Would you open your bibles to
the book of Haggai? Haggai is right before Zechariah,
but I mean, it is small. Feel free to look in the table
of contents, because if you just miss one page flipping, you're
going to miss Haggai. Haggai. I didn't have a stop
in the middle of singing. so that I could read the sermon
scripture, because we're actually going to be looking at the entire
book. Don't worry. We're not going
to be here until 2 o'clock. It's not like I'm going to preach
that long. It's just several places in the book. And catch
the main theme of the book. I've entitled it, Keep building. Keep building. Before we look
into this, let's ask for the Lord's blessing. Our Lord Jesus,
how good it is to be here. We thank you for both heart and
ability to come here and worship you. And we pray that we'll be
given your spirit so that we can worship you. For it is written
that the Father seeks worshipers who worship him in spirit and
in truth. So Lord, send your spirit among
us that from our spirits we may worship you. Bless your word,
Lord. It is written that your word
will not return to you void. It will always accomplish the
purpose for which you send it. So Lord, send it for purposes
of grace. And may each of us be strengthened
in our hearts by the grace that we see revealed in these scriptures. And we pray this in the name
of the Lord Jesus. Amen. Now, God's word to his people consists
essentially of two things. I mean his word of exhortation
consists of two things. Number one, go to Christ. That simple. Go to Christ. Second thing, stay there. Stay there. It is one thing to
go to Christ or at least make a show of it. It's another thing
to come to the end of your life and have it said of you as was
said of saints of old, these all died in faith. We rejoice, don't we? Anytime someone professes to
believe, they come here or one of our sister churches or any
church where the gospel is clearly preached. And we hear that they
heard it and God gave them an understanding of it and that
they called upon the name of the Lord and were saved and they
confessed it. We rejoice in that, don't we? And we should. It's not like we're going to
be doubtful of everyone who professes and say, well, we'll see. Person
says he believes, we're just going to take his word for it. but how much more meaningful
it is, even if it's not a real, what we call, happy experience,
but how much more important it is that when one who has professed
Christ leaves this world still professing Him. Now, I Look at this crowd, and
I would say virtually all the adults have professed to believe
Christ. But I think I could also say
this, that every one of us has felt like quitting, has felt like giving up, either
by mere distraction or by great sorrow, trials, troubles, whatever, all of us consider it. And so it is good of the Lord
that he not only calls to us in the deadness of our hearts,
gives us life, and causes us to look to Christ and find salvation
in him, he continues calling He keeps doing that good work
He began in us. And even in His Scriptures, and
in the preaching of the men that He sends out to declare them,
He says, stay. Stay. Don't find your satisfaction
anywhere else. Now, the second part, the stay
part, is essentially what the message of the book of Haggai
is about. Let me give you the historical
context in which Haggai spoke. Under Cyrus, about 50,000 Jews
had been sent back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. This was
in 538 BC. Now, during their second year
back in the land, they laid the foundation for the temple. And they did so with great celebration.
But the people who lived in that area, because when Nebuchadnezzar took the Jews
out, he brought others in. And so those people who were
still there, they opposed the building of the temple. And they
did all that was in their power to stop that project. And they
were successful. For 16 years, not one more stone
was laid. They got the foundation in. But
for 16 years, nothing else happened. And the Jews turned their attention
to building their own houses. In Haggai, it speaks of them
as paneled houses, which would be a way to describe a rather
nice home in that time, when you consider they mostly lived
in mud-type houses, mud straw sticks and all that, you know,
that kind of thing, with some timbers here and there. But they
were making themselves some nice houses during this 16 years. So God sent them two prophets,
Haggai and the next one, Zechariah. They spoke at virtually the same
time and about the same subject. And these two prophets were sent
to exhort the people to resume construction of the temple. Now Haggai's message came to
him or was delivered to him on four occasions in which the Lord
spoke to him. And it was over a period of four
months. That's something to think that
this man's ministry, well, he may have gone on preaching, but
his entire time of training, so to speak, for four months,
the Lord spoke to him, gave him a message. The first three messages
that God sent to Haggai were for Zerubbabel, the governor
of Judah, for Joshua, the high priest over Israel at that time,
and then to the people in general. So God spoke by the prophet to
the king and the priest and the people. Now the fourth one, the
fourth time God spoke to Haggai, he had a message specifically
for Zerubbabel. And we'll not be getting into
that part of it, that begins in verse 20 of chapter 2. We're
going to look at the first three times God spoke and what he told
Haggai to tell the people. Now there is a recurring theme
in what God told Haggai to tell the people. And it's this, give
careful thought. Give careful thought. Each time
now there is a word that actually precedes give careful thought. Now there's a word in Hebrew
and evidently they had a hard time trying to figure out what
to do with that word because I don't see in the translations
that anybody, at least there's no separate word for it. It's
possible that in our translation, if you look there in verse 5,
it says, give careful thought to your ways. Possibly the word
careful is their attempt at handling that word. But this word, and
I look this stuff up because it interests me, and I think
there's something valuable to be gained from it, that word
has a variety of meanings, but they're all like to put, or to
place, or to set. Now when I try to find out the
meanings of words, and I think it's important, I mean, if we're
going to understand what God has said, we've got to understand
the meanings of the words that are used. And so I will look
at a particular word, and I will find where else it appears in
scriptures. This particular word shows up
over 580 times. I did not look at all 580 occurrences
of it, but I took a sampling throughout the Old Testament.
And what I'm doing is I'm trying to find, is there a single principle
meaning that can be applied to all of these uses of the word.
And when I look at all the ways this is used, the common theme
among them all is to establish something or to put it in a permanent
place. Now it's used like it says one
time, they laid a coat on him. But that's kind of like that
was the end point of that little detail about the coat. They took
a coat, they put it on somebody. There it is. It speaks of Jacob. He took a stone and he put it and used it for a pillow. So
you can see this idea of a thing being laid down, laid down in
what relatively speaking at least, is to be a permanent situation. And so applying that, each of these times we might
use one of these three principles that can come
from that word. Stop. Stop, set yourself down. so that you may carefully consider
what is about to be said. You know why our Lord, or at
least one of the reasons why our Lord assigned meetings like
this? Because if he didn't assign them,
we would probably get to where we never stop and never think
and never consider how busy we are. Someone says we ought to quit
calling ourselves human beings and call ourselves human doings,
because we're a whole lot more interested in doing than just
being. It's very difficult to stop all that we've got going, lay it aside, and give serious
consideration to what God has said. And so that sense, I believe,
could be here, that little word that seems to remain untranslated.
Or we could carry this. And what I like is we can apply
all of these, because they all make sense here. Consider that
the things that are about to be said, consider them as permanent
and immovable. So much of what we think we know
is changeable. When I've confronted atheists,
I say confront them. It's only on the internet. But
when I've confronted them, they like to say such things. Well,
we only believe what science can show us. And yet every day, science, the
world of science, is having to go back and correct what they
formerly believed Or they've come up with something new. Now,
I'm not faulting science for that. That's the nature of it.
That's the way it's supposed to be. And yet, they are willing
to found their entire life upon things which are essentially
changeable. Well, I know this. If you're
going to build a house, you better have a foundation that doesn't
move. your house is going to fall apart. And so it could be that the Lord
in giving this message to Haggai is saying, you tell them this,
what I'm about to tell you is permanent, it's set. And then thirdly, and this one
kind of follows upon that, We can get this meaning from it,
what I'm about to say can be like a tent peg or an anchor
to hold you in place. We're pretty movable, aren't
we? Paul talked about being blown about by every wind and doctrine,
wind of doctrine that comes along. We can become so easily unsettled,
so easily have a question mark put upon the things we believe,
or have our attention diverted by some fancy or clever new theory
of something in the Bible that somebody comes up with. And Paul
talks about growing up, maturing in Christ, so that we won't be
blown about. And so Haggai here is saying,
consider what I'm about to say to you, as that on which you
can anchor your mind, your thoughts, your soul. It is an immovable
truth, and if you will found yourself upon this truth, you
will not be moved." And the word then that's translated,
give thought, is actually from the word for
heart, heart. And it means that we are not
to learn these things as one might learn the capitals of the
states of our nation or learn the multiplication tables. That's
one kind of learning, and that's fine. We need to do those things
in this world. Well, we don't need to know the
capital of the state, but the multiplication tables are very helpful as you
make your way through life. But you know, the multiplication
tables They don't reach the heart, do they? because they don't concern
things of the heart. He's saying here, give heart-deep
consideration to these things. Don't just take them up as more
information that the Lord has given you, which you categorize
and catalog, and you say, okay, I got that all fixed up, now
let's move on. No, these are things which are
to be taken in, taken in all the way to the heart, that they
might affect the heart, and change the heart, and change the way
we think. Well there are four things he
mentions to stop and consider. Let's look at verse 5. Now this is what the, chapter
1 verse 5, now this is what the Lord Almighty says, give careful
thought to your ways. You have planted much but have
harvested little, you eat but never have enough, you drink
but never have your fill, you put on clothes but are not warm,
you earn wages only to put them in a purse with holes in it. Now, this could be applied to
those who are not even saved. I mean, we could say that. Isn't
that what the unsaved world is doing? They are living life in
such a way that everything they do is going to come to nothing. However, when Haggai speaks this
word from the Lord, who's he speaking it to? He's speaking
to those who represent real believers that have become distracted from
the way. They got a good start, they laid
a foundation, then they quit. They got busy
with something else. And here's the thing, if we do
that, If we move on from Christ and Him crucified, and I can't
remember if I brought that up yet in the message, this temple
is a picture of Christ and Him crucified. That's the way it's
being used here. And every part of it is a picture
of Christ and Him crucified. And when we begin, when we lay
the foundation, it's a foundation of Christ and Him crucified.
But there's more temple. In other words, and we'll get
more into this, but there's more to be built upon that foundation. It's all Christ and Him crucified,
but it's Christ and Him crucified in different contexts and sorts.
But anyway, this is to us. And he's saying, since you stopped
building the temple, Everything you've tried to do has come to
nothing. How many people are on this very
day trying to gain a spiritual harvest from fleshly seed, trying
to fill a hungry soul with fleshly food, trying to quench a spiritual
thirst with a mirage of religious water, trying to warm their cold
souls with a worthless garment of exciting religion? and trying
to collect spiritual money in a purse with a hole in it. And I'm talking about believers.
That never happened to me. Be careful. Be real careful what
you say you'll never do. Remember Peter? Lord, I'll never
deny you. I'd never do this. never think, well, I got that
done, now I can go to other things, or get distracted by the religious
pretties that the religious world has for us. For all of man's ignorance, he
does know that something's wrong, something's missing. And unless
he purposely tries to suppress it, he knows that he's not right
with God. So he tries all manner of religious
efforts to fix the problem, but he ignores the one thing that
can fulfill and satisfy, and that's Christ and him crucified. And while it's easy to understand
unbelievers doing that, let us not forget This is addressed
to those who picture for us the church of the Lord Jesus. They
find churches that give them works to do, entertainment to
enjoy, heights to attain, rewards to earn, and then they give themselves
to that, and they pursue it. But they're putting their money
in a bag with holes, and it all falls out. And when it's needed,
there's nothing there. Now, I've done it. You've done it. I've heard music, got all excited
about it, thought it was great, thought it was really spiritual.
It was stirring and all of this. And then later on, I realized
I was enamored by the music, not the message. And all those
coins I'd put in that little bag fell out the hole. Or I got enamored of a preacher.
I thought he's something else. He's saying things in a way I've
never heard him said before. Has real power with me. Well,
eventually every preacher becomes disappointing. And he's like a coat that won't
keep you warm. Oh, this is something we deal
with all the time. And so we must resist this. We must always be
about the business of Christ and Him crucified. Let's go on
to the second one. Chapter two, verse 15. Now give careful thought to this
from this day on. Consider how things were before
one stone was laid on another in the Lord's temple. When anyone
came to a heap of 20 measures, there were only 10. When anyone
went to a wine vat to draw 50 measures, there were only 20.
I struck all the work of your hands with blight, mildew, and
hail. Yet you did not turn to me, declares
the Lord. Now, some 16 years before all
of this, they had built or laid the foundation
of a temple. And I realize, I'm just going
back up here, folks. That's why I'm acting like I'm
lost. I forgot a point. And this has kind of a progress
to it. If we miss a point, we're going to wonder Let's back up
to chapter one, verse seven. I think with all these notes up
here, I wouldn't do it, but there you go. This is what the Lord Almighty
says. Give careful thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains
and bring down timber and build the house so that I may take
pleasure in it and be honored, says the Lord. You expected much,
but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home,
I blew away. Why, declares the Lord Almighty.
Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is
busy with his own house. Therefore, because of you the
heavens have withheld their dew, and the earth its crops. I called
for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain,
the new wine, the oil, and whatever the ground produces, on men and
cattle, and on the labor of your hands." And so he's saying here,
stop and give heart-deep consideration. that whenever you find that all
your spiritual pursuits are amounting to nothing, it's time to consider
whether or not you're pursuing the right thing. So here they
were. They laid that foundation. They
had a celebration at the laying of the foundation. A little trouble
came up, a little resistance to it. And they said, well, we
got the foundation. Let's move on. We've got houses
to build. We've got families to raise. We've got retirement
to prepare for. We've got all these things we
need to do. And yet none of it was working out very well. They
would plant. And they'd get some harvest,
but not what they expected. And what the Lord has said, the
reason that you're not getting, you're not reaping what you thought
you would is that I put a blight on everything, and I like the
very last thing, and on the labor of your hands. Now, we might
think that this was an act of judgment. No, it wasn't. God never ever executes judgment
against his people. But he does discipline them for
their good. This was a loving act of God
to them. What if he would have allowed
them to succeed? They would have stayed there.
They never would have gone back to building the temple. If they kept getting good crops,
If their investments kept having good returns, if whatever they
put their hands to succeeded, what would they have said? Everything's
good, everything's fine, let's just keep this way. Lord said,
that's not good for you, so I'm not gonna allow you success in
these pursuits. I can full well understand how
a believer can get in a condition where not even gospel preaching
seems to affect him. Believe it or not, that happens
to me even while I'm preaching it. You say, you preach sermons
and don't get anything out of it? Yeah. I go away from here thinking
nobody else did either. Because you kind of think, if
the preacher didn't get anything out of it, certainly none of
the listeners did. And then I'll meet one of you
all, or maybe as you're going out, and I'm sitting there thinking,
I hope they don't fire me. And one of y'all go out and say,
well, that was something, that blessed my heart. Boy, I wonder
why it didn't bless mine. I understand that. But it troubles
me deeply when a professed believer is able to find satisfaction
in something other than Christ. Goats cannot long bear with the
continual preaching of Christ, and sheep cannot long endure
the lack of it. God will not allow us, and give
thanks to his name for this, brethren. God will not allow
us to find what we're looking for from the deepest parts of
our heart. He will not let us find what
we're looking for any place other than the Lord Jesus Christ. Hey, we get distracted. And we
can have fun for a little while, and we think we have found what
is good for us, but it always ends up being less than what
we expected. And we are brought back to the
simplicity of Christ and Him crucified. How often that's happened to
me. I prepare for a message. And
I'm just telling you about me because I'm the one I know about.
Sometimes I'll prepare a message and something will catch my eye
and I look at it and I start studying it out and I go online
and look up commentators and the more I look, the more confused
I get. I got to chasing after something
that seemed really, really interesting. Really, really valuable. And
after I wore myself out, chasing down this interesting and curious
thing, I went back to the text, remembering that everything in
this book is about Christ and Him crucified. Quit looking for
something else. And quit trying to find any spiritual
satisfaction anywhere else. I remember back in Owensboro,
Kentucky one time I got to reading about the Great Pyramid. Actually, I was watching one
of these late night preachers on TV, and I watched him only
because he was a charlatan and knew it and never made anything
out of it, never tried to deny it. He was kind of an interesting
fellow, but he had this thing about the pyramid and how the
structure of it and everything was designed by God, you know,
and he pointed to a scripture where the Lord said, I'm going
to set up a memorial in the center of Egypt, you know, and he said,
and that's where the Great Pyramid is and all this kind of stuff,
and it got my attention. And I went to the library and
I got out books and I started reading. It was getting exciting
to me. For a while. For a while. I look back on that
and I go, boy how stupid. Why would you ever think God
put some kind of message in the pyramid? Here's where he put
his message so far as any kind of that's in this world and it's
always to direct us to Christ and Him crucified. The Lord is
not going to allow us to find spiritual satisfaction in fleshly
things no matter how good those fleshly things may be. All right
now the third one and we can go back to chapter 2 verse 15.
Now give careful thought to this from this day on. Consider how
things were before one stone was laid upon One stone was laid upon another
in the Lord's temple. So here they are, and at this
particular time, they're about to start laying stones. It's
been about four months since Haggai started preaching, and
the Lord stirred up their hearts, and they started making plans,
and they started getting busy, collecting things, making arrangements
to get back to the business of building the temple. And on the day when they're about
to start, The Lord says, now stop and remember, keep this
in mind, what things were like when you weren't building. We normally don't spend a whole
lot of time looking backwards, because it's usually not very
profitable. But sometimes it is. To remember
what it was like before we believed, or to remember what it was like
when for a time we got distracted and chased after other things,
thinking they could help us. Sometimes a bad example is helpful. When I first started, I say started
golfing, that makes it sound like I still am, first time I
golfed I remember it was me, and Gary, and Henry, and I think
there was one other guy, but I can't think of who it was.
It was the first time Henry came to preach. And, of course, you
know, once you get up to the green, you know, they got an order in
which you take your turns putting. Of course, everybody had to wait
for me to get to the green. But I'd get up there, and then
it'd be somebody's turn to putt. And I think it was Gary, and
he said, watch my putt and learn from it. Because you look at
that ground, I'm not really good at telling where the ball's going
to go. But you watch what someone else does, and you can learn
from it. Even if it doesn't go in the hole, if nothing else,
you learn, don't go that direction. It's not going to work. And so
we can learn. from our past when we did what
was wrong. And we can carefully consider
it and remember that path didn't work. Now they'd started laying the
foundation 16 years before that, but then they had never laid
a stone upon it. Now there's only one reason to
rejoice in a foundation. It points to a building to come. It's the beginning of a good
thing. But the foundation is not very useful by itself. Its purpose is to hold up the
building. And if there's no building, why
the foundation? Our appreciation of a foundation
comes from our expectation of the building that's going to
be set on it. Now, why would anyone stop after
they laid the foundation? Look over at Revelation chapter
2. Revelation chapter 2. And here is probably of all these
particular exhortations we're reading in the book of Haggai,
this is the one I see that I could apply to me and the one that
concerns me most about us. Not because I see anything that
would make me think this of us, it's just that I know human nature
and this is such an easy thing to happen and it happens without
us even knowing that it's happened. This is the Lord in his letter
to the church at Ephesus, and notice what he says in verse
2. I know your deeds, your hard
work, and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate
wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles
but are not, and you have found them false. You have persevered
and have endured hardships for my name and have not grown weary,
yet I hold this against you. when you read that kind of pedigree,
doesn't that sound like a church you'd want to join? Just the
things there, I mean, they have stood for the truth. They have
persevered under persecution. The Lord says there's something
missing. You have forsaken your first
love. And that's what the Jews had
done, they'd forsaken that first love. Oh, how excited they were
when they laid that foundation stone. That's the most wonderful
thing that happened in the lives of most of them. And they did it with rejoicing
as well they should have. But they forgot how wonderful
it was and moved on to something else. Do you remember what it was like at the beginning, when you first believed. Why? There was nothing other
than Christ in your eyes. And everything else you had to
do was a distraction from what you wanted. Is it still that way? Do you still hunger and thirst
for Him like you did then? We give careful consideration
to this because this is something that can happen and let's not
even realize it. Because we got the foundation
laid, we got the pattern set, And now we just keep doing it
over and over and over. Everything must be good. I mean,
here we are, 30 some years later. Now, this is something for each
person to consider with their own heart. I don't know where
you are, but I know this. We must always,
always, Seek to maintain that first love. All right, and then lastly, chapter
two, verse 18, from this day on, from this 24th day of the
ninth month, Give careful thought to the day when the foundation
of the Lord's temple was laid. Give careful thought. Is there
yet any seed left in the barn until now? The vine and the fig
tree, the pomegranate and the olive tree have not borne fruit
from this day on. I will bless you." Now, I read
that and I thought, man, that's kind of a, confusing sentence. There's a
whole lot going on in there. And then I went to my internet
references and tried to look at it in the original language
and tried to unravel it. And what it is, he's calling
us to consider two things. There's the new thing that he
wants us to consider, to stop and consider. But in the middle
of telling us about that, he reminds us of what we were already
told to consider. He used that word consider twice.
So he says, consider this, but now don't forget this. Remember,
remember what it was like when there was no stone laid upon
the foundation, how everything just wasn't working out. Keep
that in mind. Now you're about to lay stones. You're getting
ready to do it. Stop and consider this, from this day on, I will
bless you. I will bless you. Now, it would
be easy to turn this into an exhortation to religious busyness,
but it's exactly the opposite. What believers normally get distracted
by, they can get distracted by worldly things, I understand
that, but they often get distracted by religious busyness. That's
the very thing that has distracted them from what they are supposed
to be doing spiritually. What it is saying is that we
must not be satisfied with the fulfillment of religious patterns.
In order to experience the love, joy, peace, and so forth that
come from the Spirit, we must pursue Christ. Him. We don't pursue the church. We
don't pursue doctrines for themselves. We don't pursue a pattern of
worship as though there's one pattern, one way, one order of
service that's right as opposed to. We're not pursuing any of
them. We're supposed to be doing these things for the purpose
of pursuing the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me see if I can illustrate
what I mean here. Marriage is the most wonderful
human relationship there is, but it's not easy. So there have
been many books written and many seminars conducted to teach people
how to have a good marriage. But you know the problem with
that approach? It puts people on the path of
trying to make a good marriage. But in the process, they forget
what marriage is about. It's about loving someone. It's
about being in a loving and growing relationship with a person. And not all the proper marriage
strategies can make up for the failure to pursue a person with
all your heart for all your life. I remember when I first met Bonnie.
It was not soon after that that my life became a pursuit of money. That's just the way it was. I've
told you this before. I mean, I kept on doing the other
things I was supposed to do. Well, at least most of them. But everything, and I'm not lying
to you, everything was put into subjection to this. pursuing
and catching bonding. And in the second quarter in
particular, my grades suffered really bad for it. The only time
I ever got a D in college. Why? Because that's what my mind
was full of. And then we got married. And
it's so easy to think when you get married, OK, got it. And we think that we've achieved
all that needs to be done. We pursued, we caught, and we
sealed it with an I do and a ring. Now we can get back to the business
of life. If you do that, you've missed
the point of marriage. And I don't know how it is with
young women, but I know this about men, because I am one,
that's a real easy thing for us to do. We think we got everything
we were looking for, just when we got them to say I do in front
of witnesses. And we go on about building our
lives as we think it is. Well, there's some things to
do and all of that. But what happens is we forget what the
marriage was about in the first place. It was about that person
that we loved and we married them so that we could be with
them all the time and learn more about them and enter into a deeper
and more intimate relationship for the rest of our lives. That's
what a marriage is supposed to be. And when it's not about that,
it becomes dull. And it becomes unsatisfying. And there are a lot of people,
believers, who get so busy, so busy with church and reading
their Bibles and listening to other preachers on the internet
and all this. They get so busy doing that, they forget what
all of it was for. What did Paul say in Philippians
3? that he counted everything garbage
in comparison to the excellency of knowing Christ. And for that
privilege, he had willingly and gladly given up everything. And that was not a one-time event.
He goes on to say, that I may know him. Well, Paul, don't you
already know him? Yeah. But I'm not done. There's more to know. There's
more to enjoy in repeats of what I already know. All that we do
here week by week, you know what it's for? It's a way to pursue
Christ. If we don't do that, there's
no use doing this. And if we're not doing that,
it doesn't matter how much of what else we do, we're going
to be dissatisfied. A story was told, I remember
Henry using this illustration, a little boy was seen walking down the sidewalk
and he was carrying a bunch of books. There were more books
than he could really handle. He was having a hard time with
it. And the older man said, what you doing there, fella? He said,
well, I'm taking home my school books. I said, oh. He says, you
learning anything? He said, learning anything? I'm
too busy going to school to learn anything. I'm too busy going to church
to pursue Christ. I'm too busy reading my Bible
to pursue Christ. I'm too busy trying to be happy. to pursue Christ and find my
joy in Him. I am too busy trying to be good
and glorify Christ to stop, pursue Him with all my heart, find all
my righteousness in Him, and glorify Him simply. by my dedicated
pursuit of him. Paul said, I press on. I forget
the things that are behind. They may have been good. What we've done so far is fine,
but he said, but I'm not stopping here. I'm pressing on. That I
may lay hold of that for which God laid hold of me. And what's
that? Perfect. Complete. unhindered
relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. The Jews quit building
the temple. And yet that temple was where
God dwelt among them. And without it, nothing else
they had. Not the city of Jerusalem, not the land of Canaan, none
of that other stuff mattered without that temple. And if we leave off the main thing, will
not be satisfied. But here's what he says now.
From this day, when your hearts are devoted to Christ, and we're
not talking about eternal blessings, we're talking about the experience
of them, the enjoyment of those things we have in Christ. He
says, for this day on, I will bless you. What did the Lord
say? Seek ye first the kingdom of
God. its righteousness, and all these things will be added to
you. We can safely, radically pursue Christ. Just about anything else you
get radical about, it's going to hurt you. But you can be radical
in your pursuit of Christ, and it will do you nothing but good.
Now, just a couple of words of encouragement the Lord gives
in all of this. Chapter 1 verse 13, after Haggai delivered his message. So then Haggai, the Lord's messenger,
gave this message of the Lord to the people. I am with you. What does he say? Yeah, y'all
gave up on building the temple. You laid the foundation, then
got busy with other things. And it cost you some things in
this life. All the things you pursued, I
struck them with a blight so that you wouldn't get anything
out of them, but I'm with you. I haven't left. I haven't left. It's also good, he says, I am
with you because now they're turning their hands to the work
of pursuing him. He says, I'll be with you in
that. We can't do this from our own
strength, brethren, but the Lord is with us. Secondly, look at
chapter two, verse six. This is what the Lord Almighty
says, in a little while I will once more shake the heavens and
the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations
and the desire of all nations will come. And I will fill this
house with glory, says the Lord Almighty. The silver is mine
and the gold is mine, declares the Lord Almighty. The glory
of this present house will be greater than the glory of the
former house, says the Lord Almighty. And in this place I will grant
peace, declares the Lord Almighty. So what's he telling those Jews?
He says, you start building. Because there's coming a day
when I want to shake things again. And when I do shake the heavens and
the earth, the desired of all nations will come. Who's that?
That's the Lord Jesus. So not everybody desires Him,
yeah, but people from every nation do. He's desired by somebody
and every nation there is. He will come. And he says, the
glory of this house will exceed the glory of the former one.
Now, that couldn't possibly be applied to the temple they were
building, because they did not build a temple as good as Solomon
had. In fact, when you read about
it, it says that when they laid the foundation, which laid the
outside of it, Some of the people wept. Some of those who remembered
Solomon's temple wept. And they said, this is nothing compared to what Solomon had.
So what temple must the Lord be speaking of? Christ. And he's saying to us, you keep
building. You keep building on that foundation
which was laid. You keep pursuing Christ. Because
from here on out, things only get better. Maybe not in this life. I mean,
the things of this life, they may get worse. In fact, they
will. They'll get so bad, someday you'll die. That's not what he's
talking about. We go from grace to grace. And in time. We are gonna be
with him and like him, and you know what? You're still gonna
keep getting better. You cannot pursue Christ and
gain nothing from it. And so he says, it may look to
you in all your efforts that what is being built is nothing. He said, I'm going to shake things
up. And this is going to be the best
thing there ever was. You pursue Christ. And you will be amazed at the
glories that God will reveal. In this last thing in chapter
two, verse nine. Right at the end. In this place. In Christ and Him crucified,
in this place, I will grant peace. You know why we get troubled
in heart? And I do. I'm not preaching this like I've
achieved this. I haven't. But you can count on it. When
your heart is unduly troubled, it's because you're not in that
place. That's why. There's peace in
Christ. And the more we are consciously
aware of our presence there, because we're pursuing the Lord
with all our hearts, the less the things of this world can
disturb us. That make sense to you? Now, are we all gonna go out
from here? Okay, from now on, it's just upward and onward.
No, we're gonna lay a stone, get distracted. The Lord will
have to say, get back. Pursue me. Do the things you
have to do in this world, but make you about pursuing me. He says, and I guarantee you,
you'll have peace. and things will just keep getting better. Isn't that good news? It sure blessed me when I studied.
I hope it blessed you in the hearing of it. You can take out your hymnals
and turn them to number 45. Ye servants.