Haggai chapter 1. This is what we read in verse 1. In the second year of King Darius, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by Haggai, the prophet, to Zerubbabel, the son of Sheetal, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts, saying, This people says. This is what the people were saying. The time has not come that the Lord's house should be built. Then the word of the Lord came by Haggai, the prophet saying, is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses? And this temple lie in ruins. Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. You need to think about something here. You need to consider what you're doing. You need to consider what you're thinking. You need to consider your ways, including not only just what they were doing, but you need to consider the motives of your heart here. What are the real desires of your heart in this situation? We talk a lot about priorities sometimes, don't we? I don't know about priorities. I really don't. I know people say, well, listen, you've got to have your priorities straight. You've got to have God first, and then family, and then you know, maybe job, country, or whatever, you know, and we talk about listing priorities and, you know, after you get through four, five, six or so, maybe some people go on and, to me, that's always just been a jumbled mess. It just always has been a jumbled mess to me. Because the way life really works is this, I may say, okay, this is my priority in life, and may think I'm gonna structure my days so that I spend the appropriate amount of time in each one of those priorities, right? Well, guess what? Some days, you only get to one, and it may be down there on third or fourth on your list. But in the providence of God, that's what you gotta deal with today, right? You just have to deal with it, because you can't say, well, time out. I can't really devote all this time to my job because, well, I need to go do this, and there's a crisis at work, and it's demanding your attention that day, right? Tomorrow it may not, but that day, that's demanding your attention. It just always seemed to be a jumbled mess to me sometimes. And so as I looked through scripture and started thinking about this and started to look at my life and think about, okay, what is my life really going to be about? I began to discover some things and it really comes down to what is really the desire of your heart? What is the desires of your heart? I mean, that's really where the rubber meets the road when it comes to being a follower of Christ, claiming to be Christian. I say that I'm a Christian, then is that desire of my heart all-encompassing? In other words, is it a desire that's there on Monday morning just the same as it is today? You see, we gather together today and we worship it. It's easy to think, man, the desire of my heart is really to follow him and do. But then you get up tomorrow, is that desire still there? Is that desire to follow him there? And I really think it comes down to desires of heart. And I think Haggai's gonna have a lot to say about this. Keep your finger in Haggai. I want you to go to Matthew chapter six, just a second. Jesus approached it this way. This is what he said. Matthew chapter six. Verse 25, Matthew chapter 6 and verse 25, getting towards the end of the Sermon on the Mount, and this is what he says, he says, therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, what you will drink, More about your body. Remember just before that he said, you can't serve God and money at the same time. You can't serve two masters. So now don't worry about these things. What you will put on. Here comes a question. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Is life more than that? Well, obviously we can say, yeah, life's much more than just what we eat and what we put on and so forth. And then he says, look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father, what does He do? He feeds them. And are you not more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to a stature? You worry about this, how are you going to add anything to your situation? You're just going to get an ulcer over the deal. Verse 28, so why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. And yet I say to you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." I remember in the mountains in certain times, especially early in the spring, those painted flowers. You remember those paints, how a field would just get covered. It was brief. It was very brief. They didn't last long, but as the snow melted, these beautiful flowers would come up. his Indian paints, and it just was absolutely gorgeous. And look, consider the lilies of the field, they grow, they neither toil nor spin, yet I say to you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you? O you of little faith! Verse 31, therefore do not worry saying, what shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Or what shall we wear? For after all these things, the Gentiles, what? Seek. It's not that these things are bad. God's going to provide them. I mean, we need to be clothed. We need to eat. We need houses to live in. We need these things. Right? But see, here it is. This is what he says. These are the things that the Gentiles seek after. It's the desire of their heart. They want more. They want more clothes. They want more food. They want more. They want more. Their life is wrapped up in seeking after these things. And we can also say their whole identity is tied to what they have. You know people like this? Is that not describing Western culture right now? It is, isn't it? Jesus says, this is the desires of the Gentile's heart. Now the Gentile, by him saying this, this is not good. In other words, this is not a believer's heart. This is an unbeliever's heart, desiring after these things. And then he says this, for your heavenly father knows that you have need of these things. He knows what you need. And then here it comes, verse 33, you remember this one? But seek, Gentiles seek what? The pleasures of this world, they seek after that, that's what their life is defined by, right? These things, they gotta have enough. But you, you seek first, what? Kingdom of God. You're not to be that way. You're to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And then see this promise, and all these things will be added to you. All these things will be taken care of. All these things will be taken care of. I think it's David in the Psalms says he's never seen the righteous begging for bread. He's never. I mean, God has never once failed His people. We may miss a meal or two, right? God has never once failed His people. He knows what you need. He knows that you have need of these things, and God will provide these things. Verse 34, He finishes this section by saying, Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. As if to say, now listen, before you get too pie in the sky here, and before you get too pious here, and walk around saying, I'm just going to seek the kingdom of God, Then you begin to look at yourself and say, I'm righteous and look over there. They're not seeking. Before you get too pious about that, thinking that this is just going to be pie in the sky and everything's going to be great, sufficient for today. You see that sufficient for the day is its own trouble. You are going to live in trouble. You live in a fallen world and you're going to have needs and you're going to continue to live in a fallen world. And every day is going to be, it's going to that, that day, that trouble for that day, sufficient for that day. Quit worrying about tomorrow. Tomorrow will come and the troubles of tomorrow will come. But so will the blessings. So will the blessings. Now what does all this have to do with priorities, right? What does all this have to do with Haggai? What does this have to do with the prophet Haggai and what he's saying and why he comes onto the scene? Well it has everything to do with it. Because it comes down to desire of the heart. It's my desire, it's the desire of my heart to seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness. But we have to come back and say, then how do I do that? Do I just quit my job and sit around and read the Bible and pray? No, that's not it at all. It's not it at all. I think Haggai is going to help us understand some of this. He's going to help us to understand what does it look like to actually seek the kingdom of God? What has God called you to do? Let me tell you what He's called you to do. You're going to get up tomorrow and you're going to go to a job, right? Most of us. That job is your calling. And that's where you seek Him. You seek Him in that and through that. That's where you seek Him. Well, I think we're going to see this in Haggai, and we'll say more about this in a little bit. Matthew Poole, the old Puritan commentator, he said, listen, bring your hearts into subjection to the will of God. That's what it's about. Seeking his kingdom is bringing your heart into subjection to his will. Matthew Henry said, we don't seek to please ourselves. That's what the Gentiles do. But we seek, we desire, we pursue, our aim, our goal is the kingdom of God and His righteousness. So how does Haggai help us? How does Haggai help us do this? Well, Haggai is going to come onto the scene and he's going to preach four messages. We have a very clear historical setting for when Haggai is preaching. Let me just very quickly, let me walk you back through some history here. Okay, very quickly, because if you go all the way back to Abraham and God creates the nation of Israel from Abraham, right? Remember this, Genesis 12. He creates a nation. And then you have Abraham, you have Isaac and Jacob, the patriarchs. And with Jacob, he had 12 sons, the 12 tribes of Israel, right? And then you remember what happens. Joseph passes on, and then there's a Pharaoh who does not know Joseph. They're enslaved in Egypt. God raises up Moses, right? The greatest redemptive act in Old Testament, Old Covenant history, the Exodus. It's referred to so many times. Don't you remember when I brought you out of Egypt? And so God delivers them out of Egypt, out of the Egyptian bondage. Moses comes on the scene. And then you remember after Moses dies, Joshua takes them into the promised land. And then after that, we get the period of Judges where they just sin, this cycle of sin and God delivering and cycle of sin, the people repenting, God delivering. And then we get to the kings. They want a king. We want to be like the other nations. So God says, okay, Samuel, give them a king. Saul's the first king, bad king. David's the second king, the greatest king Israel ever had. There's a promise made to David. God says to David, your throne will last forever. Your throne will be established forever. That's the promise of the Messiah. It comes up in Haggai. And then we have Solomon. Then after Solomon, the king was divided. Remember Solomon, the kingdom's divided. It actually divides with his son. So now, after this, you have a northern kingdom, southern kingdom. What we've seen in some of the prophets already is the northern kingdom was judged by God. The Assyrians wipe out the northern kingdom. They kept sinning and sinning and sinning and chasing after idols of God, so that's it. Wipes them out. In a sense, I think what God's doing in the separation of the kingdoms at this point is He separates Judah. Basically, you have, in a sense, ten tribes to the north, two tribes, maybe a tribe and a half to the south. But Judah's the big tribe in the south. So they're separated. It's as if God is saying, and as if God is bringing about His plan to bring the Messiah into the world, creates a nation, Israel, through which the Messiah will come, then clarifies it even more, separates the tribes, Judah to the south, the promise made to Judah, the scepter will never depart from Judah. The Messiah's gonna come, Lion of the tribe of Judah. And in that, what ends up happening, the northern kingdom's destroyed, wiped out by the Assyrians, 722 BC. Then what we've seen from the prophets is the message to Judah. You're next. You're next. After the Assyrians, God raises up the Babylonians. And through the Babylonians, he wipes out the southern kingdom, destroys Jerusalem, 586 BC. And so now both kingdoms, the northern kingdom gone, the southern kingdom in ruins. But the prophet Jeremiah, God through the prophet Jeremiah says to the people, to the southern kingdom, to Judah, don't fight this. It's God doing this. God's judging you. And it's only going to last 70 years. You're gonna be taken in exile and taken to Babylon and it's only gonna last 70 years. Now, all the prophets that we've looked at up to this point, when we get to Haggai and you get to Zechariah and you get to Malachi, all the prophets except for the last three prophets are preaching before the exile. They're preaching before and they're saying to the north, destruction's coming. They're saying to the south, destruction's coming. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, it's coming, it's coming. Jeremiah, it's only going to be 70 years. Well, what happened after that 70 years? You see, now all of a sudden, Haggai comes on the scene, and during the same time, Zechariah's going to preach, and they're preaching after all this happens. When we see the earlier prophets, they're preaching this destruction and judgment, but in that is always this hope. If you'll turn, there's Christ. If you'll turn, there's the Messiah. If you'll turn, there's always this hope. Now what we see, beginning with Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, their preaching is not to the northern kingdom or southern kingdom saying, judgment's coming. They're preaching to the remnant. Let me put it this way. You've heard the expression, ah, you're just preaching to the choir. You know what that means? No, you're just preaching to the choir. You're preaching to people that already believe. Right? I mean, that's what, in a sense, what it means. In a sense, that's what Haggai's doing. Haggai's preaching to the choir. These are people that, under Ezra, left Babylon. About 50,000 of them leave Babylon, go back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. Nehemiah takes a group back later to rebuild the wall. The temple's first, the wall comes later. In my mind, I'm thinking, why not build the wall first and you can have protection and then build the temple? And God's thinking, God's saying, I'm gonna show you my glory. You put the temple up first. Why? You better seek first what? My kingdom. My temples in ruins. This temple will be rebuilt. I will protect you doing this. You build up a wall, then you'll say the wall protected you. No, your God's going to protect you. And so that's what happens. They begin the work under Ezra. Ezra takes a group back. They start the work. They meet all kinds of opposition. And really what happens in this is that the Babylonians are the world power. And then all of a sudden, in 512, excuse me, October the 12th, 539 BC, Cyrus the Great, the Persian, defeats the Babylonians, now Persia's the world power. And Cyrus issues an edict. We read this at the end of 2 Chronicles and we read it at the beginning of the Book of Ezra. Cyrus says basically this, hey, Jews, go home. Go home and rebuild your temple. Now Cyrus wasn't feeling all godly in this. Cyrus had a policy in which he let all of these people that the Babylonians had destroyed, he let them all go back and rebuild their temples and get their worship going because he figured if we get all these gods, we're certainly going to hit one. He was kind of polytheistic in the way he looked at things. So he tells the Jews to go home. A group of them go home. They start to rebuild. What happens? They meet opposition. We read all of this in Ezra. They meet opposition. They drag their feet. They build the altar. They get the altar finished. They get some of the foundation laid. And then they stop. They just stop building. Now understand this. When they went to Babylon, they were 70 years in Babylon. So, a majority of these people that went back were probably born in Babylon. And so many of the Jews that were in Babylon had lives in Babylon. They had businesses in Babylon. They had roots in Babylon now. Their family was there in Babylon. And the idea to pluck up and go back to Jerusalem that's desolate, there's nothing there. In fact, if we go back, there's no king in Israel. So how are we going to settle legal disputes? If we stroll back into Jerusalem and say, that was my great-granddaddy's farm. And whoever's squatted on it now says, no, we've been taking care of it for 70 years. Who are you to stroll in here? Who's going to settle these legal disputes? It's just a tangled mess. Why go back? This is probably figuring into some of their thinking. But a group of them, they do go back. They start to work and they stop. When they stop, 15 years after they stop, 15 years go by and no work's been done on the temple. And then all of a sudden, here comes Haggai. God raises up Haggai. God sends Haggai, and Haggai preaches four messages over a four-month period. Probably somewhere in the neighborhood of late August to maybe late December, he preaches these four messages. And basically what he says, you need to consider your ways You need to consider the desires of your heart here, folks. Things have been bad. Yeah. You faced opposition. Yeah. But you know what God says? God says, you better start seeking My kingdom first. So here comes the first message. We see in chapter 1, verse 1, in the second year of King Darius, in the sixth month, probably late August, maybe early September, Darius, by the way, is now king of Persia. A whole history of how he became king of Persia, but it's during his time. So this is 520 BC. 520 BC, all right? And so in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by Haggai, the prophet, to Zerubbabel, Sheetal, the governor of Judah. He's going to be important in the fourth message. We'll get to him. And Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest. So God sends the prophet Haggai. I want you to go and I want you to speak to Zerubbabel, the governor. He would have been an appointed governor. By this time, he would have been the third governor in the area. Okay? But he's important, and we're going to see why he's important at the end of this in Haggai's fourth message. And then I want you to speak to Joshua. I want you to speak to the government, and I want you to speak to the religious leaders. And this is what I want you to say to them. Thus speaks the Lord of Hosts. Powerful name. Lord of Hosts. He's over all. Powerful. And this is what he's saying. This people says, the time has not come, the time has not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built. It's just not time to do this. We've got other things here to do. We need to take care of our own houses. We need to take care of our own families. We need to make sure that our own stuff is secure. How can we do God's work if our stuff's not secure? How can we do God's work if we're fending off and taking care of His? And then look at what they're doing to my farm. Look at what they're doing to my house. Look at what they're doing to my family. And they stopped. Fifteen years, they stopped. Can you understand some of what they're saying now? Can you understand some of what they're thinking? I can. Before we get too high and mighty, at this point, we need to start examining our heart. There's other things that need to be taken care of before I ever really get serious about following Christ. There's other things I need to do before I ever really get serious about following Christ. No, you let the dead bury their own dead. And you follow Me. There was a whole point Jesus was making in that. Not that He was being cruel. He's making a point. You're gonna follow me, then follow me. So then the word of the Lord, verse three, then the word of the Lord came by Haggai, the prophet, saying, is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses and this temple lying in ruins? These would have been luxurious homes. We saw this with Amos, the prophet Amos. Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. Have you sown much and bring in little? You eat, but do not have enough. You drink, but you are not filled with drink. You clothe yourself, but no one is warm. And you who earns wages, earns wages to put them in a bag with holes. You ever felt that way? Man, I work and work and work and bring home my money, and it goes down the drain. Where does it all go? Man, I remember saying to four young kids, Work, work, where does it go? Guess what? The doctor needs some of it this week. Oh my gosh, not again. Yeah, guess what? The shoe store needs a great chunk of it this week. We've all been there, right? We've all been there. We may be there right now. And then he goes on in verse 7 and he says, Thus says the Lord of Hosts. There's that title again. The Lord of Hosts. Consider your ways. Second time he says this. Consider your ways. Pay attention to what you're doing. Not just what you're doing, but what are the desires of your heart. And then he mentions three things here. Three specific things. Go. Go up to the mountains. And second, bring wood. And third, build the temple. Three extremely practical steps here. Go get on the mountain, get some wood, and build this temple. There was no ambiguity about this. None whatsoever. You're saying it's not time? God's saying it's time. You're saying we got other things that we need to take care of? God's saying, no you don't. You better get this done. All right? And why? Build the temple, and God says, that I may take pleasure in it and be glorified. If you seek first this, all this other stuff is going to be taken care of, and His righteousness. God's saying, this is what I want, this is what I desire. His desire should be our desire, right? Shouldn't it? I mean, at the very least, shouldn't His desire be our desire? Because in that is true happiness. And that is true happiness and satisfaction and fulfillment. The problem is when his desire, I don't want. I want my desire. Right? And that's what's happening with the people here. So he says, you looked for much, but indeed it came to little, and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why, says the Lord? Because my house that is in ruins, while every one of you runs to his own house, therefore the heavens above you withhold dew, and the earth withholds its fruit. For I have called for a drought on the land, and the mountains, and on the grain, and the new wine, and the oil, on whatever the ground brings forth, on men, livestock, and on all the labor of your hands. I have called for this drought. I have called for it. Now I want you to notice something very, very important to understand here. Because when he talked language of judgment before the exile, he just hammered and hammered and hammered and said, I will destroy you because of your sin. Do you notice that language is not here? He's disciplining these people. But they're the remnant. They're the remnant. He's disciplining. There's not this promise of total, absolute destruction and judgment. Here's another thing that happens. And that is this right response that we see. Here they are. They get busy, get working, and then here's the right response. Because what response do we see when the prophets, the other prophets preach? Oh, they killed some of those guys. They killed some of those guys, threw Jeremiah in a pit, put him in stocks and threw him in a pit. Ridiculed the prophets, laughed at them, ran them out of town. Tradition says that they put Isaiah in a log and sawed him in two. Jesus says, your fathers, you killed the prophets. But notice the response here. Verse 12, Then Zerubbabel, the son of Shehotel, and Joshua, the son of Jehoshaphat, the high priest, with all the remnant. See, here's the remnant. These are in a sense, let me put it this way, these are the believers. And all the remnant of the people, what did they do? You see this? obeyed the voice of the Lord their God and the words of Haggai the prophet as the Lord their God had sent him. And the people feared the presence of the Lord. Then Haggai the Lord's messenger spoke the Lord's message to the people saying, I am with you. I'm with you. One of the first things that God says to Gideon, what Gideon is being called to do, take 300 men, he ends up with 300 men, and defeating 15 or 20,000 men. One of the first things God says to Gideon when he calls him is he says, I am with you, O valiant man. That's all that matters. I'm with you. Isn't that all that matters? What does God want us to do? We can't do that. No, I'm with you. So here they are, they obey, and God says, I'm with you, says the Lord. So the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, the son of Shehadel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua, son of Jehozad, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people. And they came and they worked on the house of the Lord of Hosts, their God. See, there's that title again, Lord of Hosts, their God, on the 24th day of the sixth month on the second year of King Darius. So about 24 days later, they're at work and they're busy. 520 BC, Haggai preaches this message. Late August, maybe early September, preaches this message. Four years later, 516 BC, the temple's finished. Four years later, the temple's finished. They obeyed. What did the people before the exile? They didn't obey, did they? Their hearts just got harder, and harder, and harder, and harder. God sent judgment here. God speaks to His people. God says to His people, consider your ways. And His people hear, and they listen, and they respond. You see that? This is completely different from what we've seen before the exile. Completely different. Get busy. Yes, sir. They got busy. They finished the work. And then comes the second message about a month later. Maybe sometime around October. And here comes the second message. In the seventh month of the 21st day of the month, the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet saying, speaking out of Zerubbabel, the son of Sheetal, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Jehoshadak, the high priest, and the remnant, and the remnant of the people, saying, Who is left among you who saw this temple in its former glory? As they started building, Zechariah is going to give us a little more information about this. Ezra gave us some information about how, when they started to build it, there were some older people who looked at it and went, Oh my gosh, this thing's beauty. This is nothing like Solomon's temple. This is going to be a disgrace. People are going to laugh at us. This is going to be the temple? And so he asked the question, who's left among you who saw the temple in its former glory? And how do you see it now in comparison with it? Is this not in your eyes as nothing? Yeah, wow, this is not much here. Yet now be strong, Zerubbabel, says the Lord. And be strong, Joshua, son of Jehoshaphat, the high priest. And be strong, all you people of the land, says the Lord. And work, for I am with you. Second time he says this, says the Lord of hosts. According to the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt. Referencing the exodus again. And so my spirit remains among you. Do not fear. You look at it and think it's insignificant. It's not worth much. It's not worthy of the title of being the temple of God. But excuse my English here. But what God's saying and what He's going to say next is you ain't seen nothing yet. Because verse 6 he says, for thus says the Lord of hosts, once more it is a little while. It's going to start here pretty soon. And notice this, I will shake heaven and earth and sea and dry land. I will shake all nations and they shall come to the desire of all nations. Interesting here, the desire. Is this Christ? Is it Messiah that somehow he's talking about here? Or is it just the fact that this wealth that's going to come pouring into the temple, which it did later. And then he says, I will fill this temple with glory, says the Lord of Hosts. The silver is mine, the gold is mine, says the Lord of Hosts. And listen to this promise. The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of Hosts. And in this place I will give peace, says the Lord of Hosts. The glory of this temple that you're looking at saying, it ain't much, is going to be greater than the glory of Solomon's temple. Now he's not talking about Herod's temple. This was Herod's temple. And I don't think what Haggai is saying is that later on Herod's going to come along and refurbish this thing and it's going to be grand. That was the temple. This is the temple. As Herod refurbished it and was working on it, it was the temple of Jesus' day. It was something to see. I don't think that's what he's talking about. You remember when John says Jesus came? John 1 verse 14. The Word became flesh. You remember that? You remember what John says? And John says over and over and over and over in his book, in the gospel. You remember what he says? Word became flesh and we beheld his what? Glory. Jesus came to the temple. Right? One of the first things he did was cleanse the temple, right? A greater glory has come to the temple. I don't think it stops there. We'll see this here in just a second. Because I think this also figures into the church. We'll tie that together here in just a second. So, you look at this and you say, it's not much. Let me tell you this, I'm going to do a work and it's about to start. The bringing about the Messiah has been going, it's been working, the plan's been unfolding, and it's about to step up, it's about to ratchet up some, and the Messiah's coming. You're going to see something then. Then comes the third message. The third and fourth message are on the same day. Probably December 520. And on the fourth day of the ninth month, the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet saying, thus says the Lord of hosts. Now, ask the priest concerning the law. Get a ruling here. Ask the priest and ask him this. If one carries holy meat in the fold of his garment and with the edge He touches bread or stew or wine or any other food, will it become holy? The priest said, of course not. Holiness is not contagious. Leviticus 6. Of course not. Okay then. So the priest answered and said, or Haggai said, if one who is unclean becomes, because of a dead body touches any of these, will it become unclean? The priest answered and said, of course it will become unclean. This is common sense. This is mosaic law 101. Holiness is not contagious, but if you touch a dead body, then you defile everything around. You've got to go get cleansed. Right? I mean, come on. Any priest worth his salt should know that. Okay, God says, verse 14. Then Haggai answered and said, so is this people. What do you mean, so is this people? And so is this nation before me, says the Lord, and so is every work of their hands. And what they offer there is unclean. There's a few of you affecting the whole. There's a few of you defiling the whole. And what it comes down to is your hearts are unsanctified. Your desires are not right. Just because you think we left and we come back and we're building the temple and we're doing this and we're keeping feast days. By the way, when he preaches on these dates that he preaches, we're probably at the end of great feast days. So the people would have been gathered together. It's just a natural event for Haggai to stroll into these feast days and start preaching away. So you do the feast, you do all this stuff, right? But you've got to understand, holiness is not contagious. But then you do all this with, you're not seeking really God's kingdom in the desires of your heart. You're doing it and you're complaining and moaning and groaning and desiring something else the whole time you're doing it. You're affecting everything. Your heart's not right. That's his point. And he says in verse 15, And now carefully consider from this day forward, and from before the stone was laid upon stone in the temple, and since those days, when one came to a heap of twenty ephahs, and there were but ten, and one came to a wine vat, and draw out fifty baths from the press, and there were but twenty, I struck you with blight and mildew, and held in all the labors of your hands, yet you did not turn to me, says the Lord. Consider now from this day forward, from the 24th day of the month, from the day that the foundation of the Lord's temple was laid, consider it. Is the seed still in the barn? As yet the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree, they haven't yielded anything yet. But here's a promise. From this day, from this day, I'm going to bless you. You go out and look at a garden that you just planted, and you're boasting about how you're going to fill your barns full of peas? You don't know. What if you get too much rain? What if you don't get enough rain? What if there's a disease? And you're boasting, yet God's telling the people now, look, nothing's in the barn, right? But I'm telling you what, it's going to be full. There's going to be so much blessing. This beautiful promise that he gives, The third message, they're discouraged. It's not what it used to be. It's not what we thought it was going to be. But listen, you haven't seen anything yet. There's going to be a greater glory that's going to come here. You're discouraged and thinking, what such a small thing here. But I'm telling you, there's going to be tremendous blessing here. Just get busy, work. And then comes a personal message to Zerubbabel. This is the fourth message. And again, it was on the same day as the third message. And again, the word of the Lord came to Haggai on the 24th day of the month. saying, speak to Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah, saying, I will shake heaven and earth. Notice this again. Here's his sovereign power. I'm going to shake heaven and earth. I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms. I will destroy the strength of the Gentile kingdoms. I will overthrow the chariots and those who ride on them. Their horses and their riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother. Who's actually going to protect us here? Now keep in mind, remember, The temple's being built before the wall. Who's going to keep these nations at bay? I am. I'm going to shake the earth. I'm going to do this. I'm your protection here. And then comes this personal message of assurance. And that's what I think the third message is all about, is this assurance. Get busy. Get busy. This is significant. This is significant work. It may be small, but it's significant. And it's what I please. It's what I want. And it's assurance. You're going to be protected. But also comes a beautiful personal message of assurance to Zerubbabel, who's the governor. He says in verse 23, in that day, says the Lord of hosts, I will take you, Zerubbabel, my servant. the son of Sheetal, says the Lord, and will make you like a signet ring. Why? For I have chosen you, says the Lord of Hosts. I've chosen you. Why does he single Zerubbabel out? The last legitimate king, Davidic king of Judah, was Jehoiachin, also known as Conan. He was evil. In fact, he was so bad that Jeremiah says, Jeremiah in chapter 22, Jeremiah says that he was rejected and there was a blood curse placed on his line. No one of your descendants will ever serve as king again. Zedekiah is actually the last king, but he was appointed by Nebuchadnezzar and he was actually Jehoiachin's uncle, not his son. So the last legitimate Davidic king was Jehoiachin. And the blood curse was placed on him. There will never be anyone from your line sitting on the throne of David ever again. Utterly rejected by God. Evil king. Yet here's the interesting thing. Jehoiachin is in the genealogy of Christ in Matthew. And guess who else is there? Zerubbabel. I think what God's saying to Zerubbabel here, and what He's saying to the people, is that the promise of the Davidic kingdom is still intact. Zerubbabel is the grandson of Jehoiachin. But he's not king, he's governor. Significant. He's a placeholder. He's governor, he's not king. The promise to David is intact. There is a legitimate heir of David who is ruling you, not as king, but as governor. Now who eventually fulfills that? It's Christ. So how does he escape the blood curse from Jehoiachin? Virgin birth. The virgin birth. Joseph was not his father. Blood father. And the fulfillment of the promise to David is fulfilled in Christ. You see, all of this message that Haggai's given, and all these messages, all four of these messages, coming from the very beginning, it's time to get busy, it's time to start working, stop being discouraged. I know you look at this and think, gosh, it's not that big a deal, but it is a huge deal. This has to happen. The reason why this has to happen and this temple has to be rebuilt, and the reason why you need to get busy, is because it's in the plan of bringing about the Messiah. You have to do it! I've called you to do it. Your desire should be my desire." And how did the people respond? Yes, sir. Their desire was his desire. And four years later, they finished the temple. It's rebuilt. It's finished. So I think you start to see a little bit of how Haggai, how is Haggai addressing this issue of seeking first the kingdom of God and then all these other things are going to be added to you? Okay, that's one thing for these people. Yeah, I can see it for them. I can see how... But what about us? I mean, we're not called to build a temple. We're not being told to go to the mountains, get the wood, and come down here and build a temple. In fact, Stephen will say things like this when he's being stoned and he's talking to the Jews. God's not a God who dwells in temples. He's not dwelling in temples made with ants. So what's the connection here? If they were to seek first the kingdom of God and the building of the temple, then where do we seek first the kingdom of God? What are we building? Well, you need to understand that in that greater glory that was coming, as I mentioned, Haggai mentions, it's in Christ. He comes. Jesus himself said, you know what? One greater than the temple's here. It's me. And then he pulls a group of men together to himself, right? He pulls 12 men together to himself. And then what have we been reading in the book of Acts, in Acts chapter 2? The outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the beginning of the church, the birth of the church. What is God building now? Not a temple of wood and stone. Not that at all. Turn to 1 Corinthians. Turn to 1 Corinthians. This is what Paul says. And there are other places. We're only going to look at two. We're going to look at 1 Corinthians and then we're going to look at 1 Peter. But this is what he says in 1 Corinthians 3. You can see this in other places. In verse 16, he tells the people, the Corinthians, he's talking to them about their work and so forth and what they build on and foundations and things. And then he says in verse 16, he says, do you not know that you are the temple of God? No, he's not talking individually here. Because the you here is not singular, it's plural. If you have the King James, it says ye. Ye is plural. Who is he talking to? He's talking to the church. Don't you guys know you're the temple of God? and that the Spirit of God dwells in you, and if anyone defiles this temple, if anyone goes after this temple, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, which temple you are." What is the church? It's the dwelling place of God. It's the temple. It's what it is. It's what Paul says it is here. You need to understand this. He says it in other places. But let's go to 1 Peter just a second. 1 Peter makes this even more clear. This is what we read in 1 Peter. 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 1, Therefore laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes desire the pure milk of the Word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious." Verse 4, coming to Him. Who's the Him? It's Christ. Coming to Christ as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious. You also, as living stones, are being built up into a, what? Spiritual house. A holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Therefore, it is also contained in Scripture. Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he who believes in him will by no means be put to shame. Therefore, do you believe he is precious? But to those who are disobedient, the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone, a stone of stumbling, a rock of offense. They stumble being disobedient to the word to which they were appointed. But you, you believers, you Christians, not only are you being built up into this spiritual house, living stones, But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, who were once not a people, but now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained it. Do you see it? Do you see where now, as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, and as members of the church, as part of the church, the body of Christ, where do we seek Him? Where do we seek the Kingdom of God? What is it that we are building up here? It's the church. That's it. And I will say this, there are people who are today, more than any time in any of our lifetimes, there are people today seeking to tear it down, destroy it, trash it. Those are the ones outside. And there are ones who are on the inside, who are saying the equivalent of, it's not time to do this. What it's time to do is be nice and friendly and it's not time to be pushy about the gospel. It's not time to be pushy about these things. And I think what Haggai would say to us is, you know what? You better get busy. It's not what God desires. You spend enough time seeking after the things the Gentiles seek after. As times get harder and harder and harder, as persecution looms, the need to do away with what has happened in Western Christianity over the last 100 years, really prevalent the last 50 years, is to make this division between, some call it the division between secular and sacred. I don't like those words. Let me just put it this way. What has grown is an understanding that Christians have today, which is not helpful, that I do my Sunday thing and then I do my Monday thing. You get that, don't you? And my Sunday thing has nothing to do with my Monday thing. Yes, it does. How are you going to seek first the Kingdom of God with that kind of thinking? where things are divided out, and you do your Sunday thing, and then you have your Monday through Saturday thing, that's not seeking first His Kingdom. When I seek first His Kingdom, my Monday thing, and my Tuesday thing, and my Wednesday thing, in fact, my everyday thing, is my Sunday thing. Do you understand that? I'm going to seek first the Kingdom of God. On Monday morning, I'm going to seek first the Kingdom of God at my job. And I'm going to go in there and be the best employee they've ever had. And I'm going to show the glory of Christ. And we're given opportunity, I'm going to speak the name of Jesus. And I'm going to seek first the Kingdom of God in that. It may be that I'm retired and grandkids and all that, whatever it is, I don't know wherever it is that God's going to place you in the morning. Seek His kingdom first in that. That's how you do it. It's the desire of your heart. You don't say, I did my Sunday thing. And now I'm just going to go do everything else. And the two don't mix. Yes, they do mix. Everything mixes. If you're a believer of the Lord Jesus Christ, there's not one area, not one area of your life that He should not be Lord over and that He should not be the desire of that area of your life. If there is an area of your life in which you do not want to hand over to Him, in which you do not want Him to be the desire of your life, that you need to repent and get rid of whatever that is that's in your life. Because that's not seeking the kingdom of God. And you need to listen to what Haggai's saying. Consider your ways. If you're doing that and trying to live the Christian life that way, no wonder everything's falling through holes in your pocket. No wonder. But there's Christ. Right? There He is. Listen. We will defend. We will defend the church. and the Gospel and the Word of God. We will defend it. We will defend it against those on the outside who are seeking to destroy it. But we will also defend it from those on the inside who are seeking to say, it's not time yet. It's not time yet. It is time. Time to stand up. It's time to stand up wherever you are. See, here's the beautiful thing about the promise that's given to us in the prophets, is that there is a Messiah who comes, right? He comes. He dies on a cross. He was raised. He's buried. He's raised the third day. The Bible says that if you turn to Christ and you put your faith and trust in Him, you're saved. You will be saved. And you will understand what a wonderful Savior He is. You will see Him. And in just a minute, we're going to sing a song. And you will sing this song from such the depths of joy, and you will cry out with the throngs, hallelujah, what a Savior. Right? Hallelujah, what a Savior. Seek first His kingdom. For some of you, it may be that the first thing you need to do is turn from your sin and put your faith and trust in Christ for the first time, because you've never really done that. And that's what you need to do. And then, you're on the road. You're on the road. Let's pray together.