The sermon 'A Word to Those Who Have Grown Cold to the Kingdom' by Jason Dohm addresses individuals who were once fervent about the kingdom but have since grown indifferent. Through the study of the minor prophets Jonah, Habakkuk, and Haggai, the sermon explores themes of understanding and accepting God's word, even when it is challenging. Jonah and Habakkuk's responses to God's messages highlight the importance of submission in the face of divine plans that are not easily understood. The historical context from the books of Ezra and Haggai reveals the struggles of the Jewish remnant returning from Babylonian captivity to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. Despite initial zeal, external opposition led to a 14-year halt in temple construction. The prophets Haggai and Zechariah were sent by God to reignite the people's passion for kingdom work. A central theme is the unstoppable nature of God's will, as represented by the 'Lord of Hosts,' emphasizing that divine support ensures success despite adversities. The sermon concludes with a call for believers to renew their commitment to advancing God's kingdom, acknowledging the limited time available to glorify God on earth.

The title of the sermon this morning is a word to those who have grown cold to the kingdom. It's possible to be in the kingdom and to have had tremendous zeal for the kingdom in time past, but to have grown cold over time. If you don't know anything about that, you haven't been in the faith for a long time. So this is a word to people like that. We're in the third of the minor prophets that we're studying.

We started in Jonah, then we went to Habakkuk. Now we're finishing in the book of Haggai. James and I chose these for much shallower reasons, but now we're noticing very helpful and important connections between these three minor prophets. There are twelve of them by the way, so we've studied about a fourth of them. Jonah received a word from the Lord and he didn't understand it and he didn't like it.

And so he ran as Jesus said to Paul on the road to Damascus, is it hard for you to kick against the goads? He like Saul of Tarsus was kicking against the goads. Habakkuk also received a word from the Lord and he didn't understand that word. And he didn't like that word, but he reacted differently. He submitted to it.

And we can look at Habakkuk and know that there are going to be times in our life where God is going to tell us things that we don't understand and we don't like. And it's our job not to kick against the goods but to submit. And then Habakkuk ends with this wonderful, beautiful statement of faith where Habakkuk just says, God, what you said is going to come to pass, and I'll have joy in the middle of all that hardship and disaster because I'll have you. So may God give us a heart like that. God had told Habakkuk that he was going to raise up the Chaldeans, or the Babylonians, we use those terms, synonymously to bring judgment on the people of Israel.

And the book of Haggai actually picks up at the end of that cycle of judgment. God had determined that they were going to go into captivity for 70 years. God told Habakkuk who it was who would take them into captivity, the Chaldeans or the Babylonians. And God did it. And then at 70 years, as faithful as he was to his promise to judge them, he was faithful to bring the people out of captivity and set them at liberty to come home to Jerusalem.

But that's where the title comes in, a word to those who have grown cold to the kingdom. God did do that. He brought a remnant back. And they were really in the kingdom, they really were zealous for the kingdom, they were the ones who came back and yet over time in the face of hardship they became cold to the matters of the kingdom. So as we come to our topic this morning, let's ask the Lord to help us.

Our God, I thank you that you who have begun a good work in the lives of your people, individually and corporately, bring it to completion. The completing of the work is not dependent on individual or corporate faithfulness. It's dependent on your faithfulness to keep your people going. This is such a comfort to us who have been taught how frail we are and how prone our hearts are to wander. Thank you that you cause your people to persevere because your spirit indwells them and you keep us going when our strength would fail and we would plunge ourselves back into the same old sins and be lost if it weren't for your faithfulness.

Thank you for it, God, in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, the first major point on the handout, the context from the book of Ezra, if you're filling in blanks on the handout, Ezra fills in the blank. Context from the book of Ezra. The book of Ezra, the early chapters really bring us to the doorstep of the book of Haggai.

So I'm just going to review really one through the first verses of chapter 5 to get us started here. I was looking back, I preached my first sermon on Ezra in April 2014. So there you go, that goes back a long way, I didn't realize it had been six and a half years since we were in Ezra. Some of you haven't heard a single sermon that we did in Ezra, but it was a wonderful time and it brought us to the prophet Haggai. So turn to Ezra, if you would.

To Ezra if you would. I'm going to read portions of the first five chapters that bring us to to Haggai the prophet. Ezra is shortly before Job in Psalms. Ezra chapter 1 verses 1 through 1-6. Now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, The word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled.

The Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying, Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth the Lord God of heaven has given me. And he has commanded me to build him a house at Jerusalem which is in Judah. Who is among you of all his people? May his God be with him. And let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel.

He is God, which is in Jerusalem. And whoever is left and any place where he dwells, let men of his place help him with silver and gold, with goods and livestock, besides the free will offerings for the house of God, which is in Jerusalem. In the heads of the fathers houses of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and the Levites, with all those whose spirits God had moved, arose to go up and build the house of the Lord, which is in Jerusalem. And all those who were around them encouraged them with articles of silver and gold, with goods and livestock and with precious things. Besides all that was willingly offered.

So in the beginning verses of the book of Ezra, the prophecies of Habakkuk have been fulfilled. God promised that he would raise up the Chaldeans to judge Judah and he's done that. And he promised he would raise up another people who would judge the Babylonians or the Chaldeans. And he's done that. Cyrus the king of Persia was the one that God raised up to judge the Babylonians and in the first year of his reign, God stirred him up to put the people of Judah at liberty to go home.

They had been in captivity for 70 years. Cyrus the king of Persia puts them at liberty to go back home. He says, either go home and build this temple, or help your brethren do it with silver and gold and goods and livestock and that's exactly what happened. You either went or you helped. Now the first part of chapter 2, chapter 2 verses 1 and I'll break off after A few phrases in verse 2.

Ezra 2, 1 and 2. Now these are the people of the province who came back from the captivity of those who had been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had carried away to Babylon, and who returned to Jerusalem and Judah, everyone to his own city. Those who came with Zerubbabel were Jeshua and then there's a long list of names. Almost all the lists in Ezra and Nehemiah begin with those two names. Zerubbabel, who was a relative of the last king of Judah before they were carried into captivity, and Jeshua or Joshua, it depends, in Haggai he's going to be called Joshua, just two forms of the same name.

They're the same person. And Joshua or Joshua was a descendant of the last high priest before they were carried into captivity. So Zerubbabel, descendant of the last king. Joshua, descendant of the last high priest. Zerubbabel is going to come back and lead.

Jeshua is going to come back as the high priest in the rebuilding of the temple. The list that follows starts with families who are coming back, family names, and then at some point it becomes people from different locations. You know when you get to Bethlehem, that's a location we know, in Judah that you've reached the section that has to do with locations. And then in verse 64 you get a summary of all those who come back. This is chapter 2 verse 64.

And if when you add up the summary verse there, In verse 64 you get about 50, 000 people came back in the first wave of captives who returned. And then, at the end of the chapter, chapter 2 verses 68 through 70, follow along as I read that. Some of the heads of the fathers houses, when they came to the house of the Lord, which is in Jerusalem, offered freely for the house of God to erect it in its place. According to their ability, they gave to the treasury for the work 61, 000 gold drachmas, 5, 000 minas of silver, and 100 priestly garments. So the priests and the Levites, some of the people, the singers, the gatekeepers, and the nethanyim dwelt in their cities, and all Israel in their cities.

So when the Babylonians had come to take them into captivity, they ransacked Babylon and destroyed the temple. So they're coming back and there's just the remnants of foundation stones. The temple is gone. And when this remnant of 50, 000 comes back from captivity, the heads of the father's houses, heads of families, give out of their resources to begin the work of restoring the temple. Now, chapter 3.

Let's just read, I'm going to read the whole chapter. Chapter 3, follow along. And when the seventh month had come, and the children of Israel were in the cities, the people gathered as one man to Jerusalem. Then, Jeshua the son of Jehoshadak, and his brethren the priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and his brethren, arose and built the altar of the God of Israel to offer burnt offerings on it as it is written in the law of Moses the man of God. So they've come back, they've settled in their cities, it's now the seventh month, there is no temple, they haven't even relayed the foundations of the temple yet, but they erect an altar in the seventh month which is an incredibly significant month in the Jewish calendar, and they begin to worship God.

Verse 3. Though fear had come upon them because of the people of those countries, they set the altar on its bases, and they offered burnt offerings on it to the Lord both the morning and the evening burnt offerings they also kept the feast of tabernacles as it is written and Offered the daily burnt offerings and the number required by ordinance for each day Afterwards they offered the regular burnt offering and those for new moons and for all the appointed feasts of the Lord that were consecrated, and those of everyone who willingly offered a freewill offering to the Lord. From the first day of the seventh month, they began to offer burnt offerings to the Lord, although the foundation of the temple of the Lord had not yet been laid. They also gave money to the masons and the carpenters, and food and drink and oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre, to bring cedar logs from Lebanon to the sea to Joppa, according to the permission which they had from Cyrus, king of Persia. Now, the second month of the second year of their coming to the house of God at Jerusalem.

Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, Jeshua, the son of Josadach, and the rest of their brethren the priests and Levites. And all those who had come out of the captivity to Jerusalem began work and appointed the Levites from twenty years old and above to oversee the work of the house of the Lord. Then, Jeshua with his sons and brothers, Cadmeel with his sons, and the sons of Judah arose as one to oversee those working on the house of God, the sons of Hinnadad with their sons and their brethren the Levites. When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests stood in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph with cymbals to praise the Lord according to the ordinance of David, king of Israel. And they sang responsibly, praising and giving thanks to God, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever toward Israel.

Then all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. But many of the priests and Levites and heads of the Father's houses, old men who had seen the first temple wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this temple was laid before their eyes. Yet many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people, for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the sound was heard afar off. So they begin working on the temple. When they lay the foundation of the temple, the first work in restoring the temple, they actually make it into sort of a worship service where there's music and praising, and the foundation is laid, and there's shouting and weeping over the beginning of the word.

In verse 3 It says that as they came together in the seventh month and there's no foundation, there's no temple, they just erect an altar and they begin to make sacrifices and worship there, that they were afraid because of the people of those countries. Now what does that mean? The Assyrians, which had judged the northern tribes, brought in, when they took the northern kingdom into captivity, brought in other people to repopulate from other countries that they had conquered. So the people living in the land, that's why in the time of Jesus they hated the Samaritans so bad because they were the descendants of pagan nations that had been brought to live there and then they had intermarried with Jews and you had what the quote unquote pure Jewish people viewed as half-breeds intermarried with pagans. So that's about the people who live there.

Remember, only 50, 000 came back. They're a minority and they're less numerous and they're less powerful than the people who lived there who had been brought in from pagan nations and they're afraid of them. But they set up the altar and they worship anyway. This 50, 000 people are the ones who had lives, established lives for a couple of generations in Babylon and they gave it up to risk life and limb to come back and even though they were afraid of the more numerous pagans, more powerful pagans around them, they set up the altar and they worshipped anyway. Now, Chapter 4, only a few verses in Chapter 4.

I'll start with Chapter 4, verses 1 through 5. Ezra, Chapter 4, verses 1 through 5. Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the descendants of the captivity were building the temple of the Lord God of Israel, they came to Zerubbabel and the heads of the fathers houses and said to them, Let us build with you, for we seek your God as you do. And we have sacrificed to him since the days of Hazaradan, king of Assyria who brought us here." Now the back story is that they worshiped God right alongside all of their pagan gods. So it was just a jumbled up unacceptable worship and Zerubbabel knows this.

Verse 3, but Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the rest of the heads of the fathers houses of Israel said to them, You may do nothing with us to build a house for our God, but we alone will build to the Lord God of Israel as King Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us. Then the people of the land tried to discourage the people of Judah. They troubled them in building and hired counselors against them to frustrate their purpose all the days of Cyrus king of Persia even until the reign of Darius king of Persia. Now fast forward to verse 24 right at the end of the chapter, last verse of chapter 4. Thus the work of the house of God which is at Jerusalem ceased, and it was discontinued until the second year of the reign of Darius, king of Persia.

So what you have happening here in chapter 4 is they began the work, they laid the foundation in this worship service slash work session to lay the foundation. The people rejoiced, then the pagans around them said, let us join with you in this so we can build a half pagan temple to worship your god and our gods. And when they're told no, you have no part in this, they resisted the work all through the days of Cyrus king of Persia up to the time of Darius. And thus begins 14 years of inactivity So you need to know that. They began laying the foundations of the temple in 536 BC.

The Work continued into 534 BC and then it stopped here until 520 BC. So roughly 14 years of no work on the temple. Also, this is Darius I or Darius the Great. It is not the Darius that you're thinking of from the book of Daniel, who threw Daniel into the lion's den. That's an earlier Darius.

Cyrus was the first king of the Persian Empire that conquered Babylon. He was succeeded by Cambyses, his son. When his son died, their greatest general, Darius, became king. This is Darius the Great. Alright, chapter 2 and we'll end in Ezra here in verses 1 and 2.

Excuse me, Ezra chapter 5 will end here in verses 1 and 2. Follow along as I read Ezra 5, 1 and 2. Then the prophet Haggai and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophets prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem, in the name of the God of Israel who was over them. So Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Joshua the son of Josadach rose up and began to build the house of God which is in Jerusalem. And the prophets of God were with them, helping them.

So this brings us to the doorstep of the book of Haggai. The 50, 000 people come back, led by Zerubbabel and Joshua. They're zealous. You can tell they're zealous because they're the ones who risked life and limb and established lives in Babylon. They had been living there for generations now.

But when they're set at liberty to come home, this was the 50, 000 souls that God had stirred up to risk life and limb and travel 1, 500 miles to come back to Jerusalem to try to rebuild the life in a place where they were unprotected and a minority and to rebuild the temple. There's 14 years because of persecution where no work happened on the temple and then God raised up Haggai and Zechariah to get the people moving forward again. Okay, Where are we? Where are we? God raised up two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, to speak to His people.

And who are these people? These people are the good guys. Often prophets are raised up to speak to the bad guys who must repent. Well there is a call to repentance in Haggai and Zechariah. But it isn't to the outwardly flagrantly wicked, it's to people we like and admire for good reason because of what the Scripture has already told us about them.

People who along the way met with very real, very significant headwinds, and it cooled their zeal for the work. The headwinds, the persecution, the hardships, cooled their zeal for the kingdom. Until at last they were content with building their own houses while the Lord's house lay in ruins. God raises up these two prophets to get his people moving again, speaking first to the leaders, Zerubbabel and Joshua, and then to all the people. And as we work through the next couple of weeks we'll be dipping back into Ezra because it gives us lots of information that fits right in with what we encounter in Haggai.

Now on your notes page, if you're taking notes that way, the second section here, setting the stage for the book of Haggai. Stage fills in the blank if you're filling in blanks. Setting the stage for the book of Haggai. I'll just give you six data points that will kind of launch us into Haggai chapter 1 next week. Six data points.

Number one, the author isn't named and the book isn't dated. Though we have very specific dates in the book, there's nothing in the book that tells you exactly when the book itself was written. And there's no name of the author in the book, though it's obviously the words that God gave to Haggai. The author could very well be Haggai writing in the third person. For instance, if you flip to Haggai, right off the bat in chapter 1 verse 2, Thus speaks the Lord of hosts saying, oh, no, wait.

Oops, sorry. In verse 1, the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet. He could just be referring to himself in the third person. It's not the word of the Lord came by me, it's the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet. He could be referring to himself in the third person.

By the way, a lot of scripture is that, for instance, the Pentateuch was written by Moses. Most of the time he's not saying I and me. Most of the time it's Moses said this and did that. The gospels really are written in the third person. So that would not be uncommon for scripture.

But we don't know exactly when it was written. The prophecies were given in 520 BC and the minor prophets had been collected together and were in use as a body of 12 books. It was called the Scroll of the Twelve. By at least the 200s. So it had to have been written sometime in that 300 year time frame.

My guess is it was written right when this was happening, but there's nothing in the book that definitively dates it as that. Number two. This is a book about the Lord of hosts. Look at verse two, chapter one verse two. Thus speaks the Lord of hosts.

So you get it right at the beginning of the book and you get it again and again and again and again and again and again and again. Listen to a note in the ESV study Bible. The phrase Lord of hosts occurs 14 times in these 38 verses. There's only 38 verses in the whole book. And the phrase Lord of hosts occurs 14 times.

Anytime something is repeated in scripture, it makes your radar go on. Important. So if you only have 38 verses and you have this occurring 14 times, this is very very important to the book of Haggai. What does Lord of Hosts means? It means the head of an army.

The king at the head of his army. What kind of army? An angelic host. It makes me think of the resurrection. Two of the angelic hosts showing up to roll away the gravestone and a troop of Roman soldiers, the greatest fighting force of humans during their time fall prostrate as if they were dead before these two angels.

Think about the king at the head of a host of beings like that. The only way you can resist the will of the king at the head of his army is if you have a bigger, badder army. It goes without saying, no one has a bigger, badder army than the host that this king is at the head of. No one can resist his will. It's really why the prophet is using this term over and over and over times 14.

It's that His will is irresistible. His will is irresistible. And what we learn from the book of Haggai is this. It's terrible if this king at the head of an army is against you, and It's wonderful if he's for you. If he's against you, all your labors are like putting your wages in a purse with holes in it.

You can be the early bird and the night owl and work every hour in between for nothing. Because the Lord of Hosts has decreed a famine against you. A drought against you. But if He's for you, even in the face of persecution, you win. So if the Lord of Hosts is against you, nothing you do can carry the day.

And if He's for you, nothing anyone else does can stop you. He is the Lord of us. He is the king at the head of an undefeatable army. Number three. Haggai's recorded prophecies were only over the span of four months in 520 BC.

We have two chapters, a total of 38 verses. All the utterances from God are over the course of only four months. Did he do things before that? I'm sure he did. Did he do things after that?

We don't know. I read one commentator that said he probably died and Zechariah picked up where he left off. Well, actually, Zechariah is prophesying, begins to prophesy during this same time period, they're prophesying at the same time. So that's not necessarily true. The answer is we don't know.

The text doesn't say. All we get is a four-month span of utterances from the Prochagoi. One of the commentaries that I'll be relying heavily on is Peter Verhoff, the New International Commentary on the Old Testament. By the way, I keep getting the New International Commentary on the Old Testament commentaries, no matter what book we're in and no matter who's writing it because they're so highly recommended. So I'm sure I'll be tracking with this throughout these two chapters.

He says this, it has proven possible to synchronize the old lunar calendar with the Julian calendar, we're on the Julian calendar, with accurate results. In Haggai's case, it amounts to the following, The first day of the sixth month which is the time stamp in chapter one verse one equals twenty-nine August five twenty. So the first utterance when you sync up the calendars which Peter Verhoff says you can now accurately do. What you get from chapter 1 verse 1 is the 29th of August, year 520 BC, and then the last date stamp of the 24th day of the 9th month, which you find in chapter 2, verse 10 and verse 20, equals the 18th of December, 520. So all that we get in Haggai are, I think it's four different utterances from God happening between August 29th and December 18th of the year 520.

Number four, There are inferences to Jesus in the book of Haggai. What's the Bible about? It's about Jesus. You find him in every book of the Bible. We're going to find him in this book.

Here, I believe our translators got it right that he is what Haggai is calling the desire of all nations in this recitation passage that we're adopting for the next three weeks. We'll be hitting that periodically. So The Bible is about Jesus, so Haggai is about Jesus, and we'll be encountering Jesus in these two chapters. Number five, point five. This is a point of interest.

I thought it was really interesting. It's not certain, so I'll give it to you, but I'll give it to you with that caveat. This is not 100% certain, but it's really interesting. There are three Old Testament translations. So the Old Testament, as you know, was written in Hebrew, but it was translated into Greek, that's called the Septuagint.

It was translated into Latin, that is called the Vulgate, and it was translated into Syrian, that's called the Peshitta or the Syriac version. In those three translations Haggai and Zechariah are in the titles of multiple Psalms as the writers of multiple Psalms. So they don't match up perfectly between the Greek translation, the Latin translation, or the Syriac translation. It could be as many as six Psalms, as few as three between those three. But I thought it was really interesting that in those three translations Haggai and Zechariah together are listed as psalmists, the writers of Psalms.

So Haggai may have written more of scripture than just the book of Haggai, if he indeed is the author of Haggai. Number six, finally. I'll just quote the Reformation Heritage Study Note about the purpose of the book. I thought it just nails it. To convince them that nothing is more important than Kingdom work.

This is what the book is about. There's nothing more important than Kingdom work. Kingdom work got set aside for more than a decade. I'm sure not all the kingdom work, but the work they were sent back to do, rebuild that temple. Just think about this in Haggai chapter 1 verse 8, go up to the mountains and bring wood and build the temple that I may take pleasure in it and be glorified.

So find some kingdom work more important than that. God wanted to take pleasure in the temple. He brought them back to rebuild the temple. He brought them back with resources and the kings blessing to rebuild the temple. And there's been 14 years of inactivity, so he raises up profits to get the people moving.

To convince them that nothing is more important than kingdom work, may we leave the book of Haggai, convince that there's nothing more important than kingdom work. Applications, I have one. Use the book of Haggai to take inventory. Personal inventory of heart issues. Unbelievers, consider what a terrible enemy the Lord of Hosts is.

He offers terms of peace and you should take them. There is a king at the head of an army that is such that if the fiercest fighting force on earth, if a troop of them were to encounter just two of the heavenly hosts, they would fall prostrate as if they were dead before them, and this king heads that host. You're a fool to be his enemy when he offers you terms of peace. Believer, believers, Some of us to a greater or lesser extent. All of us, all of us to a greater or lesser extent have grown cold to the kingdom.

Anybody want to dispute that? Anybody want to debate that? All of us to a greater or lesser extent have grown cold to the kingdom. This is a tremendous opportunity to be roused out of our slumber, to just redouble our efforts. We only have one life to bring glory to Christ.

He saved us. And we have a life, we have a number of days that He knows and you don't. He knows the number of days you have left. You don't know them, but there's a set number, today there's a set number of days you have left. And only that number.

And it's a knowable number to him and it's a countable number, it's not an infinite number of days left on this earth and you can bring glory to your savior and we should redouble our effort. We should be refreshed and filled with zeal for the kingdom, to advance his kingdom on earth because it's only a few days and then eternity we'll never be sorry for the things that we do to advance his kingdom. We'll only be sorry that we didn't do more to make him great on planet earth while we had days to do it. Let's pray. God, may it be so.

May we come away from Haggai, just refreshed and reinvigorated to engage with all our hearts in pushing forward the boundaries of King Jesus in Youngsville, in North Carolina, in Turkey, wherever we can put our shoulder to the plow, let us do it with great vigor in Jesus' name. Amen.