May God be with us this morning
as together we turn together to consider his word and we'll
turn back to the book that we read together, the book of the
prophet Haggai. And today I really want to immerse
ourselves into the prophecy of Haggai and therefore don't have
a particular text to focus on, but to sum up, if you like, what
Haggai is all about, we all just read chapter 1, verses 4 and
5. So Haggai chapters 1, chapter
1, verses 4 and 5. Is it time for you, O ye, to
dwell in your sealed houses, and this house lie waste? Now therefore, thus saith the
Lord of hosts, consider your ways. I'm sure we've all been in circumstances
in our lives when we've had something to do, something that needs to
be done, something perhaps deep down that we want to do, and
yet we find we're easily distracted from doing it. Those who can remember, or those
who are even at the moment preparing for exams, or know what it's
like to very actively prepare your revision timetable, but
find it much harder to actually do it. The distractions will
quickly come. You'll find lots of other things
which are much more appealing, much easier, much more enjoyable,
and so your focus shifts and the work stops. And so you find
yourself not doing what you had meant to do. Well, that is largely where Judah
was when Haggai starts to prophesy to them. To give some history
of where Haggai sits, You all know, I'm sure, that Judah was
taken captive by King Nebuchadnezzar. Because of their sin, because
of their rejection of God, because they had turned away from him,
his ways, his rules and commandments, they had been warned many times
by the prophets that God had said, and having ignored those
warnings, they were finally taken to Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar. There they would live for 70
years as captives. They would live in a pagan nation. They would live far away from
the promised land where they had been settled. And of course
they would live far from Jerusalem and the temple, which itself
had been destroyed and burnt to the ground. For those long
years, It seemed that they would never end. It seemed that they
perhaps were lost forever, that they were abandoned by God, that
they were now forever captives in Babylon. But for the promise
that he had given to Jeremiah and that Daniel then lays hold
of, that there would be 70 years and then a release, But quite dramatically, suddenly,
wonderfully, Cyrus, king of Persia, invades the Babylonian empire,
sets himself as king over the empire, and issues a decree. And we read in the book of Ezra
that Cyrus' decree was that God's people could return back to their
land, that they could go back to Jerusalem, and that they could
go back to rebuild the temple, that they could worship again. They had, of course, in their
ways, worshipped God in Babylon. But they were not in that real
place. They were not in that center
of worship where God was in the Old Testament age, Jerusalem
at the temple. And there they could go back.
They could go back to sacrifice. They could go back to gather
at that temple mount. They could go back to worship
in God's ordained way. And so with joy, many returned
on that long journey back. to Jerusalem. And there we read
in the book of Ezra, they began the building or rebuilding of
the temple. And they started to clear away
the rubble, prepare the ground, prepare the land, and to lay
those foundation stones and again to build that temple that had
been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians. But it was
not long after they had began that they faced opposition. And
the peoples around them, the Samaritans and others who had
stayed in the land when they had been exiled to Babylon, those
around them who worshipped other gods or had mixed the true religion
with other religions, They opposed the rebuilding of the temple,
and they opposed God's people. They did not want them back at
Jerusalem. They did not want them settling
where they had been living, and they did not want them rebuilding
the temple of God. And so they send a letter to
the king, to Darius, and as a result, the king commands that the work
stops. And so the rebuilding of the
temple ceased. And that is when Haggai speaks
the word of God. Because the work of rebuilding
the temple stopped for 16 years. 16 long years. And they because of the letter received
by the king telling them to stop, they shifted their focus. And
so they focused on their own houses. They focused on settling
and being comfortable. They focused on their lives,
on what made them feel better and more comfortable. They settled
down into life. And 16 long years passed while
the temple knew no activity on its site at all. The work was
stopped. And so God sends two prophets,
Haggai and Zechariah, to speak to the people and to call them
to work. So that's the context. of the
book of Haggai and we know from the book of Ezra and of course
from Haggai itself that God's people responded to the prophet
and they started the work again. You can see in Israel three steps
or three stages of their return from Babylon. First of all, there
is liberty. Secondly, there is activity. And then thirdly, there is lethargy. Liberty, activity, and then lethargy. And I want to look at those and
their teaching for us today, first of all, this morning. First
of all, God's people knew liberty. Wonderful, wonderful liberty. They were set free from Babylon
by this remarkable decree of Cyrus. Remarkable that this king
should allow God's people to return back to Jerusalem, not
only to return, but to build their temple of worship and to
worship God as he had commanded them back in Jerusalem. It was remarkable. And it came,
it would seem out of the blue that suddenly they received this
edict, this proclamation that they were free. Now they would
still be under the authority, still in the empire, but they
were free to go, they were free to worship, they were free to
serve God as he had called them to do. It was a tremendous act
of grace. Now God worked and used this
King Cyrus to display His grace to His people. It was not deserved. It was not earned. It was not
because they had been good in Babylon. It was not because they
had convinced God to do something. It was a tremendous act of grace. And when God, therefore in His
goodness to Israel, called Cyrus and used Cyrus to release them,
God would receive all the honor and glory. It's rather like,
isn't it, going right back in the history of Israel to Moses.
there in the desert, having fled from Egypt those 40 years as
a shepherd in the wilderness. And there he sees in the burning
bush and hears the voice of God as God calls him to return back
to Egypt. And God says to him, I have seen
my people and I have heard their cries and I am come down. to deliver them. This, a tremendous
act of grace. That in His love and His goodness,
He would bring them out of Egypt. And it's much the same when they
have this second exodus, if you like, from Babylon, that suddenly
God appears and He works far above what they could have expected. But when God works It is more
wonderful and more wonderful and more full of praise to him
when he works for them. And so in grace they know liberty,
freedom to go home and to worship. Well, when we think of ourselves, we realize that the gospel of
Jesus Christ is where is real liberty. Real freedom is found
in the gospel of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. By nature, we are like Israel
in Babylon. We are far off from God, and
we are bound by sin. We are held captive by sin. We're held captive by a sinful
heart. We're held captive by the devil
who would have us as his own. We're held captive and we cannot
break free. We cannot make ourselves better,
more acceptable, more holy. We are bound in captivity. But the gospel of grace sets
us free. True liberty is to be found as
a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, who can do all things
for the sinner. Like Cyrus raised up to proclaim
liberty to the captives to go back to worship God in Jerusalem. So the Lord Jesus Christ came
to declare liberty to the captives, freedom from sin. Death called
to life. The wrath of God and his just
condemnation called to love. Estrangement and cut off from
God called to a relationship and a blessing to be able to
call God my father. This is the liberty that Jesus
Christ has brought for his people. when he took on the punishment
for their sins, when he bore the eternal wrath of God and
sins for upon himself, and when he there hung on the cross and
endured the experience of hell itself, he went to be a captive
to set his people free. And we see his willingness to
go. him yielding himself to the cross,
we see him carrying the burden of sins for his people, we see
him entering into that soul experience of suffering on behalf of his
people, we see him finishing the work of salvation, paying
the debt, the price for their sins, so that they can go free. God does not twice demand payment
for sin. God does not demand a double
payment. He does not lay the sins and
punish the sins of his people on his son and then demand the
payment from his people. The payment is paid, the debt
is cleared, and they are free. free from the condemnation of
the law, free from hell itself, free from fear, and free to know
him and to worship him. That is true gospel liberty. And that is received as an act
of grace. It was God's grace that released
His people to go to Jerusalem, and it's His grace and grace
alone that saves His people from their sins. That He should so
love them, and so choose them, and so die and suffer for them. Not that they deserve, not that
they earn it, but that He bestows it upon them. This liberty is vital. This liberty is essential. It
must be known if we are to get to heaven. There are some things, perhaps,
which we will never understand. There are some doctrines that
we will believe by faith, but we will never really fully grasp.
And there are some things that some people have a better understanding
of in the word of God than others. This is not one of those things.
This is vital. It's essential. We must know
the liberty of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We must know that
we are saved by him. And so this morning, if we feel,
if we're honest before God today, if we feel like we're still in
Babylon and we haven't known the blessing of forgiveness and
the blessing of Christ, then this is where we must start. This is where we must come. Lord,
remember me. Lord, bless me. Lord, save me. And so may we all be given that
desire and earnest prayer to know the free gift of life and
liberty through Jesus Christ. And so the people knew liberty. But secondly, as a result of
that liberty, when they returned back to Jerusalem, first of all,
to begin with, There was activity. Activity. They initially worked
hard for the Lord. You think it was no easy journey
to come back from Babylon to Judah, to Jerusalem? It was a
long journey. It was across desert land, wilderness
land. It was hard. It was tiring. It
was difficult. But they made the journey. And
when they got there, they set to work. They build the walls
under the leadership of Nehemiah, but they also start to build
up the temple. They start to do the initial
work, the foundation work, and they begin to sacrifice at the
temple. The first thing they do is they
set up an altar, and they sacrifice a burnt offering of thanksgiving
to God. They restart the worship of God. in the sacrifices on the altar.
Of course, the central element, the key element to worship was
the sacrifice. The free will offerings, the
thanksgiving offerings, the burnt offerings, the sin offerings,
trespass offerings, the day of atonement, all of these offerings
to be brought is a central element of worship. And so they set up
the altar and they begin to worship in that way. They were zealous
for the Lord. They were full of joy for his
goodness in their freedom and liberty. They were thankful and
served him in thankfulness for that blessing of liberty. And so there was great activity. And when we first come to know
the Lord, Often there is a desire for activity. I hope it's not just when we
first come to know the Lord. I hope it continues and goes
on and on. But when we first know that blessing
of life and liberty and joy of Jesus Christ, it has an effect. It produces fruit. It brings
us out in a desire to serve him. Our life beforehand is, in our
own mind, perhaps for ourselves. It's my life, my pleasure, my
joy, my ideas, my future. But when we realize you are not
your own, you are bought with a price, you belong to God. And we realize that to serve
him, therefore, is not onerous. It's not just something we must
do in obedience. It's a joy. It's a pleasure. It's what we want to do. It's
what we strive to do because we serve our loving Master. And so God's blessing produces
fruit. It produces fruit. Herein is
my Father glorified that ye bear much Fruit. And there is fruit
from the blessing and from the life and the salvation of Jesus
Christ. If we say we're a believer in
Christ and there is no change, no difference, no fruit, then
we must question that change, that conversion. There is fruit
from the blessing of Jesus Christ. Because, think, we owe so much It's unimaginable, it's inestimable
amount for us to ever know what we owe to God if we're a child
of God, if we're a Christian. To think that almighty, holy,
pure, and heart-searching God in love came to be amongst men,
came to be flesh, and then to bear sin and to die. To think that the holiness of
God bore sin and that Jesus is willing to enter into hell and
experience of that for his people and for multitudes, for thousands
and millions of his people. And then, that that love has
been applied by the Holy Spirit to your soul. That He has come
personally, that He has met you in your life, that He has met
you where you are, that He has awakened you, opened your eyes,
and He has blessed you with love, He has blessed you with joy in
the Lord, He has blessed you with faith to see and to believe
in Him. Think what he has done. Think what we were, and where
we were, and think where we are in Jesus Christ. He's taken us
from the miry clay, from the sinking sand, and he's put my
feet upon a rock, and he will lead me to glory. As what the Lord has done, doesn't
a consideration of that lead us to activity? Isn't the result
to be that we love him and there's a change in our heart? Now there's a love for the word
when once it was dry and dull. Now there is a joy in prayer
when once it was a labor if we prayed at all. Now we love to
hear of him and to hear the gospel preached to us when once it was
nothing at all. Now we love to speak of him and
to tell of what he means to our soul. Now we want to serve him
and his people and his interests are in our interests, and his
concerns are our concerns, and his desires are our desires,
and his love for the church is our love for the church. Because our focus has changed.
We've been changed from death to life. Our focus has been changed.
We've changed direction. We have, in the meaning of the
word, repented, changed round, turned direction. And so there's activity. But then, thirdly, following
on this time of activity, Judo enters into a period of lethargy. Because it wasn't long after
they returned and started to build that they face opposition. They have people discouraging
them. They have people actively trying to stop them. And in the
end, they have a letter from the king commanding that they
cease the work. So they face opposition and the
work stops. And as a result of the work stopping,
their focus shifts back to themselves. Slowly but surely, their concern
moves away from God's house and moves back to them, their homes,
their lives, their prosperity. And so they lose enthusiasm for
the things of God. And they need these prophets
to be sent to stir them up, to challenge them, and to bring
them back to serve Him, to remind them, look, this is why you're
here. This is why God has brought you
back. This is what you're called to do. Come and build. And they needed to be shaken
and stirred out of their lethargy. And God did that. We read, the
Lord stirred up the spirit as a rubber bull, the son of Sheol-Tiel,
governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua, the son of Josedeth,
the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people. But they needed to be stirred
up. to work. This morning, have we slipped
into lethargy? Have we slipped into laziness? Have we slipped into the things
of God that have become dull? Have become uninteresting? Our focus has shifted. back to
ourselves. And so what is the result of
this lethargy? Well, the liberty has seeped
away. Prayer, once a joy, has become
a task and a labour. Reading the word of God has become
something that just must be done, rather than something we're hungry
for. Serving the Lord or serving his people has become a duty
and an act of obedience rather than a joy. And your heart, quite simply,
is not in it. That might not be obvious to
anyone else. Your life is the same. Your activities
are the same. What you're doing, how you're
spending your time, what you're saying, But you know, your heart is not
in it. You could say, if the Lord is
starting to wake you up out of it, you would say with him, where
is the blessedness I knew when first I saw the Lord? Where is
the soul-refreshing view of Jesus and his word? Now if we're left
in that place of lethargy, we will seek happiness somewhere. We will seek a sense of peace
and joy from somewhere, and if we're not seeking it from God,
then we will seek it in the world. And so like they went to build
and dwell in their sealed houses, they went back to their houses
and their lives. So we will find ourselves going
back to find pleasure and success and the things of the world.
That's where I will find my peace, my joy, my happiness, because
my focus has shifted back. You know, if you have a candle, and you light a candle, and you
start to blow at it, the flame will flicker. It will almost
look like it's about to go out. And then if you stop, it will
come back to life and start to burn brightly again. But if you
blow at it, it will start to flicker out. Are we like that? Is that our
spiritual life? Could that describe where we are today? If you light
the world, The things of it, the success of it, the happiness
of it, is blowing on our spiritual life. And we started to flicker
out. Hope to God that there is still
some life there. But the blowing of the world
against it makes it look like that spiritual life is flickering
out. This lethargy. Does it describe us? You know,
Haggai opens up the effect of where they were. It says, chapter
1, verse 6, You have sown much, and bring in little. Ye eat,
but ye have not enough. Ye drink, but there is not filled
with drink. Ye clothe, there is none warm.
He that earneth wages, earneth wages to put it into a bag of
holes. Verse 9, you looked for much,
but lo, it came to little. When you brought it home, I did
blow. Why, saith the Lord? Because of mine house that is
waste. And ye run every man unto his own house. You have sown, but you have little.
You eat, but you're not filled. You drink, but you're not filled
with drink. Does that really describe where we are? We're continuing to do, we're
continuing hoping that there will be great blessing. But there's not really anything.
There's no prosperity, there's no real blessing. It just seems to be barren. It
seems to be parched. It's like the cracked ground
you see in the hot summer. And it's all starting to break
up because it's so dry. And what it needs is, it needs
the rain, it needs to be softened, it needs to be bonded together
again. But when you look at it, it just seems to be dead and
dry and barren, and it needs reviving. Consider your ways, is that our
state? It's like cracked ground. It's dry and barren. Well, the wonderful thing is
that God does not leave them there. That's where they were. Their liberty had turned to activity
and had sadly turned to lethargy. But God doesn't leave them. in
that state. He doesn't cut them off. He doesn't
send them back to Babylon. He doesn't say, I released you,
I gave you a chance, back to Babylon you go. He sends Haggai and Zechariah. Because God is still a God of
grace. Still a God of grace. You think
how many times God displays himself as a God of grace to Israel.
You think how many times they should be cut off. They should
be destroyed. They should be removed from God's
pleasure and from God's favor. They should die out. Because
they sin and rebel time and time and time again. Their focus shifts
time again. But God is still gracious. And
so he sends Haggai, consider your ways. He says it twice. Verse five,
verse seven, consider your ways. Go up to the mountain, bring
wood and build the house. Go and work. Go and labor. Go up to the mountain. It may
be hard to do it. It may be an effort to climb
this mountain to get the materials. You may find it hard work, but
go and work. And he gives a great encouragement.
I will take pleasure in it. And I will be glorified, saith
the Lord. I will take pleasure in it. What more encouragement did they
want? That Almighty God would take pleasure in their labors. And He would take pleasure in
the finished temple in the end. He would take pleasure in the
fact that they were going to pick themselves up, go up the
mountainside and bring back the wood and start building. And God would be well pleased. In His grace, He calls them back
to Himself. And they wonderfully respond. You think of the scriptures,
and God calls us back. Malachi, return unto me, and
I will turn unto you. I will come. I will bless you. I will bless
you if you will turn back to me. Well-known verses in Isaiah
55. Ho, everyone that thirsteth,
come ye to the waters. He that hath no money, come ye,
buy and eat, yea, come buy wine and milk without money and without
price. And then there's this question,
you could tie it with the situation of Judah. Wherefore do you spend
money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which
satisfieth not, your sowing but you haven't got much, your eating
but you're still hungry, hearken diligently unto me and eat ye
that which is good. Let your soul delight itself
in fatness, incline your ear and come unto me. Here and your
soul shall live. Oh, the wonderful invitations
of God to return, to come, to buy and to feast on the blessings
that he alone can give. All else is passing away. All
else will disappoint you. All else will fall short. Come back to me. We may be thankful for many things. Judah was thankful to be back
in the land. They were thankful to be able to rebuild their homes
and settle again. Surely they were thankful to
be able to sow the land, to grow their crops. They were thankful
to be back there. But they were focusing on the
gift and had forgot to worship the giver. And so may we, in the many blessings
we have, may we not just focus on the gifts, on the things that
we have, but may we turn back and worship the giver of those
things, to worship God. Go up to the mountain. It may
be hard. It may be, like the apostle says,
a crucifying of the flesh. It may be a struggle, but I will
take pleasure in it. And so, what are we to do then? What does it mean? What does
it mean to go to the mountain? What does it mean to return unto
the Lord? How are we to build up again? Follow the old paths. The well-trodden
paths. The path that you've trodden
before. Believer, Christian, it's a path you've trodden before.
You may think, do I have to go right back? Do I have to tread
it again? You know the path. The old path
of repentance. The old path of confession. The
old path of acknowledging to God where you are and that you
can't get yourself out of it. The old path of dependence. of
surrender to the Lord, to say, Lord, it is only through thy
strength and thy grace, it is nothing in me. The old path of
humility, of falling before him and owning him as your sovereign
Lord. The old path of a complete dependence
on Christ alone. You say, but that's the path
I walked right back at my conversion. That's when I came in confession.
That's when I came looking alone to the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
back then. I've moved on. I'm now in the
building stage. I've moved on. No, you haven't. You've stopped building. And
so come back. Repentance. Confession. Come
to Christ. This, remember, is where there
was liberty. This is where there was life.
That's where we find it again. Consider your ways. Go up. Build a house. And the result then was that
they responded. The result was that they worked. God stirred
them up. God worked through the word that
was prophesied to them. God powerfully used the word
of Haggai that he prophesied, as inspired by God, and the temple
was built. And so this morning, will you
hear? Will I hear? wherever we are today, whether
we need encouragement in the state of our soul, whether we
need encouragement to continue to serve in the way that he's
called us in our life, whether we need encouragement to continue
to follow and obey him, whatever it is, will we hear his call
to us today? And may he take the word and
stir up the spirit of the people, for they came and did work in
the house of the Lord of Hosts their God. And so you see how
encouraging Haggai is? You see how relevant Haggai is? See how much we need this message
and call today? But the wonderful thing about
Haggai is that God doesn't just command. He does, but doesn't
just command. He gives wonderful promises,
wonderful assurances, and that's where we'll turn this evening.
Three assurances that he gives them to encourage them in their
labors. I am with you. I will bless you. And I have
chosen you. What more could they need? as
he called them to consider their ways. Well, may God add his blessing
to all these thoughts this morning. Amen.