God is suffering “Cabin Fever” – Haggai 1:1-4
Special thanks to Robert Robb for his sermon outline www.sermoncentral.com
Cabin Fever
• Gabbie having to live in a shed for 6 years with three kids while their house was going to be built. Originally told it would only be 2 years
• I used to love getting her on the subject because she was ready to unload as she had a serious case of “cabin fever”
• Want to tell you right now God is suffering from “Cabin Fever” and wants us to do something about it
Today we are going over to one of the more obscure books of the Bible, one of the Minor Prophets, Haggai
• What is unique about this prophet’s message is that unlike his counterparts whose messages were ignored, Haggai message produced a positive response from God’s people
• It resulted in the people humbling themselves, responding to God’s Word and changing their ways
• The result of which was a great spiritual awakening in the land of Judah
• There are two themes that dominate the message of this book. They are Spiritual Apathy and Spiritual Awakening
• Today we are going to look first, the subject of Spiritual Apathy. Next time we will then consider the subject of Spiritual Awakening
Background to the Story
• In 586 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar invaded and overthrew Jerusalem. The city was raised to the ground and the temple was completely destroyed. God’s people were taken into Babylon as captives and they remained there for seventy years.
However although God punished them by means of the exile, he did not abandon them. He had promised that their captivity would not be permanent but would last for seventy years after which time they would be able to return to their homeland, rebuild the temple, offer sacrifices once again and restore Jerusalem.
In 536 BC the Babylonian empire fell to the Persians and their King, Cyrus, issued an edict giving permission to the Jews to return to Jerusalem with the express purpose of rebuilding the temple of the Lord – (Ezra 1:1) About 50,000 Jews took up the offer and under the leadership of Zerubabel, the political leader and Joshua, the religious leader, they returned to Jerusalem amid scenes of great joy.
Soon after their arrival they began work on the rebuilding of the temple. They cleared away the rubble from the temple court, rebuilt the altar of burnt offerings and recommenced the offering of daily sacrifice once again. By the following spring they had laid the foundation of the temple and there were great celebrations in Jerusalem at that time.
That however is when things began to unravel. The Samaritans, who were foreigners and pagans, had moved into Judah because of the vacuum created by the exile of the Jews came offering to help in the rebuilding project. Their offer was refused and they out of spite proceeded to do all that they could to frustrate the building work. They terrorized the people. They wrote letters to the authorities and eventually succeeded in getting the work stopped. The people of God became discouraged, their initial zeal waned, they no longer had any heart for the work and the temple lay unfinished. In the years that followed the people became increasingly concerned about their own personal affairs and for the next 14 years the work on the temple was neglected. The Work of rebuilding the temple should have been their top priority, that after all was the reason why they had been sent back to Jerusalem, but the work had been abandoned and with the passage of time the people became more and more apathetic towards the work.
• So this is the setting, the foundations of the temple have been laid, the altar is up and running, sacrifices are being offered, but that’s where it all came to an abrupt halt
• Work on building God’s House came to a standstill
• To understand this from God’s perspective, how would you like to live in a house that has no walls or a roof?
• By comparison our neighbor was lucky in her shed as she at least had four walls and a roof over her head
• So after 14 years God had a serious case of not just “cabin fever”, or “tent fever” but “open-air Fever”
• So He sends Haggai to shake people out of their spiritual apathy and remind them of their spiritual responsibilities to build his house
Haggai 1:1 In the second year of King Darius, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua [1] son of Jehozadak, the high priest: 2 This is what the LORD Almighty says: "These people say, ’The time has not yet come for the LORD’s house to be built.’ “3 Then the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai: 4 "Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?"
• So here we see the first evidence of spiritual apathy – God’s Work is being neglected
• they had a job to do, but they weren’t doing it
• This is where the message starts to get a little personal for the Jews of Haggai’s time and for us today
• Because God challenges His church today as He has challenged his people down through time to “Build My House”
• As a church we have had to take time to reform, regroup, and to recover. But now its time for us to get back to doing the task for which the church exists – building God’s temple
• This is going to be a major focus from here on as a church, so my prayer is that as we study this Book together that you will have a responsive heart to the leading of the Holy Spirit and there will be a willingness to change in those areas of our lives we need to change so that we bring our will in alignment with God’s will
• Part of our responsibility today as His Body is to be temple builders
• But the temple he has called us to build is not a temple made out of stone but a temple that is composed of the living stones of men and women like you and me who have been saved by the grace of God.
• I think we all understand that the temple of the Old Testament was the antitype of Christ and his Church.
• Jesus told the Jews in John 2:19 “Destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days.”
• Jesus was obviously speaking about his Body, the spiritual new covenant equivalent of the physical Mosaic Covenant temple
• But Peter takes the analogy further when he says in 1 Pet 2:5 “you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
• You and I amazingly, are the building material Jesus is using to build this new temple
• That’s why we are to keep ourselves Holy and righteous otherwise we spoil the building
• In 2 Cor 6:16 Paul cautions the Corinthians about this very thing. He says, “what agreement is there between the temple of God and idols. For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said I will live with them and walk among them and I will be their God and they will be my people.”
• Paul in Ephesians 2:20 describes believers as those who have been “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the chief corner stone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.”
• As each sinner comes to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ another stone is added to that spiritual edifice that God is raising up in this world.
• We are enlisted into Jesus task of building His temple; of seeing sinners being saved and added to the Church
• Once we become part of that building, we just don’t sit there for all eternity like bumps on a log, we are called “living Stones”, “offering spiritual sacrifices”(2 Pet 2:5)
• If those living stones aren’t willing to share the message, how will people come to Christ?
• That’s precisely the question Paul asks in Rom 10:13-14 “Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. But how can they call on the one they have not believed in and how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard. And how can they hear without someone preaching to them
• V.17 …faith comes from hearing the message…”
• Think about it. If we are not living stones, what are we?
• God could do it Himself, but He has chosen to use us as his builders, just as He chose the Jews to be the builders at the time of Haggai
• We will come back to “why” he has chosen to use us to do it later – one of the secrets of not becoming old and stale
• So each one of us has a responsibility to be involved in this work of building God’s temple
• and that means taking advantage of the opportunities that God presents to us to do it, whether it is something personal with our family, our friends, our work-mates, our neighbors, or whether it is with the programs we organize as a church
• But we don’t like stepping out of our comfort zone do we? We’re comfortable in our old familiar rut
And this is the second sign of spiritual apathy – God’s people are content with the status quo
• v.2 This is what the LORD Almighty says: "These people say, ’The time has not yet come for the LORD’s house to be built.’
• The people were fat and happy, they were couch potatoes – they were content with the status quo
• Our bodies are remarkable in that they have an amazing capacity to adjust
• Spent 8 weeks in hospital, 7 of those lying only on my back
• You adjust, you get used to it, and you even fear to change the routine
• The Jews day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year they kept bring their sacrifices to the slab of concrete with an altar perched on it, while all around them lay the ruins of the temple
• This went on for 14 years
• God is very patient, He put up with “open-air fever” for 14 years
• But eventually there comes a wake up call – this happens to be my job today, to give us all a wake up call
• I’m not as patient as God
• Being content with the status quo is a very dangerous mindset to get into
• This is danger God warned the Israelites to be aware of before they entered the promised land
• Deuteronomy 8:11-14 "Beware that you do not forget the LORD your God..lest -- when you have eaten and are full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them; and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied; when your heart is lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt."
• You think that verse has some relevance to the church today
• What about this one
• Revelation 3:14-19 “And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, ‘These things says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God:15 “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot.16 “So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.17 “Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked—18 “I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see.19 “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.
• You don’t get into this condition on purpose, circumstances usually force you into a temporary mode, but before you know it, it has become the routine
• For instance, we might think, its no good inviting people to church as we have all this upheaval going on
• But before you know it 9 years has gone by
• Maybe circumstances interrupted your daily devotional time with God and before you know it months have passed by without contact with our great God
• Perhaps you skipped church one week, then you were sick the next week and before you know it, weeks have gone by without corporate worship
• The danger is our spiritual life has become ruined and depilated just like Solomon’s temple yet we don’t see it
• In fact like the Laodiceans, our carnal mind will fool us into thinking we are rich and wealthy and have need of nothing
• We should never become content with the status quo
• If we do, it means we have stopped growing. Spiritual apathy has set in
• The status quo is not an option for a Christian. We should never be content with our spiritual life, our church, our family situation
• The Spirit is continually moving us towards holiness. If we ever become content, we have stopped listening to the Spirit
• We either grow or we die. There is no middle ground
This brings us to the third sign of spiritual Apathy, God’s people made excuses
• v.2 ……"These people say, ’The time has not yet come for the LORD’s house to be built.’
• Someone must have made the suggestion to recommence building but everyone had a reason why they shouldn’t
• now there will always be reasons and excuses why we shouldn’t and won’t, just like the Jews of Haggai’s time had their excuses – the Samaritans are harassing us, so let’s not upset them, not enough help around because of the harvest season, we have to go all the way to the mountains to get the wood etc
• we don’t want to get ahead of God’s prophetic 70 years
• Jerusalem fell in 586BC and if you take 70 from that that gives you 516BC. This was 520 BC and well, we don’t want to be running ahead of the Lord, we need to be patient and wait God’s timing
• Point is they were offering lame excuses for not doing the Lord’s work
• A person who is in a state of spiritual apathy will always make excuses to try to cover their sinful neglect of the things of God
• We get pretty good at making excuses for not doing what God wants us to do especially in this busy world
• Too busy to help with Children’s church; already have to many commitments to go to a prayer meeting; live to far away to attend youth group; too tired in the morning to cram in some prayer time
• But as we’ll see next time, there is a reason we don’t have time for the things of God
• But what does God think of all these lame excuses as he watches us in front of the TV watching our favorite program, staying up late with friends
• We are all guilty of it, but we always seem to have time and energy for the things we want to do
• But What does he think of our excuses when we buy that new set of clothes or that new CD when we haven’t given to Him at church
These three things are sure-fire signs we are in a state of apathy
o When God’s work is neglected
o When God’s people are contented with their present state
o And when people make excuses for not doing what God wants them to do
So how do we rate on the apathy scale?
• How’s our enthusiasm for doing God’s work of building His Holy Temple
• Are we contented in the present rut we have allowed ourselves to be in?
• Do we have a wad of excuses we can draw on to explain away why we aren’t more involved in doing God’s work
• If you think you are doing okay, let me ask you this question, how many stones have you brought to be part of God’s temple?
• we are going to be a church that makes these things a priority in the life of our church
• we are not going to be a church that is responsible for God experiencing a case of “Cabin fever”
• It’s not going to be church as normal. We are going to build God’s house, we are going to upset the status quo and we not going to settle for lame excuses any more
• We all need to search our hearts to see if we have settled for spiritual mediocrity and recommit our lives to Jesus Christ and His Work
• Next time we’ll look at the Jew’s response to God’s correction
