Would you please stand for the reading of the word of God? If you have your Bible, turn to the prophet Haggai. Turn to the prophet Haggai. Alex saw me this morning and he asked, what are you preaching? And I said, Haggai. He says, Haggai, how'd you get to Haggai? I said, well, here's the reason. Dave, when he gave me this date, he says, listen, don't preach on Exodus. Adam said, don't preach on the Psalms. Can't preach on Exodus, can't preach on the Psalms. Can I preach on Haggai? You can preach on Haggai. So there, here we go, right? So Haggai, chapter 1. We will start reading in verse 5 and we'll read through verse 8. Haggai is an easy book to miss. It might be easier to find Matthew and to go back a few pages. The third, I believe, from the last prophet. So there you go. Haggai, chapter 1, starting in verse 5. These are the words of the Lord. Now, this is what the Lord Almighty says. Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough. You drink, but you never have your fill. You put on clothes, but you are not warm. You earn wages only to put them in a purse with holes in it. This is what the Lord Almighty says. Give careful thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains and bring down timber. and build this house so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored, says the Lord. Let us pray. Well, dear Heavenly Father, we do thank you for this time. We praise you, Lord, for who you are as the creator, redeemer, and sustainer. We recognize that there is none like you. and we thank you for your goodness and your faithfulness to us. Father, we confess as individuals, as families, and as a people, we are so prone to lose our ways, to misprioritize our lives. Father, we ask now that you would both forgive us of this sin and that you would change our hearts, that you would call us back to yourself, that you would empower us by your Holy Spirit to walk according to your word and to your ways. Father, in this time, since this is your word, we ask that you would send your Holy Spirit to guide, lead, and bless this time. We ask this in all things, in Jesus' name, and amen. You may be seated. Now, James Montgomery Boyce, he defines history this way. He says, history is a series of key moments in the otherwise undistinguished flow of human life. I want to repeat that because I think that is so appropriate for our text today. History is defined as a series of key moments in life in the otherwise undistinguished flow of human experience. Now, I'm not sure about you what strikes you with that quote, but the word that really jumps out to me is undistinguished. And the reason why I think this quote fits so well for this text today, and quite frankly, maybe just maybe for our lives in our context, in our setting, is because for all sort of practical purposes, Haggai was sort of an undistinguished man, at least up to this point. We know very little about him. We have guesses as to the meaning of his name, but we have no idea where he came from. We have no idea whose family was. We have no idea what his occupation was before God called him to this position. And quite frankly, after the end of this book, after the end of this prophecy, we don't hear from him again. One scholar has called Haggai, however, the most important prophet that you have never heard of. Or maybe not heard very much of, right? And the reason why, again, I think that quote is so important is because some of us might relate to that. We might feel as though we are sort of undistinguished people in an undistinguished place in an undistinguished time, but the reality is, if you look back through the course of redemptive history, God loves to use just such people at the right moment in time, at the right place, to deliver the right message, and quite frankly, through them, change the course of redemptive history. Let's just jump in with that being said. Haggai, chapter one. Verse 1. The prophet starts off with these words, Now, at first glance, that might kind of seem as a throwaway verse. The temptation will be to breeze right through it and to jump on into the quote-unquote meat of the passage. But if we do that, then we miss the cultural and historic context into which this book is placed. Now, let's talk about some of those names really quick. The first one that comes up is King Darius. Now, as Bible students or Bible scholars, perhaps you will instantly be thinking of Darius from the book of Daniel. But that Darius was Amid. That Darius was not this Darius. He is a Persian, he's a different king. In fact, scholars will tell us that given sort of the time hack, if you will, that Haggai gives us, This is in the year 520, and specifically the 29th day of August, if you're curious, of the year 520 BC. And the reason why that is so very, very important is because you have to remember sort of the whole overarching chronological flow of redemptive history. If we, for the sake of, again, kind of putting a pin in where we are located, if we start back remembering sort of the height, politically speaking, of the people of God, that would probably be during the time of the United Monarchy. under David, and then after David, his son Solomon. And then right after Solomon, his son Rehoboam. If you remember, that's when things just really started to fall apart and go downhill really, really fast. It was under that king that there was that breakaway of the 10 northern tribes. They established what they would later call the kingdom of Israel in the north. And then there was the kingdom of Judah in the south. As you remember, the kingdom of Israel and North had, quite frankly, no good kings. And though God raised up prophet after prophet to call them back, to call them to repentance, by and large, the people refused to do that. So eventually God raised up the Assyrians to come in and, quite frankly, to wipe out that kingdom in the North, the kingdom of Israel. Decades later, the similar situation unfolded down in the south in the kingdom of Judah. And this time, God raised up not the Assyrians, but the Babylonians. When the Babylonians came in, those who they did not kill, if you remember, they took into captivity. They took them back to Babylon. God again raised up prophets to comfort them in this time, but at the same time, this was a very, very dark and difficult time, especially initially for the kingdom of Judea. But again, as you keep going along that chronology, if you remember, God then will later raise up a pagan king, Cyrus the Great, and he will issue this edict where he says, listen, you Jews, if you want to, you can go back. You can go back to the land. In fact, you can rebuild your temple. You can offer prayers to your God on my behalf. Any of you who want to go, you may go. Now, per the prophet Jeremiah, they were gonna be in Babylonian exile for 70 years, and that 70 years was almost up. And so it's interesting, while these promised people outside of the promised land were given this proclamation to go back, if you think about it, here are the folks, the people of God, who have been removed from the promise that God had given them. They've been removed from the temple. They've been removed from sacrifice. In a sense, they've been longing to go back and to once again walk upon that ground that was promised to their fathers, fathers, fathers, even all the way back to Abraham himself. When that edict was given, if you remember history, what did the vast majority of the Jewish people say? Something like this. I'm good. You know, Babylon's actually not that bad. We got these hanging gardens, they're really pretty. We got big screens, I mean, it's comfortable here. I mean, not big screens, but the reality is the vast majority of the Jews said, I'm all right. But just because the vast majority of the Jews said that doesn't mean that they all said that. You remember the story, Ezra and Nehemiah now. God raises up what the word will call a righteous remnant, and a select few will actually go back into the land. They will start that process of rebuilding the temple, rebuilding the wall. They will do the work of God. In a very real sense, this righteous remnant, we might call them the right people at the right place at the right time, doing the right things for the right reasons. And this is the context in which we find ourselves now. Darius came after Cyrus by a couple kings. This is the context. This is the post-exilic time frame is what scholars and theologians will locate this prophecy of Haggai. And so by that time hack, that's what we know. Now notice those two other names. Zerubbabel, the son of Shietel, the governor of Judah. He was actually in the Davidic line. He could have been a king, but because they were still a vassal to the Persians, that's why he's just the governor and not the king. They are still the vassals to their suzerain of Persia. And then finally, Joshua, son of Jehozadek, the high priest. So already Haggai is introducing to us some key figures some key leaders, and he's really being very, very precise down to the day of when this prophecy was given, and the context, and the people to whom it was given. Now he's gonna jump right into it. Look at verse two. This is what the Lord Almighty says. Why is that so important? Because up to this point, the people had heard from their leaders. They had heard from their political leaders. They had heard from their priests, from their religious leaders. But quite frankly, Haggai is the first post-exilic prophet. For almost 70 years now, they had not heard, if you will, the word of God spoken through the voice of one of God's prophets. But here, this is the word of the Lord. And this is what the Lord Almighty, my translation says Lord Almighty, your translation might say the Lord of Hosts, or the Lord of Heaven's armies. In the Hebrew, the title is Yahweh Sabaoth. The host or heaven's armies, this is a militaristic title that God will apply to himself. And the reason why he says that is because, listen, if he is the Lord over heaven's armies, he is the general of generals. When the prophets referred to God in this way, they were saying, this is a God who acts, who fights on behalf of his people. By just using this title, more than likely what instantly would happen is that they would start having memories, perhaps even of the Exodus, that time that we've been studying for the last couple of months, where God says, listen, I will fight on your behalf. I am going to war with the gods of the Egyptians. So in a sense, when Haggai introduces the Lord in this way, instantly they're thinking, okay, God's coming, he's gonna fight. Let's hear what he has to say. What does the Lord Almighty say? He says this, these people, Uh-oh. These people? Who's he talking about? Well, you see in the context, he's talking about the Jews. He's talking about his own people. But by introducing them as these people, what's he doing? He's kind of rhetorically separating himself from them. I'm sure you've seen it. Maybe you've experienced it. When there's these kids that are being rambunctious and a mom's trying to kind of corral them and she's sort of exasperated and she turns to her husband and says, listen, can I get a little help here? Did you see what your children just did? In a sense, that's what the Lord is saying. He's not calling them my people. He says these people. So the reality is when we hear this, in a sense, everybody says, oh shoot, we're maybe in a little bit of hot water here. Yahweh Sabaoth, the Lord of heaven's armies, the Lord Almighty, the Lord of the hosts. He's now, he's coming, but he's coming against us. Uh-oh. These people say, so he's characterizing or caricaturing what the common voice of the common people is. These people say, the time has not yet come for the Lord's house to be built. Now remember, what's the cultural context? What's the setting into which this prophecy emerges? The righteous remnant were called back, they go back to the land, and they start to rebuild the temple. They kind of fix up the wall, they lay the foundations of the temple, and they reinstitute sacrifice by fixing up the altar. They start doing it! But if you read back Ezra and Nehemiah, the contemporaries of Haggai, something happened and the work sort of stalled. Listen, these weren't necessarily bad people. They weren't in necessarily overt sin. They were the right people at the right time, at the right place, doing the right things for the right reasons. But something happened and they kind of lost their way. And they said, you know what, the time is just not right. Now, as we read this, we might call that an excuse. And quite frankly, I think we accurately call that an excuse. But at the same time, if you take a step back and put yourself maybe in their place, let's think about it. Potentially, could it have been not the best time to rebuild the temple? Well, of course not. I mean, think about this. They weren't sovereigns in their own land. They had some resources, but their resources were paudry compared to all of the resources that David had amassed before Solomon built the temple. If you go back and read that story, it's amazing all that David gave to Solomon to build the temple. Tremendous resources. These folks were fledgling. Again, Ezra and Nehemiah, they were indigenous people who were not exactly helpful while they're trying to rebuild. How about this? It's hard work. It is. You know what? This is not the right time. One of the things that I found when I was researching for this, I thought was really interesting. In fact, some of the rabbis, some of the teachers back in the day said, listen, Jeremiah prophesied that it would be 70 years until the Lord would rebuild his temple. And it's only been 66. In fact, the Lord's gonna do it. And so for us to do that, well, that would be kind of presumptuous. In our day and age, we might say, that's over-realized eschatology. Don't you know God built his own kingdom? The time is not right. Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai. Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses? while this house remains a ruin? So what's the Lord saying? Oh, okay, yeah, the time's not right. I get that. It's not as though the people just immediately got there and they're just sleeping out under the stars and God says, no, no, no, you're here to work, get to work, build my house, do it now. He's not saying that. It's not just as though the folks were living in tents or in caves or something. God is not being harsh with his people, but if you notice there in the NIV, I think the ESV gives a little bit of a detail, says, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, the time is not right to build my house, but you have time to live in your paneled houses? The NLT says you have time to live in your houses of luxury? Oh, you don't have time, I get it. Hey, by the way, how's that kitchen remodel going? That master bath for the third time, it's looking hot, but you don't got time for my house, I understand. Ooh, that's kind of a zinger. Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses while this house remains a ruin? See, the reality is God calls us on our excuses sometimes. Verse five, now this is what the Lord Almighty says. Give careful thought to your ways. Now, if you're somebody who writes in your Bibles, I am. Underline that word. Underline that statement. Give careful thought to your ways. In other words, stop for a second. Think about this. Reflect on this. Consider what's going on. Pull your head up for a second and look around. Survey the intentions of your heart and start being a worldview thinker. Connect some dots. See what's happening. Give careful thought to your ways. So oftentimes, it's easy for us to get into a routine, and then that routine turns into a rut, and then that rut, sometimes we start to sort of drift. Now, I'm not trying to say that these were necessarily quote-unquote bad people. What's the context? They were the right people in the right place at the right time doing the right things for the right reasons, but it seems as though they sort of forgot why they were doing what they were doing. And so the Lord says, listen, stop, reflect, Give careful thought to your ways. Why are you doing this? What's the purpose? What's the cause? What's the telos? What's the ultimate overarching rationale for why you are the chosen people in this chosen land? This is such an important phrase to the prophet here. He's going to say this, in a sense, five times throughout this little prophecy that, at least in my Bible, is barely more than a page. Give careful thought to your ways. So oftentimes we need to remind ourselves, or rather be reminded, asking that question, why am I even doing what I am doing? We need to be intentional, thoughtful, worldview thinkers. Look at what he's gonna do. He's gonna give them some truth here. Verse six. Consider this in a sense. Reflect on this. You have planted much. but you have harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough. You drink, but you never have your fill. You put on clothes, but you're never warm. You earn wages only to put them in a purse with holes in it. If you were to sort of distill these verses into a single word in my mind, at least that single word is the word futility. Have you ever been in that spot where you feel like you're just sort of turning your wheels and nothing is getting done? You're expending all kinds of energy, but you have no work to show for it. Now, I'm not saying that every single time you sort of feel like you're just going through the motions that it's always sin, but I'm also not gonna say that it never is. See, the reality is we all, all of us are so prone to wander, wander, sorry, to lose our ways, to just get into that rut. And the Spirit of God calls us back and says, consider carefully what you are doing. In a sense, remember your calling. Why do you do what you do? Listen, I'll be honest, I'm not trying to be too harsh. I truly believe this. When I look out at you guys, I don't know all of you super well, but I know enough of you well enough to say with a great deal of confidence that you are the right people in the right place, doing the right things for the right reasons. Otherwise, you wouldn't be here. Look how beautiful the day is. But just because that all may be true doesn't mean that maybe, just maybe, the Lord might be calling us back to Him to remember our initial calling, to remember that initial work and that task that He has set us to. Verse 7, here it is again. This is what the Lord Almighty says. Give careful thought to your ways. Pay attention. I'm going to drop some truth, He says. Ready? Verse 8. Go up to the mountains and bring down the timber and build the house. Three quick Hebrew verbs in staccato fashion. Go up, come down, build the house. They taught us in officer school that in the midst of that fog of war, when things, people are sort of losing their heads, and you issue a command, it has to be clear, concise, and actionable. Do you perhaps feel like right now we're sort of in this fog, if you will, this post-COVID or maybe pre-COVID, who knows, COVID 3.0, starting September or something, situation that we're just sort of wandering through, that we're sort of in this rut. Listen, the word of the Lord says, remember your initial calling, go up, come down, and build the house. Well, I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do. I'm just sort of looking for a sign. Listen, do you read your word? Well, yeah, I kind of do, but I'm just really looking for a sign. No, no, no. Read your word. Do you fellowship? Well, I catch a sermon every once in a while, kind of online. Can you come to church? I can come to church, but I just, you know, I kind of don't. I'm just looking for a sign. Here's a sign. Come to church. Read your word. Fellowship in person. Seek the Lord in prayer. Go up, come down, and rebuild this house. Short, concise, actionable. Now maybe, just maybe, God has given you an additional call, and you know what that is. Maybe, I don't know everyone's story here, and maybe you've lost your way. But maybe you need to be reminded what it is that God has called you to do. Again, I believe you are the right people in the right place at the right time, doing the right things for the right reasons. But remember that call of God on your life, and come back to those foundational tenets of the faith. Why do we gather together? Come down and rebuild this house. Now, in a sense, if we stop right there, we can sort of say, this sounds like sort of a motivational, maybe even a secular, in a sense, motivational speech. Remember the foundations. You can do it. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Just look inside. You're so smart. You're so wonderful. Gosh, darn it, people like you. All those things, right? That's not what I'm saying. And the reason why is because look at the very next statement. Because everything hangs on the very next statement, the why, the what for. What is the reason? Why should we go up? Why should we come down? Why should we rebuild this house? For your own sake? for your own good, for your own flourishing? And the resounding answer is actually, initially, no. Why then? So that, do you see that? It's a purpose clause. Why do we go up? Why do we come down? Why do we rebuild the house? So that I may take pleasure in it and be glorified, says the Lord. Do you see this? This must be our initial rationale for everything that we do. The glorification of God. You have heard it before and you're going to hear it again. Sorry, I guess we're not that original. What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. That's what makes us Christians. We do not seek first our glory. We do not seek first our little kingdoms. We must seek first His glory and His kingdom. But the good news, according to none other than the Lord Himself, He says this, if you seek to save your life, you will lose it. But if you lose your life for my sake and the sake of the gospel, you will find it. Do you see His goodness, His faithfulness, His kindness? When we put Him first and He ends up blessing us. Does that mean life is always going to be easy? No, of course not. Does that mean we're never going to have conflict again? No, of course not. But we put Him first and in His kindness. It's actually for our own good. Do you see that? We put ourselves first and we have nothing but futility. We inherit the wind. Verse nine, he reminds us of this. You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why, declares the Lord Almighty? Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house. Therefore, because of you, the heavens have withheld their due, and the earth its crops. I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, on the new wine, on the oil, and whatever the ground produces, on men and cattle, and on the labor of your hands. Some of you know what I do for a living, and I talk to a lot of people who are in a hard spot. They're in the midst of this time of futility, and kind of ask them, you know, why are you doing what you're doing, man? And so oftentimes I'll hear something like this, you know what, I'm not really hurting anybody else. I'm just sort of hurting myself, I can take it though. The world oftentimes will tell us that. In a word, you know what that is? A lie. What does the scripture say? Because of what they have done, who were impacted? Quite frankly, the heavens and the earth. Even the cattle were impacted when we lose our ways. You see what's going on here? The reality is, when we lose our place, when we lose our way, it impacts us, and then it kind of spans out from there in concentric circles, targeting, first of all, not just us, but those to whom we claim to care the very most about. And it just expands from there. Just expands from there. Then Zerubbabel, son of Sheatiel, verse 12, and this is great. Look at what happens. Then Zerubbabel, son of Sheatiel, Joshua, the son of Jehozadek, the high priest, and the whole remnant of the people, what'd they do? Obeyed. I'm not sure how many of the prophets that you've read before, but this doesn't happen. I think entitled this message, Three Months of Prophecy, Three Millennia of Impact. This guy's prophecies would take place over a total of six months, but there was lots of kind of mini breaks he took. Really, he has a couple of messages that he's speaking for three months. And the whole people obeyed, in a sense, from the highest to the lowest. They obeyed the voice of the Lord their God and the message of the prophet Haggai because the Lord their God had sent him and the people feared the Lord. Then Haggai, the Lord's messenger, gave this message of the Lord to the people. And this is so very, very important. And what's he say? I am with you, declares the Lord. So look at this, verse 14, on the 24th day of the sixth month, the second year of King Darius. This is so very, very important because you see what happens. It's not just the people are like, okay, fine, I guess we're gonna dig deep. What happens? They hear the word of the Lord. They turn to the Lord in accordance with his word. They fear the Lord and God does what he stirs up, the spirit of the people. Listen, God has called us to a work, but he doesn't just call us to a work and say, okay, go ahead and go do it. I'm gonna watch, I'll be passive. No. He calls, He guides, He equips, He empowers in the midst of the work. He stirs up the spirit and He reminds them throughout this all this time, listen, I am with you. I am with you. It's the Lord's work through the Lord's people, but in the Lord's power for the Lord's glory. Oh, how we need reformation and revival in our land. Can you agree to that? Oh, how we need that. But the reality is reformation revival never starts out there. It starts here. And if it starts here, then it starts here, quite frankly. Let us hear his word. Let us fear him. Let us remember that He is always with us. And as He stirs up our spirit, let's go forward in the power of His calling in our lives. We're not done. Chapter 2. On the 21st day of the seventh month, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Haggai. Speak to Zerubbabel, son of Sheatiel, the governor of Judah, to Joshua, son of Jehozadek, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people. Ask them. Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Does it not seem to you like nothing? What's he saying here? Well, Ezra gives us a little bit more insight into exactly what's happening. If you remember the folks who came back 66 years later, they started to rebuild. And when they finally laid those foundation stones down to the temple, it says that there was great rejoicing. But almost as soon as the rejoicing started, so did the weeping. In a sense, what's going on is people were happy, rejoices, look, we're doing it, it's happening, this is great, this is wonderful, we're walking according to the promises of God. But then those folks who saw the previous glory of the temple of the Lord, the majestic building of Solomon, started to weep. Because yes, this is great, this is wonderful, but it is so small, especially compared to what we used to see. And so what is the Lord doing? He's calling them out, in a sense. He's saying, let's have a real talk here. Those, anybody here who's old enough to see the temple, and there were some that were there, they would have been quite old. Does it seem like a small thing? In a sense, he's saying, yeah, it seems like a small thing. It does. But don't be discouraged. Or as a contemporary to Haggai would say, do not neglect the day of small things. We look around, we might say, listen, I'm just one guy, or I'm just a small family, or we're just a small church. Okay. But we worship a very large God. And he likes to do stuff with small people. He loves to confound the wisdom of the wise with the foolishness of this world, if you will. He loves small things. He loves to do big things with small people. He speaks truth, and look at what he says here. Verse four, but now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadek, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord, and work. We have this charge throughout the scriptures. Be strong and courageous. Be strong and courageous. Remember that? Moses will say that to the people. Be strong and courageous because the Lord your God goes with you. Joshua said that. Be strong and courageous because the Lord your God goes with you. David said that to Solomon when he was building the temple initially. Be strong and courageous because the Lord your God goes with you. And here, once again, be strong and courageous, in a sense, and work. Why? For I am with you, declares the Lord Almighty. How many times throughout the scriptures do we hear this refrain, I will never leave you nor forsake you? Old Testament, New Testament, I will never leave you nor forsake you. And therefore, in light of that reality, we can be strong and courageous and do the work that God has called us to. This is what I covenanted. I love this portion. Look at this. This is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt. With you. Now, some of these people were there when they were taken to captivity, and they were all there when they came back from captivity, but that was like 66 years ago. The Exodus? Nobody was around 2,000 years ago. But he says, this is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt. What's he getting at here? See, the reality is that the promises of God to the people of God are the same throughout the generations. In a very real sense, just like these are the right people at the right place at the right time doing the right things for the right reasons, so too I believe you are the right people at the right place at the right time doing the right things for the right reasons. We could say it's the same people with the same call, given the same power, and the results are going to be the same if we trust in the Lord. He is building His kingdom. And if we are given that knowledge and we sit back passively and say, well, let's just see what God will do, then I'll tell you what, you're doing it wrong. Passivity is the strategy of the malachoi, and that is not who we are. My spirit remains amongst you. Do not fear. Lean in to the call, in other words. This is what the Lord Almighty says. In a little while, I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations, and the desired of the nations will come. and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord Almighty. The silver is mine and the gold is mine, declares the Lord Almighty. The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house, says the Lord Almighty. And in this place, or it could actually be translated, because in this place, I will grant peace, declares the Lord Almighty." Listen, God says, let's have a real conversation about the past. Let's be honest about how it seems like this task is so much beyond what we perceive to be our resources. It's so easy to get discouraged. Who are so few amongst so many? Let's have a real discussion, but at the same time, remember, what does God say? The glory of this coming temple that you will build will surpass the glory of that past temple that you were weeping over. Now my translation in verse 7 says, and the desired of the nations will come. I think the ESV says, and the treasures of the nations will come. There's a little bit of debate what this is referring to. Some say this is a messianic promise, maybe. Some say this is just the Lord, how he's going to supply the provision. It will be through the foreign countries, nations, maybe. There's good people on both sides of that debate. But what everybody agrees on is that God is going to do a work, and it's going to be miraculous. It's going to be miraculous. And as you know, this temple that these people were building takes its place as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. And even more importantly than that, this temple that they were building would be the temple that the Messiah would walk through. Remember the words of Jesus, yeah, you think this temple, I'm paraphrasing, you think this temple is something, well, I'll tell you what, I'm showing you a better temple. And that's what he says. Why will the glory be so great? Not just because of financial things, but because I will grant peace in this place. I know we've said this before, but it bears remembering that in English, when we ask for a definition of peace, by and large, we define that word negatively. And what I mean by that is we define that word peace by what it is not. Peace is not fighting. Peace is no troubles. Peace is the absence of war or hostility. But the Hebrew word shalom doesn't just mean the absence of the bad things, but the presence of everything the way that it's supposed to be. Listen, we live in chaotic times, don't we? You look out there and there is really no peace in our land. Because we, by and large as a people, have rejected God. We have rejected the only source of peace, but that doesn't mean that we can't come back. He will establish true peace in this place. We can know peace, but we can only know peace through Jesus Christ, God's only begotten Son. And this will be done, and how do you know it? Because the Lord Almighty declares it. Verse 10, on the 24th day of the ninth month in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Haggai. This is what the Lord Almighty says. Ask the priest what the law says. If a person carries consecrated meat into the fold of his garment, and that fold touches some bread or stew, some wine or oil or other food, does it become consecrated? In other words, if the holy touches the unholy, does the unholy become holy? The priest answered no. Then Haggai said, if a person defiled by contact with a dead body touches one of these things, does it become defiled? Yes, the priest replied, it becomes defiled. Then Haggai says, so it is with this people and this nation in my sight, declares the Lord. Whatever they do and whatever they offer, there is defiled. What's he getting at? He's saying, listen, defilement comes easy. defilement spreads much more quickly than holiness spreads, in a sense. God speaks truth. He comes with judgment, and judgment begins at the house of the Lord. But the good news is that He never leaves us in that place. Look at what it says next. Now give careful thought to this. There it is again. Stop for a second. Reflect. Hear this. This is important. Give careful thought to this. From this day on, consider how things were before one stone was laid on another in the Lord's temple. When anyone came to a heap of 20 measures, there was only 10. When anyone came to a wine vat to draw 50 measures, there were only 20. But I struck all the work of your hands with blight, with mildew and hail. Yet you did not turn to me, declares the Lord. In a sense, God is reminding them, listen, when futility comes, it's maybe just me rattling your cage, trying to get your attention. Oh, how sad it is to see a man who God is rattling his cage, but in his pride and his arrogance, he refuses to bend the knee. And that futility and that difficulty and that hardship just spread throughout his life and the life of his family. But look at what he says, verse 18. But from this day on, from this day on, from this 24th day of the ninth month, give careful thought. Do you see what he's saying? He's like, listen, pay attention. Look at this. This is important. This day, this very day, mark your calendars. Put a pin in it, if you will. Give careful thought to the day when the foundation of the Lord's temple was laid. Give careful thought. Is there yet any seed left in the barn? Until now. The vine and the fig tree, the pomegranate and the olive tree have not borne fruit. But from this day on, I will bless you. I will bless you. The word of the Lord came to Haggai a second time in the 24th day of the month. What is he saying here? When we repent and we turn, even though life is hard, life is difficult, he says, in a sense, test me. Watch what happens. Yes, you've been going down the wrong path. Yes, maybe you've just been wandering for a minute. You lost your way. You lost your calling. You've gotten into a rut. But when you turn back, he says, put it on your calendar and watch what I will do. Does this mean it's going to be easy? No. Does this mean we're never going to have struggles? but there will be a lightness in the midst of the burden. In a sense, I believe the Lord is saying, test me in this, try me, see what happens. Mark the date in your calendar. Verse 21, tells Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah, that I will shake the heavens and the earth. I will overturn royal thrones and shatter the power of the foreign kingdoms. I will overthrow chariots and their drivers, horses and their riders will fall, each by the sword of his brother. What's he saying? I will shake the heavens and the earth. I will shake the things that the world trusts in so deeply. A few months back, if you remember, Dave Lambert preached a great sermon on Hebrews 12. I commend it to you. And this verse is used by the author of Hebrews to remember that God sometimes shakes the foundations of that which can be shaken to prove the foundations of that which can never be shaken, the kingdom of God. Listen, do we live in chaotic times? I think we do. Do we live in a time where things, everything, all of the institutions it seems like that we used to trust in are being shaken to their core? Maybe, just maybe, God is doing a work. Maybe, just maybe, he's calling the church back to trust in the foundation of the kingdom that he has given us, and not the kingdoms of this world. Not so that we can run away, but rather so that we can advance. So maybe we can do something to bring forth a little bit more of his gospel spread in this land. Remember, what did Jesus say? All authority in heaven and earth has been granted unto me. All authority. Therefore, based upon that, what should we do? We should go out and disciple the nations. Not sit back passively. That's what the enemy wants you to do. Be passive. Just keep your nose clean. Just keep coming to Sunday and make sure whatever you do, you don't have any impact in the rest of secular society. Satan would love that. Sometimes God shakes the heavens. The world calls it chaos. But maybe, just maybe, the Lord is doing a work with some ordinary people. Some of the right people in the right place at the right time, doing the right things for the right reasons. Maybe, just maybe, when we come back and remember our call, maybe, just maybe, God wants to use folks just like us to show His glory to the nations. On that day, declares the Lord Almighty, I will take you, my servant Zerubbabel, son of Sheatiel, declares the Lord, and I will make you like my signet ring. He has a special word of encouragement to the leader here. I think this is nice because the reality is sometimes the leaders need a special encouragement because they can be especially discouraged. They can kind of see behind the curtain. The Lord recognizes that and He says, I have a special word for you. I will make you like my signet ring. I'm sure you all know what a signet ring is. The idea was whoever had the signet ring of the king or the governor or the wealthy man, in a sense, had the authority to speak on behalf of that person. It was like their digital authentication, their signature block, if you will. And because that was so important and so valuable, people would either keep it on their hands or they would keep it as a necklace and tuck it down behind all of their clothes, right next to their chest, keep it safe. In a sense, that's exactly what the Lord is saying, I'm gonna make you like my signet ring. Why? Because you're so wonderful? Because you're so adorable? Because you're so knowledgeable? Interestingly enough, the text doesn't say that. Why? Because I've chosen you. Because I've chosen you. Listen, I don't care if you're more Calvinistic, more Arminian, or just something else altogether. We can all agree, if you're in Christ, then He has chosen you. He has chosen you. In a very real sense, we are the same people with the same call, given the same power, and there will be the same results. Let that be the same assurance. Go forward in the confidence that this is the Lord's will and this is what He will do through His people. Declares the Lord Almighty. Isn't that wonderful? This book is bookended by those statements. This is the word of the Lord Almighty, and it will come to pass for our good, but ultimately for His glory. Let's pray. Well, dear Heavenly Father, we do thank you for this time. We thank you, Lord, for your word, for your promises, and for your faithfulness. Would you empower us, Lord, now by your Spirit to walk worthy of that calling that you have placed on each of our lives. We ask this for our sake, for the sake of our families, for the sake of our church, but ultimately for the sake of your glory. It's in Jesus' name we pray, and amen.