Haggai 2:10–14 Explained: Why Religious Activity Cannot Make Us Holy

0:00Please join me in prayer. Father, I think about Isaiah 6 and how the angels fly around the throne and just call out. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord. We think of your attributes and recognize that that's the one set in a thrice-fold fashion. And you've called us to be holy too, Lord. And I think there's much confusion about what holiness is and what it isn't. And we've reached some very unique verses in the scripture that discuss how holiness is transferred or isn't transferred, I might say, and how unholiness is transferred. And so I think there's a lot of application for us, Lord, for our spiritual lives. I thank you for this message. The Haggad delivered to these people how it really transcends the centuries to reach us and have a great application for us to differently than it did for those people in a sense, because our lives and circumstances are different. But in the sense of communicating the spiritual realities of these verses, Lord, we're blessed to be able to reach them. And to apply them to our lives. So give us understanding about holiness and what it is, what it isn't, and what it looks

1:03like in our lives. I thank you for Christ, what He does, to sanctify us, to take away our uncleanness. And I pray that for any unbelievers who joined here this morning, Lord, that we were thankful that they're here. We pray that today would be the day that their uncleanness is taken away, that spiritually you would save them and that they'd be born again. And for the believers here, continue that sanctifying work of helping us to become more holy as you're where it sanctifies and cleanses us, Lord. Give us understanding of these verses. I know that minor prophets are often neglected. And so maybe these verses are unfamiliar to your people as much as compared to those verses in the gospels, remarkably, or places, but that's just even more reason for us to be able to look at them and learn from them, Lord. And so I pray that you use this time to fulfill us in our lives. I thank you for it. And to pray that Christ can be exalted as we see the ways that He works in our lives. And we pray all this in His name. Amen. All right, well, I'm going to begin with the joke this morning. It is one of my favorites, which tells you it's probably a bad one.

2:09And if you understand this joke, then you'll be on your way to understanding the morning's verses. Okay, so here we go. A man here's a knock at his door. When he opens it, there is a giant bug that punches him in the face. Kicks him in the shin and then runs away. The next day, the same thing happens. The bug knocks, attacks him, takes off. After it happens a third time, the man goes to the doctor and explains what he's been experiencing. And the doctor says, yes, there's a bad bug going around. You guys like that? Let me give you thumbs up or thumbs down for that one. Okay. Yes, a lot more thumbs up than I was anticipating. Very good. All right. So, here's why I told you that joke. It is about the way that sickness spreads.

3:09When I was a school teacher, here's what would happen. One student comes in Monday morning, running nose, coughing, wiping his nose on his sleeve. You know this kid should have stayed home. That's Monday and by Friday, how many kids are doing that? Yes. And you're noticing some itching, your throat, right? As a teacher. But here's what never happened. I never once had a sick student come into class on Monday and sit down with 30 healthy students and suddenly become healthy himself, right? The healthy children never seem to be able to give away their health, the way that sick kids are able to give away their sickness. Sickness spreads, but health does not. None of us have ever walked into a room full of healthy people, breathe the air and then caught health from them. We've never gone to a hospital and stood by some sick person in a hospital bed and held

4:11their hand and thought, you know, if I just hold their hand long enough, I'm going to be able to transmit my health to this sick person and make this sick person healthier. But we do know if we get too close to that sick person, then we might catch sickness from them. Sunday morning has been working away, verse by verse, through the book of Haggai. And this morning, we're going to see Haggai make the same point that I've been making, not physically, but spiritually. So not about physical health, being, or physical sickness, being past or caught, but about the transmission of spiritual health or spiritual sickness. So we've reached Haggai, chapter 2, verse 10. This is the third of Haggai's four messages, look on the verse 10. It says, on the 24th day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came by Haggai, the prophet. I want to help you keep Haggai's four messages straight.

5:12So here's a slide showing all four of his messages. So he saw his first message in Haggai 1, verses 1 through 15. That was on the first day of the sixth month, which would be our August 29th. And that's when he says, consider your ways, build my house. Your lives were going poorly because you're neglecting me. The second message, Haggai 2, verses 1 through 9, that was on the 21st day of the seventh month, which would be our October 17th. And that was about the latter glory of the temple being even greater than the glory of the former temple or of Solomon's temple. And now we find ourselves at his third message, which is in chapter 2, verses 10 through 19. We won't finish all of it this morning. This is the 24th day of the ninth month. And this would be December 18th. And this is where he tells the people to ask the priest about the law. The ninth month is Kizlev, which falls in our November and December, because remember the Hebrew calendar doesn't line up exactly with our calendar.

6:16So their month kind of overlaps two of our months. This is the second year of Darius, which would be 520 BC. So this message comes to Haggai in the middle of December about three months after the people had went back to work on the temple in chapter 1. And liquidity says in verse 11. Haggai says, thus says the Lord of hosts, ask the priest about the law. So I just wanted to notice two things. I want you to notice who's being asked and what they're being asked about. See, we've got the priest who are being asked about the law. And that's because they're the experts in it. This is their primary responsibility to teach the law to the people. So they're being told to ask the people are being told to ask the priest the experts in the law about something that they would be experts in, which is the law itself. And here's the first question. If someone carries, this is verse 12, if someone carries holy meat in the fold of his garment

7:17and touches with his fold that has this meat in it, bread or stew or wine or oil of any kind of food, does that food that is touched become holy because it's touched by this holy piece of food and the priest correctly answer and said no. So we've talked before that we shouldn't think of holy synonymously with righteous. Some holy things can be righteous, but we should think more of holy or holiness referring to what. Yeah, set apartness or separateness. And this is another good example of why I tell you that because if holy meant righteous, then you would look and you'd kind of scratch your head and say, well, how can meat be holy, right? But if we understand that holy means separate or set apart, we obviously understand how meat could be holy or set apart if this meat is set apart for the Lord, then it would be holy. And this is referring specifically to meat that would be involved in a sacrifice. So you sacrifice an animal, and if you've never heard this before, but this is one of the

8:21premier ways that priests were cared for. So part of the tie that went to them, but when a sacrifice was brought to the temple, they were able to take some of that sacrifice home to consume and then that was the way that the people provided for the priest. And so this is an example that would have played out many times with the priest. So sacrifice is brought to the priest and the priest is going to take some of this meat home with him. There's no refrigeration and he doesn't have like a cooler to put this meat in. And so he takes this meat and he puts it in the fold of his robe to carry home. And then the question is when he's carrying this holy meat home, perhaps he's carrying it in his robe next to some other, what does he say? Food or stew or bread or wine and then when the holy meat touches the unholy meat does the unholy meat end up becoming holy. And this is just a question about transmission of holiness. And so the priest or the priest correctly answer that the unholy meat or unclean meat

9:22doesn't become holy because the holy meat touches it. Now two more things to keep in mind so these verses make sense. First, holy, let's understand some symptoms. I said holy is not synonymous with righteous. So when you hear holy don't necessarily think righteous. But holy is synonymous with clean or uncommon. So holy, clean and uncommon, uncommon because it's rare, it's set apart for God, all mean the exact same thing. Well, conversely, unholy, unclean and common because everything in the world is not set apart for God is just considered common, those all mean the same thing, unholy, unclean and common are all synonyms. Second, regarding what is considered holy or clean or even unholy or unclean was one of the other responsibilities of the priest. So if you remember last week when Pastor Nathan was preaching on the man who's cleansed

10:24of leprosy, what did Jesus tell lepros after he cleansed them that they were supposed to do? You go to the priest so that the priest can do what with you? Declarate you clean, right? Because the lepros have been declared unclean and go to the priest as the priest is going to be able to declare whether you're clean or not. Ridiculous 10, 10, priests are to distinguish between the holy and the common between the unclean and the clean. So that's one of their job descriptions declaring what's clean and unclean and holy and unholy. Now holy meat would be meat from a sacrifice because it's been set apart from God or set apart for God the priest is carrying this home, it's his portions so that he can consume this. And if it touches this other meat or bread or stew, it doesn't make any of it holy and this brings us to less than one because it's communicating a spiritual truth. Holiness cannot be transferred.

11:25Holiness cannot be transferred. Right now here's what makes their answer, the priest's answer kind of interesting. They were not simply saying that holiness never transfers at all. Holiness does transfer a little. It transfers like one step, but not a second step. Listen to this verse about sacrifices. Leviticus 627, whatever the sacrifice touches, its flesh shall become holy. So the meat could make the robe holy, but the question Haggai asked wasn't about the robe, it's about the bread that's on the other side of the robe. And the law says that holiness just takes one step. It doesn't take another step past the robe to the meat to make the next thing it touches holy. It just touches one thing, makes it holy and then stops. So holiness can travel a little. The spiritual application is holiness doesn't contagious, it doesn't rub off, nobody's ever

12:32become a Christian just by standing next to other Christians. Now keep that in mind and look at the second question. Verse 13, Haggai said, if someone, so now we've moved beyond meat to a person, if someone who's unclean by contact with a dead body touches any of these things, does it become unclean? And the priest answered and they said it does become unclean. And this brings us to lesson two, uncleanness can be transferred. Uncleanness can be transferred. Now I want you to notice the Haggai didn't just pick any uncleanness for this second question. He pretty much reached for the very worst possible example of uncleanness, which would be the uncleanness associated with what?

13:32I mean, almost the only thing worse than a leopard would be a dead body, right? So for the second question, he moves to the worst possible example of uncleanness touching a dead body. Now most uncleanness lasts a day. So you're unclean but just got away till the next day and then you're going to be clean and be able to rejoin the religious life of the nation. But interestingly, this is why it's the worst example. The uncleanness that came from touching a dead body actually lasted seven days or one a week. Numbers 19-11, whoever touches the dead body of any person, shall be unclean for seven days. So unlike holiness, this didn't stop after one step either. So holiness just goes maybe to the robe, it doesn't even make a path to the robe, to the food on the other side. But unholiness, think of it like this, just kind of keeps going. To the next thing, the next thing, the next thing, the next thing. Numbers 19-22. Wherever the unclean person touches after touching a dead body, shall be unclean.

14:32And then anyone who touches it shall be unclean until evening. So just keep spreading. And if you compare cleanness and uncleanness, holiness reaches the next thing, touches it and then stops, uncleanness reaches the next thing and just keeps going. So holiness does not spread very far. Unholiness, spreads and spreads and spreads and spreads and spreads. So here's the spiritual application for us, which you can probably already start to anticipate. If we bring something unholy from the world, something that's not set apart for God, and into our lives, or into our families, or into our marriages, or into our church, here's what doesn't happen. It doesn't get cleaned up, or it doesn't become holy, just because it comes in contact with something holy. And now, I remember years ago, I hadn't been here very long and I was watching. And I was watching this kind of debate that was happening on Facebook between some of

15:37the young people in our church and some of the young people in another church. And the young people in this other church were defending some of the immoral music that they were listening to. And they were essentially claiming that because there were Christians, they had this ability or Christ had this ability to take this really ungodly song and redeem it or sanctify it. Or I don't know if they used the word holy, but they were basically saying, take this unholy song and make a holy. And some of the young people in our church were saying, no, it doesn't work that way. And it doesn't work that way. The spiritual application is that when something unholy is brought from the world into our lives, our homes, our marriages, our church, our families, it doesn't become holy because it comes in contact with us instead what happens. We're made unclean or there's an unholyness and unholy influence on us. And it's not only unholy things that threaten us, unholy people threaten us. Proverbs 22, 24.

16:39Make no friendship with a man given to anger nor go with a wrathful man. Lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare. So the point is it doesn't say that an angry person is going to learn to be patient in general because he's around a general patient person. Instead it says that the person around the anger person is going to learn anger from him. Because anger is going to rub off on you versus your generalness or patience rubbing off on him. Probably the first verse that might have already come to my first Corinthians 1533, don't be deceived. Bad company creps good morals. It doesn't say the good company fixes bad morals. So it's kind of this belief, well, if this is a super-engodly person, we get the super-engodly person around all these godly people and the ungodly person is going to become godly. No, there's only one way that ungodly person is going to become godly and that's if the gospel is preached and that person is born again and their heart changes. But just being around godly people is not going to accomplish it.

17:41In fact, we're told the direction goes the other way and the godly people are going to be influenced by the ungodly person. And I think that's why the verse begins with, first one is 1533, begins with the words do not be deceived. Because so all scripture prevents us from being deceived because all scripture is truth. But there are a few places where the truth or the verse begins with do not be deceived. And I tend to think that's because it's an area where we tend to be deceived. Well, what would be the deception? The deception is essentially, I'm an exception, right? This isn't going to happen to me. I'm going to be able to be around this ungodly person and I'm going to be fine. It's not going to affect me. So Paul says, no, don't be deceived. You are going to be negatively affected by the ungodly person. You're not the exception. Don't think that it's not going to happen to you. That person, you might not even recognize this happening, but some of the people around us can recognize that it's happening that we're changing because of the bad company that

18:44we're keeping. Now to bring some balance to this, this doesn't mean we don't have relationships or even friendships with unbelievers or ungodly people. For those of us who got saved later in life, I consider myself an ungodly person in my early 20s and I'm thankful that there were godly people who cared about me, preached the gospel to me, had a relationship with me so that I could be saved. The point is simply go into those relationships with unbelievers or with godly people with our eyes open completely to the potential for holiness and unholiness to travel certain directions, right? Just to understand which direction unholiness travels and which direction holiness, let's say, doesn't travel. Now let me share something with you that I believe can help you when you read the prophets and even not just help you appreciate them but even find them a little more enjoyable. So we do this with the epistles, like if we're reading Romans or Ephesians, we'll consider who Paul wrote this to in kind of the context for that church and we really should apply

19:47that same principle to the prophets. So what I mean by that is you get a lot more out of your reading of the prophets if you consider who the prophets talking to and why he's saying to them what exactly he's saying. And we can start doing it with this very verses, with these very verses. So here's what I mean. We should be asking ourselves, let's read this, why is Haggai talking to these people about holiness? Why is he preaching to them? Why is his third message about how holiness and unholiness are or are not transmitted? Now before I answer that, I want to kind of share an illustration from my life that I believe will set up the answer to this. So I think you all know that I was or most of you, unless you're new, know I was raised in the Catholic church, which in many respects is a pretty superstitious religion. And what I mean by that is like, so I was growing up and on my headboard, I had a collection of rosaries, some of them are nicer than others and there's kind of this belief that the

20:52fancier, maybe more expensive, that rosary is than sort of like the better rosary it'll be. And in this compartment of my headboard, I also had a few gifts that I had been given when I made my first communion and when I was confirmed. And so that was like my little religious compartment. And I had it on my headboard, verses on my desk that was on the other side of the room, because I had this belief that like the closer these things are to me than what? Yeah, the greater potential for the holiness of those things to like be transmitted to me. I'm not joking. And so keep these things close and then there's a chance of you becoming holier as it makes you the holiness moves toward you. And that's just one example, but there were other things in our home like that too, the crucifixes that we had, there's that same sort of superstition with that, the statues we had of saints or pictures of saints or Mary and the believe, you know, we even have

21:55bibles, have you ever been to some people's home and they have like the coffee table in the living room and there's like this huge Bible sitting on it and it's kind of like always open to the same place. So it's not really a Bible you'd ever use because it's like 47 pounds. Okay, and you couldn't read something like that. So why do you have this, why would you have this Bible there because the Bible's the purpose is to read it? Well, it's decorative, right? And if they're not reading it, then kind of the belief is, well, if I've got this here in this, and I'm not saying people shouldn't have a decorative Bible in their home, that's not my point. But I am saying, so don't, if you have one, you know, you don't have to go home and get rid of it or something like that. But hopefully you have another Bible that you're reading, assuming you're not reading that one. And I'm just super stitious belief that if we have these holy things around us, then that holiness is going to be transmitted to us. Well, I share all that because I think that's what's happening with these Jews. And I think that's why Hagia, I had to preach this message to them because we're asking,

22:57we should ask why Hagia preached in this message. Well, here's what I think's going on. Where did these, the Jews who have this message preached to them are Andrew, Salam, rebuilding the temple, but where have they been for decades before this? They had, yep, they'd been in exile, in Babylon, Babylon was conquered by the Persians. You could have said that these Jews have been in Babylon or they've been in Persian, which is about as unholy, if we're talking about holiness, or about as unholy or unclean as you can get, right? Babylon and Persia, super ungodly places. So now these Jews are back in the holy land and they are probably thinking that being in the holy land is going to do what? Yeah, make them holy, okay? And what do they happen to be working on? They're working on the holy temple. So they're probably tempted to believe that if they're working on the holy temple in the holy land, that some of this holiness is going to be transmitted to them and they're

24:00going to be holy through the land that they're in and through the work that they're doing. Plus, if you don't remember, there's no problem, but when we're in Ezra, we saw that before they laid the foundation of the temple, they first built the altar, which was a great thing for them to do. So they've been offering sacrifices. They've been offering, let's say, holy sacrifices on a holy altar. And they're probably thinking that they're holy sacrifices on this holy altar in the holy land while they're working on the holy temple is making them holy, but it doesn't. Those things didn't make them holy or any more than my rosaries and crucifixes made me holy growing up. If you don't believe me, take a look at verse 14. Haggai answered and said to them, so it is with this people, this is connected to verse 13, so it means everything the people touch is unclean. He says, so it is with this people, everything they touch is unclean.

25:03With this nation before me declares the Lord and so with every work of their hands and what they offer there, what they offer at the sacrifice, the offerings or the sacrifices on the altar are also unclean. So this, I think, would have been a pretty brutal thing for these Jews to hear. So they're kind of listening to the questions from Haggai about transmission and it's all been about food and stew and touching dead bodies and then it's like Haggai just turns and he says, just as there's uncleanness when you touch a dead body, so it is with these people, even your sacrifices are unholy because you're unholy and everything you come in contact with is made unholy. I think that would have been a pretty shocking thing for them to hear and probably very eye-opening had they been thinking, which is my suspicion, that they're holy because of being in the land and working on the holy temple and so forth. But I believe it taught them and it teaches us something really important and this brings

26:03us to lesson three. Religious activity cannot make us holy. Religious activity cannot make us holy. Now, because this kind of sounds like a rebuke to these people, we might be tempted to think, oh, maybe they're like super-engolvy people or something like that or even sort of privately look down on them. But I want you to remember something about these people. These are the Jews, the two or three percent who are willing to leave their lives and families and businesses and homes in Babylon to take this, I think it was a 900-mile four-month trip across the Middle East to get back to Jerusalem and what was Jerusalem like when they returned there. Pretty much like a desolate wasteland. It's overgrown. There's wild animals that are threats to them. I can't even say a city without walls because there wasn't even a city at that point.

27:05That's one of the messages was they had to rebuild their homes and God says, okay, well, now it's time to give more attention to my home. So they had to go back and engage in this incredible building project, but they were willing to do that because of their hearts for the Lord. So these were really serious committed people. They're the people who earlier heard one sermon in chapter one and in 23 days were willing to go back to earth. They had started neglecting the temple for 16 years and after one sermon they had such sensitive hearts to the Lord that they went right back to work. Chapter 1 verse 12 says, they obeyed the voice of the Lord. They feared the Lord. So God isn't rebuking ungodly rebels here. He's telling these, at this point, obedient, hardworking, sacrificing people that their obedience, their hard work and their sacrifice cannot produce what only God can give, which is holiness.

28:07Now if it was true that religious activity could produce holiness, then, you know, Mormons your hope is, witnesses the cults would all be holy as well. Holiness or set of partners is only something that the Lord himself can produce in our lives. Okay, hold on a bit for now. I think with me about the application that we can see. If we put ourselves around holy things, then some of that holiness will rub off on us. Is our common, but wrong belief? We think being in this building, being on the church cleaning schedule, sitting in the service, serving in a ministry, giving, being raised in a Christian home. All those things, important, wonderful, kind of like Kirk was saying during the communion devotion, those are outpourings of our faith. We do these things. We labor for the Lord not to be saved, but because we are saved, these are aspects of our worship, motivated by grateful, thankful hearts to the Lord.

29:10But as important as those things are, they do not sanctify us. They cannot make us holy. Now I'll tell you something that bothers me about Haggai a bit. I don't want to sound like I'm criticizing them because I know the Lord is speaking through him. Maybe I'll say like this. Something that bothers me about the way that this looks at first to be presented. So I don't mind people that come to me with problems. And I think you're all the same. You don't want it to be a pastor to feel this way. I don't mind people that come to me with problems. I don't even mind people that come to me with problems that don't have the solutions. I just mind people that come with problems that don't want to help. So if you come with a problem, even if you know the answer of the solution, at least be willing to offer to help. Well the reason that I mention that is that's kind of what I was thinking when I was reading these verses because it's like Haggai comes with this problem. We're not going to read the next verses until next sermon, but there's actually no solution.

30:13Haggai presents the problem to these people. He doesn't tell them what the solution is. He doesn't tell them what they can do to fix this. He presents the problem without telling them how this can be remedied in their life. And so to me, he kind of looks like that person who comes and criticizes or presents the problem, but doesn't help you figure out what to do. Okay. Well why is that? Well I've told you a couple times that Haggai and Zechariah are contemporaries. So Haggai Zechariah and Malachai are the three post-exilic prophets. They're the three prophets after the Jews returned from exile. Well Haggai and Zechariah are contemporaries, which is to say that they're prophesying at the same time, even though we're in the book of Haggai and people, Zechariah is preaching to them at the same time. Malachai doesn't come for decades later. Okay. Let me put up another slide that's going to show you their ministry so you can understand where I think the solution actually came from.

31:15Okay. So here we go. Look up there with me. So Haggai and Zechariah contemporaries. Haggai's first message, August 29th, 520 BC. His second message, Haggai II, beginning in Haggai II, was October 17th, 520 BC. Now look at Zechariah. Zechariah 1-1 gives us the date of Zechariah as ministry in October and November of 520 BC, which is the same time that Haggai is prophesying. Now Haggai II X, that's December 18th, 520 BC, ask the priest about the law. And then Zechariah 1-7 says February 15th, 519 BC. So that's just two months later. So here's what I think is happening. Haggai presents the problem. The people are forced to think about the problem for about two months because then Zechariah preaches to them the solution. So Haggai presents the problem. He doesn't give the solution because his contemporary Zechariah gives the solution to them.

32:21I want to show you that solution from Zechariah. I want you to see what Zechariah said to them so the people know how to fix the problem that Haggai introduced. So turn basically just a couple chapters to the right because Zechariah is the next turn to Zechariah 3. Zechariah follows Haggai. So I think it's like just four chapters in your Bible to get to Zechariah 3. So Haggai preaches this message December 18th. The people are forced to think about their unholyness or uncleanness and how that's going to be remedied, how they're going to be rid of this uncleanness or how they're going to be clean. And then I think Zechariah comes and preaches the answer to them two months later February 15th, 519 BC. You might remember, so we did look at Zechariah before because some of the overlap between their ministries. Do you remember we were in Zechariah 4 and that was the vision Zechariah received of

33:23the menorah, the lampstand with the two olive trees next to it, and the abundant supply of oil going into, do you guys remember that? Tell me you do, I don't want to have to go back and preach that again, okay? So that's Zechariah 4, that was the vision of the lampstand. And so Zechariah had eight visions and that was the fifth one, I believe. The vision of the lampstand is the fifth of Zechariah's eight visions. Right now we're going to look at Zechariah's fourth vision. So look in Zechariah 3 with me. Oh and one, two other things to remember. Zechariah speaks in the first person as he shares the visions that he saw. You might remember that from when we were in Zechariah 4 and the other thing is his visions are confusing, some of them are very confusing. And he's very graciously kind of giving an angel that serves as a guide to help Zechariah interpret the visions that he's given. So that's what a vision is. So we have dreams and a vision is something that is given by God to communicate spiritual

34:28truths and Zechariah has given all these visions and then he preaches these visions to the people and we're looking at the fourth one now. So Zechariah 3, look in verse 1 with me. So he, this is the angel that's with Zechariah, the angel showed me Joshua the High Priest standing before the angel of the Lord and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. Now here's some of the super important. This same Joshua we're looking at here because Hagia and Zechariah are contemporaries is the same Joshua the High Priest that we've been reading about in Hagia and when we went to, when we went to Ezra. So this is the same Joshua that we're familiar with who is the High Priest of the people who is the spiritual leader of the Jews during the rebuilding who's kind of the spiritual counterpart to, to Zarebabel who would be the political leader of the people. And it's, so it's pretty wild what Zechariah saw here that Joshua the High Priest so is

35:33being accused by Satan. Okay, so let's see what's next. The Lord who responds to Satan's accusations. Verse 2. The Lord said to Satan, the Lord rebuke you, O Satan, the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you. Is not this referring to Joshua a brand plucked from the fire. Now if you remember when we were in Hagia 2 6 through 9, we looked at Genesis 22, we looked at a few places in the Old Testament, you don't remember everything. We looked at a few places in the Old Testament that showed us that the angel of the Lord is who, the angel of the Lord is who. Yes, well said, the pre-incarnate Christ, Christophany, an appearance of Christ in the Old Testament. We know the angel of the Lord is God and we were able to see that the end of the Lord is actually the pre-incarnate Christ which is why you see this individual throughout the

36:36Old Testament. He's super important and suddenly the New Testament is like where did he go? Well he, God became a man and the person of Jesus Christ, the angel of the Lord became a man and the person of Jesus Christ who see him throughout the New Testament as Christ himself. So it looks to me like this is who that is. The scene to the Lord who's interceding here for Joshua. And I want you to notice what he calls him. He calls him a brand or stick plucked from the fire which kind of gives the impression that he's about to be consumed by the flames, right? Well in plucking Joshua or this brand from the fire like at the last moment, do you understand that's what the Lord does every time he saves someone? Do you understand that without that, all of us would be a brand, plucked or a brand consumed by the fire if we weren't plucked from it? And so what's being described here for Joshua is the same thing that occurs when all of

37:38us are delivered or ransomed from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. Where every time God reaches down and saves one of us, we're all essentially a brand that's plucked from the fire. Now look at verse 3. Joshua is standing before the angel. He's clothed with filthy garments. So we're talking about uncleanness and this is about as unclean as you can get, right? Now in scripture what a garments represent because this is not a to learn about laundry, right? What a garments represent in scripture. Righteousness, someone said it, that's exactly right. What are garments are a metaphor or picture or type of an individual's righteousness or unrighteousness? So to say that Joshua is clothed and filthy garments is not to give any sort of description of how he looked physically. In fact, because he's the high priest, if you've ever read about the high priest garments,

38:38physically speaking how to Joshua probably look. About his exquisite or about as holy as an individual could look, right? From a spiritual perspective, which is to say from God's perspective, how does Joshua look? Is filthy or is unclean as an individual? So there's definitely two perspectives. The physical one, Joshua looks great. Spiritual one, he looks terrible. In the parable and just see you, there's a whole bunch of examples I could give you in scripture of garments being a picture or type of righteousness, but I'll just give you one that I think is the clear. So listen to this. In the parable of the wedding feast with the wedding feast being a metaphor for heaven, there's an individual that decides he's going to show up at this wedding feast and he's not going to wear the right clothes for it. So you go to a wedding, you don't just wear your old dirty, filthy clothes, you're going to wear appropriate clothing, and this is the king's son's wedding. And this describes a man who thought that he could just show up wearing whatever he wanted. Matthew 22-11. When the king came in to look at the guests, he saw a man who had no wedding garment.

39:42The king had actually provided the garments that all the guests were supposed to wear. And this guy decided he wasn't going to wear it. So the king said to him, friend, so notice the king's pretty nice at first. He calls him friend. How did you get in here without a wedding garment? The man was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness in that place. There I'll be weaving and gnashing of teeth. So think about this. He's in the wedding feast. I mean talk about a holy place to be. These with all of these other attendees who are saved people, all these other holy people, none of it made him righteous because he was still clothed. There, in other words, their holiness or their righteousness did not rub off on him. It didn't help him whatsoever. None of it made him holy or righteous. And this illustrates what happens to people who try to or believe that they're going to enter heaven in their own garments or in their own righteousness.

40:42This parable is four people who think that they're going to be good enough to get into heaven on their own. No matter how righteous they believe they are, or even no matter how righteous they might look from a physical or earthly perspective, from God's perspective, they're still completely filthy and have no place attending this wedding. Now I'll tell you what's absolutely shocking about this. Ezra, and by this, I mean, let me tell you what's absolutely shocking about Joshua the High Priest looking so filthy right here. Ezra too tells us that about 50,000 Jews returned from exile to rebuild the temple. So out of that 50,000 Jews, we can assume that there's probably a handful of them who, they're not all, you know, the greatest, most righteous individuals in history. Even though they made the trip, we can assume there's probably some of this 50,000, even just a few of them who look pretty bad, who are ungodly people. Well, wouldn't it make sense if it's one of those people that's being described here?

41:51But who's being described here instead? Joshua the High Priest, the one man in the entire nation who, more than anyone else, looked what? Holy. There isn't, there is not a holier man than him. I don't, I don't just mean in the promise line, I'm in the world or like in human history. And here's what I mean. He's a Jew, so he's already part of the holy nation or the nation that God set apart. He's the High Priest, so he's the holiest man in the holiest nation, and he's wearing the priestly garments which were like the holiest clothes you could wear. So you just don't get holier than Joshua. But from heaven's perspective, he still looks what? Filthy. There's nobody that, and if Joshua looks filthy, how do you think you guys look? How do I look? We all look terribly filthy compared to God's perfect standard.

42:56Now look at one of the most beautiful pictures of salvation in Scripture. You'd be hard pressed to find one better than this. You might underline it, circle it, come back to it just to be refreshed by it, because this is exactly what happens with every believer, looking verse four. The angel said to those who were standing before him, remove these filthy garments from him. And to him he said to Joshua, he said, behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vessels. Every time I read this, it's a great encouragement to me, because this is what transpired in my life when I got saved. This right here, we just read, is exactly what the Lord did for me when He saved me. He took away my filthy garments. He took away my unrighteousness. He took away all my sin and rebellion and wickedness in me, and He clothed me in perfectly clean pure garments. He clothed me with the very righteousness of Christ Himself.

43:56So Haggai, so put this together, Haggai says these people are unclean, Zechariah shows them and us how to be clean, and I just want you to notice how it didn't work. The angel didn't say Joshua, you're filthy, go get cleaned up and come back. He didn't say Joshua, you need to work harder and then return to me. Joshua, go get all this garbage out of your life, and then you'll be good enough. Instead, the angel of the Lord did everything for him because it's a picture of the gospel, and the Lord did everything for us to be saved. And this brings us to lesson four. God takes our uncleanness and gives us his righteousness. God takes our uncleanness and gives us his righteousness. Have you ever heard what you contributed to your salvation?

44:57The sin then necessitated you being saved. So the only thing that you have ever contributed to your salvation is the sin that necessitated Christ going to the cross to die for you, for you to be saved. And there's a perfect illustration of that here. What did Joshua contribute? What did Joshua do? He didn't even speak. He just stood there. He did absolutely nothing. He contributed nothing to the salvation that he just received except the filth and necessitated putting clean clothes on him. Second Corinthians 521, for our sake, he made him who knew no sin to be sinned for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. This is a perfect picture of second Corinthians 521, and what I consider to be classic double imputation. If you want an Old Testament example or illustration of double imputation, this is it. Christ taking our unrighteousness or sin from us upon himself and then clothing us in his own righteousness or giving us his garments to serve as our righteousness.

46:02Now skip to verse 8. I've been talking a lot about Christ and now you get to see him. He comes into view here. Verse 8. Here now, O Joshua, the High Priest, you and your friends who sit before you for their men who are assigned and then here it is. Behold what does behold always mean? Like pay attention, take notice, right? Behold I will bring my servant to branch. Who is the servant God's branch? That's Christ. So if you're riding your bike, you can circle branch or the branch, draw line or write by Jesus. So God told Joshua and all those with him that he's going to send his son, this is a prophecy about Christ being sent, and in verse 9, look what he's going to do when he is sent. Behold on the stone that I've set before Joshua on a single stone with seven eyes, I wish I had time to go over all this with you, but we've got to get to the end of the verse. All in Gravitt's inscription declares Lord of Host and the notices.

47:04I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day. So God says I'm going to send my branch or I'm going to send it up branch, and this is what the branch is going to do. He's going to remove the iniquity of the land in a single day. So let's connect the dots here. Haggai says, every single thing you touch is unclean and filthy, even the holy sacrifices you give have become unholy because you touch them. Haggai says I'm going to remove all the uncleanness in one day, and this is looking forward to Christ dying on the cross, right? But I want you to see how that day of Christ taking away our uncleanness was foreshadowed earlier through Jesus' earthly ministry. So you're in Zechariot turn to Mark 1. So what would that be? Malachai, Matthew, a few books ahead to Mark 1.

48:04Because throughout Jesus' earthly ministry, he kept taking away uncleanness and introducing cleanness, taking away the uncleanness and introducing or imputing cleanness. So Mark 140. And while you turn there, I want you to remember what the priest told Haggai. Under the law, let's just kind of brief review because this all connects back to Haggai. So let's remember what we heard at the beginning of the sermon, under the law, when the clean touches the unclean, the clean becomes unclean, right? And the other side of this, when the unclean touches the clean, the clean becomes unclean. So I want you to watch what happens when Jesus, Jesus who embodies holiness and cleanness comes into contact with uncleanness. Now, if I said to you, who embodies uncleanness, an earthly person, can we all agree a leper

49:13is like the picture of that? What are, I mean, who else runs around declaring unclean unclean about themselves, okay? What leper has to say when they're traveling and they come in contact with anyone? They literally yell out unclean unclean. So as much as Christ is the embodiment of cleanness or holiness, a leper is the embodiment of uncleanness or unholiness. Now keeping in mind what should happen according to the law, look at verse 40. A leper came to Jesus, imploring him, kneeling said to him, if you will, you can make me clean. Now according to the law, as we saw with Hagia's first question, what should happen with this leper? He should make people unclean. People do not make him clean, but with Christ, look at verse 41. Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand, he touched him and said to him, I will,

50:15I am willing, be clean. And immediately the leprosy left him and he was made clean. And I want you to fully understand what you're seeing here. This is about Christ's superiority to the law. You're looking at an incredible demonstration of Jesus's superiority to the law or Jesus' ability to do with the law cannot do. And this brings us to lesson five. The law cannot cleanse, but Jesus can. Okay, tons of confusion about the purpose of the law or the Ten Commandments. Go out and ask any unbeliever the purpose of the Ten Commandments or the purpose of God's law and they're going to tell you that it helps you be saved or allows you to be saved or allows you to be clean enough because when you follow it well enough you get to go to heaven, right?

51:16Wrong. That is the complete opposite purpose of all. Listen to this, Romans 3.20. By works of the law no human being will be justified or declared righteous in God's sight. Sensor because through the law comes knowledge of sin. Through the law comes knowledge of sin. Do you know what, so let me just make this real something. Do you know what the law does? The law goes around saying unclean unclean unclean unclean unclean unclean unclean unclean all the law does is point out or declare our uncleanness. That's it. The law tells everybody they're unclean as they see how far short they fall from keeping it perfectly. The law does not cleanse anybody. The law cannot save. Nobody has ever been saved by the law except for Jesus. So the law is declaring our uncleanness. And according to the law when Jesus touches the leper he should have become unclean. And because Jesus is superior to the law he reaches out touches the leper and not only does Jesus not become unclean he actually makes the leper clean.

52:19So this account with the leper answers Hagiai's first question. But if you remember Hagiai's second question wasn't about leprosy it was about a dead body. So now turn to the right to mark five. And we'll wrap up with this. So we've seen Christ with Hagiai's first question. Now let's see Christ's superiority to Hagiai's second question. Here's the context. Mark will pick up Mark 535. But the context is that Jesus is a ruler of the synagogue and his daughter is dying. And he comes to Jesus and begs him to help. And while Jesus is on the way to help Jesus's daughter there's actually another great picture of what we're talking about. There's this woman with this discharge of blood for years. So this woman's been unclean for years and unable to participate in the religious life of the nation because of this discharge of blood.

53:22And she comes up to Jesus from behind and she touches them. Does that remember what happened? What should have happened when she touched Jesus? She should have become unclean and instead she's healed, she becomes clean. And while Jesus is with this woman, guess what happens with Jesus's daughter? She dies. Okay, now look at verse 35. While Jesus was still speaking, this means to the woman who is bleeding. There came from the ruler's house some who said your daughter is dead. Basically she passed away while Jesus terried with this woman. Don't trouble to teach her any further. Here's this daughter, die, look at verse 41 to see what Jesus does. Mark 541, taking her by the hand, Jesus said to her, to letha coomhe which means little girl, I say to you, arise. Verse 42, immediately the girl got up and began walking for she's 12 years of age and they were immediately overcome with amazement. Again, Jesus, remember the Roman centurion came to Jesus and said, you don't need enough

54:26to come to my home. I mean talk about, and that's why Jesus was amazed by his faith. I was about to say talk about amazing faith, that's actually what Jesus said about the Roman centurion. He said, I haven't seen faith like this even in Israel and now I see it among her from a Roman centurion because the Roman centurion said, don't trouble yourself. You don't have to come under my roof. You can heal my servant with a word. And he could. So the leper, Jesus didn't have to touch the leper. I think he did because he's being compassionate because that leper probably hadn't been touched by anyone for years, but also to show his superiority to the law in touching that man. And here with this girl, he doesn't have to touch her. What was it that brought her back to life? It seems the words that he spoke. He touches her anyway, taking her by the hand. And if you put Hagiai's question in Mark's statement side by side, Hagiai asked about someone who's unclean by contact with a dead body. Mark says Jesus took this dead body by the hand, but not only did Jesus not become unclean, he literally takes the death from her and imputes life into her.

55:32And this is exactly what Jesus does for everyone who comes to him. He takes away our spiritual death and he gives us spiritual life. So take your mind back to the two questions one more time. Hagiai says, does clean make unclean clean? And the law says no. But Jesus touches the leper, the leper he leaves. Hagiai says does unclean make unclean unclean in the law says yes, but Jesus touches the dead body by the hand and she gets up and walks. So Jesus shows his superiority to the law by reversing what the law said in both directions. So let me conclude where we started. Thirty healthy students can never make one sick student well and in the same way a sanctuary full of believers can never take an unbeliever and make them a believer. We have never caught physical health and we will never catch holiness. Not from this building, not from our family, not from our service, not from our giving, not from our very best day, but there's one person in all of history who's able to touch

56:35what's unclean and make it clean without becoming unclean himself. And Christ's desire to do that has not changed. The same desire that Christ had in the gospels, in his day when he's doing this is the same desire that he has today. So if you've never come to Christ and asked him to spiritually do for your soul what he physically did for people's bodies, do not here leave here without doing it. And then the last thing, I hope you got this from this account, you should not be trying to clean yourself up before coming to Christ. That should be one thing that we can see here that we cannot clean ourselves up. That is one thing that this passage has taught us that we cannot do. That cleansing can only come from Christ. Amen. Father, thank you for your word and sending your son the branch to take away a naked in one day as he did on that cross and thank you for the cleansing that he accomplishes in our lives at that moment of salvation. And so we praise you for Christ the work he did, a work that we would never be able to do

57:35in our own lives, that he takes our unrighteousness from us. He's willing to have an imputed to his account and then take his perfect righteousness and impute it to our account. So we thank you for his superiority to the law. We see how the law just declares uncleaness it never makes, it never cleanses itself. We can't follow it well enough to be clean but we thank you for sending your son to do what the law can never do. And we pray all this in his name. Amen.