A. Babylonian Captivity
– throne of David cast down.
B. Remnant of Jews have
returned to Jerusalem – God is encouraging them through the
prophet Haggai .
C. Last recorded
revelation through Haggai – God reveals the eventual overthrow
of the Gentile nations and His choice of a ruler in the line of
Zerubbabel.
D. Today, we’ll
be exploring part of the “The Lord’s Prayer” found
here in Haggai.
II. Haggai 2:20-23
A. And again the word of the LORD came to Haggai
on the twenty-fourth day of the month, saying, "Speak to
Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying: 'I will shake heaven and
earth. I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms; I will destroy the
strength of the Gentile kingdoms. I will overthrow the chariots And
those who ride in them; The horses and their riders shall come down,
Every one by the sword of his brother. In that day,' says the LORD of
hosts, 'I will take you, Zerubbabel My servant, the son of
Shealtiel,' says the LORD, 'and will make you like a signet [ring];
for I have chosen you,' says the LORD of hosts."
III. The Lord’s Prayer
A. The events
prophesied by Haggai inform an important phrase found within the
prayer which Jesus taught His disciples — perhaps the most
famous prayer in history.
B. Although this
well-known prayer is often called “The Lord’s Prayer,”
it is actually a prayer to be prayed by all the disciples of
Jesus and contains numerous important principles for believers of all
ages.
C. Matthew 6:9-13 "In
this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your
name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as [it is]
in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our
debts, As we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the
power and the glory forever. Amen.
D. This model prayer,
taught by Jesus, betrays an aspect of routine petition. (I use the
term “routine” here not in the sense of bland or boring,
but in the sense of frequent or regular.) Notice the daily aspect of
this prayer: “Give us this day or daily bread.”
E. The prayer includes
numerous elements which are to be a concern of believers almost every
day.
1. God’s
provision for our food.
2. Our need of
continual forgiveness before God.
3. Our need to
continually forgive those who need our forgiveness.
4. Our need of ongoing
protection from temptation.
F. Interestingly,
amidst all these petitions on behalf of the believer, we find an
appeal to God to accomplish that which He has already promised:
1. “Your kingdom
come, Your will be done on earth as [it is] in heaven.”
G. Within this small,
but pregnant phrase, we find some interesting, even provocative
elements:
IV. Future fulfillment
A. Not withstanding
having the King in their midst and the repeated preaching of John the
Baptist, Jesus, and the disciples that the “kingdom” was
“near” or “at hand” (e.g., Mat. 3:2; 4:17;
10:7; Mark 1:11; Luke 10:9-11), believers are to look for a future
fulfillment of this aspect of the ministry of Jesus.
B. Luke 19:11-12 –
As He approached Jerusalem, Jesus taught a parable concerning a
certain Nobleman
1. Now as they heard
these things, He spoke another parable, because He was near
Jerusalem and because they thought the kingdom of God would appear
immediately. Therefore He said: "A certain nobleman went
into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return.
2. This parable
revealed that the nobleman, representing Jesus:
a) Is absent for a
lengthy period.
b) His authority is
rejected during his absence.
(1) “His
citizens” send a delegation in His absence to deliver the
message, “We will not have this man to reign over us!”
(Luke 19:14).
c) Receives the kingdom
while absent
(1) The kingdom is not
conferred by His citizens. It is not “of this world”
(a) John 18:36 Jesus
answered, "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were
of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be
delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here."
(2) We learn from the
book of Daniel that the kingdom is conferred upon Jesus by God the
Father, but only after the Gentile kingdoms have held sway over the
earth for an extended period — during the absence of the
nobleman -- and their evil nature has fully manifested in the savage
rule of a final king known by various names within Scripture: the
“beast” or “Antichrist”.
(a) Daniel 7:13-14
Following his vision of the overthrow of the Beast, Daniel ".
. . was watching in the night visions, And behold, [One] like
the Son of Man, Coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the
Ancient of Days, And they brought Him near before Him. Then to
Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, That all peoples,
nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion [is] an
everlasting dominion, Which shall not pass away, And His kingdom [the
one] Which shall not be destroyed.
C. Luke 21 –
Jesus also indicated that His kingdom did not accompany His first
advent.
1. Instead, at His
rejection, the time characterized by the dispersion of the Jews and
the continued dominance of Gentile rule would continue.
a) Luke 21:24 And
they will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led away captive into
all nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the
times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
2. Identified the signs
that would accompany the arrival of the Kingdom of God.
a) Luke 21:31 So you
also, when you see these things happening, know that the kingdom of
God is near.
b) “These things”
. . . what things?
(1) Signs in the sun,
the moon, and the stars (Luke 21:25)
(2) On earth, the
distress of nations, perplexity (Luke 21:25)
(3) Men’s hearts
failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are
coming on the earth (Luke 21:26)
(4) Powers of the
heavens will be shaken (Luke 21:26)
3. Clearly, these signs
did not attend His first advent.
D. Signs after the
arrival of the kingdom
1. “Your will be
done, on earth as it is in heaven”
2. The eventual
manifestation of God’s kingdom is undeniably geopolitical.
a) The “geo”
in “geo-political” is related to the Greek word for
“earth” or “land” (gē).
b) The same word which
is rendered here as “earth.”
c) God’s ultimate
reign will be known by this sign: His will is done on earth –
within a specified geography.
3. The notorious and
obvious rejection and violation of His will upon the earth today is a
clear sign that His kingdom has not yet come – certainly not in
the sense which Jesus taught believers to intercede for.
4. Unsurprisingly,
these principles taught by the offspring of Zerubbabel find
confirmation in the words of Haggai some 5 centuries earlier.
V. Exposition
A. “Again the
word of the LORD came to Haggai” (Hag. 2:20)
1. This word of the
LORD came on the same day as the previous passage, but is set apart
as an additional revelation in order to highlight its different topic
and time of fulfillment.
B. “Speak to
Zerubbabel, governor of Judah . . .” (Hag. 2:21)
1. To understand the
significance of this title, we need to review the genealogy of Jesus
recorded in the first chapter of Matthew
a) Shealtiel and
Zerubbabel are in the kingly line of David leading to Jesus (Mat.
1:12).
b) [Read Matthew 1 with
‘king’ where appropriate and illustrate discontinuity.]
c) Ezekiel’s
prophesy concerning the last king of Judah – overthrown at the
destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon
(1) Ezekiel 21:9-27
"Son of man, prophesy and say, 'Thus says the LORD!' Say: 'A
sword, a sword is sharpened And also polished! Sharpened to make a
dreadful slaughter, Polished to flash like lightning! . . . It
despises the scepter of My Son, [As it does] all wood. . . .
For it will be against My people, Against all the princes of Israel.
. . . And what if [the sword] despises even the scepter? [The
scepter] shall be no [more]," says the Lord GOD. . .
. 'Now to you, O profane, wicked prince of Israel, whose day has
come, whose iniquity [shall] end, 'thus says the Lord GOD:
"Remove the turban, and take off the crown; Nothing [shall
remain] the same. Exalt the humble, and humble the exalted.
Overthrown, overthrown, I will make it overthrown! It shall be no
[longer], Until He comes whose right it is, And I will give it
[to Him]."'
2. An important key
which refutes all “kingdom now” theology or the notion
that the kingdom is to be understood in entirely a spiritual manner
a) Proves that the
“times of the Gentiles”, a period characterized by God’s
rejection of a ruler exercising righteous rule upon the throne of
David, began at the overthrow of the Davidic throne at the time of
the Babylonian captivity.
b) Jesus explained that
this time, due to Israel’s continued disobedience and rejection
of Messiah, was to be extended and that the evidenced of its
continuation was to be seen in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD
followed by the ongoing dispersion of the Jews.
c) Jesus refers to this
period as the “times of the Gentiles” and told us it
would include the trampling of Jerusalem by Gentiles: non-Jewish
nations.
d) Here we see an
important tie between the “times of the Gentiles”
(ethnōn), and the “throne of the ... Gentile
kingdoms”, the phrase before us in Haggai.
C. “I will shake
heaven and earth”
1. A “merism”
-- a figure of speech by which several parts are listed in order to
denote the whole. As in Genesis 1:1, this essentially means “all
things”.
2. This refers to the
final Day of the Lord wherein the God-rejecting nations of the earth
will encounter severe judgment as related earlier in verse 6.
a) “For thus says
the LORD of hosts: Once more (it is a little while) I will shake
heaven and earth, the sea and dry land; and I will shake all
nations...” (Hag. 2:6-7a).
3. I would refer you to
the recording on the website from two sessions ago wherein we
elaborated on this truth.
D. “I will
overthrow the throne of kingdoms, I will destroy the strength of the
Gentile kingdoms.” (Hag. 2:22)
1. “Overthrow”
is a Hebrew word which is used to describe turning a dish upside down
in order to wipe it clean and dump out its unwanted contents (2K.
21:13).
2. Interestingly,
“throne” is in the singular: “the throne [singular]
of kingdoms [plural]”
a) Here we see God’s
perspective on the varied attempts at human rule throughout geography
and history.
b) As varied as they
may be in location, effectiveness, and morality, they are essentially
collapsed into a single affront to God’s righteous rule.
(1) The
psalmist wrote (Psalms 2:1-2) Why do the nations
rage, And the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set
themselves, And the rulers take counsel together, Against the LORD
and against His Anointed, [saying], "Let us break Their
bonds in pieces And cast away Their cords from us."
(2) Notice they are kings (plural), yet they speak
with one voice “against the LORD and against His Anointed.”
3. This unified representation of ungodly rule
stretching throughout history is also seen in several other passages.
a) Daniel’s interpretation of
Nebuchadnezzar’s dream
(1) When the stone, representing the kingdom of
Messiah, struck the image representing major Gentile kingdoms (Daniel
2:35): Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the
gold were crushed together, and became like chaff from the
summer threshing floors; the wind carried them away so that no trace
of them was found. And the stone that struck the image became a great
mountain and filled the whole earth.
b) Revelation 13:2 Now the beast which I saw
was like a leopard, his feet were like [the feet of] a bear,
and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. The dragon gave him his
power, his throne, and great authority.
(1) As human kingdoms fall, making way for the
next, their aspects are carried forward to influence that which
arises next. Thus, there remains a continued thread of beast-like
rejection of God which is common to all, manifesting sometimes in one
way, other times in another, but always manifesting.
c) Luke 4:5-7 Then the devil, taking Him up on
a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment
of time. And the devil said to Him, "All this authority I will
give You, and their glory; for [this] has been delivered to me,
and I give it to whomever I wish. "Therefore, if You will
worship before me, all will be Yours."
(1) Jesus never contested Satan’s claim to
possess “all the kingdoms of the world.”
(2) It is this single
God-rejecting rule of varied places and times which God here pledges
to overthrow in favor of the King He has chosen.
4. Notice these are
“Gentile kingdoms”.
a) The ascendency and
prevalence of these kingdoms constitutes the “times of the
Gentiles” which Jesus spoke of. They are one and the same as
the varied metals in the image of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in
Daniel 2 and the various beasts in Daniel’s vision of Daniel 7.
E. “I will
overthrow the chariots and those who ride in them; the horses and
their riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother.”
(Hag. 2:22)
1. The Bible is replete
with cautions to the people of God not to trust in the arm of the
flesh – here represented by resources of superior advantage in
warfare: horses and chariots.
a) Psalms
20:7 Some [trust]
in chariots, and some in horses; But we will remember the name of the
LORD our God.
2. Yet Israel –
like the Gentile nations – continued to turn to Egypt for help
instead of the living God.
a) Isaiah
31:1 Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, [And]
rely on horses, Who trust in chariots because [they are]
many, And in horsemen because they are very strong, But who do not
look to the Holy One of Israel, Nor seek the LORD!
3. The Gentile nations,
in their rejection of God and having no knowledge of the “chariots
of Israel” (2K. 2:12; 6:17; 13:14), can only fall back upon
their weapons of warfare.
a) Yet these will be of
no avail in the day when God shakes the nations because of the
confusion which God throws into the mix: they will be overthrown,
“every one by the sword of his brother.”
b) Those thought to be
trusted allies will turn on each other, consuming one another by
subterfuge, deception, and God-induced confusion (e.g., Rev.
17:16-17),
c) This is the bitter
“cup of stumbling” or “cup of drunkenness”
wherein God has pledged that the nations will drink of His wrath
(Zec. 12:2-3; Rev. 14:10; 18:6).
4. No technology will
deliver from the God-induced stupor which will plague the Gentile
kingdoms of the end as they are led to their own destruction (Rev.
16:13-14).
F. “I will take
you, Zerubbabel My servant, the son of Shealtiel, says the LORD, and
will make you like a signet ring”
1. The signet ring was
the device which kings and those in authority used to certify or
“sign” documents.
2. The imprint
represented their full authority in their personal absence.
a) It was by king
Ahab’s signet ring that Jezebel’s sealed documents which
authorized false testimony against Naboth leading to his death and
the transfer of his vineyard into the hands of Ahab.
b) It was king Darius’
seal which certified that Daniel must spend the night confined in the
lion’s den.
3. Here, God
promises that Zerubbabel will exercise the full authority
of God Himself. As we saw earlier, this seems to speak of the chosen
offspring of Zerubbabel: Jesus Christ.1
VI. Application – What have we Learned from
Haggai?
A. When will
God’s Kingdom Come?
1. After God shakes
heaven and earth.
2. When God eventually
overthrows Gentile rule to install His chosen ruler on the throne of
David (Luke 1:32; Mat. 25:31).
B. How will
God’s Kingdom Come?
1. By direct
intervention of God in judgment.
2. Through the
intercession of believers.
3. Not through efforts
to socially reform a rejecting world which Jesus taught would
continue to say: “We will not have this man to reign over us!”
(Luke 19:14).
4. We are to be salt
and light and uphold the principles of God in every venue of life
(Mat. 5:13-15; Luke 14:34-35), but let us not be deceived concerning
the ultimate manner in which God’s kingdom has been predicted
to arrive!
C. Why must
God’s kingdom come?
1. Son’s of Adam,
tainted by the fall into sin, will never produce a lasting rule of
righteousness.
2. Human governments,
some more righteous than others, have come and gone on the stage of
history, but the stark pattern remains: those few governments which
have shown periods of righteous rulership have proven to be, on the
whole, short-lived, generally deteriorating into moral squalor.
a) Even non-Christian
observers, such as Benjamin Franklin have recognized such a pattern.
(1) In 1787, when the
Founding Fathers had hammered out the U.S. Constitution in
Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin told an
inquiring woman what the gathering had produced, "A republic,
madam, if you can keep it."
(2) The British
historian, Arnold Toynbee, who wrote a twelve-volume analysis
of the rise and fall of civilizations, titled “A Study of
History” obaserved that 19 of
the world's 21 significant civilizations disappeared from the face of
the earth - not from assault by outside forces, but from
deterioration within the society.
3. Can not the same be
said today of areas of western Europe and even the United States
which were once bastions of Christian influence in the world?
a) Here in America,
once among the greatest Christian nations in history:
(1) Sin has been
enshrined as a “civil right.”
(2) Morality has been
declared “unconstitutional.”
(3) Sodomy, once a
universally recognized perversion, is now afforded protection under
the law.
(4) Laws and beliefs
which were accepted without challenge for nearly 200 years have
recently been “discovered” by our brightest legal minds
to be out-of-step with the intentions of the founders of our nation.
b) In our time, it
would appear, the devil often wears a black robe.
4. It has become
abundantly evident that “the American Experiment”, with
its vaunted “balance of powers” is not equal to the task
of restraining unrighteous rule.
5. Human systems of
government will vary in wisdom and quality, but none can
withstand the sinful human condition once God’s principles are
jettisoned.
6. In these words of
Haggai and subsequent parable of Jesus, we encounter this sober
truth: while unredeemed people remain, God’s principles will
always be jettisoned. Sometimes sooner, sometimes later.
7. Ultimately, the form
of government, as important as it may be, cannot deliver man from
despotism — only spiritual birth and redemption, followed by
the coming reign of God’s Perfect Man with His signet ring,
will provide lasting relief from our dilemma.
8. “Even so,
come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev. 22:20)
1Although
we should remember that Zerubbabel himself will be resurrected and
serve in the government of Messiah Jesus, possibly occupying a
position of great authority.