If you would turn with me this evening to the prophecy of Haggai. I'm tempted for us to read the whole prophecy. There are two chapters only, but we'll just read together the first chapter. We'll read a couple of portions out of the second as we go along. But Haggai, the opening chapter. In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month and the first day of the month, came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel the son of Sheltiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedach, the high priest, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, This, people say, the time has not come. The time that the Lord's house should be built. Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying, Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your sealed houses? And this house lie waste. Now therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts, Consider your ways, You've sown much and bring in little. You eat, but you have not enough. You drink, but you're not filled with drink. You clothe you, but there is none warm. And he that earneth wages, earneth wages to put it in a bag with holes. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. Go up to the mountain and bring wood and build a house, and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord. He looked for much, and lo, it came to little. And when he brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why, saith the Lord of hosts? Because of mine house that is waste. And ye run every man into his own house. Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit. And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground bringeth forth, and upon man, and upon cattle, and upon the labor of the hands. Then Zerubbabel, the son of Melchizedek, Joshua, the son of Josedek, 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 did fear before the Lord, to make Haggai the Lord's messenger and the Lord's message unto the people, saying, I am with you, saith 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 Josedach, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people. And they came and did work in the house of the Lord of hosts, their God. on the 420th day of the sixth month in the second year of Darius the king. Well, we'll end our reading there. And again, trust the Lord to bless the public reading of His Word. Let's bow our heads and our hearts together. Our Heavenly Father, as we come again this Sabbath evening, to the close of these gatherings on your day. We're grateful, Lord, not merely to sing Your praise and to lift testimony in song as a corporate body. Lord, we're encouraged even at the desire to sing from young and old. For as we have considered this day, You're a God who's worthy to be praised. And we pray that even though it comes from tainted lips and hearts, that you'll receive our praise as we lift it to you in the name of our Mediator and Savior, the Lord Jesus. Lord, it's in the same way that we ask that You will help our presentation of Your Word, our hearing and understanding and application of the Word to our lives. And so minister to us once again this evening, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Tonight we cross a threshold in our little survey of the minor prophets. Again, minor in length and not in importance. But the three prophets that we begin this evening, the three that close out the Old Testament canon, have the distinction of being what we call the post-exilic prophets. It's one of those fancier sounding words. I remember hearing it as a young person and then a student, but it's not that difficult to understand. These are the prophets that God raised up after the exile. For the most part, the prophets that had gone before, the major prophets and minor prophets, of course, Daniel excluded from those and Ezekiel, but they had been preaching repentance to a people that were in their sin and in their seasons of apostasy and their ever-increasing apostasy. Preaching the captivity that was going to come. And of course, all this was in fulfillment of the Scriptures. These were the men that came after that exile. They came with messages of hope to be sure, but even in these prophets they were mingled in, as we've read primarily tonight, words of rebuke for a needy people. But it's remarkable when you consider the events that were transpiring in the world. We often, if we've grown up with the Bible or are familiar with the Bible, we kind of look through the history with regard to Israel. And in some ways, I guess that's the best way to recognize it. All the other events, even large events going on among the Gentile nations, were by God's providential care pretty much in regard to the condition of His own people in the midst of the earth. All those empires that were raised up and put down and others raised in their place were just doing the bidding of God with reference to His dealings with His own people. I remember, and we did a briefer survey of the post-exilic prophets some years ago in our prayer meetings, a little book that Dr. Barrett put out, I think it was about 2015 or so, on the post-exilic prophets. And he entitled the book, The Next to the Last Word. I thought that was quite a fitting title. If you consider it, the last word, the pinnacle, the finishing of God's revelation is Christ. And the New Testament is the message of Christ. These post-exilic prophets were called to minister to that fledgling little remnant that had returned to the land. But what was that remnant but a fulfillment of God's promise to send Christ? All the way back in Genesis 49, God had said in the blessing of the patriarch to his sons, the scepter shall not depart from Judah till Shiloh come. And unto him shall the gathering of the people be. And so the return from exile had to happen. because God had promised that it would happen. I remember reading Dr. Barrett's introduction. He has the ability to take a very studied understanding of history and archaeology and languages and all of the above and come out with some pretty simple statements. And I thought it was almost amusing when you read his description of what was transpiring among these pretty sophisticated Gentile empires. All the way back in the days of Moses, in the books of Moses and Deuteronomy, God had spoken and promised to His people that if they sinned, He would send them into captivity. He would scatter them among the heathen. and having done so, when they repented, He would gather them back in from the nations that He had scattered them unto." And yet, we read in the history of the evolving Gentile nation, what happened? The Assyrian Empire, as it began to gain strength and incorporate other nations in their lands, it invented a policy that had not been known before of taking people into exile. Of bringing captives back from the lands that they conquered in order to keep peace and keep them from rising up again and getting strong and rebelling against them. Of all things, when Israel had come to the bottom of her apostasy, had reached the point where God would have His long-suffering be exhausted, Fulfill the promise to send them among the nations. The Gentiles had the idea of taking captives. The Assyrian Empire came and went. The Babylonians assumed their role and charged the empires. And the Babylonians continued this policy of taking exiles. Of course, the Assyrians were not part of the four that Daniel mentions. We'll not go into those prophetic thoughts this evening, but the Assyrians had taken the northern tribes captive. Judah had been rescued from the Assyrians, but was delivered to the hand of the Babylonians. They continue the policy of exile. The Babylonians are overcome by the Persians. And by this time, their empire had grown to such an extent, there was a lot of territory to keep in check, and they needed people to be happy. It was just when the 70 years of the fulfillment of God's predicted season of Judah's captivity that the Persians said, you know, it would be a good idea to start sending these captive people back. That will promote goodwill in the border territories and in the fringes of our empire and that will work better than keeping them here. Amazing the ingenuity of Gentile governments and doing exactly what God had centuries before said would be done. Well, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi were called to prophesy to the returned remnant. Both Haggai and Zechariah are contemporary in their ministries and Haggai tonight is a ministry what we read here in his book is really encapsulated in a period of four months. The four sermons that are really outlined for us in these two chapters. Zechariah, his contemporary, a prophet of great hope, which we'll come to, Lord willing, next time. And then almost a century later, Malachi, finishing out the Old Testament canon among these post-exilic prophets. It would be easy to multiply messages on all of these men. I'm not sure if we'll take more than one in Zechariah or not. But I want to tonight just look at Haggai and pull out some key thoughts. The theme of Haggai, and we read of him in the book of Ezra as well. He ministered during Ezra's time in the rebuilding of the temple that he was called to do. But Haggai is an old man. It is possible he's in his mid to late sixties at least at the time of the preaching and writing of these four sermons that are included in his prophecy. Haggai very likely is among those we'll read of in chapter 2 that had memory of Solomon's temple. It's seen and known of that and of course the comparison between that and the temple the remnant would be building was a point great concern and sorrow to many of them. But Haggai's last words really then are contained in this little prophecy. What I want to do this evening is just really put three statements before you. There are four sermons. It would be perhaps better to just give one from each of the sermons. But I want to focus on a particular theme that is followed through because if there's anything, if you file away how to remember parts of Scripture and so forth, If there's anything that you can hang your hat on, as it were, to remember Haggai, it is this. The people that had begun the work of rebuilding the temple under Ezra were discouraged and they stopped in their work on the temple. They continued and even increased their work in building their own homes. rebuilding their own lives while the temple was still lying in waste. Buke for that neglect that really is one of the focal points of Haggai's prophecy. So I want this evening, as I said, to just put three statements before you that we find, I believe, reflected at least in Haggai's prophecy to the people. And the first statement is this. Discouragement can lead to sin. Discouragement can lead to sin. The people are zealous. They have taken up the work. You can turn and read of their engagement in the work itself. They were at such a point in their work in rebuilding the temple and seeing people worship and that crucial part of their identity as a nation and their testimony to the other nations to be reestablished. But in the middle of that rebuilding of the temple, you see these remnant peoples that were fighting against Ezra, And perhaps we think of it more often when we come to the book of Nehemiah. We think of those particular enemies, troublemakers that troubled Nehemiah some years after in the rebuilding of the walls. And these troublemakers, if we would take time to turn back to Ezra, sent a letter to the emperor and said, look, you got to figure out what's going on here. These Jews, Building the temple again. Don't you know anything about history? These people are troublemakers. There's been a lot of trouble that stemmed from this city and it needs to stop. And the emperor looks and calls for the books to be opened and he reads and said, yeah, there's been a lot of trouble coming out of Jerusalem. We better do that. And he sends a decree for the work to stop. And of course, the news was a little slanted by these enemies. But the people lay down their tools. The building of the temple is set aside. There's a period of between 15 and 20 years that nothing is being done with regard to the house of God. The restoration of all those harmonic types preaching the Gospel again in the middle of the nations. But while that work had stopped, the work of rebuilding their houses not only continued, it became their sole focus. Discrimination, I say, can lead to sin. They allowed delay and opposition to hinder not only their work, but to hinder their faithfulness. They twisted God's Word. You see in the opening verses here, if you read with me again from verse 2, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come. The time that the Lord's house should be built. Is this true? It is not true. The time had most definitely come. You can even go back to the pre-exilic prophets. You can go back to the major prophets. Read Jeremiah. Daniel read Jeremiah and understood the season of their captivity would be 70 years. The 70 years had come and been fulfilled. God had opened the door providentially for them to go back. It was time. You find in Isaiah. the prophecy of Cyrus and his decree. I remember from a little boy, there's only one other character, and maybe I need to double-check this one. Trusting memory here. But I believe at least the only other character other than Christ for whom the title the Messiah or anointed is used is Cyrus. Because God anointed him to make this proclamation that the temple would be rebuilt, that the people would return. It was time. The fact that opposition accompanied God's providential timing, the fact that opposition and then discouragement from that came alongside of this evident blessing of God, the evident fulfillment of His promise, shows that the people had twisted God's Word. They had twisted their reading of the circumstances. If it wasn't going exactly how they thought it should go, if the blessing wasn't coming in exactly the way they thought that it should come, then they don't see God's hand in it at all. And they say it isn't time. And I wonder, we know that these were a believing remnant. We find even in our reading of chapter 1 how readily they repent and they obey. But I say discouragement can lead to sin. And I wonder in some ways just how much this root sin, as it were, played a part in the unbelieving Jews in the intertestamental period, and their expectations, their inability to discern Christ when He came. These Jews said it isn't time. If the temple is being rebuilt on the schedule we think it should be, If we're not seeing blessing and prosperity and a return to an influential nation in the way and time in which we think it should be, then God's not in it. And let's just give up and quit. And that's what the people are tempted to do and that's what the people are doing. The people have said, it is not time. The time has not come that the Lord's house should be built. Then came the Word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet saying, is it time for you, all the people in your sealed houses, and this house lie waste? I can give you a little paraphrase of that. The people are saying it isn't time It isn't time to build God's house. It isn't time to press on with this small and despised and hindered work. The Lord sends a prophet and says to them, what time is it? If it's not time for this work to go on, is it time for you to build? If the circumstances are of such a nature that you can't pursue the things of God, it is time for you to pursue your own stuff. There have been, well, three occasions now in the season of my ministry that I've been involved in rebuilding an old house. Time and energy can go into remodeling and repainting and changing wall colors multiple times. It's like putting out a rug. I don't like that one, I'll send it back. Get five rugs, that's the one. You have to do that after the wall color, paint the walls. Oh, that's nice, but it's not the one. Paint them again. I'm going off a little too far in the tangent. But I remember thinking about Haggai, thinking about Ezra and this burden. People are busy building their houses. And what about the work of God? Well, I tried to steer clear of their particular sin. We didn't build the work of God and going on in ministry and spiritual life. And that wasn't the point. The people obviously needed houses. The city needed to be rebuilt. God's going to call a man just to organize the people to rebuild the walls. That was a little something than just building the church. The problem's not so much them building their homes as it is their giving up on the work of God and pursuing those things. as if that's all that was to be done. Remember Dr. Barrett's comment and question. Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your sealed houses? Is it possible that the very cedar boards that had been prepared to be the ceiling in the temple for being used. All those building supplies for the purpose of building their own homes. Whatever it is, these people leave off the work of God. And it wasn't an immediate apostasy. It wasn't a rebellious spirit. It started out with discouragement. And so I say, let us be mindful and careful because discouragement can lead to sin. My second statement to put before you this evening is this. Encouragement rests upon God's Word, not upon what we are seeing. Encouragement rests upon God's Word. Maybe we could say better there, God's promise. Not upon what we are seeing. And I thought in just phrasing that, the prophets we've looked at already. Jonah. We tarried with Jonah a little while because he's one of the prophets that was looking at us. Jonah was troubled, you remember, by God's not doing what Jonah thought He should do with regard to Nineveh. And by corollary, we suggest even what He thought God should do with Israel. So Jonah's troubled by God's not doing what Jonah thinks He should do. We looked recently at Habakkuk. Habakkuk called upon to prophesy right before the Babylonians come and sack Jerusalem and take them captive. Habakkuk is troubled by God's doing something that he hoped wouldn't be done. And of course, he has to be reconciled to that. Here we come to this remnant in Haggai. They hear and heed We read that the people obeyed the voice of the Lord through the prophet. They're rebuked. They repent of their sin and they take up the work afresh. But in taking it up again, they're discouraged. If you come into the second chapter, let's read a little bit here from verse 1. In the seventh month and the one and twentieth day of the month came the Word of the Lord by the prophet Haggai saying, Speak now to Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Josedach, the high priest, and to the residue of the people, saying, Who's left among you that saw this house in her first glory? And how do you see it now? Is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing?" Yet now, be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the Lord. And be strong, O Joshua, son of Josedach the high priest. Be strong, all ye people of the land, saith the Lord. And work, for I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts, according to the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt. So my spirit remaineth among you. Fear ye not." You want some good imperatives along the way here. They're to be strong. They're not to fear. God's people, I say, hear this challenge. But I say, encouragement rests upon God's Word, not upon what we're seeing. They take up the building again. They hear that it doesn't take a rocket scientist to connect the dots. We're busy building our own stuff. We're busy reestablishing our own lives. And yet, what are our lives if we're not worshiping God? If we're not seeing reestablished this full worship, this proclamation through type and shadow of the good news of Jesus? And so they heed the challenge. They take up the work afresh. But then they look at the work. By comparison with what's been done in the past, it's as nothing. You remember we read in the historical books of their old men weeping because they recognized the former glory of the Solomonic temple is not what they're rebuilding now out of that rubble. But let us understand and hear what the Lord put before them. Encouragement should rest upon God's promise, not upon what we are seeing. God's promise wasn't dependent upon the silver and gold that covered so much of that building that Solomon built. That structure that was so magnificent that the kings and queens of the nations would marvel and travel to see it, and then say the half hasn't been told. This is a city that's barely coming out of the ravages of war and the literal rubble of that war. Read Nehemiah chapter 1. The city's burned up. It's a reproach. But yet God is in it. And God tells them that the glory of this house will be greater than the glory of the former house. You read just the verses following here in the second chapter. And of course, this we know is due to the fact that the promised Messiah will visit this house. It is in this small temple. It will be enlarged and made great in its own way by Christ's time. Herod's great additions and building to that temple. But I say for us and for where these people were, encouragement rests upon God's Word, not upon what we're seeing. Well, these people are playing, if you will, a vital part in the history of redemption. You go back to the books of Moses. You go back to the promises of God, including the threatenings of captivity and then ultimately their return. But the promise of Christ's coming can't happen if there isn't a Jerusalem. The promise of Christ's coming can't happen if there isn't a temple in Jerusalem. And so, however small, however weak in comparison to the nations, Jerusalem is preserved. However small by comparison with the Solomonic temple, a temple is built. to which the promised one of the ages, this desire of nations, verse six, shall come. Encouragement rests upon God's word, not what we are seeing. We're in the midst of seeking. Well, I guess I can't say that the days of calling myself a church planter are kind of in the rear view mirror. But seeking new work, faithful witness in a needy time. But, you know, we're not the first thing that comes to people's mind when they think of Winston-Salem. Our denomination isn't the first thing that comes to people's mind when they think of churches in the world. But yet we are part of proclaiming, preserving, and defending the truth of the gospel in a needy age. And however small and despised we may seem to ourselves to be, and in some ways quite literally be, Our encouragement should not rest upon just what we see. Our encouragement should rest upon God's faithfulness to His Word. God fulfilled the promise to this remnant, if you will, in the first coming of the Lord Jesus. He will fulfill the promise of His Word to the remnant of His heritage in the days leading up to the second coming of the Lord Jesus. What we will see and not see in the days intervening in the whole period of this time between Pentecost and our Lord's return have been a series of ups and downs among God's people. None of the downs is low enough to move God to say, I won't honor my promise and I won't send my son. None of the highs has been high enough for us to be the ones to say it's now time. All of that is in God's hands. But our encouragement should rest upon God's promise. Not on what we're seeing at any given time. And the last statement I'll make to you is this, and I make it very briefly. God's promises are absolute. Certain. God's promises are absolutely certain. They are not dependent upon what we see. They're not dependent upon the experience of any given generation. They're dependent only upon the faithfulness of the one who makes the promise. You read verse 6 in chapter 2, "'For thus saith the Lord of hosts, yet once it is a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts. And in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts. Come, if you would, to the closing, really, message of Haggai. Verse 20 is the opening of the fourth of the four sermons in the book. Again the word of the Lord came to Haggai in the four and twentieth day of the month, saying, Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I will shake the heavens and the earth. I'll overthrow the throne of kingdoms. I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the heathen. I will overthrow the chariots and those that ride in them. The horses and the riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother. In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, will I take thee, O Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtiel, saith the Lord, will make thee as a signet. For I've chosen thee, saith the Lord of hosts." We don't have time to flesh it out, but Zerubbabel becomes a great type of Christ. He is in the genealogy of Christ from both directions. And here we find that this messianic expectation is set before the people. Both Advents and perhaps not so clearly distinguished in their gaze, but the glory filling that renewed temple and the glory coming in that day in which the Lord will... Well, what we read in that final message really looks a lot like what is promised in the second Psalm. The nations rising up together. and yet the Lord victorious over them all. Well, this is a hasty survey of the first of these post-exilic prophets, but I just say let us take care. This is a message I've said before that I've often taken up over the years and still with the prophet Amos and just how similar his circumstances and his preaching were to the needs and circumstances of our day. But here's a word that we should take to heart in our own lives through such changing circumstances. Discouragement can lead to sin. Encouragements rest upon God's Word and not upon what we are seeing. And God's Word, God's promises are absolutely certain. Christ has come. Christ will come. He will be exalted in the earth. Let's bow our heads together. Our Heavenly Father, we come tonight mindful that the flesh and the discouragements that afflicted this people, they had to be rebuked and called back from, can very easily find their way into our hearts, to our thinking, and to our living. And so we pray that you will take the warning yet that you gave through Haggai and write much of it upon our own souls. Lord, it's a theme that we've seen through these minor prophets. Let us not take up the mindset that our joy is dependent on our circumstances, that the success of your kingdom is dependent upon what we're seeing right in front of our faces in our times, but rather that we have a sovereign God who rules and reigns and overrules in all the affairs of men. Lord, give us such confident rejoicing that in the most dire of circumstances as even Habakkuk related, we can rejoice in the God of our salvation. So take up this Word. Help us by it, we pray. In Jesus' name, Amen.