"The word of the LORD came a second time to Haggai on the twenty-fourth day of the month, "Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I am about to shake the heavens and the earth, and to overthrow the throne of kingdoms. I am about to destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations, and overthrow the chariots and their riders. And the horses and their riders shall go down, every one by the sword of his brother. On that day, declares the LORD of hosts, I will take you, O Zerubbabel my servant, the son of Shealtiel, declares the LORD, and make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you, declares the LORD of hosts."
Haggai 2:20-23 ESV
It was advertised that the devil was going to put his tools up for sale. On the date of the sale the tools were placed for public inspection, each being marked with its sale price. There were a treacherous lot of implements: Hatred, jealousy, envy, doubt, lying, pride, lust, and so on. Laid apart from the rest of the pile was a harmless looking tool, well worn and priced very high. “What’s the name of this tool?” asked one of the purchasers. “Oh”, said the devil, “that’s discouragement.” “Why have you priced it so high?” “Because it’s more useful to me than the others. I can pry it open and get inside a person’s heart with that one, when I cannot get near him with other tools. Now once I get inside, I can make him do what I choose. It’s a badly worn tool because I use it on almost everyone since few people know it belongs to me,” The devil’s price for discouragement was so high, he never sold it. It’s still his major tool, and he uses it regularly on God’s people today.
Discouragement is like the Trojan horse of ancient myth. If you let discouragement get inside of you, it can defeat you from the inside out, and will cause you to fear life’s challenges rather than face them, to give up instead of get up, to quit rather than persevere, and to prevent you from entering in and enjoying the blessed life that God desires for you. Oh brothers and sisters, God wants to encourage each and every one of you in your discouragements.
Hebrews 6:17-18 says, “When God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.
How much encouragement does God want to give to you? Strong encouragement! Note the word! He might have said, “Great encouragement” or “big encouragement” or “deep encouragement”. They would all be true. But the word is really “strong”. Encouragement that stands up against anything that comes against you and your life. Preach this to yourself. “God desires me to have strong encouragement!” That is what we have seen over and over in my meditations on the book of Haggai.
God’s remedy to discouragement is to speak to us His Word and for us to hear the Word of God again. We need to hear the Word each time we feel down and to preach it to ourselves like Haggai did to the Jews.
In Chapter 1 we see that after 16 years of disobedience and divine chastening the spirit of the people was stirred by the Word of God. “Consider your ways, go, and build”. The people were moved and motivated by the word to do the work of rebuilding the temple.
Then when discouragement set in after the first month, God came with a second message in chapter 2:1-9, He said: be encouraged about the seeming little and insignificant thing that you do. Take courage, work, and fear not, because you build more than you see. All you see is a paltry temple. But God promises to take your work, fill it with his glory, and make your labors with a million times more than you ever imagined.
And then when discouragement came after two more months, God came with a third message in chapter 2:10-19, “from this day on I will bless you." I have spoken, you are experiencing the blessing right now, now trust that my present blessing will be yours tomorrow! Your past will no longer determine your future. I will turn 16 years of chastening and cursing into abundant blessings!
And now a fourth word of encouragement comes for their leader, Zerrubabel in verses 20-23. This message came later on the same day, Dec 18th, as the last message. God came with His timely message, specifically for him. God says, “Tell Zerubbabel I have a message for him.” And that message is simple. God has the final word in every circumstance. God wants Zerubbabel to look at who He is and what He will do. To Zerubbabel and to all of God’s servants who may be discouraged, God has this word: I AM LARGE AND IN CHARGE, I WILL PREVAIL!
I.GOD IS IN CHARGE
How much of your life are you in control of? You can eat right and exercise well, but you cannot set the number of your days. When an illness strikes, you can do nothing to prevent it. Outcomes are not determined simply by the power of your own will. We need to be reminded, and submit ourselves to the only One who is in control. Not just control, but absolute control of everything, including your life! Seven times in this little paragraph God tells you He is in control. Note the repetition of the first personal pronoun, “I”: “I am about to shake the heavens and the earth…” “I am about to overthrow the throne of kingdoms…” “I am about to destroy the strength of kingdoms of the nations”…“I am about to overthrow the chariots and their riders…” “I will take you, Zerubbabel…” “I will make you like a signet ring…” “I have chosen you, declares the Lord of hosts.”
These are not foolish statements made by someone who likes to brag. They are promises made by the Sovereign God of the universe. You get the impression that God has an idea about what He is going to do! History is not just careening out of control with God desperately trying to grab the reins! The Sovereign God controls all of the events of history for His purpose including your history. “Our God is in the heavens; He does all that He pleases” (Psalm 115:3).
As He declares through Isaiah: The Lord of hosts has sworn saying, “Surely, just as I have intended so it has happened, and just as I have planned so it will stand” (Isaiah 14:24). “I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, "My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure” (Isaiah 46:9-10)
Job declares, "But He is unique and who can turn Him? And what His soul desires, that He does. "For He performs what is appointed for me, and many such decrees are with Him” (Job 23:13-14).
Nothing can come against God’s set purpose and plan for you. We can be shocked and discouraged by what wicked men are doing today. Or what the devil sets to do. Yet nothing evil can thwart God’s set purpose. God twists what is evil and causes the good to triumph. He has the final say. Therefore no discouragement or trouble in life can really have a hold on us, if we do not let it by faith, because we know and trust that God has a hold on us.
C. S. Lewis says, “Our leisure, even our play, is a matter of serious concern. There is no neutral ground in the universe: every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God.” Why did Zerubbabel need to hear this? Why do we? To prevent him from being overwhelmed by hopelessness, in the bleak situation. We are all susceptible to this, and can easily lose faith in God and doubt God’s control over all things. We react to such situations with fear and worry and anxiety, and end result is that we will try to solve the problems on our own. We are afraid that unless we act, something awful will happen. As one said, fear is false expectations against reality.
We saw in Haggai 1 the reality that we cannot even control the simple things of life. They may work hard in the fields but that is no guarantee of a good harvest. They earn wages but there is no assurance that they can keep them. There is just one thing they can ‘control’ - they can control the one thing that mattered most in life – Haggai wants them to put their trust back in God. Seek Him first, do His will, and worship Him. This is what we can do!
Many things are beyond our ability to control, the one thing we do control is our response to God in the midst of them. We can blame God, attack God, and accuse Him, or we can simply trust that He alone, being the sovereign God, knows what He’s doing and why He’s doing it. God is in control. That is the response I must hold on to when things in my life are falling apart. No matter how discouraged you get; no matter how much you want to quit and give up; don’t ever forget that God is still in control. He is the same supreme Ruler over every circumstance, every trial, every hurt, every wrong, every death, every loss, every pain, and every injustice we experience.
When you doubt it, simply affirm again what the scriptures say, not what experience screams, nor what logic reasons, nor what negative unbelief of others might say to add to your discouragement. Submit to it, and embrace this quality about God. The Lord reigns. To know that God rules – to realize His sovereignty – is to be delivered from fear and despair. God’s sovereignty is, as John Piper puts it, “The strong wood of the tree that keeps our lives from being blown over by the winds of adversity. It is the rock that rises for us out of the flood of uncertainty and confusion. It is the eye of the hurricane where we stand with God and look up into the blue sky of his mastery when everything is being destroyed. ‘When all around gives my soul gives sway, this is all my hope and my stay’.”
II. GOD IS LARGE AND IN CHARGE TO ACCOMPLISH HIS PLANS
Our text does not contain any conditions. God does not say, “I hope to be able to shake the heavens and the earth…I would like to take you, Jerubbabel, if you’re willing, and make you My signet ring. I sure hope that you say yes!” God is quite absolute in declaring what He will do in the future to accomplish His plan. God says, “I will shake the heavens and the earth…I will overthrow the thrones…I will destroy their strength…I will overturn their armies and kill them.”
God is clarifying and reminding the leadership of a restored, yet still broken, Israel that He is large and in charge. And He will do great and mighty things even among the pagan nations that surround them. God is the initiator of good and of calamity. Nothing is beyond His power, and everything that happens passes across His desk and gets His approval. God’s ability to accomplish His sovereign purpose does not depend on the puny resources of His people, but on His power and might.
The Bible is loaded with stories of how God delights to overthrow powerful kingdoms that dare to exalt themselves over His weak, vulnerable, chosen people. He is the God who brought the plagues on the mighty Egyptians and drowned their king and his army in the Red Sea. He toppled the walls of Jericho. He delivered the horde of Midian into the hands of Gideon with a mere 300 men. He felled Goliath and put the Philistines to flight at the hands of a teenage shepherd named David. He delivered Hezekiah and Jerusalem from the siege of Sennacherib, king of Assyria, by sending His angel to kill 185,000 soldiers in one night. He repeatedly declares in His Word, as Jeremiah put it, “Ah Lord God! Behold You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for You!” (Jeremiah 32:17; see Jeremiah 32:27; Genesis 18:14; Zechariah 8:6; Matt. 19:26; Luke 1:37).
To be continued...
I pray that this week you will wholeheartedly trust in a God who is large and in charge of your life,
Pastor Bill
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