The prophet Haggai had a message from God that he was to give unto the people of God. Notice, he wanted them to know how important this message was by introducing the message by saying, “Thus saith the Lord of hosts…” before he gave the message.
In other words, he wanted them to know what he was going to tell them came straight from God, not from himself. The message he gave was brief but very clear.
Now I must confess that many times the messages we get in church are not that clear and easy to receive.
Illus: Here are some messages that actually came from churches:
• Bertha Belch, a missionary from Africa will be speaking tonight at Calvary Memorial Church in Racine. Come tonight and hear Bertha Belch all the way from Africa.
• Our youth basketball team is back in action Wednesday at 8 PM in the recreation hall. Come out and watch us kill Christ the King.
• Miss Charlene Mason sang, "I will not pass this way again," giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.
• "Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Don't forget to bring your husbands."
• Next Sunday is the family hay ride and bonfire at the Fowlers'. Bring your own hot dogs and guns. Friends are welcome! Everyone come for a fun time.
• The peacemaking meeting scheduled for today has been canceled due to a conflict.
• The sermon this morning: "Jesus Walks on the Water." The sermon tonight: "Searching for Jesus."
• Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.
• Barbara remains in the hospital and needs blood donors for more transfusions. She is also having trouble sleeping and requests tapes of Pastor Jack's sermons.
• The Pastor will preach his farewell message after which the choir will sing "Break Forth into Joy."
• Don't let worry kill you - let the Church help.
• At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be "What is Hell?" Come early and listen to our choir practice.
• The senior choir invites any members of the congregation who enjoy sinning to join the choir.
• Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles, and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children.
• Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person(s) you want remembered.
• Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 P.M. - prayer and medication to follow.
There are all kinds of messages we get.
Illus: One man called a coworker and got this message from the answering machine. “Hello, this is the Brown residence. We're in the middle of a family fight right now. Leave your name and number at the beep and whoever wins will call you right back.”
Remember, Haggai wanted the people of Judah to know that the message he was about to give them was straight from the Lord. This is why he said, “Thus saith the Lord.”
A prophet can do this because God speaks directly to him and speaks through him.
• Today, ministers get our messages from the WRITTEN WORD, not the SPOKEN WORD!
• Today men are called to preach the infallible, inerrant Word of God.
• Today, ministers of God can not stand before a congregation and claim God just spoke the message to us.
The messages that we preach come from GOD’S WRITTEN WORD! This is why Paul told Timothy, in 2 Timothy 4:2, “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.”
That is what every preacher ought to be doing! Preaching THE INFALLIBLE, INERRANT WORD OF GOD, and it will convey the message from God to man.
Many times as we preach the written Word of God, people hear it but they do not seem to get the message.
Illus: I’m reminded of the flood of 1998 that was approaching the town of Springfield, Indiana, when an elderly gentleman refused to evacuate.
• His neighbors, a friendly family with two young kids drove up to his house in their SUV and offered to take him to the shelter, but the man shook his head and said, "Don't worry about me. You go ahead but I'll stay here. I know nothing will happen to me, because God is watching from above and will come to my rescue." Faced with such a strong faith, the family left without arguing with the man.
• Disturbed by the radio reports of flood waters filling up their town they returned the next day in a motorboat and saw the man's house already flooded up to the porch and him sitting in a rocking chair in his living room, in two inches of water. Again, they offered to take him to the shelter, and again the man refused, saying, "Have no fear - it's all in God's hands and I know he'll rescue me. I'm staying here."
• The family left again, but as the waters continued to rise, they returned the next day, this time in a helicopter. The man's house was now entirely under water and the poor chap, submerged up to his waist, tied himself to the chimney so as not to be swept away. Yet his conviction that God would come to his rescue was as strong as ever, and he refused to climb the rope ladder to the helicopter. A few hours later he drowned.
Soon thereafter he found himself at the gates of heaven and, after filling the necessary paperwork at St. Peter's desk, he requested to have a talk with God himself.
The request was granted and the man, standing before his Creator, did not hide his bitterness and disappointment:
"Why did you abandon me like that? I believed in you. I kept telling everybody that you'd come and rescue me and now I look like a fool. I am really disappointed, you know."
God opened his arms in a gesture of helplessness and said: "I sent you a car, a boat, and a helicopter... What else did you expect me to do?"
Some folks today do not seem to be able to get the message, no matter what kind of effort is made to communicate the message to them. Haggai gave them the message that God gave him. What kind of message was it?
I. IT WAS A PERSONAL MESSAGE
The message that God gave him to give to the people then, is still the same message we need to hear today.
WHAT IS THE MESSAGE? The message was, "Thus saith the lord of hosts; CONSIDER YOUR WAYS."
Look at the word “Your”. This message is personal I tell you! God said, “Consider YOUR ways.”
God knows that we have the problem of being more concerned with the faults and sins of others than we do with our own faults and sins.
People like this can sit in church, but when the preacher is preaching the Word of God:
• They are thinking, “I am sure glad that so and so is here to hear this message, because they sure need to hear it.”
• They are thinking, “I am so glad to see so and so on their knees at the altar because that is exactly where they ought to be.”
They live in a dream world where everything that is wrong is applied to someone other than themselves!
Look what the Lord has to say about such people in Matthew 7:3, we read, “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”
Illus: I remember years ago, a woman was complaining about some of the women wearing pants to church. She thought this was the most awful thing that she had ever seen. She was constantly complaining to the pastor, and one day he decided he would pay her a visit and try to help her to learn to live with people. He rang the door bell, and guess who came to the door with a tight pair of shorts on!
Listen, the only reason some women do not wear pants is not because it is a God given conviction, it is because they do not look good in pants and they are jealous of any women who do! (DO I HEAR AN AMEN IN THE HOUSE OF GOD!)
My wife does not wear them, because when we got married I told her, you do not wear my britches and I promise I will never wear your dresses! And I have kept my promise!
Look at the word “Beholdest”. There are people who live their lives looking at others and they can see all the things wrong with them, but can not see one thing wrong with themselves. THEY ARE SO CRITICAL OF OTHERS!
Illus: I like the story of the young man whose habit of criticizing backfired on him.
One evening, while waiting for a bus, he was standing with a crowd of people looking in the window of a taxidermist’s shop. In the center of the window was a large owl that attracted the attention of all passing by.
• The self-appointed expert began to criticize the job done on it. "If I couldn't do better than that," he said pompously, "I'd find another business.”
• “Just look at it. The head is out of proportion, the pose of the body is unnatural, and the feet are pointed in the wrong direction."
Just then the owl turned his head and gave the fellow a broad wink. The crowd laughed as the critic slunk away.
It is astounding how people can see the bad but not the good.
Illus: A speaker held up a blank sheet of paper and asked, "What do you see?"
• The reply was, "A piece of paper."
He then placed the paper on the podium, made a tiny dot in the center and held it up again. "What do you see now?"
• "A dot," was the unanimous reply from the audience.
The speaker continued to say: "Imagine this blank paper is a person," the speaker said. “The small dot you saw is his biggest fault. The white surrounding the dot represents all of this person's worthwhile qualities which we so easily fail to see.” Often a fault seems bigger than it really is and we allow it to overshadow the many positive aspects of that person's life.
We are so quick to behold the mote in our brother’s eye, but can not see the BEAM in our own eye.
Illus: Someone very wisely said, “If you feel that you have no faults, THAT MAKES ANOTHER ONE.”
There are many people who spend their life doing nothing more than criticizing others.
Illus: They remind me of a cattle drive where the boss had to keep replacing the cooks because the men criticized their cooking so much.
After about three cooks, the boss man called all the men together and said, “The next man that criticizes the cook will become our new cook.”
The men had a rough day and they came in for supper. One by one they marched by and got the food that was prepared for them, but none of them opened their mouth about the way it looked or smelled.
Finally, one old cowboy was sitting under a shade tree eating and he bit into a piece of meet that was so tough it almost broke his tooth. He yelled out, “This piece of meat taste like leather.” He remembered what the boss man said, so he said to the boss man, “But that’s the way I like it!”
There is an old saying that “People who live in glass houses should not throw stones!” But they do!
Illus: Remember the group that came to the Lord one day, and cast a woman at the feet of Jesus and said, “We caught her in the very act of adultery, what should we do with her. The law says she should be stoned but what do you say?” The Lord Jesus said something very interesting. “He that is without sin let him cast the first stone.” The Bible records that one by one they all began to quietly walk away. WHY? Because they knew they had sin in their life as much as she did, and if they were going to stone her, they ought to be stoned next!
Unless you are perfect, and there is no one here that is, you have no right casting stones at others. It was a PERSONAL MESSAGE where God said, “Consider YOUR ways”.
II. IT WAS A POWERFUL MESSAGE
Notice, the Bible said, “Consider your WAYS!” Look at the word “Ways”. When God says “your WAYS”, what is He talking about?
The people of Judah were fresh out of the Babylonian captivity and the people had become content in their freedom to build their own houses.
With their newly issued “building permits”, they decided to take care of themselves first. Suddenly the temple was no longer a priority. All they could think about was WHAT THEY WANTED TO DO FOR THEMSELVES!
They continued meeting for worship among all the ruins of the temple as if there was nothing wrong with it. Apparently, the Israelites weren’t making the connection between crop failure, lack of harvest, and a drought, with their spiritual condition.
Haggai was trying to get them to understand that they were focusing on insignificant matters, like decorating their homes, when they should have been busy building the temple. Haggai delivers the message of God, that the people should consider their ways.
The people needed to stop and think about how far they had let the temple go, and how perverted their priorities had become in relation to God.
This is a powerful message from Haggai, and God is saying, DO NOT CONSIDER THE OTHER MAN’S WAYS, CONSIDER YOUR WAYS.
Illus: Nat King Cole used to sing that old hymn, “It’s not my brother, not my sister, but its me O Lord, standing in the need of prayer!”
HOW SHOULD THEY CONSIDER THEIR WAYS?
A. “CONSIDER YOUR WAYS” IN RELATION TO THE WORK OF THE LORD
It is very unwise to place your own self-interests ahead of God.
Illus: Have you ever asked someone to come to church and immediately they said, “I can not come because I have other things I do during church time?”
WHAT ARE THEY SAYING? They are saying, “Going to church is good, but I have things I have committed my life to that I consider to be more important, and I do not have time to attend church.”
• Ball games are more important
• Fishing is more important
• Bowling is more important
• Making money is more important
This is what the children of Israel were saying, and God was saying, “Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the LORD'S house should be built.”
They were saying, “I have to take care of my plans. I will take care of God’s plans later.”
B. “CONSIDER YOUR WAYS” IN VIEW OF THE FUTILITY OF YOUR LABORS
The way some folks live their lives, you would think the things they do are REALLY IMPORTANT! Every day people live their lives and waste their time, energy and resources. When you compare what they are doing to the eternal things of God, their life is no more than an exercise in futility!
Is what you are doing with your life really more important than the things your Creator has put you here to do? Consider what God has in store for those who put God ahead of their own interests.
Matthew 6:33, "But seek the first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you."
Conclusion:
Have you ever had something important to tell someone and you told them as best you could, but it seemed like the message went right over their head?
Every preacher knows that feeling, because many times when he preaches the Word of God, it seems to go right over the heads of people and it is obvious their minds are on something else and they did not get the message.
God wants you to “Consider your ways!” People are paying a tremendous price for not CONSIDERING THEIR WAYS. Look at verses 6-7, we read, “Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways.”
I. IT WAS A PERSONAL MESSAGE
II. IT WAS A POWERFUL MESSAGE
