Another day to experience the infinite possibilities of our union with Him. Another day closer. Who knows?
As we come to look at God’s Word under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, I remind my own heart, and I remind you again, of that principle of Bible study that is absolutely indispensable: total reliance upon the Holy Spirit—helpless dependence, childlikeness.
There is no substitute for coming before the Lord empty, hungry, and just crying out, “Lord, now dawn the Savior upon us.” He delights to do that. He wants to do that far more than we desire it.
I want to read, before we pray together, the verse we began with at the beginning of our gathering: Ezra 9:8.
Now for a brief moment grace hath been shown from the Lord our God,
to leave us an escaped remnant,
and to give us a peg in His holy place,
that our God may enlighten our eyes,
and grant us a little reviving in our bondage.
Quite apart from anything we think that might mean, our prayer is that God will fulfill everything He has inspired it to mean. So I am going to ask you to bow with me again. We will commit our time to Him, and we will look in His precious Word.
Our heavenly Father, again this morning we pause deliberately. We bow before Thee, and we praise Thee that You have given us the Holy Spirit—Your life in our hearts.
We thank You that it is the delight of Your heart to reveal Your Son to us. We know, Lord, there is no possibility, apart from Your mercy and grace, apart from Your light, that we would ever behold in a living way, a transforming way, the Lord Jesus.
But now we come, and You have promised to meet us and feed us and find us where we are and take us where You desire to have us. We wait now and ask You to minister the Lord Jesus to our hearts.
Grant Thy life, we pray, to every brother. We pray that You would tie together all loose ends and accomplish Your full heart for us this morning. We ask in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
Well, we come to our final look—not the end of the revelation, of course, but our little look at this wonderful book of Ezra, and God’s revelation of Himself in this wonderful book of Ezra.
It is the Lord’s desire in this book to cause His people to live again. That is the word revival. That is what it means: to live again.
When we left off, our attention was on, as we have been looking all weekend, the second revival. The book of Ezra relates three revivals that took place in the last century.
The second revival is in Ezra 3–6. We have been looking at the principles of that revival. The figure under which God describes this revival is the rebuilding of the temple.
Revival one is how to be free. Its illustration is the decree of Cyrus: getting out of captivity. Revival two is how to go forward—how to build a temple, how to advance, how to grow, how to mature, how to give God His complete temple.
The final revival is how to bear fruit, from Ezra 7 all the way through Nehemiah 10, under the figure of the wall: God’s desire to have a people right with Him and surrounded with the knowledge of God. With that burden, He closes the Old Testament.
We have been looking at this second revival. At this point in our little look, God’s remnant—His escaped remnant—have been set free. They have returned to the city of peace from the city of confusion.
They have stood at the altar twice a day, every day, as death-deserving sinners. They have laid the foundation. But then something happened.
For fifteen years, there was no building going on. It is that which God addresses, so that His people can live again.
It is a terrible shame to taste liberty and freedom, to stand at the altar and have entered into the finished work, to have a foundation, to have doctrine, and to stop along the way. That is exactly what happened.
Ezra 4:24. I think this, as I suggested, is one of the saddest verses in the whole book of Ezra. Actually, there is a sadder verse later on, when they make vows in the effort of the flesh. That is a sad one.
Then ceased the work of the house of God which is at Jerusalem;
and it ceased until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.
They had such a good start. Then the work stopped, and it stopped for those fifteen years. Something happened that caused the work to stop, and that is what we have been looking at: What causes an incomplete temple? And what is God’s perfect cure for everything that causes an incomplete temple?
Let me just get these verses before your heart again, and then we will pick up where we left off. Ezra 5:1–2.
Now the prophets, Haggai the prophet, and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied unto the Jews that were in Judah and Jerusalem;
in the name of the God of Israel prophesied they unto them.Then rose up Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua the son of Jozadak,
and began to build the house of God which is at Jerusalem;
and with them were the prophets of God, helping them.
Something happened. They stopped building. Fifteen years went by. Then God initiated. He opened the heavens, and He talked to His servants—the old prophet Haggai and the young prophet Zechariah. He gave them a word, and they shared that word.
When they shared that word, though nothing had changed in their lives externally, whatever it was that they saw, whatever word God gave them, caused the people to resume the building. We need to hear that word. What is it that gets us going again?
Then look at Ezra 6:14.
And the elders of the Jews builded and prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo.
And they builded and finished it, according to the commandment of the God of Israel,
and according to the decree of Cyrus, and Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia.
Under these two servants of the Lord, Haggai and Zechariah, the work was not only resumed, but it was completed. The work was finished.
I was in the process of giving you at least four causes, and God’s wonderful, complete, and perfect cures for those causes.
You read Ezra, and you get the outside view. They had their reasons for stopping. There are no legitimate reasons for having an incomplete temple. There are only rationalizations, only excuses. There is no reason.
God has made provision in our Lord Jesus to go forward in the heart knowledge of God in the Lord Jesus.
Last night we looked at the first real cause. Ezra gives us the outside view; he gives us the story. If you were to ask them in the book of Ezra, “Why did you quit? You started off so well. You are free. You have been to the altar. You have a foundation. Why did you quit?”
They would have said, “For this reason, and this reason, and this reason, and this reason.” But God told His prophets, “They do not even know why they quit.”
God told His prophets, “That is the real reason they quit. You go tell them. Here is the solution.” When they heard the real reason they quit, they saw that their reasons had sounded so spiritual.
“We have to submit to government. That honors God. We have to take a rugged stand. It is not our fault. They did not like it. They opposed us.” It sounded so right. But God said, “Here is why you quit.”
When they looked at that, they said, “Oh, yeah. And here is God’s answer to that.” As they embraced that, they went right back to building again.
Last night we looked at the first cause, illustrated by the command in Haggai 1:8:
Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house;
and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord.
The first cause of an incomplete temple is the absolute impossibility of living the Christian life. Nothing was more impossible than that command: “Go up to the mountain, get wood, build the temple.”
Right—one hundred and eighty-five thousand men working twenty years to build Solomon’s temple. Here is this little remnant that comes back unequipped. They saw their own inadequacy.
Once you see that you cannot do it, and that God will not do it unless God gives you His answer, you will throw in the towel. You will quit like they quit.
Of course, what was God’s glorious answer? It was Zechariah 4:6:
Not by might, nor by power,
but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.
There is God’s salvation: Himself, His life, His Spirit. I cannot do it. He will not do it. But together—the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel, the finger of God; my hand, His finger; His life through me, His life in you through you.
Oh, how His eyes rejoice! The Bible says that the seven eyes of God rejoiced when they saw the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel—when they learned it was by the Spirit of God.
You find any Christian who discovers that the Holy Spirit is living in him to live the Christian life, and I tell you, he will live again. He will live again.
Without that knowledge, they are going to quit. Without that knowledge, the temple will not be built. But that knowledge brings life and brings liberty.
Now, as I suggested last night, I left myself a big assignment. So let us begin. We are looking at the four real causes of an incomplete temple—not what it looks like on the outside, not what it looks like to these eyes, but what God sees and addresses, what God exposes and reveals.
The first one was that it is impossible to obey God, and His indwelling Spirit is the answer to that. Now let me give you the next cause for an incomplete temple.
I called attention in one of the messages yesterday to the verbs used in Ezra 4:4–5: discouragement, fear, and frustration.
The things that came into the lives of the remnant caused them to become discouraged. That is why they quit. They became frustrated. That is why they quit. They became afraid. That is why they quit.
As you know, there are a thousand and one things in life that can make a person discouraged, a thousand and one things that can make a person afraid, and a thousand and one things that can make a person frustrated.
In Ezra, the details are a little different than they might be in your life. You probably never met a Samaritan. In their case, the Samaritans came in and opposed them.
In Ezra 4:5, we see that they actually hired professionals to daily frustrate the plans of the Jews—not just for a couple of weeks or months, but for years. People were paid to ruin their lives. You probably never had that. Somebody probably never—maybe some of you do.
That was their frustration: opposition, intimidation, accusation, misrepresentation, threats, physical force. All of these things came against the remnant as insurmountable obstacles in their lives.
As I said, the details differ. Your Samaritan may not be my Samaritan. But I promise you, you have Samaritans.
You may never literally have an edict written against you that came straight out of the Oval Office. They did. That was the thing they faced.
You may never have someone hire somebody to mess up your life, and that is their full-time job: just to ruin you. That is what happened there. Soldiers may never actually threaten to decapitate you. However, I have fears about the direction our country is going that might come.
But the principles are ever the same. There are things that discourage the people of God. There are things that cause the people of God to become afraid. There are things that frustrate the people of God.
Neighbors, kids, family, coworkers, bosses, elders, Christian friends, teammates, unreasonable employers—all kinds of things: discouragement, fear, frustration, intimidation, misrepresentation, high pressure, force. These things are always with you. These things are always with me.
We are going to call the second thing that causes an incomplete temple—you can name it whatever you want; I am just trying to get some handle on it—an insurmountable obstacle.
Is there a cure for all these things that so discourage and frustrate us? I want you to turn to Zechariah 4, please. This is the same vision of the golden lampstand, that great vision in which the flame was supplied with that wonderful supply of golden oil flowing through the servants of the Lord, the olive trees, and so on.
For my inadequacy, I have the Holy Spirit. No need to stop building. The impossible is possible now.
Look at Zechariah 4:7.
Who art thou, O great mountain?
Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain:
and he shall bring forth the top stone with shoutings of,
Grace, grace, unto it.
In Zechariah’s vision, God gave him a word to describe all of the stuff that was coming against the remnant, the escaped remnant in the book of Ezra. The word was mountain.
You read that verse again, and you will see that the word mountain pictures that insurmountable obstacle that stands in the way—that circumstance that kept them from completing the temple. It was like a mountain in front of them.
That mountain makes many quit. If you look at verse 7, it is not only a mountain, but it is called a great mountain.
A great mountain in your way can frighten you, discourage you, and frustrate you. That thing gets in the way, and it looks so unclimbable, so impassable.
Once again, we all have our great mountains. Your great mountain may not be my great mountain. The great mountain is the thing—whatever it is. It does not matter; it is incidental. It is that thing that gets me discouraged, gets me frustrated, and makes me want to quit. That is what the great mountain is.
You say, “Satan is a great mountain.” Yes, he sure is. Indwelling sin is a great mountain. Certainly it is. Small resources, personal weakness, relentless, chronic, unchanging circumstances, the enemies of the gospel, legalism, the terrors and allurements of this present evil world—so many great mountains.
I love to relate Zechariah 4:7, “O great mountain,” to Zechariah 4:10, “the day of small things.” Do not despise the day of small things.
What a contrast: I am so little, and in front of me is this great mountain.
As a child, we used to sing a chorus. I do not really remember all the words, but there was part of it: “So high, can’t get over it; so wide, can’t get around it; so low, can’t get under it,” or something like that. I forgot the song.
But I will tell you, that is what the great mountain is. It is something that comes up in your life and you cannot get over it. Something comes up in your life and you say, “I just cannot get through it.” Something comes up in your life, and you say, “I cannot get around it.”
There is another song. It was not spiritual; it was not religious. It is one of those songs that goes on and on and on, like “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” and “A Hundred Bottles of Milk on the Wall.” We are Christians; we do not sing it the other way.
“The bear went over the mountain.” You ever hear this? The bear went over the mountain, and what do you think he saw? He saw another mountain. And what do you think he did? Climbed the other mountain. And what do you think he saw? He saw another mountain, and so on and so on.
That is fun when you are a little kid singing that. But when you are living the Christian life, and there is a mountain—a great mountain—it gets you discouraged, it gets you afraid, and it gets you frustrated.
It just seems like you get over it and you see another mountain. So you go up that, and after a while there is another mountain, and another one. I will tell you, the bear gets tired. The bear gets discouraged. Sometimes he lays it all down. He says, “That is a great mountain. I cannot deal with that. It is too much.”
That is the experience, brothers, of thousands of Christians: one mountain after another. After a while, they just cry uncle.
God saw that. They did not pray, “Lord, show us the real hindrance of a complete temple.” Oh, God was patient. He waited fifteen years, and then He said, “They need to see this. I am going to talk to My servants. I am going to talk to My old servant. I am going to talk to My young servant. They are going to go back and share.”
So they came back and shared it: “Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain.”
Before I give God’s great solution, let me just make a couple of observations about that. You say, “There is this great mountain that makes me discouraged, makes me afraid, makes me frustrated, and it is right in front of me. It hinders the building of the temple.” God promises it will become a plain. It will become level.
Does that mean the Lord promises every circumstance that towers in front of me as a mountain is going to be leveled? If my great mountain is physical sickness, is God saying that I am going to be healed?
That is what it looks like: the mountain will become a plain. If that mountain is a financial problem, is God promising that I am going to hit the lottery? That would be a miracle; I do not buy tickets.
Is that what God is promising? Is He guaranteeing that you are not going to go bankrupt? “That mountain will become a plain.”
If your mountain is some unsaved loved one, some person nagging in your life, or some unreasonable person causing you grief, God says the mountain will become a plain. God will level that.
You must always see the principle in terms of the context. The context of Zechariah is the incomplete temple.
Is God promising to level every mountain? No. What He is promising to do is level every mountain that hinders the completion of the temple. That is not quite the same thing.
Any mountain that stands in the way, any circumstance, any obstacle that challenges your progress in the Lord, will be leveled. There is no circumstance, brother—nothing that can come into your life, if we see God’s solution, that can hinder your progress in the Lord.
Let me state the principle in terms of the context. I think what He is saying is this: that mountain, that block, that obstacle, that seemingly insurmountable thing that stands in the way, is no longer an obstacle.
It may still be a mountain, but it is no longer an obstacle. It is now a plain—level ground. In other words, it is as easy to get past that mountain as it is to walk down the street. It is level ground. That is God’s miracle.
There is no circumstance that can hinder my progress in the Lord.
“He shall bring forth,” verse 7, “the top stone.” What is that?
I have one commentary that absolutely missed God’s heart on this. He said, “The temple does not have a top stone. An ark has a top stone. A pyramid has its top stone. A temple has a cornerstone, but it does not have a top stone.”
That brother not only missed the boat; he missed the ocean. Absolutely missed God’s heart on this.
The top stone is a metaphor for the final stone, the finishing stone. God says, “You are going to bring forth the top stone.” It is going to be completed. It is going to be a finished work. No mountain is going to hinder that.
Look at God’s cure for that seemingly insurmountable obstacle. Here is a mountain in the way: I am discouraged. Here is a mountain: I am afraid. Here is a mountain that causes me to be frustrated.
The word frustration in the dictionary is when it seems like there is no hope. When that thing keeps coming, it is so frustrating. It just seems like there is no hope.
Look at the end of that verse:
Who art thou, O great mountain?
Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain:
and he shall bring forth the top stone with shoutings of,
Grace, grace, unto it.
There it is. For my inadequacy, I have His Spirit. For everything that stands in the way, I have His grace. What an answer!
I tell you, when you lay hold of that in reality, you are going to live again. When you lay hold of that grace of God, it is sufficient. It is enough. It is adequate.
You are going to go back and say, “There is hope. I do not have to be frustrated. I do not have to be discouraged.”
The way He words it—the Hebrew, in order to get a point across, would repeat it—“Grace, grace.” What follows grace? Grace. Grace.
As you go through the Bible, you are going to see expressions like “strength to strength,” “faith to faith,” and “glory to glory.” That is their way of saying, ad infinitum, forever.
Faith to faith. Trust the Lord: faith. What follows faith? Faith follows faith. Then what follows that? Faith. Faith to faith to faith, and you are going from glory to glory.
What follows glory? Glory. What follows that? More glory. What follows that? Glory. You are moving from strength to strength. What follows strength? Strength. After that, what? Strength—more strength.
You know that verse in Isaiah: “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee.” The Hebrew does not say “perfect peace.” That is an English translation. It says, “Peace, peace.”
“Thou wilt keep him in peace, peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee.” What follows peace? Peace. What follows that? You trust the Lord; it is just peace, peace, and glory, glory, and grace, grace, and faith, faith, and strength, strength.
That is what He says: “I have a solution.” You say, “Oh, I am getting so discouraged with this mountain.” Before Zerubbabel, who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel, you will become a plain.
Brothers, there is nothing deep here. This whole weekend, what are we talking about? The Holy Spirit lives in your life. It is the grace of God. You have heard of that.
When that insurmountable thing comes into your life—and it will—when you get discouraged, and do not think you will not, because you will; when you get afraid, do not think that is not coming to you because you have a relationship with Jesus. You are going to become afraid. You are.
Do not think you are not going to be frustrated and think there is no hope. You will. At that time, may God bring it to your mind again: that thing will not get in the way of my going forward with the Lord.
Shoutings of grace: “Grace, grace.” Paul’s thorn did not go away, but it ceased to be an obstacle in the completing of the temple. You know why? Because God came to him as He came to Zechariah, and he learned, “My grace is sufficient for thee.”
I know we can go around the room and give testimony. You say, “Yeah, I remember. I stopped dead in my tracks. This thing came into my life, and I got so discouraged. I was ready to throw in the towel. Then I tasted the grace of the Lord, and I got through that impossible thing—so wide you cannot get around it. I got around it. Got through it.”
Grace has brought you safe thus far, and grace will take you home. Top stone with shoutings of grace.
What is man’s part in all this? You just shout. Shoutings of grace, grace. That may mean just receive the grace; just be open to the grace of God. I pray that God will remind you of this when that mountain comes.
All right, what is the third cause of an incomplete temple? Boy, we have to move on here.
God would not have told us this if it were not true. He would not have come and given this great revelation if they did not need it. If you had come to Ezra and asked them, “Is this the thing that is bothering you?” they would have said, “No way. That is not one of my problems.”
I am going to ask you to turn to Zechariah 3, please. I wonder if some brother, or maybe a couple of you, would read the first ten verses. Read it nice and loud so we can all hear it.
Thank you very much.
Remember, in our introduction lesson—or one of the lessons—I tried to show you from Ezra 4 that there was a hint of this spiritual reality. They would not have known it back then, but there was this hint that the enemy brought an accusation against them.
To make it stand, they had to go several hundred years into the history and dig up what they used to be. They dug it all up, held that forth, and brought them under condemnation.
Now the prophet picks this up. As I said, if it was not a problem, if it was not a real issue, God would not have spoken on this. This really caused a problem. This is why they stopped building the temple, even though they might have denied it.
Brothers, you have come far enough in the Lord to have tasted this already. I do not have to stand here and tell you that the enemy loves to condemn.
Nothing would please the enemy of your soul and my soul more than that you lived under condemnation, that you lived under a cloud, that you were on a guilt trip all of the time, and that you always felt unworthy and dirty and vile and unclean before God.
God does not want His remnant to live in condemnation because of past sin.
Even though they might not have admitted it, He saw that as a problem. So He did again what He had done, as we looked at yesterday, with Joshua the high priest.
In this vision, the high priest—who represents the holiest of the people, who represents the Lord Himself, and stands as a representative of every person in the remnant—needed a revelation from God of how thoroughly they had been cleansed.
I tell you, if you do not know you are clean, if you have not seen yourself as God sees you, after a while you quit. You have to see yourself thoroughly cleansed, or else it hinders the building of the temple.
Now this is a marvelous vision. It begins in Zechariah 3:3 with their high priest dressed in filthy garments, and it ends in verses 4 and 5 with the same phrase: dressed in festal garments, festal robes.
It is a court scene. It is a court scene in heaven. It is a vision of being in court.
The accused was in court, standing before the bar: Joshua, the representative of the priesthood. He was there. He was accused.
In Zechariah 3:1, the prosecuting attorney was there: Satan, accusing. In Zechariah 3:7, the jury was there: those standing by. In Zechariah 3:1, the defense attorney was there: the Angel of the Lord.
This is a marvelous picture. The Judge was there on the bench: the Lord of hosts.
The prosecuting attorney comes, and he makes his charge. He looks at Joshua, the guilty one standing there in his dirty garments, and he says, “This man is filthy, and he deserves to be thrown into the fire.” That was the charge.
That object lesson was so important because very often Christians who have not understood how thoroughly forgiven they are, how clean they are, get discouraged and say, “I am nothing. I am so dirty, I am so vile, I deserve to be thrown into the fire. How could God ever use anybody like me? How could God ever care about anybody like me?” And so they give up.
You say, “Why did you quit?” “Man, you do not know what I have done. God cannot use me now. I messed up, man. I ruined His name, ruined His reputation, ruined His cause. I got entangled in this thing and that thing. I embarrassed my family. I embarrassed the Lord. I embarrassed the church. It is all over for me.”
“I still love the Lord, but it is all over for me. I blew it.”
Or, “If you knew the coldness of my heart, if you knew the thoughts that come through my mind, I am just a hypocrite. I sing with the people of God. I gather with the people of God. But I got lost. I have foul thoughts. Dirty things come into my head. I am so dirty. You do not understand. I am just a big hypocrite. I know He loved me. I know He died for me. But I am a mess. Bad attitude.”
That picture of yourself—when a Christian is living under condemnation, I tell you, he does not need a pep talk. He does not need someone giving him self-esteem and trying to build him up. He does not need a psychologist at that point. He certainly does not need some kind of pill to balance his chemicals.
I will tell you what he needs. He needs the revelation that God gave to His servant Zechariah to go give to the people of God.
I have actually met Christians who think it is spiritual to go around feeling guilty. They actually think that is a spiritual thing.
I tell you, it is not humility to live in condemnation. It is unbelief to live in condemnation. It is not humility.
What is God’s cure? I will tell you. For my inadequacy, the cure is the Holy Spirit—His life. I cannot; He will not; but together we can.
God’s cure for every problem that comes into my life is His grace—His grace. What is His cure for my defilement, for my guilt, for my sin?
I need a finished work, and I need to see myself as God sees me. I want to show you this vision again from God’s viewpoint, because it ends up with the seven eyes. The whole idea has to do with God’s viewpoint.
Do not read verse 3 casually: “He is clothed in dirty garments.” The Hebrew is much stronger than the English, and some of these words we are almost afraid to translate.
Like Isaiah 64:6: “Your righteousness is filthy rags.” You know the Hebrew there, do you not? Your righteousness is like menstrual garments. That is the Hebrew there.
In the Hebrew of Zechariah 3:3, Unger translates it, “excrement-covered garments.” That is how he was clothed.
You just say, “Well, that is a terrible thing to look at.” That is not the Hebrew nuance in that word. Is it a terrible thing to look at—a man clothed in excrement-covered garments? Sure, it is a terrible thing to look at. But it is also a terrible thing to smell.
That is the Hebrew idea here: that he is clothed in those garments. If I stood before you dressed the way Joshua appeared in that vision, if I looked as he looked and smelled as he smelled, I would clear this room.
You would not stay here if I smelled like Joshua smelled in that vision, if I looked like Joshua looked in that vision. Satan loves to call attention to that.
In the sensitive mind and heart of someone who is sensitive to the Lord, when Satan accuses and you look at your heart and your life, and you look in the mirror, Satan says, “You stink.” Your heart says, “I know. I do. I know I do. I do stink.”
“Look at you, the way you are dressed. You are so vile and so foul.” Then we start believing that stuff, because it is true. We look that way, and we smell that way.
But we need to see our Advocate rise up as the Angel of the Lord rose up. Verse 4:
See, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee,
and I will clothe thee with rich apparel.
So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments while the Angel of the Lord stood by. What a vision this is.
He did not wash the old garments. He dumped them. He put on his new festal robe—royal robes, silk and satin and rich linen.
In this vision, the high priest has a part. What is his part? He just stands there.
He did not offer a defense. He did not resist the accusation. He did not deny it. He did not try to argue his case. He did not beg for mercy. He did not even undress himself.
He was undressed. They undressed him, and then they dressed him again. He did nothing. It was all done for him in a moment.
Satan says, “This man deserves it. He stinks. He is filthy. He deserves to be thrown into the fire.” The Angel of the Lord says, “I know. But I plucked him out of the fire.”
A brand plucked out of the fire.
You know, we just read this, but that hindered the temple. Seeing themselves as so dirty stopped the temple.
God says, “Do you believe it?” Brothers, answer in your heart, not out loud. Do you believe that you are this clean?
I do not care what Satan says. I do not care how you smell in your own nostrils. I do not care what you look like when you look with these eyes. God says your garments have been changed, and you have been clothed. You are righteous, and you are in festal garments.
We need to see ourselves as God sees us.
Then in verse 6, He talks about those standing here: “You will have the same access as those standing here.” Who are those standing here? Do not forget, this is a court scene that takes place in heaven. These are the angels that never sinned.
Do you believe, brother, that you are so thoroughly cleansed that you are now in festal garments before God—perfect robe of righteousness?
Do you believe you have the same access to God’s holy presence as the angels who have never sinned? That is what He says. That is how clean you are. You have to believe that.
Because if you start believing it, you will live again. You will live again. That is revival.
Once I start seeing how clean I am, I live again. Then it comes to a climax in verse 9: “Upon one stone shall be seven eyes.”
You remember the seven eyes in Zechariah. These are the eyes of the Lord, Zechariah 4:10, that go to and fro through the earth. What is God saying? Seven eyes—the perfect number. Omniscience. God sees everything. God does not miss a trick. He has good eyesight. He sees it all.
What He is saying in this vision is: You need to know how thoroughly clean you are. You are not in filthy garments; you are in festal garments. You have access to God that the angels who never sinned have.
You say, “Man, I see an awful lot of uncrucified filth here.” Maybe you do. But the seven eyes of God cannot find this thing.
How clean are you if the seven eyes of God cannot see your stain, cannot smell your smell?
When Zechariah gave that vision to the people, the Bible says they picked up their tools and started to build again.
Those are the things that hinder the temple. My inadequacy: “I cannot do it.” He says, “I have given you My Spirit. You can do it.” These problems: “I cannot face them.” “I have given you My grace. You can face them.” My sin: “I am so dirty.” “I have made you clean, and even My eyes cannot see a stain.”
Brothers, may God give us eyes to see ourselves as God sees us. I tell you, then we will go back to building the temple.
There is one more, and with this we will close. I did not leave a lot of time for it, but the next cause—I will trust the Lord to communicate it to your heart—was given to the prophet Haggai. It had reference to Ezra 3.
I am going to read from Ezra 3:11–13.
And they sang one to another in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord, saying,
For He is good, for His lovingkindness endureth for ever toward Israel.
And all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the Lord,
because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ houses, the old men that had seen the first house,
when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice;
and many shouted aloud for joy:
so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people;
for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard afar off.
There are many comments on why the elders were weeping. But I think it is clear, as you read the record—and Haggai calls attention to this—that one of the reasons was that the present temple was inglorious compared to the old temple, which in their minds was glorious.
Solomon’s temple was glorious, and they looked at their own temple as inglorious. On the level of earth, you can understand their thinking.
When you contrast Zerubbabel’s temple with all the gold, silver, brass, olive wood, and adornment of Solomon’s temple—Solomon’s temple stood for four hundred years as an attraction to the whole world—and now they looked at their little foundation and so on.
I was interested in the rabbis’ take on all of this. You know, they have commentaries too. The Jews made comments about this, and they have a whole section on, “Why did the old men weep?”
They describe the differences between Zerubbabel’s inglorious temple and Solomon’s glorious temple. Here is their suggestion.
They said some cried because the old quarried stones—the original temple went up as noiselessly as the growth of a tree. The stones were quarried at a distance, and then each one was brought and placed there. Not a sound of a hammer was heard in the whole rearing of Solomon’s temple. Amazing.
Well, that was gone. So they said some of the old men, when they saw the foundation and did not see those beautifully quarried stones, were touched in their hearts and started to weep. They said, “Oh, the glory is not here. The glory is not here. Where are those quarried stones?”
Then the rabbis said some cried because the ark of the covenant was gone. When Nebuchadnezzar went in and took the temple, the ark was gone. The Ten Commandments that were in the ark were gone, Aaron’s rod that budded was gone, and the golden pot of manna was gone.
They said that was the glory—the ark, and what was in the ark. That was the glory of the temple. That is why they cried: “The glory is not there.”
Some cried because the literal Shekinah glory had departed. After Solomon’s temple, that was gone. In Zerubbabel’s temple, that visible presence of the Lord, that cloud which filled the temple, was absent. They said, “The glory is gone.”
Some cried, they said, because the breastplate of the priest that contained the Urim and Thummim never appeared again. That was gone. They said that is why they cried, because the breastplate was gone.
Some said, “No, they cried because God changed His way. It used to be supernatural fire would come down from heaven and light the altar. But now, in this temple, that never happened.”
Everybody was crying because this was the glory and that glory was gone. “No, no, that was not the glory. This is the glory, and the glory is gone. No, that was not the glory. This is the glory, and that glory is not there anymore.”
The ark is gone, the commandments are gone, the manna is gone, and that is why they were weeping.
God said, “Let me tell you something.” Haggai 2:6–9:
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.The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine, saith the Lord of hosts.
The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, saith the Lord of hosts;
and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts.
Clearly, the American Standard Version and the New American Standard Version translate verse 7 to mean this: the temple on the outside lacks adornment. It is not externally as rich as Solomon’s temple was because of the poverty-stricken condition and financial inability of that escaped remnant.
There was a notable absence of precious metal. In those translations, the verse appears to mean that in the future that is going to be compensated, because God is as easily able to shake the nations. The silver is His. He can shake the nations, and wealth will come.
Our children, as they were growing up, used to love to take my pants by the legs and shake them, and change would fall out. I was always keeping change, and they would love to take turns shaking the pants so the change would fall out.
God said, “I can shake the world. If I want money, I can get it out of their pockets. I can shake it.”
In this case, I am going to stick with the King James Version in verse 7. This is a messianic passage. Jewish tradition, without exception, takes it as a messianic passage. Christian tradition takes it as a messianic passage.
You change that to the wealth of nations, and I think you lose something. “The desire of nations shall come.” I think the desire of nations is Jesus. I think that is messianic. That is Him.
I think what He is saying is this: all of you guys are crying. The old men are crying because the glory is gone. “This glory is gone, and this glory is gone, and this glory is gone.” God said, “Let Me tell you where the glory is.”
“The desire of nations will come.” That is the glory of the temple. The glory of the latter temple is going to be greater than the glory of the former temple.
Why do people quit? It is because they do not know what the glory of the temple is. That is why they drop out.
They look at the quarried stones and say, “Where are the quarried stones? Where are all these theological statements of faith that have been hammered out through the years?” They say, “I cannot. I have to quit. I cannot go there anymore. They do not have the quarried stones.”
Someone else says, “Oh no, you know what is missing? Holiness. Holiness—the law—that is gone. The law is no longer here, and so I am going to drop out.”
Someone says, “No, no, it is ministry that is missing. It is Aaron’s rod that budded. There are not enough signs and wonders and miracles in this place. I want to see something fun. I want to see something happen.”
They are dropping out all over the place because they say, “This is the glory, and this is the glory, and this is the glory.” They are looking for this, that, and the other thing.
“Where is the Shekinah glory? Where is the awe? Where is the reverence? It is all gone. Where is the breastplate?” That is what it is: the breastplate. The Urim and Thummim have to do with the will of God. “Where is the instruction? They are not teaching in this fellowship. I am not going here.”
People are dropping out all over the place. You know why? Because they do not know what the glory is.
It is a Person. It is Christ. The desire of nations will come.
That is the fire that comes from heaven. The glory, the wealth, the treasure is Christ. When God dawns that on you, when God dawns that on me, we will live again.
Brothers, you know, we come year after year. We look at the Word of God. We are always in the same place: come, I look to the Lord.
What have we looked at this weekend? You need the Holy Spirit. You need the grace of God. You are clean in His eyes. Christ is the glory of the temple.
Have I told you anything you have not heard? That is all it is. But if God lets you see it again, you will live again.
The word came to Haggai saying, “Tell the people, from this day on I will bless them.”
From what day on? From the day you stop trusting yourself and start trusting the Holy Spirit. From that day on, you are blessed.
From what day on? From that day on when you start facing your great mountains with the grace of God, with shoutings of “Grace, grace.” From that day on, you will be blessed.
From what day on? From that day when you see that Christ is the glory of the temple. From that day, you will be blessed. From the day you begin seeing yourself as God sees you.
Do not play with it, brother. You young guys, you older guys, do not play with it.
Do you believe that you have the same access to God’s presence as the angels that never sinned? That God cannot see a stain in you?
For your inadequacy, He gives His life, His Spirit. For all of the things you will ever face in life, He has given His grace. For the accusations the enemy brings against you, He has given the finished work and the thorough cleansing that we have in Christ Jesus.
For the glory, He has given His Son. He is the glory of the temple.
I tell you, you will stop weeping and start rejoicing when you see Christ as the glory.
There is a lot more, and I just trust God will make this so real in your life. He wants you, brothers, to live again.
You say, “It is getting old. It is getting stale. I am getting tired. I am getting weary.” May He breathe life again. May He breathe life again.
That is not old stuff. That is not old hat. His Spirit is in you. You are one with Him. Oh, we need to see that again.
You say, “I have this great mountain in front of me right now. You do not know.” It will become a plain, with shoutings of “Grace, grace.” Believe it. Believe it.
You are clean. I do not care how ugly or repulsive your life has been up to this moment. You are clean—festal garments.
And the glory: Jesus Christ. He is the glory of the temple.
Father, thank You for these wonderful cures for an incomplete temple. We do not want to dishonor You with an incomplete temple.
Thank You that so many years ago, this very message—not out of my mouth, but out of the mouth of Your servants Haggai and Zechariah—stirred up Your people to go again to building and to complete the work.
I pray that that same message would stir us up again, that You might have Your temple. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.