Haggai chapter 2, and we pick up here in verse 10 this week. This is the third vision that Haggai has. And we've seen before that he has these visions over a span of four months. In the first one, chapter 1, verse 1, it's in the second year of Darius the king. In the sixth month, in the first day of the month. And then in chapter 2, it's in the seventh month. that's in the first verse. And then in the tenth verse we have in the four and twentieth day of the ninth month. So we had the sixth month, the seventh month, and now the ninth month. And like we told you before in the eighth month Zechariah has a vision, and that will be the next book we come to Lord willing. I actually thought about leaving Haggai here hanging for a minute and getting into Zachariah's vision first so we go in chronological order, but I thought that might be more confusing than just... There would be certain advantages to that of explaining how some of this... vision that we're going to look at tonight or message that we look at tonight maybe plays on some things we'll see in Zechariah, but I'll just maybe try to kind of summarize that a little bit here and then say a little more about it when we look at Zechariah, if it helps. right? So this is in the 4 and 20th day of the ninth month his vision comes. And this vision, or I keep saying vision, it's not really a vision, it's a message he's given. It kind of ties together the first two. Actually he has two visions here, or two messages here on the same day. And one starts here in verse 10 and goes down to verse 19 and the other starts in verse 20. And they kind of connect together the first two messages he had. Remember the first one was given as a rebuke to the people because they had come back to the land, they had started building the temple, they got a foundation laid, and then they got sidetracked. They had adversaries that bothered them, they had other things they wanted to do, quite frankly. They wanted to fix up their own houses and take care of that, and they had left off the building of the Lord's house. And because of that, God had punished them. He had caused them not to prosper. their fields didn't bring forth like they normally would have in their vineyards and their livestock and so on. And it's funny, but they didn't understand where that was coming from. They didn't grasp that this was a punishment from the Lord. And it's connected with the covenant God had made with them when they first came into the land. He told them in Deuteronomy that if they were obedient to the covenant He would prosper everything they did. And it didn't seem to have occurred to them that if they didn't finish building the temple they couldn't really be in right relationship with the Lord and so that they would suffer for that reason. And so they rebuked from that in chapter 1 and they responded. They obeyed the Lord, they got to work on the temple and start the construction. Now In chapter 2 in verses 1-9 we have his second message and this is a message not of rebuke but of comfort because as they begin building this new temple it becomes clear very quickly that it's not going to be anything near as grand as the one that had existed before that had been built by Solomon. And it would have been very easy for them to sort of get depressed and discouraged. We already know they had a capacity to give up because they'd done it once, right? So this is a word of encouragement that's given to them now. And God reminds them that he is with them, that's a big important part of this, as long as they're working on the house, as long as they're walking in obedience, he is with them, he's working among them, and then we saw especially there in verse nine last time, the glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts, and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts. And that's a very important verse. We spent the whole class last time talking about that one verse, and it seems like a strange one, right? Because as far as we can tell, the Ark of the Covenant and the mercy seat never came into this new temple. There's no mention of them here. The last time they're mentioned as being physically present in the temple was in Josiah's day just before they went into captivity, and they disappear somewhere. We don't know where they went. God knows what happened to the ark, but it's not here. There's no mention of it ever coming into this place. So if we know the glory of the Lord rested on the mercy seat on the ark in the old days, how can this house have any glory? We won't get into the full story of that again now, but the basic, the short story, conclusion of all that is this, that even though this temple won't have the ark and the mercy seat in it, the time will come several hundred years down the road when Christ himself actually enters into this temple. and he is the one of which the ark and the mercy seat were only a type or a picture. And you can see why the glory is greater, right? Because he's the real thing, whereas those were the shadows and the types. And so he will come into this house and he actually enters into it several times, but especially the last few days before He's crucified He comes into the temple daily and teaches. Remember we saw that last time when the glory of the Lord, Ezekiel saw the vision of the glory of the Lord leaving and going out to rest on the Mount of Olives. And Jesus in those days before He's crucified He goes out to the Mount of Olives spends the night out there and then comes back in the morning to teach. And if they had eyes to see they would have seen what that was. This was the picture of the ark of the Lord coming back into the temple, the glory of the Lord coming back to the temple. Well they didn't have eyes to see that, but that's what that pictured. And so that's what's going to be in this house. And he tells them not to be discouraged, right? I think that's such an important lesson because we are so prone to be carried about in our emotions by the things we see with our eyes and hear with our ears, aren't we? We look at the church building and if we don't have a full house we feel like we're not getting anything done, but it may be that God's doing something there that we don't understand. And I don't think anybody understood how important this temple was, but God did. He knew what was going to happen in this place. Now, in this message we're going to have tonight, this starts in the 420th day of the ninth month. We're going to come back to this problem of why they hadn't prospered, and now God is going to indicate to them that they are going to prosper from this time forward because of their obedience. And he's going to give them a little more explanation as to why it was that they weren't prospering to begin with. And we kind of touched on this theme a little bit in chapter one, but it'll be more explicit now. He says, in the four and 20th day of the ninth month in the second year of Darius came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet saying, thus sayeth the Lord of hosts, ask now the priests concerning the law, saying, If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt do touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any meat, shall it be holy? And the priest answered and said, No. Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priest answered and said, It shall be unclean." He poses two questions to the priest. And the reason you would pose these to the priests is because they were the ones above everybody else who were supposed to be students of the law. they were the ones who kept the law, studied the law. Their service depended on knowing the law of sacrifice. So this is in their realm of expertise, right? If anybody would know about what's clean and unclean in the temple, and that's what this question is about, if one bear holy flesh, that would be something that had been sacrificed at the temple, right? And consecrated to God. And they're the ones that are supposed to know about these sort of things. So he asked them two questions, and they're really two sides of the same coin. One is, if one bare holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, right? This seems to have been the method that the priest would have used to carry, I don't know if you ever think about little details like that, about how they would actually carry the flesh they'd sacrificed around, because remember, part of the sacrificial system is that with some of the sacrifices part of the flesh was to be eaten. Remember there was a portion of the flesh that was dedicated to God with a whole burnt offering the whole thing was dedicated to God with for example a sin or a trespass offering the person who brought the offering wouldn't get any, but the priest would get some, unless it was the priest's sin, and then he didn't get to eat any. And with a peace offering, for example, the person who brought the offering actually got to partake of part of the offering. So they had to move this stuff around somewhere, and apparently the process they used was to carry it in the skirt of their garment, which sounds odd, right? Yeah, well, it probably has an interesting connection. God, remember, commanded them to put fringes or skirts on their garment. And that may have been part of the purpose for that was that there may have been something on the priest's garment that was made like a large pocket or an apron or something like that to be able to carry the flesh around. If that sounds odd, remember that the garment itself was a thing that had been consecrated to God. When they had their ceremony to anoint them, and Exodus chapter 29 gets into this, when the priests stood for their anointing they had to take their brand new fine linen robes and wear those while they had blood mingled with oil sprinkled all over them. what it says there is not just that the priest would be holy or consecrated but that his garment would too. So the garment was a holy thing. And that's actually important because remember the role of the priest is to go to God on behalf of man and because man is sinful he can't come to God in his own righteousness. So that garment is very important because it represents the righteousness of Christ put upon that individual so that they can come before God then without being killed as a sinner who's appeared in his presence. And even in the New Testament, we have this imagery, and all the way down in Revelation 19, the bride of Christ is wearing those fine linen robes, and that represents, that's the righteousness of the saints, right? So we don't have any righteousness of our own to come before God, but we come in the righteousness of Christ that's imputed to us, and that garment that the priest wore represented that. It would have actually been a holy thing to carry holy flesh in, so it's not as crazy as it sounds is what I'm saying. That's what they would do is they'd carry this in their flesh. But here's the question. They have holy flesh, it's been offered on the altar, consecrated to God, and he's got it in the skirt of his garment. And let's just say the skirt of his garment would accidentally touch some bread or pottage or wine or oil or meat. Would the holiness transfer to that other object? The priest answered and said, no. No, that didn't happen. It didn't have any kind of transitive property of holiness, you know, that just by contact that you could receive that holiness. We'll come back to that in a minute. That's a very interesting point. We'll get there. That's a very good question. The woman who had the issue of blood. We'll get to that in a little bit because that's very relevant to this story. But before we get there, Haggai asked the other side of the question. Then said Haggai, this is verse 13, if one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priest answered and said, it shall be unclean. Okay, because one of the big things that can make a person ritually unclean under the law was to touch a dead body. And so if you touched a dead body, You had to undergo the ritual to cleanse yourself or to be made pure, sanctified. And anything you touched before you did that then becomes unclean. And so we have here, let's look at Leviticus chapter 7. verse 19 it says Leviticus chapter 7 verse 19 it says and the flesh that toucheth any unclean things shall not be eaten it shall be burnt with fire and as for the flesh all that be clean shall eat thereof but the soul that eateth of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings that pertain unto the Lord having his uncleanness upon him even that soul shall be cut off from his people Moreover, the soul that shall touch any unclean thing as the uncleanness of man, or any unclean beast, or any abominable unclean thing, and eat of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings which pertain unto the Lord, even that soul shall be cut off from his people." So if a person would touch something unclean, it would actually make them ineligible as a priest to even partake of the clean or holy flesh. And more to the point of what Hagia is dealing with here, if you would touch a dead body and you haven't been cleansed yet, and you were to touch the bread or the potage or wine or oil or any meat, then it becomes unclean. Now this is a very important point because the idea is that in the case of man, we cannot transmit holiness to things. But we can transmit unholiness or uncleanness. So is that what David always said, clean doesn't ripple? That's right. That's exactly the idea of what this, he may have been talking about this passage in particular here. Because the trouble with man is that he is essentially corrupt. And if you are unclean, there has to be some sort of a process to make you clean But we don't have to do anything to be unclean. We just are that way. And we corrupt everything around us, really, don't we? The human race corrupts itself just by passing on the sin nature from generation to generation, doesn't it? And so this has to do with what he's getting at is why the work that they're doing in the temple is so important. Remember, when we were looking at chapter one, we mentioned that even though they hadn't finished building the temple, they did have an altar. If you remember how the temple was laid out at the gate of the temple there where you went into the courtyard, that was where you had the brazen altar, that's where all the sacrifices were made. You went past that and there was a laver for water where the priests would do their ritual cleansings. And then beyond that, that was the actual building itself and inside that you had on one side a candlestick, the other side a shoe bread, straightforward was the altar of incense and the veil, and then beyond that the Ark of the Covenant and the mercy seat. But you had to come past the altar, and that was for the average person who wasn't a priest, that altar would have been their chief experience of the temple. They didn't get to go in beyond that. They brought things to the altar to be sacrificed. Now what they did, and Ezra tells more about this when they first came back to the land, they started building the temple. They laid a foundation. They didn't finish it, but they did have an altar. So here's what they had. They neglected to build the full house, but they had a place where they could come and offer their sacrifices, and evidently they thought that was pretty much good enough. And if you remember, we commented in chapter one that, interestingly enough, it doesn't mention anything about sin offerings or trespass offerings that they were making at this place. And what God is getting at, I think, is this. If you just go out there and set up an altar of your own volition and bring offerings of your own volition, are they holy? Will God accept that? No, there has to be more to it than that, doesn't there? God has to recognize the place as holy. Now, I want to turn here to the book of Leviticus chapter 16. And that's a very important chapter in the Bible because that's the one that deals with the Day of Atonement. And the Day of Atonement, of course, is the only day of the year when the high priest would actually go behind the veil to where the ark and the mercy seat were. And I want you to notice what he was, I'm not gonna read the whole passage, but he makes an atonement that day, and I want you to see what he makes an atonement for. It's for the people, but it's not just for the people. In verse 33 it says, he shall make an atonement for the holy sanctuary, and he shall make an atonement for the tabernacle of the congregation and for the altar. And he shall make an atonement for the priests and for all the people of the congregation. See the atonement is for the priests and the people, but it's also for the sanctuary itself and for the altar. And here's the problem, if the atonement hasn't been made, then the altar is not holy. and the sanctuary's not holy. And so that's the idea is that if you are dealing with an altar that's unclean or people that are unclean, how in the world can they make a clean sacrifice? The unclean doesn't make other unclean, the clean doesn't make the unclean clean. It just makes it dirty, right? There has to be a source of cleansing. Now, this is a bit of a conundrum, isn't it? Because the question then is, how does anything ever become clean? Well, we'll come back to that in a minute, all right? But we want to work through the rest of this thought, and then we'll come back to the great lesson of this. He says there in verse 14, then answered Haggai and said, "'So is this people, and so is this nation before me, saith the Lord. And so is every work of their hands, and that which they offer there is unclean.'" Right? They're coming down here making offerings, but they're unclean because they haven't gone through the process to be sanctified to offer holy offerings. And now, I pray you, consider from this day and upward from before a stone was laid upon a stone in the temple of the Lord, since those days were, when one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were but ten. When one came to the press fat for to draw out fifty vessels out of the press, there were but twenty. He says, think back to when you first laid this foundation before stone was laid upon stone to actually build the temple. You've been here for 15 or 20 years now. And when you came out to a heap of 20 measures, in other words, it should have been 20 measures of wheat. And exactly how much that was is a bit confused because some of those old measures are hard to figure out. The exact measure is not important, the proportion is what matters here. You went to where there should have been 20, there were only 10. And when one came to the press fat, that would be where they're pressing out wine. For to draw 50 vessels out of the press, there were but 20. Instead of 50, you got 20. And He says, I smote you with blasting, and with mildew, and with hail, and all the labors of your hands. But you turned not to Me, saith the Lord. See, He's describing the conditions we had in chapter 1. They're not prospering. They can't understand why. right? Because they're back in the land where they're supposed to be and they've got their altar. But here's what he's getting at, the reason why you're not prospering is that the offerings you're offering are unclean because they're offered by unclean people in an unclean way. And so God can't consider them. Now verse 16 he says, "'Consider now from this day and upward, from the four and twentieth day of the ninth month, even from the day that the foundation of the Lord's temple was laid, consider it.'" He says, we mentioned before this word consider, he likes to use a lot. He says go back and look at what's actually going on, pay attention. And from this day and upward, think back from this moment all the way to when the foundation was laid, is the seed yet in the barn? He said, has it worked out for you? Do you have seed? As yet the vine and the fig tree and the pomegranate and the olive tree hath not brought forth, but notice this, from this day will I bless you. That's the importance of this day. This is a good day, isn't it? He said all those things he said in chapter one about how they weren't being blessed, They've come to the point now where they have obeyed God, and He says, all this time you've been here, your harvest has been lacking because you have offered unholy offerings. You haven't offered that which God will accept. But He says, from this day, will I bless you? And this is the turning point. He says, this is the day because of your obedience, I'll start to bless you. Now, this is where we have to go back to how something actually becomes clean. We have this problem, don't we? That man is unclean. Everything he touches becomes unclean. And that's the idea, right? If an unclean thing touches a clean thing, it becomes unclean, right? So how does anything ever become clean? Well, it turns out that there are a couple of exceptions to that rule. and they're very wonderful and they're very beautiful. When we look back at how something might become clean. And I wanna look at the first one in Exodus chapter 29. In Exodus chapter 29, this is actually where God is telling them about how to consecrate the priesthood. And He starts to talk to them about the purification ceremony that they're going to have on the day when the priests are consecrated. And this had to be offered, of course, on the raising altar, right? The thing they offer for sanctification. Now verse 37, this is the key verse. It says, "'Seven days thou shalt make an atonement for the altar and sanctify it.'" This is when they're consecrating the priest, they're consecrating the tabernacle, preparing the whole thing for service. And it says, and it shall be an altar most holy, and notice this last phrase, whatsoever toucheth the altar shall be holy. Now, we said they had an altar out there in Haggai's day, right? And it didn't make anything holy. You know what the problem was? It had not been properly sanctified. They had to have an atonement for this altar, seven days. And it wasn't just the atonement they made, but remember, God had to put the holy fire in that altar. He had to prepare that. But once all that was done, the altar was sanctified, this altar became a special place and this was where you could come. And in all the world where everything was ungodly and unholy, this altar was where an unholy thing could become consecrated and holy before God. And it says, whatsoever toucheth the altar shall be holy. It'll be set apart to him. Now, why is that important? The reason that's so important and so beautiful is because out of all the types of the cross that you find in the Old Testament, this Raisin Altar is the supreme one. This pictures the cross, because the altar was the place where sin was dealt with, and the only place it could be dealt with. If you wanted to make a sin offering, you couldn't just go anywhere you wanted to and make a sin offering. the sin offering had to be made on this brazen altar. God set this place aside. Remember we said before when we talked about the tabernacle, the tabernacle had one gate into the courtyard and this altar sat at the gate. In other words, you could not go on into the tabernacle without first coming past the place where your sin was dealt with. And boy, this is a big problem in the church world today. People are trying to sneak into the tabernacle all sorts of different ways without ever having their sin dealt with. And there's only one way. This is the problem with all the different religions in the world. Every religion says they're providing a path to come into contact with the divine, with God, whatever they want to call it. But the problem is they're trying to get there without first going past the place where sin is dealt with. and you can't come in that way. They're trying to come in by their own works. If you think about it, what was going on in Haggai's day was such an illustration of the difference between a work salvation and a grace salvation. Because they were doing all the work of coming to an altar they'd made with their hands and offering sacrifices with their hands. But if God hadn't consecrated it, if God hadn't set that aside as a place where sin was dealt with, It comes to nothing. God won't recognize it. It has to be at this place of consecration. And listen, the cross of Christ is the only place in the world today where sin can be dealt with. And there is no fellowship with God. And a matter of fact, this altar, like we said, it was just a type and a shadow. It was always pointing forward to Christ, but Christ is the only one who could put away sin forever. He's the only one who had a sinless blood. The blood of bulls and goats was not sufficient to put away sin. it would take the blood of this sinless man to stand in the place of sinful men. And if you don't come past that way, you'll always be clean. But here's the wonderful thing. He says, whatsoever touches the altar shall be holy. If you'll come to the cross, he'll make you holy. And that's the only way you can ever be holy. There's no other path to get to holiness than this. You have to come past that way. Now, the other thing that's mentioned here, this is in the book of Leviticus chapter six. He deals with the sin offering. And there's something special about the sin offering, and this might sound like a strange thing to say about the sin offering, but he says this in verse 18. He says, all the males among the children of Aaron shall eat of it. It shall be a statute forever in your generations concerning the offerings of the Lord made by fire. And notice this last phrase, everyone that toucheth them shall be holy. He doesn't say that about any of the other offerings. But he says if you touch the sin offering, that'll consecrate you and make you holy. And if you think that's not right, he reiterates the same thing in verse 27. He says, whatsoever shall touch the flesh thereof shall be holy, and when there is sprinkled of the blood thereof upon any garment, thou shalt wash that whereon it was sprinkled in the holy place. Now you'd think out of all the offerings, the sin offering would be the one that you'd want to avoid. But he says, if you will touch that, now think about why that's important. Because Jesus Christ, He's represented in all the offerings in the tabernacle, but the thing that is most significant to the salvation of our souls is that He is the sin offering in our place. And He says if you'll touch Him, if you'll touch that, that's what you've got to do to be made holy. You've got to come there. And that's the only way anything ever becomes holy. We had the question a minute ago, well, what about the woman that came and touched the skirt of, or the hem of Jesus' garment? Well, it makes sense now, doesn't it? Because He is the sin offering. It was His cross. And so, Whereas with the ordinary priests of this world, if they were to have something in the skirt of their garment and touch something they couldn't make it clean, he can because he's not just the priest, he's the sin offering. And he's the one who went to the cross and there's power in him that nobody else has. Just the idea of touching Jesus is a powerful idea, isn't it? This woman somehow knew that if she could just touch the hem of his garment, she could be made whole. There's another record in the book of Mark chapter 1, and this is a very moving thing really, where there was in verse 40, Mark chapter 1 verse 40, there came a leper to him, beseeching him and kneeling down to him and saying unto him, if thou will thou canst make me clean. Now the last thing anybody would do would be to touch a leper, right? If a priest touched a leper he'd be unclean and he couldn't offer the sacrifice. And Jesus didn't have to touch him. He could just speak a word, but it says, and Jesus moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him. And saith unto him, I will be thou clean. See, this was to make Jesus different from anybody else in the world. For anybody else, this question that Haggai asks, anybody else goes and touches the unclean thing, you become unclean. But Jesus, He's the one who's so clean, He can touch the unclean thing and make it clean. And He's the only one, and thank God for that. Thank God that He's still reaching out His hand for lepers like us to touch us and make us holy and pure. That's the picture that's given here. Now, you may be asking yourself, before we move on from this passage, this first message He has in the ninth month to the second one, Wait a minute, you're saying all this stuff about how in order for the altar to be acceptable that the ark, there had to be an atonement made and the ark had to be in use, right? How in the world did they get by with this? Well, the only explanation I can think of is that it is tied in with the last vision when the glory of this latter house would be greater than the former and that he was just doing it on the basis of the grace of God, on the basis of Christ. We know And we have this, we've looked at this before, but in the book of Romans chapter three, verse 25, it says, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God. To declare, I say at this time, His righteousness that He might be just and justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. The idea there is when He's declaring His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past is that The grace of Christ, the sacrifice that Christ made on Calvary was so great that God foresaw it in the Old Testament and granted man grace. All the people who got saved in the Old Testament were saved by the blood of Christ too. Nobody was ever saved by the blood of bulls and goats. God was looking forward to the cross and knew what Christ was due. And that must be all there is to it, that because these people had become obedient to God, because they had enough faith to believe that they were supposed to do what God said they were to do. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness, right? It must have been the same thing in Haggai's day, don't you think? He believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. Remember what God told King Saul through Samuel. Remember when Saul had gone and defeated the Amalekites, he was supposed to destroy all of them, but he kept some of the livestock and different things. And Saul's excuse was, well, we offered him for a sacrifice, some of the animals. And Samuel told him it's better to obey than to sacrifice. That's what God wanted was obedience. The truth is, that none of the goats that were sacrificed or the bulls that were sacrificed on the Day of Atonement were ever sufficient to save anybody's soul. It was looking forward to the blood of Christ. It was the fact that they had the faith to believe God and carry out what He told them to do. That was the important thing. That was the vital thing. And so that's really what's going on in this passage of Scripture. The blood that was offered there in the temple was never sufficient. Hebrews chapter 9 says, verse 12, neither by the blood of goats and calves but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place having obtained eternal redemption for us. And that's the only thing that ever really made anything holy was that Jesus Christ put His blood in the holy place in heaven. These people believed God and God rewarded them for that and that's why God now is going to bless them. That's why now they're going to prosper is because they're walking in faith. The covenant is restored. And it's a very, very wonderful passage of Scripture, isn't it? The book of Haggai is as harsh as the first chapter seems. It turns out to be a really beautiful book because when they're rebuked, they do what God told them to do and God blesses them for it. And so they receive their reward. Now, the last message in the book of Haggai, and this is just very short and we'll deal with this here really quickly. But before I get into it, I want to go back and read a passage in Jeremiah chapter 22, and this is one we've talked about before. Remember at the time the Babylonian captivity is getting underway, there's this man named Jeconiah who's king. Sometimes he's called Jehoiachin, sometimes he's called Keniah. and God put a curse on him in Jeremiah 22. Remember that, "'Write ye this man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days, for no man of his seed shall prosper sitting upon the throne of David and ruling any more in Judah.'" And that's where we noticed before that when you come to the genealogies of Christ there's one in Matthew and there's one in Luke. And Luke seems to be the more direct biological line and oddly enough in that line the line of men who actually became king is not followed. Right in Matthew's line you have the line of kings. You have David and then Solomon, Rehoboam on down through the whole line. But in Luke's line it goes from David to one of his other sons. It doesn't pass through this man Jeconiah. But as we noticed before, those two lines come together for two generations, Zalathiel and Zerubbabel. Zalathiel never ruled in Jerusalem, but Zerubbabel just happens to be the governor in Jerusalem at the time Haggai is prophesying. He's not called a king because they're under the rule of the Persians, but he is the rightful king. He's the ruler and he is the only man who ruled in Jerusalem who is in both of those genealogical lines between David and Jesus. Here's in Jeremiah 22, here's part of the curse that he puts on Jeconiah. He says, And I want you to notice that word signet. A signet was important. It was usually on a ring. That's apparently what it is here because it says it's a signet upon my right hand. But it would have been something, some kind of stone that was carved so it was an emblem or a mark of the king that identified him. It would have been what they used when they would seal letters and things like that or documents. They'd take some hot wax and press that image into it so it was the indication, the roots from the word signet are the same things our words sign and signify and things like that come from, because it's an indication of who it came from, right? And that's what he says about Jeconiah, though he were the signet upon my right hand I would pluck thee out, he's going to get, or pluck thee thence, he's going to get rid of him. Now, we come back here to Haggai chapter 2 and here's what Haggai has to say to Zerubbabel. This is the last message. This is the same day as the message we just looked at, the 420th day of the month, in the ninth month. Verse 21 says, "'Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I will shake the heavens and the earth.' and I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the heathen, and I will overthrow the chariots and those that ride in them, and the horses and their riders shall come down, everyone by the sword of his brother." Now, this is a very far-reaching prophecy. We've seen before how prophecies tend to be sort of telescoped, and there are a lot of different events in history that serve as partial fulfillments of them. The ultimate fulfillment of this is the battles in Revelation 19 and 20, right? Revelation 19 Christ will come back on His white horse and overthrow the kingdoms of this world and Satan will be bound for a thousand years. At the end of the thousand years he's released and he'll stir up one last army of Gog and Magog, there will be one final battle. That's when we'll have the complete fulfillment of shaking the heavens and the earth. That's when He'll actually melt the elements with a fervent heat and that will make a new heaven and a new earth. It probably also has some partial fulfillment in the succession of kingdoms that overthrow one another in the years that follow this. The Persians are overthrown by the Greeks, the Greeks by the Romans, the Romans sort of get shattered apart. But this is just in general a prophecy of things that will occur in the future and how God has power over all kingdoms, eventually will tear down all the kingdoms, get rid of all those that oppose Him, and establish His kingdom in this earth, and one day unmake the earth and make a new heaven and a new earth. So He's revealing this to Zerubbabel. Now it's interesting that He would direct this message specifically to Zerubbabel, isn't it? Because Zerubbabel is such a minor, unimportant character we think in the But remember, Zerubbabel is an important type of Christ. We'll get into that more when we get into the book of Zechariah. We've talked about it some already, but he is an important type of Christ. We've talked about part of, came into his genealogy. And notice what he says here in verse 23. And that day, saith the Lord of hosts, will I take thee, O Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtiel, saith the Lord, and will make thee as a signet." That word shows up again. That thing that Jeconiah was stripped of or thrown out. For I have chosen thee, saith the Lord of hosts. He says that you're my man. Now, the complete and utter fulfillment of this, of course, is in Messiah, of who Zerubbabel was a type. But in this moment, at this time, Zerubbabel is the one, the man the Lord has put His choice upon. He is the signet. He is the man on this earth that God says, this is the one I identify with. Now, he didn't get to be king, and he didn't get to be a popular name, and for whatever reason down through the years in the church we haven't talked much about him. But God said, this man's my signet. I choose this man. He's anointed. We had the question at the end of class last time, and I said I'd get into it in the book of Zechariah, but I'll get into it just a little bit now. We talked a lot last time about the Mount of Olives and the question is why is the Mount of Olives so significant? And this will come up in Zechariah chapter 4. But the reason the Mount of Olives is significant is right in the name, that's where they grew the olives, for anointing in the temple. And Zerubbabel, this man is anointed even though the world didn't recognize him as king, God recognized him as the anointed. along with Joshua who was the anointed high priest at that time. So together they become a type of Christ who is king and priest. And that means God has chosen them. Now that word anointing has become a little confused I think over the years. If you remember a while back when we were studying doctrine I taught a lesson, part of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit had to do with anointing. And in the Scripture the anointing doesn't really have to do with a special empowerment. That's what people usually use it as, as like a special empowerment for service. That's not what it is. It has to do with the fact that God has rested His choice on that person. And so that's why in the book of 1 John chapter 2 He says that our anointing abideth with us. It's not something that comes and goes that we have sometimes and not others. There's an anointing that abides on us because God has chosen us. This man is anointed, and we'll see this more when we get to Zechariah chapter 4. He is anointed, God has chosen him for this purpose at this time. And he serves as an emblem, a type, a picture of Messiah to come. Now, like I said, we'll get into that more as we get through the book of Zechariah. It deals a lot with these two men, Joshua and Zerubbabel. We'll stop there for tonight with Haggai and that will finish up the book. And it's a pretty good way to finish the book. I think they've started out in chapter 1 from a nation that has failed in their mission to rebuild the temple. Joshua and Zerubbabel probably feel like failures and in the course of this book from the sixth month to the ninth month God has turned everything around. they started building the temple. It's become evident that God has rested His choice on this place and not just on this place, but these men Joshua and Zerubbabel. Now, Lord willing next time we'll come back and start in the book of Zechariah which I've been excited about ever since we started talking about the minor prophets. I think it's the crown jewel of the minor prophets, it's just my opinion. But this will be in the eighth month, the month that Haggai took off, that's where Zechariah will have these, this is not the whole book, but the first part of the book deals with ten visions that he had that night. And it's a very great encouragement. And when we see that God starts to unfold His plans for Joshua and Zerubbabel, for the whole nation, for the whole world, It's always baffled me a little bit that this book is not studied more with regard to end time prophecy. I think it should be right up there with Daniel, honestly. It's very important, and so we'll start into that next time, Lord willing.