Email This Page

Choices: Consider This!

(The Great Sermons of Haggai)

We have been studying the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. In our last study we saw how Satan, using men as he always does, was able to stop the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem.

• The Samaritans have been successful in shutting down the rebuilding of the Temple through a letter to the King.

• They use the strategy of:  compromise, discouragement, foolish counsel, and accusations.

• Satan’s strategies work and the rebuilding of the temple is shut down.

Whenever you make a decision to follow Christ in a deeper way or take a new course of action to live in deeper fellowship with the Lord, you will have a backlash from the enemy.

Ezra 5:1

• This is now 16 years later.  For 16 years, the rebuilding of the Temple has been shut down.

• Then God begins to move again, reminding the leadership (Zerubbabel and Jeshua) through a great sermon given by the prophet Haggai that it is now time to start rebuilding again.

• God mightily uses Haggai to bring revival to Israel during this very depressive time.

Ezra 6:14

So the elders of the Jews built, and they prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo. And they built and finished it, according to the commandment of the God of Israel, and according to the command of Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia.

• It is now time again for the rebuilding of the Temple in Israel.

The Great Sermon of Haggai

• Haggai is only mentioned in Ezra and his own sermon, the book of Haggai.

• Little is known about him, other than he was raised up by God to challenge and to stir up the Jews to return to the task of rebuilding the Temple.

• He had probably returned with Zerubbabel some 18 years before.

• There will be obstacles that Satan places in our path to hinder a fresh work of God in our lives.

• We make Choices:  Constraints or Considerations…you make the choices.

Haggai 1:1-4

• Cyrus is dead and Darius has taken over as the Supreme King of Persia.

• Haggai is preaching his sermon to Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the people.

• They are saying:  The time has not come yet.

• They started out so good.  Remember in chapters 1-4 in Ezra, they were united and focused.

• But when the difficulties came, they retreated.

Your Choice…Constraint to Restoration:  Complacency and Comfort

• Over these 16 years, the people have given up on the dream God gave them and have instead built their homes and businesses.

• The temple lays in ruins, only the foundation sits there.

• Ex.  Isn’t that often our story? We start out good, excited about the Lord, and when difficulties come, struggles set up by the enemy, we retreat.

• We say:  This is just too hard, God doesn’t bless me.

Vs. 5-6

• The result is that God can’t bless us!  The Jews have forgotten about the Temple and now they are just going about their jobs, trying to make money.

• Haggai is saying to them, to us:  You are working so hard, but it’s never quite enough because God can’t bless you.

• God can’t protect what’s not His!! 

• Have you really dedicated your family to God’s care? 
• Have you dedicated your money to God? 
• Is your home God’s?  Is your car God’s? 

• But restoration is possible.

• 5 times we hear Haggai say “consider” your ways!

• No other book in the Bible uses this phrase so often.

Vs. 7-15

Your Choice…Consider Restoration:  Obey God and Start!

• Haggai is saying:  Get the wood in the mountains and start rebuilding the temple.

• Haggai’s message stirs up Zerubbabel and Jeshua and they get back to work.

• Ex.  God will often use a prophetic message in your life! Sermons are sent by God to touch and convict your heart and your life.

• Consider your life:  Take inventory of your life!

• Start today to rebuild your spiritual life!  Not tomorrow…not next week… NOW!  Rebuild your life with Jesus.

• God has given us the wood needed to rebuild our lives:

• Daily, build with the wood of prayer.
• Daily, build with the wood of reading the Bible.
• Daily, build with the wood of obedience.  Real freedom comes through obedience.

• It will take effort.  It will take a decision everyday to follow hard after Jesus.

• One of the great hymns of the faith, “Trust and Obey”: 

When we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word,
What a glory He sheds on our way!
While we do His good will, He abides with us still,
And with all who will trust and obey

Refrain:
Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey

Not a shadow can rise, not a cloud in the skies,
But His smile quickly drives it away;
Not a doubt or a fear, not a sigh or a tear,
Can abide while we trust and obey

Not a burden we bear, not a sorrow we share,
But our toil He doth richly repay;
Not a grief or a loss, not a frown or a cross,
But is blessed if we trust and obey

But we never can prove the delights of His love,
Until all on the altar we lay;
For the favor He shows, for the joy He bestows,
Are for them who will trust and obey

Then in fellowship sweet we will sit at His feet,
Or we’ll walk by His side in the way;
What He says we will do, where He sends we will go;
Never fear, only trust and obey.

2:1-3

• This day corresponds with the month of Tishri, October 17^th, 520 BC. Leviticus indicates that this would have been the final day of the Feast of Tabernacles, a feast to celebrate God’s provision during Israel’s 40 years of wandering.

Your Choice…Constraint to Restoration:  Comparing

• Haggai is speaking to the old men and women, who are up in their 80’s, who remember the great Temple of Solomon.

• Some commentators wonder if Haggai is also in his 80’s. He would have remembered the greatness of the former Temple.

• Haggai is saying:  Don’t compare!  Don’t let such comparison get in the way of the restoration that God wants to bring today.

• Ex.  Don’t compare the former days!  Don’t compare your family with others! 

• God wants to do a new thing in your life right now!

• Don’t compare your life or even this church to other churches…my phrase that helps me: “That was then; this is now.”

• It’s a new day, a new year, a new church, a new start...that’s why God has seasons:  winter, spring, summer, fall…we don’t compared winter with summer…it’s just the season you are in

Vs. 4-5

Your Choice…Consider Restoration:  Be Strong and Look to Jesus

• 3 times Haggai says to be strong, not in your own strength, but in the presence of God.  He then says to get to work.

• Be filled with the Holy Spirit!

• Remember my covenant, my promises!

Jeremiah 29:11-13

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.

Jeremiah 31:17

There is hope in your future, says the LORD,

That your children shall come back to their own border.

Vs. 6-9

• The Messiah is coming!  When the Messiah comes He will shake the nations.

• In other words, a greater Temple other than Solomon’s or Zerubbabel’s is coming!  The Great Temple is Jesus.

Your Choice…Consider Restoration:   Be Strong and Look What God is

Doing

• God is shaking the nations today!! 

• This passage is very interesting.  It says, “I will fill this temple”.

• There is no indication that God filled Zerubbabel’s temple with the glory of God like this.

• This is speaking of the rebuilding of the 3^rd temple on the Temple Mount in the last days.

• Ex.  I just returned from India and churches are being planted in villages all over the country.

• Ex.  There is a church that meets in the “garbage village” on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt that has grown to over 10,000 believers meeting every weekend.

• Ex.  In May 2005, more than 20,000 Arab believers gathered to fast and pray for their Muslim friends to become followers of Christ.

• Ex.  In 1996, the Egyptian Bible Society sold just 3000 video copies of the JESUS film, based on the gospel of Luke.  In 1997, sales surged to 35,000 in just a few weeks.  In 2000, the group sold 600,000 copies.  Today, annual sales top 750,000 copies of the Bible on audio cassette, 300,000 full Bibles, and 500,000 New Testaments.

• Before Sept. 11, 2001, there were only 17 known believers in all of Afghanistan.  Today, Afghan Christians number more than 10,000.

• Iraqi leaders say that hunger for Christ is at an all time high.  Former Iraqi general, Georges Sada, tells us that at least 5,000 Iraqis have publicly identified themselves as followers of Christ since the downfall of Saddam Hussein.

• God is shaking the nations!  This is the greatest move of God in the history of the world.

Vs. 10-14

Your Choice…Constraint to Restoration:  Compromise

• He is saying that they are not following the Law of Moses and are thus, unclean.

• Are there unclean areas of your life that are hindering restoration?

Vs. 15-23

• Carefully consider…this is the crescendo of his message!  This is the theme and action point of his message.

Your Choice…Consider Restoration:  Get Ready, Jesus is Coming Back!

• God is shaking the nations in these latter days because He is preparing the earth for His Second Coming.

Luke 21:28

(Jesus said) “Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near."

• It is all happening very quickly.

• In Rev. 18, the prophecy says, “…in one hour your judgment has come.”

• “…in one hour…” all the riches of the earth will cease.

1 Thessalonians 5:1-6

But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. 2 For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. 3 For when they say, "Peace and safety!" then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape. 4 But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief. 5 You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. 6 Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober.