 All right, amen. First, I want to say thank you for this opportunity to preach. We appreciate it, and thank you all for being here. So Haggai chapter 2, I kind of want to go over and kind of a time analysis of when Haggai is. It's one of the minor prophets. Sometimes we can blaze through those and and not understand exactly when it is. I want to go through that message, what he was dealing with, why he gave that message, and how we can apply it to our own lives as well. So obviously the minor prophet right around the name of the next book, Zechariah, it happens a couple months after the book of Haggai. This deals with the time frame of Ezra, with some of Nehemiah, the book of Daniel as well. So this is kind of the book's captivity, the people returning, obviously the people of the temple. If you look down at chapter 1 and verse 15, it gives us this verse before in the previous chapter. It says, in the fourth and 20th day of the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king, Darius the king. So this kind of marks the time frame of when Haggai is, if you would turn to Ezra chapter 1. So history tells us that this king Darius, this is Darius, the great Darius 1, there's multiple different Darius's in the Persian Empire. He served and reigned from about 522 to 486 BC. So this is literally about 520, 519, depending on when he became king. This is when Haggai, the book of Haggai takes place, about 520 BC. And if you go to Ezra, Ezra chapter 1, we'll kind of get a feel for what's going on here and how long it's been taking. Just look down at one. It says in the book of Ezra 1 and verse 1, now in the first year of Cyrus, King of Persia, that the word of the Lord might of the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, King of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and to put it also in writing saying, thus saith Cyrus, King of Persia, the Lord God of heaven, hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth and hath charged me to build him in house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Okay, so in Haggai we're dealing with the second year of Darius and in Ezra 1 it starts off in the first year of King Cyrus. Keep your place in Ezra. We're going to go kind of back and forth between Ezra and Haggai just to get the feel for when this is in history. But Ezra chapter 1 tells us it's in the first year of King Cyrus. Cyrus is the one who God, it says here, who God had given a charge to bring and build, to bring the people back to Jerusalem and to build that house, to rebuild the temple that was destroyed right in Solomon's time. So from King Cyrus, King Cyrus history tells us he began to reign. The dates are a little bit fuzzy, depending on which source you look at, but about 560, 555 is when King Cyrus began to reign. He reigned for about 30 years and then there were two kings in between him and King Darius. So we have Cyrus, one other minor king, the Bible doesn't mention him, and then another king that literally ruled for a couple months and then King Darius the Great. So Cyrus to King Darius the Great, first king and fourth king of the Persian Empire. So from the time of the beginning of the book of Ezra, the first year of King Cyrus, to the time that we get to in the book of Haggai chapter 2 is about 40 years. Okay, so just to kind of keep that in mind, if you would flip to Ezra chapter 4, Ezra chapter 4, and this is exactly the time where we see the prophet Haggai talking about. Ezra 4 looked down at verse 4. They looked at the hands of the people of Judah and troubled them in building, verse 5, and hired counselors against them to frustrate their purpose all the days of Cyrus, King of Persia, even unto the reign of Darius, King of Persia. So this encompasses this 40 year period from the start of Ezra 1 to Ezra 4 here. If you skip down in chapter 4 all the way to verse 24, it says, then, cease the work of the house of God, which is at Jerusalem. So it ceased unto the second year of the reign of Darius, King of Persia. So these people that were troubling them, they caused the work to cease, and it says that here in the second year of the reign of Darius, King of Persia. That brings us to the same time frame of where we're at in the book of Haggai. While you're there, this is kind of giving us a time frame of when Haggai happened, what other books of the Bible kind of apply to the same time frame, same way that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we can compare and contrast details between those, these minor prophets with the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, even Esther. We can kind of compare and contrast details. It deals with the same time period, post, exile to Babylon as they return back. So keep that in mind, we can notice things. One thing I noticed, I think it's worth bringing to your mind, if you're there in Ezra chapter 4, there's a little bit of what we considered possibly a controversy in the Bible, and it is not a controversy in the Bible, but I want to bring it to your attention. I think I found it studying it out. So I think it's worth noting the kings of Persia. There are multiple different kings with the same name. So we have Cyrus, there was two other kings, and there's King Darius. Later on, there's a Hazuerus. He's also known as Xerxes to history. Then there's Artexerxes. There's Artexerxes II. There's Xerxes II. There's Cyrus II. There's a lot of names that are repeated often. So sometimes that can get a little confusing. If you're in Ezra chapter 4 and verse 5 where we read it, it says, all the days of Cyrus, King of Persia, even unto the reign of Darius, King of Persia, those two are in chronological order. There's about 40 years in between those two, but they're in chronological order. Verse 6, it says, and in the reign of a Hazuerus, in the beginning of his reign, and it continues, a Hazuerus was the next king to rule after King Darius. And then in verse 7, it says, and then in the days of Artexerxes, wrote Bishlam, Mithreda, and so it talks about Artexerxes and the stuff that was going on during his reign. Artexerxes is also the next king to reign after a Hazuerus. So they're in chronological order. But then from verse 7 all the way through verse 23, it's still talking about Artexerxes. Then in verse 24, where we read again, it says, then sees the work of the house of God, which is a Jerusalem. So it sees unto the second year of the reign of Darius, King of Persia. So it went back to King Darius, Cyrus, then Darius, then it talked about Hazuerus, Artexerxes, and then it comes back to Darius. And so some people will get confused or say, hey, there's a, there's a, this isn't an alphabet or chronological order. It doesn't make sense because there is a Darius the second, but he ruled much later on. This Darius in verse 24 and the Darius that he's talking about is Darius the Great, the one that ruled from 522 to 486 BC. And people will contest this from verse 6 all the way verse 23 of Ezra chapter 4. What Ezra was doing when he was writing down this book, and it makes perfect sense, is he was telling a story about something that happened in the past, right? He was writing this down after it all happened. So he was telling something that had happened back here in the past. And while he was telling that story, something came to mind about a Hazuerus and Artexerxes that happened closer to the present, but still in the past. So he told that story and then went back to the past, right? Oftentimes we'll do this if we're, if I'm telling my kids a story about when I was a kid and 10 years old and then maybe I interject a story that happened two weeks ago that's relevant to the story and then go back to the story of when I was 10 years old, right? We do that in, in, in a common speech and story telling and everything else. So just studying through that, that was something that popped out sometimes, especially with the kings and the different names that can get confusing, but I think it's worth noting it makes perfect sense. No contradictions. Okay, so we know the time frame of the book of Haggai. And if you're there still in Ezra, look down at verse five, chapter five, excuse me, and verse one, then the prophets Haggai, the prophet and Zachariah, the son of Itto prophesied under the Jews that were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel, even unto them. So now this brings us exactly to the time frame of Haggai. We know what's going on. The temple building started to be constructed. It has slowed, stopped. And so Haggai is here prophesying to the people. So Haggai, what is his message to the people? Chapter one, he's talking about the call to build the temple. He's talking to resume the work of the house. But chapter two, he's talking more specifically. It says verse one and chapter two in the seventh month and the one in twentieth day of the month came the word of the Lord by the prophet Haggai saying, Speak now to Zerubbabel, the son of Shielto, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Joseph, the high priest and to the residue of the people saying, Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? And how do you see it now? Is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing yet? Now be strong, O Zerubbabel, say at the Lord and be strong, O Joshua, son of Joseph, the high priest and be strong. All ye people of the land say at the Lord and notice this and work for I'm with you. Say at the Lord of host. Haggai's message is one of encouragement to get back to work, to do the work. Why? It talks about it here in verse three. Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? And how do you see it now? Is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing? Go back to Ezra. Keep your place there, Haggai, but go back to Ezra chapter three. Ezra chapter three, this is the story of when the foundation of the temple was laid and we kind of see a little bit more detail on this. The foundation of the temple is laid and look down at verse three, I'm sorry, Ezra chapter three and verse 12. Ezra chapter three and verse 12 says, But many of the priests and the Levites and chief of the fathers who were ancient men that had seen the first house when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes wept with a loud voice and many shouted aloud for joy. Verse 13, So that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the people shouted with a loud shout heard afar off. Notice how it calls them ancient men. I'm kind of glad we don't talk like this today in our modern vernacular, but these were older men that had seen the first house, it says. And when they saw this foundation laid, sometimes if we're doing a building project or if we're laying out a pad and we're going to pour some concrete, if we're going to make a structure, maybe a gazebo or something in the backyard, you say, Well, you're putting the plans in. Okay, I'm going to make a 15 feet by 20 feet, but not until you really lay out the markations. Do you get a feel for how that thing is going to look, how the actual size of it is going to be? And these men were the same way. It says when the foundation was laid before their eyes, they wept. That was their reaction. It was it was nothing compared to the house that Solomon built, the house that they had seen with all the gold and the pillars and the pomegranates and the ordinate decorations and the size of it, the sheer size of it as well. So they were this older generation was essentially dragging their feet. They were they were maybe not on board with this building project. And so Haggai is here trying to encourage the robable and encourage the people and the priests to go forward with this. And this is this is this is something that can happen to us too in our Christian life. Sometimes if we see things that after we've been in this Christian life for a while, we've been saved and we've been in church for a long time. Sometimes sometimes things can get more routine. Sometimes things can get less spectacular, less exciting, less energizing just on their own. It's not new. The newness wears off, right? The honeymoon phase, right? They call it. We also sometimes need that message from Haggai. We need that encouragement. They didn't they didn't recognize in the book of Haggai where it says here in verse nine, Haggai chapter two and verse nine, they didn't know this promise or maybe they hadn't heard this promise where it says in verse nine, the glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, say at the Lord of hosts and then this place will I give peace, say at the Lord of hosts. He's obviously talking that the temple itself was secondary in every way to the temple of Solomon. It was not the glory, it was not there. But because the Lord Jesus Christ himself walked through this temple in the flesh, that's what gave this latter house the greater glory from that promise. What was another part of Ezra's message? There were enemies. Ezra chapter four, excuse me, Haggai's message. What was Haggai's message? Turn to Ezra chapter four, Ezra chapter four and verse four. This little bit of a go to get the context, but it highlights the other problem. It says, then the people of the land weaken the hands of the people of Judah and trouble 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. Remember, this is about 40 year period. So for 40 years, they're trying to build this thing, they're getting the materials together, they're breaking ground, they're laying the foundation and they have people that are dragging their feet. They also have enemies that are within, they're without trying to get in to the building project and trying to hinder it or make it falter or make it stop. And they're successful. They halt this thing into the reign of King Darius of Persia. It says the work ceased under the second year of the reign of Darius, excuse me, King of Persia. So there's enemies, there's enemies without. And we see this in our Christian life too, right? There's going to be people, there's going to be people trying to drag us down. There's going to be people trying to always just a phase. It's something that's going to pay, that's going to pass. The newness is going to wear off, right? There's always that pressure to back off. Sometimes we also need that encouragement from the book of Haggai. Look down in Haggai, go back to Haggai. Haggai chapter two, let's continue on in verse 10. Haggai chapter two and verse 10, it says, in the four and 20th day of the ninth month in the second year of Darius came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet saying, thus say at the Lord of hosts, ask now the priest concerning the law saying, so now he's kind of turning his attention to the priest. He asked him a hypothetical question. He's asking, hey, if something is unclean and it touched something else, is it unclean? Is it holy? Should it be? And they said, no, they answered correctly. They understand the analogy. And go down to verse 15. It says, and now I pray, you can sit from this day and upward from before a stone was laid upon a stone in the temple of God. So he's asking this analogy and he's getting the priest to recognize like, yes, if something is unclean and it touched something else, it is also unclean, right? And he's doing the analogy of the people. He's trying to get this, get the, get the, uh, the rubble and the priest and everybody else to recognize that this is the same analogy with the people. And now I pray you can, before a stone was laid upon the temple, upon a stone in the temple of the Lord. Since those days were when one came to a heap of 20 measures, there were about 10. They didn't have enough. If they came to this heap, maybe it's flour, maybe it's money in their bank account, maybe it's shekels in their purse. When they came to a heap of 20 measures, there was only 10. There were about 10. Also, when the one came to the press fat for to draw out 50 vessels out of the press, they're trying to get 50 vessels of oil here. There were but 20. There wasn't enough to go around. There wasn't enough in their town. There wasn't enough in their bank account. There wasn't enough in their pantry, whatever the case may be. Why? Look at verse 17. I smoke you with blasting and with mildew and with hail and all the labors of your hands, yet ye turned not to me. The people, when they were in this condition, when they were in wanting, when they were under the chastisement of God, they were not right. This analogy that he gave with the priest, they were unclean. Anything that they touched was going to remain unclean. He was trying to get them to recognize this through this analogy that he gave with the priest. Yet ye turned not to me, say, at the Lord. Verse 18, it says, consider now from this day and upward, from the four-and-twentieth day of the ninth month, even from the day that the foundation of the Lord's temple was laid, consider it. So now, at this point, at this point, they're getting right. Right? These people are likely all saved people. They're coming from this tribe. They're trying to get back. They're trying to do the right thing. They're trying to get the temple built, but they had other things in their life that was holding them back. They were having sin in their lives that God was still chastising for, and so it wasn't successful. They were not being fruitful. He was still chastising them. Look at verse 19. It says, is the seed yet in the barn? Is the seed yet in the barn? Ye as yet the vine and the fig tree and the pomegranate and the olive tree have not brought forth from this day, I will bless you. Notice that question, is the seed yet in the barn? It's kind of an odd question. If you take this from a farming perspective, the seed in the barn, when you would harvest a corn crop, say, for example, corn or weed or soybeans or whatever plant that you're growing, if you would harvest that crop, nowadays, if we're going to plant corn or we're going to plant soybean or wheat, we'll call up the seed company, we'll order seed a couple months in advance, we'll pay for that seed, we'll only order the seed that we need for the amount of acres we're planting, we'll put the seed in the ground and that'll be it. We'll harvest 100% of it. The next year we buy seed again, the next year we buy seed again, that's how it's done nowadays. But in the past, if you planted corn and you harvested, say, you had 100 acres of corn and you harvested all that grain and we're going to sell the grain, you wouldn't sell 100% of it. You would sell maybe 80% of it or 25% or 90%. You would keep 10% to 20% depending on the variety, depending on your yield, depending on the land or different climates that you're in. You would keep that remainder that 10% to 20% and you would keep that in your barn for next year. So you would sell the 80% and that would be your income for the year. And the next spring you would plant that 20%. Is the seed yet in the barn? The idea is, is there anything left on the table? Because if, for example, back then and you're using this analogy, okay, I've saved 20% of my seed for the next year, if I go out and I plant all of this seed in the springtime and I have hail or I have crop damage or I have locusts come in and destroy my crop, not only do I not get any income from that crop sale this year, I have no seed to plant the following year, right? So if we take that 20% and we plant all of it and then something bad happens, I got nothing this year and I got nothing next year. There's no income coming next year either because I don't have any seed. So what people would do and it was kind of an insurance policy, if you will, they would keep a little bit of carryover so that if the crop was damaged this year, okay, well, at least they don't have any income this year, that's bad enough, but at least I have some seed to store for the following year, right? So they're not losing income two years in a row, they're only you losing it that first year. Does that make sense? So when he's asking, is the seed yet in the barn? This is a hypothetical question and I believe the answer to this is no, meaning that they're not holding anything back, they're not having this seed stored in the barn as an insurance policy for, well, what if this doesn't work out? The people have sold out, they're on board and they're going forward. This is their plan. Think about it for our Christian life. Are we in this Christian life? Is this our plan A? And we have other backup plans in case this doesn't work out? Or is this our only plan? Are we all in? Do we have any reservations and well, just in case this doesn't work out, I'm gonna do something else here on the side or is this, this is it? We're going, we're full throttle, we're all in, right? Are we holding back? Is there seed yet in the barn? Have we held anything back just in case this doesn't work out? Is everything on the table? That's another way of putting it, right? If we keep seed in the barn metaphorically, and I'm not talking about not being prepared, I think it's prudent to be prepared. The Bible talks about that. The horse is prepared against the day of battle but safety is of the Lord, right? So it's, it's a prudent thing to have a little bit of extra money in your savings account in case an emergency happened, in case a car breaks down, in case somebody gets sick or injured or you lose your job for a couple months or something happens, right? It's prudent to be prepared and that's not what I'm talking about. What I am talking about is when it comes to this Christian life, are we, are we all in? Are we kind of in for the moment but there's an insurance policy on the side in case this doesn't work out? What do I mean? Well, I'm, I'm, I'm disciplining my children the way that the Bible tells me to right now but I'm also reading the book by Dr. Spock or learning how to count to three so that my kids can listen to me when I get to number three and not have to go to four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, right? Are we disciplining our children correctly because that's what God says it's what we're supposed to do and we trust that fully or is it because, well, I, I think this should work but just in case, are we having that reservation? Are we, are we holding back? What about marriage? Am I living my life in my marriage? Am I living that this is no other option? This is it, thinking it's, it's, it's, it's going forward whether there's, divorce is not an option, right? Is that, is that the other option? Is that the backup plan? Well, in case this doesn't work out, right? No, we ought to be both feet in, full feet, full throttle and this is the plan that we're going through. Homeschooling, well, I'm homeschooling my kids now but I'm keeping an eye on the whole public, private school dilemma just in case this home-flowing thing doesn't work out, right? That sounds crazy when we look at the different statistics like Pastor talked about a couple of weeks ago but oftentimes we can, we can have reservations about things and we can not be full, full faith in what God's plan is for our lives in our Christian lives. Think about salvation, right? Salvation is by faith alone. It's putting by 100% by putting 100% of our faith on what Christ did on the cross for us. It's not 99.9% Christ and 0.1% us. It's all Christ or nothing. It's not a little bit us, a little bit of our works. It's not a little bit of this. No, it's 100% faith and trust on what Christ did. And in order to have success in our Christian life, we ought to apply that same principle. Put the faith in. Don't leave any seed left in the barn as far as an insurance policy of case something doesn't work out. Don't hold back. Go forward in it. What about our church friends? Going to church attendants, right? Or making friends here but just in case these things don't work out or just in case something happens, I'm going to keep really in good touch with my old friends. That's not going to be, you can't be hot and cold at the same time. You can't be one foot in, one foot out. It's not going to work, right? We need to be all in. We need to be sold out for the Christian life. There's a story in 1519. A man named Hernan Cortes. Maybe some of you have heard of it. He was during the conquest era. He had sailed and he was going to conquer the Aztec area and just saying this is an example. But he sailed in there and he landed with his men and they had multiple ships. And when he got there, what he did is he set fire to all the ships. He burnt all the ships. And this was done to motivate the men like, hey, there's no way out of this. We're here and it's either die or succeed. That's it. There's only two options. It's a pretty drastic example, but it kind of paints that picture. Is there a seed yet in the barn? Is there anything left that we haven't put on the table? There's always pressure in this Christian life. There's always pressure to back off on things. There's always pressure to maybe back off in our physical life on things like exercise or maybe the pressure to back off on eating right, pressure to slack off at work to maybe not give it our all at work or in the things that we do in business or in providing for or teaching our family. There's always pressures to do those things. There's also pressures in our Christian life as well. Pressures to slack off on Bible reading, pressures to slack off on prayer to back off on these things, pressures to slack off or back off on disciplining our children how we should do, right? That's not the most fun thing to do when we get home and you've got to take care of a spanking or somebody that needs a discipline. That's not the most fun thing to do as a dad, but we do it out of principle. We do it because that's what we're supposed to do. And we do it because the promises of God say that it will work. That's why we do it. It's easy. There's always pressure to back off on our word. If we say we're going to do something, the Bible says we ought to do it. We ought to follow through with it or we ought to keep our mouth shut, right? There's always pressure to back off on that. There's always pressure to back off on church attendance. There's always pressure to back off on soul winning. OK, so with these pressures, with these things, are we holding back? Are we pushing forward strong? Are we are we holding back? Are we letting these things bog us down? Kind of a recent example that happened at the the church day on Labor Day. Are we getting stuck? Are there things that are going to cause us to get stuck in the mud or get stuck in the sand or keep us from moving forward? That's kind of a good analogy. We had when I was growing up there was we lived by a river. And so every time the water would flood, there would be this new sand bar that would come out. And so you have a pickup truck and you go and you play around in it. And about 15 minutes later you're stuck. And then it takes two hours before everybody gets unstuck and it was kind of a thing. But you learn how to not get stuck at least in sand. You let the air out of the tires so you get more traction or you hit it with some momentum that carries you through it. And if we think about Haggai and these two analogies that he had for it, right, these older generations that had seen the first house, they were dragging their feet. They were maybe not as motivated. That that lack of motivation can be contagious. We can equate that to the pressure to back off on these things, to back off on our Bible reading, to back off on our church attendance. No, we need to be encouraged. The glory of the latter house is going to be greater than the former house. The glory of the things to come when we get to heaven, when we read the benefits of staying in the Christian life is going to be greater than the pleasures of sin for a season. Or than the well I wish I could have done more when we do get to heaven. Even if, you know, as we're saved, we'll never lose that. But looking back, oh man, I wish I could have done more. I wish I would have done more with the time that I had. But are we getting stuck? Are we getting stuck in the mud? Are our enemies mud? Are they slowing us down? Are they tripping us up? Are they hindering us? Well, how do we prevent that? They're going to be there, like in Haggai. They were there trying to dissuade the people from building the temple. They were there trying to attack and stop and halt their progress. What did they do? They have to push forward. They have to push forward. Like it says in, like it said in Haggai chapter 2 and verse 4, God is speaking through Haggai. He says, and yet now be strong, Osirubu will say to the Lord, and be strong, Osir Joshua, son of Joseph, the high priest, and be strong all you people of the land, say to the Lord and work. For I am with you, say to the Lord of hosts, God is compelling them to be strong and to work. That's how we're going to overcome the enemies that are in our lives. That's how we're going to overcome the enemies that are fighting against our Christian life. You know, you think about going in the mud or going in the sand or going four wheeling and you're going to get stuck. You need to air down. We would have that a lot of time. Somebody would get stuck and they had 70 pounds of pressure in their tires and their tires just cut right through the sand and they're up to the frame in sand. You got to air down your tires. You get a bigger footprint. You got more traction. Take it smoother and you're not going to get stuck as much. So when we're in our Christian life, if we're noticing the the enemies coming at us or if we're noticing ourselves maybe starting to have that tendency or that we can tell that our spiritual temperatures maybe back and off a hair. We should get back to the basics. We should air down. We need traction in our Christian life, too. Dig out, bring a tow strap, help a friend, air down. These are things that we can do to prevent getting stuck or if we do get stuck to help get us out or to help other brothers around us or sisters around us that do get stuck in the mud, too, right? We want to be able to help others. We want to be able to bring people out of the mud and back into the victorious Christian life. So what are the results if we do this? What are the results of this if we succeed? Turn to Ezra chapter six. Well, the results from Haggai and from his message to Ezra, they were strong. They gained strength and they did work. They finished the building of the house. Ezra chapter six in verse 15, it says, And this house was finished on the third day of the month, Adar, which is in the sixth, which is was in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king. So it took them four more years from the second year of Darius the king was when Haggai started talking to him until the sixth year. It took them four more years, but they got it done. They did the work. They were strengthened by this message and they did the work. Turn to Ezra chapter seven. There's another result that can happen from this. And Ezra is a neat example. I brought this up in a sermon in the past, but I think it's nice to note this again. The Bible talks a lot about our zeal, right? Bible talks about zeal without knowledge. We wanna have zeal in this Christian life. We wanna be on fire for the things of God. We wanna be passionate about what we're doing in church and soul winning and successfully implementing what the Bible teaches us to do. And there was a man by the name of Phineas in Numbers. There's a couple of Phineas's in the Bible, but Phineas specifically was the grandson of Aaron the priest. If you haven't read Numbers chapter 25, I'd encourage you. It's one of my favorite stories in the Bible. This is where the Israelites, this is after Balaam and the donkey that talked and that whole ordeal. And he, Balaam, tricks Israel into committing hordoms with the Midianites, right? And so they're just living amongst them and that was enough to get them back slid in and he could get his money and that whole thing, how that worked out. But the Israelites are committing hordoms, committing fornication. They're living amongst the Midianites. And this man Phineas, he was a young man at the time. He had seen it happen and he had had enough and he was the son of the priest at the time. Eleazar was the priest. And this son of one of the princes of, excuse me, Israel was taking another Midianites woman into a tent. They were gonna go commit fornication in front of Moses, in front of all the people. And he went and he put it into it. It says in verse 25, chapter 25 verse 10 of Numbers, it says in the Lord Jesus, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest hath turned the path away from the children of Israel while he was zealous for my sake among them that I consume not the children of Israel in my jealousy. Wherefore say I behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace. Covenant of peace. Back to pastor's holy message. That's exactly what we want our children to have growing up, right? That's the opposite of all these anti-social behaviors like drug and alcohol abuse, like thoughts of suicide, attempting suicide. That's the exact opposite of that. That is what our goal is for our children. And that, as he said in Isaiah, it's gotten through teaching them of the Lord. That's what will give our children peace. And Phineas, he obtained this covenant of peace. It says in verse 13, and he shall have it and his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood because he was zealous for his God and made atonement for the children of Israel. So Phineas had this everlasting priesthood promise back in Numbers 25. There in Ezra chapter seven, looked down at verse one. Now after these things, in the reign of Ardux Xerxes king of Persia, Ezra, the son of Saraiah, the son of Azariah, the son of Hilkiah, the son of Shalom, son of Zadok, the son of Ahaitub, the son of Amariah, the son of Azariah, the son of Maryioth, the son of Zariah, the son of Uzai, the son of Bukai, the son of Abushai, Abashua, excuse me. The son of Phineas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the chief priest. So this promise of this everlasting priesthood went from Phineas to his 12th great grandson Ezra. And I think that's interesting to note. Ezra was one of the fruits of this promise that Phineas had. Phineas had the zeal, he was zealous for God and he was zealous for his God, it says in Numbers 25. And as a result of that, future generations to the 12th great grandchild generation, and I'm sure beyond that, were blessed from this zeal that he had. So there's generational results from our zeal if we don't hold back, if we're not holding back in this Christian life, if we're pushing forward, if we're jumping in both feet. Especially as men, right? We're leaders in our home and women too leading the children. Or if you're single in your single life, leading your life as a Christian woman and men as a Christian man as well. Leaders in homes, leaders of marriage, of children. There's more responsibility for men, right? We see that in the marriage result. If the kids turn out good or if the kids turn out bad, it's our fault. If the marriage turns out good or the marriage turns out bad, it doesn't matter. It's our fault, right? We need to maintain zealous behavior, especially in the Christian life. We need to maintain zealous behavior when it comes to leading our family, when it comes to providing for our family, when it comes to protecting our family. We also need to maintain all as individuals zealous behavior when it comes to our Christian life. Because it's through that zeal, through that encouragement that Haggai gave these people that they will be strengthened to do the work, to do the work that God tells us to do, to do the work of soul winning, which we did today, right? And we saw a salvation or two or multiple salvations. That's the work that God has for us. That's the impact that we can have in this community. Again, talking about seed, is the seed yet in the barn? Are we keeping anything back in our personal lives and this Christian life from jumping all the way in? We ought not to. We ought to let, put all the chips on the table, put all the cards out on the table, jump both feet in. The Bible also says, speaking of seed, the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 9 and verse 6, but this I say, he which soweth sparingly, shall reap also sparingly, and he which soweth bountifully, shall reap also bountifully. If we take this analogy and we use it to the Bible's definition of seed as far as the word of God, and we sow sparingly, we keep some seed in the barn, we hold back from explaining the gospel to people, we hold back when we're so winning or not go so winning. If we sow sparingly, we shall reap sparingly. The Bible says the fields are wide into harvest. There's plenty out there to be harvested. We ought to reap, we ought to be able to reap bountifully because we've sown bountifully. Sown the gospel bountifully, sown bountifully in our Christian life, sown bountifully in our marriage, in our, with our husbands and wives, with our children. So let's not leave any seed yet in the barn. Let's put all the chips on the table and push forward in this Christian life. Now let's go ahead and bow our heads and close service with the word of prayer.