Haggais second message to Israel

The full truth of what the Scripture says, I want to trust the Scripture to do that this morning.

Charles Spurgeon said concerning the need for the

Holy Ghost to bless the Word of God, he said, unless the Holy Ghost blesses the Word, we who preach the

Gospel are of all men most miserable, for we have attempted a task that is impossible.

We've entered on a sphere where nothing but the supernatural will ever avail. If the

Holy Spirit does not renew the hearts of our hearers, we cannot do it. If the Holy Ghost does not regenerate them, we cannot.

If He does not send the truth home into their souls, we might as well speak into the ears of a corpse.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, today as we enter into the reading of Your Word, dear

Lord, I would ask that You do something that I just can't, dear

God, that I'm just not able to convey. I pray,

God, that in the hearts and in the minds of the people in this place,

God, that Your Word, not that it needs to be this, but it's already this, but that Your Holy Spirit mixed with faith, dear

God, would bring life into the hearts and the minds of Your people through Your precious and Your holy

Word today. And if there be any who hear, dear God, that are lost, dear

God, that do not know You and the free pardon of sin, that do not know what it is to have the forgiveness of sins and the hope of eternal life, a hope that is beyond this world,

God, that You, in Your grace and Your mercy, might give hearing to the deaf ears, give sight to the eyes that are blind, give life to the spirit that is dead.

Through Your blessed and Your holy name we pray and ask this. For it's in Jesus' name I pray, amen and amen.

In the book of Ezra chapter 6 and in verse 13, this is what the

Bible says. Now, keeping in mind and hopefully that you are remembering where we've been, for the sake of summary,

I'm going to be very brief and very quick about this. God has, as He promised, delivered the children of Israel through the

Babylonian captivity, which they were in because of their sin, but God is faithful. God is sovereign over all things.

He works through means of His providence. And by and through His sovereignty and by means of providence,

He has brought the children of Israel back to Jerusalem. And the children of Israel have the task of rebuilding the broken down temple that had been built some,

I believe it's maybe some 400 years before by King Solomon. And it was destroyed by and through the

Babylonians, Nebuchadnezzar namely. But the Bible teaches us that the

Lord brought the children of Israel to this place and set before them this great task.

A task that was not able to be accomplished in and of their own strength or in and of their own power or in and of their own might, but only by and through His Holy Spirit would this be accomplished.

Now, the scripture says for years they faced much opposition to the point where we are now in the text.

About 18 years had passed since they returned to Jerusalem. Had been troubled on every hand.

But God in His mercy and in His providence, we see in chapter 5 and 6 here that God brought unto the children of Israel, had set in the midst of the children of Israel two prophets, namely

Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the prophet, the son of Edo. And the scriptures teach us, according to the word of God as we read here, verse 14, so the elders of the

Jews built and they prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Edo.

And they built and finished it according to the commandment of the God of Israel and according to the command of Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes, king of Persia.

Now the temple was finished on the third day of the month Adar, which was in the sixth year of the reign of King Darius.

Then the children of Israel, the priests and the Levites, and the rest of the descendants of the captivity celebrated the dedication of this house of God with joy.

Now four years had passed, the Bible tells us here clearly, it was in the sixth year of the reign of King Darius that they finished building, laying the foundation again, the temple of the house of God.

So four years had passed through this work, but the Bible says that this work prospered because of the prophesying and for the sake of simplicity

I'm going to use this term, the preaching of Haggai the prophet and the preaching of Zechariah the son of Edo the prophet.

And so it's important as we stated week before last that all that we do as a body of believers be built and be founded upon the preaching of the word of God.

Now again it's very easy for us to think to ourselves, I wonder what the preaching was like and I'm thankful that we don't have to sit and wonder or contemplate or think about what might have been said.

We have preserved for us in the word of God the very messages that were proclaimed to the children of Israel.

And so if you'll remember week before last, in the book of Haggai, if you would be turning there, in the book of Haggai we looked at Haggai chapter 1, which was the first message that Haggai preached.

Now this message that Haggai preached to the children of Israel was truly, it was a message more of, it was what us preachers will call one of them hard messages to preach.

It was a message of reproof. It was a message of rebuke. It was a message that made the children of Israel realize and understand that their focus was not on the things of God, but that their message or that their focus was on the things of this world.

Their message or their thought process was focused in and on themselves.

And so the message, first message that came through the prophet Haggai was a message of reproof and a rebuke.

It wasn't necessarily a cause for shouting. It wasn't necessarily a cause for rejoicing.

But nevertheless, the thing about it is when God speaks to our hearts and when

God speaks to our minds through His Word, friends, even when we find ourselves in a place like the children of Israel found themselves, in a place of repentance, this chastening always brings forth the peaceable fruit of righteousness.

Now the peaceable fruit of righteousness will yield joy in the life of the

Christian. Amen? The peaceable fruit of righteousness will always yield joy in the life of the

Christian no matter the circumstance that we're in. It will always yield joy. And so this first of four messages that Haggai preaches to the children of Israel, the

Bible says that God moved in, that God stirred up their hearts. If you'll pick up in the latter portion of chapter 1 here in the book of Haggai, Haggai chapter 1, listen to what the 12th verse says.

Then Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua, the son of Jehozaddek, 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 them, and the people feared before the presence of the

Lord. Then Haggai, the Lord's messenger, spoke the Lord's message to the people, saying,

I am with you, says the Lord. Now here it is, there was great reproof, there was great rebuke that came in in the first part of this message, but here

God brings in His word of encouragement to the people of God, and He reminds them, and He says,

I am with you. Verse 14, so the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua, the son of Jehozaddek, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of all the people, and they came and worked on the house of the

Lord their God of hosts on the twenty -fourth day of the sixth month in the second year of King Darius.

So here right at the beginning of this four -year time span that they worked on the house of God, remember what sparked and what initiated their revival, what sparked and initiated their response, what sparked and initiated and drove their desire to build the house of God was that the spirit of God had moved into their hearts, and it came through the preaching of God's men.

It came through the preaching of God's men, and so they were stirred up to act, they were stirred to move, they were stirred to work for the

Lord. And then the Bible says in the second chapter, verse 1, we see here this second message of the prophet

Haggai, and this is what our focus is going to be this morning, this second message from the prophet

Haggai, this second message that Haggai preached was a message of great encouragement and hope to the children of Israel.

It was a message that spurred them on even further, that gave them a greater desire and a greater, if you would, a hunger and a thirst to do and to live according to the words of God Almighty.

And the Bible says this, In the seventh month, on the twenty -first day of the month, the word of the

Lord came by Haggai the prophet, saying, Speak now to Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, saying,

And this is what he said, Who is left among you who saw this temple in its former glory?

And how do you see it now? In comparison with it, is this not in your eyes as nothing?

Again, I know it's a stretch, but I want to encourage you this week to look back in the book of Ezra.

I believe it's in the fourth chapter. You'll read, you'll find that the word of God tells us that as they began to construct the altar of sacrifice, which was just up here just a moment ago, they constructed the altar.

That was the first thing that they set to building, because we need an altar. Praise God, we need an altar.

And they set to build the altar. And so the Bible says that the younger generation rejoiced over the building of the altar, and the older generation wept loudly, so much so that you couldn't tell the voice of weeping or the voice of mourning for the voice of joy.

There was such a great mixture of this going on. Now, in here, we see within the context of what went on there, we hear from this as a second witness to what we read in the book of Ezra, that this truly was an issue.

That the older folks, the old folks, many who had seen 70 years before, who had seen the temple of Solomon that had been built, they saw it in its magnificence.

They saw it in its glory. They saw it in all its splendor. And here they are, returning back to Jerusalem to a rubble heap, to something that was nothing but a pile of ash and a pile of stone, and thinking to themselves, as is natural to think, how in the world is this ever going to compare?

Listen, God does not give unto His people an unreasonable expectation.

He always sets things before us in a way that is realistic and true.

And the message of the prophet Haggai was this, to the older folks that had come up through the

Babylonian captivity, how do you see this? He said, is not this in your eyes as nothing?

He said, I know your heart, I know your mind, I know what you're thinking. This doesn't seem like it's ever going to be anything.

But what we need to understand, the big, broad picture in this text, this passage, this text of Scripture and what we're looking at today, is this, that what we see happen in the

Old Testament is a picture and a type of what God is ultimately going to do in the eternal state when we get there.

Meaning this, that we do not have hope only in this life. Paul said concerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ, if in this life only we have hope, we are of all men most miserable.

And friend, concerning in the context of the children of Israel, if the only hope that the children of Israel had was in a physical building that they could dwell in and do something to in their hands, if that was the only hope they had, the hope they had was a very small hope.

Because if it had been destroyed once before, it can be destroyed again. And if you read the

New Testament, you'll find that it was destroyed once again in the year AD 70 thereabout.

It was destroyed again. But what God is speaking to as we move through this text and as we look at our cross -references here in just a second, you're going to see this, that the hope that Haggai is preaching to the people of God is no different than the hope that should be preached today.

That our hope is not in this life. Our hope is in the life to come. And that God has a better home prepared for His people.

God has a better place prepared for us as His saints.

And God is the builder and the maker of that place. It will not be built and it will not be made with the hands of any man.

Going on in this text, He said this, Verse 4, Yet now be strong,

Zerubbabel, says the Lord. And be strong,

Joshua, the son of Jehozadek, the high priest. And be strong, all you people of the land, says the

Lord. Remember this. This is the pattern. He's speaking all the way from the higher ups to the lowest of the crowd.

He says, Zerubbabel, you're the magistrates. Be encouraged. He says,

Joshua, you're the high priest. Be encouraged. All the people, be encouraged.

And this is what the word of the Lord said. This is what says the Lord. And He said,

Work, for I am with you. His message to the children of Israel was not,

Sit on your hands and wait for something good to happen. His message to the children of Israel was,

Get up. Remember in the first message that He preached, He said, Many of you are saying it's not time that the house of the

Lord should be built. It's not time for us to do this. Certainly if it was time, things would be easier.

We've not been promised an easy road. We've not been promised an easy path. We have been promised this though,

That God said, I will never leave you and I will never forsake you. And so this message of hope was the same to the children of Israel.

And it is the same. This is a timeless principle that is carried throughout time. That God has never left

His people helpless or hopeless. So yet now be strong,

Sir Abbable Joshua. All the people, says the Lord, and work. For I am with you.

How can we not be anything but encouraged when we realize that the

Lord is with us? That He is with us through the thick. That He is with us through the thin.

And then He said this, Work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts. According to the word that I covenanted with you.

Now this is God giving affirmation of something that He had told them.

And their people years and years and years before. According to the word that I have covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt.

He said, remember all the way back. When your family members were in Egypt's bondage.

But I sent, God said, I sent my deliverer. Moses came on obedience to the word of God.

The children of Israel were led out of Egypt's bondage through the

Red Sea. Does anybody remember that? That's what He says, remember that. I am that God.

Micah says, Micah the Lord says, I am the Lord and I change not.

He is the same. He has always been sovereign.

There never has been a time where He began to be sovereign. And there will never be a time when

He ceases to be sovereign. From before foundations of the earth to after the foundations are burned up and destroyed.

And the new heaven and the new earth come. According to the word of God. He is sovereign.

And so shall He ever be. So He said, for I am with you. According to that word, based upon what

I promised you. Based upon the covenant that I made with you. Know this.

That the covenant that God makes with His people is a unilateral one way covenant.

Listen, you don't have to buy into the covenant for God's word to be what it is. It is true.

It is what it is. Let's not skip this part.

He said, My spirit remains among you. Do not fear. How comforting is that?

My spirit remains among you. As an evidence of the preaching of the word.

Listen, for the time that they were in Babylonian captivity. The majority of that time. They did not have the prophets there with them.

They had some false prophets among them. But friend, can I say this? I believe that you can tell a difference between a false prophet and a true prophet.

And you can tell that according to the word of God. Is what the prophet says, does what the prophet says line up 100 % with the word of God?

If not, then he is a false prophet. Now, prophet in the sense of this

Old Testament term we do not have today, just by the way. We do not have prophets in that sense.

Because God, the Bible says in Peter's epistle. That God spoke through holy men of old as they were moved by the

Holy Ghost. Haggai was preaching under the spirit and the power of God.

And telling these people the direct word from God at this time. Hallelujah, guess what?

We've got the direct word of God. Inscripturated for us in the pages of the

Holy Bible. God is not going to give us a new word. We don't need a new word. We couldn't handle a new word if we got it.

We've got all we can handle right here. But the prophet said, my spirit remains among you.

Do not fear. For thus says the Lord of hosts. Now this is very important. And this is, as we move through this last little bit of this passage right here.

We are going to start moving into our cross references. For thus says the Lord of hosts.

Once more, it is a little while. I will shake heaven and the earth.

The sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations. And they shall come to the desire of all nations.

And I will fill this temple with glory. Says the Lord of hosts.

The silver is mine and the gold is mine. Says the Lord of hosts.

The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former.

Says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace. Says the

Lord of hosts. That's Jehovah. That's all capitalized

Lord. That's Jehovah. That's Yahweh. That's the eternal self -existent one.

That's saying I will. I will. I will. It must be the work of God or it will come to nothing.

He said this. Once more, a little while. And I will shake the heaven and the earth. The sea and the dry land.

And I will shake all nations. And they shall come to the desire of nations. And then He said, I will fill this temple with glory.

Says the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine and the gold is mine. We see the sovereignty of God.

We hear as we read earlier there in the text of Ezra. How the Lord was mentioned as being the initiator in the beginning of the work.

Of how He brought the children of Israel out of Babylonian captivity. And then we see

Cyrus' name. We see Darius' name. We see Artaxerxes' name.

Friends, what they were. They were what God used to work by means of His providence.

To perform His will on this earth. That was God working through means of providence in them.

So He says the gold and the silver are mine. What we read back in Ezra again.

Just to refer back to that. We see how Cyrus had commanded that everything that the children of Israel would need was going to be provided by the people of the land.

If they need gold. If they need silver. If they need wood. Whatever they need. Let it be given unto them.

And that was at the command of God Almighty. But He said this in verse 9.

The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former. Remember the question

He asked them. He asked the old folks. He said, what do you think about what's going on?

What does this temple look like? Do you think it's going to compare at all to the temple that Solomon had built 400 years beforehand?

And He said, I know it's nothing as in your eyes. But He's saying, do not consider the things of the earth.

Consider what God is doing eternally. And as we see this, if you would, turn over to the book of Hebrews.

No, actually, let's do this. Let's go back to 2 Chronicles first. 2

Chronicles. And by way of reference and by way of trying for us to put ourselves in a frame of mind to picture just what the temple must have.

How the old folks that He's addressing says, is this temple in your eyes not as nothing because they had seen the splendor and they had seen the glory.

And what you see playing behind us this whole time is a 3D demonstration of what

Solomon's temple likely looked at. But as you look at that and as that's playing, we're going to read to you from 2

Chronicles chapter 3 here. And this is a pretty good rendering, but this is in my mind.

I wanted to get something like this because in my mind I could see this as I began to read it.

The Holy Spirit just brings to life the reality and the majesty and the splendor and the glory of what that temple was like.

And why it was such a hard thing for those who had lived and seen the temple in its former glory, for them to look at what was being built in this new temple and to think to themselves, this is not going to be in comparison at all.

Now listen, 2 Chronicles chapter 3 verse 1, Solomon began to build the house of the

Lord at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David at the place that David had prepared on the threshing floor of Ornon, the

Jebusite. And he began to build on the second day of the second month in the fourth year of his reign.

This is Solomon. And he said this, This is the foundation which Solomon laid for the building of the house of God.

The length was 60 cubits by cubits according to the former measure and the width 20 cubits.

Cubits, it's debated, it could be anywhere from 18 inches to 20 .34

inches, something to that effect. But 18 inches is about a foot and a half. So he said this,

And the vestibule that was in the front of the sanctuary was 20 cubits long across the width of the house, and the height was 120 cubits.

I don't know if preachers are supposed to get calculators out while they're preaching, but I want to, just to give you an idea of what's going on here, 20 cubits by 1 .5

feet is 30 feet. So the width was 30 feet, the vestibule that was in front of the sanctuary was 20 cubits long across the width of the house, and the height was 120 cubits.

120 cubits is 180 feet high. That was a big, tall place.

The Bible goes on to say this, The height was 120. He overlaid the inside with pure gold.

The larger room he paneled with cypress, which he overlaid with fine gold, and he carved palm trees and chain work on it.

And he decorated the house with precious stones for beauty, and the gold was gold from Parvam.

He overlaid the house, the beams and the door posts, its walls and its doors with gold, and he carved cherubims on the walls.

He made the most holy place. Its length was, according to the width of the house, 20 cubits, and its width, 20 cubits.

He overlaid it with 600 talents of fine gold. The weight of the nails was 50 shekels of gold, and he overlaid the upper area with gold.

In the most holy place, he made two cherubim, fashioned by carving, and overlaid them with gold.

The wings of the cherubim were 20 cubits in overall length. One wing of the cherub was 5 cubits, touching the wall of the room, and the other wing was 5 cubits, touching the wing of the other cherub.

One wing of the other cherub was 5 cubits, touching the wall of the room, and the other wing also was 5 cubits, touching the wing of the other cherub.

These wings of these cherubims spanned 20 cubits overall. They stood on their feet, and they faced inward.

And he made the veil of blue, purple, crimson, fine linen, and woven cherubim into it."

Now the holy place, the holy of holies, this is where the

Ark of the Covenant was kept. This is where that once a year the high priest would go beyond this veil that the

Scriptures tell us was made, the priest would go beyond the veil with the blood for the sacrifice of the people, and he would sprinkle it all upon the mercy seat, the winged cherubim that was built on top of the ark, and atonement was made for the people of Israel once for that year.

And this was a repeated practice that was carried on. So you see why the building was so important to the people?

Because to the people, this building itself represented the presence and the power of God on this earth.

This was necessary for a time, and we're going to see this. He also made, verse 15, in the front of the temple two pillars, thirty -five cubits high, fifty -two and a half feet high, and the capital that was on top of each, the decorative ornamentation that was on top of each of them was five cubits, seven and a half feet high thereabout.

He made wreaths of chain work as in the inner sanctuary, and he put them on top of the pillars, and he made one hundred pomegranates and put them on the wreaths of the chain work, then he set up the pillars before the temple, one on the right hand and the other on the left.

He called the name of the one on the right hand, Jacob, and the name of the one on the left,

Boaz, which the meanings of those names, the one temple on the right that he named

Jacob literally means he shall establish. Now there was no question who he is.

He is speaking of the Lord Almighty, and on the one that he named Boaz, the one on the left, the name

Boaz means in it is strength. So in it, in the temple,

God shall establish his strength. And it's beautiful when we consider this.

If you read chapter four, you'll see how he made the bronze altar, the twenty cubits, there was so much that went on there in that.

But notice in chapter five here of 2 Chronicles, just moving forward as quickly as we can here.

Chapter five of 2 Chronicles, remembering that this temple was made in its primary function and its primary purpose was not just that it was to be a beautiful outwardly and decorated ornamentally and to be a wonder for all people to look at.

But its primary focus and function was the house, the ark of the covenant, the very place where the sacrifices of God was made for the people of God.

And so in this holy of holies, from wall to wall, being, you see, the cherubim, this representation of the cherubim,

Kenny was gracious enough this morning, basically the holy of holies, where the ark of the covenant was kept, was from about right here to where I am, straight back to where Tommy is and all the way over.

Now, if you can imagine this space and that those two cherubim that were built, the giant ones with the wings that stretched out, one touched this wall, one reached halfway over to touch this wall, and the one on this side was set thusly like this so that their wings touched one another.

And in the midst, right in the middle of this holy of holies was the ark of the covenant, where once a year the priest would go in to make atonement for the sins of Israel.

Now, you wonder why after just this light reading of the description of the temple, you wonder why the old folks that had seen the glory of the former temple were having such a hard time imagining how in the world would this ever compare.

But God is not about trying to get us to understand the things in the here and the now.

He wants us to look at the things which are not seen. For that which is seen is temporary, but the things that God does are eternal.

What are you looking at today personally? Let's cross this over and make a personal application.

Are you only looking at the things of this world? Are you only thinking about the things of your flesh and how you can get ahead and how you can do this and how you can do that?

But rather, how can I glorify my God who loved me and gave himself for me?

Friends, our hope is better than what we have in the here and the now.

God's blessed our family with good things. But friend, it is nothing compared with what shall be revealed unto them that love him.

Praise the Lord. So let's move forward here. So very quickly, in chapter 5 here of 2

Chronicles, all the work that Solomon had done for the house of the Lord was finished. And because going through all this scripture, listen, we are going somewhere.

It may not end up exactly where I want it to, but I believe as long as we're following the Lord in this text, it'll accomplish

His purpose. So I'm just going to stick with this. Solomon assembled the elders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes, the chief of the fathers of the children of Israel in Jerusalem, that they might bring the ark of the covenant of the

Lord from the city of David, which is Zion. Remember these terms that I'm reading to you, which is

Zion. Therefore, all the men of Israel assembled with the king at the feast, which was in the seventh month.

So all the elders of Israel came and the Levites took up the ark. See this great processional that's taking place.

They're taking up the ark. Then they brought up the ark, the tabernacle of the meeting and all the holy furnishings that were in the tabernacle.

They had a temporary tabernacle before this that God told them to set up and take down at will, at His will, at His behest.

And now God has provided for the children of Israel something that seems a little bit more stable, something that seems a little bit more steadfast, something that gives them a little bit of hope and encouragement in the natural building of the temple.

But we see God said, take those things that were from the temporary tabernacle, bring them to this temple that has been built.

Then the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place, into the inner sanctuary of the temple, to the most holy place.

They bring the ark into the holy of holies, under the wings of the cherubim, for the cherubs spread their wings over the place of the ark and the cherubim overshadowed the ark and its poles.

The poles extended so that the ends of the poles of the ark could be seen from the holy place, which was the entranceway into the holy of holies, the great hall that you see here.

This was the holy place. And beyond the veil, that was the holy of holies.

And the Bible goes on in verse 10, nothing was in the ark except the two tablets, which Moses put there at Horeb, which the

Lord made a covenant with the children of Israel when they come to Egypt. And it came to pass when the priests came out of the most holy place, for all the priests who were present had sanctified themselves and the

Levites, who were the singers, all those of Asaph and Heman and Jeduth and their sons and their brethren stood at the east end of the altar, clothed in white linen, having cymbals, stringed instruments and harps, and with them 120 priests sounding with trumpets.

Can you imagine the sound that was going out that day? Can you imagine the celebration that was taking place this day?

And the Bible says, indeed, it came to pass when the trumpeters and the singers were as one to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the

Lord. And when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music and praised the

Lord saying, he is good for his mercy endures forever.

There was a great celebration that took place at the dedication of Solomon's temple when it was built.

And the Bible says, and the house of the Lord was filled with a cloud so that the priests could not continue ministering because of the cloud, for the glory of the

Lord filled the house of God. The power of God had came so great on this place that the priests, they could no longer do their work, that the

Levites could no longer sing. All they could do was be there in the presence and recognize that it was the glory of God that was moving in on this place.

And this was all in the natural. But remember what the Lord said through Haggai's message.

He said, yet once more, I will shake heaven and the earth.

There is coming, if we jump over to the New Testament, to the book of Hebrews, and we're almost done, to the book of Hebrews chapter 12.

But it's important that we look at this because remember, the word of God never contradicts itself.

And by having the word of God as two or three witnesses, letting every word be established, we can find comfort and consolation and hope and strength and joy to keep on keeping on for the

Lord. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 18, the writer of Hebrews is writing to Hebrew Christians who have believed by faith in Jesus Christ, encouraging them, reminding them throughout the book of Hebrews about what

God had done in the Old Testament and that all that God had set up in the Old Testament from the tabernacle to the sacrifices to the temple, to the practices that went on throughout time until Jesus came.

He's reminding them that these are times and these are shadows of the best thing that is to come.

That is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And so here in this 12th chapter, in the 18th verse, the writer of the

New Testament begins to remind his readers that what we have now in Jesus Christ is not obsolete, but what the

Old Testament showed us and the types and the signs and the practices they were necessary so that we could truly understand what it was that Jesus was doing when he came.

And he says here, verse 18, You have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire and to blackness and darkness and tempest and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore, for they could not endure what was commanded.

And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.

And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.

You see, in the Old Testament, under the law of God, when God gave the law, the children of Israel were at the foot of Mount Sinai, where God gave his holy law inscribed by his hand on stones of tablet to Moses to carry down to the people of God.

And God said, you are not even to come. Nobody else is to come near unto this mountain.

And if anybody comes near to this mountain, they'll be shot through with an arrow or with a bolt of lightning because around Mount Sinai, all there was was smoke and thunder.

The holiness of God had set in on that place and nobody can approach unto

God. It is truly no different today. None of us can rightly approach unto

God, except it be through the person of Jesus Christ. Now, again, we're still considering that Haggai is preaching a message of future hope to the people of Israel.

And this is the reality for us today, the beauty that we have in having the word of God. He says, you've not come to this mountain, but you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living

God, the heavenly Jerusalem. And it's almost as like if you've ever looked at Google Earth.

How many of you ever looked at Google Earth? How many of you all, just for the fun of it, just like to keep hitting the plus button where you go from outer space, you zoom down a level, you zoom down a level, you zoom down a level, you zoom down a level.

This is to me, in my simple mind, this is what the writer here does. He says, listen, you've come to Mount Zion.

We've got to have you to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem.

And then he zooms down. You begin to see what's going on there to an innumerable company of angels.

And then he zooms down a little further to the General Assembly and the Church of the

Firstborn who are registered in heaven to the sites of the living

God. He said this is where actual worship takes place to the

General Assembly and the Church of the Firstborn who are registered in heaven to the

God. Zoom down to the middle of it all to God, the judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, to the mediator of the new covenant and to the sprinkling of blood, to the sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.

And then listen in verse 25, what he says, see that you do not refuse him who speaks.

For if they did not escape who refused him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from him who speaks from heaven.

Verse 26, whose voice then shook the earth.

But now what the writer is doing here in Hebrews, he's quoting

Haggai. He's quoting Haggai and he says, but now yet once more

I shake not only the earth, but also heaven. Now, this yet once more, this term yet once more indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken.

The natural, the earthly, the temporal, the temple was built and it was broken.

It was built again and it was broken. But my friend, what God gives to his people is not a temple that can be built and be broken again and again and again.

But it is everlasting and everlasting and everlasting. He says, but the removal of those things that is being shaken is of things that are made that the things which cannot be shaken may remain the eternal things of God.

Therefore, he says, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace by which we may serve

God acceptably. Oh, the writer of Romans, Paul, the writer of Romans said this in Romans chapter 12, verse one,

I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto

God, which is your reasonable service, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace by which we may serve

God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire.

And so I hope, because I'm not going to try to go back and rehash,

I hope that you get just a little bitty glimpse of the continuity that we have in the word of God, that you have just a little bitty glimpse of the of the sovereignty of God, how that God from even before the beginning as we know it, saw the end as he describes it to us, but that he is in absolute control of all things and that as his people, we have a privilege of reading his word.

We have the privilege of hearing his word preached and that we can gain hope from that.

That is why we gather here. So let me say this. Last of all, the book of Revelation, the book of Revelation, chapter 21, because remember, we know of a truth because it is in the word of God that the temple of Solomon, that the sanctuary, that the tabernacle of God went from a temporary location to temporary location until the time that God saw fit that the earthly temple should be built with stones, a beautiful place.

But God, in his sovereignty, allowed the wickedness and the evil of men and the through the wickedness of their hearts to tear down that temple.

And God, by his sovereignty and through means of providence, put his children in captivity as a punishment for their sins, but brought them through it and then allowed them once again to rebuild and to get hope, what hope that we can have in this life, but to point them toward a better hope, the hope of eternal life, the hope of eternal worship, the hope of the finished work that Jesus Christ, his only begotten son, provided for his people.

And so our great hope is this, not in the temples of this world, but our great hope is that one day, according to the word of God, that after the earth is burnt up with a fervent heat, and even the elements themselves that make up this earth, if you're a science nerd, even those elements are going to be destroyed and burnt up.

There's going to be nothing. And God is going to make the new heaven and the new earth.

And this is what the word of God says. The Lord allowed John to see this. Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.

Also, there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, new

Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying,

Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men and he will dwell with them and they shall be his people.

God himself will be with them and be their God, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

There shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain for the former things have passed away.

Then he who sat on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said to me,

Right, for these are faithful. These words are true and faithful.

And he said to me, It is done. The work of providing propitiation for our sins was completed by Christ on the cross.

And what did Christ say? It is finished. God began in the beginning.

God created the heavens and the earth, and as time has gone,

God destroyed the earth once by water, promised never to destroy the earth by water again.

But he has promised that he will destroy the earth by fire one day at his leisure.

But what we have here, this final word, is that when he makes the new heaven and the new earth, he said it is done.

There's not going to be any more sin. There's not going to be sorrow.

And he said to me, It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts.

He who overcomes shall inherit all things and I will be his God and he shall be my son.

But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

Chapter 22, verse 1, And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the

Lamb. In the middle of its street and on either side of the river was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, every tree yielding its fruit every month.

The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations, and there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and the

Lamb shall be in it and his servants shall serve him.

They shall see his face and his name shall be on their foreheads and there shall be no night there.

They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light and they shall reign forever.

Then he said to me, These words are faithful and true. And the

Lord God of the holy prophets sends his angel to show his servants the things which must shortly take place.

Behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is he who keeps the words of this prophecy of this book.