Peace vs. nations' desire for 'him'

When Bach wrote Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring, and Charles Wesley began the fourth stanza of his Christmas classic Hark! The Herald Angels Sing with, “Come, Desire of nations, come,” they both were incorrectly assuming the “desire of all nations” from Haggai 2:7 was a reference to Jesus Christ.

“When they wrote those lyrics, they’re thinking it’s Believers, but Haggai is not talking about Believers,” explains Richard Jordan of Shorewood Bible Church. “Think about it, what nation has there ever been that desired Him?! Look at John 5 to see what the nations desire. Verse 43 says, ‘I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.’

“Jesus Christ’s saying, ‘I came in my Father’s name, you didn’t want me. Another is going to come in his own name and you know who that is? The Antichrist.’

“You know who the nations really desire? They desire the Lie, not the truth. And when the personification of the Lie, the Antichrist, the 'man of sin,' the 'son of perdition,' shows up as that ‘Wicked,’ what do they do? They receive a lie because they didn’t have a love for the truth. So what the world does is they receive the Antichrist, believing and trusting in him.

“There’s never been a time in human history, in all the world, that the nations of this world have desired the God of the Bible. They desire ‘the god of this world.’

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“Haggai 2:6-9 says, [6] For thus saith the LORD of hosts; Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land;
[7] And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the LORD of hosts.
[8] The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the LORD of hosts.
[9] The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the LORD of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the LORD of hosts.

“Some people will say, ‘Okay, if the desire of nations is not Jesus Christ, then maybe it’s verse 8.’ The nations of the world absolutely do love gold and silver, so people say, ‘Well, then the desire of nations is gold, silver, wealth, that kind of thing.’

“Problem with that is he says ‘the desire of all nations shall come.’ So what is it that he gives them? In verse 9, there’s the ‘latter house’ in the kingdom and the ‘former’ one is that which Solomon had.

“You remember what the angels said when Jesus was born? ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.’ It’s not like what the new bibles do. They say, ‘Peace among men of good will.’ You’re going to have to have glory to God in the highest before you have peace on earth and good will to men.

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“When Jesus Christ comes back He’s called the ‘prince of peace.’ In I Thessalonians 5:3, when Paul talks about the Lie program, he says, [3] For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

“With that issue of ‘travail upon a woman with child,’ in Jeremiah 30 and a half-dozen other passages back in the old prophets, that’s a classic prophetic description of the time of Jacob’s trouble. When does that great tribulation hit? When they are saying, ‘Peace and safety. We’ve found peace and safety.’ You know what the nations want? That’s it!

“You look at what’s going on in our country and in Europe today and it’s such a strange thing; people are always talking about liberty and freedom, but you let somebody do some of these terrorist things and what’s the first thing they want to get rid of? That’s why you can’t have political liberty unless you have some internal integrity inside of people that restrains them from doing such things.

“The internal strength of character that is necessary to be who we have been as a nation is gone. It still exists some in the older generations, but the younger generations, for the most part, while you find little nests of people like us around, when you go out there in the culture . . . 

"All the things God puts in a culture to de-savage and discipline it and give people the capacity to be strong, Isaiah 14 says what the Antichrist does is he weakens the nations by taking those things out. That’s what’s going on in Haggai; it’s already happened.

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“Talking about the Antichrist, Daniel 8:23-25 says, ‘And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up.
[24] And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.
[25] And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand.

“When it says ‘the transgressors are come to the full,’ that’s why the 70^th Week has to go all the way to the end. Notice he’s going to use peace. He’s going to have a peace policy that he’s going to use to destroy people. Daniel 11:21 says, [21] And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries.

“What’s going on in Haggai 2, when he says the desire of all nations is going to come, the Lord Jesus Christ is going to come and give peace by giving glory to God in the highest. He’ll give peace on earth, good will to men.

“What mankind wants, what the lost nations out there want, is peace, and the Antichrist is going to give them a false peace; a lie he’s going to turn into slavery.

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“In the 1960s there was a national radio guy, Carl MacIntire, who had The Twentieth Century Reformation Hour, and he used to say, ‘Remember, the Communists want peace--a piece of this, a piece of that, until they have it all.’ I used to think, ‘That’s a great saying. They want peace, but they spell it different. When they have it all, then there’s p-e-a-c-e.’ Well, that’s what this crafty guy wants.

“When the Lord Jesus comes, He’s going to bring everlasting peace and be the ‘prince of peace.’ When He does, the glory of that house, the temple, when He comes . . .  

“The lack of adornment in that temple as they build it; it’s going to be humble, made out of wood, and it’s not going to look like Solomon did it, but He’s telling them, ‘You go out and do this for now; it’s not going to look proud, but out of the small things that you do, that temple, when I come, it’s going to be more magnificent than anything Solomon ever dreamed of and the way the gold and silver is going to come . . .’

“Isaiah 60 says, ‘[1] Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee.
[2] For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.
[3] And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.

“So when Israel is established in her kingdom, the Messiah is there, redeemed Israel is there and the Gentiles are going to come to the light that God puts before them in Israel.

“Watch what happens when they come. Verse 6: [6] The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they from Sheba shall come: they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall shew forth the praises of the LORD.

“What’s going to happen is the Gentile nations, when they come, they’ll bring their riches and give it to the nation Israel. Isaiah 61:2-3 says, [2] To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;
[3] To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.

“Verse 6 says, [6] But ye shall be named the Priests of the LORD: men shall call you the Ministers of our God: ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves.

“In other words, what’s going to happen is the Gentiles are going to bring the material wealth that’s going to repopulate and repair, and the material treasures of silver and gold are going to be brought by the Gentiles and it’s the glory of the Lord that’s going to be there.

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“The verse says ‘the glory of the latter house will be greater than the former and in this place will I give peace.’ You can’t miss that phrase ‘in this place.’ That place is called Jerusalem. The name Jerusalem means ‘city of peace.’ If there’s any city that’s an oxymoron for in our day it’s that and yet that’s exactly what God’s going to make it.

“In Zachariah 12 it says He’s going to make it a cup of trembling to the nations but then He’s going to turn it into this in Psalm 76: [1] In Judah is God known: his name is great in Israel.
[2] In Salem also is his tabernacle, and his dwelling place in Zion.

“Jerusalem, that cup of trembling, will become ‘the city of peace.’ It will be the place where the weapons of warfare are broken and they take their swords and beat them into plowshares.

“This place is important. That’s why it’s important in the Bible. That’s why they are ‘the people of the land; the people of this place.’ That’s why the Gentiles are jealous of them and want to take it away from them.

“Psalm 132, a psalm about David, says, [13] For the LORD hath chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation.
[14] This is my rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it. In this place He’s going to put peace.

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“Psalm 133 says, [1] Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!
[2] It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments;
[3] As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the LORD commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.

“If there’s a verse in the Psalms that gets misused, that’s one of them right there in Psalm 133:1. People say, ‘Boy, it’s good for us to just get together and not have any fighting,’ but that is almost the opposite of what that verse is talking about! That verse is not talking about your benefit and your good. It’s talking about God accomplishing HIS purpose.

“You remember in Acts 2 it says, [1] And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. That’s the unity there. It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that anointing oil. Who’s the head? That’s the king.

‘The ointment that ‘ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard,’ is the priest. What have we got in Haggai? Zerubbabel the governor and Joshua the priest. He’s the king, the priest sitting on the throne. ‘Here’s the anointing of the Messiah, the king, the priest.’

“That ‘oil of gladness’ goes down to the skirts of his garment. He had on this high priest robe and you want to know what the oil went down? It went down off of his beard and down off those 12 stones that represented the nation Israel.

"Here’s the Holy Spirit, the fruit of God’s kingdom blessing, going down. As verse 3 in Psalm 133 says, ‘As the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the LORD commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.'

“So when He says in Haggai that ‘in this place will I give peace,’ He’s talking about how He’s going to bring peace on earth, good will to men, and it’s going to start in Jerusalem.

"It’s going to be through the people of that land, the nation Israel, that it’s accomplished. And the glory of it is going to be like nothing the earth has ever seen. That’s going to be some day.”