Hello and welcome to our program. We continue in our second message in the book of Haggai. Stay tuned. Reading again in Haggai chapter 1, in the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, came the word of the Lord by Haggai, the prophet, unto Zerubbabel, the son of Shittil, governor of Judah, And to Joshua the son of Jostek the high priest, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built. Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying, Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your sealed houses, and this house lieth waste? Now therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts, consider your ways." We saw in our last program that these were good people. They had given up everything to come back to the area and rebuild the temple and rebuild the city of Jerusalem. This was God's remnant. They had a desire to do things right. However, along the trail, they got discouraged and they lost sight of their vision of doing things for the Lord and they started doing things for themselves. Well, God sends his prophet Haggai to have a little chat with them and encourage them to get back into focusing on the things of the Lord. In verse eight, we read in our last program that he said, go up to the mountain bring wood, and build a house, and I will pleasure in it, I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord." He's not going to be glorified in our mansions that we might build to live in, but he will be glorified if we will build a house. Now we said, talking about two houses here, There is that place where the temple was in Jerusalem, and then there's people. And he said, what, no you not, that you are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Well, he says this house, that phrase appears quite a few times in the Bible. He said in Haggai 1 and 5, is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your sealed houses, and this house lieth waste? Haggai 2.3, who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? And how do you see it now? Is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing? Haggai 2.7, God said, I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts. In 1 Kings 6, verse 12, it says, Concerning this house which thou art in building, if thou wilt walk in my statutes and exercise my judgments, and keep all my commandments to walk in them, then I will perform my word with thee which I spake unto thy father David. In 1 Kings 8 and 27 we read, Behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee, how much less this house that I have built. Solomon said, Well, 1 Kings 9 and 7, God said, Then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them, And this house, which I have hallowed for my name, I will cast out of my sight, and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among the people. Getting a proper focus on this temple, aren't we? In 1 Kings 9 and 8, we read, And this house, which is high, everyone that passes by it shall be astonished, and shall hiss, and shall say, Why hath the Lord done this unto the land, and to this house? Why did God destroy it? Well, the answer is found in the next verse, and they shall answer, because they forsook the Lord their God, who brought forth their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have taken hold upon other gods, and have worshipped them, and served them, Therefore hath the Lord brought upon them all this evil. In Ezra 3 and 12 it says, but many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers who were ancient men that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, they wept with a loud voice and many shouted aloud for joy. Yeah, the young people that hadn't seen the the previous temple, they shouted for joy. The ones who had seen the first house, it says, they wept with a loud voice. Ezra 5 and 12 says, but after that, our fathers had provoked the God of heaven under wrath. He gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this house and carried the people away into Babylon. Jeremiah 7 and 11 says is this house which is called by my name become a den of robbers in your eyes Behold, even I have seen it say of the Lord Jeremiah 7 13 and 14 says, And now, because ye have done all these things, saith the Lord, and I spake unto you, rising up early and speaking, but ye heard not, and I called you, but ye answered not, therefore will I do unto this house which is called by my name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which i give to you and to your fathers as i have done in shiloh he said i'm going to do with this house as i did in shiloh now back in shiloh you remember that joshua in his day they had set up temple there in Joshua, and some say it exceeded the splendor of the temple at Jerusalem. Well, that is the place where the Philistines came in and took the ark, and we read in Psalm 78 and 60, so that he forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, And then the temple was transferred to Jerusalem, and he said, now listen, I'm speaking to you and you're not listening. I'm calling and you're not answering. You need to face the facts. This temple is going to be like what happened at Shiloh, he said, if you don't get in line with God. Well, in Jeremiah, again, verse number 4 of chapter 22, he says, Foreign kings are going to come in, and they're going to take over this house. Jeremiah 22 and 5 says, but if ye will not hear the words, these words, I swear by myself, saith the Lord, that this house shall become a desolation. Jeremiah 26 and 6, the warnings were there. Then will I make this house like Shiloh and will make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth. Jeremiah 26 and 9, why hast thou prophesied in the name of the Lord? saying this house shall be like Shiloh and this city shall be desolate without inhabitation. And all the people were gathered against Jeremiah in the house of the Lord. Jeremiah says it's going to be like Shiloh. The people got angry with him and you remember what a hard time they gave to Jeremiah. Well Jeremiah 26 12 says that spake Jeremiah unto the princes and to all the people, saying, the Lord sent me to prophesy against this house." Well, we see you've got to focus here on how important this building is. You remember when Jesus came out of the temple and the disciples said, you're going to leave this temple behind? He said, well, there will not be one stone left upon another. And that happened in A.D. 70, when under the direction of God, Titus came in and destroyed the temple. Well, in Haggai 1 and 7, we read, Now, that's going to happen in the Millennial Kingdom. We read in Isaiah two and verse three, and many people shall go and say, come ye and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us his ways. Well, in verse number eight in Haggai, God says, the silver is mine and the gold is mine, saith the Lord. Now we have some people here who are crying because they remembered the old temple And we have some young people who are rejoicing because they saw this new temple, but they didn't realize how things were in Solomon's temple. It is estimated that $20 million was spent just with gold in the temple that Solomon built. Well, in the temple that Ezra was building here, there's no gold to be found. There's no gold around. All the Babylonians and the Assyrians, when they took them into captivity, They took all the gold that was around. There's no gold for this temple. And so Haggai, preaching the word of the Lord in verse 8 said, go up to the mountain and bring wood and build a house and I will take pleasure in it and I will be glorified, saith the Lord. Now he said, He's not going to be taking pleasure or glory in mansions that we might build on earth. So we read here that he said, go up into the mountain and bring wood. Now in Matthew 5, 1 and 2, and seeing the multitude, Jesus went up into a mountain and when he was set, his disciples came unto him and he opened his mouth and he taught them. Now we want to get the focus here, not just on a building that was putting being erected in Jerusalem, but the focus on the fact that the Bible says, ye are the temple of the Lord. And so he says the first thing he did was Jesus took his disciples, and only his disciples, apart. Seeing the multitude, he went up into a mountain, and when he was set, his disciples came unto him. And he opened his mouth, and he taught them. And so the first thing we read here in verse eight was, bring the wood. Bring the wood. Now Noah's Ark was not made out of gold and silver. Noah's Ark, we read in Genesis 6 in verse 14, make thee an ark of gold for wood. And so he said, go ye up into the mountain. Yes, get along with the Lord. Then he said, build the house. 1 Corinthians 3, 16, he said, know ye not that ye are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? Build that temple. Then he said, I will take pleasure in it, verse eight. Hebrews 10 and 38 says, now the just shall live by faith, but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. Now the word faith in this chapter is not trust. The word faith here has to do with doctrine. The just shall live by the doctrine of God. The just shall live by what he knows about the Bible. And if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him." You need to have some faith. You need to know what we believe. Well, in order to do that, we're going to have to get up there in that mountain and get along with the Lord. In verse 8, he said, then I will be glorified. Well, John chapter 15, verse 8 says here, and is my father glorified? that ye bear much fruit. Matthew 5 and 16 says, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Leviticus 10 3 says, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me and before all the people I will be glorified. Haggai was a straightforward kind of preacher. He didn't mess around. He says here in verse number nine, let's just face the facts. You look for much, and lo, it came to little, and when you brought it home, I did blow upon it, God said. I did blow upon it. Why, saith the Lord of hosts? Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house. Therefore the heavens over you is stayed from due, And the earth is stayed from her fruit. I called for a drought. God said upon the land. and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground bringeth forth, upon men, upon cattle, upon all the labor of the hands." God said, you want to blame somebody for the fact that you got a bag with holes in it? You want to blame somebody because the fact that things aren't working out very well for you? Well, blame me, God said. I blew upon it. I called for a drought. Well, how did the people respond when Haggai preached this message we see in verse number 12? Then Zerubbabel, the son of Shittil, and Joshua, the son of Joshnech, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him, and the people did fear before the Lord." Well, we have one happy prophet there, very unlike Jeremiah. Jeremiah, the weeping prophet. They didn't listen to him. Well, this group that Haggai is talking about, they've been to Babylon and back. They have seen the fulfillment of their forefathers not listening to God and doing things God's way. They're back from bondage, been there, done that. And so they were inclined to listen to what the prophet was saying, and they obeyed the voice of the Lord, their God, and the words of Haggai, the prophet. Well, we see also, unlike Jeremiah's day, here in the book of Haggai, God blesses the people. It says in verse 13, Then spake Haggai the Lord's messenger, and the Lord's message unto the people, saying, I am with you, saith the Lord. Verse 14, we read, And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, the son of Shittil, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua, the son of Joshua the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people. And they came and did the work in the house of the Lord, of Hos, their God, in the fourth and twentieth day of the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king. Tune in for our next program as we get into Haggai chapter 2.