DON’T LIVE IN DARKNESS
Haggai 1:1-10
All of us have areas of darkness in our lives. Most of us are not fully
Committed to God. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
If anyone says he has no sin he is a liar.
All of us were born in the sin of darkness, but we ought to be growing
In the light of God’s righteousness.
CRAVE GOOD PREACHING
V: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 son of Jehozadak, the high priest:
- After being released from 70 years of captivity, the returning Israelites had a
A governor and a priest.
- They did not have a king.
- Their first problem was not having a king.
- They were subjected to King Darius, the Persian King.
- They didn’t want to declare a King to keep from upsetting the surrounding enemy and King Darius.
- When Christians don’t have God as their supreme authority they are living in darkness.
- The darkness of the Israelites began 500 years earlier when they rejected
Samuel as Judge and demanded a king to look like their pagan neighbors.
2. When Jesus is not your king, the devil is. He is the king of darkness.
C. It is good to have a Godly Pastor.
1. It is good to have a Pastor who studies God’s Word and brings it to his
Congregation.
2. How can we learn without a teacher?
3. It is the Pastor who selects teachers to assist him in teaching the Word
To the congregation.
- God uses His pastors to bring us a word of direction when we are going
astray.
4. Haggai was the man God used to bring the Word to the Zerubbabel the
Governor and Joshua the high priest
- The Pastor needs capable, dedicated men and women to work on the mission.
- The problem with the Israelites was bad preaching.
- From the time they came out of Egypt, they were constantly mixing
The Word of God with paganism.
- They couldn’t get enough idol worship.
- Their love for the world’s way of worship was always in
Their view.
- They chose darkness over the light that protected them.
MAKE SERVING GOD YOUR HIGHEST PRIORITY
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.\’\”
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?\”
- It had been 18 years since King Darius had released the Israelites from captivity with the mission to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem and to rebuild the temple.
- With opposition in the midst, they started with zeal and rebuilt the wall
Around Jerusalem.
- After rebuilding the walls they got discouraged or satisfied and never started the rebuilding of the Temple.
- They reverted to the dark days of their captivity.
- They said it was not time to build the temple because they wanted to take care of their business first.
AFTER ALL, THEY DIDN’T HAVE A TEMPLE FOR 70 YEARS!!
- It had been 18 years of “not time” to build the temple.
- They built their houses and planted their crops.
- They left God’s temple in ruins.
- When your worship is in ruins, you are in darkness.
- They were no worse than Christians today.
- We put our emphasis on ourselves and what is left on God.
- The average Christian only gives 2.5% of their income to God.
- God commands 10% plus an offering.
- God loves a cheerful giver. How can we receive His love when we
Find excuses to give.
- One study found that only 45% of Christion serve in the Church.
- Most Christians put themselves before God.
- We are living in darkness with this attitude:
- I got to take care of my house.
- I need to buy myself a new car’
- I need to buy myself new clothes.
- Once my needs are satisfied, I will give to God.
- I don’t have time for the church because I got too much stuff
To do.
- When God is not first in your financing, you are living in darkness.
- When we fail to serve God, we are living in darkness.
How often does the average Christian attend church?
A survey found that only 26% of those polled attended religious services \”every week or more often\”, 9% went \”once or twice a month\”, 21% went \”a few times a year\”, 3% went \”once a year\”, 22% went \”less than once a year\”, and 18% never attend religious services.
Hebrews 10:25
Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another — and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
- You can’t walk in the light if you don’t know light.
You will not walk in the light if you don’t believe the light
Applies to you.
- Relationship is knowing God. Fellowship is serving God.
- The enemy was mad about the Israelites building the wall.
- The enemy heckled the Israelite\’s building of the wall.
Nehemiah 2:19
But when Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab heard about it, they mocked and ridiculed us. \”What is this you are doing?\” they asked. \”Are you rebelling against the king?\”
- They even went to King Cyrus to prevent the temple from being
Built.
Ezra 5:3-5
At that time Tattenai, governor of Trans-Euphrates, and Shethar-Bozenai and their associates went to them and asked, \”Who authorized you to rebuild this temple and restore this structure?\” 4 They also asked, \”What are the names of the men constructing this building?\” 5 But the eye of their God was watching over the elders of the Jews.
- The Israelites were freed to reenter the promised land,
But the madness of the enemy was around them.
- They were captivated by fear.
- They were captivated by their desire to put their
Needs before the commands of God.
- They succumbed to the darkness around them.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF LIVING IN DARKNESS
V:5 Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: \”Give careful thought to your ways. 6 You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat but never have enough. You drink but never have your fill. You put on clothes but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.\”
- When they got back to the promised land, they quickly forgot what God had done for them.
- God used the enemy to bless them.
- He used three pagan kings to release them to freedom.
- He used Nebuchadnezzar to burn the original temple and destroy the walls and take them into captivity to chastise them.
- God used King Cyrus to decree that they should be released to return to
The promised land
- God used King Darius to provide all the livestock they needed, the building material they needed, and return all the Gold utensils taken from the temple.
- They failed to be the light of pagan nations around them.
- By not proceeding with the rebuilding of the Temple, they
Showed their ungratefulness and disobedience.
- They chose to live in darkness.
- They built the wall around Jerusalem and were satisfied.
- The wall was their protection.
- The wall symbolized their ability to keep the enemy out.
- We have to be careful not to rely on physical walls for protection.
- We got ADT, ring, and, blink and we are well protected.
- We put up cameras that alert us to intruders, and we are ok.
- We are armed with our guns and plenty of bullets, and we are ok.
- All our protective gear blinds us to the angels God can camp
Around us.
- Can’t nobody protect you like the Lord?
- By the time you get your gun, the enemy has shot you.
- God can stop the enemy before he can get to you.
- The only wall we need is our trust in God.
DEVOTE YOURSELVES TO THE LORD AND BUILD HIS HOUSE
V:7 This is what the Lord Almighty says: \”Give careful thought to your ways. 8 Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,\” says the Lord.
- Sometimes God doesn’t want your money, He wants your time and dedication.
He said I would rather obedience than sacrifice.
- The Lord provided all the materials to rebuild the temple using the resources He directed from the enemy.
- He needed men and women to serve willingly.
- God didn’t require all their time. He wanted them to give their time generously and freely while providing for themselves.
- They claimed God as their Father in name only.
- As long as Jesus is a picture on the wall you are living in darkness.
- As long as the Bible is just a book on your bookshelf, you are living in
Darkness.
- As long as you are the priority in your life, you are living in darkness.
- God takes pleasure in what you do for Him and not what you do for you.
- God is honored by the temple you build for Him, not the house you build for yourself.
- Building the temple must start in your heart.
1 Corinthians 3:16-17
Don\’t you know that you yourselves are God\’s temple and that God\’s Spirit lives in you? 17 If anyone destroys God\’s temple, God will destroy him; for God\’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.
- If you honor God first with your mind, you will easily honor Him with your time and resources.
1. The commands of God must become a necessity for you.
2. The commands of God must become an urgency for you.
3. You will understand that time is not yours to give.
4. Time is only yours to use for the God who gave it.
GOD HAS A WAY TO GET YOUR ATTENTION
V: 9 \”You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?\” declares the Lord Almighty. \”Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house. 10 Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops. 11 I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the oil and whatever the ground produces, on men and cattle, and the labor of your hands.\”
- Good preaching tells us what we need to know, not what is pleasing to us.
- Good preaching points out the errors of our ways.
- Good preaching convicts us of our sins
- Good preaching reminds us of the consequences of our sins.
- Good preaching tells us why God deals with us in troubling ways.
- God can cause your best-laid plans to fail.
- God can cause you to lose what you thought you had.
- God is not satisfied when He is not first in your life
- God is not satisfied when we don’t value His sanctuary and worship
Him in spirit and truth.
Malachi 3:10
Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,\” says the Lord Almighty, \”and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it
- When you fail to take care of God’s house, He can turn the nature He
Controls against you.
- Every once in a while, God uses nature to show us His power and authority.
- During a storm He caused 36 inches of rain to flood Texas
And Louisiana,
- In 2021 He froze Texas causing billions of dollars in damage.
- This is one of the few times in my years in Houston to experience
A drought.
- Everything is at the command of God to bring us to our right minds.
QUIT LIVING IN DARKNESS, PUT GOD FIRST IN YOUR LIFE
Rev. M. Mitchell
