Would you turn in your copy of the scriptures to Haggai chapter 1. It's the third to the end of the Old Testament. If you're using the church Bible, you will find it on page 941. You'll probably want to leave that open next to you as we consider the text before us this evening. After a word of introduction, I'll read the verses we're gonna consider this evening and then I'll pray, okay? We recently observed, as we looked at verses one through 11 of Haggai chapter one, again, page 941, that these really sincere Jews have returned to Jerusalem, having heard God's call to return after that 70 years of captivity. And yet the majority of the Jews stayed in Babylon and settled down to a life of comfort and prosperity. So we have these Jews that have sincerely come back wanting to do God's will. And yet having returned, life has become much harder than they had ever anticipated. They thought they'd be coming back into the age of Messiah that you see pictured, for example, in Isaiah chapter 34. And yet the reality is very different from what they had anticipated. And so the foundation of the temple at this point has been laid. And yet there has been difficulty and strife with the Samaritans that live by. And so the work has stopped. And it stopped for a period of some 16 years. Now the year is 520 BC. And in the course of things, they've refocused their efforts to their own affairs of building their own homes. which has been something of a source of righteous indignation on the part of our prophet here. Notice that God sometimes will use opposition to test his people. And even before we come back to the text, we want to just have a reality check with us that conflict I don't know if I want to say that it's the norm in Christian life and yet it's certainly not to be a surprise to us if we have conflict with the world around us. Many of us as we look back over our Christian experience can point to this and that situation where even early on in our Christian experience we had known something of the challenge of the world, the flesh and the devil. Sadly these Jews, failed this test. They kept saying to one another that the time has not yet come to rebuild God's temple. Challenges and conflicts discourage us as it did them, and yet we need to persevere. But as a result, God has raised up the prophet Haggai to stir the people up to complete the work. They've been putting God last as we've observed. And we learned in our last study that God calls upon them to consider their ways and to begin putting him first by finishing the rebuilding of the temple. And so this is here where we rejoin the text. I'll begin the reading at verse 12. Then Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Jehoshadak, 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, saying, I am with you, declares the Lord. And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of all 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. Well, let's go once more to our Lord and ask for his grace, even as we've just sung, that the spirit of God would hold sway in our hearts this evening. Let's pray. Our God, as we open the pages of your Holy Scriptures, we confess our need that the Spirit of God would come and would breathe life into these words as these words have been chosen by you for our instruction for edification and righteousness, that we would be thoroughly furnished to do your work. Help us, Spirit of God, we pray in your name, Jesus. Amen. So, the good news for us is this is a much more encouraging part of the story of the book of Haggai. We're witnessing a revival of God's work. And as you know, there's much that's been written and talked about on the subject of revival. And yet there's also quite a bit of misunderstanding about revival as well. These verses help us to understand the components of what true revival looks like. Some think that revival has somehow come out of nowhere. One day the church is nearly empty and in decline, and the following day the churches are packed full. It's as though people are zapped by this spirit overnight, and they have been awakened to be committed, enthusiastic Christians. But that's not exactly what happens in true revival. Revival comes through, oftentimes, the ordinary means of grace that God has appointed, in particular, through the Word of God and prayer. And so the pattern before us in the book of Haggai can be traced through all true revivals throughout church history. It begins with the careful attention being given to the word of God. Pastor Mitch had mentioned Wednesday night showing you the screen of where a revival of sorts that happened in Southern Chester County down in Faggs Manor there in the year 1739 and 1740, where about 10,000 had gathered together to hear the preaching of men such as George Whitefield. And so a great many were gathered into Christ Church. Pastor Peel, whose outline we're following this evening, Also mentions what happened in Ulster in 1859. A man chronicling the revival of that year was the cool rain minister, William Ritchie. And he describes the revival as a great and blessed change. He remarked that the revival began with preaching the word of God, gaining in purity and in power among the churches. The people were paying much more careful attention to the preaching of the Word. And so as the people began attending to the ordinary means of grace of attending church, the Holy Spirit wonderfully changed them. And so as they gathered together for prayer of attending church, there is a work of the Spirit done in them, and there are fellowship gatherings, and this is how God, the Holy Spirit, had changed the people. And so we're going to look at three stages this evening of how God brings about a revival as we trace this out in our text this evening. And so the question at the outside of this is, do you and I, do we long to see God's churches full as we've sung in time past? For the masses to come in and to press into the kingdom. Is there some spiritual secret that we lack? Well, is there some surprise? Well, as we look into the word of God this evening, we're going to see how God blesses the ordinary means of his word. Consider with me, Roman numeral one, the people's repentance, the people's repentance. And that's the first thing that we see in verse 12, isn't it? Is the people's repentance. Haggai's message in verses 1 through 11, in short, was for the people to change their ways. And as we had seen recently, that is exactly what happens there in verse 12. The people immediately and dramatically change their ways. They obeyed the Lord's voice. They repented of their sin. They began to build the Lord's house. No preacher could see a better response to his work than what you have in these people in those days. And so for the past 16 years, The people had been saying, the time has not yet come for us to build the temple. And so Haggai comes and says, you're wrong. The time has come. It is time. And the people obeyed. They changed their minds. They agreed. They said, you're right. We are wrong. We repent of our sin. And so how do we know that they really repented? Well, there are two marks here that we can identify. They obeyed God's word. That's A on your outline. They obeyed God's word. The words were spoken by Haggai and they were also God's words. Recall that Haggai has repeatedly emphasized the origin of his message. If you look back to the text, it's noted in verse one. It's noted in verse two, verse three, five, seven, eight, nine, did you get all those? And now again in verse 12. And this is what he has, the people obeyed the voice of the Lord their God and the words of Haggai the prophet. It's as if the words of Haggai and God's words are interchangeable, the same thing. And so God sends Haggai who proclaimed God's message and the people are obeying God's word when they obey Haggai's word. And so that's a very simple pattern to understand, isn't it? And that is the challenge for you and me today. How do we compare to these now obedient believers of 520 BC? The minister today is not a prophet, is he? I'm not able to say at the top of the message, thus says the Lord. I'm not doing that, am I? But in so far as a faithful minister is going to accurately preach God's word, you are hearing God speak to you. you are hearing the active voice of God. And that is how we are to treat the preaching of God's Word. In other words, that this is the voice of Jesus, the King of His Church, addressing His people. We find this repeated in the New Testament in such places as 1 Thessalonians 2 and verse 13, where Paul writes, of the reception that he received. Pastor Mitch had referred, alluded to this text earlier in chapter one. Paul writes in verse 13, and we also thank God constantly for this, that when you receive the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you, believers. And we noted earlier that they became an example of those who had heard the word of God to the regions around them. And so each Lord's Day, We need to go home, perhaps as you did this afternoon, hearing about the necessity of being a doer of the word and not a hearer only. We need to ask ourselves, well, what do I need to do in response to what God has said to me in his word at church today? This is how we are to respond as Grace Church Downingtown. How am I to obey what God has said to me today? Through my pastor, through my Sunday school teacher, as was spoken in his word today. I remember a pastor friend of mine recently relayed a story about his unconverted son who is no longer living in the home now and yet he had relayed the idea that this unconverted son loves to go occasionally to church all on his own because he loves to hear good preaching. And yet sadly, every time he leaves the church without Christ. By contrast, another story True story, I'll pass along, about a man who was recently converted and afterward he didn't come to church for several Lord's Day and so the pastor being concerned calls him up to find out if everything is okay and because this man had taken several weeks to implement the number of reforms in his life in response to the one sermon that he had heard that he didn't feel that he could return to church right away because he was busy working out his repentance. He had gotten the message. Now, he misunderstood that you don't need to stay away from church until you've implemented all those reforms. And yet this is someone who really understood that his responsibility was to respond to the word of God in repentance, to work these things out in his life. He got that point. God called him to repent and he was very busy in his repentance. Now as we compare these two men this evening, which listener are you most like? Is there any reflection on your part after you've sat under the preaching of God's Word? As we know, James, the Lord's half-brother, wrote about a man who looks at his reflection in a mirror and walks away forgetting what he looked at. How we're to use the Word of God as a mirror to examine ourselves and to change our lives. Are you and I intent on implementing the needed changes that God has pointed out to us? in his word. And yet, truthfully, how often do we just return home after Lord's Day service and do we really ask one another, well, what do you think, how do you think you're going to respond? What do you think of what Pastor Mitch had said to us this morning? And so from our text, we see the people repented of their sins. They obeyed the voice of the Lord and the voice of God's servant Haggai. But they also feared God's wrath as well. That will be B on your outline. They feared God's wrath. You look at the last phrase in verse 12. And the people feared the Lord. Now, we don't have time to open up this rather complex subject this evening. Sometimes the fear of God means a deep respect for God. Sometimes it is stronger to be in awe of God. The phrase used here in verse 12 is really nearly a terror. Here they've been... God has, as it were, He's opened up their sin right before them. You've been putting me last, God says. You've been putting your own affairs first. So there's a sense of a shock, of cold dread that sweeps over you in this kind of a fear when you realize that you have been in wrong. Many years ago, on a snowy January day, I gave a friend of mine a turn at driving my car to college back after Christmas break. And as she drove, I fell asleep in the passenger seat of the front seat. And it began to snow. And somewhere near Harrisburg, I was jolted awake by the rocking of the car back and forth. And as I sat up, I observed that my friend had lost control of my car. We were on 322 headed toward Harrisburg. We were in the opposite lane with oncoming traffic toward me. I was awake. Trust me. And so as I sat up, I leaned over and I quickly grabbed the steering wheel and turned it to the right. And the car left the highway and landed on its side. We were all alive. We were a bit shaken up. But the car had been totaled. Needless to say, I was awake. And so there's something of that terror you might have imagined in my mind. That's something of what this word might suggest in the context here. These Jews were spiritually awakened to their peril. They saw themselves for once as God had seen them, covenant breakers. And under his wrath, under his curse, they saw that they were sinners in the hands of an angry God at this point. Were they going to be swept away into exile once more after all that they had suffered? Certainly God had every right to cast them off completely into exile again. Perhaps they tamed God in their minds. They had domesticated God. They'd soothed their minds. by pleasant platitudes, saying, well, it's not time to rebuild God's temple. And now they saw that God is incensed against them. He's been angry with them, and he's laid his hand on their harvest and blown away what they brought home. Their purses now have holes in them. They are under his covenant curse. And so in our day there is a tendency not to take God all that seriously. Isn't that true? God certainly hasn't lost his temper because that's impossible. But now they realize that they are in his crosshairs of judgment for a time as it were. And now they are repentant of their inaction for those 16 years. Their misplaced priorities having put God last. True repentant people fear God. Now there's a place somewhere where it says that our God is a consuming fire. Is that in the Old Testament? Or is that in Hebrews 12 29? That's the New Testament in case you didn't know. We should be fearful of sinning against, of offending this great God, who is, as he describes himself, a consuming fire. Now, is that all that God is? Certainly not. If like these Jews, you've called a truth with sin, if you're willing to live in a backslidden condition, allowing a sinful pattern to persist in some area of your life, there is something you should be afraid of. You should be fearful about that. You don't realize what you're playing with. We've observed recently that God chastens those whom he loves. Are you by your inaction testing God, provoking him to bring down his chastening hand upon you? And so likely the Jews in our text, they are fearful. They've been awakened by this startling call of Haggai. And now they are aware that they're liable to a greater judgment. But the Lord, is the Lord going to leave them there in that state of dread? So we've seen the people's repentance. Now, let's take a look and see the Lord's response to them in response to their repentance. So that would be Roman numeral two, the Lord's response, the Lord's response. We see the people have repented. Will the Lord receive them back and forgive them? And if so, how long will they have to wait until they can sense, so they can know something of God's presence and blessing upon them? It may take years to finish rebuilding the temple. Will they have to wait that long in order to discern that the Lord is among them again? Fortunately, the answer to that is no. But God doesn't build up until he is broken down. Perhaps there's some here that really need a word of encouragement. You have been paying close attention to the word of the Lord preached, and you've heeded his voice to consider your ways, as we saw in verses one through 11. God's word of encouragement is for you this evening. And so, of course, if you've not considered your ways before the Lord, then the message of verses one through 11 is the same as it has been to repent of your sins that you consider your ways. But if you've repented already, then these words of encouragement are God's word to you this evening. And so let's look at some encouragement. That will be part A, encouragement. The Lord sent them very comforting words as we see in verse 13. Then Haggai, the messenger of the Lord, spoke to the people with the Lord's message. I am with you, declares the Lord. And this is all the more encouraging if you know your Old Testament. These words have been echoed to God's people down through history again and again. God came to his people to assure them of his presence and his support. I am with you to bless you and to strengthen you in times of danger, in times of difficulty. God spoke these words to his people. Let's just take a sample of that. If you would turn to Genesis chapter 28. And as you're turning there, recall the time that Jacob fled from his brother Esau after he had stolen his blessing from him by deceiving his father at his mother's urging. And God came to him at night. at Beersheba in a dream and our Lord Jesus appeared to him above that ladder where the angels were ascending and descending. We'll cut into this story in Genesis 28 beginning in verse 13. And this is the Lord Jesus speaking. And behold, the Lord stood above it, that is the ladder, and said, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring will be like the dust. on the earth, of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And look at verse 15. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. You can imagine what a comfort, certainly when Jacob was afraid, what a comfort that would be to him there. As he awoke, verse 16, he awoke from his sleep and said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it. Now, of course, this is all of God's grace. Jacob deserved no more blessing from the Lord than that Jews Haggai had been dealing with. And so when we are willing to agree with God and part with our sin, he is willing to return to us and bless us with his favorable presence in our lives. To Moses, as we move on. as he must stand before Pharaoh, saying, let my people go. To Joshua at the outset of his leading Israel through the conquest of Canaan, with all their walled cities and their chariots of iron, he says to Joshua, no man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life, just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. And so in warning God's people of his coming judgment, if we would turn to Isaiah 43, the last sampling here, they've been slated for judgment, for exile into Babylon. But in that warning, we want to hear God's word. speaking these words of encouragement even before they're sent off into exile. God's word of grace comes to them as well in verse one. But now thus says the Lord who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel, fear not for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name, you are mine. Verse two, when you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, and the flames shall not consume you. And as we move forward to Jeremiah, who was sent to preach an unpopular message to a people that didn't want to have anything to do with him, a whole nation, as it were, God says to him, I will be with you. And so now in Haggai to these Jews, who we had returned from captivity, who are now wondering more than ever if it will be well with them ever again, God says, I am with you. This is what God said to the patriarchs, to God's leaders of days gone by. And now he promises these Jews, I am with you. And this is the promise of the covenant, isn't it? Where God says that I will be your God and you will be my people. And so the exile hasn't derailed God's plan for his people. Their disobedience for these past 16 years somehow has not ruined God's plan for his people. And so that's the promise God makes to you and to me this evening. Perhaps you've been convicted of some particular pattern of sinful thinking or action in your life and you've repented of it. But you may be wondering, how am I ever going to persevere to the end? We've been looking at the theme of perseverance in James chapter one. But how am I going to persevere? How am I going to overcome this when I've got such a problem of this sin that seems to cling to me? And so as you heard God's word this morning from Pastor Mitch, you may be wondering, how can I respond in obedience to be a doer of the word and not a hearer only? Remember that God has promised to draw near to you as you draw near to him as we prayed this morning. I will be with you, God says. And so as we build God's church here, how can we encourage greater enthusiasm, greater zeal among one another, greater willingness to spend and be spent for the cause of the gospel in this place, in an increasingly hostile culture as it is? Here's the answer. I am with you, says the Lord. This is the Lord's word of encouragement to us this evening. And so we've looked at a word of encouragement. We also want to consider a word of empowerment, a word of empowerment, be on your outline. And so there's another phrase that you may have seen here that you really couldn't miss it because it's repeated three times in verse 14. And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the 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. God stirred the people up. He empowered them. This word is used of stirring someone up from sleep. It's as if the people have been awakened out of a long nap of 16 years. He stirs their spirits so that they will do what he has called them to do. The spirit here means the mind, the temperament, the disposition of heart. Your courage, your will, your conscience, your inner being, that part that shapes the things that you do and the way that you do them, the things that you say. God is stirring up his people to make them willing and eager to do the work of building the temple. And so God still does this today under the ordinary means of grace, of hearing the word of God, of prayer, and of fellowship, as we see in Acts chapter two. As we hear the word of God, as we turn from our sins, as we seek to renew our obedience in God's way, as we fear him, the Lord stirs up the spirits of his people to do, to do the will of God that he's called them to. And so he calls you to fulfill all your responsibilities in your family life, in your marriage, in your workplace, and certainly in the church. And so our text here speaks that everyone is empowered. You look at Zerubbabel and his heart is stirred. Joshua the priest, he's stirred up. And the people, they're all stirred up by God, all together. Everyone has a part to play. They're all working together, not just the leaders and not just the people, but all of them together, working together. They come together gladly and willingly to do the Lord's work. The peoples, they've repented. And now we see the Lord's response. Let's look then at the work renewed, Roman numeral three, the work renewed. And so thus far in this revival, Everything that's happened has been on the inside of the people, isn't it? The people have repented. They're encouraged by Haggai's message and the Lord has energized them. There's no tangible evidence yet that anything has really changed. We are told to be doers of the word this morning, right? Not hearers only. So is this just a matter of talk and good intentions? Well, verses 14 and 15 finish off this story for us. Verse 14 at the very end, it says, they came together and worked on the house of the Lord of hosts, their God, on the 24th day of the month and the sixth month in the second year of Darius the king. So there's the evidence, a changed heart, a stirred up spirit. And so you can see the difference now, can't you? God can see the heart. He already notes and has empowered them on the inside. He knows the heart. Man can only see the outward appearance. And so if the heart is right, as Pastor Mitch mentioned this morning, As God has worked into them the graces and the encouragement to do His will, that's going to have an eventual effect on their behavior. So if the heart is right, the outward appearance will change, ruin it. It's not enough to be sorry for our sins, as important as that is. It's not enough to be stirred up about the possibility of change. It's not enough to get excited for God at a youth retreat or on the Lord's Day. It's not enough to listen intently. to the message and appreciatively to a message of church. It's got to show itself in changed lives and in changed behavior. There will be action if God is working in that heart. People can be very stirred up on the Lord's Day or after a retreat. They can make all kinds of wonderful resolutions. But in the cool light of a Monday morning, that's where you'll know. Those good intentions sometimes can evaporate, can't they? And so here we see that the Jews don't do that. They begin to immediately address the point of their disobedience. They begin to rebuild the temple. And so here is the real test of whether your repentance and mine is real. Are you changing? Can the people who live with you, who see you up close and personal, who know you better than anyone else, can they see that your repentance is real? Does it make a difference in the way that you behave in the privacy of your home? Are you starting to work that you've left undone, perhaps, for a period of time? Are you putting a stop to that sin that you've been playing with? Are you mending that relationship that's been in disrepair perhaps for decades? Are you starting that duty that you've neglected for so long? Are you really making a change? But most of all, isn't this passage most encouraging as it pertains to the Lord's work of building the temple? We don't do his work in our own strength, do we? Remember later on the prophet Zechariah says, not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord. We do it in the Lord's strength. So why do the people come and build the Lord's temple? Is it because the Lord stirred up their spirits? I think so. It is God who's empowered them. And we work in his strength and by his grace. We fall short in many, many ways, elders and people alike. And yet we don't despair. We don't lose heart. We don't throw up our hands and say, well, what's the point of trying? I mean, I'm never going to do it. I'm never going to overcome this challenge. And yet here's the answer. Do what these people did. They repented of their sin. They agreed with God concerning their sins. They received God's promise of blessing and power, and they made a new beginning. And it's never, never too late to start that building in your life or in the church. It's never too late to do the right thing. Revival begins with people's repentance. We may have high hopes for our church, for the future, but unless we're obeying the voice of God, as we heard this morning, and we hear God's word, unless we're fearing the Lord, of reverencing the Lord Jesus in our hearts, we have no right to expect God's presence here to encourage us, to empower us. And so that is where revival begins. Remember the words of our Lord Jesus, go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, Jesus says, I am with you always to the end of the age. We are not to just wait and see, well, how will God bless our leadership for the future? Are we gonna develop this attitude of let's wait and see what God will do? No, we are to build His church now. You're either making excuses or you're making real change. And so stop saying to yourself, it's not time to change. It's not time to repent yet. Aren't you just tired of trotting out the same old excuses to yourself and to your loved ones or perhaps a friend who's pulled you aside? Obey the Lord's voice. Repent of your sins now and experiencing God's encouragement as well as his power. Remember the verse that Pastor Mitch quoted this morning, and I have it in my text too. 1 John 1, 9, we never wear it out, do we? If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And so make the change now. And so as Haggai's message comes to us tonight, well over 2000 years later, let us each respond in the same way his original congregation responded as they heard. from the elders, the deacons, the Sunday school teachers, the nursery workers, the moms, the dads, the singles, those yet still preparing for their life's work in school, all obeyed the voice of the Lord their God and the message of the prophet because the Lord had sent him. And the people feared the Lord. May that be true of us this evening. Let's pray. And Father, it seems that by your word in your providence that you seem to be underscoring many of the same truths, both morning and evening, that we are to be doers of your word and not hearers, only deceiving themselves. Please spare us and give us grace, dear Lord, that we would not be lying to ourselves in these days, that we would speak truth in our hearts. Please give us this grace. You know how deceitful our very hearts are. So give us of your spirit. of that grace of humility that we would repent of our pride and that we would receive with meekness the Word of God which is able to save our souls. We pray this in Jesus' name.