Haggai, not gonna help you. Haggai, by the way, Sunday night, Brother Gerald Myers is gonna be preaching. Gonna have Brother Gerald in, amen. And getting set up out there at the lighthouse. Our missionaries out of Madison Baptist Church to South Africa, how about that? And going's good to have them home when they come home. Also good to have them on the field. Yeah, I mean, you know, if they weren't on the field, it wouldn't be good to have them home. I hope that sounds all right. I want you to notice a few verses here in Haggai. By the way, so that you understand what we're doing, as we've been going through the minor prophets, that's the last 12 books of your Old Testament, we spend one week going over the book Overall, it's an overview of the book, so we don't get into a lot of great detail as far as the individual verses in the book, but to give you an idea of what's going on, when, and why, and so on, all those type of things. And then the next week, in this case it'll be in two weeks, I preach a message from the book, from a particular passage in the book. And that's how we've been doing it since we started with Hosea. There was only two times that we changed that. One was when I preached from Jonah, and that's because I had just preached a message from Jonah not too long before that, so I didn't do the second message at that time. And then the other was with the book of Obadiah, because it's just a one-chapter book, and it was Obadiah going to the nation of Edom. But anyway, let's notice, beginning in verse one, 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 Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Josedek, 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 I waste? Now therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts, Consider your ways. You have sown much, and bring in little. Ye eat, but ye have not enough. Ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink. Ye clothe you, but there is none warm. And he that earneth wages, earneth wages to put into a bag with holes. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. Let's pray. Father, we come to you in the name of the Lord Jesus. And I do pray the spirit of God would guide us as we study this book. May we get some lessons that will help us in our lives. For you tell us in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, that these things in the Old Testament were recorded for our admonition. that we not do like your people did when they walked contrary to your word and did not obey you. So, Father, may we learn from this. Help us, we pray. May the Spirit of God deal with us, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Now, remember, as I mentioned just a moment ago, we're covering the minor prophets. The major prophets, of course, are Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Daniel. The minor prophets are the last 12 books in the Old Testament. Now, there are other prophets in the scripture. Elijah and Elisha were two men who were prophets, but they didn't write anything as far as we know. At least they didn't write any scripture, okay? There were other prophets that were not even named. There were the sons of the prophets as well, and there was a school of the prophets. But there are certain men that are mentioned, and the distinction between the major prophets and the minor prophets has nothing to do with the authority of their word. In other words, the minor prophets weren't more authoritative than the minor prophets were. They were the same. Normally, their books were much longer and they covered a much greater period of time, and they also had a number of different subjects or different nations that they would be speaking to. You get to the minor prophets and everything is kind of narrowed down. You remember the oldest of the books? Since these are not in chronological order, the oldest of these is Jonah, who went to Nineveh in 862 B.C. But his is the fifth one in the list of these books. We started out with Hosea, who went to the northern kingdom on the year that they would be carried off into captivity. Joel went to Judah, and he wrote about 117 years before Hosea wrote. And then Amos went to the northern kingdom. And he actually came on the scene about 40 years or so before Hosea did. And then Obadiah went to Edom, that was in 820 BC, or right around then. And Edom, of course, were the descendants of Esau, the twin brother of Jacob. And these were a people that really hindered Israel when God got them out of Egypt. They made the way tough for them. And as a result, God was giving some judgment against them. And then Jonah went to the Gentiles up in Nineveh, to the Assyrians, and he dealt with them. And the amazing thing, out of all the prophets here of God that wrote books, this seems to be the only one that the people listened to. And they weren't the Jews. They were the Gentiles of Nineveh. When they heard the judgment of God was coming, they actually got right with God. None of these other prophets had that kind of success with dealing with God's people. And then Micah went to Judah at about 750 B.C. That was about 29 years before the northern kingdom would be carried off into captivity. And then Nahum went to Nineveh and he pronounced a judgment. He went in 715 B.C. And he pronounced judgment on Nineveh because although they had gotten right 140 years earlier under the preaching of Jonah, and yet they had gone right back into their old ways, and so God was going to judge them, and this time they don't get right. Then Habakkuk went to Judah. We covered that in about 626 B.C. That was about 20 years before the first Babylonian exile in 606 B.C. There are three of those exiles. The first one in 606, when a number of people were carried off into captivity. And then you've got the second one in 597, When another group from Judah were carried off into captivity, that included Ezekiel, who God would call to preach to the people that were in the captivity. And then there's Zephaniah, who went to Judah about four years before Habakkuk did. Now we get to these last three, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Haggai and Zechariah both preach about the same time. But you understand with that first exile in 606, God has spoke through Jeremiah to tell Judah that he would bring them back into the land 70 years later. Daniel also refers to that in his book, that God was going to bring them back into the land. And they did under Zerubbabel. And the reason for their coming back was to rebuild the temple that had been destroyed by the Babylonians. They had started on the building, but then they were stopped by some of the authoritarian voices that were in the land that kept them from building any farther. So about 16 years had passed They hadn't finished the building. They were at the place, they'd pretty much lost their vision. They were at the place where they were more concerned about seeing to it that their houses were done, that they were living comfortable. And I believe they probably kept telling themselves, we'll get back to the Lord's house and we'll get it finished, but we need to settle ourselves in the land. Now, that's not a new thought among God's people. A lot of them tell God, well, when I get this done and that done, and when I finally retire, when I do this, then I'll start going soul winning, then I'll start, then maybe I'll teach a Sunday school class, or then maybe I'll work in the bus ministry, or I'll get involved with men's for missions. You know, after I get all that settled, he says to them, consider your ways. So they're going to work on this thing when he deals with them here. They're going to finish the temple itself just a few years after that. Sixteen years from the time they started before Haggai has to come on the scene to preach to them. It appears that even Zerubbabel had lost his vision to get the job done. So, here it is 16 years later. The work is started again, gets finished, by the way, in about 516, 515 BC. He's contemporaries with Zerubbabel and Zechariah and Joshua the high priest. Haggai brought onto the scene as part of the last of the three Old Testament books to be written. And these three, by the way, the first two are written at about the same time. Malachi doesn't come on the scene until about 120 years later. And he gives an indictment against God's people, but they won't listen to it. As a matter of fact, they argue with God about it, and God then goes silent for 400 years. So here the people are back in the land. The newness is worn off. The temple is yet unfinished. They've gotten used to it being that way. They're used to seeing it that way. And the theme is the building of the Lord's house. A couple of key words that are found as you read through the book of Haggai. First of all, the very word house, speaking of the Lord's house, referred to as this house and mine house, eight times in these two short chapters. And then there's another word, consider, consider. He repeats it five times in these two short chapters. He said, need to start thinking. Well, we go through life, we were all concerned. I don't know how many newscasts probably all of us watched, how many internet articles we saw about the elections that were come up and all of that. Have you considered your responsibilities to the Lord? Have we been so caught up with what's going on in the country that we've not considered what we are supposed to be doing, what we're supposed to be caring the most about. You say, but that stuff can mean life or death. Yeah, and there's nothing you can do about it ahead of time, apart from prayer, by the way. You couldn't do anything else about it. Well, then maybe go in to vote and have that. But we spend so much more time on listening and worrying and fretting and arguing about those things when there's a far more important work to be done, and that's the Lord's house. Now, I know a lot of preachers have preached on this passage about a building program that they're in to try to build up the Lord's house. But the real building of the Lord's house is not done with hammer and drills and saws. It's done with the New Testament spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ to a lost soul. That's how you build the Lord's house. You get more people saved. You get them into the house of God. So we got Zerubbabel evidently getting a little discouraged. And I'm gonna tell you, when people lose their vision, nothing gets done. And things really begin to deteriorate. In this particular case, every one of them, they had their own plans with what they were doing, and they had lost their vision to complete the Lord's house to get it done. When there is no vision, the people fall. You've got to have a vision, and that's not just for the leader. Now, he preaches to God's people in this book four messages. He gives us a little introduction, or the Bible gives us an introduction to when and to who each of these messages were preached to. But there are four messages in these two short chapters that Haggai is given by God to give to the leaders and to the people. So here they are, when they came, they came to build the building, but the building's not done. And it's time they get busy. So as he begins this, you get the first message. We have the introduction to the first message is in verse one, when it says, in the second year of Darius. All right, this tells us the time frame. Darius was a king of the Medes and the Persians. The Babylonians have disappeared. They were defeated by the Medes, and now the Medes and the Persians. It's their kingdom, their empire that is going on. Somehow God has made Daniel a key figure within the empire of the Medes and the Persians. But here we are, but Daniel's back in the land. He's not with God's people here right now at this particular place. So I want you to notice this. 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 to Haggai, or by Haggai. So he gives us the time. If we were giving a date, it would probably be September 1st, 520 B.C. 16 years had passed since the foundation had been laid. And then he tells us who it's to. And notice this first message is specifically to Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Josedek, the high priest. So what God's doing is, first, he's giving a message to the leaders of God's people, time to get up and get busy. Now, the next one, he's going to address to God's people as well. But first, you've got to get the leaders that had the vision before to get the vision again, to get the job done. And I want you to notice basically what he brings. He talks about the time. 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. So the people are saying, no, we've got other things to do right now. We need to appoint a day off in the future sometime. We'll get back to the Lord's house, but we need to take care of ourselves. There are a lot of people like that in the church. There are a lot of people like that in their daily lives. They're trying to get themselves secure and settled in. And what he's going to say about all that after that is very appropriate. Notice beginning in verse four, here's the indictment. He says, is it time for you, all ye to dwell in your sealed houses and this house lie waste? Thou therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts, consider, there's that word, consider your ways. You have sown much and bring in little. Ye eat, but ye have not enough. Ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink. Ye clothe you, but there is none warm. And he that earneth wages, earneth wages to put into a bag with holes. He says, you're doing all this stuff and you're really not making any progress. It reminds me of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter six, where Jesus is talking to the people and he talks about the birds of the air, how God feeds them. He tells us in that passage, he says, no man can serve two masters for either he will love one and hate the other or despise one and love the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. And then he tells them in Matthew 633, seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. In other words, all those things are not things we really need to be concerned about. If we put God first in our life, God will see that we have what we need. Over in 1 Timothy chapter 6, he says, Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, it's certain we can take nothing out. And having food and raiment, let us be there with content. While I look around this congregation, most of you have had plenty to eat, and I have too. As a matter of fact, I've had more than enough to eat. It's why I am the shape that I am in, because I have had more food. And I don't have to eat much to get full anymore. I mean, that's amazing. But I'm not worried about food right now. I do pray, by the way, for my daily bread. And I want to make sure and do that because I need to acknowledge God's provision every day. Just because I've got bread in the cupboard and bread in the freezer and bread in the refrigerator and other things up in the cupboards, I shouldn't be sitting back and saying, well, Lord, I don't need you today. I've already taken care of my daily bread. Because he could wipe that out with a little twister, get it all gone real quick. He could take out the electricity supply and suddenly all that food rots. And we got nothing. We need to acknowledge that we depend on Him for our daily food. But here's back to the point. He said, you consider your ways. Here you are trying to gather and gather and get everything that you need so that you're secure. Security is a real big thing. But Jesus tells us, seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you. Here you are, you're trying to get ahead. You're trying to get ahead. You're trying to get more. But you notice, more is never more. More is never enough. It doesn't seem to multiply. The amount doesn't seem to grow, and you don't feel more secure. And no matter how much you get, cancer comes. Guess what? You end up spending it all on that, don't you? or other diseases that come along. Notice what he says here. He says, Go up to the mountain, bring wood, build a house, and I'll take pleasure in it. Talking about the house of God. And I will be glorified, saith the Lord. He says, Ye looked for much, and, lo, it came to little. And when ye brought it home, I did... Notice, I did... Who's the I? It's not Haggai. This is God. He's giving God's message to them. He says, you look for much, and it came to little. And when you brought it home, 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 heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit. You don't get ahead by putting yourself first in your life. So he gives them a warning. He tells them of the result of all this. You get to verse 12. It says, then Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua, the son of Josedach, 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. Uh-oh, maybe we've got another successful prophet. Maybe it's not just Jonah with Nineveh. Because Haggai's preached, the leader hears it. Remember when Jonah preached, the king heard his message. And the king got right. The king obeyed and that got the people to obey. And now here Haggai preaches and God touches the heart of Zerubbabel and he hears it, he gets right. Joshua obeys the voice of the Lord God and says, then spake Haggai, the Lord's messenger and the Lord's message unto the people saying, I am with you, saith the Lord. And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua. In other words, they got that fire back that first brought him. Don't be afraid of fire. Fire in the Christian life is good. Now, wildfire may not be good. But I'm gonna tell you, God's fire is always good. And it's right. And that's what every church needs, is that they need God's fire. You remember what happened to the two sons of Aaron when they brought strange fire to the altar? Strange fire. Well, what are we gonna do? Well, we gotta work the people up. I'll tell you what. Let's get the big deep bass guitars and let's get the drum set and we'll get an electric drum set. We'll knock everything out of here. People will be jumping up and down. They'll be shouting hallelujah and all that, but all that is is just strange fire. A real fire, now although God's for music, don't misunderstand what I'm saying, but he doesn't need fleshly music when you've got the right fire. I'm talking about music that appeals to the flesh and the body and gets it moving in all kinds of ways. I remember when I was a disc jockey in Otsego, Michigan, on Sunday afternoons, Matter of fact, my boss used to brag about selling God on Sunday. He said, this is my biggest day for making money, because all these different churches and so on, they pay to get on the air. And I remember there was one particular group, two or three men, a couple of ladies that were there. And man, they would be in that studio. It was their time. And I mean, they would be going to town. Another announcer asked me, he didn't say, Brother Mike, he just said, Mike, have you seen that group that comes in on Sunday afternoons? He says, I'll tell you what, it's embarrassing. The way it works these people up, it's more erotic than it is spiritual. And music can do that very thing to people, that's why you gotta be very careful about what your music is. so that your mind is on the Lord and not people moving about and rubbing up against one another and all that kind of stuff. Well, that could call for another message right there, but notice he says in verse 15, in the fourth and twentieth day of the sixth month in the second year of Darius the king. So God now has these people stirred up to get the job done. So their problem, the first message is on the first problem, and that was with themselves. They had gotten more concerned about themselves. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. I always believed that if I put God first, God would take care of me and my family. Best thing I can do for my family is have God first. because then God obligates himself to take care of us, to provide our need. That's just the way it works. That's the way it is. So then he goes to the second message. The first one deals with self. The second one deals with sight. In chapter two, notice verse one, he says, in the seventh month, so we're a month later, in the one and 20th day, so we're actually over a month and a half later, came the word of the Lord unto the prophet Haggai saying, speak now to Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Josedach, the high priest, and to the residue of the people saying, who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? Remember, they had been in captivity for 70 years. So which of you saw the house of God, saw Solomon's temple in all of its glory? Remember, you go back to the book of Ezra with those that came into the land. When they built the temple, the Bible says that the young men shouted and the old men cried. Because for the young man, it was the most wonderful building they had seen. To the old man, it wasn't much in comparison to what Solomon had done. And so they were burdened about that. And he deals with them about their sight. Now the timing of this, it's the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles. So seven weeks had gone by. They looked at what they had now, and some remembered the glory of the older temple. We need to understand this. We need to enjoy God's work for what it is today, not sit here and always be malcontents because it's not what it used to be. When God does something now, we need to rejoice in it. Maybe God will do more. But what we have a tendency of doing, oh yeah, we had a good revival meeting. Yeah, praise the Lord for that. But it wasn't like the revival meetings that Moody had. Wasn't like the revival meetings that Gypsy Smith had. It wasn't like the revival meetings that Billy Sunday had. It wasn't like the revival meetings of Charles Finney and what he had. But did you have a meeting where God blessed, people got saved and folks got right with God? Rejoice in that! Don't be dissatisfied with what God's doing today because it doesn't seem like what it used to be. Oh, by the way, here's another thought. Our memory of the way things used to be really isn't very good. You know, remember the good old days? Let me tell you what they talked about in the good old days, the good old days before. They were so busy talking about the way it used to be, they didn't enjoy what they had then. We need to enjoy what we have now. All right, this is not the same as Solomon's temple, but God has done something special in bringing them back into the land. And now it's their time to do their part. Now it is our time to do our part and see what God will do with it. Paul says, forgetting those things which are behind, reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God. Notice forgetting those things which are behind, reaching forth unto those things that are before, doing what God would have us to do so we can see him work now and not just say, oh, well, it's not as good as what it used to be. Well, let's make it as good as we can make it right now and ask God's blessings to do great things. It may look pitiful now, but God is able to do great things with small things. Now, that's the way God works. Remember Israel when they're walking through the wilderness, seems like every time they had a problem, they would complain. Oh, wouldn't God, we'd stayed in Egypt. Wouldn't God if we just died in this wilderness? Wouldn't God? Oh, if we could only go back to... Well, in Egypt, you were slaves. In Egypt, the midwives were told to kill your babies. In Egypt, your overlords wouldn't give you all the materials you needed and you had to come up with it yourself and you got beat if you didn't. Why on earth would you want to go back to Egypt? We need to remember that. How many people were teenagers in the 50s or 60s? Anybody here? Teenagers in the 50s? We had a lot more of them, by the way, in the morning service at 11 o'clock. And it's funny, yeah, I was a teenager, and of course I was lost back then in the 50s and in the 60s. And you think about, man, all those songs, wasn't it neat? No, man, wait a second, it wasn't neat. You're forgetting all those personal problems between people, and one day people would like you, and the next day they'd hate you. And then, you know, teenage years weren't that great for lost kids. But boy, we hear one of those old songs, oh man, wasn't that a great time? No, it wasn't a great time, your memory's faulty. So notice he goes on to say, notice in verse three, who is left among you that saw this house in first glory? And how do you see it now? Is it not in your eyes a comparison of it as nothing? Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the Lord, and be strong, O Joshua, son of Josedach, the high priest, and be strong, all ye people of the land, saith the Lord, and work. For I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts. Yeah, the same God that was with them, he's the God who's with us. According to the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, so my spirit remaineth among you. Fear ye not, for thus saith the Lord of hosts. Yet once it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. Now do you realize, All those great things that we read about in the Bible, God did not use up all His power when He did those things. He can still do amazing. powerful, glorious things today. Man, you think, wouldn't it be great to be used like David was used against Goliath? Wouldn't that be great to be able to be used like David had been used in his kingdom? Wouldn't it be great to be used like Elijah? Wait a second, their God who gave them the power to do the things that needed to be done, he's just as powerful today. You're reading your New Testament. He did great things in the New Testament, too. We have a powerful God. We have a great God. Wouldn't it be great to have a tremendous revival? God can do it. Let's seek Him. Let's pray. New Testament gives us a lot of verses on prayer, which we won't do. He tells us a lot. Some things are so difficult, it calls for fasting and prayer. Well, let's go ahead and prove God. Let's fast and pray. Let's mean business. Let's not look back and say, yeah, those are great Bible stories. He's a great God. And He can work the same things today that He has done in the past. He is all-powerful. So the second message is their problem with sight in verses 1 through 9 of chapter 2. The third message is the problem with sin. If you look at verse 10, he gives us, he starts out giving us the background here, time-wise. He says in the 420th day, now notice this is of the ninth month. In the second year of Darius came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying, Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, Ask now the priest concerning the law, saying, If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt do touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any meat, shall it be holy? And the priest answered and said, No. Then said Haggai, if one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priest answered and said, it shall be unclean. What is he trying to get these people to see? He's trying to get them to understand that God means what he says, even about the things that man would call little things. All right, so what if that special bread happens to touch my garment? How is that a big thing? I mean, after all, isn't there a five second rule here? I mean, really? How many here, man, if you can beat five seconds, you pick that thing off the floor and you eat it? Anybody here like that? Oh yeah, a whole bunch of us are, aren't we? Sure, that's okay. Now that may be food with the food that we're eating, but I'm gonna tell you what, when it comes to serving the Lord, any instruction that he gave his people in his law, all of it was to be done according to his word. And what makes all of that a big thing and not a little thing is the fact that it's God's word. So the Bible tells us in our New Testament in 1 John 3 and verse 4, whosoever commit a sin transgresseth also the law, for sin is the transgression of the law. God means His Word. Throughout the Old Testament, we find Israel getting in trouble because they decided that they were gonna determine what parts of God's Word were important and which parts weren't important. So Jesus makes this statement to go along with this. I hope you see it. I want you to turn over to Matthew chapter five. Matthew chapter five in the Sermon on the Mount. I want you to notice this. In verse 17, he says, think not that I am come to destroy the law of the prophets. I'm not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach men so, He shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But whosoever shall do and teach them the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Now the thing about this passage, the thing I wish Jesus would have done that he didn't do on purpose, no doubt, I wish he'd have told us which ones were the least commandments and which ones were the great commandments. He doesn't do that. Because if they're God's commandments, they're God's commandments. That makes them all great. But he doesn't want us. He knows us. There are some things, like for instance, let's take 1 Corinthians chapter 11. You've got 16 verses where God deals with the length of hair on men and women when they pray. There are a lot of preachers. Independent Baptist preachers make fun of that. Can't believe a preacher would preach against hair. That's such a little thing. Then why does God take 16 verses to tell us why it's not a little thing? 16 verses. He explains to us why. And he tells us, but we're stuck on it's a little thing. No, no, no, it's not. For instance, if a man covers his head when he prays, he dishonors his head. And who is his head? His head is Christ. Is it a little thing to dishonor Christ? Well, who else sees it? God sees it and the angels see it and that's enough. Because of the angels, he says in that passage. You say, well, how does it matter? I don't know, but God tells us it does, and that ought to be enough for us. The fact that God says it, it ought to be enough. The problem with sin, what had gotten Judah into trouble to have them carried off into captivity in the beginning? Because they would do the very things God told them not to do. And they wouldn't do the things God told them to do. They were the ones who decided right and wrong when God has already decided right and wrong. That's why my life's verse, Psalm 119, 128, Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right, and I hate every false way. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, lean not into thine own understanding, in all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. The problem with sin, all of our spiritual works are wasted when we think disobeying God in the quote unquote little things isn't a big deal. And he's reminding them of that. After all, they're back to building the house of God. They need to understand God gave special instructions, do it his way. Under Moses, when they built the tabernacle, the Bible says that the people obeyed the Lord in all his commandments. They did exactly as he instructed them to get it done. So he's dealing here with this matter of sin. He wants them to fear the Lord. Look at verses 13 and 14. Then said Haggai, if one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priest answered and said, it shall be unclean. All right, you priest, you keep that mindset. You keep that understanding. You don't give into it. In verse 19... We want to do things God's way. Do it right by him. Hebrews 12, 28 and 29. Wherefore, we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear for our God is a consuming fire. That's why the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. It's why the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Fearing the Lord means I take him seriously. Now that brings us to the fourth message. It's the shortest of the messages. If you go to verse 20, It says, And again the word of the Lord came unto Haggai in the four and twentieth day of the month, saying, Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I will shake the heavens and the earth, and I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the heathen, and I will overthrow the chariots and those that ride in them, and the horses, And their riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother. In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, will I take thee, O Zerubbabel, my servant, and the son of Shealtiel, saith the Lord, and will make thee as a signet, for I have chosen thee, saith the Lord of hosts. So he's preaching on the same day that he brought the third message. And now here he is in the fourth message. Imagine the discouragement. The people, their mind about sin, they were having trouble taking it seriously. These people were small people surrounded by great nations. They were part now of the Medes and Persians, at least under their control. And God comes along and says, hey, there is a God in heaven, and I'm going to shake all this down. Do you realize that no matter what happens with elections, spies, underground network, dirty bombs, all this kind of stuff that's going on around the world, none of that stuff can change God's plan. Jesus is coming back. We are on the winning side. He's already won. He came out of that grave, man. It's all conquered. The devil's conquered. Death is conquered. Jesus is coming back exactly like he said. And even in the very darkest hour, God's still gonna fulfill his promises. You can count on it. Now he's telling his people here, at one time, the land that they're now in here with Haggai used to be theirs. They were a great kingdom under David. They were a greater kingdom even under Solomon. And then they had things divided, and it seemed like it was all downhill from that point on. One problem after another after another, then the northern kingdom gets carried off, and now it's just Judah left. There it is by itself. That's it. And then they get carried off and assimilated into Babylon. And now after 70 years, somehow God has brought them back, and they're getting a temple back again. By the way, they got another temple coming. God's gonna see to it. That next temple's gonna be built there in Jerusalem. It could be any time. Now I don't know if God's gonna use the temple institute that is right there not too far from the Wailing Wall, but those people have been preparing now for a couple of decades. They have been preparing everything that's needed. They can put it up in three months and start having sacrifices and everything else. They're ready to do it. Now how in the world is that gonna work? When you've got the mosque right there that is a real sore spot with the Muslims that are on the other side of that wailing wall that these Jews pray at. There's always some kind of turmoil going on at that place. How is this gonna, never fear, God's gonna do it. And then three and a half years after that abomination of desolation, when it all seems for naught, Jesus comes back and wipes out the armies of the world in Armageddon. No matter how dark it gets, we know the end, the sun shining brightly. And he's reigning from Jerusalem for a thousand years. Hallelujah. So he's reminding these people, these people were still, pardon me, they were still God's people. These people still had the promises of God coming their way. All that had taken place had not changed that one bit. God's still going to do it all. We ought to walk out of here today, even though the world may be very bleak, this would be a fitting message no matter how the election came out. The world may look bleak. but God has not been affected by it in the least. He's not been weakened by anything. He's still on track. He's got his son coming back, and we win. Let's pray. Father, we come to you in Jesus' name. Help us, I pray, to look to you. Now, first of all, we need to see ourselves right, not considering our security, our things, but considering the things of God, first of all. Lord, our service for you ought to be right. We ought to make sure that we're clean from sin. Oh, God, help us. Help us to trust you, to serve you, to live for you, to glorify your most holy name. Have your way in our lives. There might be some people discouraged tonight. I pray, dear God, that they'd come during an invitation and just say, Lord, I trust you. I believe you. Help me, strengthen me as we go through our walk for you. Have your way in every heart, I pray, in Jesus' name.