Dear brothers and sisters, dear guests, today we want to deal with the first chapter of the book of Haggai. The book of Haggai is a very short book, the second shortest in the Old Testament, and that's why it's not easy to find. It's easiest if you open it at the end of the Old Testament, to the book of Malachi, and then flip back. Then comes the book of Zechariah, and then the book of Haggai. So I read it to you, Haggai chapter 1. And here it is written in God's holy word. In the second year of King Darius, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the patron saint of Judah, and to Yeshua, the son of Jehoshaddak, the high priest. This is how the Lord of hosts speaks. This people says, the time has not yet come to build the house of the Lord. And the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai. Is it time for you to live in your shabby houses, while this house is dilapidated? And now, this is how the Lord of hosts speaks, direct your heart on your way. You have sown a lot, but brought in little. You eat, but do not become full. You drink, but you are still thirsty. You dress, but it does not get warm. And the laborer earns wages in a hollowed-out bag. So the Lord of the herds says, direct your heart on your path. Climb up into the mountains and bring wood with you and build the house. Then I will have pleasure in it, and glorify myself, says the Lord. You have looked after much, and behold, it became little. And when you brought it home, I went into it. Why this, says the Lord of the herds, because of my house, which is desolate, while you all run for your own house? Therefore, heaven has kept back death for your sake, and the earth has kept back its yield, and I have called a drought over the land, and over the mountains, and over the grain, and over the wine, and over the oil, and over what the earth brings forth, and over the people, and over the cattle, and over all labour yield of the hands. the shepherd, Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, and the high priest, Yeshua, the son of Josadak, and all the rest of the people, in the voice of the Lord, their God, and in the words of the prophet Haggai, as the Lord, their God, had sent him. And the people feared the Lord. Then Haggai, the messenger of the Lord, said to the people on behalf of the Lord, I am with you, says the Lord. And the LORD raised up the spirit of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the patron saint of Judah, and the spirit of Yeshua, the son of Josadach, the high priest, and the spirit of all the rest of the people, that they might come and work in the house of the LORD, the Lord of hosts, their God. On the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month, in the second year of King Darius. Amen. Let us pray. Our Lord, we plead that the word that you let speak two and a half thousand years ago by the prophet Haggai, that it has strength even today, that it leads even today that the church listens to you and to your word, that it fears you and that it does what you say to it. Lord, awaken our spirit so that we do what is good for you and glorify you, Lord. Amen. Haggai was one of the last three prophets of the Old Testament. He acted at the same time as the prophet Zechariah. And maybe you remember, a few weeks ago we heard this once, when we dealt with the two witnesses in Revelation 11. And after these two, after Haggai and Zechariah, only Malachi came. And then God stopped talking to his old people. For about 400 years, God did not send any more prophets. until the time when John sent the devil to prepare the way for his son, the Messiah, in which he spoke to us at the end of these days. So we are now dealing with some of the last words that God spoke to his people in the Old Testament, shortly before he remained silent for several centuries. And that alone should make us curious to find out what it was that God still had to say to his people. His message is passed on by God through Haggai. What do we know about Haggai? The answer is almost nothing. In verse 1 we learn that he was a prophet. And we know from the book of Haggai that he spoke four times in the name of the Lord. And because the exact date is given for each of his four prophecies, we also know that these prophecies, that his works, cover a period of not even four months. And that was the time from August 29th to December 18th of the year 520 B.C. We don't know more, Mr. Hagei. But that doesn't seem to be enough for many. Because if you look at the comments, you will find a lot of speculation about Chagai. Where and when was he born? Does his name leave any clues? Did he still see the old temple with his own eyes? Was he befriended with the prophet Ezekiel? Or maybe with the prophet Daniel? How long did he actually work? Only these four months or even longer? Was he a priest? Where is he buried? If anything was really important, then God would have shared it with us. But not the messenger is the decisive, but the message of God that he transmits. And that's why we want to deal with the message of the Haggai. And we want to look at three points in this sermon. First, the circumstances of the message. Second, the content of the message. And third, the effect of the message. The circumstances of the message. The book of Haggai begins with a date. We learn when Haggai announced the message he had received from the Lord to the people. Namely, verse 1, in the second year of King Darius, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month. As already said, this day is August 29, 520 BC. But it is remarkable that the date is given after the reign of King Darius. Why is this remarkable? Well, because King Darius was not a Jewish king, but a king of the Persian Empire. If the Jews do not count their time according to a Jewish, but according to a Persian king, then the historical circumstances in which the Jews find themselves must be extraordinary. Let us therefore first look at how the historical situation was when Haggai appeared to proclaim the message of the Lord. And for that we want to go a little further. After God had led the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, he gave Moses the commandments that he was to keep as a people. And when Moses passed on these commandments to the people, The people answered with one voice, we want to do all the words that the Lord has spoken. And when the people had said that, the Lord sealed a bond with his people on Mount Sinai. And he sealed this bond with the blood of sacrificed animals, a foreshadow of the new bond that exists in the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. And right after this bond was sealed, Moses went up the mountain. And there God spoke to him, and he gave Moses the task to build the penitentiary, the tent of the coming together, a bearable sanctuary, in which the Lord should be honored, in which he wanted to live, in the midst of his people. But when Moses came back from the mountain, after forty days, There the Israelites had torn off the golden earrings that were on their ears and had cast a calf out of the gold, and they worshiped this calf as their god. It only took 40 days after the end of the covenant, and the people had forgotten that they had vowed to obey the Lord. And so the whole story of the people of Israel was. Again and again they broke the covenant with their God. Again and again they became unfaithful. Again and again they followed other gods and forgot the Lord. But even if they became unfaithful, the Lord remained faithful. And he led his people to Canaan, to the promised land. And there Israel became a kingdom. And it gained power and wealth. And the second king of Israel, King David, built himself a beautiful house. But then we read in 1 Chronicles 17. And it happened, when David lived in his house, David said to the prophet Nathan, Look, I live in a house of cedars, but the house of the Lord of hosts lives under the roof of a tent. King David realized that it was not right that he lived in a beautiful house of wood, while the sanctuary of God was still the tent from the desert. And that's why he wanted to build a house for the Lord, a temple that was appropriate. But because David had led many wars and shed a lot of blood, the Lord did not want David to build the house. but his son, King Solomon, should do it. And so it happened. King Solomon built the house of the Lord. He built the temple in Jerusalem on Mount Zion. And when the temple was inaugurated, Something incredible happened. We read about it in 1 Kings 8. And it happened, when the priests went out of the sanctuary, the cloud filled the house of the Lord. And the priests could not enter because of the cloud to perform the service, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord. The Lord was drawn into the temple, into the cloud with his glory. And King Solomon, when he sees this, says, built, yes built, I have a royal house for you, a city where you shall throne for eternity. The temple, the house of the Lord, was the place where God lived, where he throned, in the midst of his people, where he showed his glory, and where he was worshipped by his people, where the people could meet him in particular. But towards the end of his life, King Solomon also broke the covenant of God. And he began to worship other gods. And that is why God let the Kingdom of Israel fall into two kingdoms. Into the Northern Kingdom. The Kingdom of Israel with its capital Samaria. And the Southern Kingdom. The Kingdom of Judah with its capital Jerusalem and the Temple. You see, the history of the people of Israel is shaped by the fact that they always break the covenant that God made with them in Sinai. Again and again they break their covenants and worship other gods. God had promised his people much blessing if they would keep his covenants and keep his covenant. But he had warned them again and again. that he would persecute them, that a curse would come upon them when they broke his covenant. And the worst persecution, the worst curse that God had threatened was that he would make the enemies of Israel strong, so that they would wage war against Israel, and so that they would make the land desolate into a desolation, and the cities and the sanctuaries, the temples, into ruins, and that the Israelites would be scattered among the nations. That was exactly what happened at the time of Haggai. The Northern Kingdom, Israel, was defeated by the Assyrian Kingdom and was taken prisoner. Maybe you remember, in our series about the book of Jonah, we have already heard about the Assyrian Kingdom and its capital, Nineveh. And then, in 597 BC, the Babylonian Kingdom was conquered by King Nebuchadnezzar II of Jerusalem and the whole Kingdom of Judah, and destroyed the city and the temple. Do you remember what we read in Psalm 122 at the beginning of the service of God? How David sings about Jerusalem and about the temple there. It is all destroyed because of the disloyalty and disobedience of the Jews. And not only that the city and the temple were destroyed, but a large part of the Jewish population was also led away, into captivity, into the Babylonian exile. The warnings of God, they had been fulfilled, and the people had not heard. But God did not forget his people in exile. He sent prophets, Jeremiah and Daniel and Ezekiel, who called him to the bosom and comforted him with the promise that the exile would come to an end. Yes, already 200 years before the exile, when no one knew how the Babylonian Empire would come. Already 200 years before, the prophet Isaiah had foretold that Jerusalem and the temple would be rebuilt. And not only that, he even mentioned the name of the man who would command the reconstruction. In Isaiah 44 it says, I am the Lord, who says of Jerusalem, it shall be inhabited, and of the cities of Judah, they shall be built up, and I will build up his ruins again. Who speaks of Cyrus, my shepherd, he will do all that I like, by saying of Jerusalem, it shall be built up, and the foundation of the temple shall be laid. And indeed, after several decades in the Babylonian exile, the Babylonian kingdom is conquered by the Persians. And the name of the Persian king is Kyros, as Isaiah predicted 200 years earlier. And not only the name is right, but Kyros also does what was promised to him. In year 538 BC, Kyros leaves a will, which we read in Ezra 1. And in the first year of Cyrus, the king of Persia, the Lord awoke, so that the word of the Lord would be fulfilled in the mouth of Jeremiah, the spirit of Cyrus, the king of Persia, that he let a call go through his whole kingdom, and also in writing. So speaks Cyrus, the king of Persia. All the kingdoms of the earth have been given to me by the Lord of heaven. Now he himself has given me the commandment to build a house for him in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever among you is of his people, let his God be with him. And go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord, the God of Israel. He is the God who is in Jerusalem. And everyone who is left, in any place where he finds himself as a stranger, should be supported by the people of his place with silver and with gold and with hair and with cattle, in addition to the voluntary gifts for the house of God in Jerusalem. God awakens the spirit of King Kyros and ensures that Kyros lets the Jews return to their homeland. and to rebuild the temple with the commission of Jerusalem. And more than that, he even orders that the people should give the Jews gold and silver and other things for the construction of the temple. You see how incredible God works in history. And so it happens that about 50,000 return to Judah. under the leadership of Zerubbabel, a descendant of King David, and under the leadership of Yeshua, the High Priest. In Ezra 3, we read of one of the first things they did when they returned to Jerusalem. They rebuilt the altar of the Lord, and they brought in the services of God and the victims. And then they began to rebuild the temple. And the whole people celebrated the beginning of the construction work, celebrated the laying of the foundation stones. In Ezra 3 we read, so the builders laid the foundation walls to the temple of the Lord. In doing so, the priests were allowed to enter their robes, with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the Lord according to the instruction of David, the king of Israel. And they sang a song of praise and praise to the Lord, for he is good, for his grace is eternal over Israel. And the whole people rejoiced, with great rejoicing, in the praise of the Lord, because of the foundation of the house of the Lord, so that the voice was heard far and wide. With great joy, with great rejoicing, they began to work on the house of the Lord. But then came the Samaritans. from the northern kingdom and wanted to help with the building of the temple. But the Jews refused their help. And that led to the Samaritans turning against the Jews. In Ezra 4 we read, Then they made the hands of the people of Judah weak and frightened them from building. And they took counsellors against them in service, to destroy their plan. And then they wrote a complaint to the Persian king Athasasta, the successor of Kyros, and ordered them to stop the reconstruction by force. Then it is further written in Esraffia, at that time the work on the house of God in Jerusalem was suspended and it remained suspended. until the second year of the reign of King Darius of Persia. And at this point the book of Haggai begins. The second year of King Darius. In the year 520 BC, 16 years after the reconstruction of the temple was stopped. So this is the situation in which Haggai appears and announces his message. Now let's see which message Haggai conveys. The second point, the content of the message. Let's first ask who the message is for. In verse 1 we read, The word of the Lord came from the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the city-holder of Judah, and to Yeshua, the son of Yozadak, the high priest. God first addressed the two leaders of the people, to Zerubbabel and to Yeshua. Zerubbabel was the ruler of Judah, he was of the tribe of David, and thus actually the just king of Judah. But because Judah was still part of the Persian Empire, still occupied and not independent, Zerubbabel was not king of Judah, but only ruler of the king of Persia. And Yeshua, he was the high priest of the tribe of Aaron, And by the way, we all know the Greek form of the name Yeshua, namely Jesus. So God turns to these two responsible, if you will, to the political and religious leaders. The leaders are not only responsible for the people, but also for God. But even if the word primarily goes to these two leaders, it seems as if the whole people hear the message. For in verse 12 we read, And there they heard Rubabel, the son of Shealtiel, and the high priest Yeshua, the son of Yozadak, and the whole rest of the people, on the voice of the Lord their God, and on the words of the prophet Haggai, as the Lord their God had sent him. In verse 1 it is said that Chagai appeared on the first day of the month in the sixth month. This day was a new moon. And in Eshra 3 we have read that the fire victims were brought in again, also the fire victims for the new moons. So probably the whole people were gathered on the Zion and to offer sacrifices to the Lord on the new moon when Chagai appears and announces his message. So this message applies first to the leaders, but also to the whole people. What is the message of the Lord now? Verse 2. This is how the Lord of the lords speaks. This people says, the time has not yet come to build the house of the Lord. And the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai. Is it for you at the time to live in your tiled houses, while this house is dilapidated? The Lord must speak to his people and see how often, not only here in these verses, but in the whole book of Haggai, in this first chapter, how often it is pointed out that it is the Lord who is the ruler who speaks here. So the Lord must speak to his people because they do not build his temple. And the speech of the people is not, we would like to build the temple so much, We try everything, but we just can't. Because the Samaritans are standing there with their weapons and stopping all of us. Even if that had been the case, the Jews should not have stopped. Then you know in the book near me, it is about the Jews rebuilding the city wall of Jerusalem. And they were disturbed by their enemies who wanted to prevent the improvement of the city wall. And they also came to fight against the Jews. But the Jews reacted very differently. In near Mirvier it is said, and it happened from that day on, when they saw that the others wanted to fight against them, the one half of my young men were busy with the work and their other half kept the spear, the shield and the bow and the chute armor ready. Und die Lastträger trugen ihre Last folgendermaßen. Mit der einen Hand arbeiteten sie am Werk, während die andere die Waffe hielt. Und von den Bauleuten hatte jeder sein Schwert um seine Hüfte gegürtet. So bauten sie. Wieso waren sie so mutig, als sie die Mauer aufbauten? Wieso bauten sie, obwohl die Feinde gegen sie kämpfen wollten? because they said, our God will fight for us. But when they built the temple, their hands went numb. They didn't take the weapon in their hands and said, we will build, but they submitted the construction work. They had no jealousy. They had no trust in God. But no one said, our God will fight for us. And they didn't take the work back. when the danger of the threat was over. The invasion of the Samaritans was 16 years ago. And since then, the Jews have not done anything to continue building. They laid the foundation with great effort. Where was their zeal now? What was the real reason that the Jews did not build the House of the Lord? You simply lost interest in it. You had other priorities. You were interested in yourself. You built your own houses. And you not only built your own houses, so that you had a roof over your head, but you also filled your houses nicely. You invested work and money to make it really nice. Unfortunately, there was no time left for the House of the Lord. How different was King David when he said, I live in a house made of cedar, the House of the Lord, but I live under the roof of a tent. But now the Jews have no problem with the fact that they live in tarred houses, while the House of the Lord is in ruins. God continues in verse 9. My house is ruined there, while you are running for your own house. You have run for your own houses, for your own affairs, for your own things. You have torn out a leg for yourself. But the time has not yet come to build the house of the Lord. First of all, we have to think about ourselves. You see, it's not about people who had no interest in God anyway. It's about the 50,000 who returned from Babel. The exile took decades. Most of them were born in Babel, they didn't know anything else. They had their houses and their friends and their professions. But they left everything to return. They knew that they had to return to a destroyed city. And to a desolated country. They knew that they had to start all over again. But they did it. They had zeal. And the first thing they did was to re-establish the altar. And they started to celebrate the services of God again. And to bring victims. And they also, since the foundation stone was laid for the temple. These were not people who had no zeal for God anyway. If you had asked them, would they have said, the temple of the Lord? Oh yes, that's a good thing, a good project, very important. We absolutely have to do that. I'm in, I'm all for it. But the problem was that in reality other things were more important to them than God and his house. And that's why they said, a good project. But the time has not yet come. You see, it's not just about how the Jews built the temple 2,500 years ago. It's also about us. It's about our community. It's about you personally. We can be a community where many things are going well. in which many siblings work together. We can celebrate the services of God and we can bring our victims, we can donate and so on. But the question is, what are your true priorities? The Lord, He sees in your tiled house. He knows what is really important to you. He knows what you invest your time in, what you spend your money on, what your enthusiasm and your zeal for. The others may not be able to see it, but the Lord sees into your house. And he holds it before you today. He makes it a reproach to you today. You can run for it. What about me and my house? Let your excuses fall. The Lord looks through them all. And he calls upon you, that you also test yourself today. The Lord continues to speak in verse 5. And now, says the Lord of hosts, direct your heart on your way. And he repeats this call again in verse 7. So says the Lord of hosts, direct your heart on your way. That is, test yourself. Think about your behavior. Question your motivation. What are the real priorities in your life? What do you spend your time on? How important are your hobbies? What do you spend your money on? Who are your friends? Who are your role models? What are your goals in life? What do your thoughts revolve around when you lie awake in bed? How important? Are you really the Lord and his house? Today there is no more temple, no building that we have to build. The temple of the Lord in our time is the community. And each of us should be a living stone in this temple. Are you that? Are you a living, a bearable stone in the community? Do you contribute to the community? Do you work for the community? Do you serve the community with your brothers and sisters? Do you invest your time and your labor for the community? Do you give your money to the community? Is the Lord and His temple the priority in your life? Or do you do all these things only after you have done the really important things? Maybe you say, working for the Lord, building his church, that's a good project, I totally support that. But the time has not yet come for me to give my all for the Lord and his house. Maybe you say, the time has not yet come for me to decide to become a member of this church. I'll deal with that later. Do you say, maybe the time has not yet come that I visit all events in the community? And the situation in my life, my family and so on, that's all pretty difficult right now, I can't do that. The time has not yet come that I work here or there, that I commit myself to being there. I have to take care of something else first. The time has not yet come that I give my money to the Lord what is due to Him. I hardly have enough myself and I still have to buy a lot. I'm glad that I can speak so openly about money, because I don't get a penny from it. I don't need the money. The community doesn't need the money. It's good. Many say, you see, they only want your money. The money belongs to the Lord. But you see, it doesn't always have to be the community that it's about. That's supposed to be our focus today. You can also have wrong priorities in other things in your life. Maybe you also say, the time has not yet come for me to take care of my home as a housewife. I still want to achieve something in my education, in my profession. Maybe you say, the time has not yet come for us to have children. We still have to sort things out in our lives. When did the time come for you to do what the Lord says? Pastor Peter has already addressed this, but I have to address it again. Do you know how sad it makes me when I see with what zeal some are involved when it comes to football or when it comes to weddings or birthdays or something else? Where is your zeal when it comes to evangelization? Why don't you build with the same zeal? Do I have even more zeal in the house of the Lord? You can play football. You can plan weddings and celebrate birthdays. But what are your priorities? What do you really invest yourself in? Where is your eagerness? Where is your enthusiasm? Or if some people miss a service or a prayer hour because they are too tired or feel too sick. Of course you don't have to come if you are really sick. But check yourself. Are you so tired? Are you so sick that you wouldn't go to work? And if you would go to work in your condition, why do you miss the meetings of the community? Is it possible that your work is more important to you? That your rest, your relaxation, your sleep have a greater priority in your life than the house of the Lord? And why do you miss a service to God or a prayer session because you have another appointment? Is that really more important? Of course something can come in between. But to be honest, the reasons I have heard so far have mostly not convinced me. Focus your heart on your path, check your behavior, check your priorities. This topic concerns each of us, the whole people, the whole community. But first of all, it's up to the leaders. The word first went to Zerubbabel and Yeshua. And the word also goes first to us pastors, to Peter and me. We also have to check whether our priorities are right, whether we have the right zeal for the Lord and his community. Because it is our task to move forward as a good example. Beloved, when I tell you these things, Then I do not speak to you from above, as if I were better than you, for I am not a bit better than you. The word hits me just the same. I have to hear the word just the same. How much time and money do I waste for some stupid things? Then it seems to be one for the Lord and his house. We are all called to the bus. But if you say, I often preach hard, but I also preach hard against myself. If the Lord says, direct your heart on your path, But then he meant something else. We should not only check our behavior, we should also consider the consequences of our behavior. What are the consequences if you take other things more important, if you take yourself more important than the work for the Lord? Well, the Lord tells us that from verse 6. Verse 6. You have sown a lot, but brought in little. You eat, but you are not full. You drink, but you are still thirsty. You dress, but it is not warm. And the wage-earner earns wages in a hollowed-out bag. And further, verse 9. You have looked for much, and behold, it became little. And when you brought it home, it was blown in. Why is that, says the Lord of hosts, because of my house, which is lying there on the earth, while you walk, each for his own house? And therefore and the earth kept back its yield, and I called a drought over the land, and over the mountains, and over the grain, and over the wine, and over the oil, and over what the earth brings forth, and over the people, and over the cattle, and over all the yield of the hands. If your priorities are not right, if you take other things more important in your life than the Lord and the work for his house, then the Lord withdraws his blessing from you. And more than that, not only that he no longer blesses, he curses all your doings. He did it here with the Jews. They first sought their own, and not what is God's. And for that, a curse came upon them. Why that? Because they walk for their own house, while they do nothing for the house of the Lord. And this curse is a double curse. On the one hand, it ensures that the success of your work is low. Verse 6, you have sown much, but brought in little. And verse 9, you have looked out for much, and behold, it became little. Do you prefer to work for yourself than for the Lord? You run for your house, but not for the Lord's community. The Lord will make sure that your work and your running will bring you little. You think you have to do things for yourself first before you work for the Lord? You can try as much as you want, your success will be small, because the Lord will curse your doing. Why is that? Because the Lord Your work is cursed, as he says in verse 10. For this reason, for your sake, heaven has held back the dew, and the earth has held back its yield. And I have called a drought over the land, and over the mountains, and over the grain, and over the wine, and over the oil, and over what the earth brings forth, and over the people, and over the cattle, and over all the yield of the hands. The Lord reigns over everything. He has the power to even command heaven and earth that you should have no success. He has the power to call the drought over you, and over all your doings, and over all the labor of your hands. You see, if you think you should give priority to something else in your life, before the Lord and his house, then you are tearing the exact opposite. The Lord will use his power, so that you do not have the success you are striving for. And what do you want to do against the God of heaven and earth? If he is against you, if his curse is upon you, then you can try as hard as you want. Your success will be small. But as I said, the curse of the Lord is a double curse, because even if you achieve something, it will not satisfy you. In verse 6 it continues, in the second half. You eat, but do not become full. You drink, but are still thirsty. You dress, but it is not warm. And the wage-earner earns wages in a pierced bag. And for the second half of the ninth you brought it home, so it flowed into you. Even if you obtained what you were striving for, it would not make you happy, it would not satisfy you, it would leave you empty, you would not be satisfied, for the Lord will blow into you, and without blessing, it will tear what you have worked for yourself. Possibly the Jews also said, the time has not yet come to build the house of the Lord, because we are doing so badly economically. We are in need. We have to take care of ourselves first. Then we can maybe deal with the house of the Lord. But you have confused the cause with the effect. Your bad situation was not the reason why you could not work for the Lord. but it was the consequence that they didn't work and didn't give for the Lord. You think you can't work for the Lord? You can't give for the Lord because you don't have enough yourself? Because you have to take care of yourself first? Don't confuse cause with effect. Let's take a closer look at the example of the pierced bag. If you say, I have to work hard because I need money, After all, I don't want to stay in my apartment forever and I might need a new car, whatever. But if I work a lot, then of course I am also exhausted and then I have little time to do something for the Lord. And as far as donations are concerned, of course I donate, but first I have to make sure that I pay my bills. That I make the purchases that I have to make and maybe it's good if I put something on the high edge. First I have to make sure that I have it. But from what is left, I give something to the Lord. You see, this thinking is completely wrong. The Lord will make sure that you throw your money into an empty bag. Even if you work a lot and save a lot, it will tear between your fingers, because the Lord blows into it. Do you sometimes ask yourself where all the money is going so fast? Do you ask yourself why you are not satisfied when you can buy the things you wanted? because the blessing of the Lord is not on it, because you first sought after it and not after the Lord. Set your heart on your path. How different it is when the blessing of the Lord rests on you. As our Lord Jesus says in Matthew 6, seek first after the kingdom of God and after his righteousness, so all this will come to you. That is the right order. The Lord will provide for you with everything. Why don't we believe that? Why don't we act according to it? We love to hear beautiful stories from people like Georg Müller or others who really lived like that, who really trusted that if they give away everything, the Lord will provide for them and bless them. Oh, we like to hear how the Lord realized this promise in the lives of others. But we don't act according to that. And then we wonder why we are not as blessed as these men. But that doesn't have to refer only to worldly things. It can also be that spiritual things are missing from you. It can be that your spiritual growth is fading, that you hardly make progress in faith, that you have no success in the fight against sin. Even with these things, direct your heart on your path, check your priorities, first look for the kingdom of God. For his blessing and his curse do not only have a natural effect, they also have a spiritual effect. Now, if God has shown the Jews everything, what should the Jews do now? It is actually quite clear what they should do. But the Lord says it once again very clearly, verse 8. Climb up into the mountains and bring wood and build the house. This is, by the way, the same demand that the Lord, 18 years ago, already through the King Cyrus, has said. There we have read, whoever among you is of his people, with him be his God, and now go up here to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord of God Israel. The Jews, they should do booze. They should turn around. After they have considered their wrong behavior, and the bad consequences that their wrong behavior, their wrong priorities had, After you have done this, you should finally do what is right. No more excuses. The time has not yet come. Build the house. Not later, now. Go ahead, climb up into the mountains, get the wood, build the house. That is also the message today to you. Build the house. Stop hesitating, let yourself be persuaded. Now is the time to build the house. Now is the time to organize your priorities, to work for the Lord, to stand up for the community. What do you know if a better time will come? What do you know when the night comes when no one can work anymore? What do you know how much time you still have in this world? Now is the time, now go, start, build the house. Be not like the rich man, whom Jesus told, who had large barns built, to gather all his goods. And when he then had everything, to say to his soul, Soul, you have many goods lying, for many years, rest, eat, drink, be happy. He looked at all these worldly things and said, now that I have everything, now I can be satisfied, now I can be happy. And God said to him, you fool, in this night your soul will be demanded of you. But what you have prepared, for whom will it be? direct your heart on your path and check your priorities. Make it clear to yourself that you will lose your blessing if you do not first seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And then go and build the house, organize your priorities, give yourself completely for the Lord and for His church, give yourself for the work in His church. Collect heavenly treasures, for eternity. Collect treasures for this world that may be gone by tomorrow. Build the house. Up to this point you could say that this is a hard message. So many warnings, so much cursing. But now comes the consolation and the encouragement. The third point, the effect of the message. Verse 12. And the people feared the Lord. And verse 14. And the LORD awoke the spirit of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the city-keeper of Judah, and the spirit of Yeshua, the son of Josadach, the high priest, and the spirit of all the rest of the people, so that they came and did their work in the house of the LORD, the Lord of hosts, their God, on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month, in the second year of King Darius. We experience an awakening The word of the Lord, the warning of the Lord, it really has an effect. First the leaders are mentioned, the leaders are awakened, Zerubbabel and Yeshua and then the whole people. Oh, many prophets have been faithful to the word of the Lord all their lives, but they have never experienced that someone really heard, that someone really was awakened. But here it is different. The Lord is merciful. The whole people is awakened and listens to the Lord and obeys his word. The whole people is afraid of the Lord. This is the right reaction. If you hear the message of the Lord today, then you should really listen. That means you should believe and understand what God is saying to you. You should not reject it, but it should enter your heart. And you should fear the Lord, if you understand that you had wrong priorities, that you have sinned against the Lord, that he sees everything, that he knows everything. That He looks into your broken house, that He looks into your heart and knows what is really important to you, where your enthusiasm and your jealousy really are. If you understand how powerful He is, how great a power He is, that He has power over heaven and earth and that everything is due to His blessing and His curse, that you cannot do anything without Him, that all your efforts and work are in vain if He does not bless. That is why you should fear him. And you should be obedient to him. You should do nothing and no longer dawdle, but do your work. You should give yourself to the Lord. You should build a house, you should build a community. You should come and start with the work. And we see that this is not simply the free decision of the Jews. but that it is God who awakens their spirit. Just as he awakened the spirit of King Cyrus 18 years before, so that he did things that were completely impossible. that a foreign king demands to give gold and silver for an oppressed people, for a prisoner people, as he did back then, when he awakened the spirit of King Cyrus, so he now also awakens the spirit of Jehovah and of Yeshua and of the whole people. Whenever we do something good, whenever we do something good, whenever we listen to the word of the Lord and believe what he says and obey, whenever we do our work, whenever we work for the Lord, all of this is the work of the Lord. He is the one who has to awaken our spirit, so that He alone has the honor. As we do every morning service, when we receive the blessing, that He must fulfill us in all good, so that we may do His will, by making in us what is good for Him. This is the work of the Lord. And because the Lord does this work, the Jews come to the hearts of the people. And they get to work and build the house. And this is the first effect of the message of Haggai, the first effect when we listen to the message of the Lord that we have heard today. The first effect is, God's work is done. When you listen to the word of the Lord and he awakens your spirit and you go to work, then the first effect will be that the work of the Lord is done, that a community is built. That alone should give you enough motivation. The work of the Lord, it is done. But that is not the only effect. In verse 13 it says, and Haggai spoke to the servant of the Lord, in the commandment of the Lord to the people, I am with you, says the Lord. If you believe the word of the Lord, if you recognize your sins and repent them, if you fear the Lord and want to turn around and do better than before and now want to work for the Lord, then the Lord will promise you that he is with you. That means the curse will leave you, the blessing will return. God will be with you. What greater blessing can there be for a Christian if his God is with him? You see, the temple was not for God. God has the heaven and the earth. He does not need a house made by people so that he can live in it. Do you remember why God gave the pen? As a sign of his covenant, as a sign for the people. He wanted to live in the midst of his people. He moved in there with his glory. The temple is not for God, it is for the people. For his sake. If you build the church, then you do yourself a favor with it. Because it is not for God, it is for you, for your sake. And when the Lord is with you, you do not need to worry about what will happen if you really put God and his community first, if you really give your strength and your time and your money to the Lord. You do not need to worry about what will come of you, because the Lord is with you. He will take care of it. that you have no deficiency. Our God will fight for us. And if you first look for his kingdom and his justice, then everything else will fall to you. Trust your God and his promise. This is the second effect. The blessing of the Lord will be with you. Yes, the Lord himself will be with you. And finally, the third effect. Climb up into the mountains and bring wood and build the house. Then I will have pleasure in it and glorify me, says the Lord. When we do God's work, when we build his community, when we give ourselves for him, then God will have pleasure in it and he will glorify himself. What can a Christian wish for more than that God's pleasure in him and his doing and that he is glorified If we as a community, not just one, but all, the pastors, the whole community, if we all listen to God's Word and fear Him, and put our priorities in order, and do our work, and do His will, and build His community, then the Lord will like it and He will be glorified. He will glorify Himself in our midst, His blessing will rest on us. He will change, our Lord Jesus, in the midst of his community. And we will experience how we make progress and have spiritual growth and not suffer deficiency. And he will also glorify himself through us and will use us to make his name great, not only here in his community, but in this whole city and in this whole country. Die Frage ist, wirst du mitbauen? Wirst du die Gemeinde mitbauen? Von ganzem Herzen, mit aller Kraft, mit allem Eifer. Baue das Haus. Möge der Herr unseren Geist erwecken. so that we all come and do his work and put him first and build his community. And may the Lord be with us and fight for us and bless us and may his favor be upon us and may the Lord glorify us when we are obedient and do what he tells us. Amen. Let us pray. Our Lord, we wish that your work will be done, that you are with us and bless us and that you liked us and our work and that you glorify yourself, Lord. And that's why we ask that you really awaken our spirit, that we direct our heart on our path, And that we really put you first. That we work for you, give ourselves for you. And everything that we are and have, that we build on your house, on your community, so that your work is done. So that you are with us and bless us. So that you are pleasant to us and glorified in our midst. And so your will is through us to many other places. Herr, erwecke unseren Geist. Denn alle schönen Worte können nichts tun, wenn du nicht den Geist erweckst. Herr, schenke eine Erweckung in dieser Gemeinde, damit jeder kommt und baut an deinem Haus. Sei uns gnädig, Herr, und verherrliche dich. Amen.