Haggai 2:1-9 (Unveiled Glory)

Introduction

Have you ever started a project that went sideways shortly after step 1 or 2? Have you ever set out to accomplish a task that only seemed more embarrassing and frustrating as you went?

Most of us can probably testify.

I remember (not quite 20 years ago now) when Cass and I had a little extra cash in our bank account. I decided I was going to learn to be a stock trader… you know, buy into a stock when its price dips a bit, hold it for a little while, and then sell it for a profit.

It was near the end of 2007, and the market was gradually declining, but some days and even some weeks looked pretty good. But I didn’t know what I was doing, and 2008 was one of the worst years on record for stock prices.

Within the first several months, I lost most of what I put in. And by the time I finally just left it alone, I had lost nearly all of my initial investment money.

Now, I was getting bad results mostly because I was making bad decisions. But there are a lot of times when we are doing right, and yet our results can still be somewhat embarrassing.

Consider your Christian life, for example… your growth in knowledge about Christ, your maturity to live according to Christ’s commands, and your increased ability to resist sin and put on holiness…

If you’ve been a Christian for more than a couple of years, surely you sometimes feel a sense that you are not as far along as you’d like to be by now.

Just wait until you’ve been a Christian for 10 years… or 20 years… or 40 years. There is growth, to be sure, but there is also often discouragement over just how slow the process is.

Or what about our church? I confess that I am sometimes discouraged about some of what we’ve experienced at FBC Diana.

I mean, when I began to pastor here (more than a decade ago), we weren’t a huge church, but we had about double the regular attendance… and we grew even more for the first couple of years.

During that time, some of us learned and grew, we aimed for faithfulness, and we tried to encourage others to love and obey Christ… and what happened? Well, most of the people who once gathered with us each Sunday disappeared.

Some stopped going to church anywhere, and some have become church members elsewhere… but the result of our efforts to be a healthier disciple-making church have (in some ways) produced embarrassing results.

Now, nothing is that simple, of course… and I certainly don’t want to speak ill of anyone just because they decided that FBC Diana isn’t the church for them… but the point is that bad results from what we mean to be good efforts can be incredibly discouraging.

How are Christians to carry on in faithfulness when they feel discouraged about their apparent lack of progress?

How are churches to persevere in vigorous evangelism and discipling and relationship-building when church members and leaders feel discouraged about all of their apparent deficiencies?

Friends, today we are going to continue our study through the short OT book of Haggai. As I mentioned last Sunday, Haggai was sent by God to the people of Judah with four distinct “words” from the Lord.

The second word is the one we’re considering today, and we will see how God spoke (through Haggai) directly to a discouraged people… and why they could take courage and serve the Lord with diligence, despite their apparent lack of glory.

May God help us to take courage as well today, and may He help us to increasingly see glory the way He does.

Scripture Reading

Haggai 2:1-9 (ESV)

1 In the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet: 2 “Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to all the remnant of the people, and say, 3 ‘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?

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. Work, for I am with you, declares the LORD of hosts, 5 according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not.

6 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. 7 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. 8 The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the LORD of hosts. 9 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.’”

Main Idea:

While God’s people in the world often do not appear glorious, they can carry on in strength and courage because God is glorifying Himself in them.

Sermon

1. Glory Ruined (v1-3)

Imagine the scene with me for a moment. A small remnant of Israel (maybe about 50,000 people?) had returned to a devastated Jerusalem. Solomon’s once-glorious temple now lay in ruins. It was a pile of rubble, and the strength and beauty and wealth it boasted only a generation ago was now weakness and shame.

The returned exiles had started well, laying a renewed foundation and beginning to make sacrifices again. But for the last 16 years, they’d prioritized their own property and prosperity over God's house, and they suffered God’s discipline for it (Haggai 1). And yet, Haggai's first word from the Lord (and God’s Spirit moving among them), stirred them to resume the work.

They were (yet again) rebuilding with renewed vigor. But, just a month later, discouragement had crept in again.

The new temple looks pitiful compared to the old one. The older folks weep at the sight, because they have vague memories of what once was. The younger folks did celebrate, but only because they didn’t know what had been lost.

So, God speaks another word (a second word) through Haggai… this time a word of major encouragement: Be strong, work, fear not – for I am with you, and greater glory is coming.

But God’s encouraging word comes along with an honest assessment of what everyone sees with their eyes – the temple they were building was not really all that glorious.

And this – it seems to me – is a major point of our passage today: The outward or visible or apparent glory of God’s temple is ruined.

See it there in v3. The “word of the LORD” came again “by the hand of Haggai the prophet” (v1). And God addressed the civil leader (“Zerubbabel”), the religious leader (“Joshua”), and “all the remnant of the people” (v2). God said, “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?” (Haggai 2:3).

It is as though God was asking sarcastically, “Where is the glorious temple? Because this surely ain’t it!”

Everything about this situation is less than glorious, and even the word used to describe the people of Israel is discouraging. They are called a “remnant” or the “residue” (KJV) of a once-great people (v2).

Here, God is not reprimanding their progress, but He’s confronting their discouragement head on. God’s rhetorical questions (in v3) cut to the heart. God seems to acknowledge their pain without rebuke.

The “former glory” (of course) refers to Solomon's temple, which is described in 1 Kings 6-7 as a masterpiece. It’s big, it’s overlaid with gold, and it’s arrayed in a glory that everyone could see (1 Kings 8:10-11). There was no question that the old building was a thing of visible beauty and wonder.

But that’s not the way everyone perceived this new temple.

We learn in Ezra 3 that “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” (Ezra 3:12-13).

The current structure seemed “as nothing” – it was like comparing a housing project to a king’s palace. John Calvin noted in his commentary, “The old people... considered this temple no better than a cottage, [and] all their zeal evaporated.”

And the significance of this glory ruined is not merely architectural – it’s also spiritual. The temple represented God's presence, His covenant, and His blessing. Its ruin reflects Israel's sin-induced exile and the apparent fading of their status as God’s blessed people in the world.

Friends, we have no covenantal promises that God will make us gloriously wealthy or powerful or beautiful in the world, but how many of us can easily be discouraged by looking at outward appearances just like this?

Pastors and church members can look at the apparent smallness of their church, and they can wonder why it isn’t as big as it once was… why it doesn’t seem as influential as some other church… or why it can’t display the sort of glory that worldly people will admire.

Individual Christians can look at their apparent lack of money or skill or opportunity, and they can wonder why God isn’t blessing them… why they can’t seem to get ahead… or why they don’t experience the sort of growth or strength or progress as others around them.

This passage reminds us that God is not blind to the reality of our discouragement. He knows exactly where we are – as a church, as families, and as individuals. And if we are discouraged about our circumstances today, then He may well be saying to us, “Yeah, it is pretty bad, isn’t it?! When you look at what you can see with your eyes, what you can measure with an excel spreadsheet, or what you can list as strengths or assets that everyone can observe, it sure does look discouraging!”

Friends, this is exactly the sort of tactic the devil might use to get Christians and churches to give up… or withdraw… right when they should do the opposite. “I’m not seeing anyone turn from sin and trust in Christ, so I’ll just stop initiating gospel conversations.” “I’m not seeing any numerical growth in my church, so I’ll just stop inviting people… I’ll just leave and find another church that is growing… or I’ll just defend the stuff I love about this place… and ride it out until I die… or until the church does.”

But, friends, it might just be that the growth you want to see is just around the corner. And it might also be that the way you are measuring glory is not the way God does.

In our passage this morning, God does not ignore the discouragement of bad curb-appeal or lacking visible result or an uninspiring status. Rather, He puts His finger right on the sore spot, and He calls it what it is – visible glory ruined.

Brothers and sisters, it’s important that we remember our role or place in a much larger plan. We are but a few pieces in a giant puzzle, and when our section of the picture is disconnected from the rest, it certainly can look chaotic and insignificant. But God’s plan for us… and for the rest of His people (past, present, and future)… is a glorious display that we won’t see in full until the very end.

It’s a truism of the people of Christ in the world that theirs is a glory far different from the kind enjoyed by the people of Israel under the old covenant.

The glory of Abraham and Moses and David… the glory of the whole nation of Israel… was visible – everyone could see when they were glorious, and everyone could tell when they were not.

But the people of Christ in the world often display their greatest glory in those times when the world perceives them to be least glorious.

2. Glory Remaining (v4-5)

Though God acknowledged that the visible glory of Jerusalem had been ruined, He did not say that glory is gone entirely. In fact, the whole foundation of what God commands here (in v4-5) is built on the affirmation that God’s own glory remains among His people.

It is precisely because God is still “with” them (v4) – because God has not forgotten His “covenant” (v5) – that His people are to “be strong” (v4), they are to “work” (v4), and they are to proceed without “fear” (v5).

See it there in v4 and 5. God says, “I am with you… according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt” (Haggai 2:4-5).

This taps into the history of God’s relationship with His people. God had promised way back in Exodus, “I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am the LORD their God” (Exodus 29:45-46).

While their outward appearance – a small remnant of the people with an embarrassing construct of a temple – was not glorious, God Himself had not left them alone. Indeed, the most glorious aspect of the people of OT Israel and the temple Solomon erected was not in them or the building at all – it was the fact that God’s own glory filled the temple and dwelt among them.

And this was vital for the people in Haggai’s day to understand!

Despite their previous exile, God’s covenant remains.

Despite their present weakness, God’s covenant is still as strong as ever.

Despite their perceived ruin, God’s covenant is not only still intact, but God Himself (in all His glory) is “with” them.

The point is clear – EITHER God’s covenant is void, and there is nothing but discouragement and despair; OR God’s covenant is reliable (beyond what circumstance shows), and there is every reason to continue on in faithfulness and even cheerfulness… because He is still our God and we are still His people!

Brothers and sisters, if God’s presence and God’s covenant promises were powerful motivators back then to “be strong,” to “work,” and to be courageous (i.e., “fear not”), then how much more so for NT believers today?!

We don’t have God’s presence in a building at the center of town; we have God’s Spirit dwelling within us! We don’t have God’s covenant promises ratified by the blood of bulls or goats; we have the blood of God’s own Son (poured out for sinners) testifying to the trustworthiness of all that God has promised.

The Apostle Paul said it like this (in Romans 8), “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” (Romans 8:31-35).

Friends, the OT foundation for hope and joy, for faithfulness and perseverance, for strength and action IS THE SAME as the NT foundation – God is “with” His people… according to His “covenant.”

And because God is “with” His people, He calls them to ACT – see it there again in v4-5… “be strong,” “work,” and “fear not.”

The three-times-repeated “Be strong” …or “take courage” (NASB) …or “fortify” or “harden” yourselves …is an echo of the same way God spoke to Joshua of old, who led the people into the Promised Land after Moses died.

God said to Joshua, “Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go… Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:5-9).

Friends, God always calls His people to act on the basis of His presence with them. Throughout the Bible, God glorifies Himself (and makes His people glorious) BY bringing His own glory among sinners (making them saints) AND ALSO BY enabling them or strengthening them to do glorious deeds in His name.

The doing of good deeds does not bring God near to us. Indeed, our best deeds (from our own strength or intelligence or effort) are not even truly good, since they are done from selfish ambition or they are only superficially good.

But once God has graciously come near to believing sinners, giving them glory from His own character and nature (something they could never have conjured up themselves), God then calls those newly-created and spiritually-enlivened people to do to act to work glorious deeds.

In the case of this OT remnant of God’s people, their task was the rebuilding of a physical building – a temple in which God’s presence would dwell and His relationship with them would be exercised.

In the case of NT Christians today, our task (what we must be strong to do, what we must work to accomplish, and where we must proceed without fear) is to know and love God in Christ, to help others to know and love Him too, and to use whatever time, treasure, and talent God has given us to serve the Lord Jesus Christ… both near and as far out into the world as we are reasonably able.

Friends, do you know that God has offered forgiveness of sins and life everlasting to guilty sinners like us through the person and work of Jesus Christ?

And if you do, then are you trusting in the Lord Jesus to save you, to forgive you, and to make you alive in and with Him forevermore?

And if you are, then are you helping non-Christians to learn about this same gospel you believe? Are you helping baby Christians grow in their understanding of the gospel, in their love for Christ, and in their obedience to His commands?

And if you’re doing that, then are you making good use of the resources God has given to you… to encourage and sustain the ministry of this church… to order your life (and the lives of others around you) in such a way so as to make the gospel known and believable… and to show that you know of a glory among the people of God that is utterly unlike the glory sought by the people of this world?

Brothers and sisters, is God with us? Or is He gone? Is He among us? Or has He abandoned us? If we are God’s people… if we are the people of Christ in the world… then He is with us… He is in us… and He has made us glorious… Therefore, we ought to act… we ought to be strong… we ought to work… and we ought to have no fear of whatever hardship or opposition we might face.

The world around us may not see our glory, and even we may have a tough time perceiving anything glorious in our service to Christ, but God’s glory remains among His people… and we may act gloriously because we are His.

3. Glory Resplendent (v6-9)

In this second “word of the LORD” through Haggai, God addressed the elephant in the room (i.e., their discouragement), and He reminded them that His glory and theirs was never about buildings or wealth anyway.

But in this last section of our passage this morning, God uses the imagery of material “treasures” (v7) and cosmic “shaking” (v6-7) to reiterate a promise that God had already revealed through the prophet Ezekiel – namely, that the glory of God’s people would be more dazzling and more brilliant in the future than it had ever been in the past.

Thirteen years after Ezekiel had received word that Jerusalem was destroyed (and Solomon’s temple with it), God gave Ezekiel a vision – a prophetic picture of an amazing city and a spectacular temple.

Ezekiel goes on and on about the dimensions and the materials of the new city and temple. For three lengthy chapters (40, 41, and 42), he recites “cubit” after “cubit” of walls, courts, gates, doors, and chambers… and there’s one word to describe the temple in this vision – it’s HUGE! And God fills it with His glory!

Ezekiel’s vision of this gigantic temple culminates in chapter 43, where Ezekiel says, “behold, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the east. And the sound of his coming was like the sound of many waters, and the earth shone with his glory… and behold, the glory of the LORD filled the temple” (Ezekiel 43:2-5).

And Haggai echoes this same prophetic promise. The LORD says, “I will fill this house” (i.e., this “house” that appears as “nothing” in your eyes)… “I will fill this house with glory” (Haggai 2:8). Indeed, the LORD says through Haggai, “the latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former” (v9).

Now, there are some who take Haggai’s prophecy here (and Ezekiel’s prophecy as well) to mean that there is a literal expectation of an actual building in Jerusalem that will outdo Solomon’s temple in beauty, value, and magnitude.

For my part, this seems hard to square with the Bible’s own interpretation and application of Haggai’s prophecy.

Just last week, we finished studying through the book of Hebrews during our Wednesday night Bible study, and the author of Hebrews says that Haggai’s prophecy was already fulfilled when the covenant of Moses was overtaken by the covenant of Christ (see especially Hebrews 12:25-29).

The “shaking” of “the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land” (v6) is what God did when Christ came into the world and refocused the entire old covenant system.

As I’ve noted many times before,

Jesus was/is the better temple (the earthly tent wherein God dwells with man).

Jesus was/is the better priest (the mediator who represents sinners before the holy God).

Jesus was/is the better sacrifice (the innocent one who died in the place of the guilty).

And because Jesus (who is a new and better temple) established a new and better covenant, the glory of the old was ruined even as the glory of the New is resplendent and increasing!

The NT says it this way, in 2 Corinthians 3: the law of Moses “came with such a glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory,” but this “ministry” of Moses has come to “an end” as the “ministry of the Spirit [of God]” has a “far exceeding… glory.” “Indeed… what once had glory [namely the Mosaic covenant and the physical temple in Jerusalem] has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it” (2 Corinthians 3:4-11).

In short, brothers and sisters, the New Covenant in Christ is the fulfillment of what Haggai prophesied long ago… it is the covenant of greater glory.

And not only is Christ Himself the more glorious “house” or temple wherein God dwells among His people… but also all those who turn from their sin and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ are themselves the more glorious “house” or building or temple that God Himself is constructing – not with brick and mortar, but with metaphorical gold, silver, and precious stones.

Brothers and sisters, we are “God’s building” (1 Cor. 3:9).

We are “God’s temple,” and “God’s Spirit dwells in” us (1 Cor. 3:16).

We are “being built together” in Christ “into a dwelling place for God” by His “Spirit” (Eph. 2:22).

And we are God’s “workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10).

Note then, how we’ve come full circle.

God sent the prophet Haggai to a discouraged remnant of His faithful people, and Haggai’s second word for them was meant to address their discouragement by pointing them toward God’s remaining glorious presence (instead of their own glory visibly ruined) AND by pointing them toward God’s promise of future glory that would far exceed anything they’d ever known.

And based on this present and future glory (which they could not see with their eyes), God urged them to “be strong,” do the “work” to which they were called, and do not “fear” (v4-5).

Today, we’re reading this OT prophet, and we’re hearing a word that applies to us as well.

As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we are participants in the New Covenant. And, like the remnant of God’s faithful people back then, we too can find ourselves discouraged by a lack of visible glory… in our own lives, in our families, and/or in our church.

But this is no reason to give up hope… or to give up doing the work to which we’ve been called.

As the Apostle Paul wrote to the church of Corinth, “consider your calling, brothers [and sisters]: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. [In other words, not many of you were visibly glorious!] But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world… to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being may boast in the presence of God” (1 Corinthians 1:26-29).

Brothers and sisters, God does it like this on purpose. He delights in using inglorious Christians and churches to display His glory in ways we never would have thought possible.

And isn’t this an obvious point even in our passage this morning? God told the people (in v8), “the silver is mine, and the gold is mine” (Haggai 2:8).

It is as though God was telling them, “If I wanted to make this house…this building… the most remarkable structure on the planet, I could do it! If I wanted to turn the nations upside-down and shake every treasure from their pockets right now, I could do it this very instant!”

But isn’t it just like the God of the Bible to bring unimaginable glory out of something that appears scandalous and embarrassing?

Indeed, this is a definitive feature of the New Covenant. Its glory is always visibly less impressive than the glory of the old… at least it is less visibly impressive in this age… until Christ comes.

God beckons us to look at what He’s doing in and through us with the eyes of faith. He invites us to see more glory now in that stuff that is (in a sense) invisible – greater freedom from sin, increasing joy in Christ, deeper love for Christian brothers and sisters, growing virtue and holiness, and persistent faithfulness as witnesses for Christ in the world.

All of this stuff is hard to measure, and it’s almost always discreet and hazy in its excellence. It’s like looking at Van Gogh’s The Stary Night or da Vinci’s Mona Lisa through a cracked and dirty windowpane. It’s there, and you can see it (at least a bit), but its glory and beauty are muted, its significance is obscure, and its appeal is hard to admire.

But one day soon, brothers and sisters, the dirty windowpane will be out of the way… and God’s masterpiece will be clearly and fully in view.

John the revelator tells us that an angel came and told him, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb,” and then John saw, “the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal” (Rev. 21:9-11).

And then, very much like the OT prophet Ezekiel, John describes gates and walls and foundations – a HUGE temple that is built with precious stones which are the people of God themselves.

Conclusion

Brothers and sisters, through the prophet Haggai, God speaks to us today.

Like the OT remnant of Judah, we may feel a sense of discouragement about the apparent lack of visible glory in our individual Christian lives, in our Christian efforts among our families, and in our local church. We’re putting in some effort, but what we’re seeing as a result can sometimes seem hardly worth it.

God would have us remember that His covenant promises still stand – in Christ, we are His and He is ours… and He is glorious among us… even if that’s often hard for us to see.

And God would also have us remember that the glory that is presently invisible will soon become vivid and intense.

Because both of these are true, let’s be strong… let’s take courage… let’s give ourselves to working and to serving Christ… and let’s fear God, not any man.