Give unto the Lord, O you mighty ones, give unto the Lord glory and strength. Give unto the Lord glory due his name. Worship the Lord in beauty of holiness. The voice of the Lord is over the waters. The God of glory thunders. The Lord is over many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The Lord splinters the cedars of Lebanon. He makes them also skip like a path. Lebanon and Syria, like a young wild ox. The voice of the Lord divides the flames of fire. The voice of the Lord shapes the wilderness. The Lord shapes the wilderness of Kadesh. The voice of the Lord makes a deer give birth and strips the forest bare. And in his temple, everyone sings, glory. The Lord sat on the throne without the blood. And the Lord sits as king forever. The Lord will give strength to his people. The Lord will bless his people with peace. Let's pray. Oh God, Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we do worship you this morning. We give you glory. Staggering that we as sinful people, those dead in sin, born in Adam, could come and worship you, our holy God. We thank you that you have made us alive in Christ. Father, you sent your Son to live the life we can never live and die the death that we deserve for dying. And that you raised him. And that he is raised now at your right hand, Father, interceding for his people, building his church, saving sinners. We thank you that we come to a Saviour who has performed the complete work of salvation. Oh Lord, would you hear our prayers this morning? Would our worship be pleasing to you? Would we shake off the cares of this world, fix our eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ, and worship you in spirit and in truth? We need you, Lord. We desire you. We're here because we want to meet with you. Would you do so? And oh Lord, is there any here that does not know you? Would it please you, oh God? The word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel, the son of Shattiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Jehoshaphat, the high priest, saying, Thus speaks the Lord of hosts, saying, These people say that the time has not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built. Then the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet, saying, Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your parents' houses, and this temple to lie in ruins? Consider your ways. You are so much, and bringing little. You eat, but you do not have enough. You drink, but you are not filled with drink. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages, earns wages to put it into bags with holes. Thus saith the Lord of hosts. Consider your ways. Go up to the mountains and bring wood, and build the temple, that I may take pleasure in it, and be glorified, saith the Lord. You looked for much, but indeed it came to little, and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why, says the Lord of Hosts? Because of my house, that it lies in ruins, while every one of you runs to his own house. Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth withholds its fruit. I fall for a drought on the land and the mountains, and on the grain and the new wine and the on men and livestock, and in all the labours of His hands. The Lord be with you. Amen. Let's pray. O God, we're so conscious now as we come to Your Word, that a natural man understands not the things of the Lord. We need the help of the Holy Spirit, and we thank You that we have received the Spirit, and therefore that we have the mind of Christ, as Paul says in Corinthians. We pray oh God that you would teach us your words. Help me to say only what is pleasing to you and what is true. Help me not to say anything that would be wrong. Help these people to be discerning as well. Help them as well to be good soil that the word might bear fruit in their lives. And we pray that all of this will be done to your glory. This passage puts a question before us. It simply asks us this. Who will you serve? And I don't know about you, but I find the prophets of the Old Testament pretty difficult chaps to listen to. Because they're so direct, aren't they? They get straight to the point. They don't beat around the bush. And us being good English people, we like to beat around the bush. We'd much rather talk about people rather than talk to the person. Spurgeon once said, that great preacher of the 19th century, he made it his endeavour to only say to people, to talk about people, what he would be willing to say to somebody. And this is the poor job the prophets had to do. They had to say the word nobody wanted to hear. It says in our 11 verses this morning that, thus saith the Lord, it is used six times. This is God speaking, who have I? Now of course, our context is a little bit different. We're not an individual nation. There's probably multiple nations here. This was a specific nation of God's people. And we're not called to live in a specific land like Jerusalem and build a temple. But we are God's people, living in a time and place. And God has determined the time and place. to serve and prioritise God in our lives today. And so it does have relevance to all of us. Who will you serve, brothers and sisters? Are you a believer here? Will you continue to prioritise God in your life? If you're not a believer here, will you live for yourself and stand before a holy God and realise what mistake you made? Let's come to Haggai 1 and see how the Lord would challenge us afresh today. The first thing we see in the first four verses is that Israel had wrong priorities. How do we know this? Well, we can read that in the second year of King Darius, in the sixth month. Now I don't know about you, if you're reading through Babylon in a year and you come to Haggai, those are the sorts of details you just miss out. It's very important. Because in Jeremiah and Isaiah, when those prophets are prophesying, they always document the timing in relation to the king upon Judah, or the king upon Israel. But the king here is King Darius. This helps us understand the context. It's a direct reference, not to Israel's king, or to Judah's king, but to the king of Persia. This means they are in Persian domination. Persian occupation. Now who is Darius? We'll just do a bit of history and then we'll move on to part of the passage but it's important to understand the context. Darius came to reign about 521 BC and this is the second year and the years go down towards Christ. So this will place it at about 520 BC. Now what's the significance of this date? Well this is 520 BC. In 605 BC Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, conquers the land of Israel. And he takes exile with him to Babylon. And he places a puppet king on the throne called Zedekiah. And again, there's a rebellion. There were still some people left in Israel and they rebelled and the process happened again. They came back and exiled more people away. There was a final siege of Jerusalem in Judah. And the temple was destroyed. The people were taken away, including Jeremiah. That's 586 BC. It began in 605 BC. We're now here in 520 BC. Around, well, how many years is that? 85 years. verse 10, they said to them, look, there's no point in you trying to return, return to Babylon, because you were going to be there for 70 years, my friends. So you better settle, build houses, have sons, have daughters, because God's word is true, God's word never fails, and you are not coming back until God saves you from coming back. They had been exiled or they were abandoned for their lack of priorities. And here we are in 520 BC, and there seems to be a remnant of people filling his word, around 538 BC, when roughly the 70 year period had come to an end, there's a gibbletape a few years on either side. Cyrus is raised up by God and leads the Persian Empire and they smash the Babylonians against all the odds. Historians say this is the greatest Religious policy. He believed, actually, if I let the Israelites and the people of Judah go back to their lands, they will be more favourable to me. And they will offer me piety. And they will treat me with great respect. The amazing thing is, God promised in Isaiah that he would raise up Cyrus and lead his people back from captivity to land. So they find themselves back in the land of Judah in 536 BC. We are here in 520 BC. Why did they go back? Well, they went back to rebuild the temple. And so amazing was the move of God, that God's stern heart, we're told in Ezra and Nehemiah, to go back, Cyrus even gave them money and possessions to rebuild the temple. This would be like David Cameron saying, you know what churches, I'm going to give you each a million pounds to build great chapels and any tract or any books you want published, I will pay for it. And the people were so excited, they probably read Jeremiah's prophecy and thought, wow, the 70 years have ended, just like God said, and we're going back. There was great enthusiasm, great optimism, great momentum. And they began laying the foundations of the temple. 536 BC, we're in 520 BC. You were 14, 16 years. What happens? Well, the excitement didn't last. The excitement didn't last. We're told in Ezra chapter 4 verse 5 that the peoples around them, because once Israel was exiled, the people of Judah were exiled, other nations came in and lived in the land. The people around them began to discourage the people of Judah and they made them afraid to go on building. And the work of the house of God that is in Jerusalem stopped. and it's seized until the second year of Darius's reign, right where we are. It reminds me of Israel's endeavour and it reminds me of on holiday, Kat and I were in Greece and we were sitting having a drink in the evening and we were really craving British snacks because when you're all inclusive it fills you up but it doesn't kind of give you that satisfaction you have on a Friday evening when you're eating Pringles. So we went to the bar I dropped a salt and vinegar Pringle on the floor. I said to Kat, rather lazily, I'll pick it up in a minute. I want to just finish this conversation. I turned round ten minutes later and there was an army of ants who had lifted up this Pringle and they were walking with it and they were taking it piece by piece down into the cracks of the pavement. You see, these ants Probably thought to themselves, oh well, it's not every day a Pringle falls to the floor. We'd better make the most of it. And it's salt and vinegar too. It's not cheese and onion or sour cream. And so they had great momentum. But unlike the ants, the ants finished the task. They made sure that Pringle got into their homes. The Israelites gave up. They'd begun well, but hadn't sustained the same momentum. They had seen that window of opportunity and despite an initial stirring by God, they had lost sight of all that God had done in raising up the promised sirens to allow them to go back. So that's a bit about the day that the King went on the throne in the sixth month. A day of devotion to God. Giving yourself to God. How ironic that such a word of God would come to such a lazy people on a day when they were meant to be consecrating themselves. This really shows us how serious things have gone. Not that anyone had 16 years past of inactivity in God's work, but on the very day itself when they should be devoting themselves to God, they're dwelling in their parents' houses as we will see. Look who the word came to. It came to Zerubbabel, a governor. He was actually a part of the descendants of the kings. He had royal blood in him. He was the one responsible for making things happen. And then we also had Joshua, the priest, the one responsible for work and service in the temple. How ironic that a word of God should come building the temple and doing God's work. And they've been chilling, chilling for 16 years effectively. God brings a direct challenge. This is really showing us just how serious the problem is here. And I think there's applications for us here. Massive applications for all of us. That no one is exempt from backstabbing. No one is exempt from losing the love you had at first. And we would even gather on his day sometimes, and our hearts would be far from him. And finally we see that the serious problem is indicated ultimately by the people's opinion. Look at verse 2. The Lord, knowing all things, knowing your hearts and minds, which is the mind, knows exactly what the people think and are saying. He says, these people's sayings, You see, there was no doubt in their minds when Cyrus allowed them to go back that God was in this. But as soon as the gunning got tough, they reinterpreted the circumstances. Maybe we got the 70 year date wrong. Maybe it wasn't, it didn't begin in 605, maybe it's done a bit later, maybe we're still waiting for that fulfilment. Yeah, well we'll just kind of get on with our lives, live a quiet life, get our head down, we'll pay God some lip service, and we'll wait for the opportune time. What seemed so real, from the forefront of their minds. They're no longer being led by a sense of calling and purpose, but they're following their own ideas. How long have you been a Christian? 10 years? 10 years? 6 months? 50 years? In fact, you lack complete wisdom. I was so inappropriate about how I shared the gospel at times, looking back. But the point is that we have that kind of humble joy. And then somewhere along the lines, here's a world coming, and then choke that joy. And we just settle for a mundane, go-for-the-motions Christianity. We're all prone to this. This is you. This is me. We're in the same situation as these guys. there is a word from God for us. And so they have wrong priorities. And what word is wrong priorities? First of all, is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house lies in ruins? Imagine, God forbid it ever happens, but imagine ISIS blow up Buckingham Palace and doesn't quite get to the heart of how serious this problem was. Imagine there's two billion pounds in a kitty to rebuild destroyed buildings. And imagine that they distribute that money to rebuild other houses, other terraced houses that have been destroyed whilst the I don't know about you, and this isn't indicating at all my views on the Royal Family, but it would be, to me, something that has admired our history and our heritage, would feel that something would be wrong if all the money went to be spent on just decorating The place where his Shekinah glory dwelt. And he blessed his people. And he said, if you pray towards his temple, I will hear your prayers and I will defeat your enemies. God's promised to do them good here. And ignore that. that moment never comes. I remember when I was sort of a new Christian, I remember one of the things I struggled with was, there will be a time when I can serve the Lord when I know a bit more, when I know more of the Bible, or when I've developed a better prayer life, or where I'm in a better church which can support people, or it might be for you, it might be, when my children are older, then I will give more time to God's people and admission. another reason to not serve the Lord then your children become teenagers and teenagers want you to pick them up at four in the morning or whatever and then your children leave home and then they have grandchildren and then your retirement wasn't quite so relaxing and then when your grandchildren are older you're physically more frail and you can't do the things you used to do. You see we always think that this perfect opportune time will come If the Lord tarries long enough, we may have more time, but we don't know that for sure until we're called to serve the Lord today. And these people here are making a very wrong decision. And that's one of the liars of the enemy. He will say that if you serve your Lord, therefore you won't be a good mother and father. And your children will somehow resent you for it. And so on and so forth. And he, rather than seeing his boys as a hindrance to serving the Lord, he involved them in his mission. And they're all now in their early twenties and they're all two of them are pastors. He's captured the vision that actually they're not a hindrance. They're a gift. And I can invest in them and I can raise them in godliness. And I can teach them the gospel. And I can give them a far bigger vision than they're going to get out there. A far bigger vision than they're going to get from the television. I'm going to be captivated with the Lord of Glory, the Lord of Hosts, God Almighty, and I'm going to give them something worth living for, and by me serving the Lord, I'm going to demonstrate to my children that they are someone worthy of worship. This is our God, and this is what he's calling us to. Brothers and sisters, I asked you this morning, how neat and ordered is your home? Now, please don't mishear me, I'm not saying it's wrong to find your home, I'm not saying it's wrong to look I'm not saying it's wrong to try hard at work and impress your bosses. But are your priorities more about having a neat and tidy home? Are your priorities more about making your children be all that you dreamed they would be on your terms? Are your priorities all about your self-image? I'll evangelise when I'm more confident in myself. I'll evangelise when I know how to answer those difficult questions. Or I'll give more time to the church once I've established myself in my career. for our Lord and King. It should be like this. There doesn't need to be a wedge between them. And this is what the people have done here in Israel. In the land of Judah specifically. Maybe you're the laying church membership. You've been coming a long time. I will join the church at a more opportune time. When it's more convenient for me. When that time never comes. And you never experience what it is to be with God's people. Bearing one another's burdens. Because here's the thing, brothers and sisters, we've all given up time for the things we enjoy. And this is a challenge to me. We all can find time to watch those box sets. The football games. And again, they're not from things in and of themselves. But they become sinful when they take our joy. And they take us from the most important thing in life. The worship of our Lord and Saviour. Actually, it's more serious than that. It's not a sin. It's unadultery. We're all guilty of it. What a wonderful, merciful, high priest we have. And he was tempted in every way. And he didn't prioritise the one thing. He said, my food and drink is what? To do the will of him who sent me. So consider your priorities. We'll come to verse five. And here what we see in verse five is God saying, look. Look at your life. Look at what you've been prioritising. Has it really delivered for you? Has it really satisfied you? Has it given you the joy and peace you longed for? You are so much and really little. You eat, but you do not have enough. You drink, but you are not filled with drink. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages, earns wages to put them into bags with holes. children may backslide. And how do you cope when those things happen? You don't if you don't put God first in your life. But if God is your joy, if God is your all, you won't have this experience. And this brings us on to the way God deals with our wayward behaviour. There's two ways I think God in scripture seems to discipline blessings, sometimes, by rendering the earth and heavens dry, as we read in verse 10. Or, as we see here in verse 6, He doesn't let us get the satisfaction out of those things. Because God knows that we will only be truly satisfied in Him. So if He was truly loving, Just a last little note here. If you have experienced loss in your life, don't assume necessarily that you're a disciple of God. Because there have been many good Christians and saints in the past and today who are going through the most horrific ordeals. That's just part of following Christ, taking up your cross and following Him. But I do want to say, only you know if your priorities are wrong. Just consider that if you know that you have completely got your priorities in the wrong balance, Just consider maybe the reason I'm feeling so lack of joy is because my priorities are wrong. Maybe the Lord has disciplined me to an extent because he disciplines those whom he loves. It's a sign of God's goodness to you. Caesar, at the end of his life, he looked over the empire and he said, is this it? See, the greatest men of history have never found what they were looking for. Only in Christ can true satisfaction be found. But we can't have it on our own terms. Jesus calls us to come to Him, to deny ourself, to make Him Lord over our lives. That means there's no aspect of our life that is untouchable. He must be Lord over our work, He must be Lord over our families, He must be Lord over He says, seek first His Kingdom and His Righteousness and all these things will be given to you. Brothers and sisters, if you prioritise the Lord, never has there been a God's servant who hasn't had what they needed to do what God has called them to do. It's not like the British expeditionary force in World War II who went charging into France and didn't have what they needed. And they lacked the equipment sufficient to take on the Nazis. God doesn't send you out into the front line to leave you without what you need. And in these days, brothers and sisters, in these dark days in this nation where we really feel under attack, we have what we need. We have God. And so God wants our attention. God wanted this people's attention. And he would say to you this morning, verses 7 to 8, prioritise building God's house. Thus saith the Lord. They may take pleasure in it and be glorified, say for God. See, they've been glorified themselves when they should have been glorifying God. But God has not just told them how long their priorities are. It's the wonderful thing with God. He doesn't just shout at them and throw his toys out the window. He shows them a way out. He points things out and says, do this. And that's the wonderful thing about God. It models off the twofold nature of repentance. God convicts, this is what I want in life. Do this. And come to me. Rest in me. Trust me. The amazing thing is here, the temple is where God took His presence, filled, and He took pleasure in His temple. The amazing thing is, the New Testament reality is that we are His people, are the temple of God. And so when we come to Him and we live for Him, He will take pleasure in us. We will know the joy of walking humbly with our Lord. And it's tucked away in here, but we see that God actually wants to be favourable to them. That I may take pleasure in it and be glorified. The ESV NIB translates the word pleasure, and you can gauge pleasure as well. But in the Hebrew it conveys the idea of God accepting it favourably and then doing good. when you have the fountain of living water. The crazy thing is, some of them are a little tight. But I wanted all of them to go on the trip. I didn't want anyone to be left behind. The discipline was to say, I really don't want you to be on the red card, but you've left me no choice. I want you to come with me. Come on, you've got two more opportunities to not get the three strikes and you're out. Listen, and you can come. and we can enjoy one another, and we can enjoy the fruits of our labours as a class, and we can enjoy some rest. God wants to be favourable to his people. If you're a sinner here, and you're not a Christian, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. He does not delight in the death of the wicked. We have to hold those tensions in. Not everyone is saved, but God doesn't delight in the death of the wicked. He would say, come to me, and I will give you rest. If you're a believer, come in again and we'll give you rest. God wants to be good to us. God wants to be favourable to us. What might sound like a heavy word, but actually in there is great blessing, great encouragement, great motivation for coming to Christ. I do my best, and I know my priorities are wrong a lot of the time. God never asks anything that is too much, because he never asks us to do anything that he has not done himself. Because Jesus Christ, who was the eternal Son of God, in the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in a community of love, once and for all, said, you know what, I'm going to humble myself, and I'm going to live as a man. Think of the incarnation of Christmas, I'm going to be born in a stable. The Son of God, who sustains the whole universe, even as He's a baby, He's sustaining the whole universe, was coming to the world to save sinners. If anyone had any reason to not feel like making sacrifice, to not feel like prioritising His Father's decree and will, it was Jesus. But although he had never sinned, he was obedient even unto death. He prioritised God at all costs. Never think God is asking too much of us. That's a challenge for me, because I can put woe is me a lot of the time. We all do that, don't we? Woe is me. Wreck of a Monday. Will you consider this morning all Jesus has done for you, to make you His? God doesn't want us to be unhappy. Jesus' food and drink, as I said, is in the will of Him who sent Him. For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross. that the Holy Spirit has come. We have every resource, you have every spiritual blessing in heavenly places. We can be confident, we can be triumphant, because our God is triumphant, and he's putting all enemies under his feet. We can prioritise and serve the Lord, knowing that he will rule his church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. I just want to close with Can you turn to Revelation 20? This wasn't in my notes but I read it this morning and I think it really captures the essence of the message. We're looking now to the great white throne of judgement. When time as it is has run its course. Then I saw, verse 11, a great white throne and Him who sat on it On whose face the earth and heaven fled away, and there was now no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God. And books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things that were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and the death of Hades delivered up to the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one, according to his works. Brothers and sisters, it's extremely important for a believer and non-believer alike, although for us it will be very different. But there will come a day where all our priorities will be exposed. And there will be no second chances. Now the wonderful thing if you are in Christ is that we can look forward to that day with great confidence and that actually the judgement is due with rewards and blessing. And all of us, our priorities will all not be consistent. That's why it's grace. Grace from beginning, grace to the end. But if you're not a believer here, If you live for yourself, and time runs its course, there will come a moment, either in death in this life, or the Lord comes before them, that you will stand before God of all the earth, and you will realise how futile and stupid it was to live for the things of this world, where God Almighty has stood before you. So, a few practical things. They're not, you know, you may do some of these things already. But think about your money. Just how much it's been. It's all from God. You have to look after your families and you have to pay the mortgage and you have to buy the food and provide. That's fine. But just consider, you know, my cat and I are really trying to work on this and we're failing miserably. But just trying to keep an eye on, pound to pound, where our money's going if we can. You know, not just being willy-nilly with our money. Just maybe think about that and giving it to God's kingdom and his cause. The reason we really feel like we have a lack of time is because we're not organised. We don't plan what's going to happen in one evening or one day. It never happens. So if you want to spend more time in prayer, make time. Make a specific date in your diary where you can just retreat like Jesus and spend time with the Lord. If it's Bible reading, the same thing could be said. So just maybe think about how to plan your time. Prioritise God with your time. But don't neglect your families and all the other things at the same time. Maybe read a Christian biography. If you're like me and your priorities often get out of sync with what they should be, reading a biography can make you feel very budget. In a good way. Because you realise whenever you're feeling a bit proud, it brings you back down a level of humility and compassion. There are many saints which have lived on a plane far higher than me. Read some Christian biographies, they're very helpful. Here's a good one. If you're not sure where your priorities are wrong, ask your children. They will tell you what they are. They know you better than anyone. They're very observant children. And if you say, what do you think I love the most? Do they shout out Chelsea or West Ham? That's probably what they would have said to me, not West Adelaide. So, and if you're not a believer here, hear the call of God in the word this morning. Consider your ways. Are they delivering? I will humbly propose to you they will not. And I believe that is the truth. And there's only one option, if you want to have life to the full, that is to come to Christ. Let's close with this verse, Mark 10. Truly, verse 29, I say to you, there is no one who has left house, or brothers, or sister, or mother, or father, or children, or land, and lands with persecution thrown in there, and in the age to come, eternal life. What a Saviour, what a God. Amen. Oh great God, you are so worthy of our praise. You have moved heaven and earth to come and seek and save that which is lost. Lord Jesus, you prioritise the Father's will. How much more should we, as those who are dead in sin, give our all to know the Lord and his life itself. Help us this week in our day-to-day lives to put our house in order and to prioritise you, to put you first, for you are worthy of praise. Amen. Now may the God of peace as well.