Pressing on in the Work

Father in heaven, we come once again in prayer. We trust not out of mere habit, but asking, believing that you will help us as we come to your word. Teach us what we need to hear. Correct us where we are wayward. Encourage us where we are weak. Lift up Jesus in our midst. We pray in his name. Amen.

Our text this morning is Ezra chapter 5. Ezra chapter 5 has – I’ll explain in a moment. Ezra chapter 5 and 6 really go together and could be treated as one section. But we’ll look this morning at Ezra 5, and really just at the first part of Ezra 5, and then at Ezra 6 together with the second half of Ezra 5 next week. But we’ll read, this morning, all 17 verses:

“Now the prophets, Haggai and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied to the Jews who are in Judah in Jerusalem, in the name of the God of Israel who was over them. Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak arose and began to rebuild the house of God that is in Jerusalem, and the prophets of God were with them, supporting them. At the same time Tattenai the governor of the province Beyond the River and Shethar-bozenai and their associates came to them and spoke to them thus: ‘Who gave you a decree to build this house and to finish this structure?’ They also asked them this, ‘What are the names of the men who are building this building?’ But the eye of their God was on the elders of the Jews, and they did not stop them until the report should reach Darius, and then an answer be returned by letter concerning it.

This is a copy of the letter that Tattenai, the governor of the province Beyond the River, and Shethar-bozenai and his associates, the governors who were in the province Beyond the River, sent to Darius the king. They sent him a report, in which was written as follows: ‘To Darius the king, all peace. Be it known to the king that we went to the province of Judah, to the house of the great God. It is being built with huge stones, and timber is laid in the walls. This work goes on diligently and prospers in their hands.’ Then we asked those elders and spoke to them thus: ‘Who gave you a decree to build this house and to finish this structure?’ We also asked them their names for your information that we might write down the names of their leaders.

And this was their reply to us: ‘We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and we are rebuilding the house that was built many years ago, which a great king of Israel built and finished. But because our fathers had angered the God of heaven, he gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this house and carried away the people to Babylonia. However, in the first year of Cyrus, king of Babylon, Cyrus the king, made a decree that this house of God should be rebuilt, and the gold and silver vessels of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple that was in Jerusalem, and brought into the temple of Babylon. These Cyrus the king took out of the temple of Babylon, and they were delivered to one whose name was Sheshbazzar, whom he had made governor. And he said to him, “Take these vessels, go and put them in the temple, that is in Jerusalem, and let the house of God be rebuilt on its site.” Then this Sheshbazzar came and laid the foundations of the house of God that is in Jerusalem. And from that time until now it has been in building and it is not yet finished. Therefore, if it seems good to the king, let search be made in the royal archives there in Babylon to see whether a decree was issued by Cyrus the king for the rebuilding of this house of God in Jerusalem. And let the king send us his pleasure in this matter.’”

At the end of chapter 6, we will learn that there’s good news, that this legal back and forth – and that’s what we have here: certain representatives come and ask a question. We can’t be sure if they’re asking a genuine question or they mean to oppose the work again, but they want to know by what right are you building this? And these men ask again – give us their names. And so they have this official correspondence, and it is sort of like a legal precedent, it now has to work its way up. And here the ultimate authority is not a Supreme Court of nine justices, but the king. Bring it back, and let’s wait for his answer. And by the time we get to the end of chapter 6, you can just see the heading before verse 13, and you know the outcome: the temple finished and dedicated.

We left off last week with the good guys losing. The people of the land bribed the Persian officials. They lied. They flattered the king until he became convinced, quite against all evidence, that this rag tag group of returning exiles was going to be a serious threat to the Persian Empire. They used to be a big deal, and so we cannot let the temple continue. The foundation of the temple was laid, but now the work has ground to a halt for some 15-16 years. But here the rebuilding begins anew – you see that heading in chapter 5. And there’s a happy ending. Look at the end of chapter 6. Verse 15: “The house was finished.” Verse 16: “And the people of Israel, the priests and the Levites and the rest of the returned exiles celebrated the dedication of this house of God with joy.” They even go on to celebrate the Passover again. And Verse 22: “Keep the feast of unleavened bread.” So as grim as things were at the end of last week – the work had stopped, the foundation was laid. There was great opposition to their plans. Two chapters later, by the end of chapter 6, a great victory and celebration. So here’s the question I want us to focus on this morning. Not to look at all of the legal back and forth and all of the secondary means that God has used, and we’ll do some of that next week, but what was the turning point? How did we go from the end of chapter 4? Look at 4:24. “Then the work on the house of God that is in Jerusalem stopped.” How do we go from that – it’s stopped, nothing is happening – to chapter 6, verse 16: “And the people celebrated at the dedication of the house of God with joy.” How do we go from no temple, opposition, to finished temple? How did they move from doom and gloom and enemies and opposition and a low point in the life of the returned exiles to one of the great high points rejoicing at the completion of the temple? How did they move from opposition to joy, to victory?

And that’s a question for us now. It’s not that – we’re not the nation of Israel in the promised land, not instructed to build a temple for sacrifices. Jesus Christ himself is that temple and has rendered the sacrificial system obsolete. And he builds us as his people into a temple. And yet surely all of us can relate at some level and are interested in knowing how do we go from discouraged, frustrated, opposed, stopped, good guys losing, to victory, winning, celebration. How did this happen? Chapters 5 and 6 give us a number of right answers to that question, and we’ll look at some of them next week. You could look at chapter 6 verse 1, the decree that King Darius made. We can be thankful for good secretaries and archivists, because they went and dusted off the decree and said, “Sure enough, they’re right, there was a decree from Cyrus,” and then Darius issues a decree of his own. So that’s part of the Lord’s work. We could look at chapter 5 verse 8 – did you notice the language there? The end of verse 8: “This work” – this is the report of the officials about the Jews – “this work goes on diligently and prospers in their hands.” So they were hard workers – that’s something. We could also look at verse 5 – this negative providence, that is the providence of something that didn’t happen. We can sometimes have eyes to notice the providences that do happen. Wow, that was a great work that the Lord did, and what a stroke of good luck, that we know not to be luck, but from the Lord’s hand. But it’s harder to have eyes for the negative providences – that is, the things that the Lord didn’t, or that he made sure did not happen. Look at one of those in verse 5: “But the eye of their god was on the elders of the Jews, and they did not stop them until the report should reach Darius, and then an answer be returned.” You see what’s happening there. This is like when there’s an appeal going through the courts, and here there’s no injunction to stay the work that’s going on. They say, “Okay, as we are working this through the legal system, you can continue.” Because it could have been that the officials said, “We’re not quite sure what the answer is, if you have a right to do this, but while we’re checking, you better stop.” But the Lord’s negative providence is superintending what didn’t happen – namely, that the officials did not force the work to stop. We could look at all of those things, but I want you to focus at the very beginning of the chapter, because what is the first thing that the author, perhaps the chronicler, tells us? What is the turning point here, from doom and gloom to joy and celebration and victory? And it’s right there in verse 1: “Now the prophets Haggai and Zechariah prophesied to the Jews in the name of the God of Israel who was over them.”

Now if we hadn’t already read that and you had to guess, what would you have thought? What would be the great hinge that would turn this from opposition and defeat to victory – on its way to victory – and celebration? Well, maybe you would think that there would be a new king put in place? Or maybe you would think that an army would come and would force the people to disperse and allow the work to continue. Or maybe you think that there might be some great, bold insurrection. Or maybe it would be a miracle from heaven. We’ve seen lots of miracles from God before in the scriptures. Maybe he would unleash some of those plagues. Man, they must have thought, we could use – we don’t even need 10 of them, just a few of the plagues. Could you just get these people out of here? A few frogs, some darkness, whatever it takes. But that’s not what we have. What the Lord used was the teaching of his word. And surely that is one of the lessons for us here.

What do you need from God? We do face opposition. That’s always been true of God’s people. We don’t want to exaggerate it. We talked last week, and we can – it’s easy to look around, especially if you like to pay attention to the news. That’s a good way to get discouraged almost any week. You can look, and you can always find reasons to see opposition, enemies, discouragement. You think, “What do I need? What does the church of God really need?” Now, it’s not in absence of other things. We’ll see here, he used Darius, not even a Christian, to issue a fair decree. So, that was good. Pray for those sorts of things. But what do God’s people centrally need? They need what we see here in verse 1. They need to hear from the Lord. And just as so many of us, myself included, can fall into that habit – especially the younger you are, the more this is your habit. When you don’t know what to do with yourself and you’re sitting there, or before you go to bed or first thing when you wake up, and you do the infinite scroll. Give me something. Give me some news. Help me laugh. Give me some information. Help me know what’s going on. And we look to that to give us some sense. And when we live in days where it seems like the news is happening so quickly, we can so easily feel discouraged. We’re apt to think that one more swipe of the screen, if we just scroll down a little bit farther, we’re going to get an answer. We’re going to get something that makes sense of it all. And this chapter reminds us – what you and I need most, especially when we think we face opposition – is to hear the word of God. That’s what you need. You need to hear from the Lord.

Now, what did the prophets say? This is very helpful because here’s one time we don’t have to guess what the message was. We are told two prophets – Haggai (not Hagg-ee-ai – don’t put an extra syllable in there. Like to do that in the Carolinas – sometimes drop some you don’t like, add some others you do) – just Haggai, Zechariah – they prophesy. Now, it’s helpful, these are also two books in the Bible. So, this sermon is going to be a little different, because I want you to see exactly what the prophets prophesied that empowered and enabled God’s people to start rebuilding the temple. So turn to the back of the Old Testament to the book of Haggai. We don’t have time to look at both of them. Zechariah is quite a bit longer, more apocalyptic, more confusing, many of the same themes. But let’s just turn to the little book of Haggai, because Haggai and Zechariah were the turning point. Zechariah, Malachi, then you come to the New Testament, the four gospels. Right before Zechariah is Haggai. So get there and look at verse 1, because you’ll see very clearly we are in the exact time frame. When did this building of the temple renew again? It was in the second year of the reign of Darius, king of Persia. We read that at the end of chapter 4 of Ezra.

Here, Haggai 1: “In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai.” Now turn the page just to see Zechariah. Verse 1: “In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius” – second year, eighth month. So just a couple months later, he gets his first prophetic word. But we’re going to look at Haggai. So, we are here in the second year of Darius, and we’re starting off in the sixth month on the first day. Now, there are all sorts of dates in the Bible that we can’t be really sure of, but this is one that we have a good deal of confidence, because there are archaeological evidence, there’s textual evidence from other sources, there’s the Jewish calendar which gets us to zero in on the date. And we are quite sure that this first sermon happened at the end of August, by our months, in 520 BC. There are four sermons in Haggai introduced with the phrase “the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai,” or something like that. So our four points here are to just briefly move through this sermon from Haggai to show what he said to the people that motivated them to get back to work and finish building the temple.

So look again, verse 1: “First day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai, the prophet.” Notice this first sermon is to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak. It was given as Jeshua sometimes in Ezra – same person, the high priest. If you know something about Zechariah, you may remember that chapter 3 is that famous story of Joshua the high priest who has his dirty clothes and he needs a new turban and a new change of garments to symbolize his forgiveness and an alien righteousness and justification. Well, this first sermon given to these two men, these are the key leaders in Israel. We have Joshua, who’s the high priest, and then Zerubbabel, the governor. You’ve heard me give this little adage before, to remember who he is: “Zerubbabel, get here on the dubbable. The temple is in rubbable. We’re all in big troubbable.” That’s how you can remember Zerubbabel. So he’s the governor, and this first sermon is a prophecy to the leaders. Now look at the problem, verse 2: “Thus says the Lord of hosts: these people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord.” Ah, well, there’s an insight we didn’t have just from Ezra. We might have thought, well, the reason that the building stopped is armed guards were just hovering over them all the time, telling them, “Nope, not today. Not today. Not today.” But now we read, Haggai says, “The people are saying, nah, not yet. I don’t think so. There’s other things to do. Too much of a risk.” Well, look at what Haggai continues to say in verse 3: “The word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet, ‘Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruin? Thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. You have sown much, harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough. You drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. He who earns wages does so, but puts them into a bag with holes” – that’s likely a reference to some inflation. You got a bag with holes. Your money is just not worth anything. “Thus says the Lord of Hosts, ‘Consider your ways. Go up to the hills, bring wood, build the house that I may take pleasure in it, that I may be glorified,’ says the Lord. ‘You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away.’ Why?”

See what the sermon is about: why are things going bad for you? Why is everything that you’re doing just turning to dust, and your money’s worth nothing, and your harvests are failing? He says, “’I’ll tell you,’ declares the Lord, ‘because of my house that lies in ruins while each of you busies himself with his own house. Therefore, the heavens above you have withheld the dew. The earth has withheld its produce. I’ve called for a drought on the land, the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors.’” Do you understand what this first sermon is about? Saying you have decided – yes, this ground to a halt because you had enemies, you had opposition – but now do you know why this work isn’t continuing? You’re busying yourselves with all of your own concerns. Now, before we sit in judgment upon these people, let’s sympathize with them just a little bit. It must not have been an easy decision to return to Jerusalem. The people had gotten fairly comfortable in Babylon. Remember Jeremiah’s advice? Build houses, settle down, plant gardens, marry, have sons and daughters. Jeremiah said, this is – you’re here for a couple generations, so don’t think you’re about ready to go back home. You’re in exile. You might as well make the best of it. And they did. And they were somewhat prosperous and comfortable in Babylon. It’s easy to get comfortable in Babylon. This is a long time before Cyrus’s decree. An entire generation had died off. Most of the Jews in Babylon had never known Jerusalem as their home. A few had. We saw them weeping at the foundation laid of the temple. But many had never been here before. So this is not like your house is destroyed, and you’re out of it for 6 months, and what a joy to come back. Many of these Jews, the only home they had ever known was Babylon. They had heard stories, but they never lived in this place. And then they traveled 900 miles to resettle in a rundown city in a backwater part of the world. I imagine many of the exiles returned out of a sense of duty more than a real sense of conviction and delight. And they had problems. The land had lay fallow, and homes were destroyed or in disrepair. We saw last week the Assyrian effort to repopulate the area with a syncretistic religion, and now they have external opposition.

So we can sympathize just a little bit with these exiles. They’re saying, “Look, we’ve come a long way, God. We uprooted our whole families. We made 900 miles. We came home. Many of us have never even lived here. And now we have these opponents, these enemies, breathing down our neck. Yeah, we haven’t done anything for more than 15 years, but we’ve got our own houses to take care of. We got our own soccer games to attend to. We got our own vines and figs and vineyards. So, they had a hard life. It was hard for them to think about a time-consuming, expensive project like a second temple. But now many years had passed. The first exiles probably came around 538. And this is now 520. So 18 years, and 16 years after they had laid the foundation, and there’s still no home, and you see verse 4 – their fancy houses, paneling like your grandma’s basement somewhere – up in the Midwest, at least, it all has that same wood paneling. Saw that tweet: “If you grew up with this, you probably were disciplined by your parents.” There’s a certain – well this was a fancy, this was the shiplap of the day. You’re doing it with your houses, and you’re too busy, too concerned, to do anything with the house of the Lord. Now, I want to be careful here. You can say, “Oh boy, you should have saved this one for a capital campaign, because this is – now it’s not an exact correspondence, because no church is instructed to build a temple in the same way they had to build a temple for their sacrificial system that was given directly in scripture, what it was to look like, how they were to build it – so we don’t want to equate every church building with the temple in Jerusalem. It’s not exactly the same. And yet, there’s certainly some application we can make, namely God was upset with his people because they had all sorts of other priorities. And God was well down the list of their priorities. And so, God gives to them as they’ve done to God. Okay, you are frustrated with the plans I have for you – I’m going to frustrate your plans. So, the more time they spent on themselves in absence of God, the less profitable they became. They sowed a lot of seed, but they harvested little. They drank, but they were thirsty. They collected wages, but the money fell through holes in their pockets. In other words, he’s giving to them covenant curses. He’s saying, “You’re not listening to me. You’re not obeying me.”

Now, why was the temple so important? Well, it was an act of obedience to build it. It was a sign of the covenant between God and his people. It symbolized God’s presence among them. It was there to install the sacrificial system. And most of all, it was that God would be glorified. You see that in Haggai 1:8, “Build the house that I may be glorified.” Now, why did it glorify God? Well, it was a beautiful structure. It was set on the holy hill of Mount Zion. So, it was a structure of beauty and impressive power and strength. But more than that, what did it symbolize? It showed to the nations that these people have put their God first. I wonder what we think about the cathedrals and the massive buildings. We have some beautiful ones here in this country, and certainly you go to Europe and it’s easy to think, boy, they took a hundred years to do this. And people were in grinding poverty, and people died in the construction of these buildings. And is this really what was most important? And certainly there are dangers, and some of those cathedrals were probably built as monuments to human beings or to specific cities. And yet, and yet, try to understand that it was a way of saying, “Our God reigns.” It was a way of saying, “With all that we do not have, look at what our God is.” Now, you can put your God into the building, the structure itself, and you can lose sight of what true spiritual worship looks like. But I’ve passed on this little test before: you can often tell, someone told me, the gods of a city by seeing what the tallest buildings are. There’s a reason that churches had steeples and spires in almost any major city in this country. At some time, the tallest building in that city was a church steeple. It was a way of saying, “Look out among this city and you see it’s a city of churches and steeples reaching to heaven.” You could look at Charlotte, what are the the tallest buildings? Banks. You can look at when I lived in East Lansing, the tallest building was Spartan Stadium. You can look at some building, and it might be a monument, or it might be the state capital or some other kind of skyscraper. Perhaps in Las Vegas it’s a hotel or a casino. It is a helpful rubric to say, “What is most important to these people?” The point is not that churches ought to set out to build the most expensive, tallest, grandiose buildings they can. There’s many other things to consider. And yet certainly, it is right to say what are the priorities for these people?

It is amazing when you study history and you study people who are just clearing off ground, they’re barely surviving, settlers who came to this country, and one of the first things they do is they build a church. And they build churches, some of them, that have lasted as monuments of strength and beauty. I heard someone say recently – I don’t know enough about architecture to know if this is true or an exaggeration – but somebody asked a leading architect, “Why don’t we build these cathedrals?” and his answer was “because we don’t know how.” Now that may be a slight exaggeration, but it is an amazing feat that with all of the technology we have, and that they didn’t have, they built these buildings.

Well here in Ezra’s day, this temple was, first of all, a sign that they put God first of all. Now, I said this is not going to be a sermon about a capital campaign or church buildings, but just a little point here. Sometimes people can be very opposed to churches spending any money on buildings, and rarely are those people living in tents themselves. Rarely is that the case. These people here, a change for God’s people, they actually repent. Look at verse 12: Zerubbabel, and Joshua the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of God. So they listened. Here’s the motivation to repent. Now this is really important, and we won’t spend as much time on these other three little sermons here, because I want you to see this first point. It’s easy to think when we have enemies, when we have opponents, that all of the problems are really those people out there – all the things, all that they’re doing, to put us down, all that they’re doing to keep us from flourishing. If only those people didn’t exist, only if we didn’t have those enemies. And we lose sight of what is usually the case, that the greatest dangers come from within the hearts of God’s own people. Mark Dever writes about this from the people’s standpoint: “The rebuilt temple would be a clear and public statement that they still wanted and valued God. It would indicate that he was a higher priority than anything else clamoring for attention in their lives. It would be a mark of their faith in God, their recognition of his priority in their own national identity. From the nation’s standpoint, it would be a sign that the God of Israel had not gone out of business when Jerusalem fell. It would publicly vindicate God before the world.” See, we might have thought that when the work stopped for 16 years, it was all because of opposition. And now we learn, what Haggai has to say to them is you have prioritized other things. Probably happened slowly, imperceptibly, at first, they said, “Well, we can’t do it. These men are with swords are forcing us to stop the work.” And then maybe the immediate threat dissipated, and they spread, and then they just got on to other things, and it seemed like a distraction and like they had more important things to do. This first sermon is asking who’s on first, who’s first place in your life? And they needed to repent.

The second sermon – I said we’ll do these quickly – chapter 2: “In the seventh month, on the 21st day of the month” – now we’re into October in the year 520. If the first sermon said, who’s on first? The second sermon said, you are not alone. This first sermon comes a few weeks later, after they start building, and now the people are discouraged. They’re looking around. Look at verse 3: “Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? It is as nothing in your eyes.” You see what some people were saying? Oh, look. Look at this. Some of us still remember the old temple. This is nothing. They’re immediately discouraged. Haggai says, “Oh, you’re right. It doesn’t look like much compared to the first temple.” But he tells them that God will be with them. Verse 4: “’Yet now, be strong, O Zerubbabel,’ declares the Lord. ‘Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land,’ declares the Lord.” Here’s one of the great theological truths in scripture. Here it’s about the building. It’s the same truth for sanctification in our life: “Work, for I am with you.” It doesn’t say relax, and I’ll do it. It doesn’t say work, and prove yourself. It says work. They’re his saved people. This is not about earning their justification. “Work, for I am with you.” This message here in verse 5 – verse 4 – is the same message that Zechariah will give a few months later. Zechariah 4, that famous verse: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord.” It’s the same thing. People are building the temple, and they’re discouraged. It looks small. Zechariah 4:10 says, “Do not neglect the days of small things.” Their lives seem very ordinary, just like our lives. Almost all of our days are very ordinary lives, and you will not grow in godliness, you will not make a difference for Christ if you don’t know how to live in the 95% of your life that is very ordinary. That’s what it took. If you want to get to the celebration of the temple and have the big party that the temple is done, you better buckle up for a lot of hard work, ordinary days, one stone upon another. God says through Haggai, you’re not alone. I will be with you.

We come to sermon number three, verse 10: “On the 24th day of the ninth month in the second year of Darius, the word came to the Lord,” and now he’s speaking to the priests. The people are busy at work on the temple, but there’s a deeper issue to deal with. It’s a technical argument. They’re wondering – the temple is a holy place, so, if we’re working on building the temple, are we then made holy just by working on the temple? Does ritual holiness work like ritual uncleanness? Because ritual uncleanness in the Old Testament means if you’re unclean, you have an emission, you have a bleed, you have a skin disease, something that makes you ritually unclean. Uncleanness is not identical to sin in the Old Testament. Uncleanness could be caught like a contagion. If you’re around someone who’s ritually unclean, you become unclean. Now they’re asking the question, if we are in around ritual holiness, do we become holy? And the answer is no. Other things can make you unclean. Only God can make you clean. That’s the point. He says in verse 14, “Haggai answered, ‘So it is with this people, with this nation, before me,’ declares the Lord. ‘So with every work of their hands, what they offer there is unclean.’” He’s saying these are a people who have been sinful. They have been unclean. And just by working on the temple, that will not make them holy in God’s sight. The temple was not some magic talisman. They often thought of it that way. It’s not like if they just put their hand on the temple, they were sanctified. It’s not how sanctification works. It doesn’t work by osmosis. Doesn’t work by just touching holy things. They had yet to see covenant blessings poured out, because the works of their hands were unclean. And so God says in this third sermon through Haggai, I need your hearts, not just the stones. They were hauling up big stones to build the temple. But he said, just that by itself does not make you a holy people. I need your hearts.

And then the final sermon, verse 20, Haggai 2: “The word came a second time on the 24th day of the month. Ah, so this is something unique. He gets a second prophetic word on the same day. The first sermon was to Zerubbabel and Joshua. The second sermon was to Zerubbabel, Joshua, and the remnant. The third sermon was to the priests. And maybe Zerubbabel and Joshua were hanging out there among them. But now this, uniquely, verse 21, is for one man: “Speak to Zerubbabel.” I wonder how he felt when he said, “Here comes the prophet.” He’s got a second sermon for today, and it’s for one person. It’s for you. But this last sermon is not really about Zerubbabel. It’s about his descendant. Several parts of Haggai’s sermons look forward to someone who will be much greater than this high priest, much greater than this governor, and much greater than this temple. We have the language of the wealth of nations like the gifts of the Magi, the new temple made of living stones, Jews and Gentiles, as the New Testament puts it. Or chapter 2, verse 7 in Haggai says in the King James, the desire of nations. You see that? The treasures of all nations. The King James says the desire of all nations. And that’s why we have that Christmas hymn. The desire of nations, come. God’s people understood this to be ultimately about the final coming of the Messiah. Verse 6, chapter 2: “Thus says the Lord of hosts, once more I will shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land.”

You may hear that from Handel’s Messiah. He’s putting forward Zerubbabel as a type of the Christ to come. You see the heading above verse 20: Zerubbabel Chosen As a Signet. He says again in verse 21 what he said earlier: “I’m about to shake the heavens and the earth. I’m going to overthrow the kingdoms. I’m going to destroy the strength of the nations, overthrow chariots and riders, the horse and the riders will go down, and on that day I will take you, O Zerubbabel, my servant, son of Shealtiel, make you like a signet ring.” This is one of those things he must have been thinking, “Me?” Because prophecies have a near fulfillment and a far fulfillment, so he’s talking about the good work that Zerubbabel will do, but he’s looking forward to a much greater work. You are the chosen one. A signet ring means you have the sign of the king on your hand. You are my man. You go out with my confidence, my authority. You are my chosen one. And ironically, it was Zerubbabel’s grandfather, Jehoiachin, to whom the Lord said in Jeremiah, “Even if you were a signet ring on my hand, I would pull you off.” So, there’s a bit of family redemption here. When God was punishing them, he said, if King Jehoiachin, even if you were a ring on my hand, I pull you off right now. I’m so angry at your sin. Now he says to his descendant, Zerubbabel, you will be like that promised ring. This word to Zerubbabel is the restating of the Davidic covenant. Think about it. There is no earthly king here in Judah. What is he talking about? They don’t even have the temple rebuilt, and he’s giving this extravagant promise to the governor. It looked to them like the promises to David had failed. Didn’t God say to David and to Solomon, “You will never fail to have a man to sit on the throne.” And here they were without any king in Jerusalem. So God says through Haggai, Zerubbabel, you – but really your descendant – is coming. He will be the chosen servant for the task of rebuilding the temple. And that temple – see when Jesus says, “In three days, I will, I’m going to tear this down and I’m going to rebuild this temple” – he was, kind of like the song we just sang, the true and better Zerubbabel. Now, that’s hard to make a verse with Zerubbabel in there. That’s what he is. He’s the one who comes, just like Zerubbabel was the signet ring to rebuild the temple. Jesus is that chosen one, with the signet ring from his heavenly father to rebuild the temple. Not an earthly temple made with human hands, because God doesn’t ultimately dwell in any earthly building, but to rebuild his people. So you say, I thought we were in Ezra, and we are.

And here we close. Do you see what God used to build this temple? It’s a great sermon. Four points. Look at yourself. Look for my help. Look for my blessing. Look for my chosen one. They might have thought what we really need is we need all of our enemies to go away. What we really need is a king to sit on the throne in Jerusalem once more. That’s what God’s going to do. But he didn’t do that. He gave them his word. People of Christ Covenant, we must be shaped by the Bible. And that means that we do more than just interpret the world around us and the news with the Bible’s conclusions – that’s good, that’s bad, good guys, bad guys. It means that we think more deeply. We look at ourselves and the world and the story we’re inhabiting. And we look at our enemies, our opponents, we look at our past and our future as God understands these things. And this message to reinvigorate them to build the temple was maybe not what they thought they needed to hear, but it was exactly what they needed to hear, to come to grips with their own sin, their own failure, to turn in repentance and to look to the future. People say, “Well, you’re so focused on – you’re so heavenly minded, you’re no earthly good.” And CS Lewis turned that and said, “Well, it’s much easier, actually, to be so little heavenly minded that you’re no earthly good.” He said, I want – if you’re going to make a difference here, you need to look for the one to come. Look for him, listen to him, hear his voice, and get to work.

Hebrews 12: we’ll leave the New Testament to give us the inspired last word, as the writer pulls this prophetic word from Haggai and interprets it for us in terms of Christ and his kingdom. “Yet once more, he has promised, I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens. This phrase ‘yet once more’ indicates the removal of things that are shaken, that is things that have been made, in order that the things cannot be shaken may remain.” Brothers and sisters, live your life for the things that cannot be shaken. Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. Let’s pray.

Father in heaven, we give thanks for your word. Strengthen us. Give us just what we need to hear in whatever moments of prosperity, adversity we face. We ask that you would revive your work among us for Jesus’ sake. Amen.