Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Welcome to the Karma Church podcast.
[00:00:06] We're going to go straight in and we're going to read some Bible. So if you've got your Bible or your phone or whatever, find Haggai.
[00:00:14] And he's right. He's one of the minor prophets right at the end of the Old Testament.
[00:00:20] He's just in between Zephaniah and Zechariah.
[00:00:26] How are we doing? Got him.
[00:00:29] Okay, we're gonna read from chapter two, and we're gonna go from verse 10. So we're just carrying on where we left off. A few weeks ago, on the 24th day of the ninth month in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet, saying, thus, says the Lord of hosts. Now ask the priests concerning the law saying, if one carries holy meat in the fold of his garments, and. And with the edge he touches bread or stew wine or oil or any food, will it become holy? The priests answered and said, no.
[00:01:04] And Haggai said, if one who is unclean because of a dead body touches any of these, will it be unclean? So the priest said, it shall be unclean.
[00:01:16] Then Haggai answered and said, so is this with this people, and so it is with this nation before me, says the lord. And so is every work of their hands, and what they offer there is unclean.
[00:01:31] And now carefully consider from this day forward, from before stone was laid upon stone in the temple of the Lord, since those days when one came to a heap of 20, there were but 10. When one came to the vine, to the wine vat to. To draw out 50 baths from the press, there were but 20.
[00:01:52] I struck you with blight, mildew, hell in all the labors of your hands, yet you did not turn to me, says the Lord. Consider now, from this day forward, from the 24th day of the ninth month, from the day that the foundation of the Lord's temple was laid, consider it is the seed still in the barn? And as yet, the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have not yielded fruit. But from this day, I will bless you.
[00:02:24] Amen. Take a.
[00:02:26] Take a seat. So we're carrying on just looking at the story of Haggai, and basically, just to give you a little bit of background, the.
[00:02:40] The Israelites are coming back out of exile. So they were in exile because they disobeyed the Lord. They've been exiled in Babylon about 70 years.
[00:02:48] They're now coming back to Jerusalem. They've started to rebuild the temple, but it's halted and there's from the start of the rebuild to now, it's about, they reckon, about 15, 16 years.
[00:03:01] And Haggai is a prophet, and he signed to them, keep going. Don't give up. First thing he says is, don't get distracted with your own affairs. They were sorting out their own lives before sorting out the temple of the Lord. And he says, it's the other way around. Sort out the Lord's house and your life will come into order.
[00:03:23] So then he says, this temple is going to be greater than the temple before. And you have to remember the temple before was Solomon's temple with all its glory. And people would come from all over the world to hear Solomon's wisdom, but also to see the glory of the temple. And what Haggai is saying is that this one is going to be even greater. And then now what he's going to address is that some of the reasons why the blessings haven't been released amongst the people. So he's going to. He's going to talk with them about this.
[00:04:02] So when prophets speak, I don't know about you.
[00:04:06] Sometimes I listen to prophets speak. Sometimes I read the prophetic words in the Bible. I just want to scratch my head because I'm like, I have no idea what you're talking about. It just doesn't. Doesn't make obvious sense. And one of the reasons is because prophets speak in parables and riddles, okay? And so part of what we're meant to do is to search out the answers of what they say. But what Haggai is saying here, I think, is a profound truth for us all to learn and realize, especially as we're on this journey of what we feel that God has called us to build his house. And I said a few weeks ago, it looks like we may need to move from this place at some point. We need to buy another place, and we need to build something that brings glory to God. But as we start to build, there are some truths. And a truth I wanted to talk about is this one that Haggai addresses the people with. This is what he says. If one carries holy meat in the fold of his garment, and with the edge he touches bread, stew, wine, or any food, will it become holy? And the priests go, no, no, of course not. Obvious, right? And Haggai said, if one who is unclean because of a dead body touches any of these, will it be unclean? And the priest answers, yes, it will be unclean.
[00:05:34] And I'm like, okay, what is he saying?
[00:05:40] What Haggai is saying if, if something or someone is holy, it doesn't automatically make holy what it touches, but if something is unclean, it spreads and it can make what is holy unclean.
[00:06:03] Let me say that again.
[00:06:05] If something that's holy touches something that's unclean, it doesn't necessarily make it holy.
[00:06:14] But if something is unclean, it can touch something holy and make it unclean.
[00:06:23] So if we are to build the house of the Lord and host the presence of God, we need to learn how to walk in his holiness. That's what we were singing about this morning. That's where the direction the worship was going. And Haggai is saying, this temple is going to be of greater glory than the former. Why? Because the delight of the nations is coming. He's talking about the coming of Jesus.
[00:06:50] And Juliet mentioned last week as she was talking about consecrating ourselves, that in the Old Testament when the priests wanted to make an offering, they would have to wash their clothes. And it was quite a palaver. But by the time we get to Haggai and Zechariah, the Lord is saying, I'm going to give you clean clothes. I'm going to give you brand new clothes. We're not going to wash the clothes. I'm going to give you brand new clothes. When he prophesies over Joshua, the high priest, just as Jesus clothes us, that's what this is.
[00:07:23] He's making the path ready for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:07:28] But to remain holy clean, we must be a set apart people. God desires a holy people, a royal priesthood. Why? Because he is holy so we can then take on his attributes.
[00:07:45] So what Haggai says is consider your ways. And he says it a number of times through his prophecy. He says things don't just become holy.
[00:07:57] And we know that our holiness comes from the blood of Jesus.
[00:08:01] But if we do not treasure the cost of that blood, things can quickly become defiled around us. What do I mean? Let me give you an example. Let's pick an example. Bitterness, for instance, because it's a biblical example. The writer to the Hebrews says this, lest any root of bitterness spring up and cause trouble. And by this, many become defiled. So he's talking about exactly what Haggai is talking about, that bitterness.
[00:08:36] If we allow bitterness to come in amongst the church, it can cause trouble and it can defile that which is holy.
[00:08:48] So we need to let bitterness go.
[00:08:52] You know, we can be building the church, we can be serving every week, we can be at the front worshiping. But if we are holding bitterness in our hearts.
[00:09:03] It will defile that that is holy. You see, they cannot cohabit where there's bitterness and the Holy Spirit, they can't be together.
[00:09:16] So we need to leave the bitterness behind.
[00:09:23] Just before I married Juliet, a number of years ago, I was living in a flat and a shared flat with a friend.
[00:09:34] And I was, you know, he'd moved out, and we were cleaning it, possibly for the first time.
[00:09:40] But the reason I, you know, Juliet was going to be moving in as my bride. So we needed to clean the house. And I was going around and just cleaning things, and there was this bag. I went in the kitchen, and the kitchen, you know, units were right high and. And there was this bag on there. And I went, oh, that's been there a long while. And I remember just putting my hand up, and I'm just, you know, there's dust up there. I'm going, oh, yeah, it didn't dust up there. And I remember. And I just, you know, you're kind of fiddling around. Cause I couldn't be bothered to get a chair. And I found the, you know, the entrance of the bag and I put my hand in and it started to move.
[00:10:16] Yup, you got it. And it was. It was then this smell.
[00:10:22] It was like it was running down my arm, you know, And I'm like, now I'm a man. So I didn't scream, but I may have yelped, okay. And it turned out that what was in there were. Well, once they were potatoes, but they had just become this rotten mass of maggots in there. And I could feel them all moving over my hand.
[00:10:50] And it had been fine just sitting up there. I shouldn't have touched it. If I'd have just left it, Juliet could have dealt with it. Okay. But it was.
[00:11:02] What was I thinking?
[00:11:04] It was just on the shelf. And now the house is full of this smell and there's maggots everywhere and there's things flying out of it.
[00:11:18] I tell you, this was a while ago. It's still on me. I'm like, oh.
[00:11:24] But.
[00:11:28] But what was just left to the side had become now a disgusting live mess.
[00:11:37] There was no redeeming the bag. It had to go because it was affecting the whole flat.
[00:11:43] And I had a bride moving in.
[00:11:47] You see, sin and bitterness, which is what we're talking about is like a bag of rotten potatoes.
[00:11:57] You know, if we carry it with us or sometimes we just put it in a cupboard somewhere and just pretend it's not there because, you know, the person that we're cross with or the thing that hurt us isn't right in front of us. So we just leave it all locked away.
[00:12:15] But there it is, sitting there, rotting away.
[00:12:18] And you know, when we come to Jesus, he comes and he renews our life. But sometimes we have these things that the bags, we don't even know they're there sometimes and they're just up, but they're rotting and it is time to move them out because the bridegroom is coming.
[00:12:40] Let me give you another example. The writer of the Hebrews, when he talks, he talks about bitterness, but then he goes on to the next thing he says, lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau.
[00:12:52] And again, what he's talking about is doorways that open up and defile the holiness.
[00:12:59] And Paul writes to the Corinthians, he says, put out the immoral person.
[00:13:07] Now the problem is today we hear that and we go, well, that's not very loving, Paul.
[00:13:15] We can't just put people out.
[00:13:19] Now the problem is we think love is tolerance, but the love of God saves people's lives.
[00:13:28] And firstly, when Paul talks about that, the first thing he's talking about is someone who continues in immorality after conversion, not those who are searching. He's really crystal clear.
[00:13:39] He says, you're going to be searching for God and you're going to have all sorts of mess and you're going to sort your life out. Secondly, if someone continues to be immoral when they've accepted Jesus in their life, it ceases to be immorality and becomes a wolf in the flock.
[00:13:53] And we should protect the flock, which is why he's saying, put them out.
[00:13:57] And thirdly, it's catching.
[00:14:02] When one generation tolerates a sin, the next generation will celebrate that sin and then the generation after that won't know it's a sin anymore.
[00:14:15] Let me say it again.
[00:14:17] When one generation tolerates a sin, the next generation celebrate that sin and then the generation after that don't even know it's sin anymore.
[00:14:30] This is what Haggai is saying. This is his point. This is the point of the New Testament writers. Because sometimes it's what you tolerate.
[00:14:42] When Juliet and I came to Jesus, he cleansed us. He gave us beautiful new clothes.
[00:14:51] Everything in our lives changed. I was a 13 year old kid, she was a, you know, a few years older. You were in your early 20s, weren't you? And you met Jesus. Everything in our life changed. He came into our life, he cleansed us and we just Wanted to walk with him, and he gave us brand new clothes, and we never want to go back to the old ones.
[00:15:14] But, you know, sometimes Juliet looks at my brand new sweatshirt, and I'm a really messy eater, right? I like pizza, and I'm often eating and the pizza's dribbling down me. And what I do is I get ugly spots on my sweatshirt.
[00:15:30] And no matter what we do, we can't get the ugly spot out. Everyone's just checking their shirt, you know, have I got coffee down it? Have I got an ugly spot on? And, you know, so she'll buy me this brand new sweatshirt, and it's really. It's really nice, and it's got this spot on it now. I don't care less.
[00:15:48] I mean, I'll go, I don't care. I'm not looking at me. It's you that's got to look at me. I'm just going to go out. But she says, you are not going out dressed like that.
[00:15:57] I'm going, but this is a brand new sweatshirt, as you say, I don't care. I'm not going out with you dressed like that. It has to go.
[00:16:06] Throw it away.
[00:16:09] It's useless now. You can't wear it. You need a brand new. You need to go and get a brand new sweatshirt. Now, some of you, that's good news. All right, for me, I'm going, wow, this could get expensive.
[00:16:24] It is expensive.
[00:16:25] It cost Jesus his blood.
[00:16:30] The new clothes we wear cost Jesus his blood the most expensive price.
[00:16:39] And you see, we are not going to put the old ones back on, but God is constantly clothing us in Jesus Christ through the blood of Jesus.
[00:16:54] And what Haggai is saying is so that the blessings can flow in your life.
[00:17:02] You see, Jesus can only redeem people, not sin.
[00:17:09] You see, our sin has to go to the cross.
[00:17:13] It is us he buys back. But we can't take these bags with us. We need to leave them there.
[00:17:23] And, you know, often we like to concentrate on the individual, you know? You know, I wonder what you're sinning and your sinner and your sin. It's interesting that Haggai is talking to the whole people through the priests.
[00:17:36] And the priests were meant to teach the people.
[00:17:41] And if the priests don't clearly teach the people the ways of God, how will people know how to live?
[00:17:49] And, you know, sometimes people say to me, you may be sitting there now, but, Steve, when you speak like this, you hurt my feelings.
[00:17:58] You make me feel bad.
[00:18:00] You make me feel uncomfortable.
[00:18:03] I understand that. I didn't wake up this morning thinking, I wonder how I can hurt their feelings.
[00:18:09] All right.
[00:18:10] But when we talk about the ways of God, the reason I'm doing that is because I want to save you from the fires of hell.
[00:18:23] And you know what? Sometimes you'll come into church and get a little singed. Paul talks about that in 1 Corinthians 3.
[00:18:31] But one day we're all going to stand before the Lord Jesus Christ and there's going to be two cues.
[00:18:39] And what I don't want is people in the other queue going, why didn't you tell me?
[00:18:47] Why didn't you tell me the truth? Why did you keep quiet? Why didn't you say.
[00:18:55] And I would much prefer to be in the queue of hurt feelings, where people got in people's faces and taught the ways of God.
[00:19:09] And my feelings may have got hurt, but the theological word for your feelings getting hurt is conviction.
[00:19:17] The Spirit comes and convicts us of some of these bags that they're on the upper shelf.
[00:19:25] They're all tucked out the way. Nobody can see them. We think they don't matter. But in there they that there are rotten potatoes.
[00:19:36] And haggai is reminding the priest that it's their job to teach the people the ways of God so that they can host the coming glory.
[00:19:47] And you see, I want you to see this. Cause it isn't about individual sinners. It's about sinning people.
[00:19:55] And it's because of their sin and their tolerance of sin that the blessing has lifted.
[00:20:03] And that's what we're seeing in our nation now.
[00:20:08] Why are things all over the shop in our nation?
[00:20:12] Because the church hasn't been teaching clearly the ways of God.
[00:20:17] And what was a sin, one generation has been celebrated in another generation. And now they don't know it's a sin.
[00:20:25] And what's happened is that the blessing of God is like the brakes are on. Listen to what he says. Since those days, when one came to a heap of 20, there were but 10. When one came to the wine vat to draw out 50 baths from the press, there were but 20. I struck you with blight, mildew, hail, and all the labors of your hand, yet you did not turn to me. Have you ever looked at that Asia? It doesn't matter how much we put in, there's not enough.
[00:20:52] It doesn't matter what that tax is or what that happens. There's just not enough. It's not working. Why?
[00:20:59] Because we're working against God.
[00:21:01] You see, the essence of the new heaven and new earth is a restored and vital relationship with the Lord and the role of the temple on earth, whether the old temple or the new living stones is to represent heaven, holiness was not to be confined to the temple.
[00:21:21] You see, there's an idea that somehow there's a special place for religious activities and that there's a secular place where it doesn't really matter what we do that's completely foreign to the Bible.
[00:21:34] You see, when this happens, the so called saved or the so called secular don't prosper because the Lord's ways are not honored.
[00:21:47] You see, if the community and the temple are truly to represent the kingdom of God, there needs to be a holiness.
[00:21:58] You see, sometimes Juliet or I sin, I mean her obviously more than me, but I mean, you know, but believe it or not, we do sometimes sin. All right, you know, I'm joking.
[00:22:13] But one of the.
[00:22:15] Since coming to Jesus, one of the interesting things about the Holy Spirit in our life is we cannot move on until we've done business with God. I mean, we're just distraught. What are we going to do? How are we going to sort this? We've done this, we didn't mean to do this. What are we going to do? There's an urgency.
[00:22:31] But you know what, we can tell a story.
[00:22:35] Well, the reason this happened is because of that and this and you know, there's a good reason for it. And we can just park it over here and we can put it in our bag and we can put it on the shelf and no one will notice apart from the Lord.
[00:22:55] And what starts to happen is there's a rotting or a smelling.
[00:23:00] And what often happens is the Holy Spirit disturbs it and we go, ah, how did it become like that?
[00:23:09] And one of the things I would say is, and I'm a little bit off my notes now.
[00:23:16] There's a trajectory, you see, when you come to Christ, clear everything out, clear it all out.
[00:23:23] You know, I don't care what's going on in your life, just confess it all, lay it all out on the table, don't leave any bags anywhere else. Because what tends to happen is if we leave bags. And you know what, I'm just going to sort that out next week. The trajectory of life that we were only off tiny little bit.
[00:23:41] But a time where you get as old as me, it's out here and it smells and it stinks. And that's why sometimes you look into church and you see people falling a mess and you go, how did it get, get there?
[00:23:58] It's because it wasn't dealt with here.
[00:24:00] And there was a bag on top of the kitchen. And God in all of his mercy puts his hand in the bag and we go, this is terrible. The smell, how bad it looks. And the Lord's going, no, I'm a redeemer of souls. I'm a lover of people's lives and I save them here.
[00:24:18] And there may be some hurt feelings, and there may be some shame, and there may be some difficulties to work through, but God loves people.
[00:24:27] And sin is dealt with here by the blood of Jesus Christ.
[00:24:32] And so when he starts to convict and reveal it's Lord anything, why? Because the bridegroom is coming.
[00:24:43] And why must we build a holy house? Because we represent a holy God. The creator has designed creation to cooperate with the temple.
[00:24:53] Say it again. The creator has designed creation to cooperate with his temple.
[00:25:01] He says, I struck all the work of your hands with blight, mildew and hail. That's why the creation eagerly awaits for the revealing of the sons of God.
[00:25:13] Because the creation has been designed to cooperate with the living stones, the temples, you and I. And then he says this. As of yet, the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, the olive tree have not yielded fruit. What he's saying is, you haven't seen anything yet. And we've seen a lot.
[00:25:33] But he says, from this day on, I will bless you.
[00:25:38] You see, what he's saying is, if you will build my house, if you will host my presence and walk in my ways, I will bless you.
[00:25:44] He talks about the vine, the vine means fruitfulness, relationship and covenant. The fig tree, prosperity, peace and security.
[00:25:53] The pomegranate, blessing and abundance. The olive tree, strength and holy spirit, all that they saw in the reign of Solomon. The shalom of the kingdom which comes now with the coming of Jesus. We which should be present in his church. And that is the work that God is doing amongst us.
[00:26:18] And Haggai is telling the people, just get rid of the unclean. If there's anything unclean, chuck it out, just get rid of it.
[00:26:26] And he's telling the priests to teach the people God's ways. He's saying to the priest, stop compromising, stop not talking about things, talk about things. Don't be scared about hurting people's feelings because my glory is coming and my blessing is coming. And when the blessing comes, they won't care about their. They'll be grateful that their feelings were hurt for a moment because the wonderful blessing of the kingdom of God is coming. See, I don't believe our holiness is being without sin, I'm holy because of the blood of Jesus cleanses me from my sin. He gives me new clothes so that my life and your life is not defiled. But I have to choose to wear them.
[00:27:08] I have to choose to keep my clothes clean. I'm not going back to my old clothes. And whenever the dirty spots, whenever the ugly spot is on my clothes, I can whip them off. And there are new clothes.
[00:27:22] It just needs to go. I need to get rid of it. I can try to get rid of the spot. I can do all of the work. Juliet can tell me she's not going out with me dressed like that. But I need the new clothes.
[00:27:34] I need Jesus to come and deal. And the only way he comes and deals is when I go. This is out.
[00:27:39] I'm putting it out. And the new is coming.
[00:27:43] You see, the finance to build the house is easy for the Lord. Heaven. The roads are made of gold, but the holy stones us, that's our choice. Will we choose to walk in his ways? But as importantly, will you allow the priest to teach you his ways without your feelings getting hurt so that your life can change?
[00:28:10] You might feel convicted sometime. I feel convicted most times.
[00:28:14] But if I. If we will turn to the Lord, his promise is, from this day on, I will bless you.
[00:28:24] And he's saying, you haven't seen anything yet. I'm going to. Well, we've seen a lot here over the last few years. And he's going, you haven't seen anything yet because the fruit hasn't even started yet.
[00:28:39] But he is here, and if we will learn to host him, we will see the glory of God in this land and his blessing will be released in our lives, in the city's life, and in the nation's life.
[00:28:53] Once again, thanks for listening to the Coma Church podcast. If you enjoyed this message, you can like and subscribe. You can also join us in person or online every Sunday at Cromer Church. For more information about us, including our ministries, events, worship, and how to donate, visit our website at Cromer Church.
