Well, good morning. I hope that woke you up.
I’d like to ask you to turn to Haggai. Some of you may not know where that book is even. It is the third book from the end of the Old Testament. It is pretty small—only two chapters—so some of you may never have read it.
Now, I know different people pronounce it different ways. So if you have your favorite way, do not come up to me afterwards and say, “Haggai,” or “Haggai.” You know, we say here in Richmond, some say tomato, some say tomato. Whatever your pronunciation is, I do not think that is the issue. I think it is what the Word of God says.
But I believe we will be making many apologies in the kingdom to those old saints whose names we butchered. So I think it is Haggai.
We will begin. It is a short book. I am going to try to read it all. I may stop. It is only thirty-some verses, and because the burden is overall—looking at the whole book—I would like to read as much as you are able to take.
Haggai 1:1:
In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, saying,
Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying: This people say, The time is not come, the time that the Lord’s house should be built.
Now, this is the first message that Haggai gave:
Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your ceiled houses, while this house lieth waste?
Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways.
Now, that word—for those of you who have liberty to underline in your Bible, and I think that should be all of us—you ought to underline: consider. It is a very important word. It is a key word in this book.
Verse 6:
Ye have sown much, and bring in little;
ye eat, but ye have not enough;
ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink;
ye clothe you, but there is none warm;
and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.
Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways.
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.
Once again, underline it: Consider your ways.
Verse 9:
Ye looked for much, and, lo, it came to little;
and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it.
Why? saith the Lord of hosts.
Because of My house that lieth waste, while ye run every man to his own house.
Therefore over you the heavens withhold the dew, and the earth withholdeth her fruit.
And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the grain, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground bringeth forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labor of the hands.
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 did fear before the Lord.
Then spake Haggai, the Lord’s messenger, in the Lord’s message unto the people, saying, I am with you, saith 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 did work in the house of the Lord of hosts, their God, in the four and twentieth day of the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king.
Now, I do not know if I am wearing you out. Are you up to the next chapter? I think you will miss a lot if you do not. I am going to point out just a few things.
Remember, it is a short book. In the seventh month—this is the second message, by the way—on the one and twentieth day of the month, came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying:
Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, saying,
Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory?
And how do ye see it now?
Is it not in your eyes as nothing?
Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the Lord; and be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; and be strong, all ye people of the land, saith the Lord, and work: for I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts.
According to the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, and My Spirit abode in the midst of you: fear ye not.
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 precious things 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.
Verse 10. This is the third message of Haggai, by the way:
In the four and twentieth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying,
Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Ask now the priests concerning the law, saying,
If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt do touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any food, shall it become holy?
And the priests answered and said, No.
Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean?
And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean.
Then answered Haggai and said, So is this people, and so is this nation before Me, saith the Lord; and so is every work of their hands; and that which they offer there is unclean.
Now, I pray you, get out your pencil again:
Consider, I pray you, from this day and backward, before a stone was laid upon a stone in the temple of the Lord.
Through all that time, when one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were but ten; when one came to the wine vat to draw out fifty vessels, there were but twenty.
I smote you with blasting and with mildew and with hail in all the work of your hands; yet ye turned not to Me, saith the Lord.
Consider, I pray you, from this day and backward, from the four and twentieth day of the ninth month, even from the day that the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid, consider it.
Is the seed yet in the barn?
Yea, the vine, and the fig tree, and the pomegranate, and the olive tree, have not brought forth: from this day will I bless you.
The last few verses—this is the fourth message:
And the word of the Lord came the second time unto Haggai in the four and twentieth day of the month, saying,
Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I will shake the heavens and the earth;
and I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms; and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations; and I will overthrow the chariots, and those that ride in them; and the horses and their riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother.
In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, will I take thee, O Zerubbabel, My servant, the son of Shealtiel, saith the Lord, and will make thee as a signet; for I have chosen thee, saith the Lord of hosts.
Now, Lord, we know Your Word is the one thing that we need, and we come to You. We tell You once again, like Peter said on that day when so many were offended, and so many turned away and turned back, and You said, “Will ye also go away?” And he said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.”
Once again, we look to You to quicken Your Word and help us to see what the Spirit is saying to the churches in this hour. For we ask it together in the mighty name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.
Now, many of you may not have ever read this book. It is a short book. As a matter of fact, it is next to the shortest book in the whole of the Old Testament. Only Obadiah is shorter. I do not know how many of you have Obadiah as your favorite book, by the way, but Obadiah is only one chapter, and this is two chapters—the second shortest book in the whole of the Old Testament.
Not only that, Haggai only prophesied for four months. You talk about a short ministry—that is a short ministry. And not only that, Haggai only spoke four very brief messages. Now, I know some of you wish all speakers would speak very brief messages.
But Haggai only spoke for four months and only gave four messages, yet the power of these messages is almost incalculable. What happened is that he took a people who were depressed and despondent, who were called to build the house of God, and through the help of Zechariah the prophet, they inspired the people of God to rebuild the house of God. It is an amazing record of what he did.
I shared most recently on Zechariah 4, “The Recovery of God’s Testimony in Difficult Times,” and I think this is the same spirit. I want to continue that thought. God is recovering His testimony in the Old Testament at the end of the age. That is what this book is about. Therefore, I think what is in this book applies to us in our day.
Some people think of the Old Testament as something that is gone and passed, having no relevance to the hour in which we live. But if you think about it, this prophecy and this ending of the Old Testament was the very Word of God before the Messiah would come. Before the King returned, God had a word for His people at the end of the age.
Now, I think you can see the parallel. God wants to speak to us, His people, in the New Testament era at the end of the age, because what is before us is the coming of the King. That is the parallel. If you see that, you will not think this is just something for a bygone era in a former time. It is a word that is actually for our time.
God used three prophets in the Old Testament at the end of the era. Some refer to them—and I think it is applicable—as the post-exilic prophets. If you do not understand my diction, being a Southerner, it is those who followed the exile.
The people of God were to be the expression of God’s purpose and will in the Old Testament, and they failed. God Himself sent them into captivity. I think all of you know that story, or at least most of you know that story. Nebuchadnezzar came in, took most of Israel into Babylon, and then destroyed the temple of God. You know, that is what happened.
Well, He raised up three prophets: Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. These three men are the ones to whom He gave His Word at the end of the age. It was the faithfulness of these three prophets that transformed the people of God and prepared the people of God for the coming of the future King. That is the parallel. That is the analogy that we want to see.
This is a word to us at the end of the age. God has a word for His people.
Now, after their disobedience, they went into exile. Let me give a little historical background. God, who is faithful to His promise and His purpose, would not allow His purpose to fail. You and I are different. We may allow things to slip by and fail, but God, who is faithful to His purpose, would not allow His people—or His purpose—to fail.
Most of you, I think, know the story in Ezra, where He raised up this Gentile king, Cyrus, king of Persia. It is in Ezra 1:1-4. The Holy Spirit came upon this Persian king, this Gentile king, and he said that the God of heaven had told him that all of His people who were willing should go back to Jerusalem and build the house of God.
At that period in the history of God’s people, God was referred to in Ezra and Nehemiah as “the God of heaven.” He was not referred to as the God of heaven and the God of earth, because the testimony on the earth had been compromised.
Cyrus said, “The God of heaven has told me that all of His people, whosoever are willing, are to go back to Jerusalem and build the house of God. His God be with them.” That was a sovereign move of recovery. Can you imagine? We would think the Lord would have used a different vessel, but He used a Gentile king in a remarkable way.
Not only did he say this; he said, “Those of you who do not go back, provide the gold and the silver and all that is needed so that they might go back to Jerusalem and build the house of God.”
This was the beginning of the recovery of God’s purpose at the end of the age. He wanted His house to be rebuilt in Jerusalem, and when men were unfaithful, He remained faithful still. He called this Gentile king to make this decree, and roughly fifty thousand responded to his call and to his voice.
It was through Zerubbabel, the governor, and Joshua, the high priest, that these priests, Levites, and some of the poorer of God’s people heard that call, responded to that call, and went back to that land under great opposition and difficulty to rebuild the house of God.
It was not easy. There was terrific opposition, and they paid a great price. But if you think about it, everything of value is costly. Thank God that some heard the call. Thank God that some were willing to pay the price.
Maybe it seemed so small. That is why Zechariah says in Zechariah 4:10:
For who hath despised the day of small things?
This was God’s movement at the end of the age.
Not only did He raise up these two men as leaders, He raised up these three prophets to encourage the saints. For those of you who are not too familiar with the Old Testament, the prophetic books at the end of the age are these three books we have spoken about. The historical books—which are out of place in the record; they do not occur where they are in your Bible—are Ezra and Nehemiah. They are the historical record of that recovery at the end of the age.
So we have Ezra and Nehemiah, and we have Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. This is the movement of God at the end of the age.
I read something that I thought was profound by another person you may not have ever heard of, Marcus Dods. He was a Scottish divine. Actually, he translated Augustine’s work, The City of God. He did quite a lot of translating.
He wrote a book on these three last prophets. I would love to get it. I will just have to check and see if it is available, and see what he says. But Marcus Dods said this of Haggai: “No prophet ever appeared in a more critical juncture in the history of the people.” And it may be added, “No prophet was more successful.”
That is quite a bold statement.
But brothers and sisters, because of that movement at the end of the age, God raised up these men. These men were able to encourage the people of God in that hour.
Now, this is what I would like to do. I am going to make it easy for you: just three things you are going to have to remember. If you do not get it, you can call me up and I will try to remember and remind you, okay?
We are just going to look at three things in an overall way as we look at this book after having that background.
First of all, God confronts His people. Some of us might not like that message, okay? Some of us might not like it. But it was effective, and God used it.
Secondly, not only does God confront His people; God comforts His people. The comfort in this book is astounding. Some people only see the correction, and they miss the comfort. But this book is a book of comfort.
Finally, God completes His purpose. It is easy for us to sit back and say, “Well, I do not know if it will ever be completed.” It is sort of like my projects at home. Linda wonders if they will ever be completed. But with God, He always completes what He starts.
So that is what we will do. We will not look at a verse-by-verse exposition. I do not want to do that. But I would like to take these three points and, in an overall way, look at Haggai’s four messages and see what the Lord would bring to us at the end of this age.
First of all, this remnant that returned—this is what happened to them—they returned with enthusiasm. They laid the foundation. They were so filled with zeal that they immediately laid the foundation.
But almost as soon as they had begun, within a year, they stopped building the house of God. The house of God was not built for fifteen years.
That is the reason this book was written: to confront the people of God about His purpose, the reason they were called, the reason they responded. They had left the very heart of God.
Now, I want us to be very careful here. When we read books like this, we should not be too judgmental and say, “Well, if we were there, we would not have done that.” They came back under incredible opposition. They came back under ruin.
You read Nehemiah. When he speaks of the conditions, when he went out at night and surveyed the wall, he looked and saw waste and burned places, and he wept. The conditions were terrifically difficult.
I think this happens to us, too. Life sort of got in the way. That is a Pittman expression. We use it at home. Whenever we have an excuse for procrastination and not getting anything done, we say, “Life got in the way.”
Now, brothers and sisters, for us at the end of this age, I think those circumstances apply to us. We live in difficult times. The opposition to serving God is great. We have said it again and again: modern life, with all of its conveniences—and we have way too many—modern life is not conducive to spirituality.
They lived in harsh days, but nevertheless, they were called to this purpose. When they got there and that initial enthusiasm wore down, they stopped building the house of God, the very thing that they were called to build.
Now, they did not stop building. It says they built their ceiled houses. I think it is interesting: you can test this if you want to. The enemy seems to put up no opposition to us building the things that we want to build for ourselves. But when it comes to building the house of God, all hell seems to break loose.
I believe that is the very reason the Lord Jesus said in Matthew 16:
I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
The enemy will come against you. The moment you set your heart to God’s purpose, you will find all kinds of opposition arising.
As a matter of fact, I like what Brother Sparks said when he was talking about us setting our heart on other things. He said, “The enemy makes no opposition.”
What happened with this dedicated remnant, this remnant that responded to the Lord and heard His call, is that they stopped building the house of God. It says they built their own ceiled houses.
Now, it did not say they built shacks or set up a pup tent. It goes beyond that. We can make all kinds of excuses for ourselves. They went to an extreme. This is an extreme phrase: they built their ceiled houses.
Now, I have wainscoting, so do not get upset with me. Most of you probably do as well. But these were elaborate things. Their whole life began to be their career. Their whole life began to be their home. Their whole life became what they needed, and they stopped doing the very thing that they were called to do.
That is the reason for this book of Haggai.
If we go back to the very beginning, Haggai 1:4-6, the Lord asks a question:
Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your ceiled houses, while this house lieth waste?
Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways.
It begins in verse 2:
This people say, The time is not come, the time for the Lord’s house to be built.
And then the Word came.
Brothers and sisters, all we have is time, and that precious little. I do not even know where time went. I still think of myself as that twenty-one-year-old who showed up here with a few whom I thought were ancient sisters, by the way. Do not get offended if you are still here, and at least one is here. Ancient people.
I still think of that, and now all of a sudden I turn around and I am sixty. Can you imagine? Sixty. Elias told me the other night, “I am six.” I said, “I am better. I am sixty—ten times your age.”
All we have is time. The question is: what do you do with your time?
The Lord says, “You say it is not time to build the house of the Lord. Is it time for you to build your ceiled houses?” Now, it is not wrong to build your house. As a matter of fact, I built my house. As a matter of fact, I am still building my house, to Linda’s dismay, that I started in ’84 or ’85, or whenever it was.
It is not wrong. Your career is not wrong. Your needs are not wrong. But if those things are your priority and your emphasis, then you have missed the heart of God.
He knows you have need of these things. But the issue was: “You say the time has not come that you should build the house of God. Is it time for you to build your own house?” Consider your ways.
This was the word that came to these ones. I know they had great opposition and resistance, and sometimes that opposition and resistance leads to resignation. We say, “Boy, it is just not time.”
Sometimes these gadgets enslave us. We need to hear the last-hour call of God that says, “Consider your ways.”
In this book, five times this word comes: consider. Now, I am no different than you. I am not preaching at you; I am standing with you. I know something of what a busy life, a busy schedule, resistance, opposition, and demands are.
But nevertheless, I do not think we can ignore God’s Word and live for ourselves. Too often we do, and the end is regret.
All you have is time. The Word says, “Redeeming the time.” Moses said, “Teach us to number our days.”
Brothers and sisters, the Word came: “Consider your ways.”
Now, we think of “consider” lightly. Somebody comes to us and says, “Consider this,” and we brush them off and say, “Oh, sure, I will consider it.” As soon as they walk away, we have forgotten the request.
This is more than that. This is an appeal of God Almighty to His people. It is His last word—His last chance, if you think about it, to get His message to this beleaguered remnant. He said, “Consider.”
It is actually a complicated word. Most words in your concordance are a single word, whether Hebrew in the Old Testament or Greek in the New Testament. This is actually three Hebrew words. It means consider, but it means heart. It does not just mean, “Consider lightly.” It means, “Consider from the heart.” Then it has this third little meaning that looks strange when you read the definitions: above, or God.
So the word was: consider from your heart what God wants.
Brother Stephen said it means, “Set your heart on it. Do not just brush it off.” If God is saying to you today, “Consider your ways,” what have you made your priorities? Do not just brush it off.
The last word: consider from the heart.
It was not just the opposition. There was an inward reason they stopped building. It was a heart issue. They stopped building.
You remember Revelation 2:4-5, the letter to the church in Ephesus. The Lord, as He walked among the lampstands, said:
But I have this against thee, that thou didst leave thy first love.
Remember therefore whence thou art fallen, and repent and do the first works.
The testimony was lost because they left their first love. It was a heart issue. Priorities changed. Sure, life got in the way. Sure, there was opposition on every end. But opposition is never the reason in the Bible for failure.
I love the way Ephesians 6, that great section on warfare, puts it: “Having done all, stand.” It starts out, “Take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand.”
It literally means: in spite of the opposition, do all that is purposed. In spite of the opposition, brothers and sisters, if we respond to this word, we can do everything that is needed.
So it seems to me that it becomes a heart issue.
Now, the Lord confronts His people very strongly. He says, “Consider your ways” in verse 6. In verse 7, He says, “Consider your ways.” Then, if you read after verse 6, it says:
Ye have sown much, and bring in little;
ye eat, but ye have not enough;
ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink;
ye clothe you, but there is none warm;
and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.
Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways.
Now, some of us will read this wrong. He goes on to verse 11, speaking of how He blew upon things. Some of us undoubtedly will read this as punishment. We have this idea of God—maybe all of us at one time or another have had this idea—that God is mean and cruel and against us.
You may say, “Well, I am much more spiritual than that, brother.” But one of the games I liked growing up—I think it is probably as old as I am—I played not long ago at my granddaughter’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. I would suggest no one ever go to that place again. That was the closest thing to eternal punishment I can imagine.
The only thing that kept my sanity in that place was that they had one of my favorite games. It is called Whac-A-Mole. Here I am, blurry-eyed and depressed, hitting Whac-A-Mole with all of my strength.
Whac-A-Mole is this little five-hole game with moles that come up one at a time. You have this rubber, heavy club, and you hit the mole’s head as soon as he comes up. So you whack the mole. Then another one comes up, and you whack that mole. You should have seen me. I was a man possessed, whacking the moles. The score was going up, and my granddaughter was impressed for the first time with me whacking the moles.
But sometimes that is our impression of God: all He wants to do is whack us. When we read these harsh words, our impression is to say, “God is mean. This is punishment.”
Brothers and sisters, this is not punishment. There is a place for punishment, but this is not punishment.
We have a system of criminal justice where we punish. What is the saying? “If you do the crime, you pay the time.” We have reasoned punishment, supposedly. If you steal M&M’s—which is one of my weak points—we do not cut your finger off. But it is punishment, and you will do the time.
Some people say this is discipline. It is discipline, but it is not just discipline. Discipline tries to get you to correct your behavior so that you will obey. That is the difference between pure punishment and discipline. Discipline works. We have a generation that has said discipline is bad. Hogwash. Discipline works. It can correct your behavior.
I will tell you a little story. When I was a teenager, in middle school—or junior high school, when I went in that ancient era—I was smoking in the bathroom. Do not follow this example.
As a matter of fact, I was the neighborhood supply of cigarettes because my mother worked at Philip Morris and got free cigarettes. Everyone knew where to get them. I was in the bathroom with the guys, a cloud of smoke—not a cloud of glory—and in walked the assistant principal. I will never forget the look of that principal. He happened to be my football coach.
He just looked at me and said, “I will see you at practice this afternoon.”
It was the hardest practice. But you know, I never smoked a cigarette again. It worked.
But this is different. This is child training. The difference between punishment, discipline, and child training—or chastening—is that in child training there is always the element of love. It is always there.
When we discipline our children, it is child training. We do not just say, “Oh boy, it is an opportunity to beat the stuffing out of them.” I grew up in an age like that, when they used belts.
I will never forget another little story. I thought I was really smart. I have found out that the older I get, the dumber I am.
I skipped school one day, but I was really cool about it. I walked off with my book bag with the other students, like I was headed to the bus stop, slipped out, and spent the day in the woods in our fort that I had built with my buddies.
I did not know they had started calling home. The principal called home and woke my father up. He was a night-shift worker, and you never woke my father up when he was sleeping.
They said, “Mr. Pittman, where is Kenny today?” He said, “He is at school.” The principal said, “He is not at school.”
So I was smart. At the end of the day, I showed up at the bus stop and walked home with the other students. I thought that was cool—crafty, all the above. My dad was waiting for me. He said, “Son, where were you today?”
I said, “Dad, I was at school.”
He said, “No, you were not. Do not lie to me, boy.” I think those were the last words I remembered before I blacked out.
He took that belt. He was a master surgeon with that belt. He could swing that thing in more directions.
So I had a new scheme. I always thought I was smart. Now I know I was not. I figured if I yelled like I was dying, he would quit. Well, that did not work either.
But even today, I know my father loved me. Child training.
If we read Hebrews 12, it says that He disciplines—or chastens, is the word—everyone whom He loves. Though no chastening for the moment seems pleasant, for those exercised by it, it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness.
Now, here is the question: are we exercised by it?
Child training. This is what He did. He blew on their wages. He blew on their food. He blew on everything, and it ended up that they were still hungry and still thirsty. It was not punishment. It was child training so that they could consider their ways.
God is not cruel to His children. He may be stern, but it is always in love, so that the precious little time that you and I have will not be wasted. This is what Haggai is about.
May we yield to the Lord and let Him train us. It is an amazing thing. Look at this book: it was effective. Everybody responded.
Look at Haggai 1:12:
And 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.
All the remnant of the people. Everyone.
Then verse 14 says:
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 did work in the house of the Lord of hosts, their God.
Brothers and sisters, child training issued by the loving hand of God yields effective results if we are exercised by it. You still have the ability to ignore it. You can say, “Oh, these are just circumstances.”
But God is dealing with His people at the end of the age so that their priorities would be right.
He says you have money, and you put it in bags with holes in them. How graphic. You never have enough, do you? You can pursue a career, and you can give your life, and you will never have enough. You will never have enough gadgets.
The most frustrating thing to me is why I have to get a new phone every two years and get a new gadget that I have not learned. Jack, if you can explain it to me—you computer people—I would appreciate it. I think you guys have a conspiracy. That is what I think.
I have to relearn a phone that I did not learn two years earlier. I do not need an iPhone. It is never enough. It is never enough.
God, hear this burden that is on my heart: God, in His mercy, is trying to get us to consider our ways.
What are you living your life for? What consumes you? What are you invested in? What will you do with those short years that you have?
It is never too late. Here, they fully responded to the call, and God did a mighty work in the building of His house.
Well, that is the first point.
But God not only confronts His people; He comforts His people. Immediately, He comforted His people.
When He disciplines, when He does child training, when He chastens—which is to nurture and to make and mold in His image—when He does all these things, He immediately comes to us with His comfort.
He never just judges. He never just disciplines. He never just deals with us as a harsh ruler and despot.
You remember the one who was given the talent and buried it. When the master came and asked for an explanation, the one who had buried it said, “I knew you were a hard taskmaster.”
If I have any ambition in sharing, it is to erase that thought from the minds of the children of God. How many suffer? How many labor under it? How many think that is the way He really is?
But He always child trains, and in the end, He always comforts.
Look at Haggai 1:13:
Then spake Haggai, the Lord’s messenger, in the Lord’s message unto the people, saying, I am with you, saith the Lord.
That is His comfort. Can you imagine? Is there any greater comfort than this single declaration, when the Lord says to this people, “I am with you”?
He did not just say it once. If you look at Haggai 2:4, in the second message, it says:
Be strong, all ye people of the land, saith the Lord, and work: for I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts.
His comfort is His presence, and He gives us His presence.
I think that is all throughout the Word of God. We could stay here all day and talk about illustrations from the Bible about how His comfort is His presence. But to those whom He was child training, to get them to consider their ways, He immediately came to them with this comfort: “I am with you.”
Think of Joshua 1:5. The Lord said to Joshua:
As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee; I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.
Some people believe that is the exact phrase the Lord Jesus captured and spoke at the end of the Great Commission, the last word in the book of Matthew, when He says, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”
That is His comfort. What comfort that is.
Just because of their disobedience, He did not turn from them. He loved them so much that He was willing to confront them, and He loved them so much that He was willing to comfort them.
That is what Haggai seems to me to be about.
You can think of Psalm 23. How many of you have Psalm 23 as your favorite psalm? You know verse 4:
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
for Thou art with me.
His comfort is His presence.
Sometimes we send comfort to people. We send a card or a letter, or today we send emails. We do not write letters anymore. We have all got Jack’s disease, and we send emails. You will never speak to me again, I am sure—if you did in the first place.
But the Lord goes Himself. He does not send a messenger. He does not send a message. He goes Himself.
Think of it. In the darkest valley, in the dreariest night, in the deepest trial, He does not say, “You find some words in the Bible that will help you.” He says, “I am with you.”
Think of it. This is the comfort. What great comfort this book is.
It is not only that. He comforts with His promises.
I love 2 Peter 1:4. I like the King James Version in this sense, when it says “exceeding great and precious promises.” By these exceeding great and precious promises, we become partakers of the divine nature.
Think of what comfort that is. You are not just given a list of commands, like orders in the military. You show up, and here are your orders. You peel through the envelope and say, “Oh, gee, I am going to Iraq.”
It is not like that at all.
But by these exceeding great and precious promises, we can now do the impossible because we become partakers of His divine nature.
Now, do not take that where it does not go. Christ lives out; we do not become divine. Now, for those of you who think you are divine, we have another message. We will go in the backyard and talk about it.
But this is not what it is talking about. We partake of Christ. Great, precious promises—unbelievable promises.
When you look at that second message in Haggai 2, He talks about one of those promises:
The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, saith the Lord of hosts.
Is that not sensational? This is a promise.
You have to set the tone. It would be good if you would read Ezra 3. You will read there that some of the older men who were around before the captivity, in Solomon’s day, had seen the glory of Solomon’s temple. Then they were there with the fifty thousand who returned, and when they laid the foundation, they wept.
They wept. Some cheered—those who did not know about it.
The Lord asks them a question in Haggai 2:3:
Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory?
And how do ye see it now?
Is it not in your eyes as nothing?
Then He says:
Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land;
and I will shake all nations; and the precious things of all nations shall come;
and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts.
Then He says in verse 9:
The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former.
Brothers and sisters, this is a great promise.
Now, it is not like it is in the King James Version: “The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former.” God only has one house. Whether it was the tabernacle, or the tent of meeting in the wilderness, whether it was Solomon’s temple, whether it was the recovered and rebuilt temple, whether it is the body of Christ—the church, which is His house—it is one house.
The great and precious promise is that the latter glory of this one house will exceed the former glory.
This is the temptation. You may be tempted to look at things where you are and get like these ancient ones and say, “Well, what is this all about? Is this really all it is?”
That is why Zechariah said, “Who hath despised the day of small things?” Some looked at that foundation and thought, “What is this?” God said, “How do you see it now?” Then He made that great promise.
Brothers and sisters, pessimism will kill the testimony of Jesus. Forgive me, all you pessimists. I am one very often. But pessimism is contagious.
Those ones said, “Whew, why not build our own houses? If this is all it is?” Not only that, they became critics. They said, “Is this where the glory of God is to rest? You have got to be kidding me. You have got to be kidding me.”
Brothers and sisters, whatever the Lord is doing in your midst and in your generation, be given to it wholly, because it will go into the glory. It will go into that latter glory of this house.
In other words, everything we do in our generation according to the purpose of God, responding to His heart and following Him faithfully, will count toward the glory of that house.
This is the promise: the latter glory of this house will exceed the former glory.
But it does not stop there. He says in Haggai 2:6-7, “I will shake.” I think all of us are familiar with that. He says the shaking has a purpose: that the Desire of all nations will come.
Do you know what that means? It means it is Messianic prophecy. It means the Lord Jesus. It is His first coming. That was the great promise. That was the comfort.
He said, “I am shaking all nations, but what is going to happen is that the Desire of all nations—the Messiah—will come.”
We often look at the shaking. I am afraid we see the shaking, the difficulties, and we give up. But actually, brothers and sisters, when we read Hebrews 12 about that last shaking, we discover that shaking has an end. Shaking is to bring the King in.
For that reason, we are told in Matthew that when we see all these things, what are we to do? Are we to get depressed, go into our closet, and hide for fear of what is coming upon the world? He said, “No.” He said, “Look up, for your redemption draweth nigh.”
That is a great promise.
There is another promise in Haggai 2:19. This was after the explanation of the priests and the whole nation being unclean. He said this among the exceeding great and precious promises:
From this day will I bless you.
I think we sometimes, as the people of God, no longer believe in God’s blessing. This is the promise:
From this day will I bless you.
Exceeding great and precious promise. Do you know that your end is blessing? Your end is not even confrontation. Your end is blessing.
I love Ephesians 1:3. It says that God has blessed us with every—not some, not part—every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That is our end.
Let me end. This is only a few more words.
God completes His purpose.
The last message Haggai gave was only Haggai 2:20-23—a very short message. It ends this way:
In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, will I take thee, O Zerubbabel, My servant, the son of Shealtiel, saith the Lord, and will make thee as a signet; for I have chosen thee, saith the Lord of hosts.
Before that, He says that He will shake the heavens and the earth and overthrow the thrones of kingdoms.
Brothers and sisters, this is the third thing: this God who shakes is the same God who stirred the spirit of Cyrus. He is the same God who stirred the spirit of the remnant to return. He is the same God who stirred Zerubbabel and Joshua the high priest, and all the remnant.
The same God that stirs is the same God that shakes. He will complete His purpose.
It tells us that the end of His purpose is that this one, Zerubbabel, who is merely a type of Christ—he was the governor, the ruler, but he is a figure of Christ in the Old Testament—will be made a signet.
I do not know if you know what a signet is, but a signet is a signet ring. I remember back in my high school days, it seemed like everybody had signet rings. I do not know if people even wear them anymore, but a signet ring would usually have your three initials on it. It told who you were. You could say, “Look, that is who I am—my signet ring.”
But the biblical sense is much greater than that. The signet is His authority. The signet is His rule. The signet is His power. The signet is everything in the purpose of God invested in this One.
We begin to understand that this One who confronts His people and comforts His people, this One in the end will shake and complete His purpose. His King, the Lord Jesus, will be His signet.
Now, you put that signet on something, and you cannot challenge it. If I put my stamp on something and brought it to somebody, they would say, “Who is that?” But not His signet.
He will be King of all the earth. We read in Philippians that in that day, at that name, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess, to the glory of God the Father, that Jesus is Lord.
That is the signet. That is the completion of God’s purpose.
That is the reason for all the shaking. All the crises that we see going on now are with an end in view: so that this King may not just come the first time, as we read in Haggai 2, in the first shaking, but that this King shall come and inherit the entire earth, and God’s full will be accomplished.
So, I do not know. I hope this helps.
We need to hear the Lord’s Word. Haggai, I think, says sixteen times in thirty-eight verses, “Thus saith the Lord,” or “saith the Lord of hosts.” It is the Lord’s Word at the end of the age.
He has a controversy with His people, and His controversy is that He wants to build His house, that He might come and receive it in all of His fullness, and that He might receive His bride unto Himself.
For that reason, He confronts us. But He not only confronts us; He comforts us with the greatest comforts, that we might do the impossible. In the end, this One who stirs and this One who shakes declares that He alone will complete His purpose.
Lord, we just commit all this to You. Our desire is that we would hear the Word of the Lord at the end of the age. We ask You to help us open our ears that we could hear.
I know in those letters to the churches they needed eye salve. To everyone, You said, “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.”
Lord, would You speak to us? We want You to recover Your purpose in our generation. We want to be part, however small, of that latter glory.
We want to ask You, Lord, to speak, to confront, to comfort, to confirm Your purpose, and in our generation, complete Your purpose.
We ask it together in the name of Jesus. Amen.