Well friends I want to turn your attention to this little book of Haggai again and my text is verse 7 of chapter 2, chapter 2 verse 7 and then the last two verses of the chapter verses 22 and 23 and you'll see on the screen there our friend has very kindly got them both on there so verse 7 And I, God says, and I will shake all nations, and they shall come to the desire of all nations, and I will fill this temple with glory, says the Lord of hosts. That's almost the same as what you've got up there, so thank you. And verse 22, I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, I will destroy the strength of Gentile kingdoms. I will overthrow the chariots and those who ride in them. The horses and their riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother. In that day, says the Lord of hosts, I will take you, Zerubbabel, I will take you, Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtiel, says the Lord, and will make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you, says the Lord of hosts. Now we have said of course already that this was all happening in the year 520 BC. It was a year of crisis for Jerusalem and Haggai really only covers three or four months of the year in his little prophecy. The people have become paralyzed by what we might call the status quo. As one said years ago, what is status quo? Well, it's the mess we're in. Well, whether you think that's a good definition of the status quo, many of us feel that we're in a terrible mess in our land and nation, but there we are. But it often means that people have settled down and they think that there is nothing that can change the situation or make the thing any better. Well, we just go on and well, there we are, each day comes. What do we need in a situation like that? We need men and women of vision and of strategy who look beyond the situation to something more positive. Year after year they had faced drought conditions. The desert area seemed to be getting larger. This land that was flowing with milk and honey didn't seem to be flowing with milk and honey. They were back after the exile but it seemed that God wasn't really helping them as he had done. Now 300 years earlier, as we said, Amos had arrived with a similar message from God, but the situation then was very different and the people had not yet learned that they needed to follow God and serve God, and if they didn't, God's judgment would fall upon them. And of course that happened with the exile. But now they have returned from the exile and these people now are very sensitive to the Word of God and much more so. And Haggai faced a people who were willing to hear and ready to learn from the things of God, conscious of their need and prepared to admit their failure and their sin, very different from the people of Amos' day. And as we have seen, Hagia can be very neatly divided into four messages. August 520 BC, chapter one, the first message. which was a challenge to them to return to the Lord and hear the Word of God. October 520 BC, chapter 2, verses 1 to 9, the second message to encourage them because they had so responded positively to the first message of challenge that God comes to encourage them and to strengthen them and to say that glory would come again to them. And then in December 520 BC, chapter 2, verses 10 to 23, the third and the fourth message, the third message particularly to the priests to encourage them, and the fourth message directly to this man, Zerubbabel. And we're going to learn a bit more about them. So four prophecies over the few months from August to December 520 BC. God's mercy to his people is very real. God comes and he brings blessing to those who return to him and who receive his word. That still is the case, and that's wonderfully, gloriously hopeful. And God keeps his word, and God keeps his promises, and God fulfills his promises. Now, running through this book, through the whole of this book, is the whole theme of the Temple. The Temple. Now, if you want a title for the address today, it is the Temple, all right? We're going to be thinking about the Temple of God and what it means. I'm sure you will be aware of that because of the hymns we've sung and the things we've already said in the earlier part of the service. Why did the prophets place such an emphasis upon the Temple of God? Why was it so important? Solomon's temple was not built because the prophets told them to build the temple. No, that was, we might say, of course it was God overruling, but we might say it was David's idea. And it was good and right that that should be done. In fact, Nathan gives David permission to build the temple because Nathan agreed with David. And then God spoke to Nathan in the night and said to Nathan, I'm sorry, you need to go back to David and tell him that he won't build the temple, but his son Solomon will. Basically, God was saying, I'm not against the building of the temple, but you're not gonna do it, David. It was a good idea and he is commended for it. God had been worshipped in the tabernacle, the tent, signifying that God was not to be tied down to a particular place. But now, because God was and is the God of the whole earth. But now, of course, when it came to the exile, the temple that Solomon had built had been destroyed. And that was very sad in many ways. so much so that they had worshipped, the reason why it had been destroyed was because they had worshipped the temple rather than the god of the temple. Jeremiah has a lot to say about that, of course, before the exile. And in Jeremiah chapter 7 and verse 4, He says to the people, thus says the Lord of hosts, amend your ways and your doings. Verse four, do not trust in these lying words saying, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these. And the people of Jeremiah's day were saying this, they're saying, we've got the temple here, so God must be with us. And if the temple is here, God is never going to bring judgment upon us because this is the temple where God dwells. And they had that view. And Jeremiah has to challenge them about that. And later in that same chapter he says this, what do you do? You steal, you murder, you commit adultery, you swear falsely, you burn incense to Baal, the foreign gods. and you walk after other gods, and then you come and stand before me in this house, the temple, which is called in my name. We say, we are delivered to do all these abominations. What they were saying was this. Well, it doesn't matter how we live because we have God with us. And people argue like that sometimes today. Well, it doesn't matter how we live because God will forgive me. And it doesn't matter if I sin because God will forgive me. My friends, that's taking God's word in vain and God will not respond positively to that. God says to them, Has this house, which is called by my name the Temple, become a den of thieves in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, says the Lord. But now go to my place, which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel. God tells them that the temple will become as desolate as the place Shiloh in the Old Testament had become because of their sin. And Jeremiah goes on to speak about this and how God had called to them. Verse 13 of chapter 7. Therefore I will do to the house which is called by my name in which you trust and to this place which I gave to you and your fathers as I have done in Shiloh. Now I have to remember that Shiloh was a place for a large portion of time. But if you trace Shiloh through the Bible you find that it is also speaking of a person. And when Jacob gives his great promise in Jeremiah 49 and he speaks of Shiloh and he speaks of Shiloh coming and he's speaking of a person. And if you have a Bible which doesn't translate Shiloh is Shiloh in Genesis 49, get rid of it. It's not a good translation. I have no idea whether the ESV does it or not. I haven't checked it. Well, I can't remember. But because it is Shiloh and he's speaking of a person and he's speaking of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because the tabernacle was pointing forward to the Lord Jesus. And the temple was pointing forward to the Lord Jesus. And the significance of the temple is it's the gathering of God's people together. So here are we as a gathering of God's people together. We are part of that temple of God. And God has promised to bless his people who are true to his name and who live in his word. And on their return, they begin to rebuild the temple in Haggai's day. But soon various hindrances put a stop to their work, and for nearly 20 years nothing happened. But then God sends Haggai and this man Zerubbabel, and later Joshua the son of Josedek joins them, who's the high priest, and he encourages them to recommence the building and the restoration of the temple. Now remember that this was 70 years later. Now I don't know about you, I'm older than 70 years. I know what happened more than 70 years ago, a few weeks ago, wasn't it? Oh no, a little bit longer. I'm getting older and forgetting things. When Charles became king, there were people who said, I was sitting in a church service, I was listening to the Sorry, I'm trying to find an Old Testament reference while I'm speaking. And the man said, he said, we've got to start singing God Save the King. He said, I bet that none of you here have ever sung God Save the King. And I thought, well, I have. Because I sang God Save the King when I was a child. Because I can remember when the king died. And I can remember the day when it happened. And I can remember Queen Elizabeth coming to the throne. Some of you here are old enough to remember that. but not many people had sung God Save the King until King Charles became king. Now, why do I say that? Well, you see, when you turn back to Ezra chapter three, that's the verse I was trying to turn up while I was talking, and we come to the great, the beginning of the rebuilding of the temple, in Ezra's day, which was just a little bit before Haggai, and they laid the foundation and they rejoiced and they praised God for he is good, for his mercy endures forever. This is Ezra chapter 3 verse 11. And all the people shouted with a great prouse, a shout, because they praised the Lord because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. But many of the priests and Levites and heads of the fathers' houses, old men like me, who had seen the first temple, wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this temple was laid before their eyes. Yet many shouted aloud for joy so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the loud of weeping. Why did some weep? because they knew that the temple, the great temple of Solomon had been destroyed. They wept with sadness because they remembered the blessing of God of the past. And 70 years of exile had taken place, but now they had come back to the land. And I don't know about you, but as I get older, I get more sentimental and soppy. And I find that there are times when I weep when I look back and I see things that have happened in the past and I think how bad things have got today. And as I think of the evil that there is in the world, and I can understand that I rejoice when I see God at work, but I also weep because I see the tragedy of it. And that was what had happened. And they remembered the glory, the former glory of Solomon's temple. And they knew that there was a sense in which that could never be returned. And yet God's grace was with them. Now let's look at this, and that was a long introduction, let's look at this now. Firstly, the temple and sacrifice. Why was the temple there? The temple was there in the Old Testament for sacrifice. Had the sacrificial system worked, Well, of course, when it was done according to God's Word and God's truth, of course, it worked in that sense. But the trouble was, there were days when they had forsaken their understanding of it. Isaiah, before the exile, had talked about that. In Isaiah chapter 1 he says, and I'm not going to read the whole passage because it's from verse 11 right down to verse 20, but God says to the people, to what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? I've had enough of it. Because when you come to me, you trample over my courts, you treat this with contempt. And he challenges them. And eventually he says this, Come now, let us reason together. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good of the land. My blessing will be upon you. But if not, you'll be devoured by the sword. Even before the exile, there were men of faith like Isaiah and others who saw that forgiveness was not dependent upon sacrifices alone, that their hearts had to be right before God. Now of course that was true right back in the days of Samuel. Samuel spoke about this and challenged the people so much before. When Saul had disobeyed God, Samuel says to Saul, Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. Wow, that was a challenge. and stubbornness as iniquity and idolatry because you have rejected the word of the Lord. Saul was rejected from being king. Now, that of course is taken up in so many other places in the Scripture. Let me just mention one in Psalm 32 and verse 5. David obtains forgiveness without sacrifice and even the statements of the sacrifices were not always required. If you were true to the Lord, if your heart was right with him, it wasn't simply the outward sacrifices They were designed to be an indication of the inward heart relationship with God. Psalm 40 and verses six to eight. Sacrifice and offering you did not desire. My ears you have opened. Burnt offering and sin offering you did not require. Then I said, behold, I come in the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do your will, oh my God, and your law is within my heart. Now that is wonderful because of course that was supremely true of the Lord Jesus. But God responds to that and he brings forgiveness to those who receive his word and who act upon it. David takes this up in his great penitential psalm, Psalm 51, when he says this in verses 16 and 17, For you do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it, you do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, broken and a contrite heart, these, O God, you will not despise." Now, of course, they had come to see that because for 70 years they had been in exile. And in exile, they were not able to offer sacrifices. that had not happened. Jeremiah 29 talks about it. I won't go back to that now. But what we are told is that God would be their sanctuary. God would be their temple. And these things were all to drive them to God himself. And here they are in Haggai's day. And something was missing. In fact many things were missing. The ark had gone. Gone! The Urim and the Thummim had gone. What were they? They were the tablets. We don't know exactly what they were. But the high priest wore them and it was the means by which God helped to give them his word. They were gone. How were they to know the mind and will of God? Because the Urim and Thummim had gone. The holy oil had gone. Now don't forget that because we read about the holy oil in Zechariah chapter 4 in our reading. The tablets of stone on which the Ten Commandments were written were gone. The pot of manna and Aaron's rod that budded was gone. The miracles of the early prophets had gone. The ark was the site of the mercy seat where the Shekinah glory of God dwelt, his resting place, his footstool, but it was gone. How were they ever to approach God? How were they ever to come to God? Eventually, Herod would rebuild the temple, and some of its glory would return because God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, would come to Herod's temple. But it was spiritually empty until the Lord came, and the office of the high priest was corrupt by the time the Lord Jesus Christ walked the earth. During the first temple period of about 400 years, there were about 18 high priests. But during the second temple period of 420 years, only 20 years more, there were over 300 high priests. That's because so many of them were corrupt and they were removed or struck down by God in judgment. And much of the sacrificial system became corrupt and prophecy ceased for 400 years. No word from God. Corrupt worship. No ark. No authority. What hope was there? The temple and sacrifice. Secondly, the temple and the covenant. Well, God had not abandoned them. And God makes that clear. Of course, we've already seen that as we've looked into the end of chapter one and the early part of chapter two, where we read of the covenant. And I'm not going to go back over that because we spoke of that previously. If you want to do that, listen to the recordings of the previous messages. But before the exile, the prophets had repeatedly attempted to get the people to acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ, the God of the covenant. But all they wanted were the privileges of the covenant without obedience. And their disobedience and their willful following, the Baals, brought them under the punishment of the exile. And during the exile, during the exile, Ezekiel reminded them again of the link with the covenant. And Ezekiel takes up the prophecies of Jeremiah and reminds them that the covenant-keeping God has not forsaken them, that this righteous judgment was in order to restore them and to bring them back. in Ezekiel 37 and verse 26. God says through Ezekiel, Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them, and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them. I will establish them and multiply them and I will set my sanctuary, my tabernacle, my temple in their midst forevermore. And he goes on to use the words of what we call the covenant formula. My tabernacle also shall be with them indeed. I will be their God and they shall be my people. God had not given up on them. That was amazing. Haggai encourages the people of his day to remember that and to return to God and to follow him and that's what they did. That was what was so wonderful. So, we come to Haggai chapter 1 verse 3. for I am with you. And it was on that promise that he says, I will fill this house with glory, verse seven. And that was God's promise. That was God's promise. The temple, the sacrifice, the temple and the covenant. Thirdly, the temple and the saviour. And that brings us to verse 23. On that day, says the Lord of Hosts, I will take you, O Zerubbabel, my servant, son of Shealtiel, says the Lord, and will make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you, says the Lord of Hosts, the Temple and the Saviour. Zerubbabel was God's chosen man for the hour, and here is God's sovereign work. God's sovereign work, God's chosen. Look at what he says in verse 23, I will take you, I will make you, I have chosen you. Three things that God does. Zerubbabel, in a sense, had no choice in the matter. God simply does it. That's grace, my friends. I will take you, I will make you, I have chosen you. And Zerubbabel was given what had been taken away from his grandfather because of his grandfather's terrible sins. And Zerubbabel is restored by grace alone, by the wonder of the grace of God. And not only is Zerubbabel chosen by means of being a kinsman redeemer, I mentioned that last time I spoke on this, but also so is Joshua the high priest. He is mentioned in Haggai 2 verse 4, and he also occurs in that passage that we read from Zechariah in our Old Testament reading earlier today. The high priest, priest and governor, and the priest and the governor together represented God to the people. Now that's why I read from chapter 4 of Zechariah and in chapter 3, the previous chapter, we have an illustration of the atonement because here is Joshua the son of Jehoshadak and he is wearing filthy clothes and Satan comes to oppose this man Joshua and God comes and he says is this not a brand plucked from the fire and the angel takes away his filthy garments and clothes him with pure pure, clean garments. And it is a sign of the work of God as He comes to men and women and boys and girls today to take away our sins and all that corruption which is ours and give us the robe of Christ in His righteousness and His glory. It is a wonderful picture of salvation. God takes away our sin and he clothes us with his righteousness so that we are pure and clean through the work of our substitute and sin-bearer. And God puts his hand upon Zerubbabel and he puts his hand upon Joshua the high priest. and he commissions them and he gives them the authority to lead his people and the oil of God's Holy Spirit rests upon them and flows through them. A wonderful work, illustration of the work of God as he comes to men and women and boys and girls and saves them and redeems them and fills them with his Holy Spirit to serve him. It is all of God's grace. Temple and Sacrifice, the Temple and the Covenant, the Temple and the Saviour, fourthly, the Temple and the King. Go back to verse 7. I will shake all nations, they shall come to the desire of all nations, and I will fill this temple with glory, says the Lord of Hosts. What makes the temple glorious? The presence of the King. God comes down to dwell with his people. The surpassing glory of the new temple is the presence of God with his people. My friends, that's what we long for. That's what we look for, that God will come down and bless us with his glory and his presence. The surpassing glory of the new temple is the presence of God with his people. The standard by which the glory should be measured is not Solomon's temple, which was beautiful, but is Christ with us. Where was the temple? Well, it was in Jerusalem. The men of Judah were given these lands, including Jerusalem, in the days of Joshua shortly after the conquest of the land. And in Joshua chapter 10 the Lord gives the people a mighty victory over a wicked king called Adonai Zedek, the king of Jerusalem. But sadly because of their lack of faith the men of Judah were unable to drive the Jebusites out of the city. They had conquered it in Joshua's day. You'll read about it in Joshua 15 and in the earlier chapters. But then they lived there with the enemy. And eventually the enemy grew too strong for them and threw them out of Jerusalem. And it wasn't until after David had been crowned king that they recovered the city again in 2 Samuel 5, 6-10. God establishes David as king and his house and his lineage. He says his throne will last forever. We read about that in 2 Samuel 7 and in the context of Psalm 78 verses 68 to 72. And God chooses Zion to be his dwelling place. David is his servant, the shepherd of his people. Psalm 132 reminds us of the eternal and everlasting nature of Zion as God's resting place. And Psalm 132, 17 speaks of Him as being the Anointed, the Chosen One. We haven't time to stop with that. But the point of all of this is to say that God's glory and honor rests upon the temple, and particularly here on the rebuilding of the temple. How will the heathen nations around Haggai and the people of Israel know that the God of Israel has not been finally defeated? His people had been defeated, his city had been destroyed, his temple burnt with fire, but now God ensures that the nations are fully aware that God is the all-powerful God In Ezekiel chapter 37 and verse 28, I read it a moment or two again. What do we read when God reestablishes his temple at the end of Ezekiel 37? The nations also will know that I, the Lord, sanctify Israel when my sanctuary, my temple, is in their midst forevermore. Zachariah takes this up in his prophecy in chapter 1 and again in chapter 2. And in Jeremiah 23 we read of the righteous branch, the Lord, our righteousness. Here is our mediator. The kings of the Old Testament were never mediators, they couldn't be. They pointed forward to the Lord Jesus Christ. The priests of the Old Testament, while they had a measure in the sacrifices of instructing the people in how they could be mediated, as it were, to be right with God, the sacrifices never perfectly fulfilled that. It was all looking forward to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is alone the shepherd, the sacrifice. the Anointed One, the Mediator between God and man, the King and the High Priest. And over 500 years later, the Lord Jesus Christ walked this earth in his incarnate glory and he comes to the temple and he purifies it. We read about it in John chapter 2 with our New Testament reading. And he is the true temple not made with hands. and all who come to him, to be built into that spiritual temple, not made with hands, not now a building, but living stones. Paul takes this up in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, when he describes the people of God in this way, verse 11, for no other foundation can anyone lay but that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus. And then he talks building upon this foundation and how to build upon it. And in verse 16, do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are." And then a bit later in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 and verses 19 to 20 he tells us again, do you not know, literally, don't you know You Corinthians, don't you understand this? It is emphatic. Don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God and you are not your own for you are bought with a price and so on. And Peter talks about that in 1 Peter as he talks about us as living stones built into a temple to the living God. And at the last, in the book of Revelation, we read of the holy city, the New Jerusalem, being a worthy place for God to dwell forever. We get those wonderful words in Revelation. 21 verses 3 and 4, away, the king and his bride living happily ever after. My friends, will you be there? Will you be there on that day? Are you among the people of God? My friends, this is not a fairy tale. This is the only story in the world that genuinely and really and absolutely and perfectly ends happily ever after. That's wonderful. That is wonderful. It is the best story this world has ever known. Will you be there, my friend? Will you be among that number? Can you say, yes, this God is my God? And by God's grace, he has saved my soul through the precious blood of his Son, our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, we're going to sing another hymn that speaks about the Lord Jesus Christ as our great foundation. It is number one. 573, if you need the book. Oh Christ, the great foundation on which your people stand to preach the true salvation in every age and land. Pour out your Holy Spirit to make us strong and pure to keep the faith unbroken as long as worlds endure. 573.