Consider your ways

 

LIMAVADY INDEPENDENT METHODIST CHURCH

SERMON NOTES SUNDAY 22 OCTOBER 2023 am

HAGGAI CHAPTER 1 VERSES 1 – 7

Haggai is often referred to as the prophet of the temple.  He was born during the 70 years of captivity.  He returned with the people to Israel.  He was not known for his position but his word of rebuke.  The people were neglecting the building of the temple.  They were more interested in building their own houses.  Work on building the temple ceased because of the opposition from the enemy.  That is why Haggai had a rebuking word for his people.  It was a word to inspire them, to get them back to the work.  On 2 separate occasions in this chapter the Lord said “consider your ways”.  God’s people were still in a desperate condition even though God had freed them from the land of slavery.  They were asked to give careful consideration and thought to their ways.  This word of rebuke was for the people’s benefit.  It would not ruin them but would save them from living a life of waywardness.  God wanted them to follow him in his ways not their own ways.

 

Firstly we see the people were called on to consider their priorities.  Verse 2 “Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the Lord’s house should be built.”  It is hard to imagine a people still living in the state of rebellion.  God in his mercy had set the captives free from bondage.  That exile was brought on them because of backsliding.  They were not worshipping the true God but the false gods of Babylon.  God could not look on their rebellion from him.  After 70 years of captivity God brought them back into their own land.  God expected things to be different in their outlook towards him and his commandments.  Sadly that was not the case.  Their outlook was for the self only and no-one else.  The first thing the Lord wanted the people to do was to work for him.  God wanted them to immediately redeem the time by working for him and rebuilding the temple.  The people were using time as an excuse.  “The time has not come for the Lord’s house to be built.”  God was asking his own chosen people to do a work for him but they were making an excuse.  The reason why – they didn’t want to do the work God was asking them to do.  Has the Lord been asking you to do a work for him but maybe you have been making an excuse?  What is your excuse?  Perhaps if examined you would discover it was just an unwillingness to do a work the Lord wants you to do?  Billy Sunday “an excuse is the skin of a reason stuffed with a lie.”  As far as the people were concerned the time had not come for the people to work but the time hadn’t come for the people also to worship.  As far as they were concerned that is why the Lord wanted them to rebuild the temple.  Not for the purpose of living, he simply wanted it rebuilt for the purpose of worshipping him.  As far as the people were concerned the time was not ready for the work to be completed for the worship to begin, for the time that the Lord’s house should be built.  The people had no regard for the Lord and what he wanted.  They had no grounds to make any excuse because the Lord freed them from the land of captivity and commissioned them to return to their own land for that very purpose.  They were not going to avail of the great access God had given them to worship him.  The temple was the only place where the people could worship him by offering their sacrifices.  Without the reconstruction they would not have access to the Lord.  They wouldn’t avail of the opportunity to worship the Lord.  Do we avail of this great access the Lord has granted to us today?  Are we a worshipping people?  Do we uplift and magnify the name of our Lord?  Do we spend much time in the secret place thanking him for all he has done for us and seeking his face?  Surely we cannot make any excuses.  We need to spend much time in prayer seeking the Lord.  Devoted time to God.  We cannot say the time hasn’t come.  Paul in Ephesians 6 verses 18 said “praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.”  The Children of Israel had to work for their access and communion with God.  They had to build the temple.  The Lord Jesus Christ has done the work for our access and communion.  We go by the direction of his temple, his body upon the cross of Calvary and the raising of it 3 days later.  Without the destruction of the Saviour’s temple on the cross in his body there would be no communion with God today.  Many professing believers neglect this wonderful privilege of communion with God wrought for them on the cross of Calvary.  A word of challenge for the unbeliever today – “the time hasn’t come” you often hear them say.  They willingly believe the lies of the devil and say “the time hasn’t come for me to get saved, I am not ready yet.”  The time has come for you to get saved because we are living in the day of grace.  Are you neglecting and rejecting the source that will give you communion with God?  2 Corinthians 6 verse 2 “behold now is the accepted time, behold now is the day of salvation.”  The communion with God will commence when you avail of his salvation.  The people were called upon to consider their priorities.  We are living in a day when we need to consider our priorities.  Have you considered your priorities today.

 

Secondly, the people were called on to consider their possessions.  Verse 4 “Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses, and this house lie waste?”  The moment the exile was over the people possessed great freedom.  They were able to travel.  They were able to live in houses they had not lived in in Babylon.  It had been a place of dictatorship and slavery but God gave them freedom.  The sad reality was – they were not using that freedom the way God wanted them to use.  They were gratifying their own selfish desires.  They should have built the house of God first then dwelt in their own houses but they did their own thing in their own way.  This is how they responded to God.  How forgetful and unthankful could God’s own people be.  They received from the Lord what they really desired but they were not willing to give anything back to him. Their own houses were full of dwellers while God’s house was empty of it.  They had time to build and dwell in their own houses rather than build and dwell in God’s house.  It reveals their true hearts.  They should have wasted no time in building God’s house when they returned from Babylon.  They should have started to build.  They should have rebuilt the temple and made sure it was ready for the people to worship God in.  The sad reality was they built their own houses first.  It all boiled down to the one fact – they didn’t put God first in their lives.  God had the second place.  Their own dwellings were no ordinary places – notice it refers to them a “cieled houses”.  It suggests they built the kind of houses that kings would build for themselves.  Such was the greed of their own ego.  The ordinary would not do.  They made sure they had extra ordinary.  They made no effort or had no interest in building the house of God.  How grieved the Lord was.  He was very much displeased about their particular attitude towards him.  “Consider your ways.”  Give careful thought to your ways and where they will lead you to.  When I think of this situation I am reminded of Jesus’ own command in Matthew 6 verse 33 “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.”  The people of that time never read or heard those words from the lips of the Messiah but we have it here recorded.  Those principles were however written in their law – Proverbs 3 verses 9 and 10 “Honour the Lord with thy substance and with the firstfruits of all thine increase.  So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.”.  They had no excuse and neither have we.  There is no justification for giving God second place in our lives.  Could it be that you are giving God the second place because mundane things are taking the first place?  He gave his life for our redemption.  Have we given him the first place?  Maybe the Lord is asking us to consider our ways – how are we going to face our Saviour in glory knowing we have given him the second place?  Matthew 22 verse 37 “thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul and with all thy mind.”

 

Thirdly, the people were called to consider their produce.  Verse 6 “Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink; ye clothe you but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.”  This great prophet comes to the most important part of his message.  He points out the results of not considering God, leaving God out of their lives.  Yes they were labouring – sowing and reaping – but there was a poor harvest.  Why?  They were labouring for the meat that perisheth – John 6 verse 27 “Labour not for the meat which perisheth but for that which endureth unto everlasting life which the Son of man shall give unto you; for him hath God the Father sealed.”.  Are we labouring for the Lord in these days?  Or for the meat that perisheth?  When we put God first and labour and sow for him, put God first we will see results that last for all eternity.  Not only for fruitless toil but a life of unsatisfied fruit.  Their appetites were focused on things that could not satisfy.  They had a harvest of things that they thought would satisfy them but they were disappointed.  Only God is the one who can satisfy the hunger and thirst of the heart.  Are you hungry and thirsty?  Disappointed and unsatisfied?  Only the Lord can satisfy the hunger and thirst.  They were also depending on futile defences.  The defences they thought would do the job didn’t.  They were clothed with clothes that were warm but they were cold when the weather changed and the storm raged.  Then they would have known the weather of their material.  There are many lives depending on pointless defences.  They worked well when life was going well but when the storms came their defences became defective.  When the disciples faced the raging storm on Galilee their defence was not the boat but the master who was on the boat with them.    It important that we have the right source in our lives that will not change in the changing circumstances of life.  The Lord is the greatest defence an individual can have.  The thought of facing an uncertain age without the Saviour is fearful indeed.  Make sure you anchor your soul on the haven of rest.  They were also living a life of fleeting riches.  Verse 6 “he that earneth wages earneth wages to put into a bag with holes.”  Because they refused to put God first they might as well have put their wealth into a wallet with holes.  The earnings were coming but going out as quickly as they came in.  They realised their earthly riches are fleeting, eternal riches are lasting.  Mark 8 verse 36 “For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”  It is time to consider your ways.  Are they ways that are truly profitable?  Will they end well?  May we consider our priorities, our possessions and our produce.  May we avail of the communion with God provided for us.  Give the Lord first place not second.  Considering out ways in this life will lead to more splendid ways in the next life.  O that they were wise, that they understand this.  That they would consider their latter end.  May we all consider Christ today and when we consider him in all his fulness then we will consider our ways.