endeavoring to do this work. You're desiring to see the blessing of God. You want to see the fruit multiplied. You want to see these different plants bring forth their bountiful blessing. Well, I have a question for you. Is the seed yet in the barn? Is the seed yet in the barn? Our theme for this year is sow bountifully. We have them hanging on the banners behind us here as a reminder. He which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. It's a biblical principle. It's a promise. He which sows sparingly shall reap also sparingly. We understand it. It makes perfect sense. I'm not going to get a hundred bushels of corn out of one corn stalk. If I desire 100 bushels of corn, I've got to plant some acreage of corn. I've got to sow more bountifully. And God is asking of them the question, you're back home. You're a little bit discouraged. Things aren't going quite as awesome as you thought they would be. Well, I wonder, is the seed still in the barn? There's some things that you could be doing. There's some things you should be doing. There's some plants you should have in the ground, but you haven't done it yet. And I cannot bless something that hasn't been planted. This was the ninth month equivalent to our November. It was a time when even for them to get their winter crop in, they were running out of time. They could not plant much beyond this and expect to harvest anything at all in that coming winter season. He asked him, is the seed still in the barn? If you're expecting great and bountiful blessing, it starts with you getting the seed sown. God tells them, he says, hey, I'll water. I will cause the sun to shine. I will multiply the fruit that is in the ground, but at first it has to be sown. If it's in the barn, it does no good to anybody. We have got to sow, sow, sow. I wonder, beloved, is the seed still in the barn? We have set as a goal to sow bountifully this year. We've talked about it. We've preached a couple of messages on sowing and reaping. I was among all of you at the beginning and I imagine, at least I pray, that God inspired in your heart to sow bountifully this year. You looked at it and you saw, boy, there's some things that I want to see God do this year and I want to see it happen and my plan and my goal is to sow bountifully. How you doing on that? Here we are coming in on the fall season. Summer has passed. There's not a whole lot of year left. There is still some year left, but if we're gonna see God bring forth increase, if we're gonna see God multiply some effort, then we've got to do some sowing, amen? We have got to sow some things if we're gonna see God bless them. It may have been in your intention to memorize some scripture this year. I think we had the scripture memory guy here and we talked about that and we laid out some plans and some goals and said, boy, if we would hide God's word in our heart, we need to sow the word of God into the heart of man. And boy, we need to sow that and get it in there. And many of you probably in your heart and mind thought, man, I wanna do that. I wanna memorize scripture. How are you doing? Is the seed still in the barn? Is it still here? It's not helping us here if it's still there. We've got to sow, hide God's word in my heart that I might not sin against thee. We have got to sow the seed if we want God to bring forth the increased. So I want to show you several things in the text here, very brief. We won't be that long this morning, but the message really has been given already. It's already been stated. Is the seed still in the barn? And you know whether it is or not. Your desire to see souls saved this year? Well, how much sowing have you done? How much seed have you spread around? If you're going to see a soul saved, we've got to be sowing bountifully. First of all, I would have you see that we need to sow the seed of service. Look back in verse number three and verse number four of this text. Haggai chapter number two, he said, who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? He's talking about that temple. The people were discouraged. The temple wasn't gonna be as great as they thought it was gonna be. He said, hey, who's among you who saw it before? And how do you see it now? Is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing? He says, yet, Now be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the Lord, and be strong, O Joshua, son of Jospeh, the high priest, and be strong, all ye people of the land, saith the Lord, and work, for I am with you, for I am with you. You see, they were getting discouraged. They said, man, the splendor, the grandeur of what this used to be. You know, there's a lot of Christians who are living on what used to be. They're thinking, God is never going to meet with me like He did sometime in the past. We're not going to experience the revivals like we saw in bygone days. Boy, wasn't it great when we saw God do this? Or wasn't it amazing when we saw God do that? Boy, those days are gone. Oh, we're not going to see God's hand anymore. Oh, it's all over. We might as well just crawl in a hole and die. And God sends a message to them and says, hey, no, be strong. Be strong, be strong and get to work. God says, if you would sow, you would not be able to understand what I could do with what you present or how I could multiply what you do. He says, get to work. There's some service to be done. There is some seed to be sown. We need to sow the seed of service to our Lord. There's ministries that need to be manned. People can serve the Lord in so many different aspects, in so many different ways. But beloved, there is work to do, work that God wants to do through each and every one of us. God wants to accomplish something with you. I could walk through the auditorium this morning and call your name and say, God wants to do something with you. Would you please take the message of the Word of God and apply it to your own heart? Stop thinking, boy, this is really good for so-and-so. They need to hear this. No, we all need to hear it because there is something God wants to do through us. but we have to get busy doing it. We have to get busy serving the Lord in whatever service or capacity we can. There's much God desires to accomplish in his kingdom and it is his plan to use men and therefore he needs men that are willing to serve. The house of God was not gonna get built by a group of people standing around singing Kumbaya. The temple that God wanted them to build in all of its majesty and glory was not gonna happen with people just standing around, you know, singing the doxology. It took some people that were willing to say, okay, yeah, we had a great worship service. We had a great time of praising and extolling the wonderful virtues of our Lord and Savior, but now it's time to get busy. Now it's time to do the work. In some capacity, let God use you. Everybody ought to be serving the Lord in some way. Speak, Lord, for thy servant here. Speak, Lord, for thy servant here. I think God's speaking. Are we listening? God wants to use us. There's great things that he could bring, but it is not gonna happen until we sow the seed of service, till we begin to serve him. There's the service of witnessing, the service of being a testimony for God, of being a soul winner. You know, beloved, right now God has people he wants to reach with the message of the gospel. There's people right now that are looking for the truth, that are asking and saying, God, show yourself to me. God, I want to know you. God, if you're real, send somebody by to show me how I can know you. God, would you please open your, they're looking in the scriptures, their desire is to know God. Does God have a servant at Hunt Valley Baptist Church who would say, man, I would tell them. I would give them a gospel track. I would sow the seed of the word of God in their heart if God would open the door of opportunity or allow me to do it. But how many opportunities had God given us to sow the seed? And we've passed it up. We neglected to do it. We failed to mention our Lord and Savior. God needs willing people to go and tell them about Jesus. The Bible says that God could use the rocks to cry out, but he has chosen to use us. That means he needs willing servants, willing and ready to sow the seed, to give out John and Romans. I would say pretty near about the easiest sewing you will ever do. Just hanging a John and Romans on somebody's door. You don't have to be gifted with eloquence or understand the tulip theory. or be able to refute Calvinism. You don't need to understand those things. All you gotta do is go by somebody's house and drop a John and Romans on their door. You see, that is the word of God that you're leaving, and God has promised that his word shall not return void. We have seen in our church over the years just the matter of putting a John and Romans on somebody's door, how he could take the word of God and use it to draw them to himself and to change their life. Some of the newest, some of the very first Christians that came to Hunt Valley Baptist Church came because a John and Romans were left on their door, the Crane family. They have been here all these years because somebody put a John and Romans on their door. Just a couple of years ago, we hung a John and Romans on Rob and Mary Ellen's door. Little did we know that 17 years earlier, somebody from Hunt Valley Baptist Church hung a John and Romans on their door. And when she saw that John in Romans, she remembered 17 years ago they put one of these on my door. 17 years ago the Holy Spirit told me you need to go to that church and I didn't do it. She's like, God's given me a second chance, I better do it. And she came to church and she loved the pastor so much. She just said, man, I've gotta be at that church. No, just kidding. She came to church and she just, she was here and she said, man, I'm learning the word of God. This is awesome. She says, we need to pray that my husband will come. And he's like, never, no way, I'm not doing it. And no, he didn't do that. Little did we know he was watching at home. So she would come to church and he was watching the live stream at home. And then we had an event at our house, and we said, Mariela, you think Rob would come and eat some good food at our house? And she said, yeah, I think he would do that. And he and Jim came, and we had a Thanksgiving meal at our house. And Rob found out that we weren't all weirdos. You know, that only Bob Gamble's a weirdo. But other than that, the rest of us are pretty normal. And he found out, man, these are pretty normal folks, and they're friendly, and boy, they're just trying to love God and love people, and man, this is great, and he enjoyed it, and so he started coming to church. They came to church for a few months, and I had been talking to him. One Saturday morning, God told me, you need to go see Rob and Mary Ellen. I was all done visiting. I was almost back home, and I turned my car around, and I drove out to their house. I knocked on the door, and Mary Ellen opened the door, Soon as she saw me, tears started coming down her face, and I hope I don't embarrass her today, but she looked at me and she says, you have no idea how much I needed to see you today. This is the direction of the Holy Spirit of God leading somebody who would just submit and yield. She embraced me. I gave her a hug. I knew that she had just lost a dear loved one. God sent me to her door in the hour of need. We had been praying for her husband and for Jim to get saved. We were sitting in her living room talking, and Jim came in a few minutes later, and I said, hey, Jim, you know your mother's burdened about you. Your mother loves you. She would love it if you knew for sure you were on your way to heaven. Would you mind if we sat and we talked for a few minutes about this truth? And he said yes, and we talked for a little while, and a few minutes later, I don't know how long it was, but he bowed his head in the living room, trusted Jesus Christ as the Savior. I said, well, it's time to get baptized, and Mary Ellen said, I don't like water. She said, I ain't been in water since I was a teenager. Not really. She said, even as a teenager, she wouldn't, like, everybody goes to the beach to go swimming, she says, I just wade a little bit, just get my feet wet. She's like, I don't like water. She's like, you ain't getting me in that water. I said, well, you do what God wants you to do, and you'll be okay. We talked about it over the next three or four weeks. Finally, the Holy Spirit said, well, I convinced her, or maybe it was Carol, I don't know. But somebody convinced her that she needed to follow the Lord and believe his baptism. And Jim was ready. Jim said, yeah, I'll do it. I'll get baptized. And I was standing in the foyer, and the Lord opened the opportunity. I looked at Rob. I said, hey, Rob, Mary Ellen and Jim are going to get baptized. Can I ask you, have you ever been baptized? And he said, no. And I said, well, you know, baptism comes after salvation. Rob, can you tell me, do you know for sure that if you died today, you'd go to heaven? And he said, well, actually, when you were in my living room and you were telling Jim all that stuff about how God died for us and how we put our faith and trust in him, if we would pray and ask. I didn't say anything, but I prayed right then and asked him to save me, too. The next week, all three of them followed Lord and believers baptism. That's because somebody put a John of Romans on their door. Just hung a book on their door and left. We need to sow the seed. We don't have any idea how God will take that and multiply it, what kind of fruit and what kind of blessing will come if we would just be faithful to sow. to go out and to tell others about Jesus Christ on Friday night. They went to the prison. They don't have any idea how many people are gonna show up or who there's gonna be there. But Friday night, there was somebody that showed up that they had the opportunity to sit down with and share the gospel of Jesus Christ, the death, burial, and resurrection. And a few minutes later, this man bowed his head and asked God to forgive him of his sin. He's in prison for murder. Can God forgive a murderer? He asked God to forgive him. Because somebody was willing to go and take a few minutes of their Friday night and sow the seed in a field that was ready to harvest. There's areas of service where we can all be involved. We need to sow in service. He says, be strong. and work, work, do the work of the ministry. We must remember, beloved, that the greatest oak tree was at one time just an acorn that got sown. The greatest oak tree was just a little bitty acorn that got sown. If we would sow the seed, we have no idea what fruit God would bring from it. Secondly, beloved, we need to sow the seed of surrender. Look down in chapter two here in verses 12 through 14. He gives to us an example from the law. You see, we need to surrender to God's plan of holiness. He says here in verses 12 through 14, he says, if one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, And with his skirt doth touch bread or pottage or wine or oil or any meat, shall it be holy? And the priest answered and said, what did he say? No. So he's saying, hey, if you have something that's been set apart, That's what holiness is, if it's been set apart. He said if you have something that's been set apart, wholly consecrated unto God, if you have something that has been used in the service of the king and it's there and you have it wrapped in a towel or you have it in something and it happens to touch something else, is that all of a sudden made holy? The priest said no. Then look at verse number 13. Then said Haggai, if one that is unclean, by a dead body, touchest any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priest answered and said, it shall be unclean. Now, this makes perfect sense in a practical way. You understand if I had, I don't have anything good up here to use as an example. Here you go. You're going to love this one. I have a dirty tissue now. If this dirty tissue rubs against this one, now I made this one clean, right? No. You see how that works? God says, if you have something that's clean and it happens to touch something dirty, does that make that clean? No. If you have something that's dirty and it touches something that's clean, it makes that dirty. Right? That makes sense, doesn't it? Notice what he says about the children of Israel then. In verse number 14, then answered Haggai and said, so is this people and so is this nation before me, saith the Lord. And so is every work of their hands, and that which they offer there is unclean." You see, beloved, he's saying because they're unclean, all that they've offered is unclean. Because they are internally dirty and haven't been cleaned and aren't living holy lives, then all that they offer is unclean. God is reminding Israel that you don't get holy by simply touching holy things. What happens is the opposite. The holy gets defiled. It seems as though those serving there at the temple may have felt that they somehow were made holy by their work on the temple. that, oh, I'm doing this work at the temple, and so I'm holy, even though their lives were not holy, even though they weren't living clean lives. It seems there's always been people that felt that way, that they were made holy by the holy things that they got around. Listen to God's warning to the Israelites before they even went into captivity. Don't turn there, but in Jeremiah 7, verses 3 and 4, Now here are the lying words that he says, You see the Israelites, this is before, in Jeremiah, there's before they went into captivity. He's saying, don't trust in the lying words the idea that you think you can go to temple once a week and be made holy. You need to be living holy, clean, separated lives, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and then go to the temple on Sunday. Just because you show up at God's house on Sunday morning doesn't make you holy. Does that make sense? It's a lifestyle, it's a spirit of the heart, it's an attitude that's reflecting in our actions the rest of the week. Are we holy? We need to submit, sow the seed of holiness. You see, we're wanting the blessing of God. Israel was saying, boy, we wanna see God multiply all of this effort. We wanna see God do great and mighty things. And oh, after all, look at what we're doing. And God's saying, wait a minute, you haven't sowed the seed of holiness. You have got to be holy. Beloved, just because you stand up and serve as an usher on Sunday doesn't make you holy. Just because you sing in the choir on a Sunday morning, it doesn't make you holy. Just because you stand up in front of the church and preach the word of God, it doesn't make you holy. It's something that happens in the heart with your relationship with God. When you yield to Him, you confess your sin and forsake it. He goes on in the book of Jeremiah. He said, Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot profit. When ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not, and come and stand before me in this house which is called by my name?" He says, you guys are out living like the devil, doing whatever you wanna do, and then you show up in God's house on the Lord's day and proclaim your holiness. God's saying those two don't line up. Which I think is why the world a lot of times says the church is full of hypocrites, right? Because it's supposed to line up. What I'm saying, we need to sow the seed of holiness. If we want to see God multiply this, we've got to make some changes in our life. Yes, sow the seed of service, but understand, beloved, your service is not what makes you holy. It is a surrendered heart to do what God asks of you. Something defiled has never made that which is clean, clean. It has always made it dirty. He says there in chapter two and verse number 14, he says, and that which they offer is unclean. I mean, that's maybe the saddest statement here, if you think about it. All of their service was unclean, because they weren't clean. You're standing up in church and singing a special, and God says it's unclean. You've prepared and practiced and playing an offitory, and God says it's unclean. You're standing in Sunday school and teaching children, God says it's unclean. You're serving in the nursery or an usher or in the sound room, and God said it's unclean. If you as an individual are unclean, even the service that you're bringing or carrying unto the Lord is unclean. Because you and I know we can deceive each other. We can deceive each other pretty well. But God knows, doesn't he? You see, that which is evil always corrupts that which is good. It doesn't happen the other way around. You see, good has never paid for or covered evil. You see, here's the mindset. We understand it as Baptist believing in the biblical teachings regarding salvation, for by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of, it is a gift of God, not of, lest any man should boast. We know that it's not of works. We know it's not of ourselves. We know there's nothing that we can do in service to cover our sin, right? We know that. But then why do we feel that we are made holy by our service? Service does not cover sin. Works has never covered wrongdoing. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. In order to be made holy, we must confess and forsake the sin. Yes, do the service. We know that's the beginning. He starts out and he says, if you wanna see something multiplied, you gotta sow. But he says also we need to sow the seed of surrender and yield to God's method of holiness. God has always been less concerned with what you do for him than he is about what you are for him. A lot of times we get so overly concerned with what we're doing for him that we neglect what we are for him, right? Am I talking to myself today? That's what we do. We get very, and I'm as guilty or more guilty than anybody else here, because I'm all about getting her done. Got stuff to do. We got a job to do. We gotta do some stuff. But all that doing doesn't make you holy. It's what you are. Now, if we are what we're supposed to be, We will do what we're supposed to do. But only when they're in the right order is it honoring and glorifying to God. We need to surrender to God's plan of holiness. The Israelites wanted riches and God wanted a relationship. The Israelites wanted to see fruit and God wanted to see faithfulness. The Israelites wanted to see protection and God wanted to see prayer. You see, we've got to be careful, beloved, because we will be right where the Israelites were if we're not careful. We will think like they think. Like a guy who, you know, you maybe meet somebody out in the community and, you know, we... Sometimes People that aren't around much, they have kind of an idea that, well, if I do something for the church, that'll cover a lot of this other stuff I've done, right? You have a guy who maybe he's got a bunch of stuff in his garage that he stole from work. He's been lying on his taxes for the last two or three years. He's been lying to his wife about their financial situation and bought some things that she doesn't know about. He's got pornography on his phone. He's skipping out on his responsibilities. But then he thinks, well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to write a check to the church. I'm going to give the church a certain amount of money, whatever it is. Anything over $10,000 is OK. Just joking, you know, that doesn't do anything for him. It doesn't do anything for him. God said he wants holiness. You know, we had a guy in Kansas, I don't know why he did it, but he was a plumber, never went to church, would never go to church, didn't like church, but he did all the work. I mean, he would bring his crew, all of the equipment, backhoes, all of the stuff, they would do work for weeks for the church and not charge us a dime. He just always, no, that's what I do for the Lord. That's what I do for the Lord. Now, he didn't know the Lord. If he doesn't put his faith and trust in Christ and ask God to forgive him for his sins, he's going to die and go to hell, even though he did all of that work for several years, probably $100,000 worth of work that he did, didn't charge the church anything. But what did that get him? What should a prophet of man, if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul? What I'm trying to say is sometimes we get in that same mindset. We know that, oh, I'm not saved by my works. But understand, we're not made holy by those either. Those are a picture and a sign of our love for God. It's the love of Christ that constraineth me and I do what I do for God because I love him, but not to earn my salvation, not to earn my righteousness. We need to be right before an almighty God. The question this morning is, is the seed still in the barn? Is there something in your heart and life you at the beginning of the year thought, boy, I'm going to sow this this year. I'm going to read these books. I'm going to study this book of the Bible. I'm going to memorize this scripture. I'm going to be a witness here. I'm going to go reach this person. I'm going to witness to my brother or my sister before this year is up. I'm going to sow the word of God in somebody's life. And well, beloved, the year is almost up. And if it's still in the barn, it's not going to do anybody any good. We must get it out of the barn. and sow it if God's gonna bring the increase. Would you stand to your feet with your heads bowed and your eyes closed?