This is your daily reminder. God has not run
out of mercy, not for you, not today. Welcome
to the New Mercies Podcast. Welcome back, February
the 27th. Today is Haggai 2, the last time we're
going to talk about Haggai 2 this week. We are
talking about it on Sunday morning. Our church
family is hosting a Fill the House Sunday. We
are going to share the gospel very clearly through
Haggai 2. That's right. Now, you may read it
today. I encourage you to read the chapter today.
You are not even ready for the episode that you're
about to get. I am so excited about what I want
to share with you about Haggai 2 today. Now,
some of this you may hear in the sermon, but
not all of it. Again, my sermons, I don't have
enough time to share everything that is within
the Scripture. And even today, I'm going to share
with you something that may or may not make it
into the final message. But it is interesting
and beautiful and incredible, and I wanted to
give you some encouragement today. So I want
to read Haggai 2 just a couple places. We're
going to look towards the end of the chapter
today. But the chapter begins with dating. prophecy,
right? So I want to read the first verse of chapter
2. If you listened in or read Haggai 2 already
this week, I shared a little bit about this,
but I didn't share much because I wanted to fit
the timeline today for us. In Haggai 2, specifically
at verse number 1, it says, in the seventh month
on the 21st day of the month, the word of the
Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet.
Now, if you go back in Scripture to the book
of Leviticus, you will see in the book of Leviticus,
it gives some explanation on times and dates
of festivals. There is a festival that this aligns
with. This is the seventh day of the festival
of tabernacles or the feast of tabernacles, which
is an incredible feast. I'm probably going to
eventually branch out on the podcast and start
talking about each of the feasts in the Old Testament,
what they meant, what they symbolized, and then
you're going to see how it pointed to Jesus the
whole time. But the Feast of Tabernacles was
really important, and it was super valuable.
It was about God's presence tabernacling with
the people. So tabernacle meant to reside. So
this was God residing with his people. So here's
what happens. If you listened this week already
to Haggai 2, we talked about there was some discouragement
that creeped in because people were saying, we've
started to rebuild the temple and it's not as
pretty as Solomon's. It's not the good old days.
And you may say, well, that seems like an odd
thing to do while you're building. And most likely,
if you're building something, if you're carrying
bricks and carrying blocks and you're putting
it together and you're sweating, you're working.
You're probably not saying to the guy next to
you, man, that doesn't look as good as Solomon's,
right? Why would they be saying this? Well, this
is at the last day, last feast of the Feast of
Tabernacles. They are reminiscing, right? They're
supposed to be celebrating what God is doing.
And so they start talking about as they're eating
and as they're enjoying company, as they're enjoying
celebrating what God is doing, they are saying,
yeah, but it was really great back then. Yeah,
but back then it was really good. But this encounter
I had with God a long time ago was really, really
good. I've said it before and I'll say it again.
We rely a lot on former experiences over fresh
encounters. We rely on something that's happened
in the past, a big faith moment. We keep going
back to that faith moment. Well, God may be trying
to build faith moments right now today, but we're
too busy sitting around reminiscing about the
days of old. And again, it is not bad to remember.
I think we need to remember. even more. But we
also need to focus in on what God's doing today.
We looked at the first nine verses of Haggai
2 this past week, and I want to jump in on the
next verse after it because he gives another
date. He shares something else that happens.
There's another prophecy that comes. In fact,
that prophecy... After they talk about the good
old days, after they talk about something new
is happening today, and in verse number 9, he
points to the idea that the latter is going to
be greater than the former. This next step of
what I'm doing is going to be even greater than
the days before. Yes, the materials were great,
but the temple doesn't need great bricks. The
temple needs the presence of God, and I'm telling
you, I'm sending the presence of God. Why is
he talking about the presence of God so much?
Because it's the Feast of Tabernacles. about
the presence of God. This is incredible. How
in the world did he know the right day, the right
time, the right place? They've just been talking
about what tabernacling is. They've just been
talking about celebrating with the Feast of Tabernacles.
They've been celebrating how God has been with
them. Then they start complaining about this
temple isn't as pretty as the last one. And God
says, he reminds them at the end in verse number
nine, he says, this house shall be greater than
the former, says the Lord. And in this place,
I will give peace, declares the Lord. I'll be
with you. Hey, this is all about my presence,
right? The tabernacle, the temple, your life
doesn't need nicer bricks, nicer materials. It
needs the presence of the Lord. Now, what happens
as I turn the page in my Bible and go to verse
number 10? The Bible says this. On the 24th day
of the ninth month in the second year of Darius,
the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet.
I want to stop right there. This is now nine
weeks later. Okay, nine weeks. Work's been going
on. The prophet gets another word from God nine
weeks later. It is important for us to know this.
Nine weeks is not a long time. It's just a little
over a couple months, and there's been work still
happening. The work continued. It kept going,
kept going, kept going. And here's what he says
in this text. I'm not going to read it. I want
you to read it on your own, but I'm going to
sum it up for you in a nutshell. cannot make
unholy things holy, okay? So just because something
is holy doesn't mean you can put it with an unholy
thing and change the unholy thing, right? Not
going to happen. On the contrary, unholy things
can make holy things unholy, right? It's kind
of like if you've got a clear glass of water
and a muddy glass of water, right? If I pour
the clear glass of water into the muddy glass
and it fills it up, it's not clean. right? It's
just maybe diluted a little bit, but it's still
dirty water. Yet, if I have the two glasses and
I pour the muddy water into the clean water,
guess what? The clean water is no longer clean,
right? That's the simple explanation. If you
read it, and I encourage you to read it, it gets
a little bit, you know, it seems a little back
and forth, but that's what he's talking about.
In a nutshell, holy things can't make unholy
things holy. but unholy things can make holy
things unholy, okay? I hope you maybe caught
on to that. And so ultimately, it's easier to
tear something down than to build it up, right?
They're talking about building and the temple.
Demo day is way easier than reconstruction day,
right? I'll run a sledgehammer through a wall
all day, make a big mess. That's easy to do,
whereas building the wall back... You got to
frame it. You got to sheetrock it. You got to
screw it in. You got to mud it. You got to finish
it. You got to scrape it, sand it. Then you got
to paint it. That's a lot more work than taking
a sledgehammer through a wall, right? He says
you can tear things down much easier than you
can build them up. And he's reminding them, you
neglected my house. That was unholy. You neglected
my house and you built your own house, which
shows your heart. You look to your own interests
and not God's. You're unclean. You are unclean.
Then he does something amazing. He keeps going.
Verses 20 through 23, he begins to explain. This
is the same day of that prophecy, a little bit
later in the day. So it's a little bit later.
It comes with a double dose of encouragement.
The first encouragement is his power. He does
not lose. So verses 20 through 23, he again explains,
I don't lose a battle. Let me encourage you.
I'm with you, and I don't lose. That is great
encouragement. But then he does something absolutely
incredible in the last verse. Listen to verse
23. On that day, declares the Lord of hosts,
I will take you, O Zerubbabel, my servant, the
son of Shealtiel, declares the Lord, and make
you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you,
declares the Lord of hosts. Here is something
absolutely incredible. We will read over this
and we will miss it nine times out of ten. So
there's a guy named Jeremiah that wrote a book
in the Old Testament. Jeremiah listed a man who
was cursed by God, Jehoiakim. Jehoiakim was one
of the kings who was rejected by God. In fact,
God tells him, if you were a signet ring, I would
throw you away. Now, here's what's... wild. So
you can go look that up in Jeremiah 22. He mentions
this. Well, Jehoiakim has a son named Shealtiel.
Okay. So here's, and I think you know, baby,
where this is going. Shealtiel has a son named
Zerubbabel. Now, when he talked about Jehoiakim,
he was cursing him, saying, I'm taking away your
power. You're cursed. I would throw you away.
You are no good to me, as God would say. You're
no good to me. I'm taking this away. Talks about
a signet ring. What a signet ring is, by the
way, is an Eastern monarch would use their signet
ring, and if they wanted to bestow power on somebody
to use for a season to make decisions and to
take the lead on something, he would give that
signet ring to someone else. to use for a season
or a time temporarily. And so what they would
do is if somebody else needed to make a decision,
if the king was off on vacation, gone away, whatever,
not available, sick, couldn't make a decision,
he would give the signet ring to that person.
They would then be able to have authority. They
would be able to be useful in those places. So
here's what God says to Zerubbabel, who, by the
way, his lineage is cursed. right? Jehoiakim
was cursed. His lineage was cursed because of
Zerubbabel's obedience. There's nothing else
in this. It's because of Zerubbabel's obedience.
He began rebuilding the temple. He could have
continued to say, no, it'll be later. No, I won't
do it. No, I won't do it. It's not an easy task.
He was called out, called up, and now called
to do something about it, called to work. He
began to rebuild. And as he began to rebuild,
God said to him, I'm going to make you a signet
ring. Do you realize Zerubbabel is in both genealogies
of the person of Jesus, both in Matthew and in
Luke? He is in the legal line of Jesus as the
true Messiah and in the natural line of Jesus
as the Messiah. Why? Because he was obedient.
God worked something together for good, even
though the generations had been cursed before
him. We talk about generational curses in our
culture today. This man actually came from a
line of generational curse. And yet because he
was obedient to the Lord, the Lord broke that
curse and then gave him a beautiful signet ring
to say, I'm going to use you in a way that is
going to affect history. I cannot believe why
in the world do we not follow in obedience to
God? Well, I've got just this generational curse
on my family. So did Zerubbabel. Yeah, but that
was different. All he had to do was build the
temple. That's not an easy task. It took years.
It took time. It took effort. It took resources.
And he was scolded because he didn't do it. He
had to rally troops around. His spirit was stirred.
There was revival that broke out. And because
he was obedient and revival broke out in his
time, he was able to be used by God to bring
through the lineage of the Messiah. I am telling
you this. When you say, well, God can't use me.
Well, you know what? Be obedient and give it
a shot and see if he does. Because I am telling
you this, based out of Scripture, it requires
this thing called faith. That's all the requirement
is on our part. I believe God can do something
in my life. What is it? I don't know. But I'm
going to trust him. And I'm going to let him
do it. I hope and pray you read Haggai 2 today.
Fresh ears, fresh eyes. See it. Listen to it.
Set in it. Allow the Lord to speak to you today.
Don't just take my word for it. Jump into Haggai
2 today.