Please turn your Bibles to Haggai chapter 2. And again, just by way of reminder, the last book of the Old Testament is Malachi. The one before that, Zechariah. And the one before that, Haggai. Haggai chapter 2, we'll look at verses 10 through 19. This is the word of our God. On the 24th day of the ninth month in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet. Thus says the Lord of hosts, ask the priests about the law. If someone carries holy meat in the fold of his garment and touches with his fold bread or stew or wine or oil or any kind of food, does it become holy? The priest answered and said, no. Then Haggai said, if someone who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean? The priests answered and said, it does become unclean. Then Haggai answered and said, so is it with this people and with this nation before me, declares the Lord, and so with every work of their hands. And what they offer there is unclean. Now then, consider from this day onward. Before the stone was placed upon stone in the temple of the Lord, how did you fare? When one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were but ten. When one came to the wine vat to draw fifty measures, there were but twenty. I struck you and all the products of your toil with blight and with mildew and with hail, yet you did not turn to me, declares the Lord. Consider from this day onward, from the 24th day of the ninth month, since the day that the foundation of the Lord's temple was laid, consider. Is the seed yet in the barn? Indeed, the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have yielded nothing. But from this day I will bless you. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. We've been going through this prophecy of Haggai, which seems so distant to us, and yet there are remarkable numbers of practical things for us as a church to remember. And as a church, we tend to shy away from the prophets because that was then, this is now. When we fail to recognize that even the world's view of history as things just repeating itself has a measure of truth to it, we never seem to learn the lessons of our forefathers. We just do it again and again and again. We've been looking through this post-exilic prophet, and I say post-exilic primarily because even though the time that Haggai was written, there were still other exiles who were yet to return, but the focus here is back in Jerusalem. This was a set of Jews that had returned. They are there. They are back. And as we've seen, 16 years went by between the laying of the foundation for the temple, the rebuilding of the temple, before Haggai started ministering. 16 years. As we've seen, in many respects, that demonstrates for us God's long suffering. Most of us can't wait 16 minutes. God waited 16 years And through all that time of 16 years, the people of Israel, the Jews that had returned, simply have not flourished. They've existed, they've survived, as we've seen, especially in chapter one. They had food, but they were never quite full. They had clothes, but they were still a little chilly. And that's not because they're keeping the heat low. Simply put, they existed. They trudged through the daily grind of life with no yield because they did not live in obedience to God's word. And in fact, they were much more concerned about their own houses, their own paneled houses, which apparently became a rather common attribute to their homes when once it was something reserved for palaces. High expectations on what they wanted. Let's get stable, then we can give to the ministry of the building of the temple. And we've seen how the church has a very similar attitude. The people of God will sometimes say, I can't give to the church until my own economic situation is stable. Well, for one thing, it's not either or. It's both and. It is a good thing to be concerned about your economic stability. We have to work. We have to pay our bills. We need to live. We need to eat. But if all of us were honest, we would recognize the fact that we'll never have enough in our own eyes. We'll always want the next thing. This is what happens when we purchase cars. This is how salesmen try to lure us to the more expensive model. Yes, but heated seats. Yes, but a premium sound system. Cruise control, which is almost standard now. That used to be a luxury. Well, we come to a passage in Haggai that is a bit different from the last first nine verses, really, of chapter 2. In that, in chapter 2, verses 1 through 9, we saw that that was actually the end of a festival, the Feast of Booths. This date, in and of itself, has no religious significance like the previous month. And yet the Lord comes. through the mouth of the prophet of Haggai. What I hope to show is really simply this. Haggai's message reminds us that sincere obedience to God will result in present and future blessings. Haggai's message reminds us that sincere obedience to God will result in present and future blessings. We'll look at this under two headings. First of all, the lesson of uncleanness, and then secondly, the promise of blessing. So first of all, the lesson of uncleanness. Look again at verse 10. On the 24th day of the ninth month in the second year of Darius, a word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet. Thus says the Lord of hosts, ask the priests about the law. So by Jewish reckoning, if we were to write a date on a check under Jewish reckoning, this would be 924, 520 BC. Of course, they didn't use BC then. If we were to use our calendar and look at this, the date would be approximately December 18th. This is two months after what we see in verse one, after the previous message. In verse one, it was the seventh month on the 21st day of the month. It was the last full day of the Feast of Booths, the Feast of Tabernacles. Now we come to December 18th. Now, agriculturally speaking, the sowing of the seed would have already taken place. The word of the Lord comes to Haggai at this time. And interestingly enough, unlike what we've seen before, we just have that the word comes to Haggai. You may recall that previous messages from Haggai were given specifically to Zerubbabel, the governor, to Joshua, the high priest, and then the remnant. All that's left out. Don't make too much of that. There's no question that the message is still very much the same. As we saw last week, be strong, work, God comes back again and reminds them of certain circumstances and situations. Haggai is given this instruction to ask the priests about some things, about the law. Notice how the law is still in force. The fact that they are now under Babylonian, or really more accurately, Persian rule, does not negate the fact that they are still under the law. And notice that they asked the priests what the law says. And in fact, what we need to understand is that in Old Testament times, that the priests were not just simply about the temple and making sacrifices. As you see in Nehemiah, for instance, the priests had the responsibility to explain the word. That's why many times when you hear in New Testament terminology that our three offices match up with prophet, priest, and king of the Old Testament, it doesn't quite match up so nicely. The priest had to explain the word. And that's what Haggai asks them to do. with two simple questions. The first question concerns holy meat, or if you want, literally, the meat of holiness. Now, what this entails is meat that was sacrificed, but some of the sacrifices allowed the meat to be taken and eaten, whether by the family of priests or, depending on the sacrifice, even the family that brought it. But it was considered holy. It was considered sacred, because part of it was offered to the Lord. And so the question then comes, if somebody is carrying this holy meat, they're carrying it in their robe. They take their robe, they basically make a self-made basket out of this robe, they put the meat in it, and as they're walking by, they walk home, there's stew on the pot, in the pot, in the oven, you go by and the meat touches the stew. It touches the bread. Does that stew, does that bread become holy? Does it become clean? Is the holiness of the meat transferable? What do the priests say? They say no, it's not. Now that's an important concept that you and I need to reckon with. Now for the priests and really the Jews that had returned, this was probably a very simple answer. Probably didn't even need a priest to answer this question. Our holiness in and of itself does not automatically transfer to the things we do. Now why this question is being asked will become a bit clearer once we take care of the second question. But this is basically a rhetorical question that is easy to answer. The answer is no. If holy food touches common food, the common does not become holy. Let's come to the second question. Things switch. Someone is unclean under Levitical law because they've touched a dead body. Now, why do you suppose that way it's brought out? If you read through Leviticus, how many ways could a person become ceremonially unclean? The list goes on and on and on. But for some reason, this is the means by which our rhetorical person, our hypothetical situation, the person becomes unclean by touching a dead body. Well, it seems that that's probably one of the worst considerations, because death is the exact opposite of holiness. And so touching a dead body would really make somebody unclean. And so in a certain sense, when we think about the parable of the good Samaritan, even though the man who was beaten was left for dead, there was a risk of touching that individual and therefore becoming unclean. That's why the priest and Levi walked by. That's not an excuse for what they did. But you understand what their thinking is. Touching a dead body would make one unclean, unfit. So if the person is unclean after having touched the dead body, and that person, we'll call him Joe, or if you prefer, Jane, goes and touches something else, what happens to that something else? It becomes unclean. And the priest says, yeah, if this person who was unclean If you look at this in verse 13, if someone who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean? And the priest answers, it does become unclean. So the first question indicates, and its answer indicates that holiness does not transfer. But notice that uncleanness does. This is actually nothing new. We see this, as I made mention to the Levitical law, especially in the book of Leviticus, we see how touching anything unclean makes you unclean, and you cannot touch other things or other people, or they become unclean. In fact, If such Levitical laws were still enforced today, if there was somebody, first of all, if you were unclean, you couldn't be here. But even aside from that, if somebody was unclean and just touched one of the chairs that was empty, and then somebody else in ignorance comes walking in and sits in that same chair, guess what happens? That person becomes unclean because they touched the unclean chair that was touched by the unclean person. Now as you read through passages such as Leviticus chapter 15, you end up asking yourself the question, how can I possibly avoid being unclean? That's kind of the point. You can't. These rituals, these Levitical laws on cleanliness and uncleanness have a greater purpose. They have a purpose to remind us of what the effects of sin do to those around us. None of us ought to have the audacity to think that, well, if I sin, as long as I'm not hurting anybody else, it doesn't matter. Sin affects everything. That's the point. While holiness, the cleanness of something, does not transfer to something unclean, uncleanness does transfer to something that is clean. That's what sin does. Now as we think about this and we reflect on this, what this reminds us of, if we take a step back from the context for a moment, is that nothing you and I can do can make somebody else holy. Nothing. And all throughout the Old Testament, that truth is laid bare. This is why lepers would be outside the camp, so to speak. And when people would come near them, they would have to yell out, unclean, unclean, so people would not accidentally touch them. But there was one exception. Of every man who walked on this earth, there was one exception. in which his holiness transferred and made something unclean, clean. You could not touch a leper without becoming unclean, but the Lord Jesus Christ not only touched the leper, he made him clean. Christ makes clean what you and I cannot possibly ever hope to make clean. He makes you clean. As it were, he reaches out and he touches you and declares you and makes you clean. Something none of us could do. Christ does it. Well, this brings us back then to the point of the questions. The people had an attitude. The people had an attitude that must have been the complete opposite of what the law stated. Hey, I'm one of God's chosen people, we're back, we're receiving blessing now, therefore what I do is automatically holy. What I do is automatically clean. It's my work here for the temple. That's what's making the job clean and holy and good. Oh, those silly returning remnant exiles. But do we not do the same thing? Do we not often look at our good works and declare, Wow, look what I've done for the church. Look what I've done for this person. I went and visited people in the hospital. And so I would remind you again of Jesus's words that were read earlier from Matthew chapter six. Do you do things to be seen by men? Do you think by the mere act of doing good things that somehow your goodness transfers? That somehow your act just in and of itself blesses? That's not to say our good works are not a blessing to others. They are. How many of us have been blessed by others' charity and goodness toward us? Of course. But do we think the mere act itself is what blesses? The attitude is backwards. Their way of doing things presented itself as if what they did automatically sanctified whatever they touched. The first answer to the first question indicates that such a thing can happen. In fact, the answer to the second question tells them that what you're doing is actually defiling your work. None of us likes to be reminded that when we do things, we do things selfishly. There's always that little twinge of the remnant of sin flaring up within us. waiting to be thanked. You know what I'm talking about. Unfortunately, the Jews, and really, by implication, us as well, the things that we do will defile whatever we touch, unless it is sanctified by God himself. See, this is the lesson of the uncleanness that Haggai is bringing to the Jews and the remnant as they begin their work on rebuilding the temple. Well, this brings us then to our second point, the promise of blessing. Look at verse 15, and as you look there, I want you to note that most of what we're talking about in these concluding verses of 15 through 19 don't seem to be much about blessing. Verse 15, now then consider from this day onward, before stone was placed upon stone in the temple of the Lord, how did you fare? When one came to a heap of 20 measures, there were but 10. When one came to the wine vat to draw 50 measures, there were but 20. This day onward. And that's an expression that's very similar. We see it in, at the end of verse 19, something very similar, and then also something in verse 18, but it shows as a kind of bookend. There's an object lesson to all of this. Remember, how did you fare when you thought you were doing all this work for the Lord? How did you fare in the midst of all of this? When you made your offerings? Now that you've started building the temple, what's your attitude in all of this? And so God comes back to the object lesson from chapter one. You come to a heap. You expect a certain amount. You get half. What we have here in both of these examples that God gives through Haggai are not intended to be exact measurements, because each individual would yield something different. But the idea here is you come to a heap with 20 measures, and there's only 10, half. Well, at least there's something, right? But when you expect something, a certain amount, a certain yield, and you get half of what you think that yield should have been, you don't usually celebrate. After all, when people make financial investments, they do so in a particular case because they expect a certain amount of yield. And when that yield does not meet expectations, you get disappointed. Worse, what happens is if you lose money. But the second one, the second one, we come to the wine vat, and you expect to draw out of it, after all is said and done, 50 measures. But it turns out you only get 20. That's less than half. Things are getting worse. The thing is, the Jews already knew this. They were told this previously. They understood because their clothes didn't quite keep them warm. Their bellies weren't quite full. They ate, they got by, but it didn't quite do the job. So it is here, 50 measures, 20. Expectations are not met. The point is they had those expectations. They were not met. And they need to understand why this is the case. You see, you and I, we have this attitude many times to think of just natural things, cause and effect. Well, the company I invested in, obviously they didn't sell their product as much as we thought. So that's why the yield wasn't so bad. Well, there's truth to that. But do we recognize that in all things, God's providential hand is there? You see, even in Haggai's day, the people easily could have said, well, we didn't get enough rain. Oh, there was blight and mildew, as is mentioned. Can't control that. Just happens. That's why the yield isn't what it should be. God's point is, is that while it may be true that there was blight and that there was mildew, and maybe at other times there was drought and locusts and whatever else there may be, that in every case, God's hand is on it. There's no coincidence. The point is, the people should have been asking, why? 16 years of this. Why? Notice what God says in verse 17. I struck you and all the products of your toil with blight and with mildew and with hail. It was God who did this from the start. As we reflect on this and how this applies to our own individual lives, do you recognize that even the hardships in which you may be going through at the moment are from God's hand? That's a hard pill to swallow, isn't it? Because we have this natural, and I use that term rather loosely, natural inclination to think the good things that happen are from God, the bad things that happen are from Satan. That's what much of evangelicalism says. And so in certain instances, when you say the Lord brought this hardship, people get up in arms. God wouldn't do something like that. He says it right here. I struck it. I brought the hail. I brought the mildew. God brought it. That was then, this is now. It's the same God. And see, the point of all of this is to get us to ask the question why. And notice the ultimate purpose that God says here at the end of verse 17, yet you did not return to me, declares the Lord. All that time, I sent these things to you to wake you up, to get you to think and reflect on whether or not you have turned away from the Lord. Now my friends, we need to be careful here because as we apply this to our own lives, it is an important question that you and I should always ask when hardships come. Is there something I'm doing? Have I turned away from the Lord? The answer to that question is not always yes. We need to understand that. Sometimes the Lord in his providence is just sanctifying you through hardship. But it is always a legitimate question for you and me to ask, am I going through this hardship because of some sin in my life? Am I going through this hardship because I've turned away from the Lord or just treat him as though he is just there? Those are questions you and I should always ask. Have I turned from the Lord? Our instinctive answer would, of course, be no, not me. And so I would advise you, seek out wise counselors. Help them to examine your life. And it's true, you may come to the conclusion that no, I'm not really rejecting God. I'm not perfect, but I'm not turning away from him. And then you come to the conclusion that the Lord is testing you, he's teaching you. That can happen. But never walk away without first asking, am I away from God? Is God calling me back to himself in a way that I'm just not noticing? Yet you did not return to me, declares the Lord. And so God says, consider this day, from this day onward, from here and into the future, and even gives the date again, 24th day of the ninth month, since the day that the foundation of the Lord's temple was laid, consider, again, the command, consider. Is the seed yet in the barn? It seems one of the best ways to understand this is, is there extra seed? And it seems that the answer is an obvious no. And so you think about an agricultural system where natural disasters, shall we say, hit, and you have extra just in case. Well, we're past the sowing time, but at least there's this extra seed in case something goes wrong. Well, not this time. You want to know why there's no extra seed? It's because you have not turned back to me. The vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, the olive tree, they've yielded nothing. But notice, what we see at the end of verse 19. Despite all of this, but from this day on, I will bless you. Is this not a statement of the Christian life? despite all our failings, how often we, in practice, maybe not in words, reject God, we become, as we heard earlier, practical atheists, how often God comes back and says to you, I will bless you. That, my friends, is God's grace, His love toward us. despite the fact that too often we fail. He blesses us. But also have you noticed that in this text, we don't have, like we did at the end of chapter one, a description of the people heeding and obeying. God doesn't even wait this time. He says, from this day, I'm going to bless you. That's the promise that you and I have, is that even though we fail, God will still be faithful and true to his promises, and he will bless us. Oh, he might hinder us a bit, to put it mildly, but in the end, my friends, he will bless. That's the promise of future blessing. It's a promise of present blessing. All of us want God's blessing. I don't know any professing Christian who doesn't. And I would question their profession if they didn't. But God's promise to you is that he will bless, despite the fact that so often the things we do end up defiling what we touch. He promises to bless you. You see, this is a passage of hope. All this description of the blight and the mildew and the yield of nothing, all those verses and then just a few tiny words, I will bless you. Do those words shine off the page? Do they shine in your heart? Do they cause you to say, Lord, thank you for blessing me despite myself? Does it motivate you to press on and sincerely strive toward holiness? If the answer to that question is yes, you've gotten the point of the passage. Circumstances may be difficult. It certainly were for the Jews. Much of it brought on themselves. Remember, they were a remnant because of their forefathers' sins. Their current status was because of their lack of service to God in contrast to their own desire to build their own homes. but yet God still blesses them. For you and for me as Christians in this life, in this world, as we struggle with sin and we fail time and time again, isn't it wonderful to know that we have a faithful high priest who intercedes on our behalf? He does more than just say, Father, forgive them. He gives you His Spirit by which you can overcome your complacency, your struggles, your slothfulness, mental, spiritual, whatever the case may be. The Lord blesses. He blesses from on high. This is why at the beginning of every worship service, we have that apostolic salutation of blessing. The blessing that in this place, God's presence brings grace, mercy, and peace. That's a wonderful truth. And so the people of Israel, the returning Jews, are learning this lesson, that if they wish God's blessing, they need to demonstrate that in obedience. They will build that symbol of God's presence in their midst. Because it demonstrates they want God's presence in their midst. Do you wish God's presence? Go where it is. Oh, but Pastor Jim, God's everywhere. You know what I mean. God was everywhere then, but his unique special presence was in the temple where God met with his people. For you and for me today, God meets with his people in Christ Jesus by the power of the Spirit as we gather together in worship. This is God's house, not the four walls. You, you are the stones of the temple with Christ Jesus, the chief cornerstone. You are his house. If you would have God's presence, if you would have his blessing, be where that blessing is, in the presence of God himself. Ask these questions of yourselves. Are you stuck in a rut? Are the hardships that you're going through too much to bear? Things not quite going your way? Ask yourself the question. Have I turned from the Lord? Do I need to turn back? That's a humble question, you realize that. That's a question of humility. That's a question of the Spirit's working in your heart. So heed the question. Maybe you're not in any sin, any blatant sin. But maybe you need to just get closer to God, closer to Christ, closer to the Spirit. Heed these words, live in accordance to them, and go with the promise of God himself. as he sold to the Jews of old.