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Please turn in your Bibles to 
Haggai chapter 1. Haggai is the third to the last 
book in the Old Testament, one of the prophets of the period 
of restoration. I'll explain a little bit about 
that in just a moment, but Haggai chapter 1, I'll just pick up 
reading in verse 1. In the second year of King Darius, 
in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of 
the Lord came by Haggai, the prophet, to Zerubbabel, the son 
of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, 
the high priest, saying, Thus speaks the Lord of hosts, saying, 
This people says, The time is 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 time for you yourselves 
to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins? 
Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, Consider your 
ways. You have so much, and bring in 
little. You eat, but do not have enough. You drink, but you are not filled 
with drink. You clothe yourselves, but no 
one is worn. and he who earns wages, earns 
wages to put them into a bag with holes. Thus says 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, says 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 is in 
ruins. while every one of you runs to 
his own house. Therefore the heavens above you 
withhold the dew, and the earth withholds its fruit. For I called 
for a drought on the land, and the mountains, on the grain, 
and the new wine, and the oil, on whatever the ground brings 
forth, on men and livestock, and on all the labor of your 
hands. Then Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua, the 
son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, 
obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai 
the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him. And the people 
feared the presence of the Lord. Then Haggai, the Lord's messenger, 
spoke the Lord's message to the people, saying, I am with you, 
says the Lord. So the Lord stirred up the spirit 
of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit 
of Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit 
of all the remnant of the people. And they came and worked on the 
house of the Lord of hosts, their God, on the twenty-fourth day 
of the sixth month in the second year of King Darius. Amen. Let us pray. Our Father, we pray 
now for that same spirit that stirred these people up to come 
and stir us up. Father, we pray that you help 
us to seek first your kingdom and your righteousness, knowing 
that all other things will be added to us. We pray, Lord God 
Almighty, that our priorities would be straight, our investments 
would be sound, and that our desire would genuinely be to 
bring glory and honor to you. We pray that you would forgive 
us that we so fall short. We pray that you would cleanse 
us afresh in the blood of Jesus Christ, your Son. And we pray 
that you would help us to value and to prize your kingdom, to 
value and prize your will and your name, and that we would 
genuinely pray, Lord God Most High, that you would be exalted 
and that you would be praised and worshiped and honored. And 
we ask through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. Well, we come 
to the tenth of the twelve minor prophets. We've been studying 
the minor prophets over several months in our evening worship. The book of Haggai has a specific 
application, I believe, to our current situation, not just us 
specifically here, but our, meaning evangelical and Reformed Christians, 
throughout the world, because it's a book that deals with priority. It is a book that certainly can 
be summarized by Matthew 6.33, when Jesus said, Seek first the 
kingdom of God and His righteousness, and then all these other things 
will be added unto you. It's very easy for us to get 
sidetracked. It is very easy for us, in our 
sin and in our corruption, to forget and leave off the main 
things. And that is precisely what occurred 
to the period of the Restoration. Now, the Restoration simply refers 
to that period in Israel's history when they came out of the exile. Remember, there was a monarchy. 
Kings ruled over Israel. And then there was a division 
among the kingdom. You had the northern tribes and 
you had the southern tribes. And because of sin, God sent 
Assyria to judge the northern tribes. Because of sin, God sent 
Babylon to judge the southern tribes. And the city of Jerusalem 
fell. It was sacked, it was sieged, 
it was destroyed in 586 BC. And then the people spent several 
years in captivity or in exile. And Haggai, along with Zechariah 
and Malachi, are prophets who spoke to the people after they 
came out of that Babylonian captivity, after they returned to the land 
of Israel. Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi 
were contemporary with Ezra and Nehemiah. And if you want, you 
can compare these particular books to see the overlap. But I want to do three things 
this morning. The first is just give a brief 
overview of this period of restoration. Secondly, notice specifically 
the prophet Haggai. And then thirdly, we'll take 
up chapter one and the command to build the house for God. Well, as we just referred to, 
the exile was a time when the southern tribes of Judah were 
chastened for their violation of God's covenant. See, God is 
a moral governor. God operates according to righteousness 
and according to law and according to standard. And when we violate 
that standard, There are sanctions, there is chastisement, there 
is judgment, and that is precisely what occurred for that 70 year 
period in exile. In Jeremiah 29, he was one of 
the prophets that prophesied in the midst of the exile. He 
gave instructions to the people of Judah, who were now living 
in Babylon, how they were to conduct themselves. They were 
to build houses and dwell in them. They were to plant gardens 
and eat the fruit. They were to take wives and beget 
children. They were to seek the peace of 
the city they were in, pray for the peace of the city they were 
in. They were to accept the seventy-year chastisement from the Lord, knowing 
that he would give them a future and a hope, according to Jeremiah 
29 and verse 11. Now the numbers indicate that 
at the time of restoration, a whole bunch of Israel stayed in Babylon. A whole lot of them stayed there. Maybe the 900 mile travel would 
have had something to do with it, but I suspect that they got 
comfortable in Babylon. They had families there, they 
had businesses there, they had their life there now. And so 
when this King Cyrus issued a decree that the people of Israel could 
return to their land, not too many went. And that brings us 
to the restoration. Cyrus was the king of Persia, 
and he issued that decree, as I mentioned, in 538 B.C. There's 
a bit of history here. Please stay with me. It's very 
important. If you've got a problem with 
history, you've got a problem with the Bible. Because God records 
history. We don't follow cunningly devised 
fables. We're not about myths and feelings. 
We're about God acting in history. And it's very important that 
we understand the history so that we can understand the challenges 
that the people of God faced and that the prophets of God 
faced as they were calling the people to repentance and faith. So the Edict of Cyrus was issued 
in 538 BC. You can read about this in 2 
Chronicles 36 and in Ezra chapter 1. They were released and enabled 
to return to their land and rebuild their temple and their city. The first return of the exiles, 
as I said, was in about 538. After they got there, they settled 
down, they immediately undertook building The temple, 536 BC. First they built an altar, according 
to Ezra 3, 1 to 3. They wanted to be able to offer 
sacrifice and worship God. They began the temple, according 
to Ezra 3, 8 to 13. However, they were opposed by 
people in the region. Again, just read the book of 
Ezra and you will see this. Samaritans, probably, came along 
and said, we want to help you build. And they said, no, you're 
not going to help us build. And so they suffered opposition. Basically, the building program 
was put on hold for 16 years. And that brings us to Haggai 
and to Zechariah in the year 520. The prophets Haggai and 
Zechariah preached in 520 BC and the temple construction started 
again. That's the whole point of Haggai. There's one theme that the prophet 
has in this book. Get out of your comfort zone 
and build God's house. That's the message of the book 
of Haggai. Your priority structure is wrong. You're sitting in your 
well-paneled houses, you're enjoying the fruits of your labor, though 
even that doesn't satisfy, and all the while God's house lies 
in ruin? You see the point? Haggai and 
Zechariah are sent to call the people to action, to priority, 
to seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. The temple building took four 
years, and it was finished in 516 BC. When you hear references 
to the second temple, that's this particular temple. The first 
was Solomon's. that was destroyed in the Babylonian 
siege of Jerusalem. This is the second temple. It 
got messed up, it got jacked up, and then it was rebuilt by 
Herod. That's the reference in John 
2 when Jesus says, tear down this temple and in three days 
I'll raise it up. They said it took 46 years to 
build it, and will you raise it in three days? Well, that 
was the rebuilding under King Herod. But this particular temple, 
sometimes referred to as Zerubbabel's, took four years. Ezra 6, 14 and 
15 record the finalization of this particular temple. There 
was a second return of exiles under Ezra in about 458 BC, and 
then again under Nehemiah in 445 BC. So that's the period 
of restoration. Now let's just make a couple 
of observations. As we've already noted, the restoration 
was a bit of a meager one. Ezra 2 tells us the numbers that 
returned from Babylon to Israel was about 50,000 people. You say, wow, that's a lot of 
people. No, it isn't. Consider that when the men of 
Israel came out of Egypt, they numbered 600,000. You have women and children in 
there, and you've got a couple million people. Well, here in 
total, at this first return, you had 50,000 people. Doesn't 
seem that grand, does it? The Restoration, however, demonstrated 
God's commitment to save His people from their sins. This 
Restoration showed or demonstrated that God was still the God of 
Israel. God was not God. Those people 
went into exile, they're back, He's there, and everything is 
working according to plan. I would suggest that this restoration 
program, which was somewhat meager, was appropriate and fitting to 
teach the lesson that there was a greater restoration in the 
horizon. That's what the book of Haggai 
2 takes up. That there's going to be more 
glory, more excellence, more power. Because you see, when 
the second temple's foundation was laid, some of the people 
rejoiced because now the foundation was there. But the older people 
wept. They cried. Not because they 
were so heartbroken over the fact that finally the foundation 
was there. What they thought was, this is 
nothing like it was in Solomon's temple. What's become of us? What's happened to us? Or, Palmer 
Robertson explains it well. This coming, or he says, the 
greater restoration, or God's greater restoration program would 
occur at the arrival of Messiah. Robertson says, this coming anointed 
one of the restoration prophets is to appear in a state of humiliation 
so that he might fulfill the previously described role of 
the suffering servant of the Lord. He is to manifest the presence 
of God's kingdom in himself. first in humiliation and only 
afterward in glory. But if a Davidic successor were 
already reigning in Israel over a gloriously restored kingdom, 
the proper setting would not be in place for the humble character 
of the coming one who was to suffer before his exaltation. So the meager restoration is 
God-ordained to set the foundation of the stage for the coming of 
the Lord Jesus, who would exalt, or who would be exalted as the 
true temple of the living God. Now notice, secondly, the prophet 
Haggai. We don't know anything about 
him other than his name. We've seen that with some of 
these prophets before. I love that. Sometimes when I 
hear preachers, I learn more about them than I do about Jesus. 
Hopefully it's not the case here. I'm sorry that sometimes I use 
illustrative material from my life. It's the only life I know, 
so sometimes I use autobiography to try and make a point. But 
hopefully you'll never leave saying, man, I learned more about 
Jim Butler than Jesus Christ. I much prefer C.H. Spurgeon who 
said, let the name of C.H. Spurgeon die, but let the name 
of Jesus Christ be magnified and exalted. That's what you 
get with the prophets. That's what you get with the 
apostles. He's not the right Reverend Dr. Apostolic Esteem 
Paul. He is Paul. Paul. This is Haggai. He's mentioned here, and he's 
mentioned in Ezra. And in Ezra, he's mentioned in 
connection with Zechariah. Again, God sent these two men 
to call a sinning people back to himself. His name is related to the Jewish 
word for feast. Perhaps he was born on a feast 
day. Perhaps he started his prophetic statement on a feast day. We 
don't know all the particulars involved there. The date of composition, 
August to December in 520 BC. Four months. Five months. In fact, chapter 1 verse 1, if 
we were to take archaeological records, we take the biblical 
data and we compare it to our Julian calendar, chapter 1 verse 
1 is August 29, 520 B.C. Chapter 1 verse 15 is September 
21, 520 B.C. Chapter 2 verse 1 is October 17, 520 B.C. and 
chapter 2 verse 10 is December 18, 520 B.C. He did not have 
a long and esteemed career. He spoke six oracles, six statements 
from the Lord God Most High. The first is to Zerubbabel and 
Joshua, chapter 1, verses 1 to 2. The people are instructed 
in various places. And then the book ends with another 
statement specifically addressed to Zerubbabel, chapter 2, verses 
20 and 23. That's key. That's important. 
That's messianic. Though Zerubbabel was not a king, 
he was a descendant of David. The Davidic line was in action. This promise made to Zerubbabel 
in chapter 2, 20 to 23 is actually fulfilled in Jesus, the greater 
than Zerubbabel. And his one theme, as I've said, 
is right there in verse 8. Go up to the mountains and bring 
wood and build the temple, that I may take pleasure in it and 
be glorified. Now this isn't a book that's 
only supposed to be preached when churches enter into a building 
program. That's probably the most useful 
application of Haggai in the church today. We want money for 
a building, God likes buildings, let's study Haggai, now cough 
up. It's not the physical structure. 
that is primarily in view. It is God's presence that's primarily 
in view. The physical structure was symbolic, 
sacramental if you will, that God was with his people. So their lack of concern for 
his house translated into a lack of concern for him. That's the issue. Mottyer says 
the house was the outward form of the real presence of the Lord 
among his people. To refuse to build the house 
was at best saying that it did not matter whether the Lord was 
present with them. At worst, it was presuming on 
divine grace that the Lord would live with his people, even though 
they willfully refused to fulfill the condition of his indwelling 
that he had laid down. It amounted to seeking grace, 
but refusing the means of grace. Not to build the house was not 
to want the Lord as and for himself. That's the issue that Haggai 
and Zechariah are called to address. Yes, God tells them to build 
him a house. Yes, it is representative of 
his presence among them. There's 16 years of non-building. There's 16 years of neglect. There's 16 years of looking at 
that foundation that had never been improved upon, while all 
the time their own structures, their own houses, their own comforts, 
their own pleasures were being well looked after, demonstrated 
that they were not seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. That's the issue that Haggai 
addresses. And that brings us thirdly to 
consider the command to build the house for God. Chapter 1. We see three particulars. First, 
the people's sin, verses 2-5. Secondly, the prophet's response, 
verses 6-11. And then thirdly, thankfully, 
the people's repentance, verses 12-15. Do not ever suppose preaching 
doesn't work. Do not ever suppose we're wasting 
time on a Sunday with long sermons. Do not ever suppose that the 
word of God will not return unto him void. Do not suppose that 
God's preaching meets always with failure. Haggai preached, 
the people repented. Haggai preached, the people built. Haggai preached, and in four 
years they had a house for the Lord where they could worship, 
where they could honor, where they could praise him. Notice 
first the people's sin. Verse 2 says, Thus speaks the 
Lord of hosts, saying, This people says, The time has not come, 
the time that the Lord's house should be built. The time had 
come, contrary to the prevailing view in Judah. God wants a house 
for his name. It's interesting because this 
scenario, this situation is the exact opposite of what King David 
faced. Remember King David in 2 Samuel 
7 and 1 Chronicles 17, the parallel passage. David is sitting in 
his house built of cedar. No doubt smelling that beautiful 
wood, looking at the lavish accouterments, looking at all the beauty and 
the splendor. And he comes to himself and he says, how am I 
dwelling in a house of cedar when God lives in a tent? We've 
got to solve this. We've got to fix this. I want 
to build a house for the Lord God Most High. Nathan says, go 
right ahead. But then God comes and says to 
David, your hands are bloody, David. You're not going to build 
a house for my name. Your son Solomon will enjoy a 
reign of peace, and it will be at that time that a house will 
be built for my name." So David's sitting in his beauty and in 
his lavish quarters, and he's convicted. He says, how can I 
be here when God's in a tent? These people, just the opposite. 
Perhaps on their way to and from work. They walked by the foundation. They saw the place laying in 
ruins. And yet they go to their house 
and it never once dawns on them, hey, we ought to get things straight. 
We ought to build this house. Now that the opposition is gone. 
Now that Darius is in power. I mean, read the book of Ezra 
in conjunction with this. Darius issued a decree and Darius 
said, let's use money from taxes received beyond the river fund 
this house. Darius says it'll be perhaps 
that they'll pray for the king and for his sons. Here's a pagan 
king that sees the utility in having a house for God. Not these 
people. And I suggest not us a lot of 
times. Our priority structure is horrible. Sometimes. God is fit in at fourth 
or fifth, if he's fit in at all. The book of Haggai says God must 
come first, before your comfort, before your care, before your 
concern, before your happiness, before your pleasure, before 
your leisure. God must come first. The people have preferred their 
own comfort and pleasures to God's presence and glory. How does such a thing happen? 
It's easy on this side of it to look back at 520 BC and be 
Monday morning quarterback school and say, how in the world could 
you guys get there? How in the world can we get there? And I would suggest, brethren, 
that the glory of New Covenant religion and the redemptive purposes 
of God as expressed at Calvary ought to make us far more concerned 
with the glory of God, the beauty of Zion, and the advancement 
of His kingdom than even these here. Notice in verse 4, is it time 
for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses and this 
temple to lie in ruins? Again, Motyer says, we may paraphrase 
the question, should you be living in paneled houses while this 
house lies in ruin? They put themselves, the text 
is very specific and very conspicuous, you yourselves, they put themselves 
and their comforts, paneled houses or sealed houses. Difficult to 
know exactly what that means, but based on the context, the 
idea seems to be their pleasure, their comfort, their enjoyment, 
trumps the concern of God's glory. He says, they put themselves 
and their comforts before the sacred task of obeying the Lord, 
whose house was in ruins. They were living in abject neglect 
of Jesus' words in Matthew 6.33. You say, well, they lived on 
the other side. They didn't hear Jesus say, seek first the kingdom 
of God and his righteousness. Jesus was simply repeating everything 
the Bible had already said. If you turn to Matthew 6.33 and 
you look and you see, wow, that's revolutionary. You have not read 
the Bible. God's message has always been, 
seek him first. God's message has always been, 
make him the priority. God's message has always been, 
be consumed first and foremost with God, with his glory, with 
his kingdom. Their lack of concern for the 
temple was a lack of concern for the God of the temple. That's 
the issue. Notice, secondly, the prophet's 
response. He calls on them to consider 
We learn something with apostolic, at least prophetic preaching 
here. Notice in verse 5, consider your 
ways. Verse 7, consider your ways. That's what I hope all of us 
will do this morning. Not just treat this as a history lesson 
of the restoration period in Israel, but each and every one 
of us will consider our ways. Does my life evidence preoccupation 
with me? rather than God? Those people who work at the 
banks and they see my bank accounts, would it evidence a preoccupation 
with me? Do I have a huge account at Home Depot? Then I'll give God thirty cents. 
Consider your ways, is what the prophet says. Ask the tough questions. What do I do with my time? What 
do I do with my talents? What do I do with my resources? 
Does God come first? Or do I come first? You see, 
there's nothing new under the sun. Haggai is particularly applicable 
to us today. This brother who's the minister 
from August to December of 520 could plop down right here right 
now and say the same exact thing, and it's as applicable to us 
now. Where are our priorities? What 
makes us tick? Would any jury in the world have 
enough evidence to convict us that we're Christians? He says, consider your ways. You profess to be the people 
of God. Well, you know what? Talk is 
cheap. Consider your ways. Your ways reflect your profession. Your ways reflect what is truly 
important to you. What you do in your off time, 
what you do with your resources, what you do when you're all alone. 
That evidence is what you're about. Then notice he speaks of God's 
judgment upon them, verses 6-11. This is in the restoration period. You have so much and bring in 
little. You eat, but do not have enough. You drink, but you are 
not filled with drink. You clothe yourselves, but no 
one is worn. And he who earns wages, earns 
wages to put into a bag with holes. Verse 10. Therefore, the 
heavens above you withhold the dew, and the earth withholds 
its fruit. For I called for a drought on the land, and the mountains, 
and the grain, and the myrrh wine, and the oil. on whatever 
the ground brings forth, on men and livestock, and on all the 
labor of your hands. God says, I am not some distant 
spectator. I am intimately involved with 
the affairs of nature. I am the God who sends drought. 
I am the God who gives you scarcity. I don't think it means they had 
nothing. They had enough to panel their 
houses. I think the idea is that it was 
never satisfying. could be scarcity, but it could 
be, what difference does it make if you have the best food, the 
best drink, the best clothes, and you're good? What good is it? This chastening of God was material. Food, drink, clothing, and money. 
What does verse 6 say about money? Verse 6, the very end. He who 
earns wages, earns wages to put into a bag with holes. Sounds 
like inflation, doesn't it? It wasn't that they had no money. 
They had no buying power. It's like taking that money and 
putting it into a bag with holes. See, it wasn't the absence of 
these things. It was the lack of satisfaction. This judgment of God was material 
in nature. We never have enough. We can't 
get ahead. We're just eking it out. We're 
just making it paycheck to paycheck. Maybe, just maybe, it's first 
and foremost relative to your heart before God. It was secondly, covenantal. There's no surprise here in verses 
6 to 11. Not to those skilled in Leviticus 
26 and Deuteronomy 28. God said it very clearly. If 
you are faithful, blessing. If you are unfaithful, cursing. And that cursing will manifest 
itself in these particulars. Food, drink, clothing, money. And this chastening was providential. What is providence? Probably 
no better summary statement of the Bible's teaching of providence 
can be found than in the Westminster Shorter Catechism. God's works 
of providence are his most holy, wise, powerful, preserving and 
governing of all his creatures and all their actions. You mean 
God is sovereign over drought? God is sovereign over drought. Unbelievers hate that because 
it makes God look mean. Believers ought to confess sin 
and humble themselves under this mighty God. It's amazing. What Haggai is speaking here 
is pretty common throughout the scripture, acknowledging goodness, 
prosperity, and the lack of those things to our God. Unfortunately, 
not even Christians do this today. As I said, the pagans despise 
it. Listen to what T.V. Moore said. Moore, excellent 
commentary, written in 1856, so think 1856 when I read what 
I'm about to read. He says this verse, he's commenting 
specifically on verse 11, for I called for a drought on the 
land and the mountains, on the grain and the new wine and the 
oil, on whatever the ground brings forth, on men and livestock, 
and on all the labor of your hands. He comments, this verse 
enumerates in detail the curse that is mentioned in verse 10, 
and brings to view the hand of God above and behind the material 
agents. Listen, the blind idolatry of 
nature that now prevails. In 1856, imagine old TV more 
falling out of heaven into a school, or into a society of people today, 
or into a midst of pagans, or dare I say it, into a Bible study, 
where nature has become the ruler of all things. He says, the blind 
idolatry of nature that now prevails and the worship of laws that 
has so much supplanted the worship of the lawgiver was wholly unknown 
to the sacred writers. Behind the mighty organism they 
recognized the mightier hand that created and wields it at 
his will. So this judgment that they were 
experiencing was material. It affected them. It was covenantal. It was based on the written word. 
And it was providential. God brought this upon them. This man I've referred to already, 
Alec Motyer, he comments in a similar vein. He says, Haggai's scriptural 
worldview taught him that the forces of nature are but agents 
in the hands of God. He is the power to be reckoned 
with in the practical affairs of life and the organizing power 
behind the scenes. Since we see today what Haggai 
saw in his day, the vital question for us is whether we share his 
worldview. But sometimes I get into debates 
with non-Christians, and one of the things inevitably they 
hate is God's sovereignty. It really reveals to me, it's 
not that they're atheists, it's that they hate God. And they don't spend time out 
disproving unicorns, they don't spend time out disproving fairies, 
or calling into question the conduct of elves, that they find 
unhappy. They spend a lot of time arguing 
against God's sovereignty. The Church really does surprise 
me when she doesn't accept it. Arminianism and Pelagianism aren't 
just so teleological in nature. They have to do with the whole 
engelada. Here's what he says. Do we believe 
that economic facts are divine appointments? Do we? Isaiah chapter 1, God's chastening, 
God's judgment, God's anger was revealed in the base metals. He says, Who, or we who live 
in an affluent society plagued with dissatisfaction and preoccupation 
with inflation, do we share Haggai's insistence on an immediacy of 
the presence and action of the living God, who gave the crop 
a second winnowing, verse 9, and who summoned, verse 11, the 
agents of prosperity and adversity? In any event, Haggai was not 
an innovator, but reflected what all of Scripture teaches. The 
system we live in, whether seen in terms of economic laws or 
market forces or natural laws and weather conditions, is sovereignly 
managed by a holy God and serves His moral purposes. That's what Haggai is saying. So we look around at us, and 
we see the inflation, and we see all that stuff, and we say, 
oh man, we've got to this, got to this, got to this. We've got 
to humble ourselves before the mighty hand of God. You want to sit and talk gold 
standard, I'll be right there with you, man. You want to talk 
about hard currency, I'll be right there with you. Do you 
know what's first and foremost? That this nation will humble 
themselves under me. See, our problems are ethical 
in nature. Oh yes, there's gross mismanagement at the top, I agree. 
Sinful, abusive mismanagement. Christ speaking His wisdom in 
Proverbs 8.13 says, by me kings reign. God says in Proverbs 21.1, 
the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord. He turns it 
wherever He wishes. Maybe it's time that judgment 
begins first and foremost at the house of God. We reflect 
Biblical priority structure. We reflect what it is to use 
our time, our talents, our resources first and foremost for the glory 
of God. We show something of the commitment called upon or 
demanded by God to us. We show something of what it 
is to be sold out worshipers of Jesus Christ. Before we even 
go preach, we do. When we do, we go preach. Notice 
the people's repentance. Verses 12 to 15. They respond. 
Verse 12. Love their response. They obeyed 
the voice of the Lord their God. Did you imagine what it was like 
that day? Haggai's right. Honey, we gotta stop. It's gotta 
end. We don't need that summer home. 
We need to get serious about putting a structure on that foundation. 
They obeyed the voice of God. We get a lot of sermons and we 
hear a lot of scripture and we probably read our Bibles and 
we download and we read and we study and we learn. We have to 
obey. We don't need to read a book on 
how to obey. We need to obey. Then Zerubbabel, 
the son of Shealtail, and Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high 
priest, with all the remnants of the people, obeyed the voice 
of the Lord their God. If you are living with a priority 
structure that reflects paganism rather than Christian theism, 
now is the time to stop. If there are areas in your life 
that are not biblically informed, stop. So they did 520. Some say, well, it took them 
23 days to start. That's what we get at the end 
of verse 15 on the 24th day of the sixth month in the second 
year of King Darius. Why did they wait 23 days? Boy, 
they weren't quick. I would imagine getting debris 
cleared away, cleaning up. Remember, it's lying in ruins. 
I don't know any of my construction brothers that hear the decree 
and just go do it. There's no prep work involved. You gotta 
move stuff. I think that's what they were 
doing for those 23 days, and then they start to build. They 
obeyed. Notice, secondly, they recognized 
this was of God. I love the way the language reflects 
this in verse 12. Notice, they obeyed the voice 
of the Lord their God and the words of Haggai the prophet as 
the Lord their God had sent him. They didn't sit there and say, 
who does this guy think he is? Doesn't he know we just spent 
70 years in exile, we just traveled 900 miles, our feet hurt, we 
deserve a little comfort. We deserve a little paneling 
in our houses. We deserve a little bit of kickback 
and rest. Don't you know, Haggai, what 
we've been through? They recognize the voice of Jehovah. And then thirdly, the people 
feared. And the people feared the presence 
of the Lord. Remember, this is biblical fear 
that isn't running and hiding underneath a piano. This is the 
fear of the Lord, which is reverence, which is awe, which is solemnity, 
which is seriousness, which is realizing who He is and who we 
are in relation to Him. We can't but fear when we see 
those things. We can't but esteem and revere 
and hallow and honor him when we value and prize him for who 
he is. Notice God's grace, verse 13, 
in reaffirmation. Haggai, the Lord's messenger, 
spoke the Lord's message to the people, saying, I am with you, 
says the Lord. Isn't that great? Do you see 
that? Well, you haven't shown me enough 
yet. Let's get the walls up and then 
I'll be with you. Let's wait until the tapestries 
are in place, then I'll be with you. No, God acts immediately. His people obey, His people recognize, 
His people fear, and God says, I'm with you. Isn't that what 
we've seen over and over again in the book of Revelation chapters 
2 and 3? Jesus exhorts, Jesus says, repent, and then all this. Repent, and then all that. That's 
what God's looking for. Not some less perfection, but 
confession, forsaking, obedience, caring. God comes, he says, I'm 
with you. He reaffirms his covenantal presence. The same God who just said, I 
sent her out so that you weren't as full as you wanted to be. 
So that you weren't as comfortable as you wanted to be. I have so 
orchestrated the power of nature to bring chastisement upon you. 
I the God who did that, I'm with you. This is such a gracious 
statement, verse 13. Then Haggai, the Lord's messenger, 
spoke the Lord's message to the people, saying, I am with you, 
says the Lord. And then notice, divine enablement, 
verses 14 and 15. So the Lord stirred up the spirit 
of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit 
of Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit 
of all the remnant of the people. And they came and worked on the 
house of the Lord of Hosts, their God, on the twenty-fourth day 
of the sixth month in the second year of King Darius." God stirred 
them up. God empowered, God enabled, God 
moved them. Remember last Sunday night I 
said, we need the Spirit. Yes, we need to obey. Yes, we 
need to fear. Yes, we need to walk in obedience. 
But our help ultimately comes from the Lord. It's not something 
we can conjure up. It's not something we can schedule. 
We can't tell the Spirit, be here on Friday at three o'clock 
because we're having a special meeting and we want you to perform. 
It's not the way it works. We do our part. We obey God and 
we fear God and we look to divine enablement. We look to the Lord 
to stir up. We look to the Lord to revive. 
We look to the Lord to provide those means necessary. And there 
is an abiding lesson here, brethren, that when God calls a people 
to do a great work, God equips them to carry out that great 
work. We need not fear. We need not shrink back. We need 
not be innovators. We need to be faithful to the 
means that He has ordained. Those means that Paul said are 
mighty for the pulling down of strongholds. They were mighty 
in the first century. They're mighty today, under the 
blessing, under the power of God's Holy Spirit. So that is 
Haggai chapter 1. We learn first to examine our 
priorities. We already said this. What's 
first, God or you? Just be honest. If you're honest, 
you'll have to admit, brethren, at times, that I come first. God knows that. You're not going 
to surprise Him. You're not going to say, Lord, 
please, you know, I know this is going to be hard for you to 
believe, but sometimes I think more about me than you. Oh, wow, 
really? God knows it. You know what made 
David a man after God's own heart? It wasn't sinless perfectionism. 
It was having a Godward perspective. It was when David could stand 
right next to God and say, look at me, conceived in iniquity, 
seeking out sin, being a wretch, being vile. You sought truth 
in the inmost places, and I've been a liar and a deceiver. There's 
a man after my own heart. God calls us to be honest. while we pretend to have nothing 
for God, will bear emphatic and fearful testimony against us. 
The carved ceilings and costly ornaments will have a tongue 
in the day of judgment. I am not telling you to go sell 
everything you have and join a monastery. There is a biblical 
doctrine that God gives us good things. We are to rejoice in 
God for those good things. We are to be thankful to God 
for those good things. But we are to hold those good 
things with a very loose grip. We are to be willing to let go 
of those good things for God. Just about every generation in 
church history has really wrestled with this whole issue of wealth 
and the Christian. I don't know that we wrestle 
that much with it. I don't know that we wrestle 
that much with it. Again, I'm not telling you to go be a monk. 
Some people might visit this church and go, man, the two elders 
have their heads shaved, and maybe the idea here is to shave 
our heads and give everything to the poor. No. That's not what 
the Bible says. We should be willing to give 
everything to the poor if our Jesus says so. Our priorities must be biblical. 
We must seek God first in His kingdom and His righteousness. An examination of our priorities 
will lead to an examination of our investments. Mark Dever preached 
a sermon on this particular book. The whole idea was on investment. 
He starts the sermon off by saying he was in a bookstore recently. 
Not a Christian bookstore, but a bookstore. and the shelves 
of books on finances, money. We are a generation preoccupied 
with money and how to deal with it. As Christians we need to 
be mindful of money and how to deal with it to be sure. But 
what shall it profit a man if he has the bestest investment 
portfolio on the face of the earth and he has no God? What good is it to eat sumptuous 
fare, to wear the best clothes, to enjoy the nicest things in 
life, and yet have a God-shaped hole in your heart? That's what 
I think was going on in Haggai's day. They worked, they spent, 
they had, there was no satisfaction. Maybe Solomon was right. It's better to have little in 
a house without strife, and fasting, or feasting on the fatted cattle, 
with enmity. We need to thirdly examine our 
worldview. I don't know how much you talk 
to unbelievers, but I tell you, they don't like the sovereignty 
of God. You better be like Haggai. Even when people say, that isn't 
fair, That isn't right. That isn't good. As if a sinner 
has the qualification to tell what is fair, what is right, 
and what is good? In his worldview, such concepts 
are non-existent. He is, like Van Til said, the 
little girl who sits in her father's lap and slaps him on the face. for her very life dependent on 
this man and slapping him on the face the entire time. The 
Christian response is not, oh, you're right, it is a bit unfair, 
it is a little bit odd, it is a little bit weird, I'm sorry. The Christian response is Haggai-like. God is sovereign. God is the 
moral governor. God is the ruler over nature. There's no mother nature. There 
is God, who calls for drought, who calls for abundance, who 
blesses, who curses. Shall we, in the language of 
Job, accept the good, but not the adversity? And then finally, We need to 
see here the pattern of biblical repentance, an exhortation to 
obey. There's a lot of talk today about 
the gospel and about our role in sanctification and our role 
with reference to the law. It's real easy. The law cannot save you, Jesus said, by his precious blood. And then Jesus says, here's my 
law, this is how I want you to live. Not hard. Jesus himself said, 
if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. Obedience is necessary 
in the Christian life. Not because we're going to get 
saved by obeying, but because we've been saved by precious 
blood and he calls us to follow him. We need to obey, we need 
to fear, and we need to seek the Lord to stir us up. Funny, 
when you read Haggai 1, 14 and 15, go back in your Bible to 
Exodus 35, verse 29, and Exodus 36, verse 2. Same language used 
when God comes to Moses and he stirs up the people to build 
the tabernacle. When God calls a people to do 
something great, God equips them for it. See, that for me is liberating. That means we don't have to be 
the smartest people in the world. We don't have to be innovative. 
We don't have to be cunning. It doesn't mean we should be 
dead, dumb rocks just sort of laying here. But God doesn't 
call us to be novel. He calls us to be faithful. God 
doesn't call us to be super-extraordinary. God calls us to be obedient. 
God calls us. God equips us. And in God's strength, 
may we build a house for His name. Well, let us pray. Father, 
we thank you for the Scripture and we thank you for this book 
of Haggai and for its relevance and its practical importance 
for our life as a church together. We just pray that you would help 
us to be obedient, help us to fear you, help us to recognize 
and esteem the word of the living God. And we pray that you would 
bless any here that are unconverted, that do not know you as Lord 
and Savior. We pray that by your grace and 
for your glory, you would draw them to yourself by the power 
of your Spirit. Cause them to see Jesus Christ 
as the only Savior for sinners and to believe on him and to 
know the joy of everlasting life. We ask that you would go with 
each one of us now, Lord God, and we pray through Christ our 
Lord. Amen.