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Cares our hearts retire, go deep and boundless their desire we've now to please. But one with these our happy lot is cast number 250.
231.
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Nsnoise.
Call her. We just looked at me and I helped. We, uh, open the holy scriptures, uh.
Passion that I have before us.
We thank the too that thy dearly beloved Son or Savior, the Lord Jesus is in the midst here with us that was promised. So we just looked to the Lord Jesus and thy health and thy blessing and thy Spirit behalf, Free, free liberty.
The brother will be sensitive to the leading of thy spirit, and bring.
4th of passage, since thou has forest, and each of us may be blessed, so we just looked at Thee for Thy health and Thy blessings. We open up the scriptures to us, and Thou dost teaches through Thy Spirit those things Thou have us to have. As we open our Thy scriptures together, we just look for Thee again for the health and Thy blessings, and I worthy and precious name, Lord Jesus, Amen.
In the prayer meeting last evening and in this morning's prayer meeting, there seemed to be a consistent theme of refocusing on the Lord and of, uh, not being distracted by the things of this life and so on.
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Umm, and I know that often times we don't like people to be hasty, so I don't wanna be hasty, but it did bring to mind, hey, guy, chapter one into the first few verses of chapter 2. And, uh, I would just like to suggest that as a reading, but I would, uh, be happy to wait for, uh, several more minutes as we, uh, consider it. And perhaps another brother will feel there's another passage that's more appropriate, but.
I do want to, uh, suggest that, and I would be more than happy to wait or to listen to another brother's burden.
I thought it was chapter one of Haggai through chapter 2 verse 5.
It would be profitable to uh.
We dwell upon the uh.
Teaching here in Haggai.
Rather than, uh, on the court.
Let's read the Hegei.
Chapter One.
Beginning at verse one.
Eggy Eye, chapter one.
In the second years.
Of King Darius.
In the six months, in the first day of the month, came the word of the Lord by Hagee I, the prophet, Underserubable, the son of Chiatiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Joseph the high priest, saying.
Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts saying this. People say the time is not come. The time.
Doctor, Lord House should be built. Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet saying, Is it time for you?
O ye to dwell in your sealed houses, and this house live waste. Now, therefore, thus saith the Lord of Hosts, consider your ways. You have so much and bring in little.
He eat, but he had 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 into a bag with holes.
Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, consider your ways, go up to the mountain and bring wood and build a house.
And I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord. Ye look for much, and lo, it came too little. And when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why, saith the Lord of hosts? Because a mind house that is waste, and he run every man into his own house. Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from due.
And the earth is stayed from her fruit.
And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground bringeth forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labor of the hands.
Hence a rubber bowl, the son of Chiatiel and Joshua, the son of Jose **** the high priest, with all the remnant of the people.
Obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Peggy I the Prophet, as the Lord their God hath sent him, And the people did fear before God.
Then speak. Haggy eyed the Lords messenger in the Lords message unto the people saying, I am with you, sayeth the Lord, and the Lord stirred up the spirit of survival.
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At the son of Shia TL governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Josiah the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people. And they came and did work in the House of the Lord of hosts their God. In the four and 20th day of the sixth month. In the second year of Darius the king, in the seventh month. In the in the one and 20th day of the month came the word of the Lord by the prophet Hegei saying.
Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Chiatiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josette the high priest, and to the residual of the people, saying, Who is among you that saw this house in her first glory, and how do you see it now? Is it not in your eyes, in comparison of it as nothing?
Yet now the strong Osiraba ball, saith the Lord, and be strong, O Joshua the son of Josette the high priest, and be strong. All the people of the land, saith the Lord, and work. For I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts, according to the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt. So my spirit.
Remaineth.
Among you.
Fear ye not.
Know that in the book of Ezra.
At the beginning there was a call to go back to rebuild the House of God.
And uh.
Some went back, only a remnant.
And that was, I believe about, uh, sixteen years or so, apparently before this time that we're reading up here. And it would seem that, uh, over those years.
They may have gotten weary of the work and it kind of ceased.
Hello brother. Uh, Rose Steve, you were mentioning to me kind of a rough history of that time in between. I don't know if you could, uh.
Kind of outline what occurred.
Between, uh, that time As for chapter one and this time here.
They came together after they had arrived at the land in Ezra chapter three in the seventh month. So there was a space of time from when they returned until they gathered, as it says, and Ezra 2 as one man to Jerusalem. So there was a a bit of time where they were kind of paying attention to their own things getting settled in, and then their attention turned to.
The ruined House of God they come back, they set the altar on its bases, they establish scriptural, uh, worship and sacrifices once again and uh, begin to lay the foundation there's a.
They get about that.
Far in chapter 2 and then, uh, it kind of faded out. They come back again in verse eight of chapter 2 of Ezra and the second year of their coming to the House of God and that's when they really lay the foundation out. It's perhaps it's first row of stones. Umm, that would be indicated.
Chapter 2 and verse 15 And now I pray you consider from this day upward, from before a stone was laid upon a stone. So the first row had been laid, but the 2nd row of stones had not been laid upon the first foundation row and.
They were really, uh, drifting back towards their own interests. Meanwhile, in the Kingdom of Persia, a usurper came to the throne and it was the attempt of the Medes because that Kingdom was a combination of the Medes and the Persians. That was the the attempt of the Medes.
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To gain the ascendancy in the Kingdom and they sent an impostor to the throne who pretended he was one of Cyrus's sons. He reigned for seven months. He was found out and slain and, uh, Darius, uh, another Darius than what we just had in our and Haggai took the throne. He was an admirer of Cyrus and uh, in that time that the apostle was on the throne, the adversary.
Of that little company in Jerusalem wrote a letter to that imposter king and he wrote a letter back that that work should cease of building the House of God. And so they said, oh, here comes a letter from the greatest monarch and under whose authority we are. He says stop the work. And so it's not time to build the House of the Lord. But Haggy, I brings out that there were moral reasons. It wasn't just a letter from the king.
There were moral reasons that the work stopped. God raises up Haggai and Zachariah. The 1St 6 verses of uh the prophecy of Zechariah come in right after verse nine of chapter 2.
Zechariah's prophecy largely takes upcoming glory. Haggy Eye touches on it as well. But Haggy Eye far more addresses the moral condition of the people that they left off the work of building the Lord's house. And so once they're stirred back up to build again and responded to the word of the Lord, another letter is sent, uh, to the court of Persia. Meanwhile, Darius has come to the throne, Admire Osiris. He sends a letter back, he says.
Not only should that work go forward, but those who are adversaries.
You start helping by giving them supplies. They weren't actually helping the building itself, but they were not to hinder the work. If anything, they were to make sure the Jews had the supplies they needed. And so God worked everything. He allowed what happened with that usurper to come to the throne for the very purpose of testing the moral state and condition of the people of God that were building that House of the Lord in Jerusalem.
Haggai and Zachariah stir them back up to their responsibility before the Lord and affection for the Lord. And then Zachariah comes in and the rest of his prophecy, and he opens up the glory that's coming.
Uh, and uh, Haggai touches on it in chapter 2 and he speaks in verse 9. The glory of this latter house or the latter glory of this house. He's looking onto the millennial.
Glory when, uh, the temple will be built again in Jerusalem under the reign of Messiah. And he links that little feeble effort there in Jerusalem with the coming glory of the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Millennium and the temple that will be built there. Zachariah unfolds it more in its detail.
Hey GAIL, I was a prophet, umm, a prophet that, uh, spoke to the.
Conscience of the people umm, as our brother Steve mentioned, Zechariah more to do with the coming glory, but in Hagee ayah, there is a real uh, dealing with the conscience of the people. They had uh.
They had become, uh, indifferent or, uh.
Umm, on that, uh, they weren't exercised about, uh, the claims of Jehovah.
Uh, in relation to the the House of of God.
They had allowed their personal pursuits, ambitions, uh, interest to override and, uh.
So hey, Guya stirs them up and he.
Exercises their conscience about their ways.
Umm, and as our brother mentioned, their moral condition is, is prominent here because there was no reason for them not to have continued. They might have made excuses, but really they have the, uh, the authority of the Lord to continue and, uh, and to build this, uh, this structure, this, this House of Jehovah.
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And they had just neglected it by.
Attention to their own interests and the claims of the Lord were not recognized. That can happen in our lives too. Umm, certainly, uh, teaching here for, uh, for all of us because we tend to, uh, to drift from the Lord's things and, uh, allow the world to, uh.
To gain a place in our hearts so that we, uh, we forget separation from the world and we live for our own interests and ambitions and we don't, uh, recognize the Lord's Lord, the, the lordship of Christ in our lives. It's so important to, uh.
To understand.
There's a verse in uh, Hebrews chapter 10.
That our brother, uh, John has, uh, mentioned a couple of times already here in this conference. It's, uh, Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 24.
Where it says let us consider one another to provoke.
Unto love and good works.
And there's, uh.
This is really central to building the Lord's house in our day, to provoke one another to love and good works. In Ephesians it says the body builds itself up through love.
And uh, we can talk about loving the Lord and focusing on the Lord and so on. But just as the apostle John said, you can't say you love God whom you have not seen. You don't love your brother whom you have seen, And uh, we have.
Uh, we're, we know very well that the things that are seen are temporal and we, we can get very much distracted by what we see and what we have to do with every day. But you know, there is something on the earth that we can see.
Where, where we can invest in something that's eternal and that's the assembly and that's our brethren. And uh, and so here you have in verse 2.
You have some people saying the time's not come, that the house, the Lord's house, should be built.
And uh, you know, there are some in our day who I believe.
And this is, is just my perception as to their motive, uh, that because everything's in such ruin and even amongst, uh, those gathered to the Lord's name and the recovery, there has been much ruin, lots of division, a lot of ruin. And, uh.
And what they say is.
There's no use in it. It's not, it's not valuable. You might, you might say to the Lord, we should just focus on the gospel and, uh, and that's it.
Well, you know, and here it says, bring wood and build a house, and you know, the gospel, the apostle Paul would never see the gospel as a work in itself.
We can, we can look at the gospel that way, that it's a work in and of itself, but that's not the way the Apostle Paul would have seen it at all.
When he went to take the gospel to a land, it was that assemblies might be raised up.
And the gospel is that bringing the wood.
You might say to build a house always. The gospel should be seen in that light, that the Lord isn't just saving souls just to save souls. He's saving souls that they might be material. You might say for the building of the assembly, they're to be brought in to the Assembly of God because God's focus in this age is to build the assembly, that there might be a manifestation of Christ, a visible manifestation of Christ here on the earth.
And that is what God's focus is, and the gospel has to be seen.
In the same light as all other ministry, that it is for the building of the assembly, for the building of God's house.
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And you and I, as members of the body of Christ, make up the Church. And when we contemplate this position into which we have been brought through sovereign grace.
Our hearts should overflow and Thanksgiving and praise for the one that's made it all possible.
Now in connection with the House of God.
I think of what David had to say.
In Psalm 27.
Verse 4.
Because, you know, I don't think the Lord would have us to be occupied with the building.
Now in Solomon's day, the temple was magnificent. I could take your breath away. It was so elegant, so.
Here's what David says in Psalm 27, verse four. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the House of the Lord all the days of my life.
What for? To behold the beauty of the temple? No.
To behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.
And so I do believe.
That as we read this portion, Haggai.
Constance Ire was his house should be rebuilt.
In order that.
The Israelites might enjoy the beauty of the Lord.
And I think in Psalm 36, there's another word here that's.
Impressed itself on my heart. Psalm 36 and verse 8.
They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house.
And thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures.
Now, today, of course, the House of God.
Do we enjoy that position?
And in the House of God we find there is to be the support.
Of the truth, it's the pillar and support of the truth. And who is the truth?
The living truth is the Lord Jesus Christ. The written truth we hold in our hands is the Word of God.
And there is.
A privilege connected with the assembly.
Like I should.
But it's wonderful to be in a place where.
Where the living truth, written truth, can be unfolded to us through the power of the Spirit of God.
And I believe you and I, we can be satisfied.
With the fatness, so to speak, of the house, because Jesus is there.
So I believe it's the person that truly makes the place.
We are always in the House of God. Umm.
If you look at First Timothy, the whole epistle deals with, uh, our conduct in the House of God. So.
You can't say that any local assembly is the House of God, though they are representative.
But, uh, Paul wrote to Timothy along that line, that thou mayest know how thou shouldst behave thyself in the House of God. There was a deportment, there was a manner of, of life and activity in the House of God that was becoming, that was according to, uh, God's mind, uh.
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It was the outward testimony that was being displayed to the world in the House of God. One of the characters is, uh, is reaching out with the gospel, but, uh, there's other aspects there that we are to take, uh, pay attention to and it comes out in our chapter here. Uh, they were really not conducting themselves in a manner that was becoming, umm.
As the people of God.
They were careless, they were negligent. And so it, it, it is, uh, something that should exercise, uh, all the people of God. All right, Ted.
Certainly, I cannot say that we should have one kind of behavior in the assembly and another kind out in the world That's uh.
That certainly is not something that the Scripture would agree with, and it's the same as saying it all. We are in the presence of one of the Lord at one time and not in his presence of another. We would should individually be living in the presence of God all the time.
But the, uh, in verse four when the prophet speaks to what the people are saying.
As to it's not time to build the Lord's house, he says, well, is it time for you to dwell in your own sealed houses?
As I understand it, you know, a sealed house was one that was, uh, you know, it wasn't just a house that they built and dwell with the ceiling was that they had it nicely finished inside. Uh.
I, I know there's a brother now trying to prepare his, his house and, uh, part of what's got to be done is all the finishing on the inside. There's a lot of trim to be done, you know, uh, painting or wallpaper and uh, trim and so on. It's, that's what sealing is. It's, it's making it all nice and finishing it all nice on the inside. And so it shows that these people had not only built their own houses, but they, they put a lot of effort into making them perfect and, uh.
And the prophet says, is it time to do that? Is it time for you to be taking care of your own house?
And I think that the, uh, the spiritual, uh.
Side of this for us, as contrasting the House of God or the assembly with our own sealed house, is that we can spend a lot of time kind of taking care of our own circle.
And perfecting our own circle of fellowship.
You know, that's very shameful.
Because sometimes we say, well, I, I prefer this brother or sister and that one, you know, uh, we don't get along so well. And, uh, we don't always see things. Uh, in fact, we hardly ever see things the same. And so, uh, I would just kind of prefer not to spend a lot of time pursuing that, that brother or sister. And so we kind of subtly perfect our own seal house, you might say, uh, it's not time for that.
In fact, some have gone to including some of the gathered Saints in their sealed house and, uh, and a lot of Saints on the outside as well. I don't want to get the impression that we in any way cut off our brethren who are not gathered to the Lord's name. No, but there's only 24 hours in a day and seven days a week. How are you spending your time?
Are you building your own steel house, or are you building God's house?
I I personally barely have enough time to give to the Saints that I meet with.
I don't think I even have enough time to adequately spend with the Saints that I meet with. I don't know how anyone can find time to spend a lot of time pursuing Saints elsewhere.
But we run into our brothers and sisters at work, at school, whatever the case may be, and as we have opportunity, we try to build them up and we try to receive from them their portion as well. That should be just the way we live, that you might say is dwelling, as John said, in the House of God all the time, but specifically when it comes to practice.
Your assembly is where your first ministry is.
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I think the thought of sealed houses are not only nicely finished inside, I think they're also were ornate as well.
I think what we get here in this pastor is the same, umm, the same tendency of things as we get in, uh, Revelations chapter, uh, Revelation chapter 3, uh, towards the end there, uh, where it's flung about later to see it. If you look at these two chapters between Haggai chapter one and that letter to the latest CNC, so many comparisons, if you look at it, you see, uh, you see here in Haggai, we have these ones that are going out and they're building their field houses and they're just in a state of complete reformness.
And, uh, you look down and it's, it's talking there in verse six about, umm, eating and drinking and being filled. And you just see the same thing repeated in, uh, Revelation chapter 3. And you can go down in almost verse by verse, just line up the verses between the two. This is something that's common to man. And if we're honest, we all have the same thing in our heart, the spirit of lukewarmness where we don't grasp what Christ really is and we place values.
Of what we want in our life. We place them over what God would have for us to do. We place them over his things. And this is it's nice when we come to a Bible conference and we sit down and and we get an understanding of what was going on in the situation with the children of Israel and this is written and so on. But you can do that and be lukewarm. We have to take these words of speaking to ourselves. I find it myself. We have to take this as to ourselves and it has to have an effect in our life.
We can't sit here and read these verses and go on in our life as we as we do living in our sealed houses, can we?
Ephesians 4 gives us the uh, New Testament, uh, order in which God uh.
UH uses uh gifts to build up.
His house, just looking at Ephesians 4 and verse 3, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. Endeavoring doesn't mean umm, uh, give it a good try. It means diligently maintaining. It doesn't mean just give it a try, it means do it.
And then he looking on down in verse 11, and he gave some apostles and some prophets.
And some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the Saints.
And so when the Saints are perfected, then it sets forward the work of the ministry.
And when the ministry goes on, then the whole assembly is built up for the edifying of the body of Christ. It's for the perfecting of the Saints with a view to the ministry with a view.
To the edifying of the body of Christ.
One of those gifts that's mentioned and here in Ephesians, it's the persons who are gifts, not the abilities given of God that's.
At Romans and by the Spirit of God, that's First Corinthians. Here it's the persons themselves. One of those gifts of Christ to his church was.
Prophets.
Well, in John 4, when the Lord met that woman at the well, and he spoke to her in a way that reached her conscience, she said, I perceive Thou art a prophet.
He was bringing her conscience into the presence of God, and that's what the ministry of a prophet does. It's not just telling the future.
In some cases in the Old Testament and in Hagia, he does take up some future things. But the ministry of a prophet is to bring our conscience into the light of God's presence, to give us a word from God in a way that we know it's the word of God for us for that time.
That we might receive the neither the adjustments in our life.
That we might be perfected in that way, that the ministry might be set forward, that the whole body might be built up. And so when they straight off and drifted off and they had a good excuse with this letter from the king, you see, it's not time to build the Lord's house. Look, we got a letter right from the court of Persia. It says stop building.
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God raises up two prophets and he addresses their conscience and he brings their consciences into the light of God's presence that they might judge themselves as to the true moral condition of their souls and the real things that were motivating their hearts. And he says, you know, you don't have a very happy life, do you?
If you're going after your own things and you're still hungry and you're still thirsty and you're still cold.
You tried all those things and all you got is bitterness. You tried to take care of yourself instead of the Lord's interest first. He would have taken care of you, but you've gone to take care of yourself and you didn't do a very good job. You don't have all the things you wish you had.
Should have just left it with the Lord and taken care of his business.
He's speaking very plainly to us.
And brings our consciences into the light of God's presence.
It's not that the Lord would deprive us of temporal, uh, blessings and comforts. He's given us all things ritually for our enjoyment. But.
What is the object that is motivating us? I was thinking of adverse in, uh, Luke chapter 14, where we have the Lord speaking very pointedly, very plainly about the path of discipleship. It may be slightly different to our chapter here, but the principle there in verse, uh.
26 if any.
Man come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren.
And sisters ye and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
Well, the Lord is laying out the terms here of discipleship and, uh.
Speaking to the the conscience of these multitudes that were following him, but he shows them the cost of, uh, of following the Lord well in our chapter.
These things were the priority in their lives, the, uh, their personal comfort and uh, ingrandisement and what have you. And the Lord's things were in advance. They were not given. The Lord was not given His rightful place.
Their own interests, uh, had the prominence, uh, and again I say, it's not that, uh, the Lord would deprive us of the, of these, uh, temporal blessings which he has showered upon us, but really, what is the object that is motivating us? They had settled down into their own things and the Lord's interests were not, uh, taken into consideration.
You have here considered your ways that you notice the word consider. It means inwardly meditate. Think about it uh.
Samuel has said, consider how great things the Lord has done for you. Uh, Hebrews 3 Consider the apostle and high priest of our confession, or, uh, Hebrews 9 consider one another, and so on. Inwardly meditate upon these things. Let them, uh, really speak to the heart and conscience.
The Lord touched on the, uh, natural relationships very early on with his disciples, didn't he? This, uh, scripture that John quoted in an other gospels as well, the Lord spoke about human relationships and the, uh, the sacrifice, you might say, of human relationships in order to follow him. This, uh, this is not unrelated to also, uh.
Building your own sealed house or having your own sealed house. It's kind of hard breaking to observe sometimes. Saints putting their human relationships above their.
00:50:06
Their spiritual ones or to put their human relationships above the Lord's interests with the assembly.
Umm, it's a fact. There are many, many in this room have suffered the loss of human relationships and.
In some cases, very, very deep hurt, uh, at the loss of, of the human relationships in order to go on with the Lord in the path that he has set for them. And, uh, one of the things the Lord said, when Peter said, you know, we've left everything, Lord, we left, we left everything to follow you and I, I was looking it up. I haven't found it. Someone could find it easily. The Lord said, well, no one has left.
Wives and.
Mothers and fathers and children.
Uh.
That will not be restored. A hundredfold went in this life.
And the Lord is very accurate there when he lists what they is restored a hundredfold. He leaves out wives. Umm, but he does include, you know, mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and children that we would be restored that a hundredfold in this life. What was he speaking about? He's speaking about the assembly.
And so if, if, uh, if a young man chooses to follow the Lord and he follows the Lord and he's gathered to the Lord's name and it causes the loss of his relationship with his parents.
That law should be compensated in the Assembly.
Older brothers and sisters should fill in.
To care for him, to fill in that parental role.
That's what the Lord was talking about and and younger ones, likewise older ones could have suffered losses of children and so on. We are to be to one another the things that we lost that were lost in those natural relationships that were lost. And I believe every St. gets tried in this way. Some get tried in it when they get saved, some get tried when they get gathered to the Lord's name and some.
Get tried when their children who were brought up in the assembly walk away from it. But we know these. I think everyone in here has been touched to 1° or another by this. But it's nice to see that the Lord addressed this very early on. But the point is, we can get involved in building up our own sealed houses and putting ahead of the Lord's interests our own personal interests, even when it comes to these kind of relationships.
As it's been pointed out is what is first. They were saying it's not time yet. The reason was leave first.
And so they were putting themselves 1St. And as God's people, we can't get away with that. So they were sewing and bringing in little, they were heating, they weren't filled drinking, they didn't have enough and so on there. They didn't have the blessing of the Lord because they were putting themselves 1St. And the same thing is exactly true with us, isn't it?
The Lord demands the 1St place.
We can put in all the same amount of effort get but get nothing for it. And it's so easy to do this too. They think, well, I will give my life to the Lord, but first I will get an education first. I will build my house first I will do this. Afterwards I will have time to give to the Lord because I'll be all set. And what do we end up in? A life of spiritual poverty. The Lord may also allow us never to achieve those other goals.
But certainly will be robbed of that which he has for us. And the Lord was very plain about this. Matthew 6 verse 33. He says, Seek ye first the Kingdom of God in his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. He demands the 1St place we go in anyway, try to make ourselves to put something in our lives, or to get something set in our lives first and take care of the Lord's second.
Then we'll certainly lose out.
I was just looking at some previous verses in that same chapter in Matthew 6, beginning with verse 19.
Where we have the admonition, lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth. And we know what happens when this occurs. Moth and rock rust come in to corrupt thieves, breakthrough and steal.
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Then it says, But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither Moss moth nor rust duck corrupt, and where thieves do not breakthrough nor steal.
This is the key verse for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
So we.
Have referred to Ezra and Nehemiah and in the third chapter of Nehemiah we see the people working on the wall, some quite willingly, others neglected, uh, to do what they should have done but we read that some work earnestly well, their heart was prepared to work on the wall and.
I believe that there was a spirit of cooperation.
To when you're building a wall.
You have to consult with someone that's building next to you or someone else is working because you don't want your wall to be out of Plumb.
And you want it to meet some years ago when they were building the channel underneath the English Channel.
There were two teams that were working A-Team working from England and another team team, uh, working from France, and they had to be in constant communication because they knew that they had to meet at a particular spot. And so that's important to working together, isn't it? I know there's a scripture in Isaiah chapter 41. It's probably not the.
Uh, direct application, but let's just consider the words and let's just consider the activity of these people that are mentioned in Isaiah chapter 41.
May not be uh the contextual, uh, view here.
But in verse six, it says they helped everyone, his neighbor.
And everyone said to his brother, Be of good courage. So the Carpenter encouraged the Goldsmith.
And he that.
Smootheth with a hammer.
Him that smoked the anvil saying it is ready for soldering and so forth. So there was work together, wasn't there? And so.
This is necessary in our day too, isn't it? Not to go on independently of one another and to value one another and each other's contributions.
Make a comment, uh, from the perspective of a builder.
Umm, just in connection with what you brought before.
How interesting things happened last night. Umm, Usually when we arrive here, I'm handed the keys to the motel and uh, uh, this, this time we are handing the keys, umm.
They didn't go from the lodge, the motel. We went from the lodge to the other side of the road where there's this magnificent big brick building and umm, we walk in and I'm looking around and seeing the parlor and they, the beautiful trim around the doors and they, uh.
Intricate hardwood floor that's to put together in such a way that I, I realize that the builder really would have taken some time. Anyway, when we go into our room and we spend the night there and, uh, I get up and, uh, we're getting prepared to leave in the morning and I come outside and I come again looking at all the things that are there. And, umm, uh, I can't wait to show my wife some of these things that I'm running my hand over the marble fireplace as my wife comes out and she's out. She just, she's got this, uh, gleam on her face and she says, you know, so and so is here and she says, umm, I can't wait to visit with so and so and I can't wait to. I didn't have the heart to point at all the things that.
01:00:07
And, you know, it's been so impressive to me to see the direction that he was going. And we find that, umm, in the book of Ezra. If we could turn there for a moment, Umm.
To Ezra chapter 5, Ezra chapter 5, and in the first verse that says, Then the prophet, Haggai the prophet, and Zechariah the son of Ado prophesied unto the Jews.
That were in Jerusalem, in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel, even unto them then rose up through the whole the son of Chiaofiel and Joshua, the son of Johnson began to build the heads of God, which heads of Jerusalem. And it's if this next, next phrase that is so impressive to me it says and with them we're the process of God helping them.
Now in my in the business that I'm in, I have customers that come to me and they they point out a problem.
It doesn't take much wisdom to point out a problem.
And it wouldn't have taken much wisdom for for how he I to point out a problem.
But it does take some wisdom to do something about the problem.
And so Haggy as he writes here.
Not only is he pointing out the difficulty, but with it's with the intent that he's gonna work with those ones that he's speaking to, to help them build. That's the full intent in which he writes this little book. It's not just to point at all the difficulty things that there were, because there were and it's very easy. Isn't for, isn't isn't it for us to point at all the difficulties in the assembly? It doesn't take much wisdom to do that. We can easily do that.
But Haggai he points out the difficulties with the full intention.
Well, and and some of our lives, the Lord is working with us.
And it's, it's a constant work, isn't it?
And, uh, do we?
Uh, by our own behavior and our own measures hinder that work of the Lord with us.
So that these are are things that we have to consider.
And that's certainly a a very.
Pointed statement, yet it is not finished. So there's the encouragement to go up and finish that work, isn't there?
There's a lot of, uh, younger brothers in the meeting and many of them are beginning to take their places in the assembly and to fill roles that they should be filling and, uh.
They are doing a much better job, I know than I did of balancing the, uh, the worldly responsibilities with, with their spiritual responsibilities. But I just would, uh, I would want to mention something, you know, I just want to look back and says I wasted a lot of time, put a lot of effort into things that come to nothing.
Is reading in the first Kings the other morning and there was a statement that jumped out to me.
That David made to Solomon.
It's in First Kings I think chapter two. First Kings chapter 2 and verse 2.
David said I go the way of all the earth.
I go the way of all the earth.
That's in in one fell swoop, he says. The Earth, it all goes one way. And you know what that way is?
Now that way is down. David was about to die and he says I go the way of all the earth.
You know, whether it's living things or things that are man made.
Or inanimate objects. It doesn't matter. Take a look.
01:05:03
The way of the whole earth is just death and destruction. Everything ends that way here. There's no exceptions.
And there's really only one thing you can invest in here that's gonna last for eternity.
Years ago, a brother in our assembly made a statement, he said. There's there's one treasure that we have here that we're going to take with us when we go there.
That's the Lord's love.
But we can expand on that, you know, and all the building we do with one another and the relationships with one another that we invest in, in Christ, that's an investment that's gonna last for eternity.
And so we do have something here on the earth that we can invest in, but.
Be careful about investing in, in the earth. Everything here is like a, is like an automobile. You know, everyone knows an automobile is not an investment. It is a uh, it's something that's going to depreciate from day one and it's gonna eventually end up in the junk pile and that's the way of all the earth and so.
You just have to be careful about.
Putting too much investment. And when I say investment, I don't just mean money and time. More than that, I mean emotional investment.
Emotional investment and investment of your of your energy and your focus.
Be careful because you can invest in things and and that's just what this our chapter is saying here in in Hagei said you so much, you bring in little.
You don't have enough.
You know, it says that you put, uh, you earn wages, you put it into a bag with holes.
And the older you get, the more you're gonna realize that all the investment in this world just comes to nothing. So as our brother said, the Lord affords us all things richly for our enjoyment. And uh, asceticism has nothing to do with Christianity. All man made religions have that self punishment and self deprivation element in them, That's not Christianity.
Giving things up for the Lord is not just giving things up, it's giving things up for the Lord. You get something better.
But we do have to to spend time. We all know this. We have to responsibilities here in the world and so on. But be careful about your emotional investment.
That should be placed in your treasure in heaven, and that treasure in heaven includes the investment we have in the Saints. That is where the Lord's treasure is, and that is where our treasure is.
I know the time is nearly over, but we can invest in view of eternity. Umm.
We can send the treasure ahead.
Uh, and we can use the uh.
The temporal things which the Lord has graciously granted to us, we can use those things in view of eternity. Umm, I've often said, umm, the money that we have, if we have any, doesn't belong to us, belongs to another Mac. So how we use those resources, whether it be money or time?
Or our homes, what have you. They can be used for the Lord, uh.
In that sense, you sell what you have, you own the Lord's claims on everything that you have and, uh, you use it in view of eternity and, uh, it's not lost then it's an investment that, uh.
Gives a high percentage.
01:10:50
Nsnoise.
Nsnoise.
Our God and our Father, we thank Thee for Thy word that would uh, bring our consciences, our hearts unto Thy holy presence that would search us out without us. Know our down sitting, our uprising, the very meditations of our heart are all uh, before Thee. And Thy word is sharper than any two edged sword, able to divide Thunder even between soul and spirit. And so we do.
Pray that we might take in these timely admonitions to our souls. We feel how to say that we're in uh, Satan would just calculate everything to kill the affections and uh, we would uh, like those in uh, Ezra's, uh, day haggy eyes day run every man to his own house. But that was said that will take pleasure in my house even in feebleness even.
So it'd be in just a remnant character.
And we think of how that, uh, house was that silver link between Solomon's, uh, temple and that, uh, coming, uh, millennial temple, that, uh, will be built under Messiah's reign, and how precious that little company there in Jerusalem was to the oh. We just pray that we might see what is valuable in Thy sight, that we might rest in faith upon Thy word and not look at circumstances around us.
And be turned aside, but just to trust thee in thy word, and to do thy will, and to know thou art able, uh, to fill our hearts. And we think of how the Apostle could say, he knew whom he hath believed, and knew that he was able to keep that which he committed unto him against that day. Help us not to take up uh, pursuit of our own happiness and comfort, but to just trust Thee for those things.
01:15:02
And to be occupied with thine interest here below. So we just ask this and the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. Amen.