Ezra 5:1-2; Haggai 1
In Ezra chapter five, verses
one and two, we read about the ministry of two prophets that
come. and encourage the people to get
back to work. So you’ll remember last week
that chapter four covered a hundred years of Israelite history, a
hundred years of the returnees. And so as we look at chapter
five and on through Nehemiah, we’ll see the unfolding of those
hundred years of opposition. But chapter five of Ezra says,
now the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, the son of Iddo, prophesied to
the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the
God of Israel, who was over them. Then Zerubbabel, the son of Shaltiel
and Jeshua, the son of Josedach arose and began to rebuild the
house of God that is in Jerusalem and the prophets of God were
with them supporting them. So we’re going to take a, I think
three Sunday night side excursion into Haggai. So if you’ll turn
there, It’s one of those little books, Haggai, Zechariah and
Malachi. And then there’s Matthew. So
just, at least in my Bible, it’s just two facing pages. So you
can zip right past it if you’re not careful. So Haggai chapter
one, we’ll read the whole thing and just a little heads up in
Haggai chapter one, there are three speeches. three speeches
from Haggai to the people of God. And it says, in the second
year of Darius, the king in the sixth month, on the first day
of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai,
the prophet, to Zerubbabel, the son of Shaltiel, governor of
Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Jehoshaddak, the high priest.
Thus says the Lord of hosts. These people say, the time has
not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord. And the word of
the Lord came by the hand of Haggai, the prophet. Is it a
time for you yourselves to dwell in paneled houses while this
house lies in ruins? Now, therefore, thus says the
Lord of hosts, consider your ways. You have so much and harvested
little. You eat, but never have enough.
You drink, but never have your fill. You clothe yourselves,
but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so
to put them into a bag with holes. Thus says the Lord of hosts,
consider your ways. Go up to the hills and bring
wood and build the house that I may take pleasure in it and
that I may be glorified, says the Lord. “‘You looked for much
and behold, it came to little. “‘And when you brought it home,
I blew it away. “‘Why?’ declares the Lord of
hosts. “‘Because of my house that lies
in ruins “‘while each of you busies himself with his own house. “‘Therefore the heavens above
you have withheld the dew “‘and the earth has withheld its produce. “‘And I have called for a drought
on the land “‘and the hills on the grain, the new wine, the
oil “‘on what the ground brings forth. on man and beast and on
all their labors. Then Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel,
and Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the
remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God,
and the words of Haggai the prophet, and as the Lord their God had
sent them. The people feared the Lord. Then
Haggai, the messenger of the Lord, spoke to the people with
the Lord’s message. I am with you, declares the Lord. And the Lord stirred up the spirit
of Zerubbabel, the son of Shaltiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit
of Joshua. the son of Jehozadak, the high
priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people. And
they came and worked on the house of the Lord of hosts, their God,
on the 24th day of the month, in the sixth month of the second
year of Darius the king.” Amen, the word of the living God. I
imagine that most of us do not want to hear the word failure.
You have failed to do this or that. Not in any case, not in
any example, not in any realm or aspect of our lives. Failure
though is all around us. Failure to keep our commitments,
failure to keep our finances, failure to keep our jobs, failure
to, you fill in the blank and failure is all around us. But
I think an area of life we definitely don’t want to find failure is
spiritually. It’s one thing maybe to declare
bankruptcy and to become solvent again, but it’s a whole nother
thing to be spiritually bankrupt and to deal with the things that
come along with it. When I think we find God’s people,
Yahweh’s people here in a moment of great spiritual failure, cosmic spiritual failure in one
sense. And so God is saying to Israel
through the prophet Haggai, you have failed to build my house. You have wasted, if you do the
math of all that’s gone on, you have wasted 16 years. Just stop for a moment and think.
Have you ever wasted 16 years spiritually? I think I can look
back in my life and see stretches of time where maybe my heart
wasn’t as pricked as it ought to be for the things of the Lord.
I can look back in stretches of ministry and think how unfruitful
and how ineffective I have been. But could you imagine 16 years? And God is saying to them, you
have deprived me of my glory and you have deprived me of my
pleasure. Now think for just a moment,
maybe quick review of what has gone on so far. By decree of
Cyrus, Israel returned to Judah and Jerusalem to rebuild the
city, to rebuild the walls, to rebuild the temple and reestablish
the presence and the worship of God in Jerusalem and in Judah. And they came in months time,
they settled in their places, they settled in their towns,
they established their homes, they built an altar, and they
reestablished the daily sacrifices of Almighty God. And quickly
they laid a foundation and built a temple. But remember last time,
chapter four, the hundred years war, we caught a glimpse of a
hundred years of hardship. And this message from Haggai
takes place in the first 20 years or so of those hundred year war
that we spoke of. They’ve been met by incredible
opposition. The peoples of the land, they
have been discouraged for a long stretch of time. They have been
made afraid to do the work of God. They have had their purpose
frustrated and now they have quit. Now they have stopped and
now they have failed. And bless the Lord in his mercy. He comes to us in our lethargy
and he says, wake up. You who are spiritually asleep,
wake up. It is not the time to sleep.
It is not the time for apathy. It is not the time for indifference. My house is not in order, God
says, therefore your houses are not in order. I don’t know if
you’ll cop that, but we’ll say a bit more of it in a few moments.
You want the covenant blessing, grapes and grandkids. What did
he seem to say to them? Where’s the grapes? Where’s the
grandkids? So how does God move his saints
to obedience? What does God do? to move his
saints from a place of spiritual apathy and lethargy to obedience. Well, he does it by his word
and spirit. He does it through preaching.
He does it through the mouth of the prophet. In the book of
Haggai, we’re gonna have six oracles from Haggai. Tonight,
we heard three of them already. An oracle can just be a sentence
as these really have been. But it’s as if God is, out in
the early morning of camp with a bugle saying, wake up, wake
up. It’s time to get up in the spiritual
morning. And so the word of God takes
people uncommitted to his work. The word of God takes people
uncommitted to his work and moves them to do his will. So maybe
perhaps you need a spiritual jumpstart. You need God’s jumper
cables. to start your engine, you need
a shock to the heart to get back in spiritual rhythm. Well, the
first message we find in verses one and two, it’s a rebuke that
demands a response. And in Haggai one and two, it
talks about the timing of the arrival of Haggai the prophet.
And in verse two, thus says the Lord of hosts, these people say
the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord. The time has not yet come to
rebuild the house of the Lord. The word of the Lord comes through
Haggai. He’s the Lord’s messenger and
he brings this important word. Now, in fact, it is the time
to rebuild God’s house. He’s going to revive them. He’s
going to put his word, his message back before the people. And I
think it’s best we understand, this was maybe a little private,
pull aside Zerubbabel, the governor, pull aside Joshua, the high priest,
pull them aside and speak to them. Maybe there was a little
bit of a crowd nearby. It sounds a little bit like our
morning message, doesn’t it? They pulled Apollos off to the
side and told him privately, more accurately, the way of salvation
through faith and the whole Jesus, not just the Jesus up to the
point of John the Baptist. But nevertheless, they pull him
aside and speak words of condemnation, words of rebuke about the people
of God. These people, you might have
him say, he’s talking to two, these people, and he’s pointing
over to the temple. He’s pointing over to the crowd, referring
to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem. Maybe it’s like
you as a parent, you got the talk from the teacher. Do you
know what your son did today? You know what your child did
today? That’s in a sense what Haggai is doing. Hey, governor,
hey, priest, do you know what your people are doing? Or in
this case, not doing. Now you might just move on here. but you need to stop and think
when God says these people and not my people, he’s had it up
to here. We think of Hosea and Hosea’s
prophecy. You are not my people. I disown
you. And then we think of the new
Testament that says you who were once not a people now are my
people. and the great end to the covenant
promise of God, I will be their God and they will be my people. Exodus 32, God tells Moses, go
down from the mountain, your people, he says to Moses, whom
you, Moses, brought up out of the land of Egypt. They have
corrupted themselves. When God uses disowning language,
we better pay attention. We better listen. We do not want
to be cut off. They say the time has not yet
come to rebuild the house of the Lord. Doesn’t this sound
like a discussion you have in your house? You people say it
is not time to put your dishes in the dishwasher. or to pick
up your laundry from the floor. You know how it is when you have
things undone in the house, we get a little lazy or tired. I’ll
do it tomorrow. And this can happen spiritually,
can’t it? And so when we hear this phrase,
they say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of
the Lord. Then why did they return? Why didn’t they just stay in
Babylon? What was the point of rebuilding the altar? What was
the point of building the foundation? Why the money and the treasures
and the Tyrians and the Sidonians and the cedars and the stone
and the masons and the provisions, the food, the workers, the carpenters? Why the Levites overseeing the
work? Why the resources and the momentum?
And remember that big day of festive worship. Why all that? If now 16 or so years later,
they say, not time, God’s house can wait. And you know, it reveals
their spiritual failure. They’re living in panel houses. You ever go in a house and see
a paneled den? One day, I would love to have
a paneled den. It’d be a cool thing to have. I think, you know, you got to
sit in there in your smoking jacket and your cigar and have
a little fire and your dog is at your feet and all the rest.
That just looks like maybe you’d be the lord of the manor. They’ve been hanging their flat
screens. The cable guy has been there. The internet people have
been there. The painters have been. All the
artwork they bought is now hung on the walls. The carpets have
been rolled out. Their beds are made, their fridges
are full. And don’t you begin to see the
picture of our own lives. We chase and we pursue and we
lust after and we have to have. And we wonder why God’s house
is empty, why God’s house is in disrepair. Well, and what
does this reveal? It reveals spiritual failure.
Is God really upset about their paneled houses? No, he’s upset
about their empty hearts. He’s upset about their spiritual
failure, their lost zeal for God’s house and God’s presence
and God’s worship and God’s commands and, well, walking with him and
fearing him and keeping his ways. He doesn’t attack likely excuses. Well, perhaps there’s been a
famine, or maybe there’s a lumber shortage, or the wrong president
in office, and inflation is high, and so we can’t get to spiritual
things, because it’s really hard to live life now. You could come
up with the excuses, couldn’t you? No, he goes straight to
the heart, and he says, you don’t want God, and you don’t want
his presence, and you don’t want his pleasure. And can’t you,
connect this to where we are in America. Oh, God bless America. Oh, God bless the USA. But we run them off, right? And
you know how the saying goes, we took prayer out of schools
and all the rest. And okay, prayer in schools is
not the issue. That was nice for a stretch.
But what about prayer in homes? What about prayer in the church? What about attending to the Lord’s
requirements of us in our own private world, in our own private
life? And so when we turn cold and
put God out, you know what he says? All right, I got plenty
else to do. We’re arrogant. It’s not time
to build. God, we know best. Well, this
is a serious spiritual problem and it requires a serious response. These people need to get back
to being my people, my beloved ones, your God who dwells with
you. And our passage tells us these
three went out, they went out and they comforted, they established
and they built up God’s people. And that leads us to the second
message The message in verse one and two was a message of
rebuke that demands a response. You say it is now not time to
build, but you live in paneled houses, mines and ruins. Well,
the second message, God tells his people, consider your ways.
Verse five, now therefore says the Lord of hosts, consider your
ways. And then verse seven, again,
thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. What does this mean? Give careful
thought, give careful thoughts, serious reflection, and be honest
with yourself. Do a spiritual evaluation. I
have a little, um, three word thing I put on my weekly calendar.
I keep a calendar in my phone so that everybody in the family
can see it, but I keep a paper calendar. It’s more or less like
a journal. I can look back and see what
went on that week or what I was teaching or preaching or writing
about or who I met with, and it helps me remember some things.
But I have at the top of my Monday list, read, ponder, and pray. and I know that sounds super
spiritual, I don’t do it as often as I should, but that word ponder
is important, isn’t it? It’s one thing to read the word,
it’s another to pray, but do we ever take some time to ponder
and say, Lord, is your word at work in my life? Am I yielding
to your power and your glory? Am I considering my ways? Is there serious, honest reflection
in my life? I forget who said this and I’m
sure a thousand people have said it, but the uncontemplated life
is not worth living. And I think that’s very true
spiritually. We like the two minutes with Jesus devotional,
right? Just a quick little microwave pop, pop, pop, a little devotion. And there’s no marinating in
the truth of God’s word. And there’s two serious rebukes.
in this command to consider your ways. Consider your ways. The
time has not yet come. You dwell in paneled houses while
my house is in ruins. And you know, it’s probably true.
They’ve used the wood for the temple to panel their houses. Don’t you have to think that’s
probably true? Because doesn’t God say in other
places, you rob me? You steal from me, you take from
me, and then you expect my blessing. I will give them the benefit
of the doubt. We’ll say that that’s not the case. But let’s
talk about how things are going for you, God says. Not so well,
is it? You work, but there’s no reward.
Well, it’s meager, you’re getting by, you expect to prosper and
you don’t. In the first consider your ways
speech, he says you sow, You eat, you drink, and you clothe
yourselves, and you earn. But when you sow, much is sown,
little is harvested. God is not blessing you. You
eat, but never in abundance. You drink, but you never get
your fill. You clothe yourselves, but you
are not warm. And you earn, but your money
bag has holes in it. Isn’t that a scathing rebuke?
You say it is not yet time to build the house of God. You are
living in paneled houses. You want my blessings, but you’re
not getting them. Sounds a bit like the curse that God gave
to Adam after he sinned against God. You’re gonna work. There’s
gonna be sweat from your brow, but all the ground is gonna produce
is thorns. and thistles by the sweat of
your brow, you will labor, but the earth will produce little.
And then he told Eve, you’re going to have children, but it’s
going to hurt. And I think there’s something
about the pain of childbirth, but there’s also something about
the heartache of raising children there. And then she says to him,
there’s going to be marital strife. Consider your ways. And I wonder,
I think we need to be careful here. but I think there’s something
to it. We need to be careful to not
be those who think, if I work really hard and please God, he’s
only gonna bless me. Okay, there’s Job, he disproves
that. Or, if I’m not doing well, I’m
only gonna have curses. A curse in your life could be
to prosper. I worked with a man who, he desired not ministry,
but to be wealthy. And sometimes God gives you what
you desire and he rubs your nose in it. Sometimes the person who
desires wealth, God will give them wealth and it’s the idol
that destroys them. All of a sudden they’ve got money,
all of a sudden they can travel, all of a sudden they’re not in
God’s house. all of a sudden they’re everywhere but in church,
everywhere but serving the living God. And so we need to be careful
to think through how God meets out his temporal judgments. And
he does, but we also need to be careful not to think every
little bump in the road, I must have done something wrong, I
must have done something wrong, because we do live life in a fallen world.
We do stub our toes and have aches and pains and financial
struggles and whatever else. but there’s a serious spiritual
problem that needs a serious spiritual response. Consider
your ways, it’s not going so well, is what God is saying. No covenant blessings, no crops,
no produce. No good things from God. Now
think about the covenant blessings God promised to Israel. I’ll
give you crops, I’ll give you abundance. I’ll put you in a
land where you live in houses you didn’t build. You’ll drink
from cisterns you didn’t dig. You’ll eat grapes and drink wine
from vineyards you did not plant. You’ll eat olives from orchards
you did not raise. And God says, I will give you
food and drink and livestock and even children in abundance. And there’s a sense here, isn’t
there, where they’re under God’s covenant curses because of their
spiritual laziness. They’re disobeying and so he’s
withholding from them their blessing. Their situation is all they’re
doing. And maybe you say in your mind, this is harsh. This is
difficult. Where is the mercy of God? Well,
the mercy of God is in Haggai. And don’t we understand that
as parents of children, you ever say to your kids, it’s a mercy
you got caught. It’s a mercy. that God has put
me in your life to speak to you and to rouse you out of your
stupor of youth and foolishness and to stop you before you become
a career criminal, right? That’s a good speech to give
your kids. Isn’t it a good speech to receive from God as an adult
Christian? Somebody today passing by said,
I needed to hear what was said today. And I think, That is an
important thing for us as we walk out of church to say, what
did God tell me? How did he knock me between the
eyes? How did he poke me in the chest
and say, buck up? How did he say, you know, a slap
to this side of the cheek and a slap to that, or maybe a cup
of cold water, a bucket of cold water? What did he mean to rouse
me out of a stupor today? It’s an act of mercy. When God
sends a preacher your way, listen up. When God sends a parent your
way, when God sends a surgeon and he has the nerve to cut and
repair and put you back on the path to health because you’ve
been spiritually unhealthy, God is the master surgeon and sends
his word. And so the word of God takes
people uncommitted to his work. and he moves them to do his will.
When the message continues, there’s a second consider your way. There
was the one in verse five with the list of your life stinks,
right? Things aren’t going so great.
Now the second one in verse eight, consider your ways. So after
you’ve looked at how life isn’t going well, he’s going to say,
consider your ways, go up. go up to the hills and bring
wood, go up to the mountain to Jerusalem and build the house
that I may take pleasure in it, that I may be glorified, says
the Lord. These are imperatives. These
are you must do’s. These are hard labor, long obedience,
as Eugene Peterson says, in the same direction type commandments. And here’s what’s funny, and
I think you’ll catch this. Wasn’t it easy to do things 20
years ago? I mean, I can even say that 20
years ago, I was 26. 20 years ago, some of you were
in your 50s or 60s or 40s, and wouldn’t it have been easier
to rebuild the temple when they were a bit younger, when they
had energy, when they didn’t need all those things they’re
advertising on TV for midlife people, you know, to get your
energy back and, you know, It’s just a funny thought that
comes to my mind. Go up, go labor, go build. Go build the house of God that
I may take pleasure in it and be glorified. What’s God saying
here? He’s saying, put me first. He’s saying, seek first my kingdom
and the paneled houses may or may not be added to you. Seek
first my kingdom and your cupboards will have plenty. Seek first
my kingdom and your fridge will be full. Seek first my kingdom
and maybe your cup will not run out. God doesn’t guarantee that,
does he? But you get the picture. If you put me first, if you obey
and love me and keep my commandments, I won’t frustrate the little
things of life. You know, we come to prayer meetings
sometimes and it’s an organ recital. Not this organ, but it’s my spleen
and it’s my toe and we should pray for those things. But then
when it stretches into my aunt’s cousin who once knew somebody’s
big toe. Okay, so does God care about
our organs? Yes, he made them. But what’s
the goal of prayer really? It ought to be kingdom minded.
Why do we need to get better? So we can serve the King. Why
should we get back on our feet or have a back that no longer
hurts and those sorts of things? It’s so that we can serve God
in our places. And so we need to think a bit
more kingdom minded in our living, but all that we put first apart
from God, He frustrates. Maybe your checkbook’s not balancing,
your date book is too full. Maybe you’ve got struggling relationships,
broken relationships, and you just go through the list of the
hard things in your life. And maybe you need to take stock,
consider your ways and say, what have I been putting first? What
has been first in my life and therefore what is neglected?
So you want chaos in your life, you want restlessness, you want
to fool around with the world when infinite joy is offered. by Almighty God, consider your
ways. What kingdom do you seek? What
spiritual realities do you live out of? So this is the second
message. The third one is a message of
comfort. God has come to them and said,
I’m not building my house, building your panels. Got your nice den
and living room. Comes to him a second time, consider
your ways. It’s not going well, consider
your ways, get the building. This third message, he simply
says, I am with you. And isn’t that wonderful of our
God? These people are my people. Wherever
they go, whatever endeavor, I will be with them. God’s sign of favor
is going to be upon them. And you see it in verses 12 through
15. It says about Zerubbabel, it
says about Joshua, and it says, all the remnant of the people
obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, the words of Haggai
the prophet, whom the Lord their God had sent. They received his
message. They paid attention to God’s
mercy. And the people feared the God. They obeyed his voice. They feared
the Lord. Then Haggai the messenger spoke to them and said, of the
Lord’s message, I am with you. And they stirred up the spirits
of the people. You know, you can do anything
you gotta do when somebody is with you. You can do whatever
it takes when you have a partner in crime, a partner in ministry,
a partner in life. Well, what’s changed? Why the
obedience? What’s changed? Why the fear? What’s changed? Well, the word
of God came to people uncommitted worked its power, it worked its
way. The errand on which God’s word
was sent is not returning empty-handed or void. And we’re told they
obey the voice of the Lord, the words of Haggai the prophet.
They hear, they believe, and they obey. They receive it as
God’s word. I think of 1 Thessalonians 2.13,
where Paul tells the Thessalonian church, I thank the Lord that
when I came and I preached to you the word of God, you received
it as what it really is, the very word of God, not the word
of men, not the word of Paul, but the word of God. And we believe
from that particular scripture, but also other places that when
God who sits in the heavens and rules his church through ministers
and elders and deacons, and he gives us our marching orders
through the preaching of the word, And it gives us our comfort
through the sacraments. We believe that we ought to listen
to the word of God, read authoritatively in the church and preached accurately. And we don’t take it as the voice
of God, or I’m sorry, as the voice of men, but we receive
it as the voice of God himself. And we consider it, we affirm
it, we repeat it, we recite it, we are reformed by it, it does
its work. And that obedience leads to the
second thing, the second message tells us, they feared the Lord,
they reverenced him, they were in awe of almighty God. You know, it’s not easy to hear
and believe and obey God’s word. It takes a mighty work of God.
To obey is not easy, and we need God’s assurance. We need his
messages of rebuke for sure, but we need his words of assurance.
What does Jesus tell his disciples at his ascension? Go therefore
into the world, preach the gospel, make disciples, baptize, tell
them everything I’ve told you. Bye-bye. No, he says, gotta use
the King James. Lo, I am with you always, even
to the end of the age. I am with you, declares the Lord. Haggai is not their enemy. Haggai
is not their accuser. He’s in fact their cheerleader.
And that’s what we ought to be in the church as well. This little
string of messages It’s over about a three and a half week
period. Message one and message two, I think come on the same
day. And then this third message comes maybe around on the 24th
day. There’s a lot of logistics to
work out. There’s a lot of making ready
they must do. It’s also harvest time. But God
has changed their hearts by his word. He’s transformed their
lives by his spirit. And a bad situation has turned
around. And maybe we think about church
life. or home life or work life, or
maybe life with our extended family or whatever the scenario
is, and you begin to think in your mind, it can’t be fixed,
it can’t be changed, it can’t be helped, go to the word. Go to the word of the living
God and see if he can’t change hearts and minds. Maybe he’ll
get you praying. Maybe he’ll get your mouth speaking. Well, I have five things that
we ought to think about from this passage that are important.
One is we need to be diligent about coming to the means of
grace. The word and sacraments and prayer can help us out when
life is messy and when our house is not in order. A second thing
is God works through his people. He works through ministers and
elders and our own encouragement of one another. He moves and
revives people. And so be available to God to
speak with and encourage others. A third thing, maybe you’re going
through the motions. You’re just checking boxes. I’m
coming to church. I’m putting in my check. I’m
straightening my tie. I’m unruffling my dress. I’m just going through the spiritual
motions. Consider your ways, God says. Fourth thing we ought to consider
is our response to God’s word. We can’t help but hear God’s
word and respond to it. Who hears the voice of God that
created the world and everything in it? Who hears the voice that
called Lazarus out of the tomb and said, come forth and says,
okay, I’ll think about it. Perhaps by God’s grace, we need
to have a heart softened that we might respond to God’s word.
And the last thing, the fifth thing to think about from this
passage is we’re thankful for the second Adam. The first Adam
failed in the garden just as we would have. And we’re thankful
that the second Adam, Jesus Christ, has not failed and he has turned
around a dire and deadly situation for his people. And he has given
us his obedience. He’s given us his righteousness.
He took our sins and bore them in his body. on the tree. And so I wonder what is your
response tonight to God’s grace? Perhaps God is speaking. Perhaps
God is prodding. He is poking or even dumping
that bucket of cold water on you and realize that in Christ,
he is with you and he will see you through all that you must
do to follow him. Let’s do pray together. Our Lord,
we thank you for your grace. to come to us and speak your
word, your grace to come to us by your spirit and open our minds
and hearts. So help us now we pray in the
name of Jesus, our great savior. Amen.