Turn in your Bibles to the book of Haggai. Turn in your Bibles to the book of Haggai. As we've been going through these minor prophets, we're now coming to that second chronological section of the minor prophets, that is the post-exilic prophets, the ones that prophesy after the Babylonian exile. The Minor Prophets, as we've reviewed each time, are called the Minor Prophets because they are shorter writings. For example, Haggai here is two chapters. It's not a very long book. The Major Prophets are the Major Prophets because their writings are longer. It's not because the Major Prophets are more important or that their prophecies are more important or theologically more inspired or something like that. It's simply that the Minor Prophets are shorter prophecies and so therefore their prophecies are minor, they're shorter. Okay, but they're just as important as the messages found in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. These prophets, these last three, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, fall into that post-exilic category. There was a time that the nation of Israel and of Judah had turned against the Lord and gone after idols, and God told them that if He broke the covenant He had made with them, He would drive them out of their land, and He kept that promise, so that most of the minor prophets, leading up through Zephaniah, all the way through Zephaniah, Hosea, Zephaniah are prophesying, warning the people about God's judgment because they were breaking God's covenant. That judgment did come and they were taken to exile. There are a few of the major prophets who prophesied during the exile, Daniel and Ezekiel, for example. Two of the major prophets, Isaiah, most of Jeremiah are prophesying before the exile and warning the nation about the exile that's coming. But then none of the major prophets are after the exile, but three of the minor prophets, the last three are, after the exile. This is in a time of Israel's history that is really kind of unknown to us. Shouldn't be. It's in our Bibles. But for the most part, people, when they know the Old Testament stories, know most of the stories that have to do with before the exile. They know stories about the books of Kings and Samuel. We know about Saul and David and Solomon and then some of the kings afterward. But to know about what happens here in this period after the exile, is a little more obscure, and some of these leaders, who are important leaders, we don't know as well. Some of it is that they're not, you know, they're not an independent nation at this point. Also, some of it is that the area is much smaller, and it's a much smaller group of people than had been there previously, and so we don't take quite as much notice of them. But there's a very important historical message here in Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Haggai and Zechariah have a lot of, especially Haggai and Zechariah 1 through 8, have a lot of parallels with each other. And then we get to Malachi at the end, which is the final book of the Old Testament, both in order and in chronology, okay? In time order was the last one written. The book of Haggai we're going to consider this evening has to do with the issue of worship, alright? Specifically, worship in the temple. But I think the issue of worship is one of those areas. This is a word, worship, is a word that we throw around in English, and I think sometimes we understand it, but I think also that it's a word we throw around and we've used it colloquially. It's much like the word church. Okay, are we at church? Yes, but why? Because the church is assembled here worshiping. If we weren't assembled here worshiping, then just calling this building the church is actually theologically a little sloppy, if that makes sense. Because the church is the people, not the building. The building might be the place where the congregation meets, and it's the church's building, I recognize that, but being in this building doesn't inherently mean you're at church. All right, that's different than like a temple or something else like that. But we do the same thing with worship. It's popular in our day and age to talk about a worship leader in a service. Well, who's the worship leader? Usually a musician, right? But, biblically, music isn't the only thing that's worship. It is worship, no doubt. Music is worship, if done appropriately. It's either acceptable worship or unacceptable worship, but it's worship. Okay? But there's other things that are worship. Is the proclamation of the word of God worship? Yes. Okay? Is the reading of the word of God, when we have a scripture reading on Sunday mornings, is that worship? Yes. Is prayer worship? If prayer's not worship, I'm not really sure what is. Right? It's worship. So we have these other things that are worship that are, and so sometimes we make worship only the music. And I think that's a mistake. Okay? Worship comes, we have a English word, worship, and it comes from the idea of worth. Okay? So worth-ship. In other words, understanding the worth of something is worshiping it. And so the idea is part of worship, I'm just taking it from the English meaning here, but the Hebrew reflects this as well. And that is that what it does is it shows us we're recognizing when we're worshiping God, we're recognizing who God is. All right? That if you really understand who God is, he is worthy of worship. Some things aren't worthy of worship. There are things people worship, right? I remember seeing a football game years ago, this has got to be 15 years ago. and a guy had a banner he was holding up, you know, the people have signs and things at football games, and the football game banner said, this is what we live for. Well, you might like football and you might be a big football fan, but hopefully your life is about more than being a football fan. Because you'll waste your life if it's only about being a football fan. If that's the only thing your life is about, okay? It could be something that you can have a lot of joy in, but if that's what you live for, in other words, if my marriage falls apart, that's okay as long as my football team wins. If my children You know, starve to death, that's okay as long as my football team wins. I'm being ridiculous. You know, if I die and I don't know the Lord, that's okay as long as my football team wins. That's what you're ultimately saying if you're saying that's what we live for. Do you follow my point here? That's not what we live for. We live, hopefully, to glorify God. That's what God made us. Right? And so worship has this idea of our giving glory to God, not that we can make him more glorious, but contributing to worship, to recognizing God for who he is. In other words, what we're saying is God has value and I'm going to reflect that in my actions toward him. I am surprised today that Christian families sometimes don't teach their children to be respectful during worship. My son said recently they did Handel's Messiah where he goes to college. They said a lot of the kids were not paying any attention to it. They were texting each other and doing this kind of thing. I said, no, I said, that honestly really bothers me because every word of Handel's Messiah is scripture. All right? Every word of it comes directly out of the King James Version. So, to me, if the scripture's being sung, you don't send your friends jokes on text messages during that time. That just, it seems like you're thinking, okay, yeah, In other words, it's so common that, yeah, I'm around God and Christianity so frequently that this is some kind of boring classical music. And I know that's how the kids were thinking about it, is boring classical music. And they might not find it very interesting. But the fact is, at least sit quietly and have respect for the fact that this is all scripture. Right? Or in the same way, I had a rule when I was a teacher and I taught Bible in a Christian school. And I would, the thing that I, and the students knew it, it didn't take them very long because I was very big on this. was I said to him, look, if I'm reading scripture and you're talking, you're really gonna get me concerned. Because in the Bible class, you read scripture a lot. I'd say, look, if I'm talking and you're talking, you're not supposed to be doing that, I'm the teacher, you're supposed to be listening and taking notes. But I don't get as worried about that as I do when I'm reading the actual word of God and you think it's more important to tell your friend something. In other words, think about this, if Jesus stood right in this room, Would you listen to what he had to say, or would you have a side conversation with your friend? But yet, is reading the Bible any different than hearing from Jesus? It's not, it's still God's Word, right? Of course, if Jesus was here, we think we would pay good attention, but what if he found what he was saying boring? Wouldn't it be more interesting to go on Facebook and see what's going on? You see my point, that, in other words, part of worship is recognizing how important this is. And I realize sometimes there's a level of immaturity and these kinds of things involved, but this is why we need to teach our children this. This is why we need to mirror this in the way we behave in worship. Again, if you're a parent in here, and you have a young person, say in our children's ministries or in our youth group, I'm just saying this from experience, I'm not saying it's sinful, but I think one of the best things you can do is encourage them to carry a paper Bible to church. Not because I think it's wrong to have an electronic Bible. But the reason is that I've watched, and that is that many of the times that the young people have their Bible on their phone, they're not using their Bible on their phone. The people who are sitting around them aren't paying attention to what they're doing on their phone, whereas if you just put your phone away in your pocket for the Bible lesson and open a paper Bible, you're less distracted. It's not a sin. So I'm not saying, teens, if you're using your phone for a Bible, I'm not saying you're sinning. Don't misunderstand me. If you do that, what you should do is put it on Do Not Disturb. Okay? That way a text message doesn't pop up and you go, ooh, I should be listening, but I really want to know what my friend texted me. It takes away those distractions, okay? I make the same recommendation to you. If you use an electronic Bible, fine. It's not sinful. It's good. Still the word of God, even if it's on a phone, right? But put it on do not disturb so that you're not like, oh, the dolphin scored or whatever. by whatever updates come up on your phone, because there's all these push notifications and things. I mean, the phones are always screaming at us. And we're always wondering, what was that message? It could be really important. And then you get it out, and you're like, really? It was from Walmart app trying to tell me there's a sale? And I interrupted listening to the word of God to look at that? OK. So again, that's just a wise use of these devices. If you think a text message or a push notification is more important than worship, then you're not worshiping. Because the point of worship is to recognize God for who he is. And if God were, if Jesus was here in your presence talking, would you be doing other things? No, not at all. All right? And so what we find here is that these people, again, had been distracted from worship. In the second year of Darius, the king, In the sixth month, the first day of the month, came the word of the Lord by Haggai, the prophet, and to Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Josedach, the high priest. So he sets the stage here, all right? If you want to write this down, these dates are pretty firm in the scripture. The second year of Darius, Darius took the throne after Cambyses. Cambyses the Persian died, and Darius became the king of Persia. One note here, this is not the Darius, Darius, however you want to pronounce the name, This is not the Darius of the Book of Daniel, okay? Darius in the Book of Daniel is Darius the Mede, not Darius the Persian. This is Darius the Persian, okay? It was the Medo-Persian Empire, and this is Darius the Persian, who's actually the emperor of all the Persian Empire. Darius the Mede was the governor, so Darius the Mede is the one in the Book of Daniel who has to throw Daniel in the lion's den? He's the governor of the region of Babylon. He's not the full emperor of Persia, and there's good historical evidence for a man being called Darius the Mede there. And if you think about the timing, Daniel's more around the time of Cyrus than he is around the time of this, Darius. So people used to say that was a contradiction in scripture, but they never took into account the fact that it was Darius the Mede. This is Darius the Persian, the emperor of Persia. He took the throne in 522 BC, so his second year would be 520 BC. So I've written that in my Bible, 520 BC. If that matters to you, some of you are like, that means nothing to me. That'd be like saying, you know, for some of our young people, I say, back in 1983, and they're like, what? That's 20 years before I was born or whatever. That might as well be 1903 to them, right? But here, 520 BC, that may not mean a lot to you, but if you put a few of these in your Bible and you get a few ideas, you can kinda put some anchors in there so you can kinda get a little idea of where they are in relationship to each other. So the word of the Lord comes to this prophet Haggai, all right? The word hag in Hebrew, H-A-G means feast, So Haggai, his name has to do with the idea of festival, festive, which is actually appropriate because that has to do with worship, and his theme is gonna be about worship. There were many festivals in Israel that people were required to go to the central altar for, right? Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles, they were supposed to come and worship the Lord at these festivals, and there were these festivals that were set forth for them to keep, and what we find is that here his name means festive or festival. And he gives this prophecy from the Lord. He gives it to two men. It's directed at a man named Zerubbabel. Okay, I don't know that I've ever personally met somebody named this. I've met people with lots of different Bible names. But this is not one. I'm not necessarily saying you should choose this one. It's untaken. But it's not, it's an unusual name. It's not one you hear today. Okay, he's the governor of Judah. We also understand that he's a descendant of David. So in a sense, if the Persian Empire weren't ruling that area of the world, he would be the king in Jerusalem. But he's the governor of Judah. And to Joshua, the son of Josedek, the high priest. Joshua is a descendant of Zadok. He's a high priest. He's the one who's been consecrated as a descendant of Aaron to worship the Lord. Here's the problem, though. All of the commandments about worshiping God in the Old Testament have to do with how you do it in the temple. Okay, all the worship that's directed in Leviticus revolves around the tabernacle or later the temple, right? And so it's not that you couldn't be David with a, you know, with the sheep out in the wilderness singing and writing psalms to the Lord. You could, just like you can today. But in the same way, and I don't think I'm making these two things parallel, I don't believe Old Testament Israel is the church today or that the church is a replacement for Old Testament Israel. But having said that, People are mistaken if they think they can worship apart from a local church. And by that what I mean is, not that you can't have your own private worship and your own devotions, I hope you do, but that if you only do private worship and devotions and never attend church with a body of believers, you're actually not worshiping God fully the way God wants you to. And in the same way in the Old Testament, if you didn't Go to the tabernacle. How did you have a sacrifice for sin? How did you have any of these kinds of things? That temple or tabernacle was central. Here's the problem. In the book of Haggai, the temple hasn't been rebuilt. It was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar's armies in 587 BC. Here we are in 520, 67 years later, and that temple still lays there in ruins. Thus speaketh the Lord God of hosts, saying, This people say the time has not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built. He's saying, everybody's saying, we're not ready to build the temple yet. It's not ready time to rebuild it yet. We don't know all the reasons for this. It might be that they felt like, you know, it's uncertain. Are we going to be allowed to stay here? They were allowed to come back, but are they going to be allowed to stay there? Maybe some of them felt that, um, you know, they didn't have the wealth yet to rebuild it. Maybe because they had seen the previous temple and they thought we don't have the resources to build it like it was before. I don't know if you've ever seen this, but sometimes our expectations for the way things are to be done can get in the way with doing what God really wants us to do. This is not preaching against anything, I'm just illustrating. When I first came here, the previous pastor, who's a godly man, had a plan to expand the church here, physically. All right, and it had an architect draw up some designs, not blueprints, but just conceptual designs and these kind of things, and that's fine, nothing wrong with that. All right? But when I got here, a lot of people, we ran into some financial problems, and a lot of people were saying, I'd come to them and I'd say, you know, we need a new sign in front of our church. The sign we had was pretty dated. We need a new sign, and I had people coming to me and going, I'm really concerned that if we put a sign out there, it won't match the new expanded church that we're gonna build, and I'm thinking, we don't have the money to build the new expanded church, We do have the money to put the sign up. Let's get the sign done. Right? In other words, put a good sign out there. Some people driving by will see Calvary Baptist Church on the sign. And then we'll worry about expanding the church when the Lord provides that. And I'll just say this, you know, one thing. I think we've got almost all the square footage we need around here. We're not short on square footage. The one thing that I think would improve in this building, and I'm not saying we're going to do this anytime soon, but if the Lord allowed at some point, would be to build a wing where the carport is over there, like the length of that side of the building, that would have some nice modern bathrooms, a new nursery area, and some things like that over there. As I've thought about it, that would be a nice thing. That'd probably be fairly expensive. I'm not real big on debt, so I wouldn't want to go into debt to do it. But at some point, I think that would be nice to be able to do that, OK? It would modernize this building a little bit. So it's not that I'm against building onto the church. It's just at some points, we have to say, sometimes you just got to do this piece by piece, even though we might have a goal and say, wouldn't it be wonderful if we could just bulldoze all of this and have $20 million to rebuild everything brand new? Well, yeah, that would be wonderful. Not that I really want to bulldoze everything, but to have all brand new things for $20 million, That sounds wonderful, but offerings have been good, but not quite that good. Okay. I don't know if you noticed, we had a typo in the bulletin a few weeks ago and it was like, we had, I think it said we had $19 million offering or something like that, or a $9 million offering or something. There were the decimal was missing for the sense. And it was like a $9,000 offering, but it ended up being a $9 million of something. I forget how it worked out, but it was like, no, it wasn't that good. But, uh, You know, it would have been nice, but it wasn't. But that's not what the Lord had for us. But in the same way, you know, we can sit here and go, I find this with, honestly, this is a trap that young men fall into sometimes who are thinking they want to go into ministry. And that is, they think, I'm going to go into ministry, so someday I will minister. And what I want to tell them is, start ministering now. What's wrong with teaching children's church? You're not going to go right from being sitting in the pew to preaching in the pulpit. That's not how it works. In other words, do what you can do now. God wants you to obey Him now. It's not an excuse to obey God to say, well, I didn't have all the resources to do it exactly the way that I wanted to do it. Okay, and that's what we find here in Haggai, is people are saying, it's not the time yet. Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai, the prophet saying, is it time for you, O ye that dwell in your sealed houses? And this house lies in waste. Sealed houses has the idea of, you know what, they were doing some nice things, putting some paneling up and stuff. We don't use paneling that much anymore. in decorating, but if you ever go to a really nice home, you know, you go see one of these historic homes, Biltmore, I don't know if you've ever been to Biltmore up in the Asheville area or a house like that. You go to one of these places and honestly I don't covet big houses that much because, not because I don't think they'd be great to live in and it looks really cool, but I look around and I go, that's a lot of dusting. A lot of upkeep here. But the thing, and this has to do with my, I think preachers kind of like books usually, when I go into the libraries of those places, I start to covet. Not just because they have nice books, but you know, like three stories of bookshelves with sliding ladders. I'm like, that's really cool. And it's in their house. And those are always oak paneled, right? They're never like stucco walls, they're oak paneled. So here's the idea here. Again, that's a lot of dusting, all those books. And you guys are like, have you never heard of Kindle? But there's just something about a physical book, though. That, you know, you go in those rooms, they look neat. But here's the idea. You think of this, you know, you go into an expensive home and they have hardwood oak paneling on the walls of a study or something like that. That's the kind of paneling we're talking about here. They had built their homes, but their homes weren't just mud brick anymore. They were sealing the insides of them with nice things. Here's what God is saying. Wait a second. You don't have resources to rebuild the temple, but you just remodeled your house? You just renovated your kitchen? In other words, what is worship worth? What is God worth? I think of the story of the woman who comes to Jesus and breaks open the expensive ointment and anoints Him. And what does Judas say? Oh, we could have sold this and given the money to the poor. And Jesus says, leave her alone. She did this under the day of my death. In other words, don't think somebody's worship's too extravagant. It's an act of worship. The problem was these people were going the other way. We don't have the money to be extravagant enough, so we're not gonna worship at all. This is one of the beauties of New Testament worship. What are we commanded to do in music? To speak to one another in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Does it say that it has to be concert quality music? No. In fact, you know what? There's no command to actually even have solos. Don't misunderstand me. I appreciate our soloists, and I appreciate their hard work, and I appreciate the orchestra and their hard work. I appreciate the choir and their hard work. There's choirs in the Old Testament. There's no choirs in the New Testament church. Not because they're sinful. If I thought they were sinful, we wouldn't have one. But because you don't have to have it to have a church worshiping. If you have 10 people in a living room planting a church, they can sing hymns together. There doesn't have to be a choir. And they're honoring God just as much as we are. All right? And so here's where we can come short. Well, we can't really do church music well, so therefore we won't do it. No. Sing to the Lord, speak to one other in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. That is central to what we're to do. And here these people are living in nice homes, but yet they've not prioritized the building of the house of God. And here's the Lord's warning. Consider your ways. Ye have sown much, and bring in little. Ye eat, but ye have not enough. Ye drink, but you're not filled with drink. Ye clothe you, but there is none warm. And he that earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. So here's what he's saying. You don't have enough to eat. Your clothes are wearing out. You don't have enough layers to stay warm. You don't have enough to drink. And when you earn money, you put it in a bag, but the bag has holes in it, and you're losing it. And what we do know is there were significant financial problems at this era of the Persian Empire. Darius had adjusted the tax rate, and it had caused some inflation. Now, you know what? Here's the amazing thing about that. A Persian king way off in Persia, which is modern day Iran, is impacting the lives of people in Judah, in Jerusalem, but yet God is using his chastisement of them because they're not prioritizing worship. All right? See, all of these things, God providentially using the actions of a pagan king many, many, many, many, many hundreds of miles away to impact God's people because they weren't prioritizing worship. Now, don't reverse this. What this is saying is that you cannot expect God's blessing financially in your life. You cannot expect it. Doesn't mean you might not see it, but you can't expect it if you don't think God's important. if you don't think God's worship's important. All right? Now, there are a lot of people who hate God that see God's blessing, and they don't know they're seeing God's blessing. But what I'm saying by don't reverse this is don't then say, well, if I prioritize worship, I'll get rich. That's the prosperity gospel. That's, you know, the other side of this, but that's not the logical implication of this. The logical implication isn't you'll be rich if you prioritize worship. There are many people, brothers and sisters in China or North Korea today, who prioritize worship, but they're poor and persecuted. That's God's will for them right now. And I don't say that lightly, but I say that, you know, they're laying up treasure in heaven. That's what we have to recognize, that we lay up treasure in heaven, not here on earth. But some people have twisted some of these teachings about warnings about ignoring God, and therefore God's chastisement coming on them, to then say, well, then the opposite must be true. That is, if I do worship God, then I'll get rich. But the fact is, then that's a, you're not really worshiping, are you? Again, let me illustrate it this way. If I go to the store and I buy my wife flowers, and I buy her flowers so that she'll make my favorite meal, it feels a little manipulative, doesn't it? If I buy her flowers because I love her and I like to see how excited she gets when I give her flowers, that's good. See, I'm honoring her by doing that. If I buy her flowers because I want her to, you know, I'm trying to twist her arm to let me buy a new Mustang or something, She's like, no, I don't think we should spend the money. Flowers? You know, that's not really honoring her, is it? It's manipulating. And in other words, there are a lot of people who think, well, if I give to God or if I worship God, then he'll make me rich. Well, you're not really honoring God, you're honoring riches at that point. But God's chastisement had come upon these people. Then saith the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. Go up to the mountain and bring wood and build the house and I will take pleasure in it and I will be glorified, saith the Lord. Here's what the Lord says. Stop building your own homes, go up to the mountains, cut down some wood, dedicate some of your time and rebuild this temple so worship can start back up. They had nowhere. The temple laid in rubble. There was nowhere for the central altar to be, for the Holy of Holies to be, for the Ark of the Covenant to rest. None of these things, the Ark of the Covenant, evidently, you know, had been taken by the Babylonians and those kind of things. We do know that they had been seen, those chalices and stuff that had been used, you know, cups that had been used were being used by Belshazzar, right, and his mocking of God. So we know the Babylonians took many of those treasures. But there's nowhere to redo this, to have this worship. Because of mine house that is waste, you run every man into his own house. Therefore, the heaven over you is stayed from due and the earth is stayed from her fruit. What is he saying? He's saying, and because you've been neglecting worship, not only has there been financial problems, but added to that is the fact that the ground isn't producing like it should and there's been a drought. In other words, God's chastisement was upon them. Verse 12, then Zerubbabel, Now here's a wonderful thing. When we've been reading the minor prophets up until now, With the exception of Jonah, where he had a positive response from his hearers, do we have a recording of anybody positively responding? In other words, when Hosea or Zephaniah or one of these prophets prophesies and says, you're going after idols and Micah and others, and you better watch out because God's judgment will come if you keep serving these idols, do we see the people respond positively to that message? No. And like I said, the only one that you see somewhat of a positive response is the Assyrians in Nineveh responding positively to the warnings of Jonah, who didn't want to go there in the first place because he wanted God to judge them. But here you have Haggai giving this message because he wants the people to hear God's word and he wants the people to rebuild this temple and for God to be honored. And the wonderful thing in this passage is we're coming to a minor prophet here where the people hear the word of God and they obey it. They respond to it. And notice where it comes from. It comes from their leadership. It comes from their governor. And it comes from their high priest. You know the problem? The kings and the high priests, many times in the prophecies of these other minor prophets, didn't serve the Lord. And they didn't lead the people to serve the Lord. But here we see these leaders leading the people to go and rebuild the temple. Verse 14, And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua, the son of Josedec, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people. And they came and did work in the house of the Lord. of hosts, their God. And what we find is they come and they start working on this temple and rebuilding it because this is where worship is going to take place. And so they prioritize worship. Again, I don't want us to confuse. Jesus told the woman at the well not to argue about where God should be worshipped. Where God should be worshipped was very important to Haggai. But he tells the woman at the well, don't argue about this because the day is coming that men are gonna neither worship here on this mountain nor in Jerusalem, but God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. So what we need to prioritize today is worship in spirit and truth. That's New Testament worship. It's not about the place, all right? You don't have to have a crystal cathedral to worship in. What you have to have is spirit and truth. And unfortunately, when there was a crystal cathedral, I think it's a Roman Catholic church today, when there was a television preacher that had a crystal cathedral in California, worship in spirit and truth wasn't going on because the real gospel wasn't being preached there. So it doesn't really matter if the building's beautiful. What matters is, is God being honored through the worship? The first and primary goal of worship is that God is honored. All right? is that God is honored. Is our worship going to be God-centered or man-centered? And there are a lot of people out there that they determine what church they're gonna go to based on what they say is the worship and how the worship makes them feel. We don't worship how the song makes us feel. We worship the God that we're supposed to be honoring with the song. So this morning we sang another one of my favorite Christmas songs. There's many, many good Christmas songs. My favorite one is Hark the Herald Angels Sing just because there's so much gospel in it. Born that man no more should die. born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth, all right? There's a reason you don't ever hear that verse playing at Penny's when you're shopping. All right, because they don't want to offend people who aren't Christians. But one of my other favorites was the one that we sang this morning, Who is He and Yonder Stall? Now, is it the, again, you're not gonna hear even a easy listening Muzak rendition of You know, you might hear Hark the Herald and Herald Angels sing in a, you know, kind of easy listening, no words to it song somewhere in a secular store. You won't ever hear Who is He and Yonder Stall. It's not that familiar. But part of the reason it's not that familiar is because it doesn't catch the attention of the wider culture because there's so much gospel truth in it. You know, the wider culture's like, yeah, this one's a little too religious. But it's a wonderful song when you think about the meaning of the words. Is it the most sentimental Christmas song? No. You know, there's lots of Christmas songs that we hear and we're like, that's just really sentimental. I hear this song and it makes me think of Christmastime. You know, I grew up hearing Bing Crosby singing Christmas songs. You know, White Christmas and these kinds of things. I'll Be Home for Christmas and this kind of stuff. I grew up hearing that kind of music. That's what my, you know, that was the Christmas record my parents had. So when I hear Bing Crosby, it sounds like Christmas time. It's just kind of in our culture. And you still hear it. You go to places today, shopping, you still hear Bing Crosby or Nat King Cole singing some Christmas song alongside all the pop people that are doing it today. But, you know, those are sentimental. That's not the only purpose of Christmas music, to be sentimental. There's nothing wrong with sentimental. All right? There's a lot of things we do that are kind of sentimental at Christmas. That's okay. But the fact is that we also have to go beyond that and be gospel-oriented, and be honoring God. That's the question. Does this honor the Lord? Does our worship honor God? That needs to be our first question. Not, how does it make me feel, but does it honor God? Chapter two. In the seventh month, in the one and twentieth day of the month, came the word of the Lord by the prophet Haggai, saying, Speak now to Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Josedek, the high priest, and to the residue of the people, saying, 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? There's some old men in that group who saw that old temple before it was destroyed by the Babylonians, and now they're looking at this new temple, and it looks tiny, and it looks not as wealthy, it looks like nothing in comparison to it. It just doesn't compare. Verse four, yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the Lord, and be strong, O Joshua, the son of Josedek, the high priest, and be strong, O ye people of the land, saith the Lord, and work, For I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts. According to the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, so my spirit remaineth among you, fear ye not. So here they're rebuilding this temple and it's tiny and it could be almost discouraging that they're doing all this work to build this tiny temple in comparison to the old one. But here's what he's saying. The Lord is the same God who brought Israel out of Egypt and made them his people. He's the same God, and He's saying, look, I'm the same God who made this covenant with you, and I keep my covenant. Keep this work up. It might seem small to you now, but it's not unimportant. We're going to see a similar verse. I'll just make reference to it now in Zechariah. What does the Lord say to Zerubbabel? Not by might nor by power, but my spirit saith the Lord of hosts. In other words, yeah, you don't have the might of David's kingdom here. But the Spirit of God is there. Verse 7, and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, saith the Lord of hosts. Here's what the Lord is saying. I'm going to do great things here. He starts to make references to the future. In other words, it seems like what you're doing is very small now, but keep at it, because God's Spirit is working in it. I think about, there was a time, 1620, when a group of people came to Plymouth Bay Colony, and they were a group of people who were persecuted in England. King James of England persecuted them out of the country because they had a conviction that they couldn't worship in the Church of England because it was too Roman Catholic in their mind. And so they felt their only choice was to try to start a new colony, a new English colony in the New World, and they sailed. They were trying to go to Virginia, but they got off course and ended up in Massachusetts. And we know them as the Pilgrims. Now, if you were to go and see that Pilgrim settlement in 1620, 1621, Something like that. It would have been a small place. It would have been a meager place. It would have been a poor place. It wasn't nearly as nice as Plymouth, England, where they came from. Or London, England, where they came from, in some cases. It was just a wilderness that they built a few homes in. Am I right? And I'm not saying they're perfect or anything of that nature, but they went there trusting God. This is one of the things that's not always taught in our history. They didn't come to America just because they You know, they wanted to be explorers. They came here because they were seeking religious freedom to worship God according to their conscience. And here we are, 300 years later. Right, 1620 is almost, well no, we're more than that, 400 years later. Goodbye if I did my math better. 400 years later, coming up on 400 years later, and we are in a country where we still have the opportunity to worship the Lord according to our conscience. Much many more people are doing that and there's much greater opportunity to do that. How many gospel messages, how many gospel messengers have gone out from the United States of America and from the Americas? And we could go through the history of it. This is not to say America's God's chosen people and has replaced Israel or something like that. What it is to say is some people acted by faith 400 years ago and God has used it in great ways. And God's telling these people the same thing. That you know what? This is, this is, we live in a day where everybody wants to change the world. Right? You got the Greta Thunbergs of this world who want to go and lecture our leaders about global warming. And regardless of what you think politically about that, the fact is whenever other time in human history did we invite a teenager to come and lecture the government about things? Not because teenagers are bad, but the fact is that they haven't had enough life experience yet to have anything to tell us. Okay? That only works on sitcoms, where dad's a buffoon and the teenage kids rescue him from something. But that doesn't happen in real life. Usually dad and mom are rescuing the teenager from something. Okay? So, you know, it's a political stunt. We all know that. Okay? Regardless of what you think politically about it, it's a political stunt. You know, it's not like she has a PhD in some science and was an expert. She's just, if you put a teenage girl up there, if you criticize her, you look like a meanie picking on the poor teenage girl. So it's just a rhetoric angle. But you see, we're telling people, you can change the world, but the fact is that, you know what, really making an impact for the world usually starts with doing what God wants me to do right where I am. You wanna change the world, make your bed. Honestly. Honestly, really. People who change the world made their bed. Most of the time. Because they had the discipline to do what needed to get done. If you didn't have the discipline to make your bed, you won't have the discipline to do great things later. I'm not saying it's a biblical command to make your bed. If you have a messy bed, it's no sin. Okay? Unless you're one of my sons and I told you to do it, then you're disobeying your parents. But the fact is that, you know, we think that these small things don't matter. But I come back to the illustration of, again, Susanna Wesley. You go to London and you can see the grave of Susanna Wesley. Most of you don't know Susanna's husband's name, the father of John and Charles Wesley. John Wesley led a revival in England that probably spared England from a revolution similar to the French Revolution. And Charles Wesley wrote some of our Christmas songs, Hark the Herald Angels Sing. All right? These two brothers were godly men who had a big influence for the gospel in England. And you know what one of the biggest influences in their life was? Not that their father wasn't an influence, but it was their mother, Susanna. You know what she did? She faithfully taught her children the scriptures at home, and she raised them to the glory of God. We live in a day and age that says, motherhood, that's not honorable. What about women who will change the world? And I'll tell you, Susanna Wesley changed the world by being a good mother. All right? You do the right thing to the glory of God. But the Lord says, there's a time coming that things are greater are gonna happen here. Now he gives an illustration. If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with this skirt do touch bread or ported, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any meat, shall it be holy? He asks the priest a question. If you get some holy food, some holy flesh here, that is, that's come from a sacrifice, and you carry it in your apron, does it make the apron holy so that whatever else it touches becomes holy? And the priest say, no. But then he goes on. Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? In other words, you go and you have to bury a loved one, and you're therefore ritually unclean, and therefore you have to go through a purification. While you're unclean, if you touch bread or pottage or wine or oil, if you touch one of those things, does that food, does that item become unclean? And the answer is yes. See, the point is, here, 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. In other words, there's a contagiousness about sin and uncleanness. It has, like Jesus warns, it's like leaven, it spreads. Okay? But simply being around something holy doesn't make me holy. But being around something sinful can make me sinful. And these people had, become unclean because they had been in the midst of Gentile people and they had taken on some of the Gentile characteristics and because they therefore had prioritized not building the temple. And so there was an issue that God was concerned them about. Keep building this temple, don't be discouraged. Verse 21, and then we have again this end times kind of prophecy. to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I will shake the heavens and the earth. Doesn't that sound like the end times? And I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and I will destroy the strength of 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, everyone by the sword of his brother. Here's what he's saying. You know that Persian empire that's so powerful? God's gonna overthrow it. In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, will I take thee, O Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtiel, saith the Lord, and I will make thee a signet, for I have chosen thee, saith the Lord of hosts. Here's what he's saying. The house of David that's represented here by Zerubbabel, there's gonna be a time that the men of faith like Zerubbabel will be raised in resurrection and will inherit a kingdom with his greater son, Jesus, who will be king in the New Jerusalem, or even before that, in the Millennial Kingdom. and that these men will be men of faith who will be in that land with Jesus ruling and reigning. Okay? There's a messianic kingdom coming that's greater than any kingdom today. All right? Even, you know, today the most powerful military in the world is the United States military. We've got aircraft carriers that have enough fighter jets on them that they're bigger than some air forces of many countries in the world. And we have many, many, many. I don't remember the total number of it. What is it? What do we have, like 16 aircraft carriers or something now? It's a very large number. Most countries don't have an air force as big as one that's on our aircraft carriers. And then we have intercontinental ballistic missiles. We have stealth bombers and stealth fighters and F-35s and cruise missiles and, you know, all kinds of high-tech weapons and a well, well-trained military. We have all of this, and I thank the Lord for those who serve our country. But the fact is none of that is anything compared to the power of God. And that even though it's a privilege to live in the United States and have the freedoms that we have and enjoy the prosperity that we have, don't ever, we can't ever substitute this for that time when Jesus rules. You'd be better off to be in North Korea as a persecuted Christian who will someday rule and reign with Christ than to be an unbeliever in America that enjoys the good life here. because you can't exchange that for your soul. And here's his point. You're small now. The group of Jews that are back with you are a small group of people. There's this small little temple. You're in Jerusalem. A lot of it's in ruins. The area that is the province of Yehud that he ruled over, that he oversaw, Zerubbel over Saul was a small area. It didn't include any of the Philistine region or any of the, if you remember our Bible geography, any of the Shevelah, those hill country, the foothills. It was basically the hill country of Judah over to the Dead Sea and the Jordan River and then up a little bit into what would have been like the hill country of Ephraim and Manasseh. It's just a small little province. This is what he had responsibility for. It's nothing compared to the kingdoms of David or Saul. And so there's a lot of A lot of thoughts here of what good, what are we doing? This is just small. This is not a big deal. But here's what the Lord is saying. It is a big deal. God is working. God is working. God is working and God is worthy of your worship because there's a time coming that the King of Kings and Lord of Lords will sit on a throne in Jerusalem. He's worthy of worship. And so worship needs to be prioritized. That's really important for us to understand. All right, because it's not easy to do. It's not the way the world looks at things. You know, at Christmas time, does the world prioritize worship? I hope you worshiped on Christmas. Hope you maybe had some time of prayer, maybe read the Christmas story or something like that. Most Christian families, I think, do that. What does the world worship on Christmas? Consumerism. Gifts. Now, the gifts are supposed to represent Christ's love for us, the Father's love for us, and sending his Son, Christ, to die for us. That was the greatest gift. So it's a good representation, it's a good tradition, but guess what? Just like we can, we can become more concerned about the gifts than we can about God who's represented by them. And so again, worship needs to be important, not just at Christmas, but throughout the year. Whether it's coming together here as body believers and singing and hearing the word and praying, or whether it's Or whether it's in our private worship. Worship needs to be important. God is worthy of our worship. And we can't, it's to our own detriment that we disregard worship, just as it was to the detriment of God's people in the days of Haggai. Thankfully, their leadership responded correctly. And I hope we all will respond correctly to this message of the book of Haggai. Let us pray.