Haggai 2:10-19
March 14, 2021
preached by Pastor Ryan Bouton
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Guide for Home Worship

Time of Reflection Quotations

“Life … is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

~Macbeth, William Shakespeare

“It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.”

~The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it—always.”

~Mahatma Gandhi

“Despair is for people who know, beyond any doubt, what the future is going to bring. Nobody is in that position. So despair is not only a kind of sin, theologically, but also a simple mistake, because nobody actually knows. In that sense there is always hope.”

~Patrick Curry, Defending Middle-Earth: Tolkien: Myth and Modernity

“Let this support us when we feel ourselves bruised. Christ’s way is first to wound, then to heal. No sound, whole soul shall ever enter into heaven. Think when in temptation, Christ was tempted for me; according to my trials will be my graces and comforts. If Christ be so merciful as not to break me, I will not break myself by despair, nor yield myself over to the roaring lion, Satan, to break me in pieces.”

~Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed

“Puddleglum, they’ve said, ‘You’re altogether too full of bobance and bounce and high spirits …Now a job like this –a journey up north just as winter’s beginning looking for a prince that probably isn’t there, by way of ruined city nobody’s ever seen— will be just the thing. If that doesn’t steady a chap, I don’t know what will.”

~The Silver Chair, by C.S.

Sermon Passage

Haggai 2:10-19 (ESV)

¹⁰ On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet, ¹¹ “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Ask the priests about the law: ¹² ‘If someone carries holy meat in the fold of his garment and touches with his fold bread or stew or wine or oil or any kind of food, does it become holy?’” The priests answered and said, “No.” ¹³ Then Haggai said, “If someone who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean?” The priests answered and said, “It does become unclean.” ¹⁴ Then Haggai answered and said, “So is it with this people, and with this nation before me, declares the Lord, and so with every work of their hands. And what they offer there is unclean. ¹⁵ Now then, consider from this day onward. Before stone was placed upon stone in the temple of the Lord, ¹⁶ how did you fare? When one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were but ten. When one came to the wine vat to draw fifty measures, there were but twenty. ¹⁷ I struck you and all the products of your toil with blight and with mildew and with hail, yet you did not turn to me, declares the Lord. ¹⁸ Consider from this day onward, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month. Since the day that the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid, consider: ¹⁹ Is the seed yet in the barn? Indeed, the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have yielded nothing. But from this day on I will bless you.”