Sermon Tone Analysis

TAKE A GOOD LOOK AT YOUR LIFE (1 of 2) Jerry Vines Haggai 1-2 6~/24~/01 I had originally thought I would bring just one message from Haggai and yet as I have read and studied and prayed over it, it has become so applicable to you and to me where we are that I want to take a couple of weeks at least.

I'm going to look at the first chapter in this message and then the second chapter in the next message.

Think with me about the theme—Take a Good Look at Your Life.

At the conclusion of your Old Testament there are 12 books which are given the category of Minor Prophets.

They fall in two main groups.

There is first of all the first nine and these who prophesied before God's children were carried away into captivity.

The last three were the prophets who prophesied to God's people after they were carried away into captivity.

Haggai, Zechariah are what we call the post-captivity prophets.

They came at a very important time in the history of God's people.

Haggai was one of those prophets, but we do not know a great deal about him.

We don't know where he came from; we don't know anything about his family background.

We don't know anything about his personal life.

We don't know when or how he was called to preach.

All we know is—he was one of the prophets during the post-captivity days that God used in a special way.

He is mentioned in the book of Ezra and we are told specifically that God used this man Haggai to speak a message of arousment and a message of encouragement to God's people at that particular time.

Evidently Haggai was an old man when the Lord gave him these words of prophecy.

As a boy he had evidently been carried away into captivity with the Jewish people.

I can almost imagine the sight that he saw as he left the smoky ruins of the city of Jerusalem and he saw the temple of God as it was being destroyed with fire.

There he went away to Babylonian captivity and stayed there for a period of about 70 years.

All through those years there was ringing in the mind and hearts of God's people that God was going to return them—that God would one day deliver them back to the city of Jerusalem to rebuild the temple of the Lord there.

The hope must have filled the heart of this man Haggai.

The day arrived that they were to return and yet when you study the history of it you will discover that only a small group of the Jews were willing to go back and rebuild the city and rebuild the temple.

For the most part the Jewish people had grown comfortable in their captivity.

They were not interested in going back and taking up the formidable task of rebuilding the city and rebuilding the temple.

There was just a small remnant that was willing to go back.

This is so much like the world today.

So much like the professing church today.

Unfortunately there are many today who have grown comfortable in this old world and they are not really interested in doing the work of the Lord.

They are not really interested in letting their life count in these last days for the things of the Lord.

But there is always a remnant and this man Haggai was a part of that remnant.

They return amidst great excitement and enthusiasm.

They come back in the year 536 BC and begin to undertake the task of rebuilding the city of Jerusalem and specifically of laying the foundation for the temple.

You know the history—the background—of what happened.

There was great opposition to what they did and the forces on the outside discouraged their work.

On the inside there were problems also.

So for a period of time their enthusiasm begins to wane.

For about 15 years, the foundation of the temple fills with debris and there is rubbish and weeds everywhere.

During that period of time this remnant of people begin to get interested in their own personal interests.

They begin to turn their attention away from the house of the Lord to their own houses.

They get involved into rebuilding their own houses and doing the things that will satisfy and meet their own personal needs.

All during this period of time, God's work lies unfinished and incomplete.

You have to keep in mind that these were not bad people.

They were good people—the remnant.

This was that faithful few who were willing to return in obedience to what God had said.

They were good people, but their priorities had somehow become rearranged.

They were the right people.

They were in the right place, at the right time, to do the right work.

But their priorities were all out of kilter.

I was thinking about this as I was praying and preparing.

It's not enough to just study what was going on back there, God's word is relevant and applicable to our day.

The truths that God gives us in the Bible, though the history of them may have occurred thousands of years ago, they are truths which are unchanging and eternal in nature.

That's why we are preaching and studying these Old Testament books.

God takes the message from the Old Testament time and applies it to our time.

I think in the book of Haggai there's a message that God wants His remnant in First Baptist Church of Jacksonville to hear.

I consider you God's remnant in the congregation.

I consider you God's people who are faithful, God's faithful few.

You are the kindling wood that's willing to be used for the Lord—the Master's minority, if you please.

How wonderful and how important you are.

God has brought you to this time for this moment of history.

You are the right people in the right place at the right time for the right purpose.

But it is very easy for God's good people, God's remnant, to get their priorities out of place.

It may be that the people in Haggai's day misunderstood Bible prophecy.

Jeremiah had preached and had told them that there was going to be 70 years of desolation.

We read about it in Jeremiah 25.

Somehow they latched onto the desolation part of the passage, but they didn't latch onto the reconstruction part of the passage.

They may have had a wrong reaction to prophecy.

We are a prophecy-loving church here.

We love the book of the Revelation.

We love the book of Daniel.

You are really going to love the book of Zechariah.

It's a book of prophecy also.

But if you are not careful you will misunderstand the purpose and the point of Bible prophecy.

We believe the Bible teaches that in the last days it will be days of apostasy.

The professing church, for the most part, will depart from the faith and there will be widespread apathy among the people of the Lord.

As best I can tell, reading in Scripture, there is no clear prophecy in Scripture that before Jesus comes there is going to be a great outpouring of revival.

But that does not mean that we are not to pray for it.

We should pray that God sends revival.

It may be indeed that there will be revival.

But prophecy is never intended to be a narcotic to put us to sleep; prophecy is intended to be a tonic to keep us working for the Lord Jesus Christ.

Revival is a special work of God which comes down as God chooses to send it down.

Evangelism is the continual work of the church and regardless of whether or not revival comes, God's people are to give priority to evangelism—winning people to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

God has a man named Haggai.

His name means "my festival."

God has this man to challenge the people to rise up again and to build and to stir them from their lethargy and to challenge them concerning their misplaced priorities.

So he has a message for them in this particular book.

God used four men, at this time, to stir them up to return to do God's work.

He used a civic leader.

That's who Zerubbabel is—the governor of Judah in verse 1.

He used a religious leader.

That's who Joshua was—the high priest.

Then God used two godly prophets.

He used Haggai and Zechariah.

Ezra 5:1 and chapter 6:14 tell us that God used these two preachers to arouse the people and to encourage them to rebuild the walls and to finish the job.

As you are going to see these are two very different kinds of men.

It reminds me of how very different God's preachers are today.

Haggai was the more practical of the two.

Zechariah was the visionary.

Haggai was the man who was interested in building.

He was practical.

Zechariah was the dreamer who looked forward to the future and the predictions God had for the future.