Consider Your Ways

Our text today is that Old Testament book Haggai, and the title of today's message is Consider Your Ways And while you're searching for Haggai, if you need any help, it's the 37th book out of 39 in the Old Testament You might want to go to the last book, Malachi, go back to Zechariah, and then Haggai is before Zechariah But while you're searching for it, I just want to give a warning for all the parents here today

As you go home today and your kids are scrounging for the loose change in the ashtray in the car, or digging through the sofa for loose change, it's because their Sunday school teacher told them to do so, okay? The next four weeks, there'll be a children's missions offering, and there's a display in the back The Thai flag is back there And the children are going to raise money to buy a book called Knowing the One True God We gave that book out for you a few months ago to reach Buddhists

But there are 6,000 prisoners in 71 prisons in Thailand that are doing Bible correspondence courses through an organization called The Way of Life and the Thailand Women's Ministry So they would like that book in Thai It's $8 a copy, and they want to buy 6,000 of them to disciple these prisoners with So we're going to have our children raise as much money as they can

If you don't have any children and you want to drop your greenbacks or any loose change, there's a five-gallon bucket there, and then there's a newsletter from the Thailand Women's Ministry that you can find more information on how to give if you want Haggai 1, I trust you found it there It's the second shortest book in the Old Testament, 38 verses, only two chapters But let's look at Haggai 1

Verse 1, 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 Shittel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Jehoshadak, the high priest Thus says the Lord of hosts, These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your panel 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 in 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 look 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 within his own house Therefore, the heavens above have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce And I have called for a drought on the land and on the hills, on grain, the new wine, the oil, and what the ground brings forth on man and beast and all their labors

Then Zerubbabel, the son of Shittel, Joshua, the son of Jehoshaphat, the high priest with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him And the people feared the Lord Then Haggai, the messenger of the Lord, spoke to the people with the Lord's message, I am with you, declares the Lord And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, the son of Shittel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua, son of Jehoshaphat, 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, in the second year of Darius the king Let's pray Father, as we leave here today, may we know more of you, and we know more what it is we are to do as we look in this wonderful book of Haggai In Jesus' name, amen Today is January 15th, 2023 And when the history books are written, I don't know what significant thing will happen today But when you look through history, dates are significant, aren't they? It was in 3000 B.C. that the building of the pyramid began

It was in 776 B.C. that the first Olympics were held It was in 490 B.C. that the Greeks defeated the Persians in the Battle of Marathon It was in 323 that Alexander the Great died. 214 B.C., the Great Wall of China was started In 4 A.D., Jesus Christ was born In 1492, Columbus discovered America. 1776, the Declaration of Independence was signed. 1863, slavery was abolished. 1969, the man on the moon, and so on But what about 520 B.C.? It's really an insignificant date in world history But as far as the Bible is concerned, it was a very important date

Because on August 29th, yes, we know the exact date, 520 B.C., the word of the Lord came to an insignificant prophet named Haggai, who told them to go to the remnant of people and tell them, get busy rebuilding my house No more excuses, no more procrastination, no more laziness, no more affluence for your own house and forgetting about my house Stir the people up and rebuild the temple Haggai, the word means festival, so many commentators believe he was born during one of the three festivals that the Jews celebrate He was probably born during the Babylonian captivity

And we know that he returned with Zerubbabel Remember, there were three deportations, and there would be three returns to Jerusalem after the 70 years of captivity And Zerubbabel would lead the first return, and that's when Haggai came with him So Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, the last three books of the Old Testament, we call them the post-exilic prophets They are the prophets who prophesied after the remnant came back from the 70 years of captivity To really understand those three books, you need to read Ezra and Nehemiah Those five books kind of go together

So Haggai is considered a prophecy book, but Ezra would give the history, and Haggai actually takes place between Ezra chapter 4 and Ezra chapter 5 It's only two chapters, 38 verses, making it the second shortest book in the Old Testament after Obadiah It's quoted once in the New Testament in Hebrews 12, 26, which Lance will be looking at in a couple weeks And there are basically four messages from God, and we're only going to look at the first message today in chapter 1, and that's the message of rebuke, or what I've entitled it, Consider Your Ways

Some commentators have called Haggai the gospel of work, the evangel of do, or philosophy of action So we read chapter 1, and we have a simple outline in your bulletin if you can find it in your bulletin on the inside page there We have the rebuke, verses 1 to 4, the reminder, verses 5 to 11, and the response, verses 12 to 15 Let's look at the rebuke first, verses 1 to 4 And there you have some sub points, the setting, the saying, and the selfishness Let's look at the setting

Verse 1, you notice right away 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 Shittil, governor of Judah, and Joshua, son of Jehoshaphat, the high priest When you look at a new book, and I know we're only doing this for one Sunday, it's sometimes easy to do, I like to do the who, what, when, where, why, hi Especially in the historical books, and even though Haggai's a prophecy book, Ezra gives the history, let's do the who, what, when, where, why, hi

Who's the who? Well, the who is King Darius King Darius is going to give a decree Zerubbabel and Joshua are mentioned five times in 38 verses Haggai is mentioned as the prophet And then you have the remnant, the remnant that returned from Babylon, and we'll talk a little bit more about them What's happening here? Well, we have a prophet who's going to encourage the people after the word of the Lord comes to him to speak to the people, the remnant, to resume the work of rebuilding the temple It's that simple The when is very important

When? Well, in 536 B.C., and you find this in Ezra 1, verses 1 to 4, as a result of the proclamation from King Cyrus, the Persian king, Israel was allowed to return from Babylon to their homeland And Zerubbabel would lead that Joshua, the high priest, would come There would be three returns, one under Zerubbabel, one under Ezra, and one under Nehemiah But this first one, which we're talking about today, about 50,000 Jews would return in 536 They immediately began to rebuild the temple You can read about that in Ezra 3 and 4

They laid the foundation of the temple, and they started doing the morning and evening sacrifices But then the Samaritans would come, and the Samaritans said, We want to help you rebuild the temple And Joshua would say, You have no part of rebuilding this temple with us We don't want anything to do with you Those Samaritans would stir up trouble They would write a letter to then Cyrus is now dead, so the letter would go to the new king, King Artaxerxes in Ezra 4, and King Artaxerxes would make a decree, stop the work And so they would force the work to stop

So for 16 years, from 536 to 520, the work stopped That's what's happening here That's the setting So we're talking about 520 B.C And you notice the very first verse, In the second year of Darius, the king of Judah, the king, in the six-month first day That is August 29, 520 B.C When you look at verse 15, it says on the 24th day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of Darius, the king, that is September 21st, 520 B.C And then in chapter 2, there's two more dates, October 19th and December 18th, 520 B.C So we know that Haggai prophesied for four months, only four months

But the Bible is so specific, precise, it gives you the exact dates That's the when The where is Jerusalem, specifically the temple In our text, seven times it says the house, the house of the Lord, the temple of the Lord Why is this book here? Well, God is telling the people then, and I think He's telling us today, that God's work never stops God's work should never stop, and God's workers should never procrastinate, should never be lazy, should never fear opposition, but obey the Lord and finish the work that He's given us That's the setting Let's look at verse 2, the saying

And there's two points in verse 2 We have the name, and we have the actual excuse It says in verse 2, Thus says the Lord of hosts Before we can get to the saying or the excuse, we need to look at who is saying this It says, Thus says the Lord of hosts Why is God called the Lord of hosts? Fourteen times in 38 verses, He is called the Lord of hosts It's used 284 times in the Old Testament, quite often in the prophecy books It's a term in Hebrew for Jehovah-Sabbath, and it literally is translated the Lord of the armies

The name denotes His universal sovereignty over every army, both spiritual and earthly The Lord of hosts is King of heaven and King of earth Remember that beautiful verse in Psalm 2410? Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts He is the King of glory It's interesting that God would denote Himself in that name, the Lord of hosts He uses that name to address the remnant of people God had never said, Stop the work Okay? But the people did because they feared the King Zedek They feared the opposition

You notice in verse 12, the people are going to learn to fear the Lord and get busy and obey the Lord But it's interesting. I find that here the people feared man, and they did not fear the Lord So God uses His name, the Lord of hosts. 93 years later, the third return would come, and a man called Nehemiah would come He knew all about fearing the Lord Nehemiah is my favorite book in the Old Testament And we see Nehemiah praying at least 13 times Why does he pray? Because opposition comes Turn with me back to the book of Nehemiah quickly

And I just love the book of Nehemiah because every time opposition comes, look at Nehemiah 4 Just like the people in our text today, opposition would come And 90-something years later, opposition would come when Nehemiah wants to rebuild the walls There's always opposition, whether it's rebuilding the temple or rebuilding the walls But in Nehemiah 4, verse 1, it says, Now when Sanballat heard that we were building the wall, he was angry and greatly enraged, and he jeered at the Jews

And he said in the presence of his brothers and the army of Samaria, What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore it for themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they finish it in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heap of rubbish and the burned ones at that? And Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him, and he said, Yes, what they are building If a fox goes up on that wall, he will break down the stone wall Notice what Nehemiah does Verse 4, chapter 4 Here, O our God, for we are despised

Turn back their taunt on their own heads, and give them up to be plundered in a land where they are captives Do not cover up their guilt, and let not their sin be blotted out from your sight, for they provoked you to anger in the presence of the building Nehemiah prayed And time and time again, if I had a chapter to take you to chapter 6, more opposition comes up And they tell Nehemiah to stop working And I love Nehemiah 6, 6 It says in verse 3, they tell Nehemiah, Come meet with us We want to talk to you They actually wanted to murder Nehemiah

And Nehemiah says in chapter 6, verse 3, I am doing a great work, and I cannot come down. I love that verse Nehemiah knew he was working for the Lord of hosts Nehemiah knew there'd be opposition, but he was not afraid But the people in our text, in Haggai here, they were afraid, and they stopped the work Let's look at the actual excuse, and that's found in the latter part of verse 2b These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord The task of the rebuilding of the temple was on hold for 16 years Notice how God calls the Jews, these people

Kind of sarcastically, right? But remember these people They're the ones who left Babylon Okay? They're the zealous ones who returned to Jerusalem They're not like the people who stayed behind in their comfortable houses in Babylon Most of the Jews stayed behind in Babylon because they had a good life there They were protected Remember Jeremiah 29? Jeremiah told them, Settle down Build houses Have families Obey the government So a lot of the people stayed But these 50,000 returned And one pastor said, These are the right people who had special devotion to the Lord and zeal for His house

They left Babylon because they had zeal for God's house They returned to the right place, Jerusalem, and the comfortable life they left behind in Babylon And they started the right work in rebuilding the temple They were working for righteousness Ezra tells us that when they arrived in Jerusalem, they took up an offering They started the sacrifices They wanted to serve God But when the king gave the decree to stop the work and the opposition came, they stopped So they stopped doing the right work and they settled down for 16 years

But after all, they had the right to build homes, didn't they? For their families They had to make a living agriculturally, so they had to plant crops They had to establish schools and shops and start commerce and trade, which are all valid pursuits But on August 29, 520 B.C., God sent Haggai to rebuke this remnant and say, No more excuses The people were saying with this excuse that when a more convenient time comes, we'll rebuild the temple When things get better politically, we'll rebuild the temple When things get better economically, we'll rebuild the temple

When there's peace and protection from our enemies, then we'll rebuild the temple Just an excuse Let's move on from the saying to the selfishness in verses 3 and 4 God is going to speak for a second time and he's going to ask a question in verse 4 The word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in panel houses while this house, my house, lies in ruin? God is going to accuse the remnant of having plenty of time for themselves while pleading for a lack of time for God

God accuses the remnant of having plenty of money to spend on their own comforts and pleasures while claiming not to have enough money to do God's work These people have a roof over their heads while God's temple doesn't have a roof over it Instead of putting God first, the remnant put their affluence first And the Bible says that when you put anything before God first, that's idolatry Ezra 3.7 tells us that when they return, they took up an offering and they raised money and they had the Sidonians bring.. Sidonians were famous for timber and lumber

They would bring cedar trees and they brought cedar and lumber from Lebanon to build the work One has to wonder that maybe they took some of that nice lumber and used it on their own houses What do we learn from this first point here? Aren't we also like the remnant? We are believers We're not unbelievers Unbelievers don't come to church We come to church We're not like the CNE Christians who only come on Christmas and Easter We're not like those Facebook Christians who post cute little poems but really hardly ever come to church We come We worship We have a zeal to sing, to serve the Lord

Or at least maybe we did Maybe time has passed since when you first became a Christian and you've lost some of that zeal Maybe you've settled down Maybe you've gotten busy with things of the world and let the things of God slide You know, we too can make excuses, can't we? Yes, I'm a witness, but it's not a good time to share Jesus Christ right now Yes, I know I should tithe, but I have bills, mortgages, and expenses Yes, I know I should serve, but I really don't want to stay for two services The word of the Lord by Haggai comes to such people

Is that you? God still says, what is the condition of my work in your home, your church, your neighborhood? God still says, what are you doing to fulfill the purpose for which you've been set forth apart by Jesus? God was excusing the remnant of having plenty of time for themselves while pleading for a lack of time for God God's work should never be procrastinated God is going to do what he wants, when he wants, how he wants, wherever he wants, when he wants So from the rebuke, let's move to point number two, the reminder, verses five to 11 And first off, we have the consideration

It says in verse five, now, therefore, says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways That's the title of today's message And then you go to verse seven He says, thus says the Lord, consider your ways In chapter two, it says, consider three more times So five times, he tells these people, consider He's telling them, think carefully about what you're doing Look at your life Look at the consequences of your actions, okay? And what's transpired in your lives after neglecting God's work for 16 years God's going to specifically mention five things

He says, sewing, eating, drinking, clothing, and earning money And with each one of those things, God gives an answer that you did not receive what you expected when you sewed, when you ate, when you drank, when you put on clothes, when you're in money In fact, you got virtually nothing out of those five things God is telling the people of Israel here, the remnant reappraise your situation Take a close look at how things are Reconsider your behavior It's kind of like us today

We have that saying today, the hurrier I go, the behinder I get, right? It's a picture of our generation, cars, houses, gadgets, vacations, and the end result is many Christians are never satisfied What is the cause of it? There was a very famous pastor, Dr George Truitt He was the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas And I think he was also the leader of the Southern Baptist Convention for a while And he had a big church in Dallas, and he had a lot of rich oilmen that would come to his church So one day, a wealthy oilman invited Pastor Truitt to his house

And after dinner, the man took Pastor Truitt to the roof of his house, and he indicated the huge oil fields in his backyard And he said, Dr Truitt, that's all mine. I came to this country 25 years ago penniless, and now I own everything as far as you can see in that direction Then he turned the pastor to another direction, and he showed him the fields of wheat and grain and said, It's all mine. I own everything as far as you can see in that direction Then he turned to the east and pointed to huge huge huge of cattle and said, It's all mine

Everything as far as you can see in that direction is mine One final time, he turned toward the west and pointed to a great virgin forest and said, It's all mine. 25 years ago, I was penniless, but I worked hard and saved And today I own everything as far as you can see in this direction, that direction, that direction, and that direction The rich, wealthy oilman paused for a minute He was expecting some praise from Pastor Truitt

But to his astonishment, Pastor Truitt lovingly put his hand on the rich oilman's shoulder and pointed upward and said, My friend, how much do you own in that land? The man dropped his head in shame and said, I never thought of that Let's move from the consideration to the command Verse 8 God just says, Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house God says two things here Get the job done And the goal is to glorify God Get the job done Just go Okay, forget the opposition. I'll take care of that. I'm the Lord of hosts. I'm the God of the armies of heaven. I can handle any opposition

Opposition is always bound to come when we do God's work wherever we go And we see it in Ezra It did come God says, No excuses Get the job done What you started 16 years ago. I never told you to stop working God says, Stop procrastinating Stop rationalizing Stop the excuses and start realizing the right priority and start resuming the work, says the Lord of hosts Get the job done The goal is to glorify God And I think this is the key part of our message today

It says there in the latter part of verse 8b, this is words that you ought to underline in your Bible, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord The rebuilding of the temple would give glory to God So the people would obey his commands That's where the word of God would be taught by the Levites and the priests That's where they would worship That would declare that to the world, that God was worthy of a dwelling place where he could be worshipped

The rebuilding of the temple would refocus the attention of the Jews on the worship of God and not their own interests Worship of God always comes before the work of man God would make his presence there in the Holy of Holies in the temple What does it mean to glorify God? The Westminster Shorter Catechism says, What is the chief end of man? Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever In the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 10.31 says, So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God

Charles Spurgeon said, listen carefully, you will never glory in God till first of all, God has killed your glorying in yourself. I'm going to say that again because it hit me like a ton of bricks You will never glory in God till first of all, God has killed all your glorying in yourself So what did we learn from this point here? Well, remember Narcissist? Narcissist, he was that mythological character who fell in love with his own reflection So today we have that word Narcissist And we live in the most Narcissistic society in the history of mankind

Our generation is becoming increasingly infatuated with its own image Self-improvement, self-satisfaction, self-gratification are the primary concerns in our narrow world. I must be fulfilled is the world today That's why we have so many abortions That's why we have so many divorces It's all about me But a God-centered Christian is to be absolutely opposite of a Narcissistic. A God-centered Christian is to consider about who he is and what he says rather than his own interests. A commitment to the material rather than spiritual is always a phenomenal hindrance to the fear of the Lord

In our text, the remnant's responsibility was to rebuild God's house In our context today, it's to set our spiritual matters first and to get on with serving God with the best of our abilities God takes pleasure when the body of Christ functions and serves We've just begun 2023, and we don't need to waste another day, another week, another month, and especially a year No more excuses, God says God says, get the job done And the question is, are you glorifying God? When a lady goes in the nursery and holds a baby so a mom could actually attend church, they're glorifying God

When there's somebody out there in the 50-degree weather protecting the cars and protecting the children in security, that's glorifying God Ushers and greeters who help out are glorifying God Helpers who help are glorifying God Sunday school teachers who spend two, three hours preparing their lesson so that the children can hide God's word in their heart, they are glorifying God So you have to ask the question, what can I do to glorify God? Is God taking pleasure, verse 8, in what I do? Am I glorifying God in all that I can do? From the command to the clarification

In verses 9 to 11, God is going to tell them why they didn't receive what they expected So he's going to give the expectation and then the reality The expectation of these people was abundance, wasn't it? Now, it's an agricultural economy, right? So if you have lots of harvest, you're going to get lots of money You're going to sell, you're going to have trade, you're going to have security, you're going to have a blessed future, you're going to have prosperity, you're going to have power

So the people here who waited 16 years while they built their panel houses and forgot about the work of the Lord, they remind you of the rich fool in Luke 12 Do you remember Luke 12? I think we turn to this parable probably once a month here at Christ Community Church But Luke 12, if you want to turn there with me Luke 12, the only place in the Bible, Lance has said, where God calls somebody a fool It reminds me of the people here, the remnant In Luke 12, verse 13, someone in the crowd said to Jesus, Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me

But Jesus said to him, Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you? Then Jesus said to them, Take care and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in his abundance of possessions And he told them a parable saying, The land of a rich man produced plentiful And he thought to himself, What shall I do? I have nowhere to store my crops And he said, I will do this. I will tear down my barns and build larger ones And there I will store all my grain and my goods And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years

Relax, eat, drink, be merry But God said to him, Fool, this night your soul is required of you And the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God If you notice there, six times the rich fool says, I, I, I, I There's no thought of God There's no thought of giving to the poor There's no thought of the God who allowed him to be rich and why he's rich You know, when we procrastinate, when we get lazy in serving, tithing, get our priorities off God, it's always on I And God says to the rich fool, You're a fool

In Haggai, he tells the people, Consider your ways The people, when they harvested, when they planted, they were expecting a lot But what was the reality? Verses 9 to 11. I love what God says here. I blew it away, God speaking The heavens above you have withheld the dew The earth has withheld its produce. I called for a drought on the grain, the wine, and the oil You see exactly what God did here God called for a natural disaster God punished the remnant of people because they had neglected rebuilding his house He calls for a natural disaster

He makes the drought come to discipline his very own children of Israel Now, if God is going to discipline the children of Israel with a natural disaster, how much more will he discipline us when he needed? We just spent three weeks a month ago in Hebrews chapter 12, verses 4 to 11, on Lance Preach, three messages on discipline, okay? So I don't need to talk a lot about this Those were very convicting messages But if you neglect God and nothing else you do is ultimately going to prosper, it's that simple

God sent an emptiness into their hearts so that the people might awake from their spiritual idolatry and turn back to him We often give the example of Lot Remember Lot? Lot looked towards Sodom Lot leaned towards Sodom Lot learned about Sodom Then he went and lived in Sodom Then he actually led in Sodom And he ended up losing everything, right? Psalms 106.15 says, God gave them what they asked for but sent a wasting disease among them

And Pastor Lance has said multiple times, if you've been here a long time, you've heard Lance say this many times, be careful what you ask for because God may just give it to you and he might send a wasting disease in you It's the beginning of a new year It's going to be a tough year, right? It's going to be a tough year with inflation It's going to be a tough year with things going on in our country Are your priorities right? God says consider your ways

Proverbs 3 verse 9 and 10 says, Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruits of your produce, then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine From the reminder, let's go to the third point, the response In verses 12 to 15 In verse 12, we have two words, obedience and reverence, okay? We mentioned before that most of the prophets preached the word of God They didn't have any success, right? But Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi are post-exilic prophets And they had success

They had success perhaps because the people had learned about the destruction, the 70 years in Babylon, so they ended up when they got rebuked, they learned there were no more excuses, they learned that they need to get busy with the word of God It says that in verse 12, they obeyed the voice of the Lord their God And then it says the people feared the Lord For Haggai, there was success And it says the leaders obeyed And when the leaders obeyed, the remnant obeyed And why did they obey? Because they had reverence And reverence is a spiritual prerequisite for spiritual blessing

They had a new reverence for God You know, it's really impossible to fear God properly without obeying him Okay? If you fear God, obedience and reverence are inseparable If you have a reverence for God, it affects your tithing, it affects your serving, it affects your study of the word of God It affects your sharing of the gospel Obedience and reverence is what we see here Let's move from the response to the reassurance And here you have two words, protection and provision And God's reply to the people is very simple Four words. I am with you

Opposition would come. I wish we had time to turn to Ezra But in Ezra chapter 5, just like Ezra 3, 16 years before when they started to rebuild the temple, opposition came In Ezra chapter 5, Tatani, the governor, came, and Shephel, Blasene, and the associates came They said, who gave you this decree to rebuild the house? What are the names of the men? And they took their names, and they wrote another letter to now King Darius King Cyrus is dead King Artaxerxes is dead And now Darius the Great is the king And they write a letter, and they expect the same response

King Darius is going to come back and say, stop the work It doesn't happen King Darius writes and says, leave the work of the Lord alone Let them rebuild And he says so much in Ezra chapter 5 You know, it's really interesting that in Ezra 1, God used the heart of a pagan king, Cyrus, to rebuild the temple of Israel Then in Ezra 6, God uses King Darius to give the decree to rebuild the temple But in Ezra 4, King Artaxerxes says, stop the work

And I make it the point that if those people, when opposition came, if they had held a prayer meeting like Nehemiah, if they had cried out to God, the army of the Lord of Hosts would have helped them Proverbs 21.1 says, the king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord He turns it wherever you will He turned it for King Cyrus He turned it for King Darius God did not for King Artaxerxes because I think the people were lazy, procrastinating, and were only thinking about themselves Matthew 28.20 says, I am with you always to the end of age

God said to the people, I am with you, and he says that today And when God protects us, God provides In Ezra 6, Darius wrote back and he said, the cost of this house to rebuild is to be paid by these men in full from the royal revenue Give them bulls, rams, sheeps, wheat, salt, wine, oil, whatever they need, give them, Darius says So the opposition thought that they would get the work stopped Instead, they actually had to help support the rebuilding of the temple God is always going to provide for his work, isn't he? So from the reassurance, we'll finish with the resolve

In verses 14 to 15, we have the stirring and we have the starting Three times in verse 14, it says, the spirit Now, this is not the Holy Spirit This is the spirit of Zerubbabel The Holy Spirit may have stirred up the heart of Zerubbabel, the spirit of Joshua and the spirit of the remnant Three times, they heard the word of the Lord and their hearts were stirred They feared the Lord and they obeyed him and they began the work of the Lord And it's, and then so after they were stirred, they started

So look at verse 15, verse 15 of Haggai, chapter one says, on the 24th day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king So from Haggai chapter one, verse one to Haggai chapter one, verse 15, 23 days, 23 days, they started working Now, why did they take 23 days? Well, they probably had to plan They had to organize They had to get work teams together They had to get supplies They probably had to hire experts and get the wood and the iron and the gold and silver They had to arrange protection probably So dates are very important for us

And let me, so 23 days, they were stirred up They started the work History tells us it took about four years to complete the temple And that temple would go, we continue all the way to King Herod in the time of Jesus They would continue to work on it until the Roman empire destroyed it in 80, 70 But dates are important In verse one, verse 15 is today, the date you would consider your ways, get your priorities right with God It's never too late to start obeying God So I just want to close an application real quickly Three things Number one, God's work never stops Okay

God never told the remnant to stop working They fear the Samaritans more than they fear God God gave a command for us to go in the world and preach the gospel And when you go to Acts chapter one, he says that you'll be my witness in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaritans here But you know those disciples like the remnant here who kind of got lazy for 16 years and lost their focus? For seven to eight years, the disciples just stayed in Jerusalem After all, the church was exploding, right? 3,000, 5,000 But the disciples didn't leave Jerusalem So what did God do? Come to Acts chapter eight

In Acts chapter eight, verse one says what? A great persecution broke out in Jerusalem, and people were forced out of Jerusalem All of them except the disciples And what did they do when they were forced out? They went about preaching the gospel So they went to the Samaritans They went to the Ethiopian eunuch They went to the Roman centurion in chapter nine And then in chapter 13, they finally went to the ends of the world Okay So maybe they were a little bit lazy God's work never stops And if we stop it, God's going to start it up In our text today, he took a natural disaster

God caused a natural disaster, a drought And in Acts chapter eight, he allowed the persecution to happen so his word would continue to spread Today, presidents, governors, kings make laws They make mandates They pass degrees to try to stop the work of God and the worship of God We just had a, you know, I won't get off the subject on COVID, but that's a reminder that all around the world, governments will pass laws The Hindus, the Buddhists, the Muslims pass laws that you cannot convert to Christianity, but that will not stop the work of God

People all over the world, in China, churches are being bulldozed Pastors are being arrested, being put in persecution Some are being killed But these are men, like Moses' parents, it says in Hebrews 11.23, they were not afraid of the king's edict And that's what we have to be Remember, God's work never stops And number two, God's workers are to never stop You can retire from the Southern California Edison Company You can retire from the Benitez Unified School District You can retire from the L.A Sheriff's Department, but you can't retire from ministry and serving the God

You can take a vacation You can take a sabbatical. I'm not saying you can't take a time of rest You know, I remember an elder one night got a phone call, Saturday night, from what was in the Sunday school leader of our church, saying, I need a substitute teacher tomorrow At 84, he went and taught and substituted in Sunday school Just recently, Lorraine Schweitzer, driving to Tuesday night prayer meeting at age 94 to pray for Christ's community church Bob Geisinger, taking the ushering all the way to his old age They gave glory to God all the way to the end

And so should we till that great day when Jesus Christ returns No excuses, no procrastination, no laziness God says, get my work done So God's work never stops God's workers never stop And number three, we have to ask the question, am I robbing the Lord? You know, I spent many years in management and business, and often I was in charge of the phone banks And at 8 o'clock, the phones open up And literally, when the lights go on, you can have 3, 4, 500 phone calls at 8 a.m

And you've always got those employees that punch in and slowly walk over to their desk and arrange their desk and get their coffee And then we didn't have cell phones, but now I guess they text and stuff And of course, the boss would have to yell out, get on the phones, because, you know, we had a goal The phone calls had to be answered in four minutes Now it's like half an hour, I think But you have to yell at people to get on the phones Those people, those employees would never steal merchandise from the store, but they would steal time

They would take five minutes extra at lunch, five minutes at break They would put in the least amount of work in eight hours they possibly could They would steal time

But for Christians, you have to ask the question, am I robbing the Lord? Are you not willing to read your Bible and spend a few minutes studying God's Word in the morning? Are you not willing to spend a few minutes of prayer each morning? Are you not willing to give an extra hour and a half to serve Him on Sunday? Are you not willing to come on Wednesday night and grow in knowledge of the Word of God? Are you not willing to give Him the firstfruits of your paycheck? You know, I say this, and I've shared this before Thirty years ago, I was sitting in a pew at a previous church

My parents were in Ethiopia as missionaries, and all I was content with was just to go to church. I had a very good job in management. A new pastor arrived at that church, and I'll never forget when he asked the question, what are you doing for the Lord? And he used the Word of God to hit me over the head with a hammer And there was the one verse I'll share with you that I'll never forget Pastor Lance used Jeremiah 8, verse 7, which says, even the stork in heaven knows her times, and the turtle dove, the swallow, and the crane Keep the time of their coming

That verse says there are four birds that know when to go south, when to go north, where to go, why The birds know what to do But Jeremiah 8, 7 ends with the words, but my people do not know the rules of the Lord, or better translation, do not know the requirements That verse hit me hard, and I had to consider my ways Will you consider your ways? God spoke through the prophet Haggai and said, consider your ways And he still says to us today, consider your ways The remnant learned to fear the Lord and obey His Word

God's Word came to that remnant on August 29, 520 B.C., and it still comes today, January 15, 2023 Today could be one of the most important dates in your life if you will consider your ways Let's pray

Father in heaven, we leave here today knowing more of you, and I just ask that you would have each person search their hearts, that each person would consider their ways, that the Spirit of the Lord would speak to them and ask them, and that they would realize that your work doesn't stop, that God's workers should never stop till that great day He calls them home, and ask them, am I robbing the Lord? Is there something I can do more to glorify God? Is there something that you would take pleasure in me serving you here at Christ Community Church, tithing more at Christ Community Church? Father, may we leave here today searching our hearts and considering our ways

In Jesus' name, amen.