By the way, there is a page 666 in the Bible, the deal with it. The word 6668 last week we looked at Haggai chapter 1, and we looked at how God had to discipline his people, because they had been rescued and had not reestablished the temple. They had ceased building the temple, and proper worship wasn't going on. Now they had begun rebuilding the temple, and that was on Bob Erickson's first day, back in 520, right? September 21st, when September 21st, 520, they re-did the re-started building the temple. Now we come to about midnight number of 520, and Haggai speaks to the people again. This is God's Word, eternally true, Haggai chapter 2 verse 1. On the 21st day of the 7th month, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai. To speak to Zorebobl, the Son of Shiel, the Governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the Son of Jehovah, and to the High Priest, and to the remnant of the people, asked them, who of you is left who saw this house in the former glory? How does it look to you now? Does it not seem to you like nothing? But now be strong, though Zorebobl declared the Lord. Be strong, though Joshua, the Son of Jehovah, the High Priest, be strong. All you people of the land declared the Lord and work for I am with you, declared the Lord Almighty. This is what I have covenant with you when you came out of Egypt, and my spirit remains among you, do not fear. This is what the Lord Almighty said. In a little while, I will once more shake the heavens in the earth, the sea, and the dry land. I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord Almighty. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the Lord Almighty. The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house, says the Lord Almighty. And in this place, I will grant peace, declares the Lord Almighty. Now, let's give thanks to the Lord, using the now printed response you have for you in your bulletin. The word of the Lord puts right together. Our God and Father, we are grateful to you for your word, and we ask that by your spirit, you would illuminate for us that it would make sense to us, because our minds and our hearts and our lives. Jesus, we ask that you would preach to us, and that your words would sink deep to us and transform us. We renew our minds, we ask in Christ's name. Amen. We are people that are prone to discouragement and prone to fear. The filling out your outlines, there you go, boom, right off the start, you got your first line. For people that are prone to discouragement and fear, I remember when I was playing soccer in college, we had a soccer coach who was very discouraging. He was quick to point out what we did wrong and not very generous with his compliments and encouragement. And that affected us and how we played. I remember my junior year finally realizing this. Well, I am really beaten down, and I'm not playing that well. And so I started tuning out what he was saying that was negative. Listening to it, but tuning out the negative pitch of what was coming in. And I said, I'm going to enjoy this. And I started to play better. I remember my junior year in high school. We were playing a school that was about twice as big as we were, and there weren't enough. Not every school had soccer teams, and so we were forced into a league with some big schools with 2,000 plus people at their high schools. And we had about 1100. And so we were frequently playing schools that had a lot more resources to pull from. As you know, if you play anything here in Clayton, or maybe that was your experience as you were growing up. But I remember we were playing the team that was the first team in Columbus, Ohio to have a high school soccer team. And this was 10, 12, 15 years later. So the dynasty, they were always the ones to beat. They were the ones for years that nobody, nobody beat, undecided in Central Howe year, again year after year. And we had never beat them. And we went down to Worthington, and to play them my junior year. And I remember my own emotions. I remember the emotions of everyone else on our team. They were scared. They were better than us. They had the programs and teams. And they were two or three deep. And we were almost one deep. And still in it holds. But I was scared. I was fearful. And so we were in my teammates. And that affected the way we played. And we hardly got the ball pass midfield the whole game long. And boy was my father in that. Because he knew we were better than that. He said, why are you playing like you're scared out there? Our fear affected the way we played. We could have played much better. We could have competed with them. In fact, the next year we did. And we had a worse team the next year. But we got over the fear factor. We were at the play better. Or perhaps you've had a devastating breakup of some source with a boyfriend or girlfriend in your past, or recently, or perhaps with a spouse with the voice or death. And because of this, emotionally, you were or are tremendously discouraged. And that affects you. If you remember back to something like that, or you're in something right now, that affects you. That affects your motivation. And there's a fear to enter into a relationship again perhaps. Or maybe it's hard to focus on. I remember when that kind of thing happened to me, but yes, it did. Back in junior high and high school, I remember hard to focus on studies or other things because of its discourage. The discouragement and fear affects the way we act. In a very real sense, God's people at this time during the day of hey guy had gone through a breakup, so to speak, with God. You see, they had been in the promised land for years and years, but then had been disobedience to him. And God sent Prophet after Prophet to them, telling them to turn back to God and to follow him, but they ignored God's prophets, and so finally, God came true on his promise to Moses that if the people ignored him and went into that Dollar Tree in the promised land, that he would have spelled him from the land as Adam and Eve had been expelled from the garden. The off God's people went and roughly 600 BC off the Babylon, modern day Iraq. Tossed, thrown out, expelled, spit from the promised land. And God's people had a question as to where they stood with God. Now they had some encouragement. God had returned them to the land, 538 BC, about 70 years later. It returned his people to the land. But God's people had been around now about 18 years, and they had had many sources of discouragement. They had started and built the foundation of the temple around 538, 537 BC, but then the rebuilding of the temple which had been wiped out, which had been burned down by the Babylonian 70 years before. And that had stalled. There were lots of causes for discouragement from the people that hey guys spoke to. They were discouraged because they had been exiled and humiliated before all the nations. They were discouraged because they looked and their temple was ruined. There was still rubble around on the ground where a magnificent temple had once stood. In addition to this, we read in other places in the scripture that these people had enemies coming up to them that didn't want the temple to be rebuilt and that were discouraging them, and coming with the discouraging words and threats so that they wouldn't rebuild the temple. Also, they may have found that their startup time and rebuilding was great. Sorting through which stones might still be used and which weren't usable anymore from the rubble that was there. Organizing teams of people to do this, and to do that. Now, here's the timeline we've got. August 29th is when Gary's birthday. Isn't that a great way to remember in this? It helps me anyway. August 29th, hey guys, first speaks to the people and says get on the move and get this temple built. And then September 21st, the people start building the temple. Under the rubble, the leader, the heir to the throne and Joshua, the priest, and with hey guys' leadership, they start rebuilding the temple. And now, we're a few days after Dennis's birthday. The venison's birthday is 12th, 14th, okay. We're in November 17th, and here in the, in this nice, November 17th, and had guys speaking again. There's been about a month that's passed since the temple was started to be rebuilt upon the foundation. But during this month, they, of course, they take off their Sabbath days and they don't work on the Sabbath. But they've had three festivals that they've gone through too. They've had the feast of trumpets. They've had a day of atonement. And they've also had the feast of tabernacles. Now, the first two lasted a day each, but they couldn't work on those days. That was two more days out in addition to the four Sabbaths. That's six days they lost. And then they had the week-long feast of tabernacles. So they went a week, seven more days, the 13 days out of this month, they had out. So maybe they were discouraged as it was a month later, and this temple didn't have much progress to it. Another thing that could have been discouraging to them was the feast of tabernacles, a feast in the life of the Jews, in which they celebrated God's provision for them as the people during their 40 years in the wilderness. The feast of tabernacles is called the feast of tabernacles because in the wilderness people built tents to cover them when they slept at night. This was after Egypt before they got into the promised land. There were 40 years, and the people wandered around in the wilderness east of the Jordan and lived in tents. And so the feast of tabernacles commemorated that. God's provisioned to his people in the wilderness during that time. But it also tacked on to the feast of tabernacles was the celebration of the harvest. Harvest seasons, there were different parts of the harvest that were coming in during the sun. Again, it's tied into the idea of God's provision for us, his people, in providing us a good harvest. But as we looked last week, we saw that God is disciplining this people and that they hadn't been getting good harvest because they hadn't rebuilt a temple. And so the people sat here and they had just been through and hey guys speak from the last day of the feast of tabernacles the last of the seven days, and the people are discouraged. God hasn't provided for us. We didn't have a good harvest again this year. Yeah, hey guys told us a month or so ago why that was because we haven't rebuilt the temple. But even look now, the temples in ruins, and we don't have the provisions. We don't have the silver, the gold, the resources, the pember to get this done. How do we get this done? The people were discouraged. You know if we in our day, only here the first half of the gospel, we could rightly be discouraged too. That is if we get a proper understanding, a biblical understanding of who we are apart from Christ, we would be rightly discouraged. For apart from Christ, we too are exiled from the promised land of the church, the promised land of heaven. We're outside the confines of the community of God, apart from Christ. Apart from Christ, we're held in captivity. Just as God's people had been in captivity in Babylon, apart from Christ, all men and women, boys and girls, are held in captivity, not the Babylon, but the sin. Unable not to sin, as Augustine would say. Apart from Christ, we're consistently missing the mark that God had for us, and have no hope of ever meeting some kind of standard where we merit God's favor. So someone with us understanding and realizes what is true of them, a exile apart from God's people, I have not met nor will meet any standard by which I will merit God's favor, any turn of life. Everybody who realizes that this is rightly discouraged, or we don't have to stop there. Yes, we have no resources in ourselves to not to build the temple, but to earn God's favor. Yes, we, like the Israelites, have a discourager not in neighboring people that don't want the temple to be rebuilt, but we have a discourager in Satan and sometimes people in the culture who will discourage us from following God. But in contrast to all this, we come to Haggai's message. And Haggai says, essentially four things, there are four exhortations, and I'll give them to you, and then we'll summarize them for you. And I think you've got that line point there. The exhortation to this passage, verse three, what's in verse three? Haggai asks the questions, are any of you still around, from 70 years ago, when this temple was standing, and in 586, 587, the temple was still standing, and now it was about 520, so that's what, 67 years. Were any of you around 67 years ago, when this temple stood in its glory? Now look at it. But in contrast to this, as Haggai says, does it not seem to you as nothing? Haggai gives a message to be encouraged. Verse four, he says, be strong, it's a rubble, be strong, Joshua, be strong all you people of the land, verse four again, and work. Work at what? Work at building the temple. That's the topic at hand. Don't be discouraged as you are in your temple building. Don't look at it and say, oh, what's the use? But work, be encouraged, verse five, do not fear. We've got kind of a two-sided coin here on the negative way. We can say it like this. Haggai says, don't be discouraged and fearful. Be strong and work on the temple. Or in a positive way, and this is what your outline point has there, because we're positive people, right? Be encouraged. Be encouraged and confident. This is Haggai's message. Be encouraged and confident. Be strong and work on the temple. Be encouraged and confident. Be strong and work on the temple. Which for us today is the church. The church Ephesians 2.21 as well. The other place is called a holy temple in the Lord. You and I, the church, are the new temple. And God says that. Be strong and work for the building of the church. But the question is why do we, the church, not remain discouraged? How can we be strong in our task of building up the new temple of God, the church? The answer is found in this passage. Haggai has many things to say to us. And this passage screens speaks to us the gospel of Christ. As our reason for not being discouraged. Why can you be encouraged and confident in your life and your contributing, your energy, and time, and resources to the building up of the church? Why is this so? Where you can be strong, confident, encouraged, and church-building. Because, first of all, God's prophet, this is an outline point A. God's prophet, priest, and king are all working together, leading the project. God's prophet, Haggai, his priest, Joshua, and his king, Zerubbable, grandson of the last king of Israel, who is back, and we'll see later in Haggai is given the Royal Signet Ring. They're all working together in this project. And God's people, when they saw this, were to be encouraged. They were to say, hey, the David King, the son of David, is here, Zerubbable. And he's leading us back to Israel's glory, and prominent. He's leading us to build a new temple. And there's God's priest as well, Joshua. The priesthood is reestablished and when this temple gets built, it'll be properly functioning. And here's God's prophet, Haggai, the mouthpiece of God, speaking to us, God's will. This is the great source of encouragement to God's people back then. Now, what were the roles of the prophet and the priest and the king? Why were those significant? Well, the prophet was the one who spoke God's words to God's people. So it came from God through the prophet to God's people. The priest was somebody who dealt with the people and presented them to God. So it was going in the opposite direction from the people to God. He took the sacrifices that people brought to the temple to a tone for their sins, and he offered those sacrifices in a way that would be accessible to God. And he was a mediator between God and man. And then the role of the king in Israel, these were the three prominent offices in Israel. The role of the king was to lead God's people in faithfulness to God. To represent God to the people and to lead them in faithfulness. And God's people had all three taken away here working together for this project, leading them in it so they would be rightly encouraged. The point that John Calvin brought forth and has been talked about much since his time in the 1500s was that Christ fulfilled all three offices. Profit. Communicating God's word to us. Revealing God to us. Priest, himself, being the sacrifice, bearing our sins in his body, being a mediator between us and God so that we can only be before God, Christ acts as a priest on the cross and now in heaven as he intercedes for us. And Christ is king as well. He is the king and head of his church. He leads us. Now he is seated on his throne at the right hand of God, ruling and reign and building his church. God had shown great wrath to us people. Hey guys, and hey guys, say that people remembered this. They had come back from the exile and we sit in the same place and we say, yes, we are deserving as people that don't live according to God's will throughout the day. We are deserving of exile. But God has chosen instead to show us His mercy and His grace in Christ. He serves for us as a prophet. Telling us what God wants us to do. A priest bearing our sins so that we can return from our exile to be inside God's community. And as a king, leading us in triumphant procession, leading us in the worship of God. Now secondly, why can we be strong, confident and encouraged in our church building? Secondly, because God is with us in the building of its house. Look at verses four and five. Hey guys, says but now be strong, Ozerovable, declared the Lord. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadek, the high priest. Be strong, O you people of the land, declare the Lord and work for I am with you, declare the Lord. I am with you, declare the Lord. This is what I coveted with you and came out of Egypt. And my spirit remains among you. Do not fear. God has called you and made you the church. It's holy, simple. Mental testament times, the significance of the temple was where God dwells. But in the gospel, what Christ says, is he doesn't have the priest, the Old Testament priest, clean out the temple and get it all clean so that he can come in, God himself can come in, and his very presence can be there dwelling. Instead, Christ in the gospel cleans us. He sanctifies us. He washes us by the water, with the water of his word. And he comes in us to dwell as individuals and as a church. In Ephesians 1-18, he calls us as glorious inheritance. We are his simple. We are the ones among whom he is dwelling. He's with you as you work and pray and give for the building up of the church. Matthew 28, 18-20, popularly known as the Great Commission. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you and get this. He says, and surely, I am with you, always, even to the end of the age. 1 Peter 2, verses 3 and 4, say that the new temple is the church, and this temple is made of living stones. And those living stones are you and I. And God calls us to build up the church so that it matures, and we build up the church by maturing as a church, as individuals, but by adding living stones to the walls. This is what the Great Commission is about. Adding living stones to the new temple of God, the church, how do you add living stones to the church? By speaking to others about Christ, and by people coming to understand Christ, and it's gospel, but this is a very fearful thing, and so therefore God says, don't fear. I am with you. My spirit is with you. I covenanted this when you came out of Egypt, and rescued you then, and I am with you now. Don't fear, as you talk to others about Christ, because God is working toward adding other stones. He is with you. There's a third reason why we can be confident and encouraged and strong as we work on the building up of the church. It's this sea in your outline. It's because God is a mighty, conquering warrior. God brings even non-believers in line with his purposes here to provide whatever people need to accomplish the perfect to build in the simple. There's a phrase in here that's hidden if you have a New American standard or King James or Old King James, you'll see the repetition over and over of the phrase, the Lord of hosts. In the N.I.V., it's the Lord Almighty. The Lord Almighty is how, if you look at the introduction to the N.I.V., they say whenever this phrase, the Lord of hosts comes off, we translate it to Lord Almighty. Okay, here's what's going on with that. When scripture called God, the Lord of hosts, what it doesn't mean that he's the God of those who speak to you when you go into a restaurant. Right? The Lord of hosts. Our hosts will speak to you. What it means is that there's a host of armies. An angelic army that God uses an employees to fight first people. Do you remember that the case with Elijah and Elijah? There are armies that become revealed to these men that fight invisible armies but real. That fight for God's people. In our passage, we looked at Exodus 14 and 15. Remember what the Egyptian said as their chairs were having trouble staying untappled as they crossed the red sea. They said, God himself, the God of the Israelites is fighting against us. And Moses concludes in his song of praise to the Lord. The Lord is the warrior. The Lord is his name. Lord, you have fought for us against the Egyptians. You have freed us. You have part of the red sea and you wiped out the entire Egyptian army. The Lord of hosts. The host, the angelic host, is fighting for us. His people. And that's what Haggai declares over and over again. The Lord Almighty. The Lord of hosts. Same thing. The Lord Almighty says this. The Lord Almighty says this. Verse 7. The Lord Almighty. I will shake all nations and the desired things of all nations will come. And I will fill this house with glory. Says the Lord Almighty. The silver is mine. And the gold is mine. And the��as. God was finally declared for Lord Almighty. Look up at verse 6. This is what the Lord Almighty says. The Lord of hosts. God with its angelic armies is doing. And a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth and see and the dry land. People were looking around and they said we don't have any materials to build a temple. We don't have silver. We are decimated. When we never came in and destroyed our land, he took all the goods. and God says, I will shake the nations. You need silver, you need gold to build a temple? I will shake the nations, and these desired things to gold the silver that the timber from all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, I'll get it to you. The nations would provide the wealth for the rebuilding of the temple. Again in the Great Commission, what is Jesus saying, go make disciples of all nations. If again, fill all nations that bring the wealth for the building of the church. For in the gospel and the Great Commission, we find out that it's not just the Jews that are God's people, but it's everybody, and the nations come as living stones, providing the material, so to speak, of the building up of God's house, the church. God is a conquering warrior. Back then he actually did this, we'll see later, and if you read in Zechariah, or read in Ezra, you see that God did get the silver and the gold from neighboring nations, from other people, and the temple was rebuilt, but now Christ, through you, conquers with the angelic armies, people who are not yet believers, and conquers them with the gospel. The sword of the spirit, the word of God, the gospel of peace. God is still conquering, God is still the Lord of hosts, conquering people, where is conquered people. We're the prideful people that said we don't need God, God thank you very little, we don't want you, and God has conquered us, it caused us to see our sin and our need for him and our unworthiness of eternal life, and he conquered that spirit within us, and brought to us humility in the gospel, by which he has won us, and we've become his treasure that gets added to the temple, the church, forthless deed. We can be confident and encouraged and hopeful in building the church, because he promised that the church will be more glorious than the original temple, the rebuilt temple will be more glorious than the original, verse 8, the silver is mine, and the gold is mine, it clears the Lord Almighty, the glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house. Since the Lord Almighty, Ephesians 1, 18, Paul prae that you might know, the riches of God's glorious inheritance in the same, this is the glorious, more glorious temple, the church. You know the church was built up again, or the temple was built up again, five years later, five 15 B.C., the temple is completed, and then in addition to this, when Herod comes along, Herod the great, who is reigning when Jesus is born, he had added all these things to the temple, silver and gold, and made it a great and glory place, but now, in the church, the temple is even more glorious, and Paul prae that we would understand that, prae that the eyes of our hearts would be enlightened so that we may know, whether the riches of the glory of God's inheritance in us, the church, the new temple. Your life, the gospel declares, and the church, are this new glorious temple. Once a ruin, once decimated, no stone left upon another, and now built up the riches of God. In Christ's working, Ephesians 5, 25 to 27, to present us, the new temple, as a radiant church, holy, without stain, or wrinkle, or any other blemish, Matthew 16, Jesus promised this disciples, and I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Christ is building His church, adding living stones, making it more glorious than some old stone building in Jerusalem ever was. Fifth reason, lastly, why we can be excited about the building up of the church. We can be excited about it because it's from God's house, the church, that peace with God will flow. Why be excited about the building up of the church? Well, it'll be more glorious than the temple ever was, and is more glorious than the temple in Old Testament as real ever was. But why be excited about it? Because it's a place from which God's peace will flow. Verse 9, the glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house, that's the Lord Almighty. And in this place, I will grant peace. In this place, I will grant peace, declares the Lord Almighty. Go there, get in line, that's where God is to spend these. Romans 5.1, what does Paul say about the gospel? He says, therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have life. We have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ. God is still dispensing peace through His glorious temple, the church, and there's a low view of the church today in America. The church isn't really necessary or people don't see how the church fits in, but this passage tells us that the church is the place of the dispensing of God's peace. Someone wants peace, peace with God, ultimate peace, that person receives it through the church and through the message of the church, and the message of the church is Christ.
Well, I'd be excited about building. We've got a unique situation here in our church, we're a church plant, we're a little over a year old, and we look at a passage like this and say, yeah, we know what that's like. This was nothing, and now it's growing, and living stones are being added to this local congregation. God is working, God is with it, Christ, the prophet, priest, and king is leading earth, He's building this church, and with the gospel He's conquering others, and will conquer others, bringing them in submission to Him, like He's brought us in submission to Him with the sort of the spirit, the Word of God, the gospel of Christ, Christ is building a glorious church for His glory, from which He dispense it, ultimate peace, that's a thing to be very excited about. God is dispensing peace, people's ultimate need is peace with God, when all is said and done, and someone's done with their life, what's the one issue, do you have peace with God or not, that's all that matters when anyone gets to the end of their life, do they have peace with God, and we're dispensing it here, that's an exciting thing, Christ is building His church, adding living stones, building it up, and it's a glorious thing, let's pray. Our God and Father, we are excited about you, we're excited about the building of this church that you're doing, and we're excited that you've chosen to do it through us. We ask that you would cause us to see these truths and have these truths here to our hearts and minds, that you would help us to see accurately our role in the building up of your church. But God, we are most of all grateful to you, that it is you that is building it up, or not left to own the devices, or clarity, or energies, although you use all those things, but ultimately it is you that it's building it up, help us to be clear and clear how we can play a role in your glorious temple, the church, being built up for you, your glory. We ask in Christ's name. Amen. Let's now sing to the Lord using the insert that you have in your bulletins, a mighty fortress. Now, I need to say something that I could say during the service, or during the sermon, the phrase that you have in the Bible, saying your seats, the Lord Almighty, I also said was the Lord of hosts, it's sometimes translated. In Hebrew, that is the Yahweh, Lord Saviah of hosts, the hosts of angelic armies. And if you've heard this hymn before, the mighty fortress of our God, you know that there's a phrase in here that says, we tremble not for Satan, or it says it is Jesus, Lord Saviah is his name. That's not Lord Saviah, that's not a typo, you see that, that's verse 2, and at the end of line 3, Lord Saviah, his name, that doesn't mean he's Lord of the Saviah, although he is, that means he is the God of hosts, for Lord of hosts, Jesus is the one who's leading the angelic armies for the victory of the building up of the church. So just keep that in mind, that's a free before you to know, from now on, whenever you sing this song, that word Saviah says the Hebrew word for hosts, which refers to God's angelic armies that fight for his people. Let's stand now and sing from your insert of mighty fortress is our God.