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THE LATTER GLORY OF THIS HOUSE
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I. WE MUST LEARN FROM THE PAST.
(Haggai 2:1-9, Hebrews 12:18-29)
SUBJECT: The Church.
F.C.F: If God’s plan is so glorious, why is the church so lame?
PROPOSITION: Since God’s promise for the church is so marvelous, we
must learn from the past, serve in the present, and hope toward the future.
A. But first, God points his people back to the
past and bids them learn from it. “1 In the seventh
month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word
of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the
INTRODUCTION:
prophet, 2 “Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of
A. Four hundred, ninety-four years ago, an
Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son
Augustinian monk in Germany named Martin Luther
of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to all the remnant
tacked a list of debate topics onto the public bulletin
of the people, and say, 3 ‘Who is left among you who
board in his town, the door of the castle church in the
saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it
city of Wittenberg. It was a collection of serious
now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes?” Solomon’s
questions and criticisms he had over the church’s
temple in all its glory had been destroyed sixty-six
stated beliefs and practices. By his own account, he
years earlier. There were still those living who had
had no intention of starting a new church. He was
seen the former temple and who remembered its
confident that once the church leadership became
grandeur and splendor. The memory of the glory their
aware of these errors and abuses, they would quickly
past could be discouraging compared to ruins before
make amends and even thank him for his insights.
them.
Five hundred, four years ago a Frenchman
Ezra records a similar response when the
named John Calvin was born in Noyon. He originally
foundations of the temple had been laid some sixteen
studied for a legal profession, but while in Paris he
years before this. When the foundation was
met the controversial writings of Luther. About 1533
completed there was a great celebration, the people
he experienced a “sudden conversion”: ‘God subdued
shouting loudly. But the old-timers remembered the
and brought my heart to docility. It was more
glory of the past and wept loudly in grief at what they
hardened against such matters than was to be
saw before them. So the young people shouted for
expected in such a young man.” Soon, he broke with
joy, but the older people who remembered shouted in
Roman Catholicism. As early as 1536 he published
grief, and no one could “distinguish the sound of the
the first edition of The Institutes of the Christian
joyful shout from the sound of the people’s
Religion, which was to become the doctrinal
weeping.” (Ezra 3:13)
blueprint for all Presbyterian and Reformed churches
B. Remembering the past can either help or
that followed.
hinder. If we recall the past as glory days long
B. Those events all took place about five
departed and are paralyzed by grief and wistful
centuries ago. My question is this: Did either of those
nostalgia, then the past can be a definite
men imagine that their faithfulness in their generation
stumblingblock for present faithfulness. If we pine
would have a lasting influence that positively and
away for the good old days when more people went
profoundly impacts us even today, five hundred years
to church and life seemed less complicated, then we
later? Most likely not. They simply focused on
may just get stuck in the past and find ourselves
faithfulness in their own generation.
useless for God’s present work.
C. The prophet Haggai is given God’s vision
C. Rather, we must learn from the past. What
of a future time of great glory for the temple. That
were they to learn from the past? Four truths, I think.
vision of hope was intended to inspire God’s people
1) Obviously they were to learn the
to a similar faithfulness, in rebuilding the temple in
consequences of unfaithfulness. Why did God’s
their day. This morning we want to consider this
glorious temple lie in ruins? Because his people had
grand message and God’s encouragement to serve
ruined themselves in idolatry and disobedience. They
him faithfully in our own generation.
were to note that God’s purpose stood firm, but their
part in it was dependent upon their faithfulness to
him.
2) And second, they were to learn the glory of
God’s promise. They had ruined themselves by sin,
as seen in the ruins of their temple, the symbol of
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their relationship with God. Yet here they were
again! God had brought them back home. God was
keeping his covenant with them according to his
promise to Abraham.
And we are frail and unfaithful as well. Every
week we return to the Lord, confessing our sins and
seeking his kind pardon and peace. And yet, here we
are! God has not given up on us. His Son’s blood still
cleanses us from all unrighteousness, and Christ
keeps us in covenant with our God.
3) But thirdly they were to learn that the best
is yet to come. As wonderful as Solomon’s temple
was, overlaid with solid gold so that it shined with
dazzling brightness in the sun, it was nothing
compared to what God would do in the future. And
that’s why we are foolish to live in the past and pine
away for the good old days gone by. The past is
inaccessible to us. We have only the present with the
promise of the future, and so, while we must learn
from the past….
II. WE MUST SERVE IN THE PRESENT.
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New York or Los Angeles. What I am suggesting is
that we would all do well to stick our necks out a
little further for Jesus Christ.
B. Why is God with them and with us? Not
because we are so deserving but because he has
promised. “Work, for I am with you, declares the
LORD of hosts, 5 according to the covenant that I
made with you when you came out of Egypt.” Our
confidence to serve Christ in the present is soundly
based on God’s ancient promise from the past. Think
of that rag-tag band of common people who were so
timid and cowed by their setbacks that they stopped
serving the Lord for sixteen years! There was nothing
special about them. But there was something amazing
about their God. For some fifteen hundred years
before this, God came to their ancestor Abraham and
promised to be with him, to make his name great, to
give him a land, a people, and a blessing.
And here they were, the heirs of God’s favor
to them. God was making no new promises to them.
He was simply reminding them of his faithfulness to
the glorious promise he had made before. And our
hope is not in any new word from God or revelation
or prophecy, but in God’s covenant promise fulfilled
in Christ. In the past decade there have been a spate
of “fresh wind, fresh fire” kinds of books written
about new words from the Lord, new revelations that
were supposed to encourage God’s people in the
present. We need no new “fresh wind or fresh fire.”
God’s Word is still living and active, sharper than
any two-edged sword. R.C. Sproul tells of the time he
was invited to speak at a church. The pastor asked
him to come and “make God’s Word come alive” to
the people. Sproul responded that he had not heard
that God’s Word had died. He wanted to know who
did the autopsy, who signed the death certificate.
God’s Word, his promise, is always alive, and we
simply need to come alive to it.
C. God says, “My Spirit remains in your
midst. Fear not.” Do you believe this? Is this your
day-to-day experience? Do you consciously,
deliberately rely on the powerful working of the
promised Holy Spirit? Do you count yourself as dead
and all your efforts as futile apart from the powerful
working of the Spirit of God? Beloved, it is in the
confidence of God’s promise in Christ, his promise
that unfolds throughout the whole Bible, that we find
our place and faithfully serve his purposes in our
present generation.
A. I have to tell you that I was twice moved to
tears as I studied this text earlier, and here was the
first time. “4 Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel,
declares the LORD. Be strong, O Joshua, son of
Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people
of the land, declares the LORD. Work, for I am with
you, declares the LORD of hosts, 5 according to the
covenant that I made with you when you came out of
Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not.”
Can you get a sense of the glory of this
promise of God to his people—to us? For here it is
again as we saw last time: “I am with you, declares
the LORD of hosts….” This makes all the difference.
With this assurance we can face defamation, disaster,
and death.
Is this your day-to-day confidence and
assurance? Is this your continual hope as you go
through your week? Let me ask a different question:
Are you living a risky and dangerous life for Christ,
so much so that you flee to this comfort several times
each day? We naturally seek the safe and easy, the
pleasant and comfortable and convenient. Perhaps the
reason we so seldom are moved to tears because of
the glory of this promise is that we so seldom choose
the place where we must flee to this promise for
refuge. I’m not suggesting that we must all move to
the slums of Calcutta or the ganglands Chicago or
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We must learn from the past and serve in
the present, but
III. WE MUST HOPE TOWARD THE FUTURE.
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there. These are the treasures of the nations, not some
fading riches like gold and silver, but the precious
people Christ has bought with his blood. God is
shaking the heavens. Pray that sinners would be
shaken to the depths of their soul and flee to God as
the Gospel is preached to them.
C. This is our hope, the glorious hope of the
future, which calls us forward and spurs us on to
greater faithfulness and love. This is real,
incomparable, and everlasting treasure, and
conversely, tragic and unspeakable loss if not won to
Christ. Will you let your heart be broken? Will you
give your full heart and soul in this greatest quest of
all the ages? Will you lift up your heart in joy as you
feel the loving heart of Christ, out on the mountain
seeking the lost sheep? “9 The latter glory of this
house shall be greater than the former, says the
LORD of hosts. And in this place I will give peace,
declares the LORD of hosts.’”
A. The best is yet to come. The reality of our
hope is not found in somehow recapturing the
departed past. And it is not even in celebrating our
present successes. The truth is that all of that pales by
comparison to what God has promised in the future.
“6 For thus says the LORD of hosts: Yet once more,
in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the
earth and the sea and the dry land. 7 And I will
shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations
shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory,
says the LORD of hosts. 8 The silver is mine, and the
gold is mine, declares the LORD of hosts. 9 The
latter glory of this house shall be greater than the
former, says the LORD of hosts. And in this place I
will give peace, declares the LORD of hosts.’”
In the past, the treasures of the nations, the
CONCLUSION
gold and silver did flow to the temple. But also in the
past, those nations came and looted the temple,
The truth is that the people of Haggai’s day
carrying off those treasures. In their present, we
would never live to see the greater fulfillment of this
would have to say that there wasn’t much treasure
promise. Neither would their children or grand
flowing in. They could barely eke out a living, let
children or great-grandchildren to the fourth and fifth
alone filling the temple with treasure.
generation. Over 500 years would pass before Christ,
No that glory and that treasure was to come to
the true temple, would come to gather the treasure of
the temple in the distant future.
the nations as he promised. But their faithfulness in
For you know that the true temple is our Lord
their day was a vital part of it all, though they would
Jesus Christ himself. He is the true meeting place
never see the fullness.
between God and his covenant people. And, by
What God is doing in our day is truly
extension, the church, the Body of Christ, is called
glorious, if we will only lift up our eyes to see it. But
the Temple of the Lord, where God meets with his
it’s nothing compared to what is to come. Yet our
beloved people.
faithfulness right now, in our generation, every single
B. And now you may understand the second
day until Christ calls us home, is a vital part of it all.
time I was moved to tears by this text. Beloved, God
You may be, check that, you are undoubtedly sowing
is now filling his temple with treasure, the treasures
seeds today which will certainly bear fruit of one
of the nations are flowing into God’s house, and he is
kind or another in the generations you have not yet
filling it with glory. What are the treasures of the
imagined and who will perhaps never know your
nations? Well, we are, by his grace! And so are the
name.
Fulani of West Africa as Milton and Linda Watt seek
to reach them through translation. So are those
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prisoners who are being reached through Metanoia
Ministries, the people of France who are being
reconciled to God through the churches Hugh and
Martine Wessel are planting and supporting, and the
people of Kenya as John and Joy Haspels are
reaching out to them. And so are the people of Le
Mars as we seek to evangelize and start a church
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