A Confidence in God’s Discipline and Dominion
June 23, 2024

A Confidence in God’s Discipline and Dominion

Preacher:
Series:
Passage: Haggai 2:20-23

Introduction
Tonight we’re going to be wrapping up our series through the book of Haggai. I’ll be reading the last four verses of Chapter 2. So if you a Bible, please turn with me, to Haggai, Chapter 2, near the end of the Old Testament. I’ll be reading from verse 20 to verse 23. But before I read the text, please pray with me.

[Pray and Read Text]

As I wrap up this series through Haggai this afternoon, I’ll work through three points. First, I’ll explain the Loving Discipline of God, which we’ve seen in Haggai leading up to this point. Second, I’ll explain the Global Judgment of God, referenced in verses 20 through 22. And third, I’ll explain the Chosen Servant of God, by unpacking verse 23.
The Loving Discipline of God
So first, the Loving Discipline of God. The man who wrote this book, Haggai, was sent by God to the people of Israel around 520 B.C., while they were under the rule of the Persian empire. Many, many years before this, God had established a special relationship with Israel, and had given the Jews their own, independent kingdom. But over the course of hundreds of years, they provoked God to anger by embracing evil lifestyles. They ignored His loving discipline when he tried to call them back. And so finally, God penalized that generation for their unbelief. He raised up the Babylonian Empire to attack the Jews in their capital city, Jerusalem. Thousands of people were carried away into captivity. Others were killed. The whole city, including the temple of God in its midst, was destroyed.

Yet even though this appeared to be the end of Israel, as a nation, and as a distinct people, God preserved a remnant. He opened up an opportunity for thousands of displaced Jews to return to Jerusalem, and to start rebuilding. As we saw earlier in Haggai, though, these people weren’t deeply committed to God. They were quickly distracted by their careers and household projects, and they started going through the motions when it came to anything religious.

As we’ve been looking at the book of Haggai, we’ve been able to see how God deals with the waywardness of his people. He disciplines them. In Proverbs 3, verse 12 – and again in Hebrews 12, verse 6, the Bible tells us that the Lord disciplines the one he loves. God’s discipline isn’t vindictive. He’s not retaliating against the people to do them harm. He’s disciplining them for their health, in order to help them. God’s discipline is aimed at instructing and restoring.

Here in Haggai, we’ve seen that God’s discipline takes different forms. It may show up in the form of life trials, like when God sent mildew, blight, and hail to turn the people from their self-reliance and spiritual apathy. Or it may take the form of verbal teaching or rebuke. When God sent his prophet, Haggai, to confront the people with God’s Word, this was an act of God’s loving discipline. And it’s evident from what we’ve seen over the past few weeks, that God’s discipline here wasn’t aimed at destroying or dehumanizing. It was aimed at rebuilding.

And it’s important for us to reflect on the way God disciplines his people in love, so that we ourselves can be equipped to understand and exercise discipline in a godly way. Because godly discipline is something good. It’s valuable for elders to exercise gentle-yet-firm discipline in the Church. It’s important for parents to exercise consistent and compassionate discipline in the home, with their children. God works through trials and timely words of truth to save and strengthen his people.

But a word of caution here: discipline can quickly become something ugly and offensive if we go about it wrongly. We shouldn’t be hasty to discipline. We shouldn’t discipline with violent emotion. We shouldn’t discipline with a desire to humiliate another person or to penalize them maliciously. God’s discipline is carried out with patience, with restraint, and with loving restoration in mind – and ours should look the same. Haggai shows us that godly discipline really is good for recovering and restoring human hearts.
The Global Judgment of God
But in our text this afternoon, God makes a distinction between the remnant of his people, and the rebellious kingdoms of the earth. Though his people will be refined and established through discipline, God promises here to overthrow the earth’s governments and kingdoms in judgment. This brings us to to my second point: The Global Judgment of God.

Verse 20 tells us that God spoke through Haggai a second time on December 18, 520 BC. And these words weren’t directed to all the people (like the other messages were). But this message was specifically for Zerubbabel, who had been made the governor of Judah.

Zerubbabel’s name literally means, “Seed of Babylon,” which indicates that he was born in Babylon. And because of this background, and his role as the governor of Judah, he was likely familiar with the splendor of foreign empires and their capital cities. He had probably seen military parades of the Babylonians and Persians. He probably had some sort of understanding of how huge these empires were – spanning the whole distance from India to Egypt. Compared to these powerful empires, it probably seemed to Zerubbabel that those God-fearing Jews under his care were in a very vulnerable, unstable position.

But notice what the Lord declares in verse 21. He tells Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, “I am about to shake the heavens and the earth, and to overthrow the throne of kingdoms. I am about to destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations, and overthrow the chariots and their riders. And the horses and their riders shall go down, every one by the sword of his brother.” God has already said something similar in Haggai 2, verses 6 and 7 – that he’ll shake the nations. The governments of the earth will be disrupted and overturned.

And when God speaks this way, he’s reminding Zerubbabel that every earthly kingdom is vulnerable and unstable. The great global superpower to be feared and respected – it isn’t Persia or Greece. It isn’t the USA or China or any earthly power. The Emperor of the world is God himself. It doesn’t matter how big a nation’s military is, how much money they have, how tall the fence is around their borders – when God shakes the heavens and the earth, all the kingdoms of the nations will be overthrown and destroyed.

God doesn’t take the time to mention specific crimes that the nations have committed against him. His purpose here isn’t to explain or defend his justice. Instead, God simply announces that this judgment is coming, because he wants to remind Zerubbabel that earthly power is an illusion, and we don’t need to fear it. He wants to encourage Zerubbabel, that the oppression and intimidation of earthly governments has an expiration date. We shouldn’t place our hope in the power of horses and chariots, or in the outcomes of elections, or in the future glory of our earthly nation. “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:14). Human governments will fail us, and they will fail period. The governments of this world will be shaken by the Almighty God, and we need to make sure that our life is built on something that won’t be shaken.
The Chosen Servant of God
And as it turns out, this text points us to something on the horizon that God’s people should be watching for, beyond the overthrow of worldly governments. In verse 23, God pledges, “On that day, I will take you, O Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtiel, declares the LORD, and I will make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you, declares the LORD of hosts.” And this brings me to my third and final point concerning the Chosen Servant of God.

Notice, here, God says that He won’t treat Zerubbabel the governor the same way that He’ll treat all the other kingdoms of the world. On that day when earthly kingdoms are shaken and overthrown, Zerubbabel will be made – the text says – like a signet ring, chosen by God. This probably raises a couple questions: What’s a signet ring? And when God says that he will make Zerubbabel like a signet ring, what does he mean?

Well, a signet ring was a special ring that had some sort of signature or symbol carved on it that was unique to the owner of each ring. When sending letters or sealing legal documents, a person could push his or her signet ring into hot wax on the document and leave the symbol from the ring in the wax. And since the imprint from the signet ring confirmed that those documents were truly, officially, approved by the owner of the ring, these rings were extremely valuable possessions – kind of like our credit cards or our social security numbers. And so people were protective of their signet rings, and were committed to keeping them secure. They were held close. They were always kept on-hand (quite literally, since they were rings).

And so by likening Zerubbabel to a signet ring, God is promising that he will hold Zerubbabel close, and keep him secure, even when the rest of the world is collapsing. And the fact that God makes this promise to Zerubbabel is significant for two reasons.

For one thing, Zerubbabel was in a position of authority. He was a leader and representative over God’s people at that time. And so he wasn’t the only one who benefited from this promise. The security of Zerubbabel, the governor, implied that the people under his care would share with him in this same security and stability from God.

But the second reason this promise made to Zerubbabel is significant is because Zerubbabel functions as a precursor to Jesus Christ. I want to be careful here to clarify, I’m not claiming that every Old Testament figure somehow foreshadows Jesus. But there are key figures in the Old Testament, especially godly prophets, priests, and kings in the Old Testament, who are intended by God to prefigure the coming of Christ.

And I’m convinced that Zerubbabel is one of these people. I mentioned when we started Haggai, that Zerubbabel was a descendent of the ancient King David. He’s part of the Jewish royal family. Zerubbabel is, by birthright, the rightful king of Israel. And if you follow the genealogies of Jesus in the New Testament, you’ll notice that Jesus Christ is descended from both King David and Zerubbabel – when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, he was born as the rightful King of the Jews.

Yet interestingly, both Zerubbabel and Jesus were born at a time when they were deprived of an earthly throne. Both of them were born at a time when the people were in exile, under the rule of a foreign kingdom. And just as Zerubbabel led the way in building this physical temple for the people to draw near to God, Jesus establishes a new and better temple, where God’s people can draw near for worship in spirit and in truth.

So as we consider that the promise made here to Zerubbabel wasn’t fulfilled in his lifetime, we should realize that God’s intent all along was to fulfill this promise in Jesus. God’s promise to hold Zerubbabel securely like his chosen, precious signet ring – it wasn’t just intended to comfort for Zerubbabel and the people who were under his care 2500 years ago. It’s intended to comfort the Church of Christ, today, who are under the care of Zerubbabel’s greater descendent, Jesus. When the nations are shaken, and the kingdoms fall, those who belong to the Chosen Servant, Jesus Christ, will be preserved. The kingdom of Jesus will not fail. The wrath of God against the evils of this world won’t touch you if you’re cleansed by the blood of Jesus, which was shed to wash away your wickedness. The justice of God against the narcissism and idolatry of the kingdoms won’t touch you if you’re shielded under the rule and reign of His appointed King.

So if you have trusted in Jesus, realize here that God rules the world. He’s at work discipline you for your good. He’s at work to overthrow oppression and injustice. And he’s at work to preserve and protect those who belong to the greater Zerubbabel, Jesus Christ.
Discipline and Restoration? Or Denial and Judgment?
But if you haven’t trusted in Jesus, I want to make sure you really understand what God has said here. He has said that he will destroy and overthrow all the nations and kingdoms of the earth. The only people who will stand in that day are those who belong to his chosen servant – who belong to the one that Zerubbabel was foreshadowing and anticipating – who belong to Jesus. If you aren’t secure in Christ, then you aren’t secure! If you’re ignoring Jesus, or resisting him, or running from him, who else is there who can save you on the day of God’s judgment? Where else can you go to find forgiveness for your past failures? Where else can you go to find entrance into God’s favor and presence, apart from Jesus? There is no other way. If you haven’t already, go to Jesus. Admit your need for him. Trust that he alone can make God’s smile shine upon you, and find shelter in him from the judgment to come.

Let’s close in prayer: