Priorities: They Matter

by Pastor CW Mayberry

In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, saying, 
This people says, “The time has not come, the time that the LORD’s house should be built.” 

Haggai 1:1-2

This is a people who had returned to the land from which their fathers had been cast out. The disobedience of these people caused them to be removed from the land of promise, the land of covenant. 

Life was to be a relationship with the God that had taken men who were slaves in Egypt and made them a free nation under Yehovah.

Life was to be filled with blessings and increase in every aspect of life. All of this was built on the foundation of a covenant relationship.

Prioritize the Sabbath Day – Remember it and Keep it Holy

​¹ And the LORD spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, ² “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a sabbath to the LORD. ³ Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather its fruit;
⁴ but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath to the LORD. You shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard. ⁵ What grows of its own accord of your harvest you shall not reap, nor gather the grapes of your untended vine, for it is a year of rest for the land. ⁶ And the sabbath produce of the land shall be food for you: for you, your male and female servants, your hired man, and the stranger who dwells with you, ⁷ for your livestock and the beasts that are in your land—all its produce shall be for food.

Leviticus 25:1-7

The Sabbath in all its forms is a prefiguring of the second coming. It is a representation of the promise of Yehovah to bring the world back into order and to undo the sins of Adam and all mankind.

The individual who does not honor the will of God concerning the Sabbath brings a curse upon themselves. Their very lifestyle speaks of their rebellion against the God of creation.

Perhaps they are just ignorant?

Perhaps they are, but men are waking up to the reality of the Sabbath every day all over this planet.

It has and is becoming the biggest question in all Christian denominations. Humanity won’t be able to claim ignorance much longer.

Israel is the showcase nation. They are the window into the will of God. They have been used to demonstrate the blessing of obedience as well as the consequences of rebellion.

These people returned from Babylon, but they retained Babylon in their hearts and minds.

Are Your Priorities God’s Priorities? They Should Be

This people says, “The time has not come, the time that the LORD’s house should be built.

 Haggai 1:2

It was the rebellion of their forefathers that caused them to become captives in another land, the subjects of another kingdom. You would think they would have considered their circumstances as they came back into the land. You would think they would have sought to correct the error and insult of those who went before them, but they did not.

³ Then the word of the LORD came by Haggai the prophet, saying, ⁴ “Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?” ⁵ Now therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts: “Consider your ways!

Haggai 1:3-5

The house of God and the ways of God, His Sabbaths and moedim should be the center of life for all people but especially for all those who claim to be the children of God.

These people thought more of their personal circumstances than they did the welfare and condition of the house of God. Not so much the brick and mortar, but the degree to which they were involved in its function as the center of life.

Are your priorities God’s priorities? They should be.

Yehovah Prioritizes the Sabbath

The words, the customs, and the culture of the kingdom and the temple are the source from which every good thing in life flows.

⁶ “You have sown much, and bring in little;
You eat, but do not have enough;
You drink, but you are not filled with drink;
You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm;
And he who earns wages,
Earns wages to put into a bag with holes.”
⁷ Thus says the LORD of hosts: “Consider your ways!

Haggai 1:6-7

Yehovah prioritizes the Sabbath and all the forms of worship they contain as being the first priority under all circumstances for all people.

The abandonment of the Sabbath and the Lord of the Sabbath for the satisfaction of our own desires has led us to the chaos we see in the world today. Perhaps we should consider our ways.

⁸ Go up to the mountains and bring wood and build the temple, that I may take pleasure in it and be glorified,” says the LORD.

Haggai 1:8

The Clock is Ticking – Get Your Priorities Straight

We are living at the close of human history. We are living at the end of man’s attempt to rule himself and be his own God. We are teetering on the edge of our own destruction.

It is time to put away our own desires and inquire as to what the will of God is in this world. It is time to return and build the house of God once more – Not the religions that men and demons have created in the name of God, but a faith of belief built on the covenant that Yehovah Himself has set forth.

It is time that the first thought on our minds should be the digging out of the old ways, a return to the old paths.

This is a difficult reality for all. When you come to realize almost everything you have been taught about God, His word and His will is a lie it shakes your very foundation.

You realize you must strip away the practices of a false religious system. Sobriety sets in and you understand all the holidays you have celebrated all your life have been sacrifices to demons.

But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. 

1 Corinthians 10:20

You Cannot Divorce the Old Testament From the New

³ Who is left among you who saw this temple in its former glory? And how do you see it now? In comparison with it, is this not in your eyes as nothing?

Haggai 2:3

Standing in that crowd were young men and women who had never seen the temple that Soloman built. No doubt they were excited about the rebuilding of the house of God.

There were also people standing there that were old enough to have seen the original. They were weeping because they understood all that the sins of their fathers cost them. They understood that a rebuilt temple would not begin to approach the glory of the first.

⁶ “For thus says the LORD of hosts: Once more (it is a little while) I will shake heaven and earth, the sea and dry land; ⁷ and I will shake all nations, and they shall come to the Desire of All Nations, and I will fill this temple with glory,’ says the LORD of hosts.

Haggai 2:6-7

These verses signify a change of focus. We are now looking at prophetic language. I might add that this is why it is absolute folly to attempt to divorce the Old Testament from the New. The prophets still speak of days yet unfulfilled.

²⁹Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:

Matthew 24:29

Put Your Priorities into Action

⁹ The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former,’ says the LORD of hosts. ‘And in this place I will give peace,’ says the LORD of hosts.”

Haggai 2:9

The fact of the matter is that the second temple never even began to approach the glory of the first. Even the additions of later generations did not come close.

The truth is that the house Yehovah is speaking of will not be seen until the second coming. It is not a house of stone and cedar, of gold and silver.

It is a house built of living stones gathered from every generation and precisely crafted by the hands of God. It is a habitation built for God constructed of the souls and spirits of men and women who have given themselves solely to the establishment of the worship of the God of the Sabbath.

It is time to begin to build again the ruined places. It is time to pour out our lives for the purpose of God in this world. Every other human endeavor will be consumed at the coming of the  Messiah.

Perhaps in any other generation there may have been room for such things but we are living in the final years of human history. What greater objective could there be for your life?

Abandon it all and throw your whole being into the fight. Spend everything, bankrupt your today for that tomorrow, and pour out your alabaster box on the king and his will.