"In the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, "Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to all the remnant of the people, and say, 'Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the LORD. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the LORD. Work, for I am with you, declares the LORD of hosts, according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. For thus says the LORD of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the LORD of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the LORD of hosts. The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the LORD of hosts.'" Haggai 2:1-9 ESV
Bernard Gilpen was a faithful bible believing word centered preacher who was taken into custody for preaching the gospel during the time of Queen Mary who was radically persecuting Protestants. He was taken to London for certain death by being burned at the stake, but to the amusement of the guards he kept saying, “Everything is for the best.” On the way he fell off his horse and was hurt, so he could not travel for a few days. He told the amused guards, “I have no doubt even this painful accident will be a blessing.” Finally, he was able to resume his journey. As they were nearing London later than was expected, they heard the church bells ringing. They asked why this was so. They were told, “Queen Mary is dead, and there will be no burning of Protestants.” Gilpen looked at his guards and said, “Ah you see, it is all for the best.” God used the delay caused by his painful fall to save his life.
What kept Bernard Gilpen from caving in to discouragement? How was he not conquered by it? Here is a man who served the Lord, faithfully preached His word, and what did he get for it? Persecution, arrest, and certain death coming his way? How did he maintain the perspectives of “everything is for the best” and “I have no doubt that this painful accident will be a blessing”? He was encouraged by faith in a good, loving, providential, and sovereign God which caused him to be able to say “Ah you see, it is all for the best.”
Haggai gives us a new perspective of a God who is working in you and in your life. He wants you to see that just like Bernard Gilpen, God has a design for your life and God promises to take your life and what you are doing, fill it with his glory, and make your labors with a million times more than you ever imagined.
I. The Peoples Discouragement (Haggai 2:1-3)
If you remember from last week’s blog I mentioned that when the people left Babylon and Persia, they returned to Jerusalem and began rebuilding the temple. They laid the foundation, but then, due to opposition and then apathy they quit the work for some sixteen years. After all that time, the prophet Haggai was sent by God to get them back to work. Haggai’s called the people to “consider your ways, go,and build”.
His message produced a revival, and the people were awakened and repented of their sins. After neglecting the work on the house of God for sixteen years, the Holy Spirit stirred their hearts to begin to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and they resumed building the temple. Now they have been at work about a month, and discouragement has seeped into the community once again. Perhaps the weeds and the rubble of the years of neglect proved daunting to clear away. But more than that, the inferiority of this temple compared to the splendor of Solomon’s, seemed to weigh everybody down especially the older ones who had seen the former temple’s glory.
Solomon’s temple had been a glorious building: one of the great wonders of the world. It had been built with the imported cedars of Lebanon, had been decked out with precious stones and the whole thing had been overlaid with gold. The altar, the cherubim, the floor, the front porch and the holy of holy's were all covered in gold. Even the nails were gold. It’s no wonder the older people who looked at this new building, were so sorrowful and discouraged, and wanted to quit.
If you read back in Ezra 3:12, you learn that when the foundation had been laid 16 years earlier, in middle of everyone else celebrating, “many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers' houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid.” Why did they weep? Because they had seen the glory of the first temple. In other words, yes, they were going to build a temple, but it was not going to be anywhere near the greatness and the size of the former temple.
This is what Haggai 2:3 says as God Himself asks, “Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes?” In the eyes of the older people, the new temple looked like nothing; a big zero and God understood their discouragement. Once more, God’s people were in danger of abandoning God’s work.
Seeing how discouraged his people were becoming, God sent words of encouragement to his people through the prophet Haggai. Haggai was told to prophesy to Zerubbabel the prince, Joshua the priest, and to the people--the remnant of the Israelites. What makes this message so practical and relevant is that we can see ourselves so easily in the workers. And God's encouraging words to those who are discouraged become very easily words of strength for us, too to help us to look up and ahead and focus on the new things God is doing and is going to do.
II. God’s Encouragement to Persevere- (Haggai 2:4-5)
In the dismal situation that the Jews are in God spoke three words through Haggai to his people in order to encourage them to persevere in their task of rebuilding the temple. Though God understands how they feel, God clearly does not agree with their assessment of the situation. If they think their work on the temple is of so little significance that they can quit, they are very wrong, for God says three encouraging commands:
1. Be strong (verse 4)
Three times God gave this imperative: Be strong! He does this repetition precisely because of our discouragement. In other words, "Prince, be strong! Priest, be strong! Leaders, be strong! People, be strong! Fathers, be strong! Mothers, be strong! Workers, be strong! Children, be strong! This was God’s call from Moses to Israel, to Joshua, from Joshua to the Jews, from David to his son Solomon. That is the divine imperative for us as well. Be strong, church! Do not give up! Do not quit! Persevere! Be strong!
2. Fear not (verse 5)
The second word God spoke to his people is "Fear not." We fear when we are looking only at our problems. Now, we must see our problems, but we must also see God. When we see God, we need not fear. We find this imperative over and over in the Scriptures. When Abraham was afraid in Genesis 15, God told him, "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward." In Isaiah 41:10-11 God tells us, "So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God." Do not fear! Oh how often Jesus tenderly encouraged His disciples. In Matthew14:25-27 we find Jesus Christ walking on the lake in the middle of the night. As he approached the boat, the disciples were afraid and cried out, "It’s a ghost!" But Jesus said, "Take heart! It is I. Don’t be afraid." Jesus is saying the same thing to us today.
3. Work! (verse 4)
The third word is a command to work. You see, God calls us to be strong and not afraid for a purpose. In the case of the people of Haggai’s time, it was for building the temple of God. They had been using their strength and energy on their own houses, but now God was commanding them to build His house. Work! In other words, persevere in building the house of God! Don’t give in to discouragement and gloom and nostalgia! Persist in your spiritual tasks! Continue to seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness! Keep on serving God in the place he assigned you! Be faithful in the task God has given you. 1 Corinthians 15:58, “Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain”. Why? No matter how insignificant it may seem to us, the task God gives us to do is significant in the total scheme of his divine plan.
To be continued...
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
BLESSINGS FROM HAGGAI Part 2
"Thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider your ways. Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the LORD.” Haggai 1:7-8
Last week we began looking at a small but powerful book in the Old Testament called Haggai. God has challenged lazy, apathetic, and disobedient Israel to Consider your ways. In all of life there is a time to talk and a time to act, a time to consider and a time to stop talking and starting doing. Musician Bruce Springsteen once said, “A time comes when you need to stop waiting for the person you want to become and start being the person that you want to be!”This was a time to for the Jews to act. God says very simply GO and BUILD. It was time to get on with what God had given them to do. Because they had not honored God, every area of life was suffering and God’s glory was being dishonored. The temple of the Old Testament existed for the glory of God. And you and the Church today exist for the glory of God (Ephesians 1:6, 12, 14). The only remedy was to stop making excuses and start doing what God had told them to do 16 years earlier and if they did it, God would be pleased, happy, and glorified in their obedience.
So we read in verses 12.14, “Then Zerubbabel the son of She-altiel, and Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the LORD their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the LORD their God had sent him. And the people feared the LORD…And they came and worked on the house of the LORD of hosts, their God on the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king.”
It is one of the discouragements of preaching when a pastor preaches with passion and power and then be greeted with yawns and indifference as they go back to being and living as they always do. Still, from time to time there is something quite different. The word strikes home and a life is changed. When it happens to a whole church or large numbers of people, you have a revival! That is what happened after Haggai’s preaching. Through the prophet, God was lovingly but sternly giving his people a state of the union massage and a call to put first things first and the people heard it, received it, and acted on it.
This is amazing! 16 years have gone by and now the people desire what God desires and are doing what God has called them to do. Haggai reports that Zerubbabel and Joshua and the people obey and begin to work on the temple, on the 24th day of the sixth month. If we compare that with the first verse of the chapter where Haggai began to preach this message on the first day of the month, we find that the change came in just 23 days! Haggai spoke on August 30, 520 B.C.The work began on the 21ST OF September. I wonder if there is a day like that in your life or if today July 15, 2009 is that day; a day where you finally get your priorities straight and where you put first things first, where you put God and His work first in everything.
We read in verses 13-14, “Then Haggai, the messenger of the LORD, spoke to the people with the LORD's message, "I am with you, declares the LORD." And the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people. And they came and worked on the house of the LORD of hosts, their God”
So the Lord responds with His tender assurance and support. First, God makes a wonderful promise to the Jews. “I am with you”. God honors those who stop making excuses. He promises to be with those who dare to take Him seriously. He guarantees that His eternal companionship for those who put Him first. What does that mean: Intimacy, protection, provision, preservation, power, companionship, satisfaction, sustaining grace, joy, life abundant, and contentment, in short, a life blessed by God!
Secondly, notice that along with His ongoing presence He gives a powerful provision in order for the Jews to desire to obey and to do what He has commanded. Don’t miss what takes place here my friends. There are stunning implications for you in this text. They are enormous. God has commanded that the Jews consider their ways, go, and build. How did the Jews change their desires? How did they begin to obey what God commanded them to do? They consider, repent, go, build, and work on the house of the Lord as God commanded.
Why were they able to do this after so many years of apathy and disobedience? Verse 14 says, “The LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people.” Note please that the people responded and worked because the Lord stirred up the spirit of the people. This is an important note because it reminds us that God’s work ultimately depends on God. He must give the orders, he must give the energy, he must give the desire, and then he must stir up the spirits of his people before anything good will be done.
Oh the wonder of God’s grace! God gives the command and God gives the enablement to obey the command. More than that, God gives the desire and the passion to want what God wants. What God commands, God gives. We need to be glad for the grace of God beneath our response to the grace of God. If grace did not awaken the Jews to grace, they would have continued in their foolish ways. But grace commanded and grace awakened and grace enabled. Romans 11:36, “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”
There are three primary lessons from Haggai 1:
1. Put First Things First Jesus said, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and yet lose his own soul?” Jesus said "Seek the kingdom first, and all these other things will be added" (Matthew 6:33). If you give yourself, your time, your money, and your resources to God, His church, and His cause, rather than focusing on building your life, your kingdom, and other things, He will give you everything you need to do His will, bring Him glory, and bring joy to your life.
2. Get Started Again This week a simple thought has come to my mind more than once. It goes like this: I can’t go back, I can’t stay here, and I must go forward. You can’t go back to the past—not to relive the good times or to seek revenge for the bad times. But you can’t stay where you are either. God only has one direction for his people: Forward! He told the Jews: WORK/BUILD and this morning His word in the New Testament to us is GO/SEEK FIRST/FORWARD! He never leads us back into the past and he rarely lets us stay where we are very long. That’s why the first two letters of the gospel spell our marching orders: Go!
3. Pursue Immediate Obedience The people of Haggai’s day meant well but good intentions don’t matter when it comes to obeying God. Remember: It’s always easy to find excuses when you don’t want to obey God. When God says, Build the temple, he does n0t mean tomorrow or next week. He means, Build it now! He will give you the desire, the faith, and the ability to do it. You can ask Him this very day! Procrastination is a sin if it keeps you from obeying God. We all have our excuses for not doing what we know we ought to do. But you know what an excuse is, don’t you? It’s the skin of a reason stuffed with a lie. Once we stop making excuses, we’re then ready to obey God. No more excuses! Now! Today! You!
Oh reader, consider your ways, and God will grant you true blessing when you put Him, His cause, and His church first in your life this summer.
Pastor Bill
Last week we began looking at a small but powerful book in the Old Testament called Haggai. God has challenged lazy, apathetic, and disobedient Israel to Consider your ways. In all of life there is a time to talk and a time to act, a time to consider and a time to stop talking and starting doing. Musician Bruce Springsteen once said, “A time comes when you need to stop waiting for the person you want to become and start being the person that you want to be!”This was a time to for the Jews to act. God says very simply GO and BUILD. It was time to get on with what God had given them to do. Because they had not honored God, every area of life was suffering and God’s glory was being dishonored. The temple of the Old Testament existed for the glory of God. And you and the Church today exist for the glory of God (Ephesians 1:6, 12, 14). The only remedy was to stop making excuses and start doing what God had told them to do 16 years earlier and if they did it, God would be pleased, happy, and glorified in their obedience.
So we read in verses 12.14, “Then Zerubbabel the son of She-altiel, and Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the LORD their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the LORD their God had sent him. And the people feared the LORD…And they came and worked on the house of the LORD of hosts, their God on the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king.”
It is one of the discouragements of preaching when a pastor preaches with passion and power and then be greeted with yawns and indifference as they go back to being and living as they always do. Still, from time to time there is something quite different. The word strikes home and a life is changed. When it happens to a whole church or large numbers of people, you have a revival! That is what happened after Haggai’s preaching. Through the prophet, God was lovingly but sternly giving his people a state of the union massage and a call to put first things first and the people heard it, received it, and acted on it.
This is amazing! 16 years have gone by and now the people desire what God desires and are doing what God has called them to do. Haggai reports that Zerubbabel and Joshua and the people obey and begin to work on the temple, on the 24th day of the sixth month. If we compare that with the first verse of the chapter where Haggai began to preach this message on the first day of the month, we find that the change came in just 23 days! Haggai spoke on August 30, 520 B.C.The work began on the 21ST OF September. I wonder if there is a day like that in your life or if today July 15, 2009 is that day; a day where you finally get your priorities straight and where you put first things first, where you put God and His work first in everything.
We read in verses 13-14, “Then Haggai, the messenger of the LORD, spoke to the people with the LORD's message, "I am with you, declares the LORD." And the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people. And they came and worked on the house of the LORD of hosts, their God”
So the Lord responds with His tender assurance and support. First, God makes a wonderful promise to the Jews. “I am with you”. God honors those who stop making excuses. He promises to be with those who dare to take Him seriously. He guarantees that His eternal companionship for those who put Him first. What does that mean: Intimacy, protection, provision, preservation, power, companionship, satisfaction, sustaining grace, joy, life abundant, and contentment, in short, a life blessed by God!
Secondly, notice that along with His ongoing presence He gives a powerful provision in order for the Jews to desire to obey and to do what He has commanded. Don’t miss what takes place here my friends. There are stunning implications for you in this text. They are enormous. God has commanded that the Jews consider their ways, go, and build. How did the Jews change their desires? How did they begin to obey what God commanded them to do? They consider, repent, go, build, and work on the house of the Lord as God commanded.
Why were they able to do this after so many years of apathy and disobedience? Verse 14 says, “The LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people.” Note please that the people responded and worked because the Lord stirred up the spirit of the people. This is an important note because it reminds us that God’s work ultimately depends on God. He must give the orders, he must give the energy, he must give the desire, and then he must stir up the spirits of his people before anything good will be done.
Oh the wonder of God’s grace! God gives the command and God gives the enablement to obey the command. More than that, God gives the desire and the passion to want what God wants. What God commands, God gives. We need to be glad for the grace of God beneath our response to the grace of God. If grace did not awaken the Jews to grace, they would have continued in their foolish ways. But grace commanded and grace awakened and grace enabled. Romans 11:36, “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”
There are three primary lessons from Haggai 1:
1. Put First Things First Jesus said, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and yet lose his own soul?” Jesus said "Seek the kingdom first, and all these other things will be added" (Matthew 6:33). If you give yourself, your time, your money, and your resources to God, His church, and His cause, rather than focusing on building your life, your kingdom, and other things, He will give you everything you need to do His will, bring Him glory, and bring joy to your life.
2. Get Started Again This week a simple thought has come to my mind more than once. It goes like this: I can’t go back, I can’t stay here, and I must go forward. You can’t go back to the past—not to relive the good times or to seek revenge for the bad times. But you can’t stay where you are either. God only has one direction for his people: Forward! He told the Jews: WORK/BUILD and this morning His word in the New Testament to us is GO/SEEK FIRST/FORWARD! He never leads us back into the past and he rarely lets us stay where we are very long. That’s why the first two letters of the gospel spell our marching orders: Go!
3. Pursue Immediate Obedience The people of Haggai’s day meant well but good intentions don’t matter when it comes to obeying God. Remember: It’s always easy to find excuses when you don’t want to obey God. When God says, Build the temple, he does n0t mean tomorrow or next week. He means, Build it now! He will give you the desire, the faith, and the ability to do it. You can ask Him this very day! Procrastination is a sin if it keeps you from obeying God. We all have our excuses for not doing what we know we ought to do. But you know what an excuse is, don’t you? It’s the skin of a reason stuffed with a lie. Once we stop making excuses, we’re then ready to obey God. No more excuses! Now! Today! You!
Oh reader, consider your ways, and God will grant you true blessing when you put Him, His cause, and His church first in your life this summer.
Pastor Bill
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
BLESSINGS FROM HAGGAI Part 1
Every morning I spend precious time with my Lord in reading and praying His Word. I have been blessed this week in reading the book of Haggai. This little book has strengthened my faith and has brought me such comfort during a very trying time of my life. As a result, I thought that I would devote the next few weeks to gleaning some of the precious truth's from this small but powerful book.
"In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest." (Haggai 1:1)
In 586 BC the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and took most of the Jews into exile. About 50 years later Cyrus, the Persian, took Babylon, and brought the Babylonian Empire to an end. The next year (538 BC) he allowed 50,000 Jews to return to their homeland under the leadership of a man named Zerubbabel and rebuild the temple at Jerusalem. All of this was owing to the sovereign hand of God fulfilling the prophecies of Jeremiah (Ezra 1:1). There they found shocking devastation. Nothing had changed since the defeat some 50 years earlier. Immediately the returnees set about to rebuild the temple in about 536 B.C. They re-laid the foundation amid a great celebration (see Ezra 3 for details). Then suddenly the Samaritans (who hated the Jews) began to oppose them. After all, the Samaritans had no reason to want the temple rebuilt or for the Jews to return to prosperity.
Because of their constant opposition, the Jews stopped the rebuilding the process and never got started again. After all there was plenty of other work to do—they were trying to restart a nation from scratch. As the years passed slowly but surely Jerusalem came to life again. Homes were built, stores opened, commerce established, fields planted, crops harvested, and life began to resemble something of a normal pattern. There was only one problem. The temple foundation still lay in ruins—overgrown with weeds. Every time the Jews passed it, it stood as a mute reminder of their failure to take care of God’s house. Sixteen years pass.
Now we come to the summer of 520 B.C. Enter Haggai, about whom we know nothing except what is in this book and a few verses in Ezra. God raises him up to deliver four brief messages in five months—from August to December, 520 B.C. When I say brief, I mean really brief. The whole book is only 38 verses long. You can easily read it in less than 10 minutes. The message of this little book is clear: It’s time to finish rebuilding the temple. The way Haggai motivates the Jews to build the temple of God has a powerful application to our own efforts to build our lives and our Church.
Haggai’s words are blunt, plain-spoken, direct, and vivid. He pulls no punches and wastes no words. In my mind, Haggai is the foreman of the Old Testament. I see him with a hardhat and a tool belt walking around the construction site giving orders left and right. He has only one goal in mind: Get that temple rebuilt and do it now!
The first lesson of Haggai: God Speaks to Misplaced Priorities- “The time has not come, even the time for the house of the Lord to be rebuilt” (Haggai 1:2).
The book begins with the Jews simply making excuses. They truly intended to build God’s house, but they just had not got around to it yet. They were frozen by fear, stifled by selfishness, and paralyzed by presumption. They were afraid of the Samaritans so they selfishly built their own homes-and not just simple houses, but luxuriously paneled buildings, and then presumptuously claimed to know better than God when the temple should be rebuilt.
The problem was not building homes, taking care of families, etc.; the problem was perspective and priorities. Perspective in that they lost focus on what was important to God; priorities in that they put building homes as their first priority, the driving force and vision for their lives. Thus they did all of these things with no regard to the most important thing; the temple of God which is in ruins. Instead they are full of excuses.
Let’s think of some excuses they might have offered for their delay: God wants us to take care of our own families, doesn’t He? The job is too big. We’ll never finish it. Not our fault so it’s not our job. Someone else will do it if we don’t. We need to pray about it some more. I don’t think we need a temple anyway. The time just is not right. Our motives are good, but we’re just too busy! They were looking for a better time and an easier time. But the result was the same in every case: delay, delay, delay.
Someone reading this story might wonder why the temple was so important. Just remember that in the Old Testament the temple represented God’s presence on earth. Just as in the New Covenant you and I are called the temple of the Holy Spirit and the church is also called the temple of God. Thus God’s reputation was at stake in the rebuilding. The pagans would draw wrong conclusions if the temple were never rebuilt. They would assume that the Jews did not care about their God. How could they if they left his temple in ruins?
At the same time the Jews were also teaching their children that God does not matter by the way they put their energy into lesser things, even good things, at the expense of God’s greater thing. As a result, they were saying and manifesting thus drawing attention to the reality that self enhancement and self preservation and ease, comfort, and security were the priorities of their lives. Oh how we see that we demonstrate to our children, our spouses, our neighbors, and the world who and what is most important to us by how we spend our time, our money, and our energies. Thus rebuilding the temple was a major issue to God—and should have been to the people.
So God responses to the procrastination of the Jews by asking His first question- “Then the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?” (Haggai 1:3-4)
God hits the jugular! He gives a reality check on how He has seen the past 16 years of indifference and misplaced priorities. God was accusing His people of having plenty of time for themselves while pleading a lack of time for Him. It was an accusation of having plenty of time and money to spend on their comfort and pleasures while claiming to not have enough for God and His work and service. The people were prospering. How could it be that they were unable to get involved with God and the work He had given them to do? It showed where their heart was. In short, their priorities were wrong. Any priority that puts anything above or over God is idolatry. God says, “You shall have no other gods before Me.” (Exodus 20:3); He says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” (Deuteronomy 6:5).
Indifference to the spiritual growth and spiritual prosperity of your life and our Church and its mission is always a sign of failure to love God and is utter foolishness.
God’s asks a second question in verses 5–6 and 9-11 He challenges these attitudes and excuses with a second argument-with a reality check of what their lives looked like because they did not put God first:
"Now, therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider your ways. You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes… You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the LORD of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors."”
God gives them and us the great challenge: Consider your ways. It is found five times in this book; twice here in chapter 1(verses5, 7), and three times in chapter 2(verses15, 18). In a certain sense, this is the message of the book and God’s message to us . To consider means to stop long enough in your busy schedule to evaluate your life in the light of God’s Word. God asks, “What is the return of your time, energy, money, activity put in other things over Me? Of building your lives instead of building your souls? Of building your houses but neglecting building God’s church?
Here we come to a sobering reminder that what happens in your heart effects every other part of your life. Because the people had pushed God out of the center of life, they were now suffering in every other area. They had fields without produce, action without satisfaction, labor without profit. Fruitless toil, fleeting riches, unsatisfied hunger. This is the Law of the Unproductive Harvest. I do not know any passage that better describes the busyness yet ineffective activity of our own times. Like the rat in the cage, spinning but getting nowhere; frustrated, dissatisfied, empty. It happens to us over and over until we learn to put God first in our lives.
Why would God do this? He allows us to suffer the results of our wrong choices in order to get our attention, to convict of sin, and to lead us back to repentance, and put first things first! We can't pass over this lesson easily. It's for us, too. If you devote yourself to sowing and eating and drinking and clothing yourselves and earning wages, but neglect your soul and your ministry in the body of Christ (both of which are the New Covenant temple of God, 1 Corinthians 3:16, 17), you will live in constant frustration, dissatisfaction, unhappiness, emptiness, and discontentment.
To be continued...
Pastor Bill
"In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest." (Haggai 1:1)
In 586 BC the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and took most of the Jews into exile. About 50 years later Cyrus, the Persian, took Babylon, and brought the Babylonian Empire to an end. The next year (538 BC) he allowed 50,000 Jews to return to their homeland under the leadership of a man named Zerubbabel and rebuild the temple at Jerusalem. All of this was owing to the sovereign hand of God fulfilling the prophecies of Jeremiah (Ezra 1:1). There they found shocking devastation. Nothing had changed since the defeat some 50 years earlier. Immediately the returnees set about to rebuild the temple in about 536 B.C. They re-laid the foundation amid a great celebration (see Ezra 3 for details). Then suddenly the Samaritans (who hated the Jews) began to oppose them. After all, the Samaritans had no reason to want the temple rebuilt or for the Jews to return to prosperity.
Because of their constant opposition, the Jews stopped the rebuilding the process and never got started again. After all there was plenty of other work to do—they were trying to restart a nation from scratch. As the years passed slowly but surely Jerusalem came to life again. Homes were built, stores opened, commerce established, fields planted, crops harvested, and life began to resemble something of a normal pattern. There was only one problem. The temple foundation still lay in ruins—overgrown with weeds. Every time the Jews passed it, it stood as a mute reminder of their failure to take care of God’s house. Sixteen years pass.
Now we come to the summer of 520 B.C. Enter Haggai, about whom we know nothing except what is in this book and a few verses in Ezra. God raises him up to deliver four brief messages in five months—from August to December, 520 B.C. When I say brief, I mean really brief. The whole book is only 38 verses long. You can easily read it in less than 10 minutes. The message of this little book is clear: It’s time to finish rebuilding the temple. The way Haggai motivates the Jews to build the temple of God has a powerful application to our own efforts to build our lives and our Church.
Haggai’s words are blunt, plain-spoken, direct, and vivid. He pulls no punches and wastes no words. In my mind, Haggai is the foreman of the Old Testament. I see him with a hardhat and a tool belt walking around the construction site giving orders left and right. He has only one goal in mind: Get that temple rebuilt and do it now!
The first lesson of Haggai: God Speaks to Misplaced Priorities- “The time has not come, even the time for the house of the Lord to be rebuilt” (Haggai 1:2).
The book begins with the Jews simply making excuses. They truly intended to build God’s house, but they just had not got around to it yet. They were frozen by fear, stifled by selfishness, and paralyzed by presumption. They were afraid of the Samaritans so they selfishly built their own homes-and not just simple houses, but luxuriously paneled buildings, and then presumptuously claimed to know better than God when the temple should be rebuilt.
The problem was not building homes, taking care of families, etc.; the problem was perspective and priorities. Perspective in that they lost focus on what was important to God; priorities in that they put building homes as their first priority, the driving force and vision for their lives. Thus they did all of these things with no regard to the most important thing; the temple of God which is in ruins. Instead they are full of excuses.
Let’s think of some excuses they might have offered for their delay: God wants us to take care of our own families, doesn’t He? The job is too big. We’ll never finish it. Not our fault so it’s not our job. Someone else will do it if we don’t. We need to pray about it some more. I don’t think we need a temple anyway. The time just is not right. Our motives are good, but we’re just too busy! They were looking for a better time and an easier time. But the result was the same in every case: delay, delay, delay.
Someone reading this story might wonder why the temple was so important. Just remember that in the Old Testament the temple represented God’s presence on earth. Just as in the New Covenant you and I are called the temple of the Holy Spirit and the church is also called the temple of God. Thus God’s reputation was at stake in the rebuilding. The pagans would draw wrong conclusions if the temple were never rebuilt. They would assume that the Jews did not care about their God. How could they if they left his temple in ruins?
At the same time the Jews were also teaching their children that God does not matter by the way they put their energy into lesser things, even good things, at the expense of God’s greater thing. As a result, they were saying and manifesting thus drawing attention to the reality that self enhancement and self preservation and ease, comfort, and security were the priorities of their lives. Oh how we see that we demonstrate to our children, our spouses, our neighbors, and the world who and what is most important to us by how we spend our time, our money, and our energies. Thus rebuilding the temple was a major issue to God—and should have been to the people.
So God responses to the procrastination of the Jews by asking His first question- “Then the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?” (Haggai 1:3-4)
God hits the jugular! He gives a reality check on how He has seen the past 16 years of indifference and misplaced priorities. God was accusing His people of having plenty of time for themselves while pleading a lack of time for Him. It was an accusation of having plenty of time and money to spend on their comfort and pleasures while claiming to not have enough for God and His work and service. The people were prospering. How could it be that they were unable to get involved with God and the work He had given them to do? It showed where their heart was. In short, their priorities were wrong. Any priority that puts anything above or over God is idolatry. God says, “You shall have no other gods before Me.” (Exodus 20:3); He says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” (Deuteronomy 6:5).
Indifference to the spiritual growth and spiritual prosperity of your life and our Church and its mission is always a sign of failure to love God and is utter foolishness.
God’s asks a second question in verses 5–6 and 9-11 He challenges these attitudes and excuses with a second argument-with a reality check of what their lives looked like because they did not put God first:
"Now, therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider your ways. You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes… You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the LORD of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors."”
God gives them and us the great challenge: Consider your ways. It is found five times in this book; twice here in chapter 1(verses5, 7), and three times in chapter 2(verses15, 18). In a certain sense, this is the message of the book and God’s message to us . To consider means to stop long enough in your busy schedule to evaluate your life in the light of God’s Word. God asks, “What is the return of your time, energy, money, activity put in other things over Me? Of building your lives instead of building your souls? Of building your houses but neglecting building God’s church?
Here we come to a sobering reminder that what happens in your heart effects every other part of your life. Because the people had pushed God out of the center of life, they were now suffering in every other area. They had fields without produce, action without satisfaction, labor without profit. Fruitless toil, fleeting riches, unsatisfied hunger. This is the Law of the Unproductive Harvest. I do not know any passage that better describes the busyness yet ineffective activity of our own times. Like the rat in the cage, spinning but getting nowhere; frustrated, dissatisfied, empty. It happens to us over and over until we learn to put God first in our lives.
Why would God do this? He allows us to suffer the results of our wrong choices in order to get our attention, to convict of sin, and to lead us back to repentance, and put first things first! We can't pass over this lesson easily. It's for us, too. If you devote yourself to sowing and eating and drinking and clothing yourselves and earning wages, but neglect your soul and your ministry in the body of Christ (both of which are the New Covenant temple of God, 1 Corinthians 3:16, 17), you will live in constant frustration, dissatisfaction, unhappiness, emptiness, and discontentment.
To be continued...
Pastor Bill
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