The Christian life begins with “repentance,” which means a change of heart, one that results in a change of attitudes, actions and lifestyle. It is not enough to be sorry for our sins; we must repent. This means we do an about-face, not living for evil human desires but instead living for the will of God. Our greatest ambition should be to do the will of God’s. His will for all His children is their sanctification. Being sanctified means we daily become more and more holy or set apart for our Heavenly Father. We should abstain from worldly sinful pleasures. The Hebrew children of God were not behaving as the children of God so the Lord brought hardship upon them. The phrase “ye turned not to me” means God did not see their repentance. God promises a harvest of blessing to come after they change. Are you living an unsaved life as a save Christian? I remember my first encounter with this conviction that God used to test my walk with Him.

I grew up in the Philadelphia area during the seventies. Before I was saved and I’ll repeat that…I would frequent Rexy’s Tavern with some of my friends that I worked with. We would go there after our evening shift at work. It was not unusual for the whole Philadelphia Flyer’s team to be there and it got very popular because fans knew Rexy’s was where you could catch the “Broad Street Bullies”. They won the Stanley Cup for three consequence years. The whole nation was very proud of our Flyers who became nationally famous when the Flyers took on the Soviet Red Army team in January of 1976 an earned a convincing 4-1 victory. They were the only NHL team to do so. It would be nice to beat them now!

There were too many late nights wasted at Rexy’s and I mean wasted. However, when I got saved I was convicted to stop going there. I knew God wanted me to live my life as a believer. But we all make excuses to live in the world just as the Israelites did during Haggai times. My friends would say, “Let’s go to Rexy’s and at first I would make the excuse I was just going there with the hope of getting a Philadelphia Flyer’s autograph like Bernie Parent, Bobby Clark, Dave “the hammer” Schultz, Bill Barber, or Barry Ashbee.

Unfortunately, I could never get close enough to get any players signature. God never afforded me that prize… When I think back to those days I would have been better off asking the loud mouth bartender Bruno for his autograph. At least he might have signed a napkin or something and today I would have a memento of Bruce Willis’s autograph.
I stop going I knew God was withholding blessings and just being there never felt right and no excuse could remove God’s conviction. I don’t ever regret that decision because…

I. Obedience affords God’s Blessings vv. 15-19

1. Haggai picks up the theme that he hammered home in the first chapter as once again we’re told to “give careful thought.” This is really the major message of the book and is unique to Haggai, occurring five times in two chapters: in 1:5, in 1:7, in 2:15 and twice in 2:18.”Consider your ways, idiomatically it means, “To lay your heart on the road.” The Hebrew phrase is literally “put your heart on your roads.” Haggai asks God’s people to consider what direction their life is headed, and if they really want it to continue that way. The New Living Translation puts it like this: “Look at what’s happening to you!”

2. Let’s look at verse 15: ‘He is saying give careful consideration to this from this day on and considers how things were before one stone was laid on another in the Lord’s temple.’ Haggai is asking them to carefully consider how life was working out with the Lord not at the center of it.
For almost two decades, they focused only on themselves and things fell apart. In verse 16 he says “When one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were only ten. When one went to a wine vat to draw fifty measures, there were only twenty.” The grain harvest was down 50% and the grape harvest was down 60%. God brought His chastening because they were pursuing wrong things. God was not blessing and he won’t amidst sin and disobedience.

3. Now note in verse 17 God tells the priest that He was behind this: “I struck all the work of your hands with blight, mildew and hail…” The blight came from the east winds that whipped out of the desert. Mildew came from the moist Mediterranean winds to the west. And hail came down from heaven which crushed what was left of the crops. The chastening hand of God bringing blows against the Jews. But always it is the sovereign mighty hand of God…whether for deliverance, for testing or for chastening,

4. In verse 18, the people are told to give careful thought: “From this day on, from this twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, give careful thought to the day when the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid. Give careful thought.” God was calling them to focus not on the time they had stopped working but to remember the day they got back to work.

Application:
We’re called to give careful thought about ourselves and our relationship to God. Is He withholding blessing or pouring them out. We see this in the last part of verse 17: “…yet you did not return to me,’ declares the Lord.” It’s interesting that even though their hands were back at work, their hearts were far away. They did not truly repent.

Repentance is one of the most positive of all words. To repent means to stop going one direction turn around completely, and to go in the opposite way. Repentance involves a decisive change of heart and course. God admonishes us to repent when the path we are taking will lead to our demise. The problem today is we think of repentance as some-thing negative. We have not repented if we continue in our sin!

Folks, listen a desire to change is not repentance or a hope to change. Hope defer making the hear sick, but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life. – (Proverbs 13:12) The Hebrew word for desire is “ta va’ wah” meaning distinctly good sense. The evidence of ones’ repentance is not words of resolve, but a changed life. How comforting that the Creator loves us enough to warn us of impending danger!

The issue is always the heart. (Romans 10:9, 10) Pride will stand in the way.
Warren Weirsbe once said, “One of the evidences of our pride is our impatience with God. One of the reasons for our suffering is that we might learn patience.” God has to teach us that.

II. The Reward of God’s Blessings vv.18-19

1. We see this in verse 19: “Is the seed yet in the barn? Until now, the vine and the fig tree, the pomegranate and the olive tree have not borne fruit…” There was not much seed in the barn because they had planted it in the ground, hoping for a harvest that would be bountiful. These four crops were essential to their economy and involved food (fig tree), drink (vine), fuel (olive tree), and dye (pomegranate).

2. We are blessed when we obey but we don’t always notice His blessings right away. After delaying the Temple work for 16 years the Jews had finally started to rebuild the temple. But they had a long way to go and their fields were still barren. It’s now the month of December and they won’t see any harvest until May or June. Just because you’ve returned to God doesn’t mean that He will take away all the consequences. Consequences do happen.
You can be forgiven but mistakes can still mess us up years later. Turning to God does not immediately undo the results of our rebellion. Some of you know exactly what I mean.

Application
God allows unpleasant things to happen to us that we might become humble. Because God empowers the humble, the obvious response should be to humble yourselves, therefore, as Peter stated in I Peter 5:6, under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you up in due time. The experiences that really humble us take time, a lot of time. A one-day problem doesn’t humble anyone. But, in due time, God’s time, the humble will be exalted or lifted up.

We humble ourselves under the hand of God. The mighty hand of God is an Old Testament symbol of God’s covering power, God’s controlling power, God’s sovereignty, God is in charge. The mighty hand of God is the hand of God in charge of you. That’s what it means.

Conclusion:

The prophecy of Haggai and the epistle of James have much in common. Faith without works is dead. Work is the measure of life. Both put the emphasis upon daily life and are lifestyle. Having a “do nothing” attitude is not pleasing to God he desires to see change in us because of His grace. Haggai message was practical. It was simple and factual.

The harvest will eventually come. The “Harvest Principle” is spelled out in Galatians 6:7-8:
“Be not be deceived: God is not mocked. or whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.