Let Us Begin with God!

Haggai 1-2
P. G. Mathew | Sunday, January 02, 2000
Copyright © 2000, P. G. Mathew

Whenever we face a new year, we must ask ourselves, “Why has God allowed us to see this new year? Is it so that we can enter into greater self-indulgence and serve ourselves during this coming year?” If we are people of God, we have been granted this opportunity to live in a new year so that we may labor fruitfully in God’s kingdom. Each new year gives us a greater opportunity to live for God and serve him.

In light of this, we want to study what God spoke to his people in the second shortest book in the Old Testament, the prophecy of Haggai. There were three prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi–called the restoration prophets–who ministered to the people who returned to Jerusalem by the decree of Cyrus king of Persia in 538 B.C.

Background

Because of their disobedience, God’s people had been sent into exile away from the promised land. Many years earlier Moses had predicted exile for any who were unfaithful in following the Lord of the covenant, as we read in Deuteronomy 28 and other places in the Old Testament. The people of God did become unfaithful and were exiled. Israel went into exile in 722 B.C., while Judah went in three stages–in 605, when Daniel and others were taken; in 597, when Ezekiel and others were taken; and, finally, in 586 B.C. when most of the remaining people were taken to Babylon after the destruction of the temple.

This exile, however, did not mean the end of God’s people living in the promised land. God inspired his prophets to begin speaking about a restoration which would come after seventy years of exile. Jeremiah spoke about it in Jeremiah 25, and Daniel spoke about it in Daniel 9.

Thus, in the first year of his reign, the Persian king, Cyrus, decreed that any who wished could go back to rebuild the temple of Jerusalem. The majority of the exiles probably did not want to leave their comfortable lives, but under the leadership of Zerubbabel the governor and Joshua the high priest, a godly remnant–about fifty thousand people–whose spirits God had stirred up and returned to Jerusalem for the specific purpose of rebuilding the temple and serving God with faithfulness.

Soon after this, they managed to rebuild the altar and began offering sacrifices in Jerusalem. By 536 B.C., two years after they returned, they had succeeded in laying the foundation of the second temple, which we read about it in Ezra 3. There was weeping as well as great rejoicing on that joyous occasion.

Failure to Persevere

This remnant was brought to Jerusalem by divine mercy and faithfulness to rebuild the temple. As the work on the temple progressed, they began to experience opposition from various sources, especially from the Samaritans living around them. Discouraged, this godly remnant soon gave up temple building. Failing to persevere and trust in God, they stopped doing the chief work for which they had come.

This was a serious sin on their part. Let me assure you, we who are engaged in doing God’s work will always encounter serious difficulties and troubles, but this should not keep us from accomplishing what we have been called to do.

But God who called us to do his work is greater than Amalekites, Philistines, Samaritans, the devil, and anything else in the whole world. The restoration prophets called God the Lord of Hosts, the Lord Almighty. That name appears about ninety times in these three prophecies. He is the Lord before whom the waters dry up and his enemies fall. And if this God is with us, who can be against us?

The remnant failed to trust in God. They gave up the work of the Lord and began to serve themselves, so the Lord raised up prophets like Haggai and Zechariah in 520 B.C., sixteen years after they had stopped work on the temple of the Lord.

Why did God send these prophets? The Bible tells us that if we become unfaithful, God remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself. So he sends us prophets and preachers to rebuke us, correct us, and exhort us. Praise God for these prophets and preachers! When God sends them to us, it means he loves us and cares for us, and will not leave us in our state of rebellion, sin, and misery.

The word of God is coming to you even now in this new year. This should bring great comfort to you. It means the God of the covenant loves you and cares for you, and that he will cure your backsliding.

Divine Rebuke

The first point we want to examine is God’s rebuke as found in Haggai 1:2, “This is what the Lord Almighty says. . . .” Who is speaking? The Lord Almighty. In other words, Haggai is saying, “This is not my word. It is not a man’s word. It is the Lord Almighty’s word coming through the prophet Haggai.” And what was that word? “These people say, ‘The time has not yet come for the Lord’s house to be built.'”

The Lord understands our rationalization, our excuses, our hypocrisy, our vain imagination. He sees our thoughts and discerns their wickedness. He knew these people were lying when they said, “It is not time to build the house of God.” Why? The time had come long ago! The time had come, as Jeremiah prophesied, and Daniel realized, when God had raised up his servant Cyrus. The time had come when Cyrus had issued his decree in 538, allowing the Jews to return to their own country and rebuild the temple. The time had come when the remnant had returned and began to build.

Let me tell you, the time has come for you and for me to serve God with an undivided heart as well. The time has come to repent. The time has come to forsake sin. The time has come to forsake laziness. The time has come to pray earnestly. The time has come to look into the word of God. The time has come to trust God. The time has come to follow Jesus Christ. The time has come to build God’s house. The time has come to evangelize the world. The time has come to give generously for the cause of Christ. The time has come to labor for Christ, and the Lord shall not accept our phony excuses, just as he did not accept the excuses of the people of Haggai’s time.

God Exposes the Lie

In Haggai 1:4 God exposes the heart of this people. He inquires, “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?” That question demonstrates that God is fully aware of what we are doing. That particular word from God through Haggai cut through all the hypocrisy and lies of these people.

These people were working hard, expending effort, being zealous, but for what purpose? To build their own houses. And these houses were not modest dwellings. These people were working hard to build paneled houses, big houses, luxurious houses, more stylish houses.

But Yahweh, the covenant Lord, cut through all the defenses, rationalizations, lies, and hypocrisy of this remnant. He told them, “My house lies in ruins, yet you are telling me it is not time to build, even though you are living in the paneled houses you built for yourselves? You are not honoring me as your great King.”

These people were like those of the church of Laodicea, to whom the Lord said in Revelation 3:17, “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.'” No doubt that is what this remnant was telling themselves. But listen to what the great King, the one who was dead but who is alive forevermore, the one who holds the keys of hell and death, also said to this church: “But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.” In other words, these people were rich/poor–rich in material things, but poor toward God. They were poor in their souls, experiencing leanness of soul even while meat was in their mouths. They were not thinking of the words of Jesus Christ, “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?”

What about us? Oh, we can always find time for ourselves, can we not? We always have time to pursue pleasure, power, and money while we tell God, “Mañana. It is not yet time for me to serve you.” But throughout the Bible we read that now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation. Now is the time to repent and serve God. Now is the time to hear the voice of the prophet and change our ways.

Divine Exhortation to Think

What was the first message of God to these people? In Haggai 1:5, 7, and 2:15, 18 we find a command from the Lord Almighty: “Give careful thought to your ways.” This was an exhortation to the people of Haggai’s time and it is an exhortation to us as well. Give careful thought, church! Think deeply. Think correctly. Think spiritually. Christianity demands serious thought, because God, who created the universe out of his wisdom, is a God who thinks and who wants his people to think.

We must understand God’s speech and respond to his words. The curse of our time is mindlessness and shallow thinking. We emphasize feelings, but God demands careful thought, particularly with reference to his word and the condition in which we find ourselves. Why are you in your misery, in your problems, in your pain? Engage in serious thought, God says, and you will discover the cause. That is the idea.

In Matthew 13 we read the parable of the seeds. In verse 23 we read, “But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” Those who understand, who carefully think about the word of God produce crops–hundredfold, sixtyfold, and thirtyfold what was sown.

We must think about God! As Paul exhorted the Colossians, we must set our hearts on things above, “where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.” Then he says, “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”

So God rebuked this godly remnant, and through Haggai called them to “give careful thought to your ways.” In the Hebrew it means “bring your mind to bear upon your ways.” In other words, God was saying, “Think about why you are in this condition of misery, pain, dissatisfaction, disappointment, and unhappiness. Think! Reason! Remember, Christianity is a reasonable faith. You need to analyze your miserable situation in the light of covenant conditions. Remember that I am the Lord of the covenant. Didn’t I say that if you obeyed and kept my covenant, you would be blessed, but if you violated it, you would experience misery? In fact, I exiled my own people to other nations because of their disobedience. I exhort you to give careful thought to your ways.”

Seeking True Happiness

These people were not happy. They had sought happiness, not God, as their chief end, and it had eluded them. Let me tell you, we shall never find happiness by seeking it first. That is the way of pagans, as Jesus Christ said in Matthew 6:32, “The pagans run after these things.” Pagans deceive themselves. They do not seek the true God, but they pursue their own happiness–food, clothing, pleasure, power, and position–with great passion. They run after money rather than God. This is the American way, the way of the world.

But God’s people must seek God if they want true happiness. We are created to enjoy communion with God. If we seek God first, we shall be happy also. And not only that, Jesus Christ told us, “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matt. 6:32).

What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy him forever, in that order. Thus, if you want true happiness, I urge you to seek God as your chief end. The title of this sermon is, “Let Us Begin with God.” Let us begin with God in this new year. Let us obey God. Let us honor God. Let us seek spiritual things. Let us walk with God as Enoch walked with God. If you do these things, you shall be happy and find rest for your soul. You shall have the peace of God that defies all human reasoning. Let us begin with God, continue with God, and end with God.

Divine Chastisement

We have examined the divine rebuke and the divine exhortation to think. The third point we want to examine is the divine chastisement. For sixteen years, from 536 B.C. to 520 B.C., the people of God stopped serving him and served themselves. They worked hard, trying to build up their material wealth and building houses–large, luxurious, beautiful houses–rather than building the house of God.

In Haggai 1:6 we read, “You have planted much.” Oh, these people were working all the time! They were trusting in things, and so they labored for more grain, more wine, and more olive oil. They were laboring for their bodies–for physical, not spiritual gain. They postponed God’s work, saying, “It is not yet time.” They planted much, but they postponed prayer, they postponed worship, they postponed Bible study, they postponed repentance, they postponed evangelism, they postponed fellowship, they postponed giving. They postponed everything to do with God and his kingdom, and used all their energies for their own individual interests.

But in Psalm 127 we read, “Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat–for he grants sleep to those he loves.” All the work of this remnant did not accomplish much.

In Haggai 1:9 God told his people, “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away.” Who did this? Oh, not the devil, not anyone else, not natural forces. God said, “I blew it away.” And in Haggai 1:11 God said, “I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the oil and whatever the ground produces, on men and cattle, and on the labor of your hands.” Drought, drought, drought! Who called for it? The Lord Almighty. God, the Lord of the universe, is sovereign over all. He spoke, the sky closed up, and the earth refused to produce.

God knows how to deal with his people. He may let pagans make huge amounts of money and live long, healthy lives, but for his elect people whom he intends to save, God utilizes all his powers as necessary so that he can turn them from their rebellion and stubbornness and bring them into the way of life, peace, and salvation.

Notice God’s language in Haggai 2:17: “I struck all the work of your hands with blight, mildew and hail.” God has a way of pouring out covenant curses when we violate his law. This is what we read in Deuteronomy 28:22, “The Lord will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish. The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron. The Lord will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed.”

In Deuteronomy 28:38 God says, “You will sow much seed in the field but you will harvest little, because locusts will devour it,” and so on. God has a way of dealing with us. He fills us with disappointment, as we read in Haggai 1:6, “You have planted much but have harvested little.” He continues, “You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.” There was inflation, insufficiency, disappointment, and loss.

What is this speaking about? It is God’s covenant love in operation. This is not speaking of God pouring out eternal judgment upon his church. God will not do that. Our salvation is safe and secure. But the Lord will chasten and correct his people in order to bring them back to himself. This is a demonstration of the love that will not let us go, the love that will not let us continue on forever in our own ways. When necessary, God will use his rod to bring us back to his ways of life, peace, and joy. So we must give careful thought to our ways. We must think deeply and draw the proper conclusions. We must think in the light of the total revelation of God in his word.

We see these covenant principles mentioned also in the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians 11:30 we read, “That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep.” God’s covenant principles continue to function in the New Testament.

I urge you to analyze your own personal history in the light of God’s saving activity. Have you experienced this aspect of his covenant love? (PGM) Be assured that God will do whatever is necessary to bring us to sobriety, as he did with the prodigal son in the far country. After his money and food was gone and he was brought to a low place, “he came to his senses,” as we read in Luke 15:17.

Divine Command

When God rebukes us and disciplines us, what does he do next? He tells us what to do. What was the command of God coming through Haggai to his people? Build my house! These people could no longer skirt around God’s original command. He had brought them back from Babylon for the purpose of building the temple, seeking the kingdom of God, and serving him, and that is what they had to resume doing.

God had told his people, “Now is the time to build! I don’t believe your phony excuses. It is time to build now! It has been time for a long time.” So in Haggai 1:8 God instructs his people, “Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored.” In other words, God was saying, “Do what I say, so that I may be glorified and worshiped. Then I, in turn, will give you my benediction–the blessing of my dwelling with you.”

Why did the people need to build the temple? It was the place of worship, the place of prayer. It was the visible sign of God’s presence with them. To think that those who are God’s people can go on without relating to God is absolute foolishness. Blessing comes from God dwelling in the midst of his people. That is why the temple had to be built.

We find this same idea in the message to the church of Ephesus in Revelation 2. In verses 1-2 we read, “These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands: I know your deeds, your hard work, and your perseverance.” But in verse 4 the Lord says, “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.”

We must repent and do what God commanded us to do. “Go up to the mountain. Put forth money. Put forth effort. Build the the house and accomplish the work that I commissioned you to do.”

The Godly Response

How did the people respond to this exhortation? In Haggai 1:12 we read, “Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the whole remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the Lord their God and the message of the prophet Haggai.” The godly responded by obeying and fearing God.

God wants us to reverence and love him. If we love him, we will do what he says. We cannot say we love God and refuse to obey him. Jesus himself told us, “If you love me, you will obey what I command,” in John 14:15.

These people responded to the word of God that came through the prophets. It says they feared and obeyed, meaning they repented. They understood that their sin had brought misery on themselves. So they confessed their sins, agreeing with God and saying, “O God, you are right. It is time to build. We postponed. We procrastinated. We said, ‘Mañana’ to you and channeled all our energies into our own interests. You are right; we are wrong. We have sinned.”

We must do the same. We must think and repent. We must fear God, obey God, and begin to do what he commanded. Let me assure you, if these people didn’t build the temple, God would not have been left out in the cold. God is the self-existing, self-sufficient, eternal God who depends on no one. Why, then, did he ask these people to build his house? So that he would dwell in the midst of them and they would receive the blessing of his presence.

Remember the story of Obed-Edom? The ark was placed in his house for three months, and the Bible tells us the Lord blessed Obed-Edom and his entire household during that time.

So these people feared, obeyed, repented, and believed. And in Haggai 1:12 we read that they honored the prophet. I assure you, you will never love and fear God and be blessed until you respect the prophet–whether father, mother, or elder–who brings the word of God to you.

These people recognized Haggai as God’s prophet. They honored him and honored God by beginning to work once more on the temple, as we read in Haggai 1:14-15. They stopped serving themselves and put their time, money, and effort into God’s work. The text tells us they did so on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month in 520 B.C., in the second year of King Darius Hystaspis.

Divine Benediction

In Haggai 1:8 God told the people that if they built his house, he would take pleasure in it. Let me tell you, when we obey, God is pleased. So the next point we want to examine is God’s benediction.

In Haggai 1:13 we read, “Then Haggai, the Lord’s messenger, gave this message of the Lord to the people. . . .” That is what we are doing in this sermon. This is not a self-created message, a personal theology. We are articulating to you what God is speaking in his word.

What was the message? “I am with you.” God was delighted with the obedience of his people, so he sent Haggai to tell them, “I am with you.”

There is a hymn that says, “There’s within my heart a melody, Jesus whispers sweet and low, ‘Fear not, I am with you; peace, be still,’ in all of life’s ebb and flow. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus–sweetest name I know, fills my every longing, keeps me singing as I go.”

Let me tell you, the greatest blessing imaginable is having God with us. We read about this in Revelation 21, where we see a new heaven, a new earth, and a new Jerusalem, where God himself dwells in the midst of his people.

When we honor God, he will honor us by granting us his own presence. We find this idea throughout the Bible. Didn’t Jesus tell his disciples, “Go and make disciples of all nations. . . .and surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age”? God promises to be with us always–in our youth and in our old age.

So God told his people, “Fear not. Peace be with you. Do not be anxious. I am with you.” In Isaiah 43:1-2 we read, “But now, this is what the Lord says–he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.'” That is what God means when he says, “I will be with you.”

If God is with us, we must not fear our enemies or our own doubts. He who is with us and in us is greater than he who is in the world. So Jesus tells his church, “Fear not! I have overcome the world, and because you are mine, my triumph is your triumph.” We have been redeemed, and are seated with Christ in heavenly places. No one can touch us there. No one can snatch us out of our Redeemer’s hands. Nothing in all creation can separate us from our Father and Bridegroom, who paid such a high price to save us. No wonder Paul exclaims in 2 Corinthians 2:14, “Thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ”!

When we obey and honor God and keep his covenant, he will be pleased with us and will pronounce his covenant blessing upon us. “Peace be with you,” he will say to us. He will bless us with himself and commune with us. He will be with us to guide us, to counsel us, to provide for us, to strengthen us, to prosper us, to heal us, to protect us, and to bring us to sure salvation and victory in Jesus Christ our Lord.

When God withholds his presence from us, we will wilt, shrivel, and dry up. But when he is with us, he will be as dew to a plant, like the summer rain. He will be like sunshine for the plants so that we can grow, flourish, and be fruitful. We will be restless until we find this kind of rest in God.

Obedience Produces Blessing

In Deuteronomy 28:1-13 we find a catalog of blessings promised to God’s people who obey him and keep his covenant. There is blessing when we are at home, blessing when we go out, blessing on our crops and livestock and the fruit of our womb, blessing in our basket and kneading trough, and so on. We will be surrounded by blessing, in other words. People of God, when God is with us, we will be blessed!

Obedience brings sure blessings. We will all fail, but there is one who will never fail. It is he in whose hand the will of God prospered. It is he who was God become flesh–Jesus Christ the Lord. Psalm 40 tells us in the volume of the book it is written of him, and he obeyed his Father’s commands. Praise be to God, he obeyed, fully and completely, and we are the beneficiaries of his blessings.

Conclusion

What, then, can we conclude? First, we must praise God for seeking us when we did not seek him. This remnant were not seeking God, but God sought them, and through the prophet he came and spoke to them, saying, “I want to bless you.”

Praise God for his love and faithfulness! Praise God for seeking us through his prophets. Additionally, praise God for his rebuke, his correction, and his command. Praise God for the work of his Holy Spirit in our hearts, stirring us deep within. In Haggai 1:14 we read that the Lord stirred the spirit of Zerubbabel, the spirit of Joshua the high priest, and the spirit of the whole remnant of Israel. That means they were asleep. But, praise be to God, the Holy Spirit works inside us, causing us to be stirred up and awakened. God causes us rebels to become responsive to him. Paul says he works in us to will and to do his good pleasure, and so we work out.

This God will be with us in in this new year. He has spoken his word to us through his servants, and we are speaking to you now. Oh, may the Spirit of God stir up our spirits so that we may think deeply about our condition in the light of his voice. Let us fear him and obey his voice, forsake our own ways, and begin to build his house. Let us seek the one thing that is needful as Mary did. Let us all say, “Away with excuses! Away with hypocrisy! Away with self-seeking!” Oh, may we seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness! Only then shall we be happy, and all these things shall be added unto us.

Let Us Serve God!

Church, let us rise and build! May we respond to the stirring of the Holy Spirit and say, “Yes, I feel the stirring of God in this new year. I am being awakened to reality. The Holy Spirit is working in me and I am beginning to think, to repent, and to believe. God is working within me to will and to do his good pleasure.”

If God is working in you, you will not procrastinate; you will persevere. You will not say, “It is not time”; you will say, “God, you are right. It is time to seek you and to serve you.” When you do this, God will be pleased with you. He will be with you and bless you, saying, “Fear not. Peace to you.” And you will not fear anything.

May God bless his people in this coming year. May we begin with God, continue with God, and end with God. May we commune with him and be blessed by him this day and every day until the day comes when we shall meet him face to face. Amen.