so I invite your attention back
to Haggai chapter 2 and verse 7. Haggai chapter 2 and verse
7. In the epistle to 2 Peter, Peter spoke of those who in the
last days would be scoffers concerning the coming of the Lord. They
would say, well, things have continued on as they are. And
they were willingly ignorant or they willingly ignored the
fact that God had already judged the world once with the flood
and would again And He held men in reserve for the Day of Judgment. And they were not only willing
to be ignorant of it, they were ignorant of the fact that Christ
was truly going to come again. They considered His long-suffering
a proof that He wasn't coming again. And so our Lord said,
God is not slack. as men count slackness, but is
longsuffering to usward, not willing that any of us should
perish, but that all of us should come to repentance." As I read this passage of Scripture
and have been thinking about it actually since I was down
at Rupert's, I can't even remember when that was. Was it November? Sometime in November. I was thinking of the fact that
our Lord Jesus Christ has come into this world and men refuse to acknowledge
Him for who He is. In this prophecy of the coming
of the Lord here, God said, I'm going to shake the world and the desire of all nations
shall come, in verse 7. And we know that like every other
book in the Bible, the prophecy of Haggai is about some aspect
of Christ and His perfect work on Calvary Street. That's what
it's about. That's what the entire Bible is about. In this passage,
we have several characters mentioned other than the desire of the
nation. We have some rubble. And he is a type of Christ, and
he's set forth as the one who rebuilds the temple. Who rebuilds
the temple. Look over at Zechariah, one book
over, chapter 4. Zechariah chapter 4, and verse
6 speaks of Zerubbabel this way. Then he answered and spake unto
me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel,
saying, Not by might, nor by power, But by my Spirit, saith
the Lord of hosts, who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel
thou shalt become a plain, and he shall bring forth the headstone
thereof with shoutings of grace, grace unto it. Moreover the word
of the Lord came to me, saying, The hands of Zerubbabel have
laid the foundation of this house, his hands shall also finish it. and thou shalt know that the
Lord of hosts has sent me unto you." That's speaking of the
Lord Jesus Christ. It's a rubble is a picture or
a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. We know from the four Gospels
that our Lord said that He Himself was the temple. He said the men
tear down this temple and I'll raise it up again in three days.
He said, I'm the temple. Now you can imagine what that
meant to a Jewish young man who had spent all those time walking
in the temple. Or what it would mean to Jews
today who go to that wailing wall and stick pieces of paper
in it with prayers upon it and go over there and wail and carry
on. You can imagine to walk up to one of those and say, Christ
is the temple. They wouldn't buy that. There's
a whole group of people who believe in an eschatology that says that
they're going to rebuild the temple over in Jerusalem and
offer sacrifices again. I'm going to offer a sacrifice
when the true perfect sacrifice to God has already been offered
and accepted by God and propitiated for the sins of His people? That's
like me coming off of a long trip and I see Debbie at the
front door and reaching in my wallet and pulling out that picture
of Debbie and kissing the picture. Then you say, well that's just
stupid. It's no more stupid than to think that the temple when
it's spoken of in the Old Testament and revealed in the New is anything
other than the church of the living God, the body of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Our Lord said that. Our Lord
said that over and over again. We know from the gospels that
the church is the body of Christ, the building of the temple. The
church will come with a great upheaval. All things referred
to as shaking here in this passage of scripture, a shaking. How
many of you felt the earthquake this morning? I was just finishing up this
message. And they've come in and said, what was that? I believe
it was an earthquake. Well, it was an earthquake, the
earthquake this morning. Here our Lord said, I'm going
to shake things up. There's going to be a great shaking.
Look at chapter 2. We're in at verses 6 and 7. He says, 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. I will shake all nations, and
the desire of all nations shall come. I will shake all nations.
Look at verse 21 of the same chapter. Speak, desirable, Governor
of Judah, saying, I will shake the heavens and the earth. What
does that mean? Well, it could mean an earthquake. We know that at the birth of
the Lord, or at the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, the earthquake
the rocks were riven into. We know that. And our Lord has
seen earthquakes for judgment throughout the history. And when
one comes today, don't think it's something other than that. It is God showing up. Can you
make the earth shake? I can't make it shake. God can
shake the earth. He can shake the earth. This
concept of shaking signifies an overthrow, really, in Scripture
of one order and the establishment of another. For those priests
who came and thought to offer strange firing to God, He took
them out of the priesthood and put others in their place. This
concept is taking away one thing and establishing another. It
symbolically speaks of a cataclysmic event that makes things that
men esteem solid and foundational to be unstable and without foundation. That's what an earthquake does,
after all. It makes that which men esteem solid and foundational
and strong and something that can be counted on to suddenly
be nothing to be counted on throughout Scripture. That's what it's taught.
Our Lord said over in Hebrews chapter 12, quoting from Haggai,
in Hebrews chapter 12, Verse 27, he said, And this word
yet once more signifieth the removing of those things that
are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which
cannot be shaken may remain. So we're talking about the removing
of one thing or the making of one thing unstable in order that
a stable thing would take its place. It is symbolic of the
ground giving way under your feet. I don't know if you've
ever experienced a real big earthquake. We got a little rumble and a
tumble this morning. Some plate rubbed against another
and it kind of shook the mountains and shook where we lived. I was
in Japan in 1968, I think it was, And I had just come off of a
12-hour shift inside of a fuel tank in a C-130, and I laid down
on my bunk in Tachikawa, Japan, and the earth shook. There came
a 6.1 or 7.5 earthquake and actually tossed me out of my bunk. The
earth came rolling with such force that it lifted my bed and
threw me out of the bed. And I went running outside between
the barracks and my skivvies. And I grabbed ahold of a tree,
and the tree was doing this. And I was watching as the earth
was rolling like water. You could see it roll. Scared
me to death. Why? Because things I thought
were solid were suddenly solid no more. Things I thought were
foundational suddenly had no foundation at all. And our Lord
said, I'm going to shake this earth. And the desire of all
nations was going to come. The desire. This singular event,
the crisis event of human history, the event that shook the earth
and all nations thereon, that changed everything that men held
as proof of their security, was the coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ to die in the room instead of His people. It was the entrance
of God in human flesh into the realm of sinful man. And that's
a shaking event. Everything changed, you see.
Everything changed. Now is the hour. Now has my hour
come. That crisis event. And every
other earthquake, every shaking before that event and after that
event are simply reminders that when God manifests Himself, there
is nothing on this earth that is stable. When God shows up, that's what
you're going to know. Nothing here lasts. Nothing here can be grasped. Nothing here is stable. Nothing
here will ever prove to be a safe haven. In verses 6 through 9,
we have a direct promise here. saith the Lord of hosts. This place will I give peace."
That's a direct promise of the coming of the One whose entrance
into this world will be attended by a great shaking of things,
a mixing up of things, a stirring of things. When Christ comes,
He will fill His house with glory, with glory. When this one builds
His temple, the glory of it will outshine the glory of the former
temple. And this also speaks Not only
of the temple, but of the covenant under which that old temple was
built. That old covenant. People like to talk about the
old covenant. Religion likes to play in the old covenant. Religion likes to try to establish
the old covenant. Dave and I were talking about
a man who was trying to strictly get people to worship on the
Sabbath. If you want to, that's Saturday.
Sunday is not the Sabbath. Never has been and never will
be. Christ is the Believer's Sabbath. He is the one in whom
we rest. Why? Because the work of creation,
the new creation is done and in Christ we rest because there
is nothing left to do. It is going to be that former covenant.
Listen to how it is described in Scripture. I know people like
to say, Well, I want to put the Ten Commandments on the courthouse.
Go ahead. I wish people understood what they meant. They mean you're
guilty. That's what Tim Adams means.
You're guilty. You deserve to die. Well, we
just put that on the courthouse. You're guilty. You deserve to
die. Well, Crow told me one time how he gets out of jury duty
is when people ask him to go on duty, he just says, well,
I figured if the police caught him, he must be guilty. And they
never call him back. Well, that's what the law says.
That's everything else. has no life in it, has no mercy in it,
has no grace in it, only accusation, sentencing, and judgment. Paul
knew that, and he was a lawyer, and studied at the feet of Gamaliel,
and knew the law backwards and forwards, and probably knew every
tradition that came down the line. In 2 Corinthians chapter
3, he makes a comparison between the law, the letter, The Old
Covenant and the New Covenant, and words that he speaks are
very important to understand. In 2 Corinthians 3, verse 6,
he says this, "...who has also made us ministers of the New
Testament, not of the letter..." That's the Old Testament. "...not
of the letter, but of the Spirit." Not of the Old Covenant, but
a spiritual covenant. Why? Because the letter killeth. Want to go back under the law?
You're dead. But the Spirit gives life. We're
not ministers of the law. We're not out to kill people.
We're out to tell people who life is and where life is in
Jesus Christ. Look at verse 7. Again, a comparison. But it's administration of death.
That's the law. It's administration of death.
The ministration of death written and engraved in stones was glorious,
and it had a glory about it because it showed the absolute holiness
of God to punish sin. It was glorious so that the children
of Israel could not steadfastly look in the face of Moses for
the glory of his countenance, which glory was done away. That's
gone. How shall not the ministration
of the Spirit be rather more glorious? That is done away with. Look at verse 9. For if the ministration
of condemnation, that's what the law is, if that has a glory
about it, and it does because it's just, and it's right, and
it's holy, much more let the ministration of righteousness
exceed in glory. That's our ministration, our
ministry. Look at verse 11. Well, that
which is done away was glorious. If that which is done away was
glorious, and it's gone, it's done away with, much more that
which remaineth is glorious. Then in verse 13, And not as
Moses would put a veil over his face, as the children of Israel
could not steadfastly look into the end which was abolished.
This speaks of that glorious, covenant of grace, this is that
desire of all nations that comes, that when He came, the law and
the old covenant was completely, absolutely, forever, never to
be used again, it was set aside. Lo, I come in the volume of the
book, it is written to me to do Thy will, O God, He taketh
away the first, so that He might establish the second. This is
a cataclysmic event, a shaking event. And men are shaken to
their souls. Our Lord is the builder of the
temple. And when He builds the old temple
by comparison, it is like the sun to the stars. You know there
are stars out there right now. They are. They are all over the
sky. How come you can't see them?
Because there is a great big star that outshines them all.
That light is so great that the other light is nothing whatsoever.
It doesn't even appear. It doesn't even appear. Our Lord built this temple called
His Body. Look at Ephesians chapter 2.
Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians 2, verse 18, it says,
For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the
Father, that is, through Christ. Now therefore ye are no longer
strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints,
and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation
of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the
chief cornerstone, in whom all the building fitly frame together
into a holy temple unto the Lord. That's the Church! He's building
that temple. "...in whom ye also are built
together for the inhabitation of God through the Spirit." Christ
is the temple. His body is the temple. We are
His body, it says. And He's the one who builds this
church. Also this house, this temple, this church will be a
place of peace. He said, I'll give peace to this
place. That's what He says in verse 9. And in this place will
I give peace. Is there any peace in the Old
Covenant? There's no peace in the Old Covenant. Only peace
comes by the blood of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
is our peace, it says in Scripture. That's an explicit reference
to the personal work of Christ. In Ephesians 2, 14 and 15, He
is our peace. He is our peace. In Colossians
1, 18 through 20, God has given Him preeminence in all things
and He has made peace. not tried to make it, not offered
it, there was peace made and established. He hath made peace
by the blood of His cross to reconcile all things unto Himself,
the God. Now in our text in verse 7, our
Lord is given a wondrous title here. It declares that when God
shakes the earth in that day, the day of Calvary, that the
desire of all nations shall come The desire of all nations. Now you think about that phrase,
and think about the Lord Jesus Christ, and think about what
the world thinks about Him, generally. It doesn't seem to quite fit,
does it? The desire of all nations? Do
all men desire Christ? We know this is speaking about
Christ, but do all men desire Christ? Here the Lord Jesus is
referred to as the desire of all nations. Before in this pastor
he was typified as a rubbable, which is sown in Babylon. That's
what that word means, a rubbable sown in Babylon. And he was.
He came down to this world. He came down to this world. He
was sown in Babylon. He's referred to as Joshua, which
means Jehovah is salvation. He's referred to as the son of
Josedek, which means Jehovah is righteousness. Now He's called
the Desire of all nations shall come. Immediately this title gives
men pause, especially as to the evidence. Is He desired of all
nations? Does not the Bible teach that
He came into His world and His world knew Him not? That He came
to His own and His own received Him not? Did not His world nail
Him to a cross as one despised and rejected of men, a man of
sorrows and acquainted with grief? How then is He the desire of
all nations? He is, we know, because God said
He was. I'm going to shake this world
and the desire of all nations shall come. This teaches us immediately
that this shaking, this upheaval at the coming of Christ was unknown
by the flesh and inconceivable by man as he was born in this
world. He walked among men for 33 years. He never sinned. He never had
an unclean thought. He lived righteously and perfectly
before the Father, doing always that which pleased the Father.
And nobody knew. Scripture says in John chapter
7, His brethren didn't believe Him. I know people think that
righteousness can be seen, because they come up with the little
doodads in their religion that if you don't do this or you do
that, then you're holy and you're righteous. But righteousness
can't be seen. The perfect man nobody knew was perfect, because
they don't know what perfection is. Nobody does. You and I have never experienced,
except by faith, the definition of perfection. We can't even
imagine. In our highest and noblest thoughts,
we cannot imagine what perfection is. So this teaches us immediately,
this shaking, this upheaval of the coming of Christ was unknown
by the flesh and inconceivable by man as he is born in this
world. The light shineth in darkness, but the darkness comprehendeth
it not. This shaking was a spiritual shaking, and this same Jesus,
whom the world crucified, God hath made both Lord and Christ.
And when they found out that, they were utterly surprised.
After watching His life for thirty-three years, they were utterly surprised.
You see, the strong man has been dethroned, and is stronger than
he has taken his place. God has shaken this thing up.
The Lord God omnipotent reigneth, and apart from the miracle of
grace, men have no idea that there has even been a change
in management. But there has been. When Christ
rose from the grave, He rose to the throne. And He's running
it. Lock, stock, and barrel. Not
a creature breathes. Not a gnats, not a fly, flies
without His direction and His power and His will. Even your
ability to sin comes from His power or you'd be dead. It's that simple. How do you think those men nailed
those spikes in His hands? He gave them power to do that. How do you think those men wagged
their tongues and despised Him with their words? He gave them
power to do that. He knows the words in their tongue
before they're even spoken, He says in Scripture. God has shaken this world. He turned it upside down and
yet men have no idea. Men's very foundations have been
shaken, and they blindly go on as if nothing had happened. They
cling to vapor. They tread on quicksand. Their
feet are on slippery places, and yet the desire of all nations
has come, and they don't know it. Christ is the desire of all nations.
What does that mean? What does that mean? Well, the
elect, when they hear of it, they're glad for it, and they
see that Christ alone is their desire. They're glad for it. But the elect, they're all in
nations, but they are not all nations. It's out of every nation,
kindred, tongue, and people that God has selected a people. Yet
here our Lord has called the desire of all nations. The desire of all nations is
Jesus Christ. That is a fact, because God said
it. That is a fact. Yet here our
Lord has called the desire of all nations. Men and nations
have a desire, evidently, that they cannot and do not and will
not, apart from a work of sovereign grace, acknowledge. Nations have
a desire. Christ is the desire of all nations,
and yet they won't acknowledge Him. What in the world does this
passage mean? They won't acknowledge Him, and
this fact is proven in the manifold expression and practices of men's
religion. The fact that He is the desire of all nations is
proven by men's religion. They don't know it, but it nonetheless
is. Men, nations, people need religion. They need religion. They're born
religious. When Adam fell, he didn't cease
to be religious. He was more religious than he
was before. Men and women are religious creatures
created to serve and to worship, and they will worship. Oh, what's
his name? I can't think of the old folk
singer. He said, everybody's going to
serve somebody. Everybody's going to serve somebody.
And everybody is. Because you're made to serve.
You're not made to reign. You wouldn't know what to do
with power. You're made to serve. You're made to worship. That's
what we all are. And so we're all, by nature, religious. And
we have a religion we're born with. All nations desire certain
things that are only met by religion. Even though all but one religion
is false. And that's just a statement of
fact. You say, oh, that's all? But one religion is false. Just one is true. Man's efforts in that arena of
religion show their desire. Religion has a scheme and a desire. When Adam sewed together his
fig leaf covering, that was a religious act. That was a religious act. When
he hid from God, that was a religious act. When he shifted blame from
himself to his wife, that was a religious act. All from a desire
to be right with God. That's why He did it. What do
all nations desire? Four things. Four things. All nations desire. When I'm
talking about nations, I'm talking about religion of man. Men and
nations. This is their religion. What
does every nation desire? Number one, all nations, and
this is proven by their religion, All nations desire a visible
deity. All nations desire a visible
deity. You can put your foot anywhere
on this earth, walk in any nation, and you will find some sort of
worship. even though their God is born
in ignorance, and is little more than a figment of their imagination? What is the practice of pagans
throughout history, carving idols of stone and wood, but a desire
for a visible God? A visible God. What is the practice of giving
visible things spiritual significance? People do that all the time.
making objects and animals to be inhabited with spiritual power
and influence. What is that but an effort to
acknowledge a power above and beyond their own, and to possess
a visible deity? That's why it's there. That's
what all nations want. And it's proven by what they
do in religion. This is the desire of all nations.
And though unbeknownst to him, the desire of all nations has
already come. He's already come. Why do I say that? Christ is
God in human flesh. He is the image of the invisible
God. He is the God who was seen walking
this earth. He is the visible deity. When
He comes again, we will see Him not as spirit, but as a human
being, crowned in glory, who is both God and man. Christ is
the only God we see. Christ is the only God we know.
We never met God the Spirit. We met God the Son, the Man,
Christ Jesus. In Him, Scripture says, in Christ
dwelleth, abideth, liveth, in Him dwelleth the fullness of
the Godhead in a body, bodily. What is He? He is what all nations
desire, a visible God, a visible deity. Jesus Christ is that.
Christ alone is the desire of all nations, and only in Him
is the desire of all nations met. What did He say? I and the
Father are one. What did He say? He that has
seen Me has seen the Father. All nations desire a visible
deity. They don't want anything to do with Christ. Yet He's the
desire of all nations fulfilled. Secondly, all nations desire
an atonement or a means of appeasing God. All nations, every culture,
every religion desires that. Just as all nations desire a
visible deity, they also, without exception, sense that they are
not right with their deity. Isn't that right? That's why
everybody walks around so guilty all the time. That's why the
only true religion is so wonderful, because it relieves us of our
guilt. relieves us of our guilt. You can't be guilty and stand
before God. You can't be guilty and fellowship with God. You've
got to be not guilty. But all nations desire some appeasement
for their God. They sense that they must have
some sort of offering or some place to offer it. Because they
feel that their deity must be appeased or propitiated. They
feel somehow that deity is angry with them. All nations do this
in the religion. Check it out. If they to enjoy
a fellowship with their deity, something must be done to appease
Him and consequently rid them of their guilt. Find a nation,
find a tribe, no matter how far removed from so-called civilization
or civilized society, and you will find some sort of altar,
because all nations desire an atonement or an appeasement.
All nations do. Be it a rock on an island, a
stump in the woods, or the front of near about every Baptist church
in the world, or the oh so precious family altar they have been talking
about. Men have a place to go to appease
their God with a sacrifice of something. A place of confession. A place of rededication. An altar
because all nations desire an atonement. The desire of all nations, though
unbeknownst to them, has come. The desire of all nations has
come. Christ is the offering. Christ is the offerer. Christ
is the altar upon which the offering is made. Christ is the priest
who offers it. Christ is the God who accepts
it. He's all. He is the one mediator between
men and God. He has made peace by the blood
of His cross. Nations desire an atonement of
propitiation. Christ is that. The only one. He has made peace through the
blood of His cross. He has propitiated God. What does that mean? God
is satisfied with His people because of what Christ has done.
He is the desire of all nations. All nations desire a visible
God. All nations desire an atonement for sin. All nations do. Any religion, check out every
one of them. They're not a one of them that don't offer that
in some way, form or another. Thirdly, all nations have desired
a divine revelation or an authentic enunciation of God's divine will. All nations have desired that.
Men desire a visible deity, they desire an appeasing sacrifice,
and they want to hear from their God. They want to know His will. Show
me a religion in this world of nations that has not come up
with a spokesman for God. Find me one. One religion that
doesn't have somebody speaking for God. All nations desire that. They desire that. Whether it
be a priest or a priestess, a shaman, a seer or a soothsayer, a witch
doctor, an oracle or a preacher. All nations desire divine revelation
from their deity. Plato. That screwed-up Plato. in one of his dialogues and discourses
said, it is therefore necessary to wait until one teach us how
to behave toward gods and men. And when shall that time arrive?
And who shall that teacher be? For most glad would I be to see
such a man that teach me what God said. Even Plato wanted somebody
to tell him. Why? Why? Because this is the
desire of all nations. The desire of all nations, though
unbeknownst to them, has come. He has come. The Word made flesh. The authentic enunciation of
God's will has come. Never a man spake like this man. He spoke not as the scribes and
the Pharisees. He spoke as one with authority.
Christ is the desire of all nations. Fourthly and finally, all nations
desire some assurance of immortality, a promise of eternal life, a
hope that this life is not all there is. All
nations desire that. No matter where you put your
finger on the pages of human history, In the history of human
religion, you will find the desire for existence beyond the grave. And I've said it in many a bedside
and held the hands of dying men and women. I've never heard one say, well,
this is all over when I die. It's all over. It's done. I'm
going to be like a dog rotting in a ditch. You know what they
say? Wish I'd have done better. Wish
I'd have been a better mother, better father, better child.
Wish I'd have loved better. Why do they say things like that?
I'm sure they're honest. I'm sure they're sincere. Why
do they say that? Because they desire a life on
the other side of the grave. And they want it to be a good
life. You ever wondered why you find
mummies in pyramids in Egypt? Egyptian mummification was an
effort at eternal life. The notion that death ends it
all has never found much purchase in the heart of humanity. I've
known people who talk like that except when they died. Dying
kind of changes things. Whether it is the Hindu notion
of reincarnation, the Islam promise of paradise, the Chaldean notion
of Ishtar descending into Hades, Dante's descent into the inferno,
or the milquetoast pap that after folks die they're all up there
watching us. The desire for eternal life permeates
the minds of all nations. Though we do not know it, though
they do not know it, and apart from a saving grace, they never
will know it, and they will always refuse to acknowledge it. That's
how of all nations has come. Christ is eternal life. My sheep
hear my voice, and they follow me, and I give to them eternal
life. No man is able to pluck them
out of my hand. My Father which gave them me is greater than
all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.
I give to them eternal life. Look over at 1st John just for
a moment. 1st John chapter 5. 1st John chapter 5 and verse
20. And we know that the Son of God
is come, and hath given us an understanding that we may know
Him that is true. And He's given us an understanding
that we are in Him that is true. Even in His Son, Jesus Christ,
this is true God. This is eternal life. All nations desire a visible
God. a physical manifestation of deity,
all nations' desire and atonement of propitiation, all nations'
desire of divine revelation, all nations' desire and assurance
of immortality. Christ is all. The desire of
all nations has come. 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. Father,
bless us for our understanding, we pray in Christ's name, Amen.