Psalm 84 - The Response

In Psalm 84, the author, who was assigned to be a gate keeper in the tabernacle, looked around and burst into praise of God's home. But that praise causes him to have an emotional response. So the author, in verse 2, blurts out, "My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the Lord; My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God." What heart-felt passion! What emotion! But this is the desire of his heart. He wants to be in the presence of God. That's the real point here. The author has an intense longing for God's presence.

For the Israelites, they had to go to the tabernacle to meet God, and that's what he wanted to do with all his heart. He wanted God. That intensity seems so foreign to most church members who don't seem to care all that much about spending time with God. The typical church member will let almost anything get in the way. But the author wants to be in the presence of God most of all. And for him, that meant being in the tabernacle.

A noble castle or a majestic cathedral is never enough if no one lives there. How lonely an empty house is. A beautiful church is but an empty shell without the Spirit of God. Ornate caskets still house only dead men's bones. What is needed most is life - God's life and presence. Gold, marble, and ivory are cold and can never really satisfy without someone to share it all with. So the real longing here is for the lord; for His presence. The Psalmist didn't long for a building, but for God.

In the same way, we don't really long for heaven because of the streets of gold, but because that's where God is. We long to be in His presence - to see Him face to face. That's why the Psalmist says, "My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the Lord." That is almost a physical thing. He is almost ready to faint out of his hunger for God. It is like what the fantastic verses of Psalm 42:1-2 say,

"As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God, my soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?"

Do you see that same longing?

Have you ever missed a meal or two and almost gotten faint from hunger? Your belly growls, and hunger gnaws at your insides. You'd give almost anything for a PBJ sandwich. Well, have you ever had that kind of craving to be close to God? Have you ever longed for Him as much as a man parched and dry in the desert searches for water? As Psalm 84 verse 2 continues, "My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God." Is that what your heart cries out for - for that sweet, close fellowship with God?

Than do your actions prove it? What actions? Oh, come on. You know what actions. do you long to learn more about Him? Are you sitting under the teaching of the Word? Are you studying the Bible for yourself? What about your prayer life? Are you longing to spend time with Him? Are you talking to Him? Walking with Him? Does your soul long for a closer relationship with God? You will never find that sweet relationship if you don't hunger for it.

Psalm 84 - Continued

In Psalm 84, the sons of Korah were gatekeepers in the tabernacle. They looked around in awe and wonder, and exclaimed in verse 1, "How lovely is Your tabernacle, O Lord of hosts!" And it was! God's physical presence dwelt in the tabernacle. His Shikineh glory came down and was visible dwelling between the wings of the cherubim over the mercy seat atop the Ark of the Covenant. God's glory was actually there. In Exodus 40:34, it says, "Then the cloud covered the tabernacle of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle." This was the cloud and the pillar of fire that led the Israelites through the wilderness during the time of Moses. Now it made a home in the tabernacle.

Nowadays, we know it is different. God doesn't physically dwell in our church buildings. His shikineh glory is not seen any more. Maybe that's why so many get the idea that it doesn't matter what we meet in to worship - that any old thing is good enough for God.

Personally, I believer that's misguided and a poor testimony. Not that I am advocating elaborate cathedrals. But so often it is just an excuse used by people who don't want to work or give or sacrifice for God. If they really did use that time, money, and labor that they weren't putting into keeping the church building nice into some ministry like supporting missionaries, then I'd applaud them. But all too often, they pocket the money and use the time for things they want to do. They build their own nest egg instead of the house of God as the book of Haggai pointed out. Friends, there is nothing wrong with a nice church building. We need to keep it neat, attractive, and well maintained.

But in truth, where does God dwell now? In heaven? Yes! But also in our hearts. He dwells in the lives of believers. Let's do a quick survey:

1st Corinthians 6:19-20: "Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's"

2nd Corinthians 6:16, "And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: 'I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall; be My people.'"

Paul's own testimony is found in:

Galatians 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, burt Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."

Christ lives in us and through us if we are born-again believers. We are the temple of God - the very dwelling place of God. So it is in you that God expects to be glorified. Maybe we should be more concerned with making our lives beautiful for God. Maybe we should be most concerned with making our lives a fit dwelling place.

Is your life lovely? Are you proud of the temple you are personally providing God? Do you see how important it is to maintain your life right? Your life is important. Christ lives on earth through you. When the sons of Korah call the tabernacle lovely, the word is sometimes translated as amiable. That means pleasant, friendly, comfortable, easy to live with.

Would the Spirit of God find your life a pleasing home for Him? Are you easy for God to live with? Would He be comfortable dwelling with you? Would it be like staying at a good friend's or at a favorite grandma's? Or would the Spirit of God feel ill at ease in you because of the sin you allow in your life? We have all been to places we don't feel welcome. You can just tell when you aren't wanted. Get your life - your temple- as pleasing to God as possible.

The author iof this Psalm looked around at the tabernacle in which he served and said, "How lovely is Your tabernacle, O Lord of Hosts." We need to supply the spirit if God a lovely dwelling place too.

Psalm 84 - The Grandeur of the Tabernacle

In the introduction to Psalm 84, it tells us a little bit about the author. It says this is "A Psalm of the Sons of Korah." The only thing that is important for us to remember about that as we study this Psalm is what is found in 1st Chronicles 9:19, "The Korahites were in charge of the work of the service, gate keepers of the Tabernacle." Do you see? They had an official job. They were gate keepers at the tabernacle.

So what do these gate keepers say? Psalm 84:1, "How lovely is Your tabernacle, O Lord of hosts!" They are addressing God. They had been standing there on the job, looking around, and it hits him. "Wow! This is magnificent!" They realized just how gorgeous, how lovely, the tabernacle was.

Of course it was. God's home must be the most beautiful, most magnificent, most glorious place in the universe. And it is in heaven. We can get little glimpses of it here and there in Scripture, especially in Revelation 21. Paul caught sight of it, and he said he coudn't tell us about it because it was beyond words. John saw it and had to resort to magnificent symbols to describe it - an emerald rainbow around the throne, a sea of glass as clear as crystal, walls of jasper, gates of pearls, streets of gold. What an awesome place the temple of God is in heaven.

And the earthly tabernacle was a pale replica of that. Did you know that the earthly tabernacle used the same plans as the heavenly one? Hebrews 8:5 tells us that, speaking about the priests,

"Who serve the copy and shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was divinely instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle. For He said, 'See that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.'"

The earthly tabernacle was a pint-size replica of the one in heaven. It was like a model airplane compared to the real thing.

And God revealed the pattern to Moses, He gave the blueprint, on Mt. Sinai. So the Israelites did their best to make the tabernacle just as beautiful as they could. No price was too great to pay. No sacrifice was too great to make. They gave and gave and gave until Moses had to tell them, "Enough is enough!" Exodus 36:2-7 records the event:

"Then Moses called Bezalel and Aholioab, and every gifted artisan in whose heart the Lord had put wisdom, everyone whose heart was stirred, to come and do the work. And they received from Moses all the offering which the children of Israel had brought for the work of the service of making the sanctuary. so they continued bringing to him freewill offerings every morning. Then all the craftsmen who were doing all the work of the sanctuary came, each from the work he was doing, and they spoke to Moses, saying, 'The people bring much more than enough for the service of the work which the Lord commanded us to do.' So Moses gave a command, and they caused it to be proclaimed throughout the camp, saying, 'Let neither man nor woman do any more work for the offering of the sanctuary.' And the people were restrained from bringing, for the material they had was sufficient for all the work done - indeed too much."

Wow! What sacrificial giving.! If the members of our churches were ever to give like that, can you imagine what could be accomplished for God? Could you imagine people giving until the pastor had to stand up and tell them, "Stop! You've given way more than is needed."

But no sacrifice was too great for them, not for the the temple of God. And you can read about the grandeur of the tabernacle for five chapters in Exodus. Exodus 25-30 gives intricate details of the tabernacle. No wonder the sons of Korah were in awe looking around at it. No wonder it made them want to praise God.

Haggai's First Sermon - The Result

As Samuel told the nation of Israel in First Samuel 15:22, "To obey is better than sacrifice." Haggai had now told the nation the same thing. The Temple lay in ruins while they built their nice houses; and God, through Haggai, told them to get to work. So what happened? We see the answer in Haggai 1:13-15:

"Then Haggai, the Lord's messenger, spoke the Lord's message to the people, saying, 'I am with you, says the Lord.' So the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and worked on the house of the Lord of Hosts, their God, on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month, in the second year of Darius."

If you look back at verse 1, you'll see that 23 days have passed. It took 23 days to clear the rubble away and go up into the mountains to cut lumber, But the project is now back under way. The people got back to work.

But notice the progression. Obedience came first. Obedience came before the blessing. As it says back in verse 12, "Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the Lord their God." That came first before we see the beautiful statement that the Lord was with them in verse 13. Is that some kind of coincidence? Not on your life!

Turn to Matthew 28:19-20. It is the passage we call the Great Commission. But notice that it starts the same was as Haggai 1:8, "Go!" That's a call to action. For Israel, it was a call to build the Temple. In Matthew, it's a call to build the church. Let's read it, Matthew 28:19-20,

"'Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.' Amen."

Notice that the promise of God's presence, of His enabling power, comes after obedience. It comes after we "Go!" We go, and Jesus blesses that going by making the disciples.

The promise rests upon obedience. They had fritted away all that time working at lesser things while God was waiting for them to "go" so He could bless them. But God never promises to bless those who sit on their duff and do nothing.

May I ask you again, are you working to build the church of Jesus Christ? Or are other things more important? Let me close with these words again from First Corinthians 15:58, "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord." If God calls you to do something, God will bless your effort. He will see it through to the end. But you must be faithful. You must not give up. You must always abound in the work of the Lord.

The Chastening Hand of God as Found in Haggai

The people of Israel were back in the land following seventy years of captivity in Babylon. They had settled in, made nice comfortable homes, and gotten on with life. Except they had forgotten to rebuild the temple of God. The book of Haggai confronts them over this shortfall. In doing so, it also sets forth a pattern that is applicable to us if and when we neglect doing the work of God in building His church. Haggai 1:9-11 outlines the outcome:

"You looked for much, but indeed it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why?" says the Lord of hosts. "Because of My house that is in ruins, while every one of you runs to his own house. Therefore the heavens above you withhold the dew, and the earth withholds its fruit. For I called for a drought on the land and the mountains, on the grain, and the new wine and the oil, on whatever the ground brings forth, on men and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands."

Who is responsible for this? God is. He takes full credit. In effect, God says,

"If things aren't going so good for you right now, blame Me, because I did it. I have to get your attention some way, so I took an active part in this thing. I turned off the faucet and shut off your water."

Would God really do that? Of course He would. He said He did it, didn't He?

We can see the same idea found in Hebrews 12:6-7,

"For whom the Lord loves, He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons, for what son is there whom a father does not chasten?"

God chastens His own. He disciplines. When we don't obey, He'll spank us. So if it feels, sometimes, that you are being taken to the woodshed for a lickin,' ask yourself if God is doing this. Examine your ways.

It may not always be that. Certainly, Job was not being chastened by God when he was run through the ringer. Even God said that Job was a righteous man. But it could be God telling you to straighten-up. In Malachi 3:8-11, God told the same people that if they rob God, He would punish them. We have to give God His due. If we put God in His proper place, God will take care of us. We learned that in Matthew 6:33, that God would take care of the details in taking care of us if we put Him first.

But they ignored the work God had set before them, so they experienced a drought at the hand of God. Interestingly, the Hebrew word for drought also means desolation or ruin. It is the same Hebrew word that was used in Haggai 1:4 and Haggai 1:9 to describe the condition of the temple. It lay too in ruins. What comes round goes round. If they leave God's house in ruin, they get ruin.

How did they respond? Haggai 1:12:

"Then Zerubabbel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him, and the people feared the presence of the Lord."

Obviously, the words of the prophet, or should I say, the words of God brought conviction. Thankfully, they had sense enough to recognize the message was from God, and they obeyed. If your translations says they listened instead of obeyed, just remember, you don't really listen to God until you obey Him. The essence of faith is obedience. As First Samuel 15:22 says, "to obey is better than sacrifice." They obeyed. do you?

Haggai says, "Get to Work" - Part Two

The book of Haggai is much like the book of James in its emphasis on work. In Haggai 1:8, we find God saying, "Go up to the mountains and bring wood and build the temple, that I may take pleasure in it and be glorified." In other words, God is telling them to "Get to work!" The emphasis in James is also on the daily grind. Do you remember what James said? He said, "Faith without works is dead." He also said, "Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works." Well, how can you do that? How can you show me your faith? You can't see faith, can you? No! But you can see the works that faith produces. God wants us to demonstrate our faith by getting to work. Or as Haggai says, "Go, bring, build."

We need to remember that action is spiritual, and a do nothing attitude is wicked. My Christian friend, work is the measure of your heart. What is your heart like? Does your work for God show your heart is set on God? What has He asked you to do? Are you doing it? If not, let Paul encourage you. He writes in 1st Corinthians 15:58:

"Therefore my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord."

This admonition is given to regular church members - to people like you. So are you, "abounding in the work of the Lord?" Are you working for God?

We tend to make the effort to accomplish all the things we really want to do, the things that will benefit us personally; but it takes effort, commitment of time, energy, and resources, even a little bit of our soul, to get the work of the Lord done.

When I lived in Michigan, there was a little tiny town called Nashville. In that little town of no more than 100 people was a very large church of 1,500 people. The pastor had the name of Lester DeGroot. People would always come around to ask Lester the "Secret of his success." Lester would always be happy to comply. He would look all round to make sure no one else was listening, then he would take the questioner down into the basement to the furnace room so they could be alone when he told the "secret of his success." Then Lester would lean over to supposedly whisper the secret, and he would yell, "WORK!!!" That would always surprise the people, but that was the secret of his success. That is the secret of any of our success. So we could do the same in our churches too, if we would just get to work. And isn't that exactly what God is telling us to do? Aren't we to be, "Always abounding in the work of the Lord?"

Missionaries by the thousands have given up the comfort and security of home to make the supreme sacrifice for God, while so many more of us are content to offer God nothing that requires sacrifice or hardship. Ask yourself the question, "How much am I doing for myself, and how much am I doing for God?" Are you doing enough? That hits kind of close to home, doesn't it? But the burden of ministry shouldn't fall on just a hand full of people. It is just plain wrong that 80% of the work in our churches is done by 20% of the members. We, 100% of us, should be working for God,

So, roll up your sleeves, Get busy! Get to work building the church of Jesus Christ.

Haggai says, "Get to Work!"

God wants us to "Seek first the Kingdom of God." We tend to seek first what we think is good for us. Unfortunately, that doesn't work, because God makes sure that seeking first our wants will never satisfy. That's what we talked about last time.

Yet, how easy it is to our our desires, our comforts, our conveniences, and our timetables ahead of God? And we can justify it. The weather is too bad to attend church, but not too bad to keep us from going hunting or on a shopping trip. We can sit through a double header on hard bleachers in the rain and never complain, but we fidget on our padded pews in church if the the worship service runs five minutes longer than we expected. There seems to be something wrong with this picture.

And sure, we mean well. Once our circumstances are under control, and our lives get put back together; then, if there is anything left over, then I'll give some time to God. And once our budget is back on track, and our bills get paid off, and I buy that new...whatever; then I'll give to God. And then I'll consider getting involved in some ministry at church, if I can fit it into my busy schedule amongst all my other activities.

"No!" God says, "Consider your ways!" Then, In Haggai 1:7, God says, "Thus says the Lord of hosts, 'Consider your ways.'" Twice God implores them to consider their ways. This is important. Because if you chase after your own priorities, you lose. So take a good look at your lifestyle. Consider your priorities. For many of you, quite frankly, you'll find the Lord hasn't rated very high.

The answer? According to God in Haggai 1:8, "'Go up to the mountains and bring wood and build the temple, that I may take pleasure in it and be glorified,' says the Lord." The message is simple, practical, and straightforward. It is as simple as 2+2=4. It is a three point sermon: go, bring, build. The temple needs to built. God wants them to build it. So, go, bring, build. You wonder why they didn't see it. I wonder why we so often don't.

We sit around and say, "Gee, I wonder when God is going to build this church?" God says, "Get to work!" He says, "Go, bring build. Do you think the temple is going to build itself? Get to work!" My friend, do you think the church is going to build itself? Get to work!