Transcript (Auto-generated)

This transcript has been automatically generated, and therefore may not be 100% accurate.

Please do keep haggai open. Those last three verses of haggai that we come to tonight. Hope you've enjoyed haggai. There's plenty more in this vein if you turn over the page in zechariah. So if popular demand goes, we can just carry on.

That'd be great. But let's pray as we come to the word of the lord. Father, we do pray that you'll be with us tonight. Help us to hear your voice, to sustain us, to receive your message. Give us soft hearts.

We pray in Jesus name, Amen. Things are not always as they appear, are they? They're not always as they appear. In 1912, you know that the Titanic, the unsinkable ship, hit the iceberg, didn't it? Struck an iceberg in it and it sank to the bottom of the Atlantic.

And the thing about an iceberg is that it often doesn't look like a lot, does it, on the surface. But it's proverbial for having a massive thing underwater, isn't it? It's just. Just the tip of the iceberg, you see. And it shows us that appearances can be deceptive, can't they?

That the thing we can see can be quite small. And in this case, under the surface lay enough to sink the unsinkable ship. The message of haggai has been that God's people must not judge reality merely by appearances, judge reality merely by appearances or not merely by what you can see on the surface. The lord has been saying, look, the pressures you face in life are not all there is to it. They're the things that are on the surface.

There's more to it. In chapter one, if you were here, you might remember the people were encouraged that, look, there are political, economic, social pressures not to build the temple and to concentrate on building your own house. But that's not the rule there is to it. Look underneath, said haggai. Early in chapter two, he encouraged the people.

Look, the building of the temple seems disappointing. The work of your hands seems a bit disappointing. But be encouraged, there's more going on underneath. And then last week, we saw that beneath the surface of things, actually sin runs really, really deep. Don't just judge by the surface.

Sin is really, really serious and it needs a very serious solution. Only the lord's own presence among his people could fix this problem. So we've been asked to go beneath the surface all the way through haggai. And it's no different in these final verses. These last three verses are very, very exciting because the lord shows us that actually, although his promises to his anointed one seem like they've fallen by the wayside, appearances can be deceiving.

God's promises stand. He says they've been sealed. His Messiah will always reign. That's what we're going to get to. So let's dig into these verses.

The first thing is that the people are called to. To trust in the Lord during tension, during difficult times. The word of the Lord came to Haggai a second time on the 24th day of the month. We're in the 18th of December, 5:20, same as we were last week. Later on in the day, Haggai speaks again.

And the Lord says, speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah. Zerubbabel? Who is Zerubbabel? There's more to him than just a name to pronounce. He's the leader of the people.

He's the one Haggai spoken with before. He spoke to him in the beginning, in chapter one, verse one. He spoke to him in chapter two, verse two. Throughout, we've had this fellow Zerubbabel poking up. He's the political leader of Judah.

He's the political leader of Judah.

Judah is under Persian rule, so they're under a foreign power. Zerubbabel is sort of leading the nation politically. The Lord has also spoken to Joshua, who's the high priest. So there is a message for the political and spiritual leadership, but we're focusing on Zerubbabel. He's like a minor politician.

But these verses seem to suggest that there's more to it than that. You know, we don't often talk about minor politicians in these exalted terms. Obviously, there are local politicians in this building that I would speak to in most exalted terms, but normally we don't. Normally we don't. He says, you know, he calls him the servant of the Lord and says he's going to make him his signet ring.

Now, this is not normally what we say of local government.

So who is this fella? Well, I want you to keep your finger in Haggai and to flick forward 15 pages to Matthew, chapter one. I think it's 15 Matthew, chapter one. You might be familiar with this passage from Christmas.

At the beginning of Matthew, chapter one, we have the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah. It starts with Abraham. Look in verse two, Abraham was the father of Isaac. This is where we begin.

And it takes us through verse six. David. We've got a paragraph baked. David, the father of Solomon. Those are big moments, aren't they?

God made his promises to Abraham to bless all nations through King David. He said, your descendant will always sit on my throne. These big promises God made to, to Abraham and David. Well, we continue. Look at me.

In verse 11, Josiah, the Father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon. So here we're taken all the way down to the kings of Judah until the exile. The exile when it was no longer a nation then. Verse 12, after the exile to Babylon, Jeconiah, the father of Shealtiel. Shealtiel, the father of Zerubbabel.

It's exciting, isn't it? Hopefully you remember this verse at Christmas time and you'll be excited. Do you know about Zerubbabel? Well, what this tells us that's exciting is that he's not just in local government under, under Persian rule. This is not.

This is not all that Zerubbabel is. Being the governor of Judah is not his great claim to fame, you know. God has promised to David one in your line will always sit on the throne. And Zerubbabel is in David's line. He's heir to the promise.

There's a lot more to Zerubbabel than meets the eye. He's more than just a minor politician in a stopping place between Persia and Egypt.

In the Lord of the Rings, early on, the Hobbits, Samwise, Frodo and the other two, they head to the pub, the Prancing Pony. You might remember this scene. They go in and they meet somebody in the corner. This fella who introduces himself as Strider, doesn't he? He sits in the corner, introduces himself and the Hobbits think, okay, he's quite a good bloke.

But there seems to be something more about him. I don't quite know everything. Well, they follow Strider and he helps them out of some tight spots, looks after them. But it's not until much later on, until they. They reach the city of the elves in Rivendell that they discover.

Whoa. This man. All along, he wasn't just, you know, Strider. He was. He was Aragorn, son of Arathorn, Heir of Isildur.

Don't know what I'm talking about. You're missing out. It's an exciting moment. They're like, whoa. I thought you were just Strider.

There's more to him than meets the eye. This is what it's like with Zerubbabel. You. On the surface, it's just this local politician, you know. But who is he?

He's the heir of David's throne.

Doesn't seem that way at the moment. But this is why the Lord wants to speak to him, to say that, look, the time is coming when all of that's going to change. The actual reality underneath is all going to become apparent. Hold fast, he says. And actually we didn't get to the end of the genealogy, did we?

Because the most exciting bit of course of Matthew chapter one, the punchline is that it doesn't end at Zerubbabel does ends in verse 16, Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus, who was called the Messiah in Haggai's day. They didn't know this is where it was going, but of course God knew it was going there. The son of David, an heir of God's promise, Jesus Christ has come. He sits on David's throne today, doesn't he? And he is going to rule forever.

But back then, Zerubbabel, like Aragorn, like Strider, his rule hadn't become fully manifest, if you like, but be under no illusions who he is. God's promises have not fallen by the wayside, says Hagg.

Well, the second thing is to trust in God's judgement. This is particularly in politically unstable situation. In 520, the year that Haggai is speaking, it's a particularly unstable political time on the global scene. The Persian king was King Darius. He'd come to the throne in 5:22, just two years before and the king before him was a fellow called Cambyses II Campuses II was king and he had said that his brother, a fellow called Bardia, was going to be on the throne after him.

So Cambyses died and then his brother Bardia came onto the throne. Well, Darius really wanted to be king himself, so he said, oh no, no, no, it looks like Bardi is on the throne, but actually he died ages ago. This fella is just pretending to be him. And then he had a bit of a coup and then Darius got onto the throne. Coups are not always popular with everybody and so there was political unrest all over the Persian empire.

Now, I don't know what exactly happened, it seems incredibly convenient of a story for Darius, but there was political unrest all over the world, all over the known world.

Darius spent his first years fighting to suppress these uprisings and of course we don't. Haggai doesn't tell us exactly how people responded, but of course there were a variety of responses, weren't there, to political unrest. Sometimes we think, I just wish, I wish the current baddies would be overthrown that would just sort everything out. And sometimes we think, well, if our political situation changed, then that would just be the end of the world.

The Lord says into this situation. Verse 21 tells Zerubbabel, Governor of Judah, that I'm going to shake the heavens and the earth. I will overturn royal thrones and shatter the power of the foreign kingdoms. And I will overthrow chariots and their drivers, horses and their riders will fall, each by the sword of his brother. He's talking about the overthrow of the nations.

And to those who would fear that actually a political change would be disastrous, the Lord reminds them, kingdoms come and go. You know, it might have seemed to those who lived under the Persian Empire, if this regime fell, then life would be unlivable. We couldn't possibly, you know what's going to happen next.

Surely it will stand forever. Clearly later. It must have seemed like that to the Romans, mustn't it? The longest empire ever. People thought, if this falls, then the world is going to end, surely.

I mean, we probably feel like that today actually, don't we? Surely the way politics is now, our nation's going to stand forever. It's finished. Well, the Lord says to us, our hope is not in human political structures. There's going to come a time when the Lord overthrows the whole lot.

The whole lot will be overturned. On the other hand, you know, there's some. It's tempting to think, well, if just this really bad nation was overturned, then everything will be fine and we bring in a great regime. Well, again, notice that the Lord doesn't say, you know, I'm going to overthrow one power. He's overthrowing kingdoms, plural.

I'm going to shatter the power of foreign kingdoms, plural. Because the Lord is enthroned over all rule, authority and power and dominion.

The point is, the hope is not in human political power. We learnt this lesson, didn't we, after the First World War, If Germany would just be defeated there, then, you know, we can come up with a new system. We'll have the League of Nations and the wars will end forever. How could there ever be war after that? We face that.

We'll have a new system. It took only a generation, didn't it, to be thrown into war again. Assyria fell. Babylon rose. Babylon fell.

Persia rose. Persia fell. Greece rose. Greece fell. Rome rose.

On and on and on. And of course, when the Lord returns, all human pride, all sin will be overthrown, not just one or two rulers. When Christ returns, all wars will be ended. Truly and we trust, says Haggai. Trust in that day, that day when the Lord returns and things will truly be put to right.

Well, finally he says that these things are all sealed by the Messiah, by actually who Zerubbabel is. Let's see what we mean by that. We've seen that Zerubbabel is in David's line, that he's heir to God's promises, he's God's anointed one, he's a messiah who's pointing to the Messiah, Jesus. On that day, says the Lord. On that day, declares the Lord Almighty, I will take you, my servant, Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel.

So the Lord here is talking specifically to Zerubbabel, and I will make you like my signet ring, for I have chosen you, declares the Lord Almighty.

Okay, a couple of things to notice here. First of all, notice that he calls Zerubbabel my servant.

That's very significant. That's very significant.

There's a title in the Bible, the Servant of the Lord. And I can count that 23 times in the Old Testament, the servant of the Lord and 18 of those times were of Moses, the one who led the people out of Egypt, gave them the law.

And so he's using language of Moses for Zerubbabel. Well, there's a couple of other times he uses it twice of David. Not surprising, because he's in his line. And a couple of centuries after David, Isaiah had spoken of the servant of the Lord, speaking of a time to come in the future after the exile, when the servant of the Lord will take the people sin on himself. This, of course, is Jesus.

Zerubbabel stands in that line. Well, second is this whole thing about the signet ring. The Lord says, I will make Zerubbabel like his signet ring. And what's that about? Well, a signet ring is something that carries the king's authority.

Okay. It's a big old ring that you seal a document or a letter with, and it says this carries the king's authority. You might think in 1 Kings we hear of Jezebel writing letters and she takes the king's signet ring and stamps it with his authority. It's the mark of his authority, if you like.

So Zerubbabel is going to be the Lord's signet ring, the one who is representing God and sealing his promises. Like the Messiah seals God's promises.

He represents his authority. And actually there's even more to the signet ring imagery here because back in Jeremiah, the Lord had spoken to Zerubbabel's granddad who was called Jehoiachin. And he says, as surely as I live, declares the Lord, even if you, Jehoiakim son of Jehoiakim, King of Judah, were a signet ring on my right hand, I would still pull you off. I will deliver you into the hand of those who want to kill you, those you fear, Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon and the Babylonians. Okay, so his granddad had been told, you're no longer going to be my signet ring.

You think, oh no, the seal of God's promises is gone. What's happening in the exile? Well here it comes back and God says, no, actually it's a rubber ball. The promises are still going to be true in your line. Does that make sense?

The eagle eyed of. You might be thinking, might be wondering about the name of, of Zerubbabel's granddad because Matthew says it's Jokoniah, not Jehoiakim. Maybe you were thinking that they're the same name. He can sometimes call Jehoiakin Jocheniah Kaniah. In another point, it's the same bloke.

But the point is this. The rejection of Zerubbabel's granddad as the Lord's signet ring, the punishment of the exile, that wasn't the end of the road for God's people.

The promises to David stand. The people still had the promises of God recorded in the scriptures. And the Lord says that with Zerubbabel, with the Messiah, like his signet ring, the promises are sealed.

Think of it like this. In the old days, some of you may have seen a banknote. You ever seen like a five pound note? Maybe you haven't yet you have, some of you. Have everyone seen one?

Well, you see, sometimes you've seen a banknote and then other times you play Monopoly. You have a lot more money in Monopoly, don't you? Sometimes. But there's a world of difference, isn't there, between the banknote and the Monopoly money? It'd be wonderful if.

But there is, there is. One is legal tender, right? And one is just a note from Monopoly with a number on it. But they're both just bits of paper with a number on it, aren't they? And they're not really either of them worth anything in themselves except for what a piece of paper is worth.

But the real money is worth something because it's sealed with the authority of the sovereign, isn't it? It has the picture of the queen on it or the king now. And so it is money. It is worth Something.

What the Lord is saying is that Zerubbabel is here. The heir of God's promises is here. And this seals that. Actually, God's promises have not fallen by the wayside, they really are real. They're sealed in the person of the anointed one.

Now, even legal tender becomes worthless when the authority of the sovereign lapses, doesn't it? It doesn't matter how powerful a Roman emperor was, you can't go and dig up money out of the ground and say, yeah, but look at Caesar's face on it, I want to buy those crisps. Doesn't work, I've not tried.

But look, the Lord's word to his revival is never out of date because his descendant Jesus does reign, doesn't he? And in Jesus is the seal of God's promises. You see, Jesus becomes God's signet ring, if you like, that stamps the seal on God's promises and says, these are not just words on a piece of paper the way monopoly money is. These words become something real because they're sealed with the authority of the king. Yeah.

The New Testament tells us that because of Jesus, all the promises of God are yes and amen in Jesus, all the promises of God are yes and amen. Because so long as Jesus is there, this isn't just a book.

Now sometimes we say this is just a book, you know, there's nothing special about it. That's not really true, is it? This is only just a book. In the same way that I get out a 20 pound note and I say, this is just a bit of paper. I suppose it's technically true, but it's more than a bit of paper, isn't it?

This is not just a book, right, because it's, it's sealed with the promises of God, with, with Jesus. So now we hold our scriptures. This is why we value the scriptures so much, isn't it? Because they're sealed by the reality of Jesus Christ, who makes these not just words on the paper, but real legal tender to us, if you like.

That's so important because Haggar reminds us that things are not always as they appear. That, you know, you look at Zerubbabel in 520, only a minor official in a vast empire. You look at Persia, you think there's going to be a kingdom that endures forever. It isn't. You look at God's promises to David, they seem like they've failed.

Those appearances are all deceptive beneath the surface. God preserved his king, the lion of the Throne. God was organising the Rise and fall of nations, keeping every promise he'd ever made. And we today look. We look out and see a world of confusion, conflict, uncertainty.

That has not changed, has it? Since 520, we look at a church we often see as weaknesses. We look at our own lives, don't we? And we struggle to think, what is the Lord doing? The nations seem big, we feel small.

But Haggai calls us to look deeper than God's, than appearances. The Lord still reigns, the Lord still judges and he still keeps his promises today. And above all, we have it so much better than they did in Haggai's day. Because the Lord Jesus has come. The Lord Jesus sits on David's throne.

Yeah, that kingdom may not be fully visible now, but it's the real reality. And one day all those kingdoms of the world will be shaken. Every rival power will fall. Every promise of God will be seen to be true all along. And until that day, let's not judge things by their appearances.

We'll trust during the tension. We trust in God's judgement. We trust in God's Messiah because it's sealed in the person of Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you so much for your word to Haggai, your encouragement to your people when they feel small.

We pray that we would trust in Jesus Christ, the seal, the signet ring of your promises, who guarantees the true reality of your kingdom to come. In Jesus name, amen.