Word of Salvation – Vol. 25 No. 42 – July 1979

 

Some Are Too Spiritual To Be Truly Spiritual

 

Sermon by Rev. H. W. Pennings on Haggai 2:1-9

Scripture Readings: Hebrews 12, Isaiah 55, Haggai 2:1-9

 

Congregation, beloved of the Lord,

As we looked at the first chapter of this short book in the previous sermon we saw that the church of the Old Testament at that time was putting God second in their lives. No, not third and certainly not fourth – second! Yet, on account of that the Lord was no longer present in their midst with His rich blessing. At that time, when we can say that the Lord was more “physically” present among His people than He chooses to be today, they were made aware of His displeasure in that their work no longer brought physical comforts anymore. That was the last sermon. We turn now to the second chapter. Israel has listened to the voice of the Lord. And that is why the prophet Haggai could record in vs.13 of Chapter 1 that the Lord said to the church, “I am with you.” But, as we now turn to chapter two, we discover a thing appearing in history which we see time and again. Whereas, at first, the members of the church wanted to put the Lord into second spot in their priorities, now secondly, they want to put Him even before the first spot! They desire, in a way, to be more than obedient. And that too is wrong – that too is full of sin.

We read at the end of chapter one that the work of rebuilding the temple is soon in full swing. But… “on the twenty-first of the seventh month, – that is, just over three weeks after the rebuilding had commenced, – the prophet Haggai has once again to be the mouthpiece of the Lord to the people – the stubborn and rebellious people of the church.

It is a day on which all Israel is together. And, as was the case previously, they by right ought all of them to have been spending this day in the courtyard of the completed temple. For it is the feast of weeks ― the harvest festival ― a time when, in remembrance of the blessing of the Lord who rescued his church from slavery to Pharaoh, the people were accustomed to living in tents for a week. Thus, the work of rebuilding the temple has started, and sixteen days work on it has been completed; about enough time to lay the foundations. Then come the seven days of feasting when no work was to be done.

But it wasn’t only feasting that was taking place. Satan was at work in Israel. And He was most busy among the elderly. Maybe the ears of the youth among us prick up. For it is mainly youth that stands accused among us. Here Satan is at work among the most mature section of the church. And, as a result of the work of Satan, they are asking each other, and they are asking the whole church, “IS THIS, THIS! really what the Lord requires?”

Haggai the prophet stands in the midst of the church during the course of their festival. He asks, “Who is left among you who saw this temple in its former glory?”

A number of hands are raised in response to that question. They are all old hands. Only the elderly were alive when the temple formerly standing had been destroyed. And, when the elderly remember it when they see a vision of it once again they are very sad. So they start to speak to each other, and also to the younger folk, “Friends, let us stop this nonsense! For this, this! ― this what we are now building is nothing.”

What is going on here, congregation? What is wrong is that they are desiring to put God before first place in their lives. And that may sound as strange the second time you have heard it as it did the first time. But, by way of explanation and example, remember the apostle Peter in the period just before our Saviour was crucified for us. At first he would have nothing to do with Jesus washing his feet. But when he heard Jesus saying that otherwise one could not be His disciple, then that impulsive man Peter retorted, “Lord, not only my feet only, BUT ALSO MY HANDS AND MY HEAD.” Yet we read in Isaiah 55 that the thoughts and ways of the Lord are not as our thoughts and ways; that they are in every way above them. From which we are again confronted with what the rest of Scripture also teaches us that, to be doing the will of the Lord, we ought simply to be engaged in obeying Him in every part of our lives, and that THAT IS TRUE DISCIPLESHIP. True discipleship is not WASHING THE WHOLE BODY it is WASHING THE FEET. It is not building a bigger temple than the Lord commands, but building it, and building it first.

There is one group of people within the sphere of the churches these days who appear to be concentrating upon this extra. They want to set the world ablaze with a message which very obviously is not for everyone. All must speak in ecstatic tongues. The sick must all be healed miraculously. There has to be a second blessing on top of the first; a second baptism, and that into the name of the Holy Spirit. We have all to know what is going to happen to Israel. We must all be aware of the spiritual significance of the European Economic Community and the recent peace between Egypt and Israel.

Satan is at work in the church more than he is at work among those who have no apparent contact with Christian things. We sometimes feel as if, what apparently the Lord requires from us, is too small a matter. We like to take the world by the collar to shake some sense into it. We see ourselves being members of parliament we see ourselves being missionaries among people who have never heard the gospel. Yet we are only carpenters, painters, pensioners, housewives, bank clerks, labourers, typists.

And, true enough, the Lord has appointed some Christian people to do what we imagine to be are the more spectacular Christian tasks. Yet for most of us our Christian calling is to SERVE THE LORD WITHIN THE SPHERE OF OUR EVERY-DAY LIFESTYLE. When we desire to put God before first place, we are being disobedient. When our desire is to say, “Take my life, and let it be ― and my moments and days ― and my silver and gold ― consecrated, Lord, to Thee,” Satan does not so easily find an opening to make us dream of the impossible so that we end up doing nothing.

The elderly of the church at the time of the prophet Haggai remembered the old temple ― the one which king Solomon had built ― the one with all that finery. But this is not the plan of the Lord for the time soon after the exile.

“But now take courage, Zerubbabel,” declares the Lord, “take courage also Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and all you people of the land take courage,” declares the Lord, “and work; for I am with you,” says the Lord of hosts.

When the Lord through Haggai says, “Take courage!” it is the second phase of His prophecy. In the first phase He had said, “Consider your ways to your heart.” “Take courage,” says the Lord to Israel. “Take courage, congregation,” says the Lord to us about the tasks He has given to us. “For it is not the smallness or the greatness of the task that is important. To each I have given different talents. It is your thankfulness that moves Me to love and accept your worship and your work.”

Israel did not know it then, for the ways of Israel are lower than are the ways of the Lord. But this temple they are engaged in building will be far more glorious (though it will be smaller) than the temple built in the days of Solomon.

All of a sudden Haggai refers God’s people back to Mt. Sinai and the giving of the ten commandments. Then the heavens were filled with thunder and lightning. The earth trembled. There was darkness. Then God came into their midst. Moses’ face shone with glory at that time for he had been in the presence of God. It was so glorious that the people had to shield their eyes from it. “In a little while,” says Haggai, “this is going to happen again. There will be a great upheaval. Powers and kingdoms will fall. One will crush the other, and it will then be itself crushed in return.”

Truly, the voice of the Lord shook the earth at Mt. Sinai. And the result was the giving of the law of God. The tabernacle which was built soon afterwards was a forerunner of the temple of Solomon. BUT EVEN THAT TEMPLE WAS NOTHING IN COMPARISON WITH WHAT THE LORD WILL DO IN THE TEMPLE THEY ARE BUILDING. This temple this “Shed-like building,” as the older people were calling it in their folly, will be shaken too. So will the heavens be shaken again.

All this language is highly symbolic. But we know that in 330BC Alexander the Great conquered the world, only to have the Romans take it from the Greeks some hundred years later. We also know that the heathen nations brought much wealth for the construction of the temple. We also know that the temple they are building is destroyed in a two-fold way. It was physically destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. But it was spiritually destroyed, or made redundant when Jesus Christ said, “It is finished”, for then the curtain of the temple was ripped from top to bottom.

And, remember that Jesus had said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again.”

We understand from these things that the words of Haggai, which the Lord gave him to say, have an application also for today. So, today, we have more insight into this prophecy than did the church of the Old Testament. Even so, we are not to use them to try to find out what God has planned from the beginning to the end of the world. Our response should be what the response should then have been, and that is to acknowledge that the ways of the Lord in which He asks us to walk humbly are above our ability to understand them perfectly.

Also this morning/evening therefore, the Lord calls upon us as a congregation of His people – people who in Jesus Christ are His sons and daughters! – not to lose heart when Satan tempts us to consider our Christian work hardly worthwhile to continue with. God doesn’t want from us what we dream of doing. He wants from us what He has given us so that we can serve Him. For sometimes. the “extra” which we are dreaming about can so invade our thinking that it can be said about us – we are so spiritually minded that we are of no earthly use to the Lord.

There is a message here for older members and younger members of the congregation. Older members, do not discourage the young people by implying that their work and service in the Kingdom of the Lord is of little value. So many times our youth have been discouraged because the older members had lost faith in the promises of God that all of our works are worthwhile. You have much to answer for, says the Lord, when you discourage the young people from serving the Lord according to their understanding and ability.

And to the young people we may say: serve the Lord faithfully! Trust fully that the ways in which He asks you to walk – which is outlined for us in His Holy Word – is truly His way for you and your friends.

And remember that often those who try to be the most humble about their Christian obedience and works are among the proudest of people.

God says, “I am with you.” That is the theme of this second sermon of this short series. “I am with you!”

No, not when we put God second in our lives. That is idolatry. Nor when we want to do only what we fully know is beyond us to do. That is foolishness that is the way Satan talks to us.

But the Lord is truly with us when we remember to walk in step with the prompting of the Spirit of God. And that prompting will come to us when we read the Scriptures and seek to love the Lord by obeying them.

You may confidently leave everything in God’s care – older people, and younger people too.

Amen.