Today I'll be preaching from the book of Haggai. This is one of the minor prophets, one of the smaller books in the Old Testament, and yet one that is filled with great promise. It is a short book, and I toyed with the idea of reading the entirety of the book this morning. I decided just to read chapter 2, verses 1 through 9. You can very easily read it in one setting. It would be something for you to do personally or as a family, to read all of it. Just to set it in its context, it is after the exiles have returned. So we're finally to that point that I've been describing. I'm still introducing a series on Nehemiah and I've been saying I wanted you to understand the mentality of the exiles. So I preached from the descent of Israel into sin. I preached about the fact that Jerusalem was defeated by the Babylonians and that the inhabitants of Judah were taken into exile into Babylon and then later into Persia. Well, we've come now to their return. King Cyrus has decreed that they would go back to Jerusalem, but they meet some trouble there. So God raised up Haggai to encourage them. I'll read now from Haggai chapter 2 beginning in verse 1. In the seventh month, on the 21st of the month, the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet, saying, Speak now to Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, saying, Who is left among you who saw this temple in its former glory? And how do you see it now in comparison with it? Is this not in your eyes as nothing? Yet now be strong, Zerubbabel, says the Lord. Be strong, Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and be strong, all you people of the land, says the Lord. And work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts. According to the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, so my spirit remains among you. Do not fear. For thus says the Lord of hosts. Once more, it is a little while I will shake heaven and earth, the sea and dry land, and I will shake all nations and they shall come to the desire of all nations. And I will fill this temple with glory, says the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine and the gold is mine, says the Lord of hosts. The glory of this latter temple will be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place, I will give peace, says the Lord of hosts. God brought the exiles back. We're saying in Psalm 126 that this was like a dream come true. God brought the exiles back. Beyond all hope, beyond imagination, a people that were scattered into captivity came back to the land of their promise. God brought them back by the decree of Cyrus, as was foretold by Isaiah some 150 years previously. And now having returned, they come back to the land of promise and You might expect them shouting for joy, celebrating this return, and maybe anticipating that all was going to be a bed of roses. That since the Lord had brought them back, it was going to be smooth sailing from here on out. But almost immediately, the Israelites came upon opposition. They discovered that much like God's bringing them back to the Promised Land in the time of the Exodus, that they came into the Promised Land and they experienced trouble. And so today, we're going to think about how God used Haggai to stir up the hearts of the people. He stirred them up to finish the work that God had for them to do. For them, he had the specific job of rebuilding the temple. And even though the temple was smaller than the temple of Solomon, and even though it was less glorious than Solomon's temple, God promised a greater glory to come. This is a promise that looks forward to the coming of Jesus Christ. And for us today, I want you to think about that greater glory. For you have received the fulfillment of that greater glory. You have received Jesus Christ. Therefore, let that reality of Christ's coming and the reality of His mediation give you courage to work for Him, even in days of opposition that you face. We're going to begin by thinking of living in a hostile world, by describing that hostility that the Israelites experienced, help you to understand that we also live in a hostile world. But then I'm going to direct your attention to the promise of glory that comes in Christ. Let's start by thinking of that hostile world. So, God brought the exiles back. God brought them back even beyond their imagination and their dreams. He kept his promise. In the year 538 BC, Cyrus decreed that all of the children of Israel that wanted to may return to the promised land to build the temple again in Jerusalem. So in 538, there were about 42,000 Israelites that returned. They came back under a leader, Zerubbabel, who was the governor, and under the priesthood, and the high priest at this time is named Joshua, and he's identified here in Haggai chapter 2. And as they returned, they got right to work. They rebuilt the altar of the Lord, and they began sacrifices again. This was a great celebration, a great time of rejoicing of what God had done. You can read about this in Ezra 3, verses 1-6. They also laid the foundation of the temple. And as they did so, they began to experience opposition from the people around them. Well, think about it. Those who had come in to the land of Israel had settled there. And they had begun to raise family and have their own commerce. They had their own city states, their own nations. And they were not happy to have the Jews coming back to Jerusalem. There weren't any coming home parties for the Israelites that the nations around threw for them. They viewed the return of the Jews as a threat. And they treated them that way as well. They began to unleash all sorts of different hostilities against them. The Jews were dependent on some supplies that came from Persia. And so there was interruption of those financial supplies and the supply of goods and materials that were necessary for them. They threatened military action. They conducted a smear campaign against the Jews. They started to write nasty letters about them back to the rulers in Persia and to accuse them of fostering rebellion against Persia. They used social media against the Jews. And this opposition had a negative impact on the people that returned. I want you to think about the Israelites as they came back to the Promised Land. I'm going to summarize how this affected them in three ways, and it just so happens that they all start with a D. A good pastor always looks for that alliteration, right? It doesn't always fall out that way for me, but it did today, so it all starts with a D. They became distracted from the task that God gave them to do. They were distracted by fear of the enemy. God sent them back to rebuild the temple and the altar. And they got right to that work, but then opposition comes against them. And it became hard to do what God sent them to do. That threat distracted them. It was hard to do that, and it was easier to do something else. It was easier for them to concentrate on rebuilding their own homes. And so they went about doing that, and they found it was easier to do that. In fact, it was so easy that they started to elaborate on their own homes. They left off the work on the temple and made their own homes to become very extravagant. They became distracted by that and there's even natural reasons for it. You know, I have to provide for my own family. I need a roof over my own heads, right? And I need my business to flourish so that I can take care of this. But before you know it, 16 years have gone by since they stopped working on the temple. 16 years! Someone is turning 16 today, right? It's Aaron's birthday. Imagine leaving off the work that you're supposed to do for the whole lifetime of Aaron. That's a long time. They were distracted by legitimate concerns, by the threats of the enemies, by the path of ease, rather than doing what God had called them to do. They were discouraged. They were discouraged. You can sympathize them with this. Opposition is hard. Let's not call it anything else. The people around Jerusalem were hostile to the nation of Judah. They organized opposition against them. They lied. They smeared their reputation. They said all sorts of evil things. They did all sorts of evil things against them. And these were the ones who had sacrificed great things to come back to the land of promise. Remember, the Lord, through Jeremiah, had told them to build homes in Babylon, to build homes in Persia, to pray for the peace of that area, to flourish where they were planted. And they did that. They had established homes. They had raised families. And in the course of 70 years, you can become quite established in a place. They left that behind. Why? Because God was calling them back to the promised land. They went back with a lot of hope. And now, they faced opposition. And so there is a certain element of discouragement that comes because of that. They celebrated, renewed worship, but then when that persecution hits, they were discouraged by that. And they fell into apathy and discouragement so that they would not work. And finally, I would suggest that they became disheartened. We can distinguish this from being discouraged by identifying a specific area of disheartenment. And that specific area has to do with the glory of God's house. They did rebuild the altar, and they laid the foundation of the temple. And there were some there that wept when the foundation was laid. They wept because of the joy that that brought. But they also wept because it was nowhere near the glory of Solomon's temple. There were some there that would have been children and would have seen the glory of Solomon's temple. They would have seen the size of what the Lord had them build under Solomon. And when they laid the foundations here, the older generations wept. In fact, in these words from Haggai, the Lord even prompts them to remember that. He asks them, do you see this temple that is being built? What is it in your eyes? Is it not nothing? And God lays a finger right on a place that it hurts for them. They were disheartened for the diminished glory of God's house. When people become disheartened, it saps the will to work. And that's what has happened for the Israelites. They had become distracted, discouraged, and disheartened by living in the hostile world. And they stopped doing what God had called them to do. And for 16 years, that work sat idle. They lived in a hostile world. Doesn't that sound familiar today? God has not called you to build a temple, but God has called you to Himself. He has called you to belong to Himself. He has called you out of this world spiritually, and yet you still live in it. You live in a world that is admittedly hostile to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In fact, Jesus spoke of this. and said that if the world had hated him as it did, it will surely hate those who follow Jesus. It will surely hate the church and oppose it. So the book of Hebrews says that we live as strangers in a strange land. We live as exiles in the world. And that term, I hope, will evoke in you all of this sense of the Israelites living as exiles and anticipating the work of Christ to come. We are, in a sense, exiles, but we don't look forward to the coming of Christ. We look back to the sending of the Messiah. And so the writers of the New Testament speak of living as exiles. 1 Peter warns about the temptations that we face as living as sojourners and pilgrims in this world. 1 John warns us that we live in the world, but we are not to love the world. And even warns of loving the world, the flesh and the devil. As such, we too live as exiles, sojourners, pilgrims in the world, but not of the world. We live in a world that is in opposition to the gospel. And I don't say this to build up this mentality of us versus them, but I do it to use honest language that the Bible describes. That we live in a culture that threatens to take away religious liberties. We live in a culture that that behaves as Babylonians, that behaves as Persians, that behaves as the enemies of the exiles that return to Jerusalem. So we should not be surprised that there is opposition to the church in the gospel of Jesus Christ. You should not be surprised that there are lies that are told, that there are smear campaigns, that the social media is on fire with words that stand in opposition to the church. You should also not be surprised then at the effects that that brings on the people of God. You face distraction. And the temptation to turn away from what might be hard and to take an easier path. To do those things that don't raise the fire that sometimes comes against Christians. You'll face, and have faced, discouragement. As you think that you are standing for Christ, you may think that that will be a path of ease, and yet it is often a path of difficulty. You'll even face discouragements of being disheartened, that the worship of God itself becomes tainted, or afflicted, or shouted down in the public square. I find in many sectors that in Christian thinking there is this idea that if you follow God you will always prosper. But in a hostile world, in my thinking that we have forgotten what it is to live with the challenge of discouragement. to stand when the wind of opposition is against us. And that general theology of prosperity is one that will not prosper in a hostile world. Well, having seen the hostility of the world, let's now consider God's response. And consider especially how that leads you to respond. In summary, God promised a greater glory. We can even boil that down further to say God promised Jesus. In response to the people's discouragement, the Lord raised up the prophet Haggai to speak to the people. Remember that they had become distracted and 16 years of apathy and 16 years of discouragement had come to cause them to be set in their ways even as they've returned to the promised land. And if God uses his messengers and his word and his spirit to then stir up the hearts of the people to do what he had called them to do. So he sent Haggai and in a very little time after that he sends the prophet Zechariah also to stir up the people. He used them to convict the people of their neglect, to spur them on to do their work even in a hostile world. Remember that these exiles had already risked a lot to return home. They'd left that relative comfort and ease of their land and the established homes in their exile, but they came back to rubble. They came back to fields that were full of weeds and thorns and trees and rocks. And yet, they came back to plant and to rebuild. As they became distracted and discouraged, Haggai comes and says, to take personal stock of your situation. In fact, in this short book, as you read through it, there are a couple of signals of this. You'll find in this short book that five times Haggai says something to this effect. Give careful thoughts to your ways. Pay attention to what you are doing. And with those words, he causes them to stop and to do a kind of a spiritual inventory of where they were. Back in chapter 1, you can find that he says, are your priorities right? Give careful thoughts to your ways. He says, you are living in extravagant houses, and yet the work on the house of the Lord has gone stagnant. Are your priorities right? Take stock. You'll also find that Haggai repeats the name of the Lord over and over again. In the verses I read, in chapter 2, verses 1 through 9, he uses this title, the Lord of Hosts. The Lord of Hosts, the Lord of Hosts, and he says that over and over again. And there's an effect that is given by that. Literally, it's the Lord God of Armies is the title that is given to God here. The Lord God of Armies is with you, he says. In modern day language, we might say that the message of Haggai is, man up, right? Get busy, man up. But it's not just a macho, humanistic man-up. When we say that today, it has the power of guilt. Right? If you're not doing what you're supposed to do, someone might come and kick you in your rear end and say, come on man, get busy. Look at what you've left off. It has the power of guilt. but it has no grace. When God comes and confronts and convicts of sin, it also has grace. This is a remarkable aspect of Haggai's words. He gives four promises of God that I want you to pay attention to. These four promises will be full of grace. And while there is that very strong confrontation of saying, pay attention, take stock, are your priorities right? Haggai also points to the promises of God, and this is where the grace comes in. Each of these promises can also be attached to the promise of the Messiah, the promise of Jesus Christ. And here is where grace abounds to the chief of sinners. When Haggai speaks of these promises, I want you to see Jesus Christ. Because here Haggai promises a greater glory. The first comes in verse 6. Here God says, I will shake the nations. He actually says He will shake more than just the nations. He says, I will shake heaven and earth, the sea and dry land. I will shake all nations. This is what the book of Hebrews quotes in chapter 12 when He says, yet once more I will shake the nations. It's a phrase that's used in other places of the Bible as well. It's used to describe God's judgment of the world. In Hebrews, it quotes this passage and attaches the promise of judgment to Jesus Christ. The Lord has given authority to Jesus to rule. He has given authority to Jesus to reign. He's given authority to Jesus to come again as we anticipate at the end of the age to judge all things. And there is a shaking of the heavens and the earth and of the nations that is identified with the first coming of Jesus. The Messiah enters the world according to God's promise. And all of the world and all of creation, angels included, revolve around this great event. The birth of Christ, the angels come and say glory to God in the highest. And all of history revolves around that coming of the Messiah. The judge of all the earth has entered history to purchase salvation. It's on the basis of that that Jesus will then once more come to judge the world and will once more shake all the nations. Haggai uses this promise of the coming of the Messiah to motivate the people of his day to work. He says, this judge of all the earth is with you. The Lord of hosts is with you. Therefore, be strong in the Lord. Zerubbabel, you as leader of the people, be strong. Joshua, the high priest, you as the spiritual leader, be strong. And all you people, be strong in the Lord, for He is with you. and work. Do not be afraid, he says. Do not fear, but do the work God has for you. Haggai used that to confront their distraction, their discouragement, to get them busy about the work that God had them to do. You gain courage from this promise as well. For the judge of all the earth is with you. Jesus Christ, who has accomplished salvation, has turned to you as a church and commissioned you to be his representatives. He has given you work to do. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe all things, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. for lo, I am with you. I am with you. That's the Lord of hosts, the judge of all the earth speaking. He has shaken heaven and earth. He is shaking the nations now by the gospel that goes out through your ministry. He is with you. Do not be afraid. Do not be distracted. Will there be opposition? Well, yeah. But don't be afraid. Do the work God has for you. Secondly, you will come to the desire of all nations. That's in verse 7. In the New King James version that I'm reading from, it capitalizes the desire of all nations. That's an interpretive device there to help you understand that when Haggai spoke this way, that he is referring to something and he uses this phrase as what we would call a A clause that is standing for a person. It's a title that is being used. So you might think of a great athlete that has a title. You might think of a political leader that has a title. This is used as a title. The desire of all nations. It's a title that comes from a couple of promises that come earlier in God's history of redemption. It's identified in two places especially. Back in Genesis, in fact, all the way back when the Lord is promising and giving his covenant to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. So what was it that God said to Abraham? He said, I will be your God and you will be my people. In you, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. The nations are blessed in the promised child of Abraham. And that's a promise of Jesus. It's the desire of all nations that is the promise given to Abraham. And then if you flip a few pages further in the book of Genesis, you come to the promise that Jacob gave to his sons in chapter 49. When Jacob blessed his son Judah, he said, The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh comes. Shiloh is another title for a place of peace. Jacob goes on, and to him shall be the obedience of the people, with the obedience of the nations. It's that phrase that Haggai picks up here to describe and to use as a title for the Messiah. Jesus is the desire of all nations. He is the promised Shiloh. He is the one that brings blessing to not just the Jews, but to the ends of the earth. It's in Jesus, then, that Haggai promises hope. And Haggai uses this to orient the people to desire the promise of God above all things. Ultimately, it is a promise of Christ. They had become distracted by the cares of the world. They had become discouraged by the opposition. And all of that noise, all of those thorns that grow up, tend to choke out the promise of Christ. But what God does to Haggai is to say, here is what is important. And all of that noise then fades into the background when you hold to Christ, the desire of all nations. And this is a promise that orients you as a people of God today as well. You should not expect for the world to throw a coming home party. Instead, there is hostility that you still face. One day it will cease when Christ comes again, But the world's hostility remains. But that noise fades into the background when you fix your eyes on the desire of all nations. When you fix your eyes on Christ. The cares of the world do grow up like Jesus' parable. There are thorns that seek to choke out the gospel, the work of Christ. But God is gracious and will stir up your heart to see that desire fulfilled in Christ. The third promise, I will fill this temple with glory in verse 7. I mentioned that some people wept at the diminished glory of the new temple. But God says that even though it's smaller, that He would fill it with greater glory. He even says, The silver is mine. The gold is mine. As if to say, you think those are precious? You think that's really wealth? Just you wait and see what I have in store. It will far outshine gold and silver. It will far outshine the glory of Solomon's temple. You... cannot even begin to imagine what I have in store for you. In the Old Testament, God filled the temple personally. He showed His presence with a pillar of fire and with a glorious cloud. You may even hear some commentators speak of this as the Shekinah glory of God. That's that phrase to describe the presence of the Lord among His people. We know very well that there's no house on earth that could ever contain God. But the Lord showed His presence among His people in a powerful and glorious way. And here He says, even that will be outdone. Why? Because Christ has come. Because Christ has come and has tabernacled, not in a building, but in you, his people. He who owns glory, who is glory incarnate, dwells in you as a people. Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, is ours. And so I read from Hebrews chapter 12 of the greater glory that we have. We have not come to a building made with hands. We have not come to a physical mountain. We have not come to a place that shakes at the presence of God. Those things were great, right? What you have is better. Because you have Christ. Haggai used this promise to give heart to those who were disheartened by the apparent diminished glory of the temple. May this promise give heart to you, too. In Christ, you receive a kingdom that cannot be shaken. You receive a glory that will never fade away. And finally, God promises in verse 9, I will give you peace. I will give you peace. This is not the peace of the world, which even the world says is great. Isn't that the desire that is voiced by so many around the world? What do we want? We want world peace. But even that pales in comparison to what God gives to you. He promises peace with Himself. Our sins have made us enemies with God. But Christ's sacrifice gives you peace with Him. When Jesus came, He says He came to do the will of the Father. He came to obey like you cannot obey. He came to lay down His life to be the sacrifice for your sins. And so, God, who punishes sins, has given your punishment to Jesus so that you could be at peace with God. After His resurrection, Jesus met with His disciples. His disciples who were frightened, who were hiding from the hostility of the world, who were discouraged, who were disheartened, the Spirit would just sap from them. Their Messiah was crucified. And Jesus shows them what He has done. I want you to hear the words that He spoke to His disciples. Peace. I leave with you. My peace I give to you." And then he breathed on them his Holy Spirit. Haggai picks that up here, too. Did you notice that he says, even according to the promise of God back at the Exodus, God says, my promise hasn't changed. My Spirit is with you. My Spirit is in you. And Jesus says, Peace I give you. My peace I leave with you. And He breathes on the disciples the Holy Spirit. You are recipients of that peace. You are recipients of that Spirit of God as you trust in Him as your Savior. Haggai used that promise to proclaim grace. He pointed forward to the perfect Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. He pointed forward to Jesus. For you, you can look back and you can rejoice that you have received peace. And I pray that as you face the hostility of the world, that you would recognize the temptations that come along with that. I hope that you would recognize times when you become distracted and your priorities have turned away from serving Christ. Maybe you have become afraid and discouraged because you have faced ridicule or persecution at your work or smear campaigns. Do not be afraid. Do not fear. God is with you. Christ, your Redeemer, has come. that He is yours. I pray that you would recognize that He has come, and that that would stir up your heart, then to recognize the promises, the promises that He has made. Yet once more I will shake heaven and earth. Just as He sent His Son into the world and shook by the coming of the Messiah, He will come again. He will receive you to Himself. Recognize the promise that the desire of all nations is the title of Christ. Recognize that He has filled His temple, His church, with the greater glory of Christ. And recognize that He has given you peace. You have received the greater glory that God promised. I pray then that the reality of Christ's mediation will give you courage to work as he has called you, even in the face of a hostile world. Please bow with me in prayer. O Lord, we recognize that there are discouragements that we face in this world. We confess to you, O Lord, our neglect, our apathy are being turned aside because of that opposition. Instead, O Lord, I pray that these words would calm our fears, that you would address those and even convict us if our priorities have been wrong. And Lord, I pray that you would remove that fear and give us a boldness to serve for Christ in this world. And Lord, I pray that we would see Christ, we'd set our eyes on our Redeemer, our Messiah, and recognize what you have done for us. And seeing that, O Lord, help us to be about the work that is ahead of us. Help us to understand what you have called us to do and then to do it with all our hearts. We do live as exiles, as pilgrims and sojourners in this world. We pray that we would have our eyes fixed on Christ. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. I've chosen to close by singing Psalm 73, Selection C. In this psalm we confess what our desire is. Our desire is Christ, is God. It is the desire of all nations. Let this be your confession of faith. your confession of hope in Jesus Christ. We'll stand and sing Psalm 73C. Constantly I am with you, you've taken