Not Enough Profit?

I. EXORDIUM:

Why not?

II. AUDIENCE PROFILE:

Believers

III. OBJECTIVES:

To show that we profit only if everything about GOD and for GOD we see profitable.

IV. TEXT:

Haggai 1:9 (Amplified Bible)

You looked for much [harvest], and behold, it came to little; and even when you brought that home, I blew it away. Why? says the Lord of hosts. Because of My house, which lies waste while you yourselves run each man to his own house [eager to build and adorn it].

V. THESIS:

We profit only if everything about GOD and for GOD we see profitable. Our example is the LORD JESUS CHRIST if you want to earn more profit.

VI. TITLE:

Not enough profit?

VII. EXPLICATION:

A. Author: Haggai, the prophet of the temple, colleague of Zechariah

B. Date written: 520 B.C.

C. Purpose: to motivate GOD's people to reorder their priorities, complete the temple and restore proper worship.

D. To whom written: The Remnant, especially those who had returned from Exile in Babylon

E. Main theme: Sharp rebukes for the neglect to rebuild the temple

F. Keywords: Build the Temple

Haggai 1:7-8 (Amplified Bible)

Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways (your previous and present conduct) and how you have fared.

Go up to the hill country and bring lumber and rebuild [My] house, and I will take pleasure in it and I will be glorified, says the Lord [by accepting it as done for My glory and by displaying My glory in it].

G. Key verses:

Haggai 2:4-9 (Amplified Bible)

Yet now be strong, alert, and courageous, O Zerubbabel, says the Lord; be strong, alert, and courageous, O Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest; and be strong, alert, and courageous, all you people of the land, says the Lord, and work! For I am with you, says the Lord of hosts.

According to the promise that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, so My Spirit stands and abides in the midst of you; fear not.

For thus says the Lord of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake and make tremble the [starry] heavens, the earth, the sea, and the dry land;

And I will shake all nations and the desire and the precious things of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the Lord of hosts.

The silver is Mine and the gold is Mine, says the Lord of hosts.

The latter glory of this house [with its successor, to which Jesus came] shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts; and in this place will I give peace and prosperity, says the Lord of hosts.

VIII. MAIN BODY:

A. Expected much, turned out to be little

"You looked for much [harvest], and behold, it came to little;"

Haggai 1:6 (Amplified Bible)

You have sown much, but you have reaped little; you eat, but you do not have enough; you drink, but you do not have your fill; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages has earned them to put them in a bag with holes in it.

Isaiah 17:10-11 (Amplified Bible)

Because you have forgotten the God of your salvation [O Judah] and have not been mindful of the Rock of your strength, your Stronghold—therefore, you have planted pleasant nursery grounds and plantings [to Adonis, pots of quickly withered flowers used to set by their doors or in the courts of temples], and have set [the grounds] with vine slips of a strange [God],

And in the day of your planting you hedge it in, and in the morning you make your seed to blossom, yet [promising as it is] the harvest shall be a heap of ruins and flee away in the day of expected possession and of desperate sorrow and sickening, incurable pain.

Malachi 3:8-11 (Amplified Bible)

Will a man rob or defraud God? Yet you rob and defraud Me. But you say, In what way do we rob or defraud You? [You have withheld your] tithes and offerings.

You are cursed with the curse, for you are robbing Me, even this whole nation.

Bring all the tithes (the whole tenth of your income) into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and prove Me now by it, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

And I will rebuke the devourer [insects and plagues] for your sakes and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground, neither shall your vine drop its fruit before the time in the field, says the Lord of hosts.

Is there a time like this with you? That you know that you have sown much in your offering and seed, you worked hard, but it ended up little result?