Faith Beyond Appearances: Haggai 2:3-4

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The foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in God.

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Someday in heaven, when God is passing out rewards, who do you think might be one of the most honored people? Paul? Maybe Peter? Or maybe it’s someone you’ve never heard of and of whose story you’ve never been told. Welcome to Through the Bible. Dr. J. Vernon McGee is going to give us some surprising insight into that future scene in this study. We’re in Haggai chapter 2, so hop aboard the Bible bus and turn there in your Bible if you can. Now, as you know, we love to read letters and emails and texts to start off our studies. And Dr. McGee himself started this tradition. So here he is sharing a letter from a listener whose heart and life were changed by God’s word.

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Here is a very interesting letter from Westfield, New Jersey. It says, I’ve been a Methodist since I was very little, grew up close to the church, attended Sunday school and worship every week and youth fellowship evenings. As I became a teenager, I became a fill-in Sunday school teacher, etc., studied my verses, sang in the choir, etc. But somewhere along the way, I became acutely aware that there was something wrong there. People were snobbish, bigoted, and oh, so uppity. And the noted and highly esteemed pastor spent about one hour a week in a travel log of his ministry with about three minutes devoted to the gospel reading. Well, sir, that’s about where I got off the train. I continued to be what I thought was a Christian, doing good works, praying in thanks and in need, marrying a Roman Catholic and raising two fine sons. I have attended church, the Catholic services with them, on their important days, but never went back to regular attendance anywhere. And then she begins to talk, my marriage became less than rosy. I got laid up with arthritis in the feet and neck. I’m 35, and my ability to function at work was impaired. Well, it took God a couple of more years before I woke up to the fact that my unhappiness could be handled by an assured faith in Jesus Christ and an awareness that all that happened and happens now and in the future is for a purpose. I am thankful for that knowledge and comforted by its help so far. And then this part, it says, I even bring a brown bag lunch to eat at that hour. That is in order that she can listen to our program. She says, I ask Jesus Christ into my heart as a result of your messages. I follow the program as regularly as possible and pray for your continued good health and ministry. And that’s not all the letter, but it’s all we’re going to take time to share. It’s a remarkable letter and shows that the Word of God Today, friends, is quick and powerful and sharper than two-edged sword. And God says that it’s going to be like rain that comes down from heaven. It’ll not return unto him void. And when he pours rain out on a field, something’s going to come up. And friends, when you put the word of God on the radio and send it out, something’s going to happen. And we’re seeing it happen today.

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Even now, Dr. McGee’s comments continue to ring true as we take the whole word to the whole world. For example, I’m excited to share this letter with you from a listener in India who writes, I attended church during religious holidays like Christmas and Easter, but in my daily life my faith remained in the background of my life. Thank you. I felt the need to get closer to Jesus and live according to him. I started attending church again, this time with a true devotion and a burning desire to grow spiritually. My faith has taken deep roots and grown. I’m grateful for your teaching and may all the glory go to our Lord Jesus Christ. Amazing how God works, isn’t it? I’m so grateful for it, aren’t you? Now let’s pray and thank him. Heavenly Father, thank you for your word. Thank you that it’s alive and active and able to pierce our very souls. Please deliver it to those searching for you, and thank you that it’ll accomplish your desires in our lives. In Jesus’ name, amen. Here’s our study of Haggai 2 on Through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.

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Now, friends, again today, we want to come back to this little book of Haggai. This little book that is so practical, and actually it’s a book that reaches right down where we live today. Fact of the matter is, I’m sure that he has stepped on the toes of many of us. Because it’s so easy today for many of us to be very, well, shall I say, very pious. We appear to be very spiritual. We want to appear that we’re right in the center of the Lord’s will. When in reality, we are covering up a great deal of laziness, and we’re covering up the fact that we’re actually out of the will of God. Haggai found these people in that position. Now they have responded in a most marvelous way, and they have begun to rebuild the temple. The very people who said the day before, they said, the time has not come. But God said to them, the time has come. And so they immediately set in. They obeyed God and began to build. And then they found themselves confronted with another set of discouragement. Some of the old timers. They remembered the former temple. They remembered it back in the time when Solomon’s temple stood there. Frankly, it was a regular little jewel box. It was a thing of beauty. It cost anywhere from $5 million to $20 million. That is, it was that much gold and silver and precious stones that adorned it. And it was really something to look at. Now, this that’s going up, it’s largely a wooden structure. And it’s not really a great temple in the sense of the building wasn’t a very impressive looking building. And these old timers, they began to weep while the young were shouting with joy. And you had really here a generation gap, let me tell you, at this particular time. And how is God going to overcome this? And Haggai will be his messenger. And this thing that they’re putting up here doesn’t even compare in the beauty of it and in the wealth of it and all of that sort of thing. And it’s just something that didn’t seem to amount to too much. Well, may I say to you, this internal criticism, it was like a wet blanket on the celebration of the construction of the new temple. It dulled the edge of the zeal to rebuild the temple. It poured cold water on the enthusiasm that had been generated by the prodding of Haggai. Now, will you notice how God is going to meet this situation? How is he going to answer it? He very frankly faces it. He says, who’s left among you? I’m reading verse 3 again. Who is left among you that saw this house in its first glory? And how do you see it now? Is it not in your eyes in comparison with it as nothing? In other words, they were making that kind of comparison, and it looked like this one was nothing compared to the former one, of course. So that here you have the conflict that was going on and was causing a great deal of difficulty. Now, again, I’m sure in the church, We’d have to have a committee appointed. That’s generally the way we do church business, is it not, with a committee? Committee is generally a group of people who take down minutes. They waste hours. And individually, they can do nothing, but they can get together and decide that nothing can be done. Or it’s a group of the incompetent appointed by the indifferent to do the unnecessary. That’s the committee approach to things. And that’s the way we would handle problems today in our churches. I did it for years. I think I know this method quite a bit. But that’s not the way God solved it. He just got right down, friends, where the rubber meets the road and faced the problem and came up with a very simple solution to it. Now he says, sure, this house here, it’s nothing compared to the other. Let’s face up to it. It doesn’t compare to it. But listen to what God has to say, verse 4. Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the Lord, and be strong, O Joshua, the son of Jehoshaddek, the high priest, and be strong, all ye people of the land, saith the Lord, and work. For I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts. May I say to you, this is quite wonderful. God’s challenge was twofold here. He says it three times. Be strong. Be strong, he says, to the civil ruler. Be strong, he says, to the religious ruler. He now speaks to the people, and he has something new for them. No, same thing. Be strong. Be strong. And that was a very wonderful thing to say to them. Very simple, of course, but frankly, very important. You remember, this is something that Paul said to the Ephesians. You and I today live in a big, bad world. What’s our encouragement today? God’s work in so many places seems so small, doesn’t seem to amount to very much. What is the answer to it? Well, here’s God’s answer. Ephesians 6, verse 10. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. That’s the important thing. If you can recognize you can’t do anything, but God can do a great deal and be strong in the Lord. Well, how wonderful that is. And may I say to you, that is something we find over in the 11th chapter of Hebrews, verse 34. It says there that they quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword. Out of weakness were made strong. And doesn’t God say he chooses the weak things of this world? God doesn’t choose these big, highly ornate buildings today, these great big mausoleums that have a steeple on top of them. Nothing very great’s happening in those places today, friends. I’ll tell you where the place is just jumping today. It’s out in the suburban areas or in actually a small place. where the church is just absolutely packed out. Now, I know what I’m talking about when I mention this. I’ve had the privilege of going across this country several times, and I have been abroad also. Why, I went into a great church in London, England, that at one time it was filled with several thousand people three times a week regularly. Well, the Sunday night I was there, there weren’t 200 people there. May I say to you, my, that great, big, imposing building is not very impressive anymore with its very formidable name. Well, may I say to you, that’s true in this country today. I have been in some of these great churches. By the amount of lumber you can see there that’s in pews and in benches, nobody’s in them. I go out yonder today to some of these small churches, and they are packed to the door. And they’re having two and three services a day. I’ve been in several churches now where they have three morning services. Somebody says, well, why don’t you go back there? Because my friend, three services in the morning kills me. But these young preachers are able to do it apparently. So may I say to you that we’re to be strong in the Lord. And he not only said that one time or two times, but Paul writing to a young preacher, In 2 Timothy, the second chapter, I’d like to read that. He says in chapter 2, verse 1 of 2 Timothy, now this is his one song and it’s his final message to this young preacher. Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. You’re God’s son now. He was a spiritual son, you see, of Paul. And Paul says, you are a son of God. Be strong now. And what a word of encouragement that should be. Somebody says, well, my work is so small. My little group is so small that I don’t think it amounts to very much. May I say to you, if that’s what you think, it’s the devil that’s talking to you. It’s God that, very frankly, is the one that’s going to put the measuring rod down on it and determine who’s great and who’s not. And there are a whole lot of straw stacks that are being built today, and they’re very impressive. I’ve always been afraid that I have built a big straw stack. And somebody says, yes, but some gold in it. But my friend, have you ever tried to find a needle in a straw stack? How would you find a little piece of gold that’s the same color as a straw? May I say to you, friends, that it’s not a matter of the size of the work to begin with. God makes it very clear. That that’s not the important thing. What he’s saying to you and me today is, watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like man, be strong. That’s 1 Corinthians 16, 13. And that was a bunch of babies over there in Corinth. And Paul says, get out of the crib. Get out of your high chair. and grow up, be strong in the Lord. Oh, how we need that sort of thing today in God’s work, friends. And again, he wasn’t through with the Corinthians when he wrote the second epistle. He says to them in 2 Corinthians 10, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they’re mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. It was my privilege to be pastor in downtown Los Angeles, and to have succeeded some great men that I always respected them. I may not approve of everything they did, but I sure had great respect for those men. They were great preachers, and Dr. Torrey had been the founder of that church. And so I never went in that pulpit, never walked in that pulpit. But when we left the radio room to come out on a platform with the staff, I always looked to God and would say to him, Lord, I am unable. I’m insufficient. And who is sufficient for this task? And I call on you today, and may I say to you that I’m thanking God that out of weak He can make you strong. And he says here, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. They’re mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. And I’ve told God many a time, I said, Lord, if anything happens here today, you will have to do it because you and I know that this poor boy can’t do it at all. And he goes on to say here to the Corinthians, verse 5, He says, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ and having in readiness to revenge all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. In other words, make very sure you’re being obedient unto God and it doesn’t make any difference how large the work is or how small the work is. It’s something that we need to remember. Be strong. God says, sure, this temple is not as impressive as the other temple was. God says, I know that, but be strong. That is my challenge to you. And he said it three times, and then he said something else, and work, and work. Just keep at the job. Let God be the one to determine who’s doing the greatest work. I think when you and I get up there, we’re going to find out that there may have been some people that were greater in Luther’s day than Luther and in Wesley’s day greater than Wesley and greater than Billy Sunday in Billy Sunday’s day, Billy Graham in Billy Graham’s day. Or even Vernon McGee. I used to tell the staff, I said, you know, someday when we stand before God, we may call some woman. And he said, this woman was a member of the Church of the Open Door while Dr. McGee was pastor of that church. Only thing, I don’t think he’d call me doctor. But he’ll say, I want to reward her. She is the most honored one. And I’ll nudge members of the staff. I said, did you all know her? I didn’t. They said, no, we never heard of her. She’s one of those unknown members. All she had was just one little boy. Her husband deserted her. She raised him. He went to the mission field. And my, what a work he did. And she was faithful. She didn’t have the opportunity of speaking to thousands, but she sure had the opportunity of speaking to one. And that’s all God asked her to do. May I say to you, I think we’re going to get our eyes open someday when we stand in his presence. He says, be strong and work. Be faithful at the task that God has called you to. And then here is the glorious word of encouragement. And it’s this, for I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts. Now, we have a great deal more in this chapter to deal with, and especially in this particular section here. And I’m inclined to want to move on, but no, I want to stay with this for just a moment. God says, for I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts. Now, the fact of the matter is the Shekinah glory had departed from the temple. sometime before the destruction of the temple. Now, I’ve always taken the position that it took place during the reign of Manasseh. That man was a sinner and a ruler, and during his reign, that nation went lower than it ever had gone before. And if the Shekinah glory didn’t leave during his reign, I’ll be very frank with you. I can’t figure out any other time after that that he’d be inclined to leave. I think he left during the reign of Manasseh. Now, they had this very ornate temple, boards covered with gold, all of it in display, and the silver, all of that. How beautiful it must have been. You know that on that place today is the Mosque of Oman. And it has a dome that is painted gold. Now, I’ve been told that that’s gold leaf. I don’t know. It may or may not be. I’m rather skeptical about those things, but it could be, of course. But I have looked at that from the Mount of Olives. I’ve looked at it from Zion. I’ve looked at it from the tower of that Lutheran church. I’ve looked at it from the hotel windows. And I want to see how it shines. And as I’ve looked at that pagan mosque, I’ve thought of how Solomon’s temple must have looked in the bright sunlight of that almost desert air. How beautiful it must have been. And in comparison to what they’re looking at now, why they actually, it’s no comparison at all. But friends, the Shekinah glory was gone. It wasn’t there anymore. And this house that’s being put up, this is the thing I want to deal with next time, is that actually Zerubbabel’s temple that is being rebuilt here now was torn down by Herod. And then Herod began to build that beautiful temple that was there in Christ’s day, but never completed. In 70 AD, Titus destroyed it. And the Lord always looked at that as one house. Not three houses, but one house. And so he’s going to talk about that a little later. But actually, the house they’re putting up is in line with the house that will be there when the Lord Jesus comes and walks into that temple and cleanses it. Now, will you look at that for just a moment? He was the Shekinah glory. He was God manifest in the flesh. John says we beheld his glory, but he was veiled in human flesh and he walked into that temple not one time, but many times. The Lord says to these people, yes, it’s not much, but I’m with you. And that’s better than having a temple and God not being there. And my friend, that’s the contrast between that big church today with empty seats, nothing in the world but a mausoleum, cold and indifferent and dead, and a little church around a corner that’s got a young man teaching the Word of God. I say to you today that we need to get a perspective of what is real and what is not real and what God is blessing and what God is not blessing. This is a marvelous section here. We’ll pick right up there next time. And until then, may God richly bless you, my beloved.

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You know, it’s easy to be deceived or distracted by shiny things when God is really blessing the faithful things. Don’t despise the small things. That’s what the prophet Zechariah said. What you can be sure of, no matter the size of your ministry, is that God is with you. He’s supporting you, and it’s his responsibility to provide the fruit in people’s lives. We just need to be faithful. And speaking of Zechariah, we’ll be finishing up our study in Haggai soon and continuing on to Zechariah. Now is really the perfect time to download your notes and outlines from TTB.org. Just click on our digital book, Briefing the Bible, to get them all in one easy volume. Or if you’d like to receive an abbreviated print copy by mail, just call us, 1-800-65-BIBLE is the number. And of course, there’s no need to take action if you listen with our app. Those notes and outlines, well, the whole thing is right there along with the Bible in the app menu. Now, as we go, if you’d like to find out how to invest in this fruitful ministry, call us, 1-800-65-BIBLES-A-NUMBER, or write to BibleBus at ttb.org or Box 7100, Pasadena, California, 91109. In Canada, Box 25325, London, Ontario, N6C, 6B1. I’m Steve Schwetz, praying that God uses this study in your life, drawing you closer to the Lord Jesus Christ.

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He washed it white as snow.

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