Reproaches and Tribulations (Hebrews 10:32-34)

Good morning, good to see each one of you today. We're going to open our Bibles up this morning once again to Haggai in the Old Testament, the minor prophet who had a major message for his people. And we're also going to be going back to Ezra for a little bit of background work.

So you might just mark your place in Ezra as well. And before we do, let's commit our time to our Lord and ask his blessing on our study this morning. Our Father, we do thank you for the great privilege that we have to be able to gather together in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to have this freedom and privilege to be able to open your word and fellowship together.

We ask your blessing on it now. Pray that you would accomplish every divine purpose that you have through your word, by your spirit, and we just pray that you would be glorified in it. And we just ask it in Jesus' mighty name, amen.

Well, just a few minutes of review, if you remember, and if you weren't here last time and you didn't get any notes, there are some back there and there was a couple out front. If you need a set of notes, I think there might still be a couple of sets back there on the countertop, but to help yourself to those.

But we saw last time, as we looked at 2 Chronicles 36, the background for the captivity of Judah the southern kingdom. And we saw that God had a very good reason for bringing them into captivity after a long and extended period of rebellion and idolatry on the part of the people and the priesthood and the false prophets and even a series of wicked evil kings.

And you remember that repeated statement that we saw in 2 Chronicles 36 of the king, and then it says he did evil in the sight of the Lord. And that was just repeated with each one of them. And ultimately it ended in the captivity in Babylon.

Jeremiah 5, 30 and 31 says this, and this is early on in Jeremiah's prophecy. Chapter 5, God says through Jeremiah, an appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land. The prophets prophesy falsely and the priests rule at their direction.

In other words, they're ruling on their own authority. They're not ruling on the authority of God. My people love to have it so. So there's a comprehensive sin involved. And then it says, but what will you do when the end comes?

Virtually every place you look in Scripture, particularly in the Old Testament, and you find a condemnation of false prophets, false teachers, sinful kings, somewhere in that context you're going to find a statement of their end or their judgment.

And all the way through the prophets are, particularly Jeremiah, as we saw, he's just for 23 years, he's just hammering away at their sin, calling them to repentance, calling them to turn from their sin and return to the Lord.

But they refused to do it and were taken into captivity for 70 years. And then we looked at Ezra's history who recorded the history of this time. And we saw that he mentions even the decree of Cyrus. So 70 years captivity after that was over, the new ruling monarch who would have been Cyrus, the Persian king, ordained that they should come back to their land.

That was prophesied too by Isaiah chapter 44, verse 28 through 45. Absolutely fascinating. 170 years before Cyrus was even born, Isaiah the prophet prophesied that he would be born. He even names him Cyrus.

And God in that passage even calls him my servant, though you do not know me. A pagan king is going to be used by God to release the captives from Babylon so they can go back to Judah to rebuild the temple.

And then after they're there, after over a year it took them to begin to build the temple, which was why they came back in the first place, they stalled, they stopped. They got the foundation laid and then they stopped.

And God had to use Haggai to confront them in their sin, to motivate them to begin to rebuild the temple again, get back to work. And we saw that last time in the first chapter, verses 1 through 15. And they actually responded positively and went back to work.

And it says in that statement and down in verse 12, they obeyed the voice of the Lord, their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, which is the same thing, as the Lord their God had sent him and the people feared the Lord.

And then it says they returned to work and they worked on the house of the Lord of hosts, their God. So brief review there from what we saw last time. Do you have any questions or comments or anything from what we saw?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do I have to?

Yeah.

Yeah.

2 Timothy. Yeah. 2 Timothy 4. We get obsessed with that guy, you know. And what this guy, one person is teaching and he's, yes, he's a false teacher. And when you're shopping for your groceries, you know, he's staring at you from a bookshelf, you know, with a big grin on his face.

And yet, like you say, he's not the story. It's 30 ,000 people that go into that arena every Sunday, willingly listening to that. And not only that, but what about online now? We're in the information age and you can access these things from all over the world.

So it could be millions of people following one guy. And so the question always is, who attracted who?

Yeah.

Remember, Aaron made the golden calf, why? They wanted him to. We don't want Yahweh anymore. We want another God. And he said, give me your gold. And they gave him the gold, they gave him a false God.

So yeah, it's pretty sad. Okay. Anybody else have any comment or question you might have?

Okay.

Good.

Well, I got some questions for you. Page six.

All right.

I think we can do this. We're a pretty big group here. But number one on page six. How would you characterize the Jewish exiles' life priorities and their attitude toward rebuilding the second temple, which represented the presence of Yahweh?

This was one of the reasons it was so important. This was where Yahweh dwelt. This was the place of worship and it was also the central point of their lives, you know, their civil life, their religious life, and so on.

How would you characterize their priorities and their attitudes?

Anybody?

Come on now, help a brother out here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Misplaced priorities. He calls them out on that. You say it's not time, but that's why they came back.

Yeah.

That's right. And misplaced priorities, but all of those are good things. We need homes. We need work.

We need to...

They need it.

They need food.

We need to plant crops. We need to have things that sustain our lives, and yet it's an issue of priorities.

Anybody else?

Come on.

Okay.

Number two.

God calls the exiles to consider your ways. And I think I mentioned last time, the actual, the word for heart is in that statement. Think deeply about how you are living. He calls them to do that several times, and then he details the lack of blessing in their lives.

Can you make application to our day and national situation, Brian just did, or at a more individual and personal level? Right now, you're all thinking of about a dozen different examples, I know. And it's true.

I mean, you can just kind of go down the list and check off some of these things, and even in our big, broad, evangelical, the big tent.

Yes.

Yeah.

And by the grace of God, he's calling them to do that. What happened to the Canaanites? These people sinned exactly like the Canaanites did. In fact, they chased after the same false gods. But these are his chosen people.

There's something much bigger going on here, and one of them is the preservation of the seed line. We talked about that last time a little bit. We're going to talk about it more in the future. But yeah, they were forgetful of God's blessings.

They were even forgetful that they had just come out of 70 years in captivity for violating the Mosaic Covenant over and over again.

Peter.

Oh, yes. I will.

Okay.

Number three. Since he details the poor crops that they had, they had some crops. They just didn't have an abundance of blessing like they should have had back in their land. Who or what is in charge of the climate of this planet?

Vote for one. The EPA, Greta Thunberg, or God? Well, I had my choice. I thought of that, but he's kind of passe, you know. I think he's retired. But yeah, God is in charge and Greta is not. Something about being scolded by a 14-year-old.

Shame on you.

Shame.

Almost as bad as hearing Nancy Pelosi quote Scripture.

But anyway.

Number four. Verses 12 through 15 are a clear example of the scriptural principle that obedience to the Word of God results in blessing, but disobedience to the Word of God results in no blessing, chastening, probably several things you could put in there.

And again, it's not always obliteration by the judgment of God. It's just things are not what they should be or could be. And then five. God's gracious promise that I am with you is manifested in the spiritual motivation of the leadership and the people to return to work on the house of Yahweh of hosts, their God from 14b.

That whole passage is so very positive, but then there's going to be more to come. And then again at the bottom down there from Jeremiah 29, for thus says the Lord, when 70 years are completed for Babylon, some Hebrew scholars say that that little word could be translated at.

Maybe some of your translations have that. At Babylon. If it's at Babylon, it could be talking about the captivity of the people. But if it's for Babylon, maybe it's talking about a 70-year duration of the Neo-Babylonian Empire.

We're going to talk about that a little later too. When that's completed, I will visit you and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

All by the grace of God. By the way, that last statement, make kind of a nice t-shirt if you want to spend the money on one and pull it out of its context. Do you have any other comments or questions on what we saw last time?

Now if you got the t-shirt, forgive me, okay, I'm just kidding, just kidding. Well we're going to be looking at chapter 2 now, verses 1 -9. This is on page 7 in your notes. The God's promise of future glory.

Chapter 2, verse 1. In the seventh month, on the 21st day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet. Speak now to Zerubbabel, the son of Shaltiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to all the remnant of the people, and say, Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory?

How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? It's thought by some that maybe Zerubbabel had actually been in Judah and seen that original temple and then was taken into captivity and now released.

So they've been back at least a couple of years by the time they built the foundation of the temple. If so, he would have been an old guy, right? 70 plus years, probably around 80 plus. But turn to Ezra, and as we saw last time, Ezra wrote the history of this period of time.

Last time we saw the decree by Cyrus and how he even included the release of the sacred vessels of the temple that survived the 70 years. But look at Ezra chapter 3, verse 8. We're going to have a little more background here.

Now, in the second year after their coming to the house of God at Jerusalem, in the second month, Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, and Yeshua, the son of Jehozadak, made a beginning. Together with the rest of their kinsmen, the priests and the Levites, and all who had come to Jerusalem from the captivity, they appointed the Levites from 20 years old and upward to supervise the work of the house of the Lord.

So they got busy, got started on rebuilding the temple after they had been there for a whole year. And then it says down in verse 10, and when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments came forward with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals to praise the Lord according to the directions of David, king of Israel.

So they're even going to use some of the liturgy, the Davidic singing of the songs. And they sang responsibly, praising and giving thanks to the Lord. Now they're going to have a dedication of the foundation of the temple.

And here's from Psalms, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever toward Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.

Great big celebration. All the people would have been there in the town, probably thousands and thousands of people in the priesthood and all the musicians and everything. And then we come to verse 12.

But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers' houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid, though many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people's weeping.

For the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard far away. Get the picture? They have people praising God and shouting, and it's loud, and the music and the instruments and everything.

But you got these old guys, you know, they're crying, they're wailing because they see the foundation. And when they see that, they can tell how big it's going to be. And it's not as big as Solomon's temple.

And so they're wailing and crying, oh, no, that's not a temple. We had a great temple, you know? And this is what God confronts them with back in Haggai. So there's a mix. Some people are saying, wow, this is great, and they're praising God.

But a whole bunch of them are weeping and wailing, the old guys, some of the old people. There's a lesson here for you old people. Well, so this woodcut on the front here. This appeared in a King James version of the Bible in around the 1860s.

They used to put some pretty elaborate illustrations in Bibles, okay? So this one here, artist's rendition of what this could have looked like, right? And so you can't, it's kind of not a good copy here, but the text down there is from the King James, right?

Many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers who were ancient men. Most of your translations probably say old, but this older King James says they're ancient men that had seen the first house when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice, and many shouted for joy.

So it was a real mix. And my question whenever I look at this always, okay, who's this guy up here? Which one is he? You can't really tell, can you? I mean, you can't tell what he's doing. I figure he must be one of the praising guys because he was able to crawl up there.

If he was an ancient guy, I don't know if he'd be up there, but you can't tell what he's doing. Is he wailing because it's not as good as the one we used to have, or is he praising God for the brand new temple?

Hard to tell. But if he is up there howling about how small it is, if I was one of these guys down here pushing a 20-ton stone, I think I might say, hey, grandpa, zip it, okay? These are 20-ton stones, it's big enough.

And he's up there saying, nah, go to the quarry, get some more stones, build it bigger. But that's what happened. There was a mix of praising God and people also complaining, some of the older ones. And the reason was, it says right there, how do you see it now?

Is it not as nothing in your eyes? So some of them were remembering the past glory. It's easy to do, right? I confess, sometimes I think to myself, boy, back in my day, you know, back in my day. Back in my day, life was simple, right?

Back in my day, life was simple.

Men were men, women were women, that's it.

I said it was simple, life was simple. Men were men, some of you are leaning forward like, it's kind of like in Genesis, right? He created them male and female, period, end of story, case closed. And as you have certainly noticed, virtually every assault and attack on what is in the Word of God is Genesis 1 and 2, the created order, right?

Definitions, basic definition of male, female, basic definition of marriage, all of that is prior to the fall, part of the created order. Such as, it is what it is, but it's something we also have to learn to deal with and respond to as believers in Jesus Christ.

So, they remembered the past glory, but they're also now reminded of the present glory. What do you do now, verses 4 through 5? Yet, now, right now, even though some of you are seeing that this is not quite as great and glorious as the prior Solomon's temple, probably the reason was, a lot of scholars say that this was not the full complement of people to come back.

This was, if even every one of them came back, this would still just be the southern kingdom of two tribes. There will come a time when the entire nation will be gathered, every tribe, in their land, led by King Jesus.

So, this is not the full picture of what's going to happen. But he says, yet now, right 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.

Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts. According to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt, my spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. They're called to get back to work.

They're also, in a sense, they are being rebuked for their lack of work, like they were before, but they're also being comforted. They're being comforted by the fact that God is with them, just like they were back in that first chapter.

God is with them, and therefore, they don't need to fear. My spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. They have a command to be strong right now, because you have work to do. The covenant is to be obeyed right now, the same covenant that was made back when he brought them out of Egypt, that promises blessing for obedience and chastening for disobedience.

And also, my comforter is with you now. I'm using a New Testament phrase, okay? My spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. Comforter, of course, that New Testament designation. From the Latin, comforte, with strength, it kind of got transliterated into English, and unfortunately, it kind of got sort of a more of a psychological connotation of comfort,.

You know?

But it means with strength. You musicians understand that little F, right? Forte means strength, and I understand there can be two of them. I even heard from one musician, when I talked to her about it, she said, yeah, there can even be three.

Three fortes, is that right? That's really strong. It means to strengthen. And actually, the Greek word, parakaleo, means to call alongside, to call alongside, to speak to them, to try to change behavior.

So it can have a variety of meanings, right? In other words, you bring somebody alongside to speak to them, it could be to comfort them if they need comfort, but it could also be to just strengthen them, encourage them.

When you see the coach on the sideline call the running back over who just fumbled the ball for the second time, you can't hear what he's saying, but you can tell by his face what he's, he's not comforting that guy, right?

And so on. I always think of, who remembers Billy Martin?

No?

Okay.

Yeah.

Billy Martin, the old New York Yankee manager. Yeah, he would, small guy, but boy, when he went into a fit, he'd go out on the field and he'd be screaming and yelling, you know, you could just tell. And then he'd be kicking dirt on the guy.

That's not comforting, but he called him alongside to say something to him because it can have a range of applications here, but God is telling them, be strong, get to work, I'm with you. And we saw from last time, they feared God, the exact same Hebrew word is used here in verse five, fear not.

Same Hebrew word, to fear God and fear not.

Why?

Because when you fear God, what is there to fear in the world? Nothing, right? Pretty good lesson for us in the time we live, lesson for everybody. So they're reminded of the present glory. They're rebuked for remembering past glory and letting that contribute to stopping their present work, but they're reminded to be strong now because right now God is with them.

They don't need to fear anything when God is with you. And now Haggai is going to reveal what many other prophets have revealed, and that is the future glory. Verse six, for thus says the Lord of hosts, yet once more in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land.

And I will shake all nations so that the treasures of all nations shall come in and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts.

The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place, I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts. None of these things have happened yet, even up to this late date.

This is going to be a time in the future when God gathers his people from all over the world, not just from Babylon, but from all over the world, back to his land that he gave to them in fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant, which promised land, seed, and blessing.

And he is going to do that. And when he begins to do that, he's not just going to shake things locally. There was an earthquake in Haiti, I guess, just yesterday, pretty severe one too. There's earthquakes all over the world all the time.

Seismologists even tell us, you know, because they measure even really tiny ones, there's just hundreds of them happening every day. And I'm guessing maybe a few of you have experienced an earthquake.

Who's experienced an earthquake?

Yeah. Okay.

I grew up in Southern California. I've lived in the South, also lived up in the Bay Area, close to some major faults. And I only felt two earthquakes, and it was minor. They were a distance away. But I'll tell you, it got my attention.

And when that house, the house just went, boom, short, few seconds, but it gets your attention. When God wants to reveal his presence, he shakes the earth. But the future judgment, the future shaking will be much, much bigger.

Exodus 20, verse 18 says,. Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly.

Remember, God gathered the children of Israel at the base of the mountain. He was on the top of the mountain. They were down below. And the basic, very clear, simple lesson was, there's God, he's holy, he's up there.

You're down here, and you're not holy. And he set those barriers. You cannot come up here. And God himself had to create a way for them to come and have fellowship with him, which he did through that covenant.

But he shook the whole mountain. In Psalm 68, Psalm of King David, which talks about God scattering his enemies in future judgment, it even looks back at the event at Mount Sinai. Oh God, he says, when you went out before your people, when you marched through the wilderness, the earth quaked, the heavens poured down rain before God, the one of Sinai, before God, the God of Israel.

And even in his well-known vision in Isaiah chapter 6, when God called him, Isaiah says this. And once again, we have a timestamp. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up.

And the train of his robe filled the temple. And above him stood the seraphim. The seraphim were those angels. Seraph is the Hebrew word to burn. And so the plural ending, em, says these are the burning ones.

And it's thought that they were probably brilliant blazing because of their proximity to the glory of God. And he sees these seraphim hovering around the throne. Each had six wings. With two, he covered his face.

And with two, he covered his feet. And with two, he flew. And one called out to another and said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. And the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of him who called.

And the house was filled with smoke. Even in a vision of God on the throne, he senses this shaking. God is there. And these two phrases in our text, heavens and earth, and sea and dry land, that indicates this is not going to be a local earthquake, okay?

When he's ready to come back, it's going to be universal. He's not only going to shake the earth. He's going to shake the heavens and the earth. He's going to shake the sea and the dry land. And it's going to be cataclysmic.

It'll be a universal earthquake, seaquake, heavenquake. And in verse 7, he's going to shake the nations.

Why?

So that the treasures of all nations shall come in. And I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts. He's making a, yes, we do have the smoke. I'm not sure it's meaning the same thing. But yeah, it's, but yeah, it's, none of this has happened yet.

There's no time that this is, you could actually say, well, it happened here. It's in the past. This is in the future. And it's a look into the future. And it's also a look into the future of the future temple that will exist in Jerusalem on the Temple Mount, Ezekiel's temple.

And he even refers to this house in a way that makes you think he might be talking about this house, like we would think of it, but it's simply my temple he's talking about here. And he's going to move the nations of the earth to return to Jerusalem and bring treasures to the house of God.

Christ will be there ruling as king. The nations will be gathered there back into their land. And it will be in a glorious kingdom that he's speaking of here. The silver is mine. The gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts.

It's said now that I guess China is hoarding gold and have for some time. And they measure it in tonnage, the amount of gold that they have.

All right.

That's just temporary. Okay. That's just a temporary situation. It's going to go back. The people will be bringing the treasures to God and to the house of God and the glory. The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts.

And in this place, I will give peace. Who will bring peace? The prince of peace. We can work for peace and we should. We should pray for peace and work for peace best we can. But there will not be true peace on this planet until the prince of peace comes back.

And then he will impose it on the earth.

Okay.

He will bring peace, declares the Lord of hosts. So he reveals the future glory. The future judgment will be greater, cataclysmic judgment on this planet. The future glory will be greater. The future peace will be greater.

The best peace, the most perfect peace that's ever been on this planet in the history of time can't even compare to the peace that will be in that day, in that time. And it's here, he says. I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts, in this place.

This shaking, which represents God's presence, is even mentioned in Hebrews chapter 12, down at the bottom there. A writer of Hebrews references this and he even references back the former shaking that they all would have understood was at Sinai.

He says, at this time, his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, and here he quotes 2 6, yet once more, I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens. This phrase, yet once more, he says, indicates the removal of things that are shaken, that is, things that have been made, in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.

If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you have a salvation that cannot be shaken. Can't, can't be shaken, it's eternal. And the world may fall apart all around you. We may look at the destruction and the decay of cultures, countries, whatever it might be.

And we might even be saying, back in my day, I remember, okay. And yet, if you're trusting in Christ, you have a salvation that cannot and will not be shaken. The perfect state of things which will exist after the return of Christ from heaven and will undergo no change.

He's talking about the present order of things that right now are subject to decay and to shaking and quaking, and they are. But there will come a time when things will undergo no change because Christ will be back and things will be perfect in his kingdom.

So there we have God's promise of future glory. You have any questions or comments about that?

Yeah.

We live in a decaying universe. What did Paul say in Romans? The whole earth groans, it's groaning and grinding and decaying. It's unstable, it's winding down. After the fall, it began to decay, wind down, volcanoes, earthquakes, and all those things.

And you'd think, hopefully, if anybody knew scripture, they would look and maybe connect the dots and say, well, this is what's going on now. Maybe I should consider my ways as Haggai said, right? But all we can do is warn people like Jeremiah did, share our faith, live our faith, but God has it all in control.

He's the sovereign God of this universe. He's got even the weather under control, not little Greta.

Okay.

Any other thoughts or questions you might have?

Yeah.

Julie, on which page? Oh, yes.

The same audience is exhorted now to be strong three times. And they are reminded of the Mosaic covenant, which obligated them to obedience, but it also promised God's protection and presence. And then since Yahweh's spirit is with them, they do not need to fear.

Fear not. And then in C, the future judgment will be greater, the future glory will be greater, and the future peace will be greater.

Anybody else?

Yeah.

Oh, I'm sorry. She wanted just me to read in the outline B and C to fill in the blanks.

Anybody else?

Okay. Let's pray. Father, thank you that we have been able to spend time in your Word together. Thank you for your grace in each one of our lives. Thank you also for the lessons that we learn and how close to home they really are.

It's with grief that we watch even the decay of our own culture around us. Even the same kinds of people, we see it in leadership. We see it in the religious people who are supposed to be spiritual guides and shepherds.

We see it in false prophets. But we also know, Father, that you have your remnant, you have your people, and we just thank you for that. We also, Father, have your presence, and we have your strength, and we have your promise that if we fear you, we don't need to fear anything or anyone because you are the sovereign Lord of this universe.

So we just thank you for that. Help us to apply these things to our lives, to move ahead, to be busy about your work and doing your work your way. And now, Father, as we gather to worship you, we just pray you would be pleased that you would give strength to all who minister to us and great joy in the ministry.

Pray especially you would just minister to Jim and help him with his voice. Thank you that he's back in the pulpit today, and we pray you would accomplish every divine purpose in Jesus' name. Amen.