The Lord’s Day Evening
May 1, 2005
Haggai 1:1-4
“Tell God He Can Wait”
Dr. Derek W. H. Thomas
Our Scripture reading this evening comes from the Book of
Haggai, and if you haven’t been in the Minor Prophets of late, then it’s
Haggai-Zechariah-Malachi, and that’s the end of the Old Testament, so just work
your way back to the Book of Haggai. If you’re using the pew Bible, you’ll find
it there on page 1120. We’re going to read from the opening verse, and I’m
going to read this evening from the English Standard Version. Before we read
the Scripture, let’s pray together.
Our Father in heaven, again as we bow in Your
presence and come before You as Your people, we are a needy people, and unless
You come and bless us, our worship is in vain. Come, Holy Spirit, and open up
the Scriptures to us now. You caused it to be written; grant, O Lord, that we
might read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
This is God’s holy and inerrant word:
“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 Haggai the
prophet through Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to
Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest: ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts,
‘These people say, ‘The time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the
Lord.’’’ Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai 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. ‘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. And I have called for
a drought on the land, on the hills, on the grain, on the new wine, on the oil,
on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors.’
“Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of
Jehozadak, 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 Shealtiel,
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 of hosts, their God, on the twenty-fourth day of
the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king.”
Amen. And may God add His blessing to the reading of His
holy and inerrant word.
In 1859, Charles Darwin wrote his Origin of the
Species, and John Stewart Mill published his famous work, On Liberty,
and Charles Dickens published his Tale of Two Cities. And in Wales and in
New York and other places, God sent a revival. There was a remarkable
outpouring of the Spirit in the year 1859. If you’re not familiar with the New
York Revival of 1859, I urge you to do some homework and some reading. It will
cheer your soul.
But it’s not New York that I want to go to; it’s
Wales. And there was a man, a preacher, named David Morgan. We know very little
about David Morgan. He rises from obscurity during this revival, and he said
about himself, “I went to bed as a lamb and rose as a lion.” God the Spirit had
taken hold of him and for a period of about a year or so, God brought out
extraordinary blessing upon his ministry.
Well, something like that happened to the prophet
Haggai. We know very little about him. His entire life is summarized in the
Scriptures in a span that occupies just four months. I doubt that you and I
would be pleased with a biography that only accounted for four months of our
lives. God raised him for one glorious act, and then he seems to disappear
again.
It begins in August 29, in the year 520, and it ends
the 18th of December in that same year. Now, you’ll remember the
background: about a hundred years prior to this time… and Haggai comes
immediately after the Babylonian exile, and after they’ve come back from
Babylon, and the book of Haggai takes place around twenty years or so after that
return…but about a hundred years before that, you remember that Nebuchadnezzar
had made a series of raids on Jerusalem. Those raids would last for a period of
about twenty years or so, beginning in the famous year of 605 B.C., until 586
B.C., when Jerusalem would finally be conquered and the people of God eventually
would be taken into captivity. They would spend, as you remember, seventy years
in captivity. Daniel was one of them; Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were three
others. Cyrus the Persian arises, defeats the great empire of Babylon, issues
that famous decree that the people of God can return; and in 539 B.C. that
beginning of the return under Zerubbabel begins.
The Books of Nehemiah, the Books of Ezra…of
course, the Book of Daniel covers this period of history. They have returned,
then, in 539 B.C. and it is now 520 B.C. (If this were a movie, it would have
on the bottom, “Twenty years later….”)
We’re in a date, and we can precisely date
it…that’s somewhat unusual for the Scriptures. It’s not always that we can
pinpoint with absolute accuracy a date. It’s August 29, in the year 520 B.C.
Haggai is going to preach the first of four sermons–and note that this sermon
comes from the mouth of Haggai as God’s servant. He is speaking a word from
God.
I want us to see four things: “An Astonishing
Admission”; “A Depressing Discovery”; “A Clarion Call”; and “A Remarkable
Response”. Well, apologies for the alliteration, but it’s one of those
sermons that just came that way!
I. An Astonishing Admission.
The first thing I want us to see is “An Astonishing
Admission”. You see it there in verse 2. This is what the people of God had been
saying. We read, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘These people say…’” [and this
is what they were saying] “‘…the time has not yet come to rebuild the house
of the Lord.’” They’re saying ‘Tell God He can wait.’
They’ve been brought back from Babylon. Some of the
early returnees have come back with a view to rebuild the temple. We are not
sure how old Haggai was; some traditions place him as a relatively old man, who
could perhaps remember the former glory of Solomon’s temple. Others thought
that perhaps he was a much younger man than that, but he had no doubt been one
of those early returnees, and as the Book of Ezra informs us, Haggai was there
at the very beginning in 539-528 when the beginning of the rebuilding of the
temple was begun.
Obviously, that work had come to a standstill.
Various reasons could be given for it. The Persians were at this time conquering
Egypt. Persian troops were passing up and down the land, perhaps stationing
themselves in Jerusalem. Perhaps that had occupied their minds and hearts. We
know from the Book of Ezra that the Samaritans especially had been opposing the
work of the rebuilding of the temple. One thing we know for sure, twenty
years–twenty years have passed, and the rebuilding of the work of the temple of
God in Jerusalem has come to an end.
Listen to their language. Their outward expressions
of piety betray a very different spirit: “The time has not yet come.” Here
were people pontificating as to what would be the appropriate time to rebuild
the temple of God. There were discerners of times, readers of the mind of the
Spirit, so they’d come to this conclusion: that the time was not now. The time
was someday in the future perhaps, but not now. Tell God He can wait.
Building had been taking place…building their own
houses…fine houses (vs. 4), and again in vs. 9…paneled houses.
There’s a little hint for you. It wasn’t customary
in Jerusalem for houses to be paneled, and certainly not perhaps using the cedar
wood Haggai refers to. The cedar wood perhaps was the very wood that had been
brought down from the mountain ranges of the day in Tyre and Sidon, where cedar
trees grew. The timber had been bought and purchased and brought to Jerusalem
with a view to building the temple. And perhaps what Haggai is actually saying
is much worse: not only had they deviated from the specific command that God had
given to them to rebuild the temple, but they had actually employed the very
wood that was meant for the temple to build their own houses. They were living
in the lap of luxury. They were living in fine houses.
Many of the initial returnees from Babylon were
actually not poor. Some of them, so commentators now think, were extraordinarily
wealthy. It would certainly have taken enormous wealth to build the kind of
houses that are being recorded here, and some commentators doing some research
on this period of history are suggesting that perhaps, in our currency, several
million dollars worth of expenditure had in fact taken place–on themselves, on
their own homes, on their own families–while the temple of God was in ruins.
It had been burnt to the ground. The stones of
Solomon’s temple were lying in heaps on the floor, and they were living in
luxury; and they have the temerity to say, ‘Tell God the time is not yet. The
time is not yet.’
Well, my friends, this is a little hurtful, isn’t
it, to us tonight, to me and to you? We spend a small fortune on ourselves, on
entertaining ourselves, on making sure that we live in relative eases and
relative luxury, and there is something about this extraordinary passage that
comes home to us. It’s an astonishing admission on their part: that they would
have the temerity to say to God, ‘The time for rebuilding is not now,’ while
they’re spending on themselves, and spending on their luxuries.
What they’re saying, you see, is that my home and my
family, and my ease and my comfort are more important than the things that
pertain to the kingdom of God. That’s the first thing: The Astonishing
Admission.
II. A Depressing Discovery.
What happens? And what Haggai now refers to
is a principle that operates in this fallen world in every period, in every age.
What happens if you ignore the principles of the kingdom of God that tells us
that we should seek first the kingdom of God and the righteousness that belongs
to that kingdom? And what happens if you do that is, that dissatisfaction
comes…dissatisfaction comes. If you spend your entire time seeking your own
interests and nurturing your own welfare, in the end you will discover that it
does not satisfy. This is Haggai’s analysis: that the economy was in poor shape;
you eat, but you do not have enough; you drink, but you are never full; you put
on clothes, but you are never warm. And inflation is rampant: you earn wages
only to put it into a bag with holes. Now, isn’t that interesting?
Don’t misunderstand what Haggai is saying here.
Don’t misunderstand the analysis of Jerusalem. Jerusalem was not poor! These
people were not poor! It wasn’t that they didn’t have any bread to eat, or that
they didn’t have anything to drink, or didn’t have anything to put on, or that
they didn’t earn wages; but no matter now much they had, they discovered it
wasn’t enough.
Have you ever noticed that rich folk are always
complaining they don’t have enough? Have you ever noticed how often we do that,
you and I: That in comparison to the rest of the world, we are extraordinarily
endowed by God, and yet it’s never enough? There’s always that insatiable
longing for a little more; and there’s an extraordinary principle that is
operating here, that you make this discovery that if you live for the things of
this world, if you build your life entirely on the things of this world, you
will discover dissatisfaction. You will discover what these folk in Jerusalem
were discovering: that life is a rat race; that if you spend your entire
existence trying to keep up with the Joneses you never will keep up, and you
will never be satisfied, and you will never know that peace that passes all
understanding.
Do you see what God is saying here through Haggai?
Look at what He says in verse 9: “You looked for much, and behold, it came to
little; when you brought it home, I blew it away.” You brought all this
stuff home, and you beautified your homes, and you amassed all this
stuff…but I blew it away. ‘I made it mean little to you,’ God is saying, ‘so
that you were never satisfied, and you’re always yearning for more.’ And a
sense of divine hostility has broken out upon Jerusalem. If you stop working
for God…if you stop working for God, He will make sure that nothing works for
you. That’s the principle. That’s the principle.
These people were living in perpetual frustration
and discontentment. Nothing satisfied. And we can’t pass over that lesson
easily. It’s for us, too: that if you devote yourself to sowing, and eating and
drinking, and clothing yourselves and earning wages, but neglect the ministry of
the body of Christ, you will live in constant frustration!
Now, who’s going to deny that tonight? We can drive
around these streets of Jackson with their fine and paneled houses, and you
know, if you opened the windows and eavesdropped, if you took one of those
electronic gadgets, you know, and you drove around the streets and just listened
… (I know that’s illegal!)…But if you did that, what do you think you would
hear behind the doors? A great deal of sadness. And what you discover is
bulimia and anorexia, and alcoholism, and debt, and unhappy marriages, and
teenage children experimenting with drugs and sex, and parents doing their level
best to condone it. And it’s a rat race. It’s a rat race; and, my friends,
listen to what God is saying to these people: if that’s what you live for, if
that’s what you sacrifice for, don’t be surprised if God blows it away and you
never find satisfaction and contentment.
III. A Clarion Call
And so, in the third place, there’s “A
Clarion Call” here. A clarion call, in verse 5: “Consider your ways!” God
says. “Give careful thought…,” God says. ‘Stop and think for a minute: what
are you living for? What are you doing? What is the main purpose of your
existence here? I brought you back from Babylon; I brought you back from
captivity for one purpose: to build My house, the temple, which was in ruins.’
And instead, they had given themselves over to building for themselves, and God
spells it out in verse 7 and He says to them, “Consider your ways!” again. “Go
up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in
it.”
So long as the temple lay in ruins, they were saying
“We don’t need this temple. Actually, we can get along quite nicely, thank you
very much, without it. After all, we’ve been without it for twenty years, and we
were without it for seventy years before that…for almost a century now. And
you know, if we do rebuild this temple, think of the inconvenience….” Think
of all that ritual that Ligon is talking about on Wednesday nights…imagine
living under all of that! All of that ceremonial ritual washing and cleansing
and sacrifices; having to check your skin for red spots–which Rosemary and I
were doing on Wednesday night on the way home! Imagine the frustration of that!
Thank you very much, but not yet. Let that be for our children. Our children
can do that; our grandchildren can do that….
And we become conscious, you and I, that God is
calling us to do something. I wonder, what is our response. When God in the
providence of God in this particular church, and on this particular day in the
year 2005, I wonder, as we discern God’s voice in the decisions of our wise
Session and elders, when we discern that God is saying something to us, what’s
going to be your response? I don’t know about you, but I want to say ‘Yes; and
I want to say ‘How much?’ and I want to say ‘When do I start?’
I was reading that sermon that Ligon referred to
this morning by Leroy Halsey, preached in May of 1843, on this very text. I
didn’t read it until this afternoon–I had long since come to this four-point
sermon before then. It’s an extraordinarily bold sermon. If you don’t want to
be offended, don’t read it! Lock up your checkbook before you read that
sermon! In 1843 he’s saying things like, “You know, if you lived out on the
frontier it would be OK to build a house that’s made of wood–a log cabin, if you
like–but the house of God, the church, must reflect the kind of houses that you
and I live in.” (Ouch!) “A Clarion Call”–a clarion call that comes from God.
IV. A Remarkable Response
And then in the fourth place, “A Remarkable
Response.” It’s a beautiful thing. A month later–the date in verse 15 is
exactly a month after the date that’s given in the opening verse–one month
later. It took a month for them to respond, but respond they did. Haggai had
preached a sermon. (You’ve no idea how encouraging Haggai, chapter one, is to a
preacher. You know, every preacher goes through periods when you wonder, “What
in the world are we doing?” You know we’re standing six feet above
contradiction–what is the point of all of this? What is the point of preaching
week after week after week?)
And then you read a passage like this, and you see
the point: that God can take His word and plant it like a seed in the hearts and
lives and souls of His people, and it takes root and it begins to grow, and it
bursts forth from the ground and blossoms, and it becomes a great big tree! It
becomes a great big tree! And that’s exactly what you see here in this opening
chapter. Haggai (who apparently had been called ‘Haggai the Prophet’) is now
being called ‘Haggai the Messenger’, because they have discerned that he is the
messenger of God; that God had been speaking to them and rebuking them, and
chastising them, and urging them, and saying to them ‘This is what I want you to
do.’
And a transformation has taken place. A
transformation takes place. These people seem now to get it, and the work of
rebuilding seems to begin in earnest. These Jerusalem folk had listened to the
word of God, and that word has taken root. It has taught them and convicted
them, and corrected them and instructed them in the way of righteousness,
“…that the man of God might be thoroughly furnished unto every good work.”
And you know what God says to them? He says
three things: “I am with you.” “I am with you”–that beautiful covenant word
of God–‘I am with you. However great this task, however difficult it may be, I
am with you.’
And notice, too, that they experienced a sense of
unity: “…all the remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the Lord their
God” (vs. 12). “All the people…” — there was this — well, it’s our text,
isn’t it? The Whole Body Joined Together— that’s our text — and here it
is: the whole body joined together. God has done this.
And notice in verse 14 the desire that they have
to serve the Lord: “…and the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel,
the spirit of Joshua, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people, and they
came and worked on the house ….”
It’s a beautiful thing, and as God calls us in His
providence to this particular task that lies before us of improving the
facilities here and expanding these premises, may God speak to each one of us
and ask of us What is it that we ought to do for Him; and may God give us the
kind of obedience and the kind of enthusiasm that He seemed to give to these
people in the year 520 B.C.; and may God receive all the praise and all the
glory.
Let’s pray together.
Our Father in heaven, as we bow in Your presence
now, we’re conscious that we, too, face similar circumstances to that of Haggai,
and we ask that You would write Your word now upon our hearts, and bring forth
fruit and a response that would bring You glory. And we ask it for Jesus’ sake.
Amen.
Please stand and receive the Lord’s benediction.
Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.