Have you ever noticed how often
in this book God calls for you and I to wake up? He gives us repeated wake-up
calls because we are so terribly, terribly inclined to lethargy
and indifference. Our Savior lavishes His mercy
upon us, causes us to see His face, gives us a season of rapturous
communion, revelation of Himself, causes us to experience fresh
tokens of His grace in our hearts are drawn out to Him, our souls
are lifted, our spirits are invigorated, So much so that we think, surely
now I'll walk in continual fellowship and communion with God my Savior. And quickly, death steals over
our souls. And so the Lord calls for us
to awake. Those mountaintop experiences
never last long. cares of the world quickly choke
out the seed of the word. The clouds in the skies above
us seem to altogether eclipse the sun of righteousness from
our view. Therefore, the Lord God calls and even commands awake
and seeing ye that dwell in the dust. That's a pretty good picture. of where we are, men and women
who just dwell in the dust on this earth. John Newton wrote
so many great hymns. One of them, not in our hymn
book, it should be, how tedious and tasteless the hours when
Jesus no longer I see. Sweet prospects, sweet birds
and sweet flowers have all lost their sweetness to me. Turn to
Romans 13. Romans chapter 13. Let me show you a couple of these
wake up calls. Romans 13 verse 11. The apostle says, knowing the
time that now it is, high time to awake out of sleep. You're
not talking about the sleep of the unregenerate, but the sleep
of our believing hearts. It's time now to awake out of
sleep. For now is our salvation nearer
than when we believed. We ought to be vigilant then
stir and rouse ourselves to awake because every day we're moving
toward our God and that everlasting salvation which we began to experience
when we believed. The night is far spent, the day
is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the
works of darkness. Works of darkness? What kind
of works are those? He's not here talking about Gross
immorality and indecency, not here, not here. Those may be
indeed works of darkness. He's talking about other works
of darkness. Works of darkness are just lethargy, indifference, coldness, motionless death. Cast off the works of darkness
and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly. Honestly, again, the word is
not used as if to imply that some of God's people are dishonest.
No, he's saying, let us walk in the honest reality. of God's
grace of this temporary existence on this earth. This temporary
thing that we live in called the earth is just passing away. We're headed to eternity and
things here matter not. Eternal things matter. Let us
walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness
Not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envy. Have
nothing to do with all those things that involve men in this
world. But put ye on the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now watch this. Because this
is our big trouble. Make not provision for the flesh to the lust. Make not provision for this carnal,
endemic, corrupt, fallen nature with which we live in these bodies
to fulfill the lust of the flesh, that is to gratify your natural
desires. In Ephesians 5, 14, we have a
very similar passage, very similar command. The apostle says, wherefore
he saith, awake thou that sleepest. and arise from the dead and Christ
shall give thee light. These calls, these commands come
from God and it is our responsibility to stir up our souls. It is our
responsibility, yours and mine, continually to cast off the works
of darkness. It is our responsibility to rouse
our hearts into lively, sweet communion with Christ, letting
nothing stand between us and him. And yet, though it's our
responsibility and though the Lord calls us to awake, such
as the depravity, the corruption, the weakness, the sinfulness
of our hearts and of our natures, that until the Lord himself graciously
awakes us, we will sleep on in indifference,
just like the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration. I find that to be my experience
all the time. How often do you try to stir
your soul and find there's nothing with which to stir and nothing
there to stir? How often do you find yourself
indifferent and long, long to see his face, long to Enjoy the
sweet manifestations of His grace, the precious tokens of His goodness,
and find it impossible to do so. Until the Lord comes, as
we see pictured so repeatedly in the Song of Solomon, the spouse
says, I sleep, but my heart waketh. It's the voice of my beloved.
He puts his hand into our hearts. stirs our souls and still we
respond, don't bother me now. I've got other things too important
to me right now than to be bothered with you. But he won't leave us to ourselves,
not if we're his. He leaves by the imprint of his
hand in our hearts, sweet smelling myrrh, grace that causes us to
arise and open to him, run after him, and seek him. And if he
causes us to seek him, he will be found of us. The indifference, however, of
the believer in such a deadness, lifelessness, and such a frame This indifference, this sleep
that brings leanness to our souls and sorrows to our hearts is
immensely different than the sleep of the unbelieving and
the unregenerate. Ours is the sleep of frailty. Some of you sleep in death. We
sleep in weakness. Some of you sleep in hopelessness. painful and shameful as it is,
ours is the sleep of languishing hearts mourning for Christ. Longing for Him. The unregenerate
sleep with hearts that have no desire for Him. Though we do not in such languishing
times enjoy Our Savior, we still desire Him. The unregenerate have no desire
for Him. Though we don't hear His voice
as we have heard it, though we don't see His face as we have
seen it, still Christ is known even in our lowest frames. You
who are yet without life and faith in Christ know him not. Though our Savior hides his face
from us, he still dwells in our hearts, even in our hearts, languishing
hearts, indifferent hearts, cold, hard hearts. Yet he still dwells
here. He's taken up his abode with
us. He dwells not with the wicked.
And I've said all this because I want you, my brothers and sisters
in Christ, and I want myself to have absolute assurance absolute assurance of our acceptance
with our Redeemer and our favor with our God, even in our low
condition. I have read so much, heard so
much all of my life as a believer from preachers. And I've never listened to preachers
in my life. except grace preachers, men who
claim to believe grace, but men have a tendency soon to forget
grace and revert to works when they try to get folks to do what
they want them to do. And they will tell you that you can't
have assurance if you're not in this state or in this frame
or in this condition or this spiritual high, you have no assurance
at all. As if somehow our acceptance
with God is determined by the condition of our hearts. My God,
thank you. That's not the case. Our acceptance with God is his
son. Our acceptance with God is the
righteousness and obedience of his son. Our acceptance with
God is the blood of his son. And even in our lowest state,
The Lord God says, I'm with you. I'm with you. I don't find a
great need for comfort and assurance when I'm walking in the mountains
and floating in the clouds and everything going good. I need
some comfort and assurance. When I look within and see nothing
to give me peace and nothing to give me hope, nothing to say,
well, there's some little spark of light, some little indication
of righteousness, some little indication of holiness. Now,
Don, you can hold on to that. Oh, no. I hold on to Him who
is the Lord, my righteousness. And I want you to do the same.
He promises. He promises that His grace is
sure. Oh, it's delightful to hold him,
as we see in the Song of Solomon, chapter seven, to hold the king
in the galleries of his grace. But when we can't, still his
promise is sure. His grace is sure to his languishing
people. His promises are these. He will fill the hungry soul.
Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for they shall be filled. He will come to those who look
for him. He will be found of those who seek him. Now, turn
with me to the book of Haggai. Haggai is the prophet of restoration. He was sent to Israel when God's
people were in just such a low state as I've been describing. The Jews had been in Babylon
for 70 years, carried away captive there just as Jeremiah had prophesied
that they would be. And what a sad time those 70
years were for the people among the Jews who truly worshiped
God. After 70 years were fulfilled, Daniel prophesied in Babylon
who prophesied in Babylon tells us that God graciously delivered
his people, brought them out according to his word, and began
to restore them to their land. They came first under Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel, who's mentioned in
verse 1 of Haggai 1. He was the captain of the remnant
that came back from Babylon. He was the governor of Judah.
And when they came to Jerusalem, they found the city in ruins. It had just been leveled. The
walls torn down, the temple lay waste, everything grown over
with weeds and debris. And the Lord sent them back specifically
to rebuild that city and to reestablish his worship in his house, rebuilding
his temple. And they went to work immediately. Now, remember at this time, they
were still in a Babylonian rule, but God had given them favor
with the Babylonians. The king of Babylon granted them
permission to do the work and provided what was needed. So
they started working. I can imagine the enthusiasm. Some of you were around when
we first had real prospect of building this building. And boy,
the enthusiasm. And after a while, things changed. getting away, little difficulties,
kind of die off a little bit. That's just exactly where these
folks were, only to a far greater extent. They were sent back as
a nation to rebuild the city and to rebuild the house of God
and to reestablish the worship of God. They returned to Jerusalem
with joy. They went about their work with
zeal. The foundation of the house was
laid and they began to build the walls and the work was going
very well. And then suddenly, Something
happened. They just quit. They just quit. The Jews who had returned with
Ezra, some 50,000 of them, to build the house now did nothing. And there they've laid the foundation,
just two or three courses of stones laid, and for 15 years,
nothing else done. Nothing else was done. This is
where Haggai comes in. He said of God, along with Zechariah
and Malachi, to speak to God's people. And he was an exemplary
prophet. He was the right man to send
at the right time. His name means festive. Actually comes from a word which
means to dance. That's just the fellow to send
to folks who need restoration. His name means festival of the
Lord. He was sent of God to minister
to these people after they returned from their Babylonian captivity
and while they were languishing. He didn't spend any time talking
about himself. He was a faithful prophet, God's
messenger. His singular authority. He came
with just one thing. He didn't come with word from
Cyrus or word from this king or word from that king. He came
saying, thus saith the Lord. His desire was singular. He desired
the glory of God and his objects, the objects of his care were
the people committed to his trust. God's people. That's all he,
he comes with the word of God, desiring the glory of God, seeking
the good of God's people. When he came, though his name
is festive, festival of the Lord, joyous, dancing, he had to rebuke. But his rebukes were always covered
with encouragement. He was a prophet who had to correct,
but his corrections were always given with comfort. The wise
father, doesn't just correct his children. If all you do is
correct them, point out their error, cause them pain, then
you will bring nothing but resentment from them. But as you correct
them, comfort them, constantly assuring them that what they've
done has no bearing on your love for them. What they've done doesn't
change anything. Correct them, yes, but comforting
them. And so it is with God's prophet.
He corrects God's saints, but it comforts them, assuring them
of God's love and mercy. Haggai was this prophet of restoration
sent to stir up devotion, to rouse the languishing hearts
of God's people, to restore them to their former devotion and
consecration to the Lord. He was distinctly sent of God
for this purpose. And he had four messages. Let's
look at them briefly. These messages that Haggai had
for these people covered a period of just three months. A very
short ministry. But oh, I thank God for the ministry
of this man. He delivered four messages and
gives specific dates to each of them. Four times he uses this
word, consider. Look at verse one, or verse five
of chapter one. He says, consider your ways. Telling Judah and
us to give serious thought to the way we live. Now children
of God, pastor and people, consider your
ways. Ever consider your ways. What is it that is really important
to you? What is it that really motivates
and inspires and directs you? What really has your heart? What really holds your affection? Consider your ways. In verse
seven, he repeats the same admonition. He says, consider your ways,
but here he's saying, now I've called you to consider your ways. I'm telling you now to consider
your present circumstances. In the providence of God, he
shows that there is a connection between our ways, between the
way we live, that is between our devotion and consecration
to Christ or our lack of it. And that which we experience
in God's providence. He tells us that our heavenly
father takes pleasure in our obedience. Isn't that amazing? He takes pleasure in our obedience
and shows his displeasure with our disobedience. When we seek
to serve him, he declares that he's glorified. When we seek
to serve ourselves, we put everything into a bag with holes. Looking
for much, it always comes to little. In a word, if we're his,
Bob Potts, if you're his, Don Fortner, if you're his, Bless
his name, he won't leave us to ourselves. He will sweetly, graciously force
us to walk before him in obedience. He will sweetly, graciously force
us continually to give him our hearts. Does he not say repeatedly,
my son, give me your heart. Bobbie Estes, that's all God
wants from you. Your heart. Your heart. Your heart. If he's got my heart, he's got
everything. And if he doesn't have my heart,
no matter what else I give, he has nothing of me. And if we're
his, He will sweetly force us to give Him our hearts. In verse
18, or verse 15 of chapter 2, the prophet calls for us to consider
the house of God. That is the worship of God. And the great barrenness we've experienced. And then in
verse 18 of chapter 2, He again calls for us to consider the
house of God, the worship of God, and the great blessedness
he promises. All right, now let's look at
these very briefly. First, in chapter 1, verses 1 through 15,
Haggai gives this stern word of rebuke regarding indifference
to the things of God. The children of Israel had left
off building the house of God. Remember God sent them back to
Jerusalem for these purposes specifically to rebuild his city
and to reestablish his worship rebuilding the temple and they
devoted themselves to it zealously for a little while and then for
15 years they left it alone and they They probably had some very
good reason for you. I can I can just picture them
they They looked at this thing and they said to Haggai, well,
the fact is the 70 years that Jeremiah spoke of aren't quite
fulfilled yet. And the Jews haven't all come
back from Babylon yet. And deliverance is not fully
accomplished yet. And so the predestined time for
us to build the house is not there. The fact is we always
come up with lame excuses for disobedience unless God stops
us. I heard someone say a long time
ago, there's nothing you or I won't do and justify ourselves in doing
it if God will let us. Look at verse two, chapter one.
This is exactly what these folks said. They said, we don't want
to interfere with God's purpose. Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts,
saying, This people say, The time is not come. The time that
the Lord's house should be built. That's why that's the reason
we're not doing anything because God hadn't predestined it. But
Haggai wouldn't let him find refuge in such nonsense. He sticks
his finger right in the sore spot and pushes hard. That's called preaching. My business
is to find the most tender spot I can in your heart and push
with all my might and asking God to do the pushing. Look at
verse 4. You say it's not time to build
the Lord's house? Oh, well, you folks good Calvinists, I know
that. Y'all believe in predestination. It's not time. We're waiting
on the Lord. Is it time for you, oh ye? to
dwell in your sealed houses? And this house lie waste? Is
it time for you to build your fine paneled and sealed houses,
to erect your fine mansions for your families and for you to
live in and leave God's house lying waste? How come it's time
that you can devote yourself to this and not devote yourself
to the greater? The real problem here, Haggai
says, is not that you're waiting on the Lord, but you've got other
things that consume your heart. God forgive me. That's always
the real problem. That's always the real problem. Our Lord Jesus says, seek ye
first the kingdom of God. What's he saying? Merle, he's
saying don't let anything else concern you. That's all. Seek
ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these
other things that you care about. What you're going to eat, what
you're going to wear, Where are you going to live? Where are
you going to sleep? All those other things. All of them. These
things shall be added to you. Seek ye first the kingdom of
God. First the kingdom of God. You
young people, hear your pastor. And you mamas and daddies and
grandma and grandpa hear me too. Seek first the worship of Christ. Seek first the honor of God. Seek first the things of God. Everything else will fall in
place. Everything else will fall in
place. Well, how can you be sure that?
Because God said so. And I have experienced it for
40 years. I learned the lesson. It is impossible to ignore Christ
and the interest of his kingdom. Impossible to ignore the will
and glory of God, to live in difference to our redeemer and prosper in
your soul. Well, I've got a family to raise,
raise them in God's house. I've got children to feed. Feed
them with God's Word. I've got things to attend to.
Attend to the worship of God. Everything these Jews did came
to nothing because they served themselves. And I promise you, everything
we do to serve ourselves will come to nothing. Oh, you, and brother Don, you
can't be sure about that because I know lots of folks who, who
don't, they don't worship God and they got money in the bank.
They got property and they got houses and lands and they just
keep increasing in goods. I know it. I know it. You know
where they're putting it all? They got a bag. They just keep
dropping it in a bag with holes in it. Is that what it said? I got my stuff laid up in the
stock market. It's got a hole in the bottom.
Watch out. I got mine in the bank. It's got a hole in the
bottom. Everything you accumulate on
this earth is nothing. God teach us that. Look at verse 14. Haggai's message had its desired
effect. And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel,
the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua,
the son of Josedek, the high priest, and the spirit of all
the remnant of the people. And they came and did the work
in the house of the Lord of Hosts, their God. And then a month later,
the work stopped again. This time, not because of indifference,
not because of Lethargy, not because of self-serving, lust-pleasing,
carnal appetites. No, no. This time because of
discouragement. Look at verse 2, or verse 3 of
chapter 2. Who is left among you that saw
this house in her first glory? And how do you see it? Is it
not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing? Well, things are things are improving
over what they have been, but this temple felt as I saw Solomon's
temple. And this ain't it. I saw this thing before Jerusalem
was destroyed. Before we were carried into Babylon.
Before the temple was leveled to the ground. And this doesn't
come close. It's nowhere near the glory of
that temple. And so they were discouraged by the work they'd
done. But Haggai had a message for
the complainers. And this is what it says, verse
4. Look at the last sentence. The Lord says, be strong. Be
strong. Oh, it's a rubber ball, saith
the Lord. Be strong, Joshua, son of Josedec, the high priest.
Be strong, all ye people of the land. Be strong. How can I be
strong? Because of what we heard Ruth
sing this morning, my grace is sufficient for you. Not strong
in yourselves. Not strong in your faith. Not strong in your righteousness.
Not strong in your devotion. Strong in Him. When you're at
your weakest, then you're strongest. Because His strength is made
perfect in weakness. Look what it says. For I am with
you. Then He assures them. of His
grace, verse two. I am with you according to the
word that I covenanted with you. I haven't changed anything. Oh, you've gone through your
languishing. You face your discouragements. You have your difficulties. You
face discouragements from within and from without. But I'm with
you. And I'm with you according to
the covenant that I made with you. The covenant that I made
with you when you came out of Egypt. Now, I've got news for
you. There wasn't one person in this
whole crowd who ever lived in Egypt. They weren't down there. Well, how can he say that? He
was dealing with them on a covenant made with a representative who
was God's representative before them even before they went to
Egypt with his servant Abraham. And he's talking about that covenant
now that typified the covenant of God's free grace. God says, In your lowest state, Larry Chris,
I'm with you. I won't let you go. My grace
is yours. I made a covenant with my son
for you. Then the prophet spoke of greater things, greater things
than our natural eyes can see. He spoke of the coming of Christ
the Lord, giving them an assured interest in the redeemer. Thus saith the Lord of hosts,
verse six, chapter two. 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 the nations. Watch this. And
the desire of all nations shall come. And I will fill this house
with glory, saith the Lord. Verse nine. The glory of this
house shall be greater than of the former. sayeth the Lord of
hosts. And in this place will I give
peace, sayeth the Lord of hosts. Now, what's he talking about?
Obviously, this was literally fulfilled when our Lord Jesus
was brought to Jerusalem when he was eight or brought to the
temple in Jerusalem when he was eight days old and brought into
this very house and was presented to God according to the law.
That's the literal fulfillment of it. But that's not the fulfillment
of it. This temple represented something.
The apostle tells us by the Spirit of God, you are the temple of
God. You. This temple was figurative,
representative of the church of the living God. And the Lord
God gives this promise. He says, I will come into this
house, the desire of all nations becoming to you and the glory
of this house. The glory of my church, the glory
of my people shall exceed the glory that was there in Solomon's
temple. Oh, Christ is the desire of all
nations. What does that mean? Certainly
we know all men don't desire him. We were talking about back
in the office. We, we preached the gospel and we don't expect
anybody to like it until God has mercy on them. Christ is
not desired by people anyway. I recall years ago, listening
to a fella going to mission field, going to Ethiopia. I can hear
him right now. He said, uh, Ethiopia quoted
from the Psalms shall stretch out our hands to God. He said,
the Ethiopians are just waiting for somebody to come preach Jesus
to them. I thought, Kyle, you want to,
but you ain't getting it down from me. Cause you don't have
a clue what the Ethiopians are, much less anybody else. No, Christ
is not desired by anybody. But he is that one in whom is
the desire of men throughout the world whom God's called by
his grace. He is the embodiment of all those
things that we want. And he is in reality the embodiment
of everything that is needed in the human heart. He is that
one who is spoken of continually as the one who was to come. He's the desire of our souls,
for he alone is righteousness and peace. Christ alone, Christ
alone gives acceptance with God. Christ alone brought in everlasting
righteousness. Christ alone has put away sin
by the sacrifice of himself. Christ alone can give peace to
your heart. And the Lord God says he's come.
He's coming to his house, coming to his people, each one in due
time. And at last this house, this
temple of God shall be filled with the glory of God. And when
God gets done, that's exactly how things shall be. And the
Lord God assures us in verse eight of chapter two, that his hand holds everything
we need. Watch this. The silver is mine. The gold is mine, said the Lord
of hosts. Lord, how are we going to build
this temple? We don't have any money. Everything we get, we get from
the Babylonians. How are we going to build this
temple? We don't have any strength. We don't have any ability. We
don't have any wisdom. Forget the temple. Forget the temple.
Forget that historic city. Lord God, how can I walk with
you in this world? How can I live trusting you in this world. Where can I find the strength
to give up my strength and trust yours? Where can I find the wisdom
to know your will? God, how? How can I give myself
to you? How? All you need is in my hands. All you need. All you need. It's not in you. So look away
from yourself and ever look to me. And then there's a third
message. It describes our inability to
do anything acceptable to God because of uncleanness. You can read it verses 10 through
19 of chapter 2. Apparently these Jews, many of
them, who had worked so feverishly
building the temple, got the foolish idea that somehow there
was a correlation between touching holy things and being holy. They got the foolish idea that
somehow there was a correlation between doing things in the name
of God and being holy. They got the foolish idea that
somehow there was a connection between giving money and being
holy. Between reading the scriptures
and being holy. Between going to the ceremony
and being holy. And God said you can touch the
sacrifices all you want to, they won't make you holy. You can
walk in this temple all you want to. It won't make you holy. It
won't make you clean. This is God's work and God's
work alone. These things symbolize Him in
whom is holiness, Him who is our holiness, Him who is our
cleanness. But you got to have Him for He
alone makes us clean. Look at verse 18. Consider now from this day and
upward from the four and 20th day of the ninth month, even
from the day that the foundation of the Lord's temple was laid,
consider it. And then in verse 19, the Lord God says from this
day, I will bless you. There is a time of reaping coming.
And Zacharias or Haggai's last message deals with that time
of reaping. In verses 20, 21, 22, and 23,
he spans the ages and speaks more fully of Christ's coming
and the final accomplishments of God's purposes. And again,
the word of the Lord came to Haggai in the four and 20th day
of the month saying, speak to Zerubbabel, the governor saying,
I will shake the heavens and the earth. And I will overthrow
the throne of the kingdoms. And I will destroy the strength
of the kingdoms of the heathen. And I will overthrow the chariots
and those that ride in them. And the horses and their riders
shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother. In
that day, saith the Lord of hosts, I will take thee, O Zerubbabel,
my servant, son of Sheateel, saith the Lord, and I will make
thee as a signet, for I have chosen thee, saith the Lord.
And all this is a rubber boat. It's set before us as a great
type of our Redeemer. He's the governor of Judah. He
shakes the heavens and the earth. He overthrows and subdues the
kingdoms of the earth. He's Jehovah's servant. He's
Jehovah's signet to the people, the express image of His person.
He is Jehovah's chosen one. And He's the one who builds His
house. I've set my king upon my holy
hill of Zion and he shall prevail. Grace is sure. Victory is sure. Our everlasting conquest over
all the lust of our flesh and over all the demons of hell and
over all the influence of Satan and over all the world is sure. So it is high time for us to
awake out of sleep and devote ourselves to our Redeemer after
all. Consider how He devoted Himself
to you. Did the Son of God assume by
nature? Did he come here and walk on
this earth as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, tempted
in all points like as I am, yet without sin? Did he go willingly
to the judgment hall? Did he bear his cross willingly? Did he stretch out his hands
willingly to be torn with piercing nails? Did he expose his heart
willingly to be pierced with a piercing spear of hatred? Did
he willingly, willingly, just because of his devotion to me,
because of his devotion to me, did he willingly take the cup
of wrath and damnation and drink it dry. Let me never think that any devotion
to him is excessive. That any work for him is too
demanding. that any consecration to Him
is too much. Here, Lord, I give myself away. It is all that I can do. Let's stand together and try
to sing a hymn. Francis Haverhill's great hymn on page 393, Rod.
Take my life and let it be consecrated Lord to thee.