God sent his prophet Haggai to
deliver a specific sermon. A sermon to his priest. A sermon that was given specifically
for those men who spent their lives in or around the temple
of God, engaged in the worship and service of God. The sermon
is recorded in Haggai chapter 2, verses 10 through 19. This
message was designed specifically for and directed specifically
to God's priesthood. I take that to mean this is God's
message to me personally. After all, I am a priest, you
know. No, I don't wear one of those funny-looking collars,
and I don't perform the ceremonies of those who pretend to be priests.
But the Scripture tells me plainly that Christ has made me a priest
unto God. If you believe on the Son of
God, you are a part of those people He calls a royal priesthood. So you should take this message
specifically and very personally as a message from God for you.
This is God's message to his priest. God's prophets in those
days didn't give titles to their messages. So I've titled Haggai's
message, Every Work Unclean Yet Blessed. Now hear the word of
the Lord by his prophet Haggai. Haggai chapter 2 verse 10. In
the four and twentieth day of the ninth month, in the second
year of Darius, came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet,
saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts. Ask now the priest concerning
the law, saying, If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his
garment, and with his skirt do touch bread, or wine, or oil,
or any meat, shall it be holy? And the priest answered and said,
No. Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body
touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priest answered
and said, It shall be unclean. 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. And now I pray
you, consider from this day and upward, from before a stone was
laid upon a stone in the temple of the Lord, since those days
were, when one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were
but ten. When one came to a press to draw
out fifty vessels out of the press, there were but twenty.
I smote you with blasting, and with mildew, and with hail, in
all the labors of your hands. Yet ye turned not to me, saith
the Lord. Consider now from this day upward,
and from the four and twentieth day of the ninth month, even
from the day that the foundation of the Lord's temple was laid.
Consider it. Is the seed yet in the barn?
Yea, as yet the vine and the fig tree and the pomegranate
and the olive tree hath not brought forth. From this day will I bless
you." What a solemn, alarming message this is. condemning every
work of our hands as unclean. The Lord has been urging these
people by His prophets Haggai and Zechariah to build again
His house. And now He tells them, these
priests who are engaged in building His house, every time you touch
anything in this house, you pollute it. That's not really encouraging,
is it? You attempt to build my house according to the commandment
that I've given you, but everything you do pollutes my house. The
prophet is talking here about the very best works that men
perform. Relating it to you and myself,
he's talking about our religious services, our worship, our sacrifices
to God. Yet the very last word he gives
in this message The Lord God says, from this day, from the
day that you recognize here that the seed's still in the barn,
and there's no fruit from the fig tree, and no fruit from the
olive, and no fruit from the pomegranate, when you recognize
that everything is empty, from this day, I will bless you. Now, when I read that, I couldn't
help but to ask, from what day? So I went back and read the sermon
again to see if I could find out what day he's talking about.
And it didn't take long to discover it. Let's go back and read the
sermon again. When is it that the Lord God
will bless His people and never cease to bless them? When will
the Lord God open heaven and pour out the blessings of His
mercy and grace upon us in a manifest way. We who are His have always
been the objects of His blessing. He blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ before the world began.
But when will He manifestly pour out His blessings upon His own?
There are four things here. Number one, that day is marked
by this. The day we discover that our
best works, our most holy deeds, are of no more profit to our
souls, that our best performances are of no more benefit to our
souls before God Almighty than our most obscene, vile lust and
our most obscene and vile acts of corruption. That's tough to take. That's
tough to take. But God says concerning those
who come to Him and worship in His house without faith in Christ
and pretend to be His own, He said you're just as well off
for a man's blood as off of the blood of a lamb. I'll take murder
just as quickly as I'll take the sacrifice. From the day that
you recognize that the best thing you do is just filthy rags before
God. That the best works you perform
are of no more benefit to your soul than the vilest thoughts
of your heart. From that day, the Lord God will
pour out His unceasing blessedness upon you. Haggai asked these
priests, if one bear holy flesh in his skirt, In the skirt of
his garment, they wore these long robes, and they carried
the sacrifices in the skirt of the garments. And he bumps into
a table of bread, or he rubs up against a glass of wine, or
he hits some other thing over here. Will that make those things
holy? Idiots seem to think so. There
are some people who will actually tell you that eating this bread
and drinking this wine at the Lord's table will communicate
grace to you. It'll make you holy. This is
a means of grace. There are some folks who will
actually tell you that being baptized will communicate grace
to you. It'll make you better. There
are folks who will actually tell you what you... How many times
have you made this kind of stupid, stupid comment, what you need
to do is get in church. That'll make you better. Now
it'll make you worse. It'll make you worse. If we bump
up against something while we're carrying something holy, would
that make it holy? No. No. And he asked this according
to the law. And then he asked one other question.
Okay. All right. If a man who's unclean because
he's touched a dead body should bump into something, would that
make it unclean? And he's referring to the law
given in Numbers chapter 19. And the priest said, yes, it'll
make it unclean. It'll be unclean. Because that
which touches the unclean body is defiled. And everything that
the unclean touches, he defiles. So here's the second thing. This
day when God will visit His people in grace and pour out His blessing
is marked by the fact that we're made to see that every work of
our hands is unclean. and we pollute God's altar by
our sacrifices. Oh, God calls you to see and calls me continually to see. Everything we touch we defile. Everything. I've never come into
a contact with a human being that I have not in some way or
another harmed. Not one. Not one. You either. I've never done anything. I've never said a prayer or thought
it. I've never read the scriptures.
I've never had a thought in my mind, an emotion in my heart
that was not polluted before God because it arises from a
polluted, vile, cesspool of iniquity. My own heart. It comes from that
which is unclean by reason of unceasing contact with a dead
thing. And that dead thing is fallen
humanity. Third, in the day that our will
is broken before God, and we're made to see and acknowledge
our obstinate rebellion, when we're compelled by His grace
to acknowledge the justice of His judgment upon us, the rightness
of His condemnation, and confess our sin from that day, the Lord
will bless you. Look at verse 15. Now I pray
you consider from this day upward from before a stone was laid
upon the stone in the temple of the Lord. Since those days
were when one came to a heap of 20 measures and there were
but 10. When one came to the press that
to draw out 50 vessels out of the press, there were but 20.
I smote you with blasting and with mildew and with hail in
all the labors of your hands. Everything you did, I smacked
it down. Everything. And what'd you do? You just bowed up and you just
pressed on. Yet, ye turn not to me, saith
the Lord. When you come to recognize your
obstinate rebellion, and you're forced to give up, when your will is broken, and
you bow to God, then he pours out his blessing. Not till then. All of you know Ann likes food
with horses. The lady who sent you the saddle
and bridle stuff used to be in church here. She and her dad
raised show horses. And you know how they trained
them? They gentled them. They gentled them because they
didn't want to break the spirits. They just wanted to get them
to show. So they gentled the horses. That's
not the way God deals with men. That's the way religion deals
with them. Religion gentles folks and gets them to walk in this
direction and prance this way. God Almighty rides you till he
breaks you. And He won't have you till He
breaks you. Oh, but when you're broken, He
pours out His blessing on you and never ceases. Here's the
fourth thing that marks that day. In that day, the Lord God
graciously forces us to see and acknowledge that we are utterly,
completely, totally helpless before Him. incapable of producing
one good thing. And when we recognize, I give up. God, I've tried to please you,
and I've tried to change, and I've tried to do better, and
I can't do anything. Now you got it. Now, God says,
I'll pour out a blessing on you, and it'll never cease. when you
see that the seed's still in the barn. You've been working
and God blasted the labors of your hands and the seed's still
in the barn. How do you expect to get anything
out of that? There's no fruit on the trees, nothing budding,
nothing brings forth life because you can't produce one good thing. You can't do it. Haggai used
the symbolism of uncleanness as it is used throughout Moses'
law and throughout the scriptures. to set forth the filth and the
pollution of our souls by nature. The smiting, the blasting, the
mildews, the hail are expressions of great trouble. Trouble brought
upon us because of our iniquity and justly so. But from the day
the temple of God is erected in our souls, From the day that
Jesus Christ comes in to reign, from the day that the Son of
God casts Satan out, binds the strong man, and casts him out,
and takes up rule in our souls, from that day everything is changed. Temporal, spiritual, eternal
blessings are ours forever. God comes in that day to bless
you. Oh, may this be that day for
your soul. He gives Christ to be our portion. And having Christ as our portion,
we have all things in Him. And Christ is the portion upon
which we live in time and live to all eternity. Now, turn to
Titus chapter 1. Hold your hands here. I put a
bookmark here. We'll be back in just a little bit. gives us a very short but a superb
commentary on Haggai's sermon in one sentence. Titus chapter
1 verse 15. Here's the Spirit's commentary
on Haggai's sermon. I'll wait for you to get there.
Titus chapter 1 verse 15. Unto the pure all things are
pure. But unto them that are defiled
and unbelieving is nothing pure, but even their mind and conscience
is defiled. In every congregation where men
and women gather to worship God as we have tonight, in every
assembly of God's saints, there are both the defiled and the
pure, both the goats and the sheep, both the tares and the
wheat, wherever they are. And our Lord tells us plainly,
don't try to change that. All you'll do is make a mess.
Let both grow together until the harvest time. But in the
end of the world, the Lord will send his angels, and they will
gather his wheat into his garner, and they will bind up the tares
for the burning. That's what we do in the preaching
of the gospel. God's messengers proclaim the
gospel of his grace, and he separates the chaff from the wheat. He
binds up the tares for the burning. He separates the sheep from the
goats, and he gathers his wheat into his garner. Unto the pure,
Paul says, all things are pure. But unto them that are defiled
and unbelieving is nothing pure, but even their mind and conscience
is defiled. Let me explain this verse to
you, and as I do, I'll explain Haggai's sermon, and you decide
whether you are among the pure or the defiled. Don't try to decide as somebody
else is. That's not your business. That's
not your work, and it's not mine. You decide whether you are pure
or defiled. First Paul tells us that some
people are pure. Some of you that I'm looking
at are pure. Really and truly pure. Pure not in your own eyes but
in the eyes of God and pure in the eyes of the honest judgment
of your brethren. Unto the pure all things are
pure. Well, who are these who are pure? None of those who imagine they
are pure are pure. The Pharisee is like the harlot. The harlot is pictured in Proverbs
chapter 7. In fact, I'm convinced the harlot
and the Pharisee, the harlot in Proverbs 7 and the Pharisee
is one and the same. The harlot, she wipes her mouth
and says, I've done nothing wrong. We see that every day in our
society, people behave in base, vile, profligate immorality,
but they call evil good and good evil, and they say, well, there's
nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that.
I've done nothing wrong. God speaks of it with regard to religious
works. Those who try to make themselves
pure by legal works and religious ceremonies are never pure. They
alone are pure. who are justified from all sin
by Christ's righteousness, made clean through the word or the
sentence of the absolute forgiveness spoken to them, those who are
washed from their sins in his blood and have that blood sprinkled
on their consciences, they are purged and cleansed from all
sin and they have the clean water of sanctification and regeneration
sprinkled upon them by the Spirit of God. They've been made pure
by grace. Now be sure you understand three
things here. Every believer is made pure by grace alone. Absolutely pure. We are made
pure by having our sins blotted out in the blood redemption of
Jesus Christ the Lord. Our Lord Jesus, when he died
at Calvary, did not make it possible for our sins to be blotted out.
He blotted them out. He did not make it possible for
somebody to be redeemed. He actually redeemed His elect.
And our sins, blotted out, give us a pure record before God in
heaven. We're made pure by having the
righteousness of Christ imputed to us in free justification. Just as He was made sin for us,
so that he was justly punished as the sinner in our room. Instead,
we are made the righteousness of God in him in exactly the
same way so that we are justly treated by God as righteous men
because we are pure before him. We're made pure by having Christ's
nature imparted to us. giving us in regeneration to
be new creatures in Christ Jesus the Lord, so that he puts a pure
being in us. He makes us not only to appear
pure in heaven, but he makes us pure by his regenerating grace,
made pure by the Word of God that is effectually applied to
us by his Spirit. None but the pure. Those who
are declared pure and those who are made pure shall enter into
heaven. That's what we're told in Revelation,
isn't it? There shall not enter in anything that is unbelieving
or makes a lie. Nothing unclean. Second, every
believer is made pure by the grace of God, but none of us
are absolutely pure. Not here. The believer knows
his sin. If we say we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. I'm looking at one of my dearest
friends. All you are is sin. It's all you are. And the one
looking at you the same way. Nothing but sin. Corruption. That's our nature. That's all
we are by nature. You see, the believer is a person
with two distinct natures. That which is nothing but sin,
and that which is called the new man, created in righteousness
and true holiness. God, by his grace, creates something
in you that's righteous, really righteous, holy, really holy. That is that holiness without
which no man shall see the Lord. It is Christ in you, the hope
of glory. Yet, in the core of his being,
in the essence of his truest self, every believer is pure. He loves purity and hates wickedness. He loves the law of God after
the inward man in his truest being. Simon, son of Jonas, lovest
thou me? Lord, you know what I am in the
core of my being. you know that I love you and
that's true of Lerachrius if he's born of God and that's true
of Don Fortner if he's born of God we love him because he first
loved us then the Apostle tells us that every
unbeliever is defiled defiled. What a word. We like to make things comfortable. My purpose is to make you as
uncomfortable as I possibly can without Christ. You're defiled. Started out the door this morning.
Beautiful little girl. And I reached down to get my
Sunday morning sugar from that little girl. And she had sucker
stuff all over her face. And you know what I did? I said,
not this morning, honey. We'll wait and get that kiss
another time. How come? Because that pretty thing was
sticky and dirty. and the sticky dirt that touches
me stays right there. You understand what I'm talking
about? Unbelief and defilement go hand
in hand. I don't mean to suggest that
the unbeliever lives a life of profligate immorality. He may or may not. The unbeliever
may live as well as any righteous man
lives. Saul, the Pharisee, lived as
good a life outwardly as Paul, the Apostle. I challenge you
to show me otherwise. Saul, the Pharisee, was as clean
as a houndstooth outwardly. Well, I can tell he's a Christian.
Look how he lives. Go examine Saul. He didn't cheat on his taxes.
He didn't, if somebody forgot to charge him for something in
the store, he didn't walk out with it. He was upright and unclean, defiled. Outward behavior is not what
we're talking about. You see, these people that Paul is talking
about and those that Haggai is talking about are folks who do
business among holy things. They deal with holy sacrifices. They deal with the worship of
God. They spend their lives in religion. Paul describes them
in verse 16 as those who profess that they know God, but in works. Not in adultery and fornication
and drunkenness, but in songs of praise and prayer and Bible
reading and missionary labors and devotion. In works. Deny Him. being abominable and
disobedient and unto every good work reprobate. Paul says even
their mind and their conscience is defiled. If you're without
Christ, I'm here to tell you, you're defiled and religion can't
make you pure. Only Christ can. Your mind, your
heart, your understanding, your conscience, your very life is
defiled. Now, here's the commentary. Unto the pure, all things are
pure, but to them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure. Several years ago, I was preaching
in a conference in Louisville, Kentucky, Presbyterian Church.
where Redeemer Church was then meeting, and a legalist got up
right before me to preach. And I mean a legalist. And he
had heard stories, you know. One of these fellas who says,
we're saved by grace, but now we've got to be sanctified by
our keeping the law. And this is how he began to mock
God's grace. Shelby was there, she can verify
it. He knelt down beside the pulpit, and acted like he's turning
up a pint of whiskey. Oh, God doesn't see that, I'm
pure. As if we really teach such stuff. No, that's not what Paul
is saying. That's not what he's saying.
He's not saying that a man is justified by Christ's righteousness
and washed in his blood and he commits adultery, his act of
adultery is pure. That's not what he's saying.
He's talking about works of religion. And he's saying to those who
are pure, Everything they do for God is pure. Everything. And their lives are lives of
service to God. Their lives are lives of worship
to God. They are God's servants. And
so when they sing His praise, and they're as off-key as I am,
or they offer a sacrifice to help out this cause or that,
Or they speak to God in prayer. Or they come to His house to
worship Him. Or they meditate on His goodness. It's all pure. And God accepts
it through the blood and righteousness of His dear Son as perfect righteousness. You stumbled over a few words
a minute ago, didn't you? God smelled it and said, that sounds
good to me. That's good to me, pure. But to the unbelieving, the practice of religion is eating
and drinking damnation to yourself. I urge you, I urge you, hear
God's word. The sacrifice of the wicked is
an abomination to the Lord. Without faith, it's impossible
to please Him. He that comes to God must believe
that He is and that He's the rewarder of them that diligently
seek Him. Those who believe are pure before God. Now go back
to Haggai. The prophet's purpose in delivering
this message, this message to God's priest, his purpose in
giving this message to you and me, is to rip from our hearts
every remnant of self-trust, to beat off every proud imagination
of self-righteousness and personal holiness, holiness achieved by
what we do. Haggai asked these questions.
If a man's carrying a holy sacrifice in his skirt, and he bumps into
this other fella, that gonna make him holy? No. He's been defiled by being in
contact with a dead body, and he touches something that's naturally
clean, something that's naturally holy. Is that thing unclean? Oh, yeah. Because it's touched
that which is corrupt. This is what he's telling us.
You cannot make yourself pure. You cannot make yourself holy
by handling pure and holy things. Every dead thing a man touches
with his hands, he pollutes and makes unclean. I say to you who are lost, make
this your determination. When you come to this place,
that you come to seek God's grace, not to win it. When you go home
with your family and you sit down to supper at night and you
give thanks, make sure your purpose is to give praise to God, seeking
His grace, not to earn it. When you read the scriptures,
make sure you're seeking the Lord, not seeking to please the
Lord. For if you do these things seeking
to oblige God, if you seek by your works to oblige God, are
you listening to me? You would just as well be digging
for pearls in your own dung, for God calls it. And God promises
he'll smear your dung on your face forever. Malachi chapter 2 verse 3. Oh,
how easily men and women lose themselves in a wilderness of
duties. Before God will accept anything
from you, before He will accept anything from me, we must be
accepted of Him. Before God will accept any sacrifice
from your hands, you must be accepted of God. That's the reason
God accepted Abel and his sacrifice, because Abel was already accepted. And the reason he rejected Cain
and had no respect to his sacrifice is because Cain came without
faith in the Redeemer. And yet, the very last word that
God gives in this message In verse 19, he says, in that day
I will bless you. How can that be? How can we be
accepted of God, sinners like you and me, accepted of God so
that He blesses us and blesses us ceaselessly and blesses us
forever in Christ Jesus the Lord? Bear with me for just a minute
longer and I'll show you. Turn to Numbers 19. We won't read
this whole chapter, but I urge you to read it before you go
to bed. It is a blessed, blessed chapter. Here, the Lord God gives
us the law of purification. When a man is unclean, before
he can worship God, he's got to be purified. And God required
five things for the man to be made pure. In verses 1 through
4, he required a sacrifice. But it's a sacrifice that only
God could give. A red heifer. Do you know folks
are still looking for a red heifer? There are folks who think, when
I find a red heifer, Brother Larry and I were somewhere and
just, I forgot whether he ran across it or I did, ran across
some fella who's raising cattle. His whole purpose is to breed
a real red heifer. Because once the red heifer's
here, the Messiah's coming! That's it! and he gets the heifers
and he finds one and he, oh man, I got it now. And he goes through
that thing. Oh no, there's a white hair.
That one's useless. It's got a spot. That one's useless. Some fool came and put a yoke
on that thing. That one's useless. The red heifer,
the spotless red heifer that's never been used for anything.
Only God can provide. His name is Jesus of Nazareth. He's the Son of God. This sacrifice
must be slain. Not only must we have a sacrifice
that only God can provide, the sacrifice slain, we're told in
verses 5 and 6, must be burned without the camp. Burn this red
heifer. Burn this red heifer in the sight
of the people. her skin, her flesh, her blood,
with her dung. Burn it all! Oh, what a picture
of the immense, intense, indescribable woe suffered by
God's darling Son when He was made sin for us for the satisfaction
of divine justice. But third, In verses 7 through
16, the law required that there be a personal cleansing, cleansing
by water of separation that comes from the sacrifice of this red
heifer. Now this is talking about sanctification
by the Spirit of God, the washing of our souls in regeneration.
Look at verse 9. And a man that is clean shall
gather up the ashes of the heifer. and lay them up without the camp
in a clean place. I think I know where that clean
place is. And it shall be kept, not for the whole world. No,
no. Christ's sacrifice is not for
everybody. It's kept for the congregation, the congregation
of the children of Israel, God's elect. And it shall be kept for
them for a water of separation. It is a purification for sin,
verse 13. Whosoever toucheth the dead body
of any man that is dead, that purifieth not himself, defileth
the tabernacle of the Lord, and that soul shall be cut off from
Israel, because the water of separation was not sprinkled
upon him. He shall be unclean, his uncleanness
is yet upon him. The Spirit of God must come.
must come to you because of Christ having redeemed you, and He sprinkles
your heart and your conscience from dead works to serve the
living and true God. Fourth, verses 17 and 18, if
we would be pure before God, this sprinkling must take place.
Christ's blood must be applied. The sprinkling of the blood of
Jesus Christ is that to which God's elect are preserved. David
said, purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. He says, take
the ashes and the running water, the living water, and take some
hyssop and dip it in the water and sprinkle it upon the tent
where the dead thing is. So how do you know this? Talk
about Christ. Listen to this. Neither the blood of goats and
calves, but by his own blood he entered at once into the holy
place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the
blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of an heifer, and sprinkling
of the unclean sanctifyeth to the purifying of the flesh, how
much more shall the blood of Jesus Christ? Fifth, still something else is
required. You know how men stumble at this.
Verses 18 through 22, the unclean must himself reach out and take the hyssop and sprinkle himself. He must purify himself on the
seventh day. He must wash his clothes himself.
He must bathe himself in water. And if he doesn't, he shall be
cut off from the congregation. Yes, you must believe on the
Son of God. You must take Christ for your
own. You must trust Him yourself.
You must come to Him yourself. Take the hyssop in the hand of
faith, dip it in the blood and water, and sprinkle yourself. And this goes on for seven days. all the days of your life. In
that day there shall be a fountain open to the house of David and
to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and uncleanness. And you must plunge into the
fountain drawn from Emmanuel's veins. Back years ago, Ralph
Barnard told about he and his wife Hazel driving across the
country and they got over to Yellowstone National Park And
the old Ford was running hot. They were off stopped and they
got to that geyser out there, Old Faithful I think they called
it. And he had worked on that old car a little bit and was
kind of dirty and he rolled his white sleeves up and knelt down
there and dipped his handkerchief into that geyser and he washed his hands. And he didn't
know anybody else around. And while he was washing his
hands and held them up, he said, the saying, there is a fountain
filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins. And sinners
plunge beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains. Somebody
walked up behind him. Barnard didn't know it. He said,
preacher, can we join you on the next verse? Will you join
me? and plunge into the fountain
filled with blood. Amen.