For many, many centuries, the Hebrew prophets were warning Israel about their failure, their failure to keep the covenant with God. The promises that they had made to Him, to obey His words, to listen to Him. to obey the law that he gave to them and yet they didn't do that, they failed to do that. And the prophet warned them about this and the consequences of it. Isaiah in particular warns very specifically many, many years before it actually happened of the coming of Babylon as the anointed of God to punish the unfaithful people. and it came to pass in 587 BC that Babylon came, as the word of the Lord had said, and destroyed both the city of Jerusalem and the temple at its heart. They carried off the people into exile and that was the end of the kingdom the end of the Kingdom of Israel, the end of the Kingdom of Judah. But those same prophets that spoke of that end and that punishment looked forwards. At the same time as warning about the coming punishment, the coming consequences of unfaithfulness, they looked forward to a future hope. A hope. that that punishment, that discipline, would not be the end of God's people, nor the end of His purpose to bless the whole world, every nation, through that people. Although they spoke of the destruction of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple, they also spoke of the destruction of Babylon, that very tool that the Lord would use to bring judgment on the people. that in turn they too would face the wrath of God for their sin. And a faithful remnant of the people of God would return to a new Jerusalem and a new temple where God's presence would live in their midst. Babylon was overthrown according to the word of the Lord, once again. And the Persian Empire rose to take its place and it was under the Persian Empire, under Cyrus, that the Israelites were allowed, given permission to return and rebuild the city of Jerusalem, the walls and the temple. And so they returned under the high priest, Joshua, and Zerubbabel, the governor, a descendant of David in the line of the kings and so the four oracles of Haggai which we've been looking at over the past few weeks were messages given to that returning people in around 520, well we know the date, it is 520 BC because the dates are very specific in the Book of Haggai. So we know for certain, as far as we can know any of these things. any of these dates that according to our calendar it was in the year 520 BC that Haggai spoke the word of the Lord to the people some 70 years after the people were carried off into exile. We've already looked at the first part of Haggai's prophecy, chapter one, which came on the first day of the sixth month, according to the Hebrew calendar, the first day of the sixth month. That translates to around August time in our calendar. So around August in 520 BC, Haggai brings this word of warning, this word of rebuke to God's people, rebukes them for a failure of zeal and for what amounted to covenant rebellion, for their failure to complete the rebuilding of the temple. And the consequences of that are recorded there in Chapter 1 for us. An unproductive land, famine and droughts, problems trying to keep the people together, trying to build an economy in the city. It just failed miserably. Not because they were unskilled at these matters but because they'd not put the rebuilding of the temple, the work of God, first and foremost in their hearts. And Haggai brings the word of the Lord to them causing them to consider their ways. And in the second half of that chapter we find that they respond, the faithful remnant responded positively. And they were motivated to return to that work which they had left. And the work on the temple begins, we find, at the end of chapter 1 and verse 15, on the 24th day of the six months. So by the end of that month, by the end of that six months, the work had begun. I imagine it took a few days, a few weeks, to get work parties organized, to get resources together. And so they begin the actual work. on the 21st, the 24th day rather, of that sixth month. And so we come to look at the second chapter of Haggai and this second oracle which comes in the seventh month on the 21st of the month. So about a month, a full month after the beginning of the work And the Lord, through the prophet Haggai, addresses a couple of matters. Firstly, he addresses the broken expectations of the people concerning the project, the building project that's undergoing. Obviously, a month has now passed and things are starting to take shape. The size and the shape of the building, the temple is taking shape. They can start to see what it's going to look like when it's finished. And what we read here is of some broken expectations. It wasn't quite what they hoped it would be. It wasn't all that they had hoped it would be. And in response to these broken expectations, the Lord speaks and commands them to stay strong and to work. He reminds them of his covenant presence once again and of the future glory that those prophets of old spoke about. and about God's own determination and ability to provide the resources to accomplish his purposes. So the first thing that the Lord deals with through the prophet Haggai in these things is the disappointments. The disappointments of the building of the temple. The people are a bit miserable about it, it seems. And so Hagiai addresses the people and their leaders with three rhetorical questions. Hagiai seems to like his rhetorical questions. And with these things he cuts to the heart of their disappointments. with the results, you know, they've worked hard, they've put lots of effort into it, but they're just disappointed with the results. It's interesting to note that Haggai, each of Haggai's three, the first three rather, of Haggai's four oracles all begin with rhetorical questions, which sort of in a way feeds into the thought that we had when we first looked at this book, and I said that one of the main themes about it is something that's repeated in that first chapter in verses 5 and verse 7 of chapter 1, consider your ways, because that's what a rhetorical question does, it causes you to consider, it causes you to think. Because the implication is the answer is either obvious or it's an answer you already know. And so in chapter 1 we find the rhetorical question comes in verse 4, is it time for you yourselves to dwell in panelled houses and this temple, this house, the temple to lie in ruins? Although the answer to that question is obvious isn't it? It's putting, God is putting his finger there, through the words of the prophet Haggai, on exactly what the problem is, where the priority, the priority of the people was wrong. They were busy building their fancy panelled houses and leaving in ruins the temple of God, and God saying, is this right? They already knew the answer to that. It was obvious to them. And so there are three rhetorical questions in the same way come in chapter two, And verse 3, 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 nothing in your eyes? The answer is in the question, isn't it? the very answer is given for us there. It is, it's nothing, it doesn't look like it, it doesn't have the glory, it doesn't have the grandeur of the temple that went before and it's perfectly reasonable that there would have been some there, this is 70 years after the exile, so there would have been some people who would have seen that temple in their youth. maybe just a few who would have remembered what it looked like remembered the glory and the majesty of the temple that Solomon built and here they see the foundations being laid of this new one and it's nothing in comparison it's being built with the rubble of the old It just does not have that glory and the grandeur. Indeed Ezra and chapter 3 tells us something of the mixed reaction of the people at the beginning of the project. It tells us that some wept when they saw the foundations laid and some shouted for joy. Very mixed reactions to the building of the temple, to the foundations being laid. And the Word of God which came to them is not idealistic. It's not saying, no, no, it's just as good, it's just as good as it was before. No, that's not what God says. God is not idealistic, he's realistic when he comes. in his words. There's an implied acknowledgement in this oracle that their disappointment and dissatisfaction with the work is in some ways understandable. And I suspect that for some of us here this morning, for those who have been Christians a long time, you've been part of the Church of God for many years, that your heart resonates to a degree with the expression of disappointment of the people of the remnant here in Haggai because we've seen much of the same thing in the work of God's kingdom we too have found ourselves disappointed with our own labours, disappointed with the results of them. And when we compare maybe the things we've heard about in the past, or maybe we compare it with something we've experienced in the past, a previous experience of the blessings of God, our previous experience of his glory. If you've read church history, maybe you read about the great revivals of the past and you wonder why, why Lord, do we not see these things happening in our midst? We become dissatisfied with our experience, dissatisfied with our work. There's a danger we become dissatisfied with our Lord. We might wonder where are the great preachers of our day? Where are the Wesleys and the Whitfields? Where are the Spurgeons and the Lloyd-Joneses? We might wonder why are the people of the world so little stirred and little affected by the gospel? Where is the power of the gospel today? Why is it that God seems to be so distant? Why is it that his glory is not so obvious to us as perhaps it seems on the pages of history or in our memories? Why does God bless the work in that place and not here? All these sort of questions can come up in our thoughts and leave us feeling dissatisfied and miserable with our work. With many like complaints, we can find ourselves discouraged in the work that the Lord has set before us. And as the Word of God here indicates, Those feelings are not without merit, they're not without truth. There's something to that. The people of Haggai's day must have wondered whether they were worthy to carry out that task. I mean, that was one of their excuses for not wanting to do it. They weren't ready to do it. It wasn't the time to do it. And maybe as they began to build and saw the poor nature of what they were building when compared with what went before, maybe they thought, well, maybe we're not the ones to do it. David wasn't the one to build the temple. It was left to his son Solomon. Maybe it's not for us to do. Maybe we should leave it for somebody else. And maybe that's sometimes our heart too. Maybe we think we're not good enough, we're not resourced enough, we're not capable enough of doing God's work. Maybe we're ready to give up, as they'd already done once before. But God has a word for us and for them in that dissatisfaction, in that misery and despair. He says, be strong and work. Be strong and work. And that instruction comes with great emphasis. With great emphasis. It's almost as if the Lord is saying, look, get on with it. I've told you what to do. Go and do it. But it's more than that. There's more to it than that. There's more to God's word here than just saying, get on with it. Because he doesn't just tell them to suck it up and pull yourselves together and pull yourself up by your bootstraps and just get on with the work that I've told you to do. That's not what he's saying. Nor does he expect them, or expect us for that matter, to work for his kingdom without his resources. And he gives us, and he gives them, in this passage, three monumental encouragements. These are huge encouragements, and I hope and I pray that they encourage you this morning. in your work for the kingdom, in the work of the church here for the kingdom of God. And these three monumental encouragements are more than just what we might think of as a half-time pep talk for the team by the coach. It's more than that. It's not just a case of saying, get on with Because these encouragements, they point us towards the active involvement of God in his work. The work he calls us to do. Indeed, the focus of attention is on the Lord so much in these verses. I don't know if you noticed as we read it, how many times does it say, thus says the Lord, or thus says the Lord of hosts. I don't know, I haven't counted them. But it seems like every verse has this in two or three times. Thus says the Lord, thus says the Lord. There's such a focus on God in these three things, these three encouragings, three monumental encouragements. So the first of these encouragements is this, the Lord's covenant presence, the Lord's covenant presence by word and spirit. And so in the midst of all the discouragements, with their hearts and their heads bowed in misery and depression, What better thing can there be than to know and to hear, to be reminded of the very imminent presence, the very near, close, at hand presence of the Lord of Hosts. It is the Lord of Hosts. who says he is with you. The end of verse four, I am with you says the Lord of hosts. And we've considered before that that title, the Lord of hosts, expresses the might, the authority, the glory, the power of God's. He is the Lord of the hosts of heaven. There is nothing that he cannot do. And the Lord of hosts says, I am with you. How many times do we read those words in the scripture? Throughout God's word there is expressions of this same thing. Deuteronomy chapter 31 is one that jumps into my mind. This is the word to Joshua as he's taking over the leadership of the people of Israel just before Moses' death. Deuteronomy chapter 31, let me find what verse it was, I can't remember. Verse six, be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them for the Lord your God, he is the one who goes with you, he will not leave you nor forsake you. And how many times do we read of that same kind of sentiment being expressed to God's people? He is the one who is with us, he will not leave us nor forsake us. And He's called us to do a work. He's not going to just leave us to it. He is with us. As He was with them, He's with us. They must have looked back, those folks in Haggai's day, and as they were reminded of the temple and its former glory, the kingdom of Israel and its former glory, the days of David and Solomon. It must have felt very small and insignificant in comparison with those great saints of old. They've remembered how God has moved among their ancestors and it caused them to lose heart because he didn't seem to be moving in the same way with them. But the God of the past, the God of the past, the God of the Bible, the God of the Old Testament is the same today. The God of the past is the God of the present. And the message of this passage is not to trap God in the past. Not to trap Him in history. But rather when we look at that history, when we remember the history that we have in the Bible of God's work with his people, when we remember the New Testament and how he was with the disciples and the apostles as the church was built, when we remember history and the days of the Reformation and the days of revival and renewal, rather than causing us to be to lose heart and to wish for those days, it should cause us to be encouraged. To be expectant. Because He is with us. As He was with them, He is with us today. He is active and working. And despite all the troubles that God's people have been through, despite their sin and their rebellion, He's still with them. He took them through a difficult time. He disciplined them. And out of that discipline came this faithful remnants. And His covenant promises remain. His purposes remain because he is faithful the same today, yesterday and tomorrow. And his presence is with them. My spirit remains among you, he says. Verse five, according to the word that I covenanted with you, when you came out of Egypt, so my spirit remains among you. Do not fear. Do not fear for he is with us by word and by spirit. He is with us. The second monumental encouragement in this passage is the Lord's imminent action. The Lord's imminent action. We've had his covenant presence, now his imminent action. And that action is to both to shake and to establish, to shake and to establish or fill. Because that presence of God that he promises by his word, through his spirit, isn't just some ethereal or unreal or fuzzy feeling of goodness and joy and happiness that's within us. Now the feeling of God's, the feeling of the presence of God does that. It can make us feel joyful. It can be a feeling of goodness and happiness. But it's so much more than that. For thus says the Lord of hosts in verse six, once more I will shake the earth and the heaven and the sea and the dry land. Because the Lord, in his wisdom, unsettles everything which is not identified with his kingdom. Everything on this earth comes and goes. The grandest and greatest empire man has ever built comes and goes. Thrones come and go, kingdoms come and go, people come and go. But the word of the Lord remains. He has established his church. And so everything which isn't identified with his kingdom is shaken. We've already seen, if we remember to history, what went on before the book of Haggai, that he has used the might of Babylon for his purposes, to discipline his people, and then once he'd done with it, he cast it aside. and it was destroyed and overrun. And he raised up Persia in its place, which again, he used for his purposes and then discarded. And it's these very shakings, these very events are the means that the Lord says he will use to fill this temple with glory. shaking out the treasures of the nations in order to fill this new temple. One commentator I read put it this way, the kingdoms of the world are but scaffolding for God's spiritual temple to be thrown down when their purpose is accomplished. It's the removal, the shaking of created things, of temporal things for the glory of God's, for the glory of His kingdom, for the glory of His house. We know even the temple itself was shaken and removed once Christ had appeared for these things are taken away, these things are temporal that we might be induced, might be encouraged to run to Him that's the immovable foundation that is in Christ Jesus the Lord works and he works today in ways that we cannot fathom. He is working at this very moment, working his purposes out in ways that we do not understand and may never understand. But we trust by faith that he is good for his promises and is good to those who love him. And it is through this shaking, through this shaking down of the nations, this shaking down of the world, that glory will be brought to that temple, he says. It was the glory, the wealth of Persia that would be used to fill that temple, that new temple. just so he uses the wealth and the resources of this world to do his purposes in ways that we cannot fathom and in ways that the world does not understand but he is working he is working now, he is working today a third monumental encouragement is the result of that the greater glory and peace that God promises. For the consequence of that shaking of the nations is that the temple will be filled with glory. A word here on verse 7. and the phrase therein, the desire of all nations. I don't know what your Bible says. If you have a New King James or an authorised version, you may find that desire of all nations is capitalised. Because there are those who think that this is referring to the coming of the Lord Jesus into the temple in his incarnate form. That translation seems to support that, but there are many who challenge it. It's not as cut and dry as it might be made out in here. In fact, most, the vast majority of scholars who read this disagree with this translation that we have in our Bible. Some of the modern translations actually capture it a little bit better because One of the main reasons we have trouble with this, not only the Hebrew language that's used here, but when could Christ be ever described as a desire of nations? Isn't it true that it's so often the opposite? The people of the world, the nations, they won't have him. They reject him. Here's one of the more modern translations of that verse. It says this, I will shake all nations so that the treasures of all nations shall come in and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts. And indeed, that's just what God did. because this word is a word of prophecy, not just for the distant future for these folks and the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, but it's something for them there and then. It has a wider meaning which I'll come to in a moment, but it was a word for them. And if it was just talking about the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in his physical manifestation, in his glorious incarnation, that's glory coming into the temple. But I want to show you that this is about more than that. As I've said, the power and the wealth of the Persian Empire was used to rebuild that second temple. to fill it with glorious things, with wonderful things. Indeed, God says, all these things are mine anyway, the silver is mine, the gold is mine, verse 8 says the Lord of hosts. The wealth of the nations, the wealth of the world belongs to the Lord and he will use it for his purposes. That's just what he did. to rebuild that temple, the symbol of God's kingdom on earth. In the same way that the Israelites plundered the wealth of the Egyptians when they were driven out of Egypt following the plagues, they left their slavery, they used that wealth, that gold and the precious things that they took from the Egyptians, they used that to build the tabernacle. until the Lord masterfully repurposes the resources of this world for His glory. Because at the end of the day, they're all His. But the consequences of the shaking of the nations and the consequences of this glory coming to the temple are much wider than Christ's physical appearance, if I can say that reverently. It's about more than that. It's about more than those days in which he walked in the temple. It's about the nations bringing their best, bringing their treasures into the temple. That translation that I read translates that verse 7, I will shake the nations so that the treasures of all nations shall come in and I will fill this house with glory. That's talking about the Gentiles coming into the kingdom of God because the temple is not just a building it represents the kingdom of God on earth and so when Haggai speaks the word of the Lord that the treasures, the desires of all the nations will come into the temple he's speaking about the nations, the Gentiles coming into the kingdom that's the glory of these words. The wider, greater glory of these things. Now Christ has taken the place of that physical building, that temple, and to this new form of the kingdom of God, he is bringing from all the nations that he might receive the greater glory. glory greater than even the temple of Solomon. In some ways, that building, the building project that they undertook in those days, that temple was just the seed, a seed of the kingdom, falling to the ground, dying in corruption in order to be born again in glory. And so it was. And in that sense, the temple, the representation of the kingdom of God on earth is replaced, is renewed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who today promises to his church blessings beyond measure, peace and prosperity. Not according to as the world sees these things, but according to the economy of the kingdom. We are promised these things in heaven. We're promised that there will be peace and prosperity and blessing and joy in eternity. But those promises are also for our experience now. in a lesser way, as a shadow of what is coming. Because that same God, the same God who was with them, the same God whose actions stirred up the people to work, the same God who made them strong, even in weakness, by his presence with them, is the same God who is present with us today. Is that the desire for kingdom blessing? Do we have that desire in our hearts to see his kingdom come on earth today? To see his kingdom go forth, to see his blessing, his grace, his peace, his prosperity in our hearts, in our prayers? Are we praying about this? This is the pleasure and the glory of our Lord and Saviour in our thoughts as we go about His work. We cannot do His work in our own strength, simply with our own resources. For a project with God as its purpose must also have Him as its resource. Because if our purpose, our goal, our aim as the church of Jesus Christ is the glory of God, then what do you have, what do I have that we can bring glory to him with? Nothing. Nothing. We don't have anything worthy of bringing to him. but we trust in Him, that He will provide the needs. If He's told us to do something, He's told us to work, He's told us to reach this community with the gospel, then He will provide the resources to do it. The people in Haggai's day, they stepped out and they began the building. They found their work was disappointing. So the Lord told them to carry on with it because he was with them. To do that work, to complete the work for his glory and the greater glory that was to come. Ultimately, as a church, we long to experience that, don't we? We long to experience that kingdom prosperity. I'm not talking about wealth. I'm not talking about riches and big buildings and hundreds and hundreds of people coming in each Sunday. I'm talking about the kingdom going forward. I'm talking about the salvation. of people, the salvation of souls. We long to experience that as a community, don't we? Don't we? I hope we do. Christ's vision for the church is for that prosperity too. He calls us to work, to be strong and work, for the Lord of hosts goes with us. May he help us as we seek to do his work. May he strengthen us and go with us. Give us the words to say and the resources that we need by his grace for his glory. Amen.