In Haggai chapter 2, we have
Haggai's second message to Zerubbabel, Joshua, and the children of Israel. Haggai's second message to those
people is Haggai's second message to you and me. Beginning in verse
1, in the seventh month, in the one and twentieth day of the
month came the word of the Lord by the prophet Haggai, saying,
Speak now to Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, governor of
Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Josedek, the high priest,
and to the residue of the people, saying, verse 3, Who is left
among you that saw this house in her first glory? Try to picture
the scene as you read. Haggai is standing before the
people and standing at the site of the temple that once stood
there. And they have already laid the foundation and they've
laid a few courses of bricks or stones on the temple that
they're rebuilding. And Haggai says, who is here
who saw this temple in her first glory? And how do you see it
now? Is it not in your eyes in comparison
of it? nothing. When you look at this
temple now, do you look at it and say, why, why this is nothing
in comparison with what Solomon built. This is nothing like the
temple was before the temple was laid to the ground. Verse
4, Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the Lord, and be strong,
O Joshua, son of Josedek the high priest, and be strong all
ye people of the land, saith the Lord, and work. Don't let
the appearance of things get you down. Don't let what you
see with your eye deter you from obedience to my word. Work. Build
this house, for I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts. According
to the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of
Egypt, so my spirit remaineth among you. Fear ye not. Don't
be afraid to do what I commissioned you to do. Don't be afraid to
put your hand to the work and build again my house. Verse 6,
for thus saith the Lord of hosts, yet once it is a little while
and I will shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea, and
the dry land, and I will shake all nations, and the desire of
all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory, saith
the Lord of Hosts. But where are we going to get
the money to do the work? The silver is mine, and the gold
is mine, saith the Lord of Hosts. The glory of this latter house
shall be greater than of the former. Not equal to, greater
than. This house that's much smaller.
This house that is by comparison insignificant. The glory of this
latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the
Lord of Hosts. And in this place Will I give peace, saith the
Lord of hosts. Three times Haggai uses the word
glory with reference to the temple. In verse 3, he speaks of the
house of God that Solomon built and the splendor of that temple
and says of that temple in her first glory. Many of the people
had seen this first temple. They recognized that the temple's
a rubber bullet's building, in comparison was as nothing. So
the Lord sent Haggai to encourage Zerubbabel, to encourage Joshua,
and to encourage the residue of the people to go on with the
work, giving this word of assurance. In verse 7, he says that he would
fill the temple with glory. Now clearly, the glory with which
he promised to fill the second temple was an obvious prophecy,
an obvious promise of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, who's
described here as the desire of all nations. When Christ came
into the temple, glory filled the house, for he who is the
incarnate God is himself God's glory. When Christ came to the
temple then, glory filled the house, the glory of Solomon's
temple. was not the rich splendor that
was displayed in all of the fine furnishings of the temple. It
was not the magnificent cedars of the temple. It wasn't the
size of the temple, though all of those things the Jews came
to glory in. But rather the glory of Solomon's
house was God's presence in the house. It was the Shekinah, over
the mercy seat, where God met with the people and showed himself
glorious, accepting sinners through the blood of the sacrifice. The
glory of Solomon's temple is that which is described in Exodus
25. You turn to Isaiah chapter 6
and listen to Exodus 25. Whenever you read Isaiah chapter
6, Remember what God said in Exodus 25 concerning His presence
in the tabernacle and later in the temple that replaced it.
The Lord says concerning the mercy seat and the Ark of the
Covenant, There will I meet with thee, and I will commune with
thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim,
which are upon the ark of the testimony of all things which
I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel."
The Lord says to Moses, here on the mercy seat, here where
blood atonement is sprinkled, I will meet with you. And here
on the mercy seat, between the cherubims, I will commune with
you of all that I command you, of all that I will do, of all
my will. This is the place where I will
make myself known to you in this sacrifice. In Isaiah chapter
6, Isaiah sees the Lord high and lifted up. He sees Him in
the holy of holies. And our Lord Jesus Christ speaks
of what Isaiah speaks of here and says in John chapter 12,
Isaiah saw my day. So what we see here in Isaiah
6 is that which was symbolized in the holy of holies, in the
mercy seat, the Shekinah glory of God, communing with his people
from between the cherubims. It is that which Christ accomplished
as our Redeemer. Isaiah 6 verse 1. In the year
that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a
throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.
Above it stood the seraphims, each one had six wings, and with
twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet,
and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another and
said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, and the whole
earth full of His glory. The whole earth is full of His
glory. How can that be? Brother Ron
in his prayer just spoke of all the evil that fills the earth.
The earth is full of His glory? Isaiah didn't say the earth shall
be full of His glory as if he's speaking about some future age.
He says the whole earth is full of His glory. What's he talking
about? The whole earth is full of His
work. His work, which is His glory,
which is the saving of His people. Read on. And the posts of the
door were moved at the voice of Him that cried. And the house
was filled with smoke. Then said I, Woe is me, for I
am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell
in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For mine eyes have seen
the King, the Lord of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphims
unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken
with tongs from off the altar. He said, As soon as I saw the
Lord revealed, he sends a messenger, a messenger with white-hot coals,
taken from off the altar of the burning sacrifice of this great
Lord of hosts, who has redeemed me. and he laid it on my lips. Now, obviously, the picture is
symbolic. I don't think anybody would be
wanting someone to take white hot coals and lay them on their
lips. The picture is a picture of purging, of cleansing, of
atonement, of forgiveness, as is indicated. He said, lo, this
hath touched thy lips, thine iniquity. is taken away thy sin
is purged now that's the revelation of his glory that's the glory
that fills the earth that's the glory that was seen in the tabernacle
in the holy of holies and in the temple in the holy of holies
when our Lord promised that he would fill this second temple
with glory He was declaring that everything prophetically symbolized
in the first house would be fulfilled in this house. He was declaring
that he would, he who is the image of the invisible God and
the brightness of the glory of God, would come into this latter
house. He did so literally. When he
was circumcised eight days after he was born, he was brought to
the temple according to the law. When he was 12 years old, he
was in the temple disputing with the doctors of the law, and they
were astounded at his knowledge, having never learned letters.
This one, a 12-year-old boy, who's disputing with them about
the scriptures. Our Lord came when he began his
earthly ministry in John chapter 2, and drove out the money changers,
drove out those that sold oxen and sold doves, and he overturned
the tables of the money changers, and he purged his house. And
then three years later, he drove the same group of people out
of his house again and said, my father's house shall be called
a house of prayer. In the temple, the Lord Jesus
healed the blind and the lame. When he did, the children in
the temple made a song. The children instructing the
parents. The babes giving instruction
to the old men. Hosanna to the Son of David! He is the Messiah! The children
sang. Day after day in the temple at
Jerusalem, the Son of God taught the people personally. He preached
the gospel to those people gathered in the temple. It was in the
temple as he walked in Solomon's porch at midnight. He walks along
and he gives a marvelous discourse in John chapter 10 concerning
the good shepherd. The good shepherd who gives his
life for the sheep. The good shepherd who seeks and
finds his own sheep, calls them by name and gives them eternal
life. Then in verse 9, Haggai spoke
of the glory of this latter house and said it would be greater
than the glory of the former. That's my subject tonight, the
greater glory. The greater glory. What is the
greater glory of this last house of which the prophet Haggai spoke?
Was he talking about the glory of that material building that
was erected by Zerubbabel and the children of Israel after
the Babylonian captivity? Obviously no. Obviously no. That temple never was, by comparison,
so glorious as the first temple. Even after Herod had renovated
the temple and enlarged it, it was, by comparison, nothing when
compared with the former temple. So obviously, Haggai, being inspired
of God to speak as he did, and to write as he did, speaks of
that temple that is represented by this physical temple. When
he talks about the greater glory of this latter house, he's not
talking about the physical temple itself, but that which is represented
by the temple. Well, what is that? The temple
was symbolic of our Savior Himself in John chapter 2. Our Savior
spoke of His body. He said, Destroy this temple.
In three days I'll raise it up. And the Spirit of God says this
He said concerning His body. He spoke of His flesh. The temple,
we're told in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 19, was symbolic of the
believer's physical body. Your bodies are the temple of
the living God. You who believe, God lives in
you, lives in this body, in this physical flesh. The temple at
Jerusalem was also typical of the local church. We're told
in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 and in Ephesians chapter 2. The temple
symbolized local church, but it also symbolized the church
universal. It spoke of the whole body of
Christ, the house of God. And the physical temple at Jerusalem,
that temple that was erected by Zerubbabel, like the temple
erected by Solomon, was representative and typified our eternal inheritance,
our eternal habitation with God in heavenly glory. Brother Ron
read a portion of it, of the description given in Revelation
21. Listen to this. Him that overcometh will I make
a pillar in the temple of my God and he shall go no more out
and I will write upon him the name of my God. They are before
the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple. And there was given to me a reed,
like unto a rod. And the angel stood, saying,
Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them
that worship therein. And the temple of God was opened
in heaven. And there was seen in his temple
the ark of his testament. And there were lightnings, and
voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.
In fact, the temple at Jerusalem represented, listen carefully,
It represented what Brother Ron just read about in Revelation
21. It represented our ultimate complete salvation in and by
and with Jesus Christ the Lord. It is that salvation proclaimed
in the gospel that was represented by the temple at Jerusalem. The
gospel speaks of that holy Jerusalem. having the glory of God. There's
no temple in the heavenly Jerusalem for the Lord God Almighty and
the Lamb are the temple of it. Now you'll remember our Lord
told Nathanael, he said, you will see greater things than
this miraculous display of my omniscience when I told you I
saw you when you were under the fig tree. He told his disciples
after performing miracles before them, miracles about which they
stood in utter astonishment. He said, you will do greater
things than perform these miraculous wonders on the earth. Wow! What? You and me do greater things
than be able to see with the eye of omniscience a man worshiping
God when nobody else understood what was going on inside him?
Do greater things than cause blind men to see and lame men
to walk by the mere word of the power of God? We will see and
do greater things than these? What can he possibly be describing?
Our Lord said, there is a greater glory than all that has been
seen by the eyes of men. What is this greater glory? Paul
speaks of it in 2 Corinthians 3. You can be turning there if
you will. As the glory that exceleth. The glory is the glory of God
shining forth in the face of Jesus Christ. It is the glory
of the gospel. The ministration of righteousness
and life by the gospel is unspeakably more glorious than of the law.
It is that ministration of death and condemnation that was darkness
to folks, and yet it had its glory, a glory that was to be
done away. And our Lord tells us that the
ministration of life is a glory that excels. 2 Corinthians 3,
in verse 1, Do we begin again to commend ourselves? Or need
we as some others epistles of commendation to you? Or letters
of commendation from you? Have we been reduced to that?
You are our epistle, written in our hearts, known and read
of all men. For as much as ye are manifestly
declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written
not with eek, but with the Spirit of the living God, not in tables
of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart. These things that
are related to this glory that excels, these things that are
greater than outward, visible, miraculous works, are matters
of the heart. They're spiritual things. Verse
4, And such trust have we through Christ to Godward, Not that we
are sufficient of ourselves to think as of ourselves. Think anything as of ourselves.
Don't misunderstand me. I'm not suggesting that there's
anything to Paul. But our sufficiency is of God,
who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament. He who
is an able minister of the New Covenant is not a minister of
the letter but of the Spirit. He doesn't come just with fact
and theory. He comes with the Spirit of God
and by the Spirit of God. He doesn't speak only addressing
your head to teach you something. He speaks addressing your heart
to comfort you with the Word of Truth. For the letter killeth,
but the Spirit giveth life. But if the ministration of death
written and engraven in stones, the law was glorious. So that the children of Israel
could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory
of his countenance. You remember in Exodus 34 when
Moses went up in the mount and received the tables of the law
engraved in stone. He came back down and his face
shone brilliantly and the children of Israel said, Moses put a veil
on your face. We cannot look on your face. He had been in God's presence
and now he comes with the law. And the law, graven on stones,
is a ministration of glory. He says, now if this was glorious,
which glory was to be done away? Which glory was here just temporarily? which glory was here just during
the Old Testament era, which glory stood only from the time
that Moses received the law until Christ came and fulfilled the
law. How shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious,
or more glorious? For if the ministration of condemnation,
which is what the law is, be glory, much more doth the ministration
of righteousness exceed in glory. For even that which was made
glorious had no glory in this respect. You remember the previous
temple? This one, Haggai said, you look
at it and you say, this is nothing. But I'm telling you, the glory
of this temple is greater than the glory of that previous temple.
This glory of the law, I'm telling you, has no glory at all by comparison,
by reason of the glory that excelleth." Now, for all who would suggest
that we are to live under the yoke of the law, for all who
would suggest that we are to preach the law and bind God's
people under the law, I would have them to say, the glory of
the law is nothing by comparison with this glory, the glory of
the gospel that excelleth. For if that which is done away
was glorious, Much more, that which remaineth is glorious,
seeing then we have such hope." How did he work that in there?
What hope? The hope that is revealed in
this glory that excels, the hope that is given by the Spirit.
We use great plainness of speech, and not as Moses, which put a
veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not
steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished. Surely
Paul didn't mean to use that word. Did he say abolished? Did he say abolished? People
constantly, they point to our Lord's words and they say, I
came not to destroy the law but to fulfill the law. And so that
means that the law hasn't been ended. God says it's abolished. Abolished by the fulfilling of
it. Abolished by the satisfying of
it. Ended forever. All right. But their minds were blinded.
For until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in
the reading of the Old Testament. They read it and they can't see. They quote it verbatim and they
can't see. They recite it word by word,
verse by verse, chapter by chapter, and they've got a veil over it.
They can't see. Which veil? Look at it now. is
done away in Christ. What happens when Christ comes?
That law that once ministered nothing but death to you, you
step into the glory and live. Did you hear me? Oh, hear me
now. Step into the glory and live. Believing on the Son of God,
we step within the glory, and the veil is taken away. But even
unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is still on their
hearts. Nevertheless, when it, that is
when the Jew, shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken
away. Now the Lord is that Spirit,
and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Now look at this last verse,
verse 18. But we all, with open face, beholding
as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same
image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. I don't have a clue what all
that means. I don't even have a clue. We, beholding the image of God
in Jesus Christ, beholding the face of Christ crucified, are
changed from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord. And that's
called the liberty of life. in Christ. Now, back at our text,
Haggai speaks of a shaking, the shaking of the nations, the shaking
of heaven, earth, and sea. By the preaching of the gospel,
God shakes heaven, earth, the sea, and the dry land. What does
that mean? Does that mean that literally
When the Gospels preach, the heavens start to shake. No. No. I talk about something physical,
as the Charismatics would. Studying this message, I did
all the research I could, looking at various messages and comments,
commentaries on the second chapter of Haggai. And almost everybody,
almost everybody, when they talk about this glory of the latter
house, they talk about some kind of a worked-up, frenzied, Pentecostal
type of experience. Folks who ought to know better.
That's not what it's talking about. The preaching of the gospel
is the shaking of the nations. The filling of God's house with
His sons and daughters. He fills His house with saved
sinners to the praise of the glory of His grace. What? Man, this house doesn't look
full to me. Let me tell you something. It is perfectly full right now. Right now. Next week I'm going
to go down and preach to some folks. Probably be a half a dozen
of them there. And I'll tell you how full the
house of God will be in that place. Perfectly full. Perfectly full. Well, how can
you say that? God Almighty fills His house
with His children all the time. And exactly those who should
be saved are saved. Exactly the number who should
hear do hear. Exactly the number who should
believe do believe. He fills his house with his children
to the praise of the glory of his grace. By his spirit, through
the preaching of the gospel, this is how he does it. He shakes
the hearts of men and women with a sense of sin and guilt. awakening
the dead, graciously causing them to trust Christ, giving
them peace. For the law was given by Moses,
but grace and truth come by Jesus Christ. When David speaks of
our Lord's coming and His coming in grace to accomplish redemption,
he calls for the heavens and the earth to rejoice. He calls
for the trees to sing. He calls for the waves of the
ocean to clap their hands. He's speaking metaphorically.
He's saying, let all creation rejoice! The Creator has come! He's come and accomplished redemption. What a great shaking there was,
even in the physical universe, when the Son of God came to this
earth in human flesh. God planted a new star in the
eastern sky a star that stood only for as long as It took for
those wise men and those shepherds to get to the place where that
baby was in Jerusalem Now you don't really believe that do
you? Yeah, I sure do That star hung in the sky for just about
two years Just back to and God took it away Well, how do you
explain that? God did it. That's how I explain
it. God did it. What kind of star was it? I don't
have a clue. But those shepherds and wise men understood. They
knew the significance. They said, we've seen his star.
When the Lord Jesus died at Calvary under the wrath of God, when
he cried, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Darkness
covered the earth. not darkness merely recorded
in scripture. Darkness recorded by the historians
who lived in that day in other parts of the world. So that one
of the pagan philosophers and scientists writing who stood
in Egypt at that time said either God has died or one whom God
loves has died. What an astounding statement.
The veil in the temple. from top to bottom when the Lord
Jesus said, it is finished. And the graves of the saints,
many of them, not all, many of them, buried in the local cemetery
at Jerusalem were opened up that night and they walked the streets
of the city. They said, I'm going to shake
everything. I'm going to shake. And all of
this shaking but a picture of the shaking of His grace in the
saving of His people. With the coming of our Savior,
when He accomplished our redemption, when He fulfilled the law, when
He brought immortality and life to light by the gospel, everything
that could be shaken was shaken to destruction. Only that which
cannot be shaken remains. Hold your hands here in Haggai
and turn to Hebrews 10, Hebrews chapter 10. Verse 9, Our Savior spoke. He said, Then he said, Lo, I
come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that
he may establish the second. He takes away the refuge of lies,
that he may establish a good refuge. He takes away the old
covenant of works, that He may establish the covenant of grace.
He takes away the old method of law, which the Jews had come
to trust as a system of works, understanding not that it proclaimed
the method of God's grace. He takes it away, that He may
establish His grace in the hearts of men. Look at chapter 12, verse
25. See that you refuse not Him that
speaketh. For if they escaped not, who
refused him to spake on earth, much more shall not we escape,
if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven, whose voice
then shook the earth. But now he hath promised, saying
yet once more, I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.
And this word yet once more signifieth the removing of those things
that are shaken. What's he talking about? The
abolishing of that old covenant. The abolishing of everything
connected with legal worship. The abolishing of everything
in the typical generation. Everything from the temple itself,
right down to all the pieces of furniture in the temple, right
down to the priesthood, right down to the Jewish nation, right
down to the Ten Commandments written on tables of stone. Abolished! Shaken! Utterly taken away. He
says, he shakes these things, the things that are shaken as
the things that are made, that those things which cannot be
shaken may remain. What cannot be shaken? What is
there with regard to the giving of the law and the ceremonial
worship of the Old Testament that cannot be shaken? What is
there that cannot be shaken about the priesthood and the sacrifices? What is there about the commandments
that cannot be shaken? The only thing that cannot be
shaken is the oath and covenant and promise of God Almighty in
His Son. And He's shut us up to that.
He said, I'll take away your refuge of lies. I will annul
your covenant with death. And I'll cause you to know that
the bed on which you rest is too short. You can't stretch
yourself on it. The cover's too narrow. You cannot
wrap yourself in it. And I will cause you then to
take refuge in my Son. Now, back in our text. The second
temple, this temple built by Zerubbabel. I told you it was
not as large as Solomon's temple. It was not as splendidly adorned
with silver and gold as Solomon's Temple. And I remind you that
the Second Temple, this temple built by Zerubbabel at Jerusalem,
lacked five things. They never were found in this
temple that were the glory of Solomon's Temple. These five
things certainly made the Second Temple inferior to Solomon's
Temple. So the words of Haggai cannot
possibly refer to the physical temple built by Zerubbabel. Rather,
it refers to that temple built by him whom Zerubbabel typified. Jesus Christ the Lord built by
the hand of his grace and God is the prophet said by the prophet
Zechariah he who laid the foundation will let bring the top most stone
to the headstone to the corner and he'll cry grace grace unto
it and nothing going to prevent it nothing going to he's going
to complete the building those five things that were never in
the second temple all of them are found in the gospel of our
Savior This is the glory that exceleth. Maybe I'll come back to them
and deal with them another time. Let me just give you the highlights. First,
the Ark of the Covenant. Where's that lost ark? Thank
God it's gone. It's gone. If some fool found
it, folks would build a shrine around it and worship it and
sell tickets so you'd come worship there too. It's gone. Destroyed. Forever. Forever. Some years
ago, I was listening to a fellow standing in the pulpit. The man
claimed to believe in free grace. He said, I believe God raptured
the ark. It's in heaven. It'd be hard to set it down up
there. It's gone. Oh, it's not gone. It's abolished
because it's tight. is no longer needed. Christ is
that ark. Christ is that mercy seat. Christ
is the manna hidden under the mercy seat. Christ is the rod
that buds with life, though it was dead, hidden under the mercy
seat. Christ is the life and the atonement
and the sacrifice represented in the ark. And in the gospel
of Christ, we proclaim Atonement finished. Redemption done. And point centers to the Son
of God. In the Old Testament priesthood,
the high priest in his gorgeous apparel wore this magnificent
breastplate when he was walking at any time in public performing
the work of the priest. And as he wore this breastplate,
there were sewn into the breastplate that which was called the Urim
and Thummim. The words mean lights and perfections. And somewhere after the Babylonian
captivity, though the priest managed to get his breastplate
back, the Urim and Thummim were gone. No more lights, no more
perfections. There can't be when there's no
ark, and no mercy seat, and no sin-atoning sacrifice. The lights
and perfections were gone, but those lights and perfections. Who's the light of the world?
That's our Savior, and He brings life and immortality to light
by the gospel. Where is perfection found? only
in Christ Jesus the Lord. He is the perfection of His people. He's the perfect God and the
perfect man, the perfect Redeemer and the perfect Savior. He is
the perfection of His elect and the perfect advocate for us on
high, the perfect gift of God and the perfect righteousness
of the saints. There was something else in that temple, in Solomon's
temple, that was never found in the second temple. There was
a continually burning fire. When the fire came down from
heaven and burned at the altar, that fire never went out. It never went out until the destruction
of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar and it was never seen again.
What fire? The fire, the smoke of which
ascends up to God, indicating God's acceptance of the sacrifice
and acceptance of His people and all their sacrifices burning
before Him at His altar. Christ is that continually burning
fire. by which we are continually,
constantly accepted of God. The only acceptance sinners have,
we proclaim to sinners in the gospel, it's Christ Jesus the
Lord, the spirit of prophecy. I read to you earlier, Exodus
25, 22. God spoke to Moses and he said,
right here, on the mercy seat, right here, on the mercy seat,
this is the place where I'll meet you and I'll commune with
you. and I'll make myself known to
you. It was called the Spirit of Prophecy in the Old Testament. You remember when Hilkiah, the
priest, found the book of God and he brought it to the young
king, Josiah. And Shapin, the scribe, read the book of God
to the king. Josiah ran his clothes and he
said, go to the house of God. and have your chi of the priest
to inquire of the Lord for me. Tell me what to do. Tell me what
God has to say. Because God promised to commune
and make himself known at the mercy seat. Make himself known
where the sacrifice is accepted. Make himself known through atonement. That's how he makes himself known
to sinners. is through the sin-atoning sacrifice
of his darling son. That spirit of prophecy was never
found in the second temple. Because the mercy seat, the atonement
was gone. The ark of the covenant was gone.
It was not there. That spirit of prophecy is ours
in Christ. For when a sinner is born of
God, the spirit of the living God comes to dwell in you. He
said, my spirit give I unto you. And he is in you as the spirit
of prophecy through the sacrifice of God's Son, making God known
to you so that you who believe are his priest, a holy priesthood. And the fifth thing that was
not in that second temple, the thing by which Solomon's temple
stood glorious, magnificent, the thing that distinguished
it above every other place on the earth. So that Solomon said,
Lord, when your people have said, if they will, if they will turn
and pray toward this place, what are you talking about? turning
and physically us turn and pray toward Jerusalem or as the Muslims
pray toward Mecca? No. No. A thousand times no. No. But what it represents, turn
like that publican to the mercy seat and cry, God be merciful. propitious. God, look on the
sin atoning sacrifice of your darling son. Be merciful to me,
the sinner. Then hear thou from heaven and
forgive their sin. And the Shekinah glory, whenever
the high priest brought the sacrifice in once a year, the blood sprinkled Something arose above the mercy
seat that shone through the tabernacle and shone through the temple. It was God's approval publicly
of the sacrifice that had been made. The showing forth of his
glory. And this is the gospel we preach.
This is the greater glory of this latter house. It is the
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Glory accomplished in
Redemption. Glory revealed in Redemption. Glory bestowed in Redemption. Glory into which we enter Glory into which we enter when
we enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus Christ. Glory
that is called liberty in the Spirit and life
in the Son of God. And then the last thing our Savior
says about this greater glory In the last line of verse 9 in
Haggai chapter 2. In this place, in this place will I give peace. Peace that passeth understanding. Peace nobody has a clue about
except folks who have it. In what place? in Christ crucified
and my darling son whose name is the prince of peace he who
is our peace he said my peace give I unto you my peace peace
in my heart and in my conscience because of the sacrifice of God's
Son declaring I'm accepted in the beloved in whom I have redemption
through his blood the forgiveness of sins and that's the glory that excelleth
the greater glory of this gospel day the glory that comes to its
ultimate consummation when God makes all things new in the world
to come. Amen.