And when they got there, they
began to work. And just in a matter of weeks,
they managed to get the foundation of the temple laid. Just in a
matter of weeks. You can imagine nearly 50,000
people, 45,000 workers. I mean, they were engaged in
this work. And this was a great building.
And it was huge stones. I want you to think about it.
There's so many facts in this, I'm not going to remember them
all. But I'll try to convey to you a few of the things that
I saw here. Number one is that foundation
was not replaced with new stones. They used the same stones. And
if you know anything at all about our spiritual foundation, it
was the testimony of the prophets and apostles. That's our foundation. foundation of this temple. Those
stones were shipped there. Those stones were brought there,
and they were carved out exactly when Solomon first built the
temple. And again, these same stones are being reused to reassemble
the temple. And they worked on it for two
weeks, and they got the foundation done. Then just as quickly as they
jumped in and began to work, the work stopped. Everybody just
quit and went home. Got the foundation laid, and they stopped. And it stayed stopped for nearly
15 years. So the Lord sent to them the
prophet Haggai and Zechariah and Malachi over a period of
time. Haggai was the first to expose
their indifference and to expose their apathy and to motivate
them with the sweet promises of God to finish the work on
this temple which they had been granted the privilege of doing. Now remember, God sent Nebuchadnezzar,
the Babylonian king, down to take them into captivity because
of their idolatry and indifference and apathy there. And he come
in and destroyed Jerusalem, tore down the walls, leveled the temple,
and took them into captivity for 70 years. So almost every
adult had died in captivity. And these that are coming here
are coming here with the knowledge that was granted them of their
fathers. They'd never known anything but
captivity. So what I hope to do in this
this morning is to show you the connection of these things to
us and the importance of this temple and its connection with
Christ and the glory of God. Now in order to do this, I want
you to understand that these things which we are reading are
figurative things. These are things that picture
something else. They are real. There was real
reasons to restore this temple. All of these things are real,
but the gist of it and its connection to us is very figurative and
typical. And they picture the things of
our day and the things that's going on right now. The first
thing I want you to see is that the Babylonian captivity is a
picture of our captivity under sin. In the book of Revelations, he
talks about two beasts. The one beast is false religion. The other beast is the governments
of this world being influenced by false religion. So that these
two beasts associate one with the other. And God uses both
of them for our good and his glory. He allows these beasts
to continue for a reason. And so it was that he used this
Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, and all the successions of the
kings after him, all the way up to the King Darius. And when
Daniel's prophecy of the 70 years had drawn nigh to a close, all
of a sudden the king has a change in heart and sends 50,000 of
them back to their home. He gives them, I don't know,
you can read over in the book of Nehemiah, it has the whole,
in Ezra, it has the whole thing, all of the stuff that he gave
to them, the camels and the ashes and the horses and the food and
the materials, and even said everything that was south of
the river, all the taxes that was collected was to go to them
to pay them to do this work. And isn't that true? We're in
this world and this world punishes us with everything we need. By
whose command? Who granted this privilege to
us? God did. God did, just as he did to them. There are two books in the New
Testament that really assist us to understand the Old Testament
types and figures. The book of Hebrews. Paul wrote
this book of Hebrews, being a Hebrew himself, to show them these types
and figures and shadows and patterns. If you read Hebrews chapter 9,
you'll see exactly what I'm saying. Patterns of things in the heavens,
figures for a time then present, and so on. The law having a shadow,
good things to come. But in Revelation 17.5, John
tells us that Antichrist religion goes by this name, Mystery Babylon
the Great. This Babylonian king and this
Babylonian government, this Babylonian captivity, is very figurative
of false religion and false government. This was an evil king. He hated
the Jews. He came down and just obliterated
Jerusalem. Just wiped it off the face of
the map. There was nothing left there but ruin. And I don't think any of the
Jews, as I mentioned to you before, who were released from captivity
to go down into, released from that Babylonian rule to go back
down to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple were born before captivity. I think they were born in captivity,
and what a picture of us. See, this is that first hurdle,
that first stone that revelation has to get you over. I can't
do it. I can tell you about it, but I can't make you believe
it. I can just show it to you. God
the Holy Ghost is the one who can give you that strength and
ability to go over these hurdles. And the first hurdle is this,
that we're born in captivity. We don't have any rights except
those that are given to us. And we don't know we're in captivity.
The one who holds us in captivity don't know we're in captivity.
Our government, they don't see us as being captives. No government does. They don't
recognize what God's doing in this world. It's the laughing
stock of this world. It's just a pipe dream to this
world. It's just an imagination, men's
imaginations. But we're born in captivity.
And people talk about religious people, talk about a free will.
You don't have a free will. Imagine yourself being in captivity. Imagine yourself being locked
in a cell, a 12 by 12. You're free. You can go anywhere
you want to inside that cell, but you can't come out of that
cell. Now we're in captivity to sin. We're followers. You hath he
quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins when in time past you
walked according to the course of this world. You walked according
to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now worketh
in the children of disobedience. Well, I've never seen myself
walking according to Satan. That's just another evidence
of your captivity, that you don't see it. You don't see it. But it's true. Those who were
born in captivity didn't know anything about true freedom,
did they? They were told what to do, what
to think. Well, aren't we? Some of you were granted the
privilege of being raised in the house of God, hearing the
truth. Some of you weren't. I wasn't. I grew up in religion. I was told what to believe, told
how to think, told who God is. and lied to the whole time. When
I began to read the Word of God, the God of this Bible was nothing
like the God that they were projecting. Nothing like it. Man, he's got
all this ability and he's got all... I didn't have that ability. I've been lied to. I don't ask
you to take my word for it. I'm telling you to look in this
book. Let every man be a liar and God
be true. This is very figurative of us
being born under the curse of sin and the deceit of ungodly
religion and the basic principles, the rudimentary principles that
Paul talks about in Colossians 2. Beware lest any man spoil
you through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of
men, after the rudiments of this world. He's talking about basic
principles of this world. Think about the aftermath of
this Babylonian power. The things of God were in total
ruin. You think you can go down here
to First Baptist Church and hear the truth? I challenge you, go down there
and see. You ain't gonna hear the truth. You're not gonna hear
the truth. Go down to the Methodist church.
Go down to whatever one you want. Just pick one out. Pick out an
independent. Pick out a denominational. Pick
out whichever one you want. Go down there and see if what
they're saying is according to this book. It's not. The things of God were in ruin,
especially the temple. It lay flattened on the ground. Well, what's that got to do anything?
You didn't worship God outside that temple. That's where God
was worshiping. You come to Jerusalem to worship.
That woman at the well, that Samaritan woman that Christ went
to, she said, you guys worship in Jerusalem, and we worship
in these mountains. You know who the people were
that gave Israel all the trouble under Haggai when they were building
that temple? Do you know who they were? Samaritans. They had the mixed idolatry of
the old kings. And they mixed it with the word
of God and they called it worship. And they hated these Jews because
the Jews wouldn't let them have any part in rebuilding this temple.
And we're building a temple. It's a spiritual temple, and
I'll show you that in a minute. But I can't let somebody who
don't know the truth come in here and work on building this
temple. I can't do it. He can't do it. Listen to this. Under Babylonian
rule, the Jews said this, Psalm 137. They said, by the rivers
of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. They sat there and thought about
the city and the temple and the worship of God and all the things
that God had given to them. And they sat there and they wept.
And they said, we hanged our harps upon the willows in the
midst of the river for these that carried us away captive
required of us a song. Here you are in captivity and
the preacher's telling you to sing. Come on, sing to us. Sing us a song of Zion. Huh? They required of us mirth. Be joyful. And they said, sing
unto us one of the songs of Zion. And the believer said, how shall
we sing the Lord's song in a strange country? How are we gonna do
that? Now I'm sure the children born there were taught the truth
as best their parents were able, yet they grew up being surrounded
by idolatry and mixed religion. So before coming, and even when
they arrived, Ezra took the book of God, Nehemiah 8, verse 8. All the servants of Ezra read
in the book of the law of God distinctly. Huh? Distinctly. And gave the sense. Told you what that law figured. Told you what that sacrifice
was for. laid the foundation clear, made
the way of God clear and plain to the people. He gave them the
sense, and he caused them to understand the reading. Isn't that what every pastor
does? Huh? That's what we labor to
do. The sense of the law is not the
letter of it, but the teaching of it, what it means, What is
its significance? Well, the law is a shadow, Paul
said, of good things to come. The reason God gave this law,
it was a figure for the time then present. There was a priest
involved, picturing the priesthood of Christ. There was a sacrifice
involved, picturing the sacrifice of Christ. There was blood shed,
picturing the blood that Christ would shed. You see what I'm
saying? It's figurative, right down to the details. Atonement
was made, offered in the holy place before God. And Christ
entered in, not by the blood of bulls and goats, but by His
own blood He entered into heaven once, having obtained eternal
redemption for us. All of these things are figurative
of that, and that's what Ezra was doing. He was pointing out
to them the sense of it, causing them to understand what they
read. And then the Jews began to work,
and they quit, and God sent this prophet down, and he pointed
out to them their sins, and exhorted them to continue on in the work,
and he did so by telling them four things. Four times in the
book of Haggai, Haggai tells them to consider. Twice he said,
consider your ways, and twice he said, consider my house. In Haggai 1.5 and Haggai 1.7,
he tells them to consider their ways. Then in Haggai 2 verses
15 and 18, he tells them to consider his house. So let's look at these
words and see if the Lord will motivate us as he did them to
the Lord's work. In verse 5, he's answering what
he just stated in the above verses. their indifference and apathy
to the things of God, and especially to his house. Now they had an
excuse. Anybody who don't want to do
the work of God has an excuse. If he's a religious man, he finds
a religious excuse. He'll hunt through here and find
something to justify his sins. Our Lord told the scribes and
Pharisees, you are they who justify themselves. Everything you do,
you have a reason, and you point here to it. And so they told
him the prophecy of Daniel hadn't come. It's not time to build
the temple yet. The full 70 years is not up. What didn't keep you from laying
the foundation? And then he reminds them of this. He said, you're working on your
house, on your house. You're worried about your own
creature comfort, you're down here putting a new living room
on and a new roof on, you're living in sealed houses, God
said, and mine's laying down there in waste. This prophecy
of Daniel had to do with your house as well as my house. But my house comes first. So
he, He don't say, well, you got a good point there, guys. Y'all
just go ahead and get your house done, then we'll go back. No,
no, no, no. Not God's prophet. God's prophet
takes his thumb, puts it on the sword, and just twists it. He
said, you consider this. You consider this. Oh, my. Indifference and apathy
to the things of God, and especially to his house. Now unless I'm not reading correctly,
they were given animals to work and to sacrifice and all the
furnishings of the temple and even wages to live on while they
did this work. But they used these things not
to build the house of God, but to build their own homes. They'd been chosen specifically
to rebuild the temple. That's why they were sent. This
was the priority, this was the purpose for them being where
they are. Now let me show you something. God's people he chose in Christ,
his church, his elect, his bride, are the temple. I'm gonna show you that. Turn
with me to Ephesians chapter two. I want you to take my word
for this. I want to show it to you in the
word of God. In the book of Ephesians, after
he gets through those classic verses that I quote to you so
often, by grace are you saved through faith and that not of
yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man
should boast. Were his workmanship created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them. Then he tells these people, this
Gentile church, he said, I want you to remember where God found
you. You were Gentiles. You were heathens. You didn't know God. You was
religious, but you didn't know God. Most of you were idolaters,
if not every one of you. You was in this world without
God. You didn't have any covenants.
Gentiles don't have any covenants. God made covenants with Israel.
He said you didn't have any of these things. And then he tells
them how he made them one with Israel before God. And he did
it in the person of his son. And you were foreigners. Aliens from the commonwealth
of Israel. Now look here in verse 19. He
said he came and he preached the gospel to you, he enlightened
you, and he said, now therefore, verse 19, you're no more strangers
and foreigners, you're fellow citizens with the saints and
of the household of God. And you're built upon the foundation
of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the
chief cornerstone, in whom all the buildings fitly framed together,
groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord. This is the temple. Now there is a sense in which
you can say Christ is the temple. He told them, he said, tear this
temple down, I'll build it back again in three days, talking
about himself. And when he rose from the dead,
that temple rose with him. He's the temple, but we're all
in him. Built up, Paul said, in him.
In Him. We're laid upon the living stone,
Peter says. And in Christ the cornerstone,
He connects the old to the new. And from Him, through Him, we
can see all the way back to the beginning. We can see that foundation
clear back to the garden. And even beyond. And then we
can turn around and look this way, and we can see it all the
way to the end of time. He's the cornerstone. Peter talks
about this in 1 Peter 2, if you wanna look over there. In verse
4, and he's talking about Christ, he said, to whom coming as unto
a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and
precious. Verse 5, ye also as living stones
are built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to offer
up sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. There is a spiritual
temple of which this old temple was just a figure. You see what
I'm saying? And there's many more scriptures
in here about this. This is the work we're called
to do and the reason for us being delivered out of bondage. We're
left in this world, as I told you in the Sunday school lesson,
there's no other reason for us to be here except that. The moment
faith is given you and you trust Christ, you're as ready for heaven
as you're ever gonna be. All of your merits for heaven
are all in Christ and you believe on him, trust in him, you're
as ready for heaven as you're ever gonna be. You're not getting
more and more holy while you're here. You're as holy as God in
Christ. You're as righteous as God in
Christ and outside of Christ, What are we? Nothing. Nothing. But God left us here. He's not going to leave us in
this world one minute longer than what's absolutely necessary.
So why did he leave us here? Work on this temple. And it's
not a work that you're a laborsome thing. It is a laborsome thing,
but it's not. It's kind of like fishing. I
love to fish. I used to go up to Canada and
I'd tell you we'd have to drag that boat and all of our supplies
down over beaver dams and drag them down here and then paddle
through the weeds and sometimes have to get out and pull the
boat and then you finally you get back there after about two
hours and you get back on the lake and you fish. You come in,
I'm telling you, I didn't work that hard when I worked at my
regular job, but it wasn't like work to me. I was having a ball
because I loved to do it. And that's the way it is with
the building of this temple, when you're rightly motivated,
when you understand what you're doing. Is it laborsome? Yes. Is it sacrificial? Yes. But you love to do it. You love
to do it. God's not saved us so we can
lay up vain inheritances for our children or live in luxury
in this world, but to work on his temple. That's why we're
here. This is the priority. This is
the reason for us being assembled here. And then secondly, he tells
us again to consider our ways in the light of his providence.
Our God rules over all things, including providence. Even the
everyday providence that unfolds before us. And we in this country
have a unique opportunity in God's providence to preach his
gospel in a rare form of freedom. You think about what I just said. There's nobody out there with
a machine gun this morning. Huh? Not yet. There's nobody out there protesting.
We're in here in a rare form of freedom, preaching the gospel
of Christ. Israel under King Darius was
granted a rare privilege to go about the Lord's work unhindered. The king said, let the work of
this house alone. That's what he, all his governors.
Now we're talking about a sovereign. And he didn't suggest, he ordered.
And he wrote to all his governors and all the secondary kings and
he said, let the work of this house alone. Let the governor
of the Jews, Zerubbabel, and the elders of the Jews, build
this house of God in his place. Moreover, I make a decree that
ye shall do to the elders of the Jews for the building of
this house of God, that of the king's goods, even of the tribute
beyond the river, forthwith expenses be given unto these men that
they be not hindered. Brethren, we have this opportunity
in this country to preach this gospel unhindered. That's what they were doing.
That's what they were doing. God has given to us in his bounty
compared to other places. It's just unfathomable. You just have to get out. You
got to go out there and see some of that stuff to actually believe.
There are people in Mexico. I went down there to preach years
ago. Went out with our missionary down there. And you preached
in these thatched huts. And a full grown adult is only
about that tall. And the babies just look like
little baby dolls. They're so little. And they weave
hammocks to fit them all. And they get inside this little
thatched hut that's about maybe 10 by 10 or 10 by 12. And that's
where they all live, six or seven of them live in there. And then
the yard is the house. And they have a little fireplace
out there, and that's where they cook, and that's where everything
else that goes on goes on out there. They just come in here
to sleep. Well, that place gets slammed
with hurricanes. Can you imagine living in a thatched
hut with your family and your children out in the jungle of
Mexico? When a hurricane hits, we've got nice warm houses. This
blizzard hit, there's been a catastrophe of unequal proportion for this
part of the country. I forget how many have died during
this. What a privilege. What a privilege. the privilege to preach this
gospel basically unhindered. Now, I know religious people
don't like it, don't believe it. That's just the way it is. That's just the way it is. Therefore, in the light of this
great privilege, let us consider our ways. This is what God's
saying to them. Think about where you are, how
you got here, what you've been given. You take note of my providence
that has attended you, and you consider your ways." Well, what
are our ways? They are the fundamental principles
that we live by. They are the very basis of the
tenor of our lives. As a man believes, that's the
way he walks, that's the way he lives, that's the way he works
every day of his life, based on what he believes. And what
are these principles for the believer? Love. We love him because
he first loved us. Grace. Thanksgiving. Gratitude of the heart. Kindness. Indebtedness to God. And we also have an understanding
of his will. he hath abounded toward us in
all wisdom and knowledge, having made known unto us his will. And then in chapter two, Haggai
tells us in verse 15 to consider the building of his house in
the light of your own filthiness, that corrupt and wicked place
out of which God has delivered us. You think about that when
you consider my house. I could have left you in bondage.
I could have left you in Babylon. I could have not touched the
heart of that king. What's it say over in Proverbs? Huh? The heart of the king is
in the hand of the Lord. He turneth it whithersoever he
will, just like the rivers of water. Just like that river has
direction from God, so does that king. And he can turn his heart
one way or the other. You consider that when you consider
my house. Consider where I found you and
what I did for you. Haggai 112, if one bear holy
flesh, this is what Haggai asked him. He said, if one bear holy
flesh in the skirt of his garment and with his skirt do touch bread
or pottage or wine or oil or any meat. Now he's asking this
of these Jewish priests. He said, shall it be holy? If
this sanctified flesh is mixed with anything, is it still holy?
And the priest answered and said, no, no. Then said Haggai, if one that
is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priest answered and said,
it shall be unclean. Then answered Haggai and said,
so is this people. And so is this nation before
me, saith the Lord. And so is every work of their
hands, and that which they offer there is unclean. When you consider my house, you
consider yourself. I've granted to you sinners the
privilege, the ability, the wherewithal to build my house. You consider
that. While you're laying up in your
house trying to get that new easy chair reupholstered and
get that ceiling all decorated up and get that turkey out of
the oven, you think about what I'm telling you. My house is
laying down there in total ruin. And that's the whole reason I
granted you the privilege of being here. And as for you, everything you
do is unclean without me. Everything. So you consider who have been
given the privilege to restore the house of God, your own sin
and wickedness and rebellion, and your Savior who has forgiven
you and is forgiving you daily. Couldn't we think about this?
He said, before you lay one stone on the other, you consider, you
consider this. And then lastly, he'll have us
to consider his house and the worship within with the blessedness
he promises in connection with it. Do you know that this old
temple, why would God even have that temple rebuilt? Solomon's
temple was torn down. It was just laying there in total
ruin. Why would he tell his people to go rebuild that temple? They
did nothing but profane it from the beginning. They'd bring in
their sick sacrifices and old sheep that couldn't be used anymore,
and they were trying to bring that in and pawn it off on God.
They were abusing that temple. trying to mix idolatry in with
the things that God had figured in this temple. And he caused
that temple to be obliterated. But now God's gonna build it
back. Why? I'll tell you why. Because after 400 and a few odd
years after this temple was built, Jesus Christ was born. And Mary,
his mother, brought him to where? The temple. Huh? To do with him according to the
law. And there was an old fellow there,
his name was Simeon. And God revealed to him late
in his life that he'd not see death till he seen the Lord's
Christ. And I guarantee you, he was at that temple every day
looking. And one day he looked out there
and God revealed to him who he was. And he went over there and
he said, can I hold that baby? They handed Jesus Christ to him
and he held him up in his hand. And he said, Lord, now let us
thy servant depart. I've seen your salvation. He goes on, Haggai does, and
tells him in this temple, They got all upset about the temple
because it was nothing compared to Solomon's temple. And they
got all down in the heart. This is just nothing. Man, you
look back there and you see the glory of Solomon's temple and
all the hundreds and hundreds of sacrifices at the dedication
and all of these things to that temple. This thing was a, it
wouldn't be a pimple on that original temple. But God said,
I'm going to show more glory in that temple than I did in
that one. because I'm gonna put my son
in that temple. And in that temple he taught,
he was seen, he was acknowledged, huh? And then he promises this,
he said, tear that temple down, which they did in 70 AD. But
he said in three days I'm gonna raise up a temple that's gonna
put that one and the first one to shame. And I'm the temple. And I'm going to call you, and
I'm going to let you right in that temple. I'm going to let
you right in that temple. Oh. They got so despondent over that
old temple. And so it is in this spiritual
temple. Sometimes we look at these little congregations and
we look back there in the book of Acts and we see 5,000 this
day being saved and 3,000 on this day being added to the church
and all these Gentiles coming into the church of God and we're
seeing all this great glory and we look around here at a handful
of people and we get despondent. What we're not considering is
him who is revealed in this temple. He's the temple, he's the glory.
It's the glory of Christ. That's the significance of the
temple. The glory of Christ. And it was
so in those temples, and it is in this one. He's the glory of
it. He's the glory of it. Oh, may
God teach us this. help us to understand and see
these figurative things back here as they are in the light
of his gospel. All right, thank you.