To get the people to rebuild the temple of God, Haggai

1. To get the people to rebuild the temple of God, Haggai The prophet of God calls upon them to Consider your Ways!

2. Haggai 1:5 • Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways.

3. Haggai is saying: • consider one's conduct, • and lay it to heart

4. Before we can get peopleto turn to God… • We , like Haggai, must ask them to: • Consider • Your • Ways!!

5. The Book of Haggai is a book of the 12 minor prophets. • [1] It is a short book, consisting of only two chapters. • 2. The historical setting dates around 520 BC before the Temple has been rebuilt. • 3. Haggai is assumed to be the writer.

6. Haggai's message is filled with an urgency for the people to proceed with the rebuilding of the • second Jerusalem temple • Haggai attributes a recent drought to the peoples' refusal to rebuild the temple

7. Haggai calls upon the people • To Consider your ways… Haggai 1:5

8. Look at yourselves…consider your ways • Haggai 1:6 You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it."

9. Great question asked by the prophet Haggai: • Is it fit that you should be building yourselves elegant houses, and neglect a place for the worship of that God who has restored you from captivity? • You say: Haggai 1:2 “Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the Lord’s house should be built”

10. Haggai then says: • “Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying, • Haggai 1:4 “Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled (paneled) houses, and this house lie waste.?”

11. One of the commentaries said: • Consider your ways; their sinful ways, and repent of them, and forsake them, particularly their ingratitude before ; • and their civil ways, their common ways of life; their labour, work, and business, they were continually employed in; and observe the event of them; what success they had, what these issued in; whether there were not some visible tokens of the divine displeasure on them, which rendered all their attempts to support and enrich themselves and families vain, and of no effect:

12. Then Haggai says: • Haggai 1:5 “Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; • Consider • Your • ways!!

13. Haggai 2:15 "'Now give careful thought to this from this day on--consider how things were before one stone was laid on another in the LORD's temple.

14. God wanted them to Considertheir ways! • And now, thus saith the Lord of hosts; "Consider," (literally "set your heart upon) your ways," • 1. what they had been doing, • 2. what they were doing, • 3. and what those doings had led to, and would lead to. • This is ever present to the mind of the prophets, as speaking God's words, that our acts are not only "ways" in which we go, each day of life being a continuance of the day before; but that they are ways which lead, somewhere in God's Providence and His justice; to some end of the "way," good or bad

15. God wants us to • Consider • Your • Ways

16. Jeremiah Jer 21:8. "I set before you • the way of life and the way of death;"

17. David Psalm 16:11, "Thou wilt show me the path of life," where it follows, • "In Thy presence is the fullness of joy and at Thy Right Hand there are pleasures forevermore;"

18. Isn’t this true???? • Proverbs 6:23, "Reproofs of instruction are the way of life;"

19. Proverbs 10:17, "the way of life who keepeth instruction; and he who forsaketh rebuke, erreth;"

20. Proverbs 15:24, • "The way of life is above • to the wise, • that he may depart from • hell beneath;"

21. Proverbs 7:27. • "Her house are the ways of hell, going down to the chambers of death"

22. Proverbs 14:12; Proverbs 16:25. "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, and the end thereof are the ways of death;"

23. Proverbs 4:18, • "The path of the righteous is a shining light, shining more and more until the mid-day"

24. Set your heart on your ways; - • i. e., your affections, thoughts, works, so as to be circumspect in all things; as the apostle Paul says 1 Timothy 5:21, • "Do nothing without forethought," i. e., without previous judgment of reason

25. Is it possible to get all of us here this morning to • Consider • Your • Ways?

26. Listen to what God saysto CONSIDER…

27. Consider The Lilies

28. “Learn a lesson from the wild lilies” Matt. 6:28-30 28. And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: 29. And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

29. Luke 12:24Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls?

30. Overcoming Worry

31. Consider The Lilies

32. Consider The Lilies How they Grow

33. Glory of The Lily

34. Consider The Lilies

35. We should not Worry God cares for the birds and the lilies We are more precious Why worry about clothing or necessities ? If God Cares for You, why Worry ? Consider The Lilies

36. “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Matthew 6:33

37. Consider The Lilies

38. Consider #2 • The Lord God, Eternal Soverign • of All!!

39. Consider: • Deuteronomy 4:39Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the LORD he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else.

40. Psalm 8:3When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; • what is man, that thou visiteth him?

41. Gen. 1:1 In the beginning…God • Acts 17:24,25 • Eph. 4:1-6 • Heb. 1:1 G O D !

42. #3.Consider Others Advice • Deuteronomy 32:7Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: • ask thy father, and he will shew thee; • thy elders, and they will tell thee.

43. Hebrews 13:7Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.

44. #4.Consider your End! • Deuteronomy 32:29O that they were wise, that they understood this, • that they would consider their latter end!

45. # 5. Consider: What you need to do. • Judges 18:14Then answered the five men that went to spy out the country of Laish, and said unto their brethren, Do ye know that there is in these houses an ephod, and teraphim, and a graven image, and a molten image? now therefore consider what ye have to do

46. #6 Consider: How Great ThingsHe hath done for you!! • 1 Samuel 12:24Only fear the LORD, and serve him in truth with all your heart: • for considerhow great things he hath done for you.

47. Look who God commends! • Job 1:8And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?

48. God does not forget! • Hosea 7:2And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness: now their own doings have beset them about; they are before my face.

49. Look at yourself…. • Matthew 7:3And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

50. Galatians 6:1Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.