Summer in the Minor Prophets - Haggai

Please turn with me and your Bibles to the Book of Haggai,

the next Minor prophet, and our series this summer in the Minor

Prophets. You can find Hey Guy on page 791

in the Chair Bibles. This this little book only takes

up one page front and back of your Bible, so it can be hard to

find. It's the third to the last book

of the Old Testament, and you'll find it in between two Z books

between Zephaniah and Zechariah. Hey Guy, it's only two chapters

long. We'll be studying three of its

four prophecies, but for now we're going to read verses the

1st 8 verses of chapter 1 and hear the Lord's calling the Jews

who have returned to Jerusalem from exile to Persia.

He's calling them to rebuild the temple.

So I'll be together. I'll begin reading here from

Hagai chapter 1, starting in verse one in the second year of

Darius the king, in the sixth month.

On the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the

hand of Hagai the Prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Sheel

Teal, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak the

high priest. Thus says the Lord of Hosts.

These people say that the time has not yet come to rebuild the

House of the Lord. Then the Lord, where the Lord

came by the hand of Hagai the Prophet.

Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses,

while this house lies in ruins? Now therefore thus, says the

Lord of Hosts, consider your ways.

You have sown much and harvested little.

You eat, but you never have enough.

You drink, but you never have your fill.

You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm, and he who earns

wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.

Thus, says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways.

Go up to the hills and bring wood, and build the house, that

I may take pleasure in it, and that I may be glorified, says

the Lord. Let's pray our God as we come to

this little book, we pray that by your Spirit You would stir us

up to the work that you have called us to do.

We thank You that you are with us, that we can be strong in

You. We ask Lord that you would shape

our hearts to worship You above all through Your word.

Now this we pray in Jesus name, Amen.

Learn to say no to the good in order to say yes to the best.

Maybe you've heard that that phrase before.

Learn to say no to the good to say yes to the best.

These these wise words come from John Maxwell.

He's a former pastor and and one of the most prolific authors on

the topic of leadership. The idea behind this quote is

that we all get caught up in doing so many good things that

we neglect to invest in what's most important, our most

important relationships, our most important callings, our

most important goals. And in the book of Hagai, the

Jewish people in Jerusalem were doing many good things, but

neglecting what was most important and the most important

thing for them is also the most important thing for us.

And what's that? It's the worship of God.

We exist to worship God. There is nothing more important

in our to our existence than to know God and to love Him and to

magnify Him with every ounce of our being.

Worship is far more than what we do here on this hour on Sundays.

It's an all-encompassing way of life.

And this corporate worship on Sunday is the crown jewel of all

of our worship. But we often say no to worship

because we've become distracted and overwhelmed, consumed,

busied by by just a million good things.

The Jewish people in Hey guys, they had a similar problem.

They weren't prioritizing the worship of God.

They were doing many good things.

They were reestablishing their lives in Jerusalem, building

houses and and trying to resurrect the lost culture of

Jerusalem. All good things on the surface,

but they were neglecting to rebuild the temple, the House of

the Lord, the place of worship that mediated the relationship

between them and their God. Because of this sinful neglect,

they continued to experience the covenant curses.

And so in 520 BC, God sent not one, but two prophets to wake up

the Jewish people to what was most important for them.

Those two prophets were Haggai and Zechariah.

These prophets started prophesying in the same year,

just two months apart. Next week we'll consider the

much larger book of Zechariah, but know that both Haggai and

Zechariah, they share the same post exilic context starting in

520 BC. So as we start to work through

the book of Haggai, we'll first look at what's going on before

and during the time of Haggai. Then we'll consider his message.

Then one with a few ways that hey guys message applies to us

today. So let's start by considering

Hey guy, the man prophet Haggai is named in verse one, but we we

don't know his family line or really much about him.

He's also mentioned in the book of Ezra.

The book of Ezra was written during the same time period as

Haggai, and it says in Ezra chapter 6, it says this.

Ezra 6 · chapter mention

The elders of the Jews built and prospered through the

prophesying of Haggai, the prophet and Zechariah.

So that's great. Many prophets faced hard hearts

and rejection, but Haggai's message was well received.

So that was great. So that that's just a little bit

of what we know about Haggai the prophet.

Now before we get more into the context and message of Haggai,

it's going to be helpful to understand the back story of the

temple. There's three kinds of temples

we need to know about the the temple like Garden of Eden, the

Tabernacle of the wilderness, and then the breathtaking Temple

of Solomon. So first the the temple like

Garden of Eden. The the story of the temple, it

really begins in Genesis 1. God created a people for

himself, Adam and Eve, and he established a relationship with

them as their God. And because they were sinless,

they enjoyed an unmediated relationship with God, who

walked freely in their presence in the garden.

God called Adam to work and to keep the garden, to work it and

keep it to Hebrew words that were also paired together to

describe the duties of the priests in the Book of Numbers.

So. So Adam was an archetype priest

and the garden was in a sense a temple, his place of worship and

and fellowship with the presence of God.

Adam failed in this role though, when he and Eve ate the

forbidden fruit. And since sinful people can't

dwell with God's holy presence, Adam and Eve were banished from

the Garden of Eden. But despite the sin of his

people, God still desired to have His Spirit dwell amongst

his people. And so after God saved his

people out of slavery from Egypt, he established his

covenant with them at Mount Sinai with Moses on this

covenant with and in this covenant with Moses, God

commanded for a Tabernacle to be built for him.

This this mobile tent for sacrificing and purification and

and community communicating with God.

God's glorious presence would dwell in in the holy of holies

over the ark of the covenant in this tent.

And God established the sacrificial system with

purification laws so that the sinful, unclean people could be

made clean and dwell in the midst of a holy God.

And then Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

God promised blessings for obedience and curses for

disobedience. God's glorious presence dwelt in

in the Tabernacle for hundreds of years until King Solomon

built the first Temple in Jerusalem, where the the Temple

of Mount in Israel is today. This temple was exquisite.

The gold, the silver, the bronze, the cedar.

It was a sight to behold, but sadly after throughout the the

400 years that it was in use, it was it was often neglected and

it was even misused at times. Idols from other nations were

brought into Solomon's Temple and worshipped in it.

And so in 586 BC, when Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to

Jerusalem and overthrew it, he destroyed Solomon's Temple and

took all the precious instruments of worship.

He took them all to, to Babylon. He also exiled the Jews to

Babylon. And so the people of God left

the promised land in shambles to go to a foreign nation where

they would have to follow and worship God without a temple for

70 years. So you can read about some of

that in in the book of Daniel. So that's kind of the that's,

that's the brief back story of the temple.

So now we come to the time of Haggai and Zechariah in 19 years

prior to Haggai's prophecy in in 539 BC, the Persian king Cyrus

the Great, he overtook Babylon. And then the following year

after that, he issued A decree permitting Jews to begin

returning to Jerusalem, and he commanded them to rebuild their

temple. It was amazing, it was a

miracle, it was an act of God. And so we read about this in the

book of Ezra, and the Jews did just that.

They started to rebuild the temple, but then they stopped.

Why did that happen? Why'd they stop?

Well, there's other people who lived in Jerusalem who weren't

Jews. They were, had been sent there

by the Assyrians and they, they, they, they, they wanted to help

rebuild the temple. And they, they asked the Jews if

they could help. But the Jews turned them down,

knowing that they should not be unequally yoked with unbelievers

in the building of God's temple. This, this kind of ticked them

off, ticked off these foreign transplants.

And so they caused problems and they made the Jews afraid to

continue rebuilding the temple. And then a new Persian king

named Arctic Xerxes came into power and they influenced him to

send a letter to the Jews to stop rebuilding the temple.

So that work on the House of Lords stopped for many years.

All right, so that brings us all up now to 520 BC.

Here, the book of of Haggai. And we see from verse one of

Haggai that Darius became king. Darius, he was in his second

year as king of Persia. Persia had power over, you know,

vast amount of land and and, and so the land of Judah was just a

small portion of it. And so because Darius was king,

that means that the Jews couldn't have a king of their

own. Instead they had a governor.

That governor's name was Zerubbabel, the son of Sheel

Teal and Zerubbabel. He was the grandson of King

Jehoiachin. So he was, he was of the kingly

line of David, but here he was in Jerusalem with with no throne

and limited power. The book of Hagai was written to

Zerubbabel the governor, and also to Joshua the high priest.

And then also it speaks of being written to all the remnant of

the people. All right, so that's a brief

context of hey guy, let's let's not take a look at his message.

As I mentioned, there are 4 prophecies in this little book

and they're all dated very specifically because we have

these dates and because of other archaeological discoveries that

mentioned King Darius. We know down to the very day

when each of these prophecies were made.

It's pretty cool. They occur between August 29th

and December 18th of 520 BC. Another thing we see in this

little book is that the name the Lord of Hosts is the preferred

title for God. In this book.

It occurs 14 times in 38 verses. To just hear it again and again.

So but, but why? Why that specific title?

Why is that specifically used here?

Well, I'm not, I'm not 100% sure, but here's my guess.

Maybe it's used that to remind the Jews that that although they

have no military to protect them, they have the Lord of

hosts on their side, the Lord of armies.

He is the God who commands a vast army of of heavenly angels

and in his hand are all the armies of the earth.

They Israel, Judah, this army list people, they are safe and

secure if they're in a right relationship with him, no matter

what army comes against them. Now let's take a look at the

first prophecy, a call to resume building the temple.

This prophecy took place on August 29th of 520.

Read along with me verses 2, verses 2 through 11.

Thus says the Lord of hosts. These people say, the time has

not yet come to rebuild the House of the Lord, and the word

of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet.

Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your panelled

houses, while this house lies in ruins?

Now therefore thus, says the Lord of Hosts, Consider your

ways. You have so much and harvested

little. You eat, but you never have

enough. You drink, but you never have

your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no

one is warm, and he who earns wages does so to put them into a

bag with holes. Thus, says the Lord of Hosts,

consider your ways. Go up to the hills and bring

wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that

I may be glorified, says the Lord.

You looked for much, and behold, it came to little, and when you

brought it home I blew it away. Why, declares the Lord of hosts,

because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies

himself with his own house. Therefore the heavens above you

have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce.

I have called for a drought on the land, in the hills, on the

grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on

man and beast, and on all their laborers.

This first prophecy is a wake up call to the Jews that their

priorities are out of whack and they're still experiencing

covenant curses because of it. Twice in this message, the Lord

calls His people to consider their ways.

They're to stop, and they're to question what they've been doing

and how they've been living. The philosopher Socrates, who

would be born 50 years after this prophecy, he famously said

the unexamined life is not worth living.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

It's foolish to go about life thinking and not thinking about

what you're doing or or, or or why you're doing it and just

never reflecting on your life and never repenting from sin.

And here God tells the Jews to stop and think about what

they're doing. Examine their lives.

Notice how they've gotten off course.

The end goal of God bringing the the Jews back to Jerusalem

wasn't just merely for them to live there, it was for them to

worship God there. And so they needed to get their

priorities straight and rebuild the temple.

Verse 4 says that the Jews had made themselves paneled houses

and well, we're not really, we're not exactly sure what that

means. It does mean that the people

prioritized their own houses over the House of the Lord.

Now, it was good for the Jews to restore their houses and build

new ones, but this good thing became the most important thing

then then worshipping God. And when a good thing becomes

the most important thing, it becomes a bad thing.

It becomes an idol. And I think we're often blind to

this as Christians. We figure if something isn't

inherently evil, then then hey, it's, it's, it's good or find it

to do that or to or to have it. We often don't think through if

if a good thing is going to take up way too much priority in our

lives and and and suffocate out the worship of God.

Have other priorities become more important to you than to

worship the Lord? To worship the Lord on on the

Lord's Day? Is it sports or hobbies or, you

know, staying up way too late on on with Saturday night

activities that just make you too tired for Sunday?

Now, many of you have jobs that require Sunday shifts like in

the hospital system, and those are important jobs of mercy for

our neighbors. But maybe you've been picking up

shifts on Sundays that you don't really need to.

Now, there's certainly challenges to getting to worship

when you have little children or if you're sick.

And there's certainly, certainly grace for those seasons.

But no matter what season we're in, God wants us to make worship

our highest priority. Jesus says on the Sermon on the

Mount. But seek first the Kingdom of

God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added

to you. We aren't to be anxious about

our lives and getting crazy busy in all sorts of other stuff.

God wants us to seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness.

God not only commands the Jews to rebuild the temple, He also

wants them to connect the dots between the drought of that

their land was in and the spiritual drought of their

worship. Verse 6 says that they had sown

much but harvested little. They didn't have enough to eat

or drink, and they lived like they had holes in their money

bags. This language is reminiscence of

the language in Deuteronomy 28 of the covenant curses for

disobedience. So, but you know, remember the

Jews are are under the old covenant, the Mosaic covenant.

They're not under the new covenant here.

And so they, they're so there were these covenant curses for

not maintaining a right relationship with God just

because they were back in the land.

They couldn't assume that everything was good with their

relationship with God. Now they needed to rebuild the

temple and restore the worship of God as their highest

priority. Now, if you if you don't

understand the old covenant here, you could cook up the

prosperity gospel really quick. All right.

God is not a vending machine. His blessings are not a

mechanical transaction where we give him good works and worship

and then he spits back to us material blessings.

Even for Israel, the the the the covenant blessings and curses

were were not a mechanical, predictable exchange.

God was patient with his people for literally hundreds of years

while they were wicked, without bringing his curses on them, and

while continuing to bless their land.

And in the same way, when Israel lived rightly before him, all of

their problems didn't just go away.

There are still many challenges. The New covenant doesn't work

like the old, as as Christians in the new covenant, we we

should expect, we should expect to live like heirs, not like

kings and Queens. So what do I mean by that?

An heir is a child who will one day receive the wealth of his or

her family, but but they haven't received it yet.

He or she might be quite poor until the day they receive their

inheritance. So it is with the Christian life

in Christ. We are blessed with every

spiritual blessing in Christ, and that's Ephesians 1.

And we are, we are heirs of the new heavens and new earth.

But as we live on this earth, we face sufferings and trials.

Our obedience does not earn us material blessings

automatically. Rather, Jesus wants us to to

focus on storing up our treasures in heaven.

So live like an heir and don't expect your best life now.

So how did the Jews respond to hey guys, first message here.

Let's look now at verses 12 through 15.

Then Zerubbabel the son of Shaltile, and Joshua the son of

Jehovah, Zadak the high priest, with all the remnant of the

people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God and the words of

Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him, and the

people feared the Lord. Then Haggai the messenger of the

Lord, spoke to the people with the Lord's message.

I am with you, declares the Lord.

And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, the son of

Sheel Till, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son

of Jehozadak the high priest, and the spirit of all the

remnant of the people. And they came and worked on the

House of the Lord their God, the Lord of hosts, their God, on the

24th day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year

of Darius the king. This is a wonderful model for

how God's Word should impact us. The people heard God's word, and

together they obeyed. They properly feared the Lord

knowing that that he had the power over nations to exile

them. They knew that full well and he

had the power of the land to bring drought upon them for

discipline. And verses 13 and 14, we see how

they had we see how they had the the strength to to obey.

In verse 13, the Lord comforts his people saying, I am with

you. Even though they didn't have a

temple, God was still with them. Even though they had sinned, God

was still with them. God still loved them, and they

were still His chosen people. The people repented and obeyed

because God was with them. In verse 14, it says that the

Lord stirred up the spirits of Zerubbabel, Joshua, and all the

remnant of the people so that they obediently began working on

the temple. When God gives us commands, he

doesn't just passively wait for people to obey.

He gives commands, and then he gives the will and the strength

to obey those commands. As Agustin once said, give what

you command, O Lord, and then command what you will.

Give what you command, O God. God commanded the temple to

rebuild, and then he gave what He commanded.

He gave them His presence, and He stirred up their hearts to

obey. He gave them willing spirits.

So may we hear God's commands with that same hope.

May we not see God's commands as burdensome, but may we, by God's

Spirit, hope in the strength from God to obey His commands

willingly and eagerly. May the Lord stir up our spirits

to do His will and to make His worship our greatest joy and our

greatest priority. So that's the first prophecy.

Let's move on now to the second present strength and future

glory. This prophecy takes place about

a month and a half later, on October 17th.

Look with me at chapter 2, verses one through 9, in the

seventh month. On the 21st day of the month,

the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet.

Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shell Teal, governor of

Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehovah, Dak the high priest,

and to all the remnant of the people.

And say, who is left among you who saw this house in its former

glory? How do you see it now?

Is it not as nothing in your eyes yet?

Now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord.

Be strong, O Joshua son of Jehozadak the high priest, be

strong. All you people of the land,

declares the Lord work. For I am with you, declares the

Lord of Hosts, according to the covenant that I made with you

when you came out of Egypt. My spirit remains in your midst.

Fear not for thus says the Lord of Hosts.

Yet once more, in a little while I will shake the heavens and the

earth and the sea and the dry land, and I will shake all

nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in,

and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of Hosts.

The silver is mine and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of

Hosts. The latter glory of this house

shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of Hosts.

And in this day and in this place I will give peace,

declares the Lord of Hosts. As the Jewish remnant gathered

to hear God's second word from Haggai, it seemed that they're

gathered together at the construction site of the temple.

There were there were four more years left to of building the

temple and it would eventually be finished and dedicated in 516

BC, 70 years after Solomon's temple had been destroyed.

But at this point there was a long way to go to finishing the

temple and it was clear from the get go that it wasn't going to

be as grand as the previous temple.

In verse 3, Haggai speaks to a few of the aged elders who had

seen Solomon's temple when they were children, and he points out

to them what they probably were all thinking, that this temple,

there's really nothing in comparison to Solomon's.

But in verses 4 through 9, the Lord is going to surprise them

with a bright future. Just as he told Joshua before

going into the promised land, He commands them all to be strong.

He reassures them once again that he is with them.

They are to work because he is with them.

They're not to be afraid because His Spirit remains in their

midst. Even though this temple wouldn't

have all the gold and all the glamour, the people would have

God's Spirit in their midst, and that's all that mattered.

Worship isn't about. Sometimes God brings us back to

the heart of worship, and He. Sometimes God simplifies our

worship from all the glitz and all the glamour that it used to

be. Worship isn't.

It's not about having the the best worship band, the largest

choir, the biggest attendance, the most historic building, the

the most epic stained glass, the largest.

You just stop it. Or even really, you know, the

largest pipe organ or really having the most reformed dish

liturgy. There are a million ways to

distract our worship from focusing on God.

And sometimes God simplifies our worship so that we remember what

it's really all about. It's about seeing the glory of

God in the face of Jesus Christ. That's what it's all about.

There's a lot of other distractions, but at the end of

the day, that's what it's all about.

And sometimes God simplifies our worship so that we stop hoping

in our present worship and we start looking forward to our

future worship. And that's what the Lord does in

the in the next verses. Here in verses 6 through 9, He

tells them about the future glory that's coming.

In verse 6, the Lord says something shocking.

In a little while, He plans to shake everything up.

He will shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry

land. The Lord of hosts will shake all

the nations, and nothing will be the same after that.

God will shake all things, and all nations will come to His

temple and bring their treasures to it.

All the silver and all the gold that was stripped away from the

temple belongs to the Lord. God promises to fill His house

with His glory, and then in verse 9, the Lord promises

something almost too amazing to believe.

The glory of the latter temple will be greater than the former

temple. How could the smaller temple

have more glory? The answer would be in the

coming of Jesus Christ 500 years later.

Into this temple would come the glory of God in the person of

Jesus Christ. John 114 says, And the word

became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory,

glory as of as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace

and truth. The Word for dwelt in John 114

is actually the word for Tabernacle, Jesus.

The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.

He would be the greater temple that all other temples were just

mere shadows of. Jesus explicitly calls Himself

the temple in John chapter 2, and in John four he taught the

John 2 · chapter mention

Samaritan woman that at the well, that worship wouldn't be

about location anymore, it would be all about worshipping the

Father in spirit and in truth. Jesus was about to shake

everything up. Jesus became the place of

worship for all nations, not just the Jews.

And he, he isn't just our He isn't just our final temple.

He is also our sinless High priest who lives forever.

He's our spotless sacrificial lamb who by one offering on the

cross was able to perfect for all time all of God's people.

The old sacrificial system was fading away and the glory of the

New Covenant in Jesus Christ was coming.

And people from all nations would see that glory, the glory

of Jesus Christ. And to him they would bring

their treasures and their worship for the Jews and

Haggai's day, even though they, even though what they saw was

small and humble, what they heard with their ears and what

they believed in in their hearts was a far greater glory than the

glory of Solomon's temple. We're not going to, we're going

to skip over the third prophecy in verses 10 through 19, but let

me just briefly summarize it in In this third prophecy, the Lord

declares A gracious shift for the Jews from curse to blessing.

These last two prophecies, actually, they occur on the same

day, December 18th, but they're just addressed to different

people. Now the third prophecy is

addressed to the priests, and he asked them a question about that

that has to do with the Torah, the law, and what what it says

about cleanliness and uncleanliness.

He then says that the Jews are unclean and as a result, they're

experiencing the covenant curses.

But then at the very end he says this.

But from this day on, I will bless you.

I will bless you. So a shift was happening, a

shift in the relationship between God and his people.

A shift in worship was happening in their hearts even before the

temple was was built. And so because they were living

in a right relationship with him, they would expect covenant

blessings, the covenant blessings of Deuteronomy 28

instead of the curses. That's the third prophecy.

The the last prophecy takes place on the same day as the

third. This one is addressed just as a

rubble the governor and the rightful heir to the throne of

David. So look with me at chapter 2,

verses 20 through 23. The word of the Lord came a

second time to Haggai on the 24th day of the month.

Speak to his rubble, governor of Judah, saying, I'm about to

shake the heavens and the earth and overthrow the throne of

kingdoms. I'm about to destroy the

strength of the kingdoms of the nations and overthrow the

Chariots and the riders and the horses, and the riders shall go

down everyone by the sword of his brother on that day,

declares the Lord of Hosts. I will take you, O Zerubbabel,

my servant, the son of Sheel Teal, declares the Lord.

And make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you, declares

the Lord of Hosts. The prophecy of A of Haggai ends

on a high note. The Lord once again prophesied

that he is going to shake the heavens and the earth, and this

time he mentions overthrowing the throne of kingdoms and

destroying the kingdoms of the nations.

And verse 23 the Lord uses the phrase on that day.

It's a phrase that Hagai only uses once, but it's a phrase

used very often throughout prophetic literature to describe

the final day of the Lord. So it seems that that this is a

prophecy of God shaking the kingdoms of the world on the day

when Christ returns. Another reason why I think this

is because of the Lord's prophecy to Zerubbabel.

In verse 23, it says that on that day when he shakes up the

nation's, he will take his chosen servant Zerubbabel and

make him like a signet ring, like a signery.

Now what does that mean? The signal ring was a was a

royal ring worn by a king that had a seal for giving his

approval, his authority, his authoritative approval.

And so here God is declaring that on that day of shaking he

will, would, would, he will make Zerubbabel like his kingly seal.

This I believe is a prophecy of Jesus Christ second coming, when

he will reign as God's forever king as the book of Daniel

prophesied. A Kingdom is coming that will

destroy all other kingdoms, and that Kingdom is the Kingdom of

heaven. But why does God say Zerubbabel

will be that signet ring? Zerubbabel was of the kingly

line of David and so he is the ancestor of Jesus Christ.

We see Zerubbabel's name in in Jesus genealogies in the Gospels

of Matthew and Luke. Zerubbabel is representative of

the restoration of the Davidic throne because from him would

come the forever King. And so the book of Haggai ends

on a high note, prophesying the end of all kingdoms in the

beginning of the new Kingdom of heaven ruled by Zerubbabel, by

Zerubbabel's son Jesus Christ. Jesus is the glory of God, He is

the forever temple, and he is the everlasting king.

That's the message of Haggai. So how are we to live in light

of this little book? I always love it when New

Testament authors interpret and apply the Old Testament for us.

It makes makes a pastor's job very easy.

Well, the author of Hebrews does does just that in Hebrews

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

chapter 12. In that chapter he calls Haggai

Haggai 2 · chapter mention

chapter 2 about God promising to shake the earth and the heavens.

Then he says in this in verses 28 and 29.

Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a Kingdom that

cannot be shaken, and let us offer to God acceptable worship

with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.

The author of Hebrews wants us to apply Hagai in a few ways.

First, we're we're to be grateful.

We're to thank God that he's given us a Kingdom that cannot

be shaken. Although the kingdoms of this

world seem strong and secure, like Russia and China, in our

own country, although they may seem immovable, there are no

match for the power of God. When Jesus returns, all the

kingdoms will be shaken, and the only Kingdom to remain unshaken

is the Kingdom of heaven. We have received this Kingdom

now in part, and one day it will come in its fullness of Christ's

return, and it will be the only Kingdom left standing.

The Kingdom of Heaven is the only secure Kingdom.

I love how CS Lewis in his book the Great Divorce depicts heaven

as a place incredibly real and solid.

The grass is as hard as diamonds to these these these ghosts that

are visiting it. It's you know, and and and the

water is like stone. The Kingdom of Heaven is

incredibly. Solid.

It's unshakable and it's more real and lasting than anything

imaginable. And so let us be grateful that

God has given us this Kingdom and he's given it to us already.

We are as secure as its citizens, even even even though

we live in a foreign land, right land right now.

The author of Hebrews also calls us to OfferUp to God acceptable

worship. We do this by worshipping with

reverence and awe. We aren't to worship God on our

own terms and and we aren't we aren't to worship a God made in

our own image. Our God is a consuming fire.

He's the same God that appeared to Israel on on Mount Sinai and

shook that mountain before the people.

He's the same God whose glory consumed Aaron's sons Nate, AB

and Abihu when they offered a disobedient worship when His

glory appeared at the consecration of the Tabernacle.

Our God is love, and our God is a consuming fire.

Let's worship Him with reverence and awe.

And finally, let's prioritize our worship of Him above

everything else. Make the needed changes in your

life, the needed changes in your family's schedule to make

worship number one. Everything else is temporary,

shakeable and breakable, but worshipping and enjoying God is

something we will do forever. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have given us a Kingdom

that cannot be shaken, a Kingdom with a king who will live

forever, our Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, I pray that you would stir

up our hearts, that we would work for your glory, that we

would worship you with willing and joyful hearts.

Lord, I pray that you would work in our hearts, that we might

prioritize your worship above all as we pray in the name of

Jesus our King, Amen.