Word of Salvation – Vol. 24 No. 20 – February 1978

 

First Things First

 

Sermon by Rev. W. F. Van Brussel, B.D. on Haggai 1:1-11

Scripture reading: Ezra 3 & 4; Haggai 1:1-11

Psalter Hymnal: (466 before service); 159; 140; 412
                            (before sermon); 298 (after sermon); 435

 

HAGGAI was used by God after the Babylonian captivity. Just about sixteen years before he commenced, King Cyrus of Persia had made it possible for God’s people to return home. They had come back to a devastated land, a desolate city and a temple in ruins.

Zerubbabel was the civil ruler and Joshua acted as the high priest. They had seen it as the people’s first duty to rebuild the temple as the House of God had always been central to Israel’s national life.

After about one year a foundation had been laid but the work had ceased due to opposition on the part of the Samaritans, a decree of Cyrus’ successor, and because people thought they could not afford it.

Nothing had been done over the past fifteen years. HAGGAI delivered four messages over a period of four months. Today we want to address ourselves to the first little sermon.

It was the second year of emperor Darius’ reign in the meantime when God spoke through HAGGAI to the governor and the high priest and via these two men to the people.

God did not agree with His people that they could not afford building a temple. They argued that it was not the right time, but the Lord wondered if it, then, was the right time for themselves to live in panelled houses.

The people did not say that a temple ought not to be built.

O yes, it should be built, but NOT NOW. They were sure they would come around to it, one day!

Now it was to these people believing it to be their duty to build and honestly intending to do that one day, that GOD spoke through HAGGAI. He challenged them with their own thinking as well as with HIS thoughts: “Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your panelled houses, while My House lies in ruins?”

God did not so much blame them for having beautiful houses. The thought rather seemed to be that they lived in houses that had been completed whereas the Lord’s House… well, all that was finished was the foundation for it.

Their houses were properly ceiled, roofed, finished, occupied, but the House of the LORD lay neglected at the initial stages of its erection.

God challenged them: Was this right? Was this a matter of putting FIRST THINGS FIRST, or what was it?

God said as it were: “Come now My people, let us sort this out quick and smart! Can you account for this attitude?”

Was this true? Could they not afford building the House of God? Is the Cause of the Church and the Kingdom a matter of money, full stop? We often treat it that way, do we not? Is it true that when things do not run so smoothly from the economical point of view that, then, other things have to be done first, and not the things of Church and Kingdom?

What we mean to say is: Was this the real reason? The money! What about the people’s love and dedication?

If we really love the LORD and are dedicated to His work we will do something, even if the money is short. Even if there is resistance.

When we listen to what history tells us – and this is always a healthy exercise – we must admit that the times when God’s people had plenty were usually not the best periods for God’s Great Cause.

It’s funny, but this phrase: “we cannot afford it” is voiced in days of affluence rather than in days of scarcity. (The brief story of our own little denominations would be extremely helpful here perhaps). Let us not be too quick with our, “This is not the right time!’ exclamations.

Apart from the challenge to the mind, God came with an appeal to the hearts of the people through HAGGAI’s words.

The prophet invited them to look back over the past fifteen year. throughout which they had put SECOND things FIRST and FIRST things SECOND.

“You have planted much and harvested little. You have had food, but not enough to satisfy you.li You have had your wine but never in abundance. Clothing, yes, but not really enough to keep warm. Wages, yes, but were you able to make ends meet? Have you been able to lay something aside for a rainy day? Can’t you see why all this came about this way?”

They had had no prosperity whatsoever over all these years, although God had promised that He was going to bless them in their own country. Had God failed to keep His promise? Was He the One Who was to blame?

Was it not obvious what the reason was? They had received the bare necessities of life: food, water, clothing, but there had been no real prosperity. On the contrary, times had been hard.

No real progress worth mentioning!

This living according to a false principle (SECOND THINGS FIRST) had worked out disastrously. Can you not see this?, God said as it were. No wonder that your purse is like a bag full of holes!

What do you expect?

“We can’t spend money, because we haven’t got it”. Yes, that sounds quite reasonable.

But the foolish-sounding reply of God to that would go something like this:

YOU HAVE NO MEANS BECAUSE YOU DO NOT SPEND ANYTHING!

That really does sound silly, does it not? True, that is the disadvantage of believing the Good News of GOD. You simply hang on to things that do not sound right according to man; to statements that fail to make sense to the natural ear; things that sound crazy to the unregenerated and unconverted.

Yet, it is here where the prophet moved on (vs.8), saying, “Go up into the hills, get timber and rebuild the temple, THEN I will be pleased and will be worshipped as I should be. You hoped for large harvests but they turned out to be small. And when you brought the harvest home, I blew it away”.

We should be aware, of course, that the Old Testament situation and the New Testament one are not exactly the same. It would not be correct to say that any economical crisis today would be the result of the unspiritual attitude of a nation. And that a nation which fails to put time and effort into the matters of Church and Kingdom will forever remain poor and that those who do those things, will prosper.

By the way, it looks as if things did not seem to work out properly among God’s people of HAGGAI’s time because the LORD’s blessing did not rest upon their labours. It was rather God’s curse that was experienced by them. There was no real happiness and satisfaction in their working life.

Anyway, the people of God were told to DO something about the temple-building programme, first thing. This was the only way in which to please God (vs.8). And would that not be a desirable thing for any child of God to do: what pleases God? To live and to act to His glory! The text finishes with a recapitulation of the whole argument (vs.9-11).

Through all those years the crops had never been in proportion to the sowing. And even after they had been able to put their modest crops into their barns it seemed that high winds, cyclones, tornadoes had flattened the barns and scattered the grain.

“What made Me do that?” God asked in vs.9. Why had God blown upon the little that they had managed to gather? The answer is there, too. “Because My temple lies in ruins while everyone of you is busy working on his own house. THAT IS WHY THERE IS NO RAIN AND NOTHING CAN GROW. I have brought drought on the land – on every crop the ground produces, on man and animals, on everything you try to grow.”

God had been against them for their own sake. He loved them too much to allow them to prosper while they lived according to false principles. If He had made them prosper they would have been led into thinking that they were all right in God’s eyes.

Although we must be careful about interpreting Old Testament Scriptures in today’s situation we still are entitled to say that no Christian today could ever fail to see the relevance and lasting value of what we find said here.

No, we are no longer invited to build a temple of wood and stone; at least not in the first place when it comes to serving God these days. But we are to BE living stones that Jesus Christ can use to build His Church in today’s world.

It is the building of God’s spiritual house which must always be our first concern as Christians. We are called upon to build the Church and the Kingdom of God by spreading the Good News of Salvation as the message for all of life. That is the message that has more to offer than salvation just of the soul. The message, once understood and really comprehended, leads to action in a new life that covers all areas of our human society.

We, Christians of the New Testament day, are supposed to understand what it means that Christ calls us to put FIRST THINGS FIRST. This does not merely mean that we ought to bring our free-will offerings to the church with grateful hearts, although that is also part of it. It means, according to Christ’s own words, that we must seek His Kingdom and His righteousness first of all, that is, before anything else. And then we have the promise that all other things will be given to us as well.

We are part of a world where the Kingdom of God is ignored by many. Thousands and thousands of people are simply interested in doing their own thing. And that is all they do. All they can possibly think of. Even church-people often are and act that way.

Lots of people have everything they want and much to spare. There are not so terribly many things that are beyond our reach nowadays.

Does this mean that we are happy and content? Obviously more and more people who have much are bored stiff with themselves and all the many things that life has to offer. Despite all affluence a large number of people feel dissatisfied, tired and poor. The easier our life becomes, the harder it becomes to find genuine happiness, contentment and satisfaction.

This should be seen as a curse of God upon man’s endeavours to take things more and more into his own hands.

It is true that even among Christians there appears to be a tendency to value one’s own ‘house’ higher than God’s ‘House’. There are church members who still have not learnt to contribute properly to the work of the Church and to the Cause of God’s Kingdom in general. God has blessed us in this country with our Christian schools which came off the ground – the one after the other over the past dozen years or so. Yet, sometimes these Christian schools are faced with financial problems simply because not everyone who should, puts his shoulder to the wheel. There are still too many people who would never make any sacrifices in an effort to help promote God’s Work. Too many people have no experience in the matter of giving- till-it-hurts.

And what is the result? Only this, that such people are never contented, never really happy. They are poor in spite of all their wealth. Their faith is not an occasion for happiness, either. It is so scanty and miserable, too scanty, too miserable to be joyful.

People come to church and eat of the bread of life. Yet, they are never satisfied. They always carry their bag full of holes. They hear lots of sermons, yet they remain spiritually lean and skinny. The curse of God rests upon their life and outlook. God seems to take away from them even what they have.

Clearly, the supreme appeal of this first message of HAGGAI, the prophet, is: FIRST THINGS FIRST, people of God!

How many Christians would suffer from the consequences of the so-called sins of omission which they heap up in their lives! Let us consider this message of God, and act upon it, today and tomorrow.

God’s promise stands: I love you! I shall give you all your needs. I have done that in Jesus Christ. I am now waiting for your response in a life where I come FIRST, any time.

Amen!