Responding to God's Voice - Haggai 1:12-15
When we hear God's voice we have to respond. In ancient times, two of the most famous speakers were the Roman Cicero and the Greek Demosthenes. They were both eloquent, but someone noted the difference in the results of their addresses: "When Cicero spoke people said: 'How well Cicero speaks!' but when Demosthenes spoke they said, 'Let us march against the enemy.'" The listeners loved listening to Cicero, but when they heard Demosthenes, they were moved to action.
You know my great fear as a preacher is that the results of my speaking would be like Cicero and not like Demosthenes. Every week I open up the Word of God to you and after the service I shake hands with people and people say, "Thanks for the message. I really appreciated it." "Great sermon pastor." But to tell you the truth, those compliments don't mean a whole lot to me. What matters to me is seeing lives changed by the Word of God.
You know for the last few weeks we've been talking about a lot of different applications from the Bible. Last week we talked about returning to our life mission, to get back to glorifying God and enjoying Him forever. The week before we talked about money, contentment and giving. The week before that we talked about controlling our thoughts. We talked about what it means to think about what is true, noble, right pure, lovely and admirable. And the two weeks before that we looked a series of very practical commands that Paul gave the Philippians. My great fear is that you would just listen to these messages, nod your head and agree and then not do anything about it. That kind of attitude will lead us to spiritual disaster. But it doesn't have to be that way. If we hear God's Word as the voice of God to us and if out of fear of the Lord we obey, then we will experience the presence and power of God in our lives.
This morning we're going to be looking at the next section in the book of Haggai. After Haggai delivered the message from the Lord to Israelites, we will see how the they responded. But before we look into God's Word, let's look to the Lord together. Let's pray (pray).
When we hear God's voice we have to respond. Last week we looked at the beginning of the Book of Haggai. Let me review for you. Because of their constant sin, God sent the Babylonians against Jerusalem. The city was destroyed, the buildings were burnt down and the wall was destroyed. Most of the people were killed. Those who survived were taken into exile, to Babylon. There the Israelites remained in captivity for 70 years. Then the Babylonian Empire was overthrown by the Persians. This new ruling power had a different policy toward foreigners. King Cyrus gave the order that any Jew who wanted to go back to their homeland, to Jerusalem, could do so. They were given a mission, to rebuild the temple of God, so that they could pray for the Persian king.
The Book of Ezra records what happens. About 50,000 Israelites decide to return. They find the city a ruin and they eventually set up an altar and establish sacrifices. Then after about two years, they begin the rebuilding of the temple. They lay the foundation amidst great celebration. But the surrounding people oppose the rebuilding and eventually get the Israelites to stop. There is no more work on the temple for 16 long years. Then God sends two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah to spur the people on and encourage them to get back to their mission, to rebuild God's temple.
That's the message we heard last week: Return to your mission in life. In the passage this morning we see the response of the people. Take a look at Haggai 1:12 (read verse). What happened when Haggai prophesied to the exiles? They obeyed. Isn't that a great story? But why did these people obey? So many times in the past God sent prophets to the Israelites, they heard the message, and then they decided to not obey. That's why Jerusalem was destroyed in the first place. The Israelites were given warning after warning from God's prophets, but they ignored their teaching. They had hardened their hearts. What made these people at this time different?
This verse gives two reasons why they people chose to obey. First they recognized that Haggai's message wasn't just his message, it was from God. It was the voice of the Lord. Unless God speaks to us personally, then we will never obey. We each have a natural tendency to deflect what we hear to others. We hear a message on money and we think, "Yeah, Tom over there has loads of money. Look at the car he drives and the house he lives in. I bet he's not tithing. He really needs to deal with his greed." Or we hear a message on missions and we think, "That's a great message for the young people. They need to sacrifice and go overseas to the poor lost people. Me, I'm way too old for that."
We need to know that the Word preached is the voice of God to us, not just to the person sitting next to us, but to us. I know that can only happen by the work of the Holy Spirit. He must be the One who convicts and draws people to Him. That's why I always pray before I preach because I realize that without the work of the Holy Spirit, nothing of eternal consequence will happen.
Have you had the Lord speak to you over the last few weeks or months? It may be during a Sunday service. It may be during a DG or Bible study. It may be in your own personal quiet time. But however it happened, you knew God was speaking to you. It felt like a verse of Scripture just struck you right between the eyes. And you knew it was God, Himself speaking to you.
This past Saturday I had the privilege to go listen to Sunder Krishnan, the senior pastor at First Alliance Church at the special evening that Dr. Dennis Ngien puts on every year. He gave a powerful message but one phrase that stood out to me was one where Rev. Krishnan addressed pastors and leaders. He said, "The one thing that people will not forgive their pastor is lack of intimacy with God." That struck me deeply. It brought me to my knees. If I don't hear from God, how can I share with anyone else? That phrase was God telling me that in my busy-ness, in the middle of ministry, nothing is more important than my relationship with Him.
How has God spoken to you recently? If God hasn't spoken to you recently, then your whole relationship with God is in danger. Can you imagine having a relationship with someone and never speaking with them? When a husband and wife have a time of not speaking to each other, that's never a good thing. The Lord does speak to us at all times. We just need to learn to be quiet and listen. One thing I've found helpful is having a time of silence at the beginning of my devotional time. It quiets my mind and heart and prepares me for what God would speak to me. We can do that before we listen to a sermon or attend a Sunday school class. We can quiet our hearts in silence. We can learn to be expectant, anticipating that God will speak. And we can pray that God would open our ears, clear our minds and soften our hearts to receive what He has for us.
It may be that God has spoken to you in the past and you have just forgotten. That's one problem that I know that I have. I will listen to a message or read a verse in my quiet time and it will strike me deeply and then I'll forget about it. One thing that helps me is writing it down. That's why I'm a big champion of writing notes for sermons. And that's why I'm also an advocate of getting a notebook and not just writing it on the piece of paper in your bulletin. You see if you have a notebook you can always look back and see how God has been speaking to you. If you write it on a piece of paper, it is likely to be filed in the recycle bin.
However you do it, treasure God spoken Word to you. Proverbs 4:13 says: "Hold on the instruction, do not let it go; guard it well, for it is your life." Henry Blackaby in his book, "Experiencing God" wrote: "You understand spiritual truth because the Holy Spirit works in your life. You cannot understand God's Word unless the Spirit of God teaches you. When you read the Word, the Author Himself is present to instruct you. Truth is never discovered, truth is revealed. When the Holy Spirit reveals truth to you, He is not leading you to an encounter with God. That is an encounter with God!" Christians say all the time that they want to experience the presence of God. But we must realize that when we hear the Word of God and the Lord speaks to us directly to our hearts, that is an encounter with God. And it is precious. We need to treasure and long for God's voice to us. But once we hear God's voice what we do next is essential. We can't just hear the Word and then leave it at that. When God speaks, it is for the purpose of changing our lives. We have to act.
That brings us to the second reason the Israelites responded. They obeyed God because they recognized that Haggai's words weren't his own, they were the very Words of God to them. But not only that, the Israelites feared the Lord. The Jews knew firsthand what the consequences were from not obeying the Word of God. They had just returned from 70 years of captivity because of the disobedience of their fathers. They were living in the ruins of Jerusalem that was a monument of God's wrath. These Jews only had to look out of their front door to see the results of not listening to God's voice.
It is a serious thing to ignore God's Word to us. We have to be aware who is speaking to us. He is the Creator and Ruler of the universe. We can't fool around here. I remember when I was in elementary school you knew the teachers you could disobey and the ones you couldn't. There were teachers who asked you to do something, but you could safely ignore them because you knew that their threats were empty. But there were the other teachers who you knew not to cross. I remember our grade 4 teacher, Miss Killey. I was deathly afraid for her. It wasn't that she was big, she wasn't. She was a middle aged lady, I wouldn't think would weigh more than 120 pounds. But as a child in her class, you had better listen to her or else. You knew she would always carry out any threat or punishment. So I never fooled around in her class.
Let me tell you, you don't want to fool around with God. When He tells you to do something you had better be ready to do it. God will always carry out His consequences for disobedience. It's not a matter of if, but when. Now you may have a problem with this idea of fearing the Lord. After all we are Christians now and we are forgiven. Do we really need to fear God? Doesn't it say in 1 John 4:18 that we shouldn't fear? It says: "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love." Well if we look at this verse in context it is talking about the day of judgement. Verse 17 says: "In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgement, because in this world we are like him." John is saying that we should have no fear of the day of judgement because of the love of God shown through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. As Christians that is completely true. We have been totally forgiven through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ. He died to pay the penalty of our sins and has given us His righteousness so now we can stand before God without any stain or fault. We are not to fear the judgement day. But this verse isn't saying that we shouldn't fear God.
Fearing God means recognizing who He is and treating Him with the reverence and awe that He deserves. I'm sure many of you are familiar with the famous verse in Proverbs 9:10: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." But this idea isn't just in the Old Testament. The exact same teaching is found in the New Testament. Take a look at Hebrews 12:28-29: "Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptable with reverence and awe, for our 'God is a consuming fire.'" 1 Peter 1:17: "Since you call on a Father who judges each man's work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear." Again in 1 Peter 2:17, Peter writes: "Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honour the king." It says in Acts 9:31 about the early church: "Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace. It was strengthened; and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord." The fear of the Lord was an attitude that the early church possessed.
The fear of the Lord gripped the Israelites and they obeyed the Word of the Lord. We need to have exactly the same attitude. We need to fear the Lord. He is the Creator, the Ruler and the Judge. If He gives us a command it is not a small thing. We must obey. You know when I get a letter from the Canadian Revenue Agency, I don't leave the letter unopened and ignore it. And after I read it and it tells me that I need to send in supporting documents, I don't put it off. I do it right away. Why is that? I know that the CRA will follow through if I don't do what they ask. They can charge me for back taxes of thousands of dollars and if I can't pay they can even put me in jail. When I get a letter from the CRA, I don't put it aside, even though I may want to. I'm too aware of the consequences of not following their instructions to the letter. So I open those letters right away and I do everything they ask me to quickly as possible.
If that's how I act toward the CRA, why don't I listen and act on what God tells me to do? I think many of us have lost the fear of the Lord. We think that God is our friend and that He will always forgive us and love us no matter what. Now there is truth in those statements, but we cannot be presumptuous in the grace of God. If anything, the forgiveness of God should make us fear Him even more. Psalm 130:3-4 says: "If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared." God's forgiveness should lead us to fear Him. Now when you read that passage, you may think the opposite should be true. Forgiveness should lead to the removal of fear. Because we are forgiven we don't have to face judgement. We don't have to fear the terrors of hell. And that is true. But even though we are free from the fear of judgement, we are called to still fear the Lord. In fact, it is our forgiveness that is the very foundation for our fearing God. Because of the grace of God, because of the great sacrifice of His One and only Son on our behalf, we are all the more careful to live in such a way to honour and please such a wonderful God. Spurgeon, in explaining this verse, said: "it is grace which leads the way to a holy regard of God, and a fear of grieving him".
The Israelites had this fear of the Lord, do we? It is not enough to have heard from God, out of the fear of God, we must respond to what He has spoken. We must obey Him. We must change our lives. When we hear God's voice we have to respond.
When we choose to obey the voice of the Lord, that's when we experience His presence and power. Verses 13 to 15 describes the results of obeying Christ's commands (read verses). What happens when we obey? First we experience God's presence. After the Israelites respond to God's Word, then the Lord gives another message through the prophet Haggai. He says, "I am with you." Think of what an encouragement that must have been for the exiles. For 70 years they were suffering in captivity in Babylon. They knew that this was the punishment of the Lord because of the disobedience of their fathers. They must have wondered if God had left them for good. But now the Lord makes this declaration: "I am with you." Those are the very words that the Israelites needed to hear.
You see when the Lord gives us a command, He doesn't just leave us on our own to complete the task. He is the One who enables us to complete the task. He gives us the heart and strength and the motivation to continue at it. I love Jesus' invitation in Matt. 11:28-30: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden light." How many of you feel weary and burdened? I know I do. These last couple of weeks I've felt like I've been working from under a load trying to keep my head above the water. I feel like I can't do anything more and then I hear God's voice. How can I ever obey? I just don't have the capacity, the energy to do one more thing. But if you feel that way, you are the exact candidate to come to Jesus. Even as we take His burden, He will give us rest. I love the picture here of a yoke. We don't accomplish God's mission on our own. You know what a yoke is? They used yokes to connect together two oxen to pull a plough. We are to take Jesus' yoke. We are on one side and the Lord is on the other. We pull together and guess who takes most of the load? That's why we can find rest. That's why the burden is light. We don't do it on our alone. Jesus Christ is with us.
When I get overwhelmed with all that I have in front of me, I lay it in the hands of Christ. He is the One who has called me to this task. He has to be the One who enables me. And He will. As we saw last week, the Israelites in Haggai's time didn't have a small task. No, they had to go up into the mountains, cut down trees and drag them to the building site. They had to leave their occupations and trust in God to provide for them. They had to resist the opposition from the surrounding people that was bound to begin again. And whatever God calls us to, it won't be easy either. There will be everything in us, and everything in the world, and the devil and his demons, trying to sidetrack us and stop us. But God says, "I am with you," and that makes all the difference.
But there is a second benefit of obeying the voice of the Lord. Take a look at verse 14 (read verse). Not only did the Israelites enjoy God's presence, they also experienced God's power. It says that the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, Joshua and the rest of the Israelites. The word stirred up means to arouse or awaken, to be excited or triumphant. The picture here is that as the Israelites obeyed, then the Lord moved in their spirits to give the people the desire, the excitement, the motivation to obey.
You know I think I often get it all backwards. I think that God has to stir us up at the front end. I think that the Lord first has to move in our hearts to give us the motivation to obey, then we obey. But in the life of the Israelites that wasn't the order at all. The exiles had to obey the Lord and set out to build first, and after they made that decision then the Lord worked in their hearts. It's only after they started the work that the Lord moved in their hearts to bring an excitement and joy.
I shouldn't be surprised. That's how life works in many other arenas. When I get ready to go for a long run if I waited until I felt like running, I would hardly ever go. Most of the time when I get ready to run I feel tired and sore. The last thing I want to do is lace up my shoes and go outside to pound the pavement. But I go anyway, even when I don't feel like it. But what I find almost every time is that after I've run for a few kilometers my body begins to warm up and I begin to find my rhythm and I start to enjoy the run. And when I finish I'm always glad I ran. You see the good feelings don't come on the front end. They only come after I've started. At the start it's just a push of mind over body. I know that running is going to help me and that I need exercise and even though I don't feel like it, I have to start to run. I remember someone saying to me that the most important thing about exercising is showing up. I think there's a lot of truth in that. If I get my running shoes on and get outside the door then about 60% of the job is done. That person also said that the second most important thing is that after you show up you've got to do something. When I get outside the door then I actually have to put in the kilometers.
You know often when we get ready for the morning service I'll pray that God will show His presence and power. Now I think there is some validity in a prayer like that, but if we take this story as an example of how God works, then the place we should expect to experience God's presence and power isn't at a worship service. We should expect to experience God's presence and power when we are in the middle of obeying His Word. I know that's true. When I think of the times I've felt God's presence and power it's when I've been on a short term mission trip and I've seen God answer prayer through a spiritual revival in a remote village. It's when I go to the mall to share my faith and I've seen God lead us to people who are at just the right point in their lives to hear the gospel. It's when I've gone to the hospital to visit an elderly woman who has suffered a stroke and can't speak and see her respond to a prayer.
You know you may sit here and think you have to wait for some sort of warm feeling in your heart or have tingles up and down your spine before you respond to God's voice. If you wait for the right feelings, then you will never obey God. That's exactly what the Israelites said. They said, "The time has not yet come for the Lord's house to built." And they waited 16 years. If God has spoken to you, now is the time to act. It is only after you have begun to obey, when you are busy on God's mission that you can expect to experience God's presence and power. You need to show up first and start doing something second, and then you can expect God to act.
Has God spoken to you? If He has, then now is the time to act. Don't wait until you feel like it or you never will act. This morning I'm going to give you a chance to respond. If you feel like God is calling you to obey, I'm going to invite you to come forward. I've asked a couple of couples to be at the altar. They will be happy to pray for you. And we need prayer. You may make a decision here this morning, but as soon as you leave this sanctuary, everything will try to make you turn back on that decision. Our flesh, the world and the devil will try to sidetrack us and make us stumble. We need prayer. So if God has spoken to you and you want to obey, come forward and receive prayer. The worship team is going to come forward and play.
