"Whatever the LORD pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps." Psalm 135:6 ESV
"Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? …For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord GOD; so turn, and live." Ezekiel 18:23, 32 ESV
I have been studying the Bible for 35 years. Yet the more I read the scripture, the more I realize how little is my understanding of God and His ways. I am not so quick to make simplistic and glib pronouncements about God these days as I once was. The Bible is both simple, yet complex; light, yet weighty; easy to understand, yet extremely difficult. Did not the apostle Peter himself say that there are some things in Paul’s writings that are hard to understand (2 Peter 3:16)? Yet, we are also told that if we think, ponder, and reflect upon God’s word, that God will give us understanding (2 Timothy 2:7). Add to that, we have been given the gift of the holy Spirit to teach us, illuminate us, and guide us into all truth. When we pray like David in
Psalm 119:18, "Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law." The Spirit of God does His eye opening illuminating work.
This is the great challenge and joy for a lifetime of studying the scriptures (2 Timothy 2:15) which are profitable for teaching and training ( 2 Timothy 3:16). I am thoroughly committed to allowing the scriptures to set my beliefs, ideas, and understanding about God and His ways excited that God has revealed Himself to us (Deuteronomy 29:29). I Agree with David that the truths of God's word are wondrous things! this is the great challenge of reading passages like Psalm 135:6 and Ezekiel 18:23,32. These verses need much prayer, reflection, openness, humility, and illumination in order to understand who God is and how that He operates in this universe.
For example when I read Psalm 135:6, “Whatever the LORD pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps. ” I discover that God always acts according to and for His own “good pleasure,” following the dictates of his own delights. He never becomes the victim of circumstance, or Satan or human decision. He is never forced into a situation where he must do something in which he cannot rejoice.
This is a glorious picture of God in his sovereign freedom—to do whatever he pleases and to accomplish all his pleasure. But then how can God say in Ezekiel 18:23 and 32 that he does not have pleasure in the death of any impenitent person, if in fact He accomplishes all his pleasure and does whatever he pleases?” The very same Hebrew verb is used in Psalm 135:6 (“he pleases”) and Ezekiel 18:32 (“he does not have pleasure”).
So what does this mean? Here God seems to be cornered. It seems that he is forced into judging them when he really does not want to. He seems to be about to do something that he is not pleased to do. Is he going to accomplish all his pleasure or not? Is God really free to do everything according to his good pleasure? Or does his sovereign freedom have its limits? Can he do whatever he pleases up to a point, and then after that is he forced into doing things he only grieves to do?
Let’s add to this. What does it mean that God who takes pleasure in all that He does yet allows Satan to attack all that Job has. But then in Job 1:19 “a great wind” levels the house where Job’s children are and kills them all. The text does not say who caused the wind to blow. But in Job 1:21 Job himself says, “The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” So even if Satan has a hand in making the wind blow, Job knows that behind Satan is the real Ruler of the world and the wind, namely, the Lord. So he says, “The LORD has taken away.” Should Job have said this? The writer takes away all doubt that Job is right to say this, because in the next verse (1:22) he says, “In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.”
What does it mean that God who takes pleasure in all that He does yet says in Isaiah says, “ I form light and create darkness, I make comfort and create calamity, I am the LORD, who does all these things” (Isaiah 45:7). Or “Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and evil [i.e.,calamity] come?” (Lamentations 3:38). Or “Does evil befall a city, unless the LORD has done it?” (Amos 3:6). So when Psalm 135 says that the Lord does whatever he pleases, it has to include the taking of personal life through natural forces which he alone controls.
In Psalm 135:8–10 it says that God’s sovereign freedom was shown most vividly in the Exodus when he delivered Israel from Egypt: “He it was who smote the firstborn of Egypt, both of man and of beast…who smote many nations and slew mighty kings.…” Therefore when the psalmist says in verse 6 that “whatever the LORD pleases, he does,” he refers explicitly to the destruction of rebellious Egyptians and nations and kings. This is the scope of what God does when he does all he pleases.
So going back to Ezekiel 32, it says that God is not pleased with the death of unrepentant people, and in Psalm 135 it says that God does whatever he pleases including the slaying of unrepentant people, for example, the enemies of his people in Egypt.
I would direct attention to Deuteronomy 28:63 where Moses warns of coming judgment on unrepentant Israel. But this time it says something strikingly different from Ezekiel 18:32: "And as the LORD took delight in doing you good and multiplying you, so the LORD will take delight in bringing ruin upon you and destroying you."
So what are we to make of all this? Is the bible confused? Is God confused? Here is the truth as far as I can see: We are brought back to the inescapable fact that in some sense God does not delight in the death of the wicked (that is the message of Ezekiel 18), and in some sense he does delight in the death of the wicked (that is the message implicitly of Psalm 135:6–11 and explicitly of Deuteronomy 28:63).
There is a sense in scripture where even acts of judgment which in one sense do not please God in another sense do please him. Let us let God be God! Better yet, let us submit to the God of the bible in all of His God-ness and mystery, yet who has revealed wondrous things about Him that make Him God! Let us not be locked into reasoning's, speculation, and our finite logic; let us humbly let the scripture speak even if we are not fully able to understand. Our method is not to choose between these texts, or to cancel out one by the other, but to go deep enough into the mysterious mind of God to see (as far as possible) how both are true. How shall we account for this apparent tension?
The answer I propose (and I borrow from John Piper and Jonathan Edwards) is that God can be grieved in one sense by the death of the wicked, and can be pleased by the death of the wicked in another sense. God’s emotional life is infinitely complex beyond our ability to fully comprehend. Who of us could dare say what complex of emotions is not possible for God? All we have to go on here is what he has chosen to tell us in the Bible. And what he has told us is that there is a sense in which he does not experience pleasure in the judgment of the wicked, and there is a sense in which he does.
From this I conclude that the death and misery of the unrepentant is in and of itself no delight to God. God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked! (Ezekiel 18:32,24).God is not a sadist. He is not malicious or bloodthirsty. Instead, when a rebellious, wicked, unbelieving person is judged, what God delights in is the exaltation of truth and righteousness, and the vindication of his own honor and glory.
When Moses warns Israel that the Lord will take delight in bringing ruin upon them and destroying them if they do not repent (Deuteronomy 28:63), he means that those who have rebelled against the Lord and moved beyond repentance will not be able to gloat that they have made the Almighty miserable. God is not defeated in the triumphs of His righteous judgment. Quite the contrary. Moses says that when they are judged they will unwittingly provide an occasion for God to rejoice in the demonstration of his justice and his power and the infinite worth of his glory. Romans 9:22-23 says, “What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory.”
Jonathan Edwards tackled the problem of how God and the saints in heaven will be happy in heaven for all eternity knowing that many millions of people are suffering in hell forever by proposing that it is not that suffering is pleasant to God and the saints in itself, but that the vindication of God’s infinite holiness is cherished so deeply.
So let us stand in awe and wonder of God—eternally happy and infinitely exuberant in the wisdom of his work; free and sovereign in accomplishing His purposes! .
“Our God is in heaven; he does all that he pleases.” Psalm 115:3
‘Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?" "Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?" For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” Romans 11:33-36
Basking in the sweet, purposeful, wonder of God who does what pleases Him,,
Pastor Bill
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
LIVING UNDER GOD'S BLESSINGS
"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, saying, "Thus says the LORD of hosts: 'Now, ask the priests concerning the law, saying, "If one carries holy meat in the fold of his garment, and with the edge he touches bread or stew, wine or oil, or any food, will it become holy?" ' " Then the priests answered and said, "No." And Haggai said, "If one who is unclean because of a dead body touches any of these, will it be unclean?" So the priests answered and said, "It shall be unclean." Then Haggai answered and said, " 'So is this people, and so is this nation before Me,' says the LORD, 'and so is every work of their hands; and what they offer there is unclean. ' And now, carefully consider from this day forward: from before stone was laid upon stone in the temple of the LORD -- 'since those days, when one came to a heap of twenty ephahs, there were but ten; when one came to the wine vat to draw out fifty baths from the press, there were but twenty. 'I struck you with blight and mildew and hail in all the labors of your hands; yet you did not turn to Me,' says the LORD. 18 'Consider now from this day forward, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, from the day that the foundation of the LORD's temple was laid -- consider it: 'Is the seed still in the barn? As yet the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have not yielded fruit. But from this day I will bless you.' " Haggai 2;10-19 ESV
Last week I wrote that God wants to bless you life! Do you believe this? So far what we have seen in Haggai chapter 2 does not sound like it. So far God has told the people why they have not been blessed by Him. Now God continues to adress the reason they were not blessed in order to bring them to repentence and be ready for new and fresh blessings from Him.
A Reminder About the Past (verses 15-17)
Three times in the remaining verses God repeats the same phrase that He repeated three times in the first section (1:5, 7): “Consider” (2:15, 18). The NASV translates it “do consider” which is softens the force and makes it here a plea and encouragement instead of a rebuke like in chapter 1. It is literally, please: “set your heart,” or “fix your attention on this.” In other words, think about your life, the way it was, is, and can be. Haggai is saying, “Think back over the past years of drought and frustration and you will see that your problems began when you set aside the Lord’s house and put your houses first.” In other words, recall how miserable and frustrated you were in your disobedience in putting yourself first before you began to lay stone on stone in the temple.
They were going broke—economically and spiritually. Everything they touched became contaminated. Every time they made $100 half of it disappeared. They invested $1000 in a sure thing and within a week they had lost $600. It was the reverse Midas touch; everything they touched turned sour. Nothing worked right. They entire nation was in an economic decline—all because they had disobeyed God. Without God’s blessing, our work will always end in frustration. We go to our store of grain expecting to find 20 measures, but only 10 are there. We expect to draw 50 measures of wine, but only find 20 (2:16). We plant expecting a crop, but blasting wind, mildew, and hail decimate the yield (2:17). They had pushed God to the circumference and as a result, God has sent blight to their crops and mildew to their souls. Psalm 106:15 calls it God sending “leanness into their soul”.
What was the purpose of all the striking and blowing and blight and mildew and harvest and hail that God inflicted on his people? God himself gives the reason in Haggai 2:17, “yet you did not turn to me.” This striking, this chastisement, this curse, this punishment, was a redemptive chastisement. It was designed by God himself to correct his people and cause them to turn to him. That’s all God wanted all along. He wanted his people to turn to him with a whole heart and put him in the center of life. How long did God apply this redemptive chastisement before his people responded to it? Oh, about sixteen years! It took that long for God’s people to return to him. God’s discipline is not pleasant but it really is a blessing, as Hebrews 12:1-11 tells us, because it is a mark of His love toward us as His children.
What about you ? What is the return of how you are living your life today? Are you living or dying? Are you experiencing the fullness of God’s blessings or are you experiencing His cursings? Right now the word to you is what Haggai said 1:7, Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house” and in Haggai 2:4 Yet now be strong, Zerubbabel,' says the LORD; 'and be strong, Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; and be strong, all you people of the land,' says the LORD, 'and work; In Zechariah 1:1-3 we find the prophecy of Zechariah to the people in the eighth month: " This is what the Lord Almighty says: "Return to me," declares the Lord Almighty, "and I will return to you," says the Lord Almighty.’" What was God’s promise? "Return to me and I will return to you." He was promising to bless his people--in other words, to repair, to mend, and to lift the curse--so that the hearts of His people would rejoice.
IV. A Challenge for the Present and a Promise for the Future- (verses 18-19)
After sixteen years of misery, the people responded to the ministry of Haggai and Zechariah. They went up to the mountain, brought down timber, cleared the ruin of all rubble, and set their hearts on rebuilding the temple. Just as many of you have responded to the word of God and are seeking first God’s Kingdom. Haggai gives a very bold challenge when he calls the people to consider again. Now this time they are to not look back, but “from this day onward”. They are to look at the present, how life has been for them (not before, but) “since the day” they returned to the Lord and began to build the temple and had put God first.
What was there when you put building your houses and lives first? Trouble, frustration, and disappointment? What is here now that you have surrendered and put God’s house and his work first? The curse has been lifted and the blessing of God is now upon you! Surrender is the means to enjoying fully the most beautiful thing in our lives-our joyous love relationship with God and all the blessings the flow out of that relationship: His eternal companionship: Intimacy, protection, provision, preservation, and powerful provision put in their hearts in order to give a desire and ability to do what He has commanded, companionship, satisfaction, sustaining grace, joy, life abundant, and contentment, in short, a life blessed by God!
This is God’s challenge to us all! Are you bold and courageous to accept it? Will you believe God no matter what you see that if you put Him first the blessings have come and are coming? The way you live your life today is preparing you for tomorrow. God wants to turn your life into His masterpiece of grace and blessings. What are you grooming yourself for-blessings or cursings? Your life will never change until you change the way you have been living. For the Jews 16 years of living for themselves had brought nothing but a life without God’s blessings. Are you living for yourself or for God?
God is saying: today are you going to put yourself first or Me? Are you willing to follow me on My terms and trust Me for the results even if at present you don’t see anything or are you going to do your thing your way? I want you to "Return to me," declares the Lord Almighty, "and I will return to you," says the Lord Almighty.’ God says, “Do it now! Put me to the test. Then, like I challenged the Jews look back and ask yourself, 'Was I a God of My word or not?'” God is not afraid of that kind of test. Are you? He puts the challenge to us directly.
Listen to verse 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." I have spoken, you are experiencing the blessing right now, now trust that my present blessing will be yours tomorrow! I will turn 16 years of chastening and cursings into abundant blessings! He was not speaking about blessing for one day only, but "from this day forward," meaning from the day of repentance, from the day of rebuilding, from December 18, 520 B.C. on.
Up until this point, every year they planted their seed around November, the time of the early rain, and hoped for a good harvest. But every year they experienced only frustration and disappointment as the crops failed to produce as they had hoped. Based on their experience of the past sixteen years, what should they expect? Frustration. But now the prophet was prophesying that in May and June of 519 B.C.--that is the time of the wheat harvest in Israel--they would reap plenty. God was telling his people, "You have already planted your seed, but this year will be different. The years of curse and frustration are over. I have lifted your curse and stopped frowning upon you. I have turned my face toward you in love and approval. You are my beloved remnant, my beloved children. Because you have obeyed me, I am pleased with you and will bless you, for I honor those who honor me. Your past will not determine your future. I will change the way your life has been and turn the barren fruitlessness into rich, prosperous, fruitful abundance!
God has spoken His promise of blessing; you have experienced His blessing, now today you can have the confident assurance as sure as God is God that he will bless your life! In the Spring, every day the people could look at their fields and see the plants growing. As they lived every day by faith, they could see things working according to God’s promise. And such plenty would continue in 518, in 517, in 516 and so on. Psalm 115:12-15, "The LORD has been mindful of us; He will bless us; He will bless the house of Israel; He will bless the house of Aaron. He will bless those who fear the LORD, both small and great, May the LORD give you increase more and more, you and your children. May you be blessed by the LORD, Who made heaven and earth”
I said last week that each and every one of you is capable of being loved and blessed by God. Oh beloved, what a bright future you have! You will never be frustrated, disappointed, and miserable. I challenge you to mark this day and expect him to bless you. May you be blessed when you go out, blessed when you come in, and blessed in everything you touch. "From this day forward I will bless you." Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Numbers 6:24-27 The LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace." So they shall put My name on the children of Israel, and I will bless them."
God's blessings to each and every one of you!
Pastor Bill
Last week I wrote that God wants to bless you life! Do you believe this? So far what we have seen in Haggai chapter 2 does not sound like it. So far God has told the people why they have not been blessed by Him. Now God continues to adress the reason they were not blessed in order to bring them to repentence and be ready for new and fresh blessings from Him.
A Reminder About the Past (verses 15-17)
Three times in the remaining verses God repeats the same phrase that He repeated three times in the first section (1:5, 7): “Consider” (2:15, 18). The NASV translates it “do consider” which is softens the force and makes it here a plea and encouragement instead of a rebuke like in chapter 1. It is literally, please: “set your heart,” or “fix your attention on this.” In other words, think about your life, the way it was, is, and can be. Haggai is saying, “Think back over the past years of drought and frustration and you will see that your problems began when you set aside the Lord’s house and put your houses first.” In other words, recall how miserable and frustrated you were in your disobedience in putting yourself first before you began to lay stone on stone in the temple.
They were going broke—economically and spiritually. Everything they touched became contaminated. Every time they made $100 half of it disappeared. They invested $1000 in a sure thing and within a week they had lost $600. It was the reverse Midas touch; everything they touched turned sour. Nothing worked right. They entire nation was in an economic decline—all because they had disobeyed God. Without God’s blessing, our work will always end in frustration. We go to our store of grain expecting to find 20 measures, but only 10 are there. We expect to draw 50 measures of wine, but only find 20 (2:16). We plant expecting a crop, but blasting wind, mildew, and hail decimate the yield (2:17). They had pushed God to the circumference and as a result, God has sent blight to their crops and mildew to their souls. Psalm 106:15 calls it God sending “leanness into their soul”.
What was the purpose of all the striking and blowing and blight and mildew and harvest and hail that God inflicted on his people? God himself gives the reason in Haggai 2:17, “yet you did not turn to me.” This striking, this chastisement, this curse, this punishment, was a redemptive chastisement. It was designed by God himself to correct his people and cause them to turn to him. That’s all God wanted all along. He wanted his people to turn to him with a whole heart and put him in the center of life. How long did God apply this redemptive chastisement before his people responded to it? Oh, about sixteen years! It took that long for God’s people to return to him. God’s discipline is not pleasant but it really is a blessing, as Hebrews 12:1-11 tells us, because it is a mark of His love toward us as His children.
What about you ? What is the return of how you are living your life today? Are you living or dying? Are you experiencing the fullness of God’s blessings or are you experiencing His cursings? Right now the word to you is what Haggai said 1:7, Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house” and in Haggai 2:4 Yet now be strong, Zerubbabel,' says the LORD; 'and be strong, Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; and be strong, all you people of the land,' says the LORD, 'and work; In Zechariah 1:1-3 we find the prophecy of Zechariah to the people in the eighth month: " This is what the Lord Almighty says: "Return to me," declares the Lord Almighty, "and I will return to you," says the Lord Almighty.’" What was God’s promise? "Return to me and I will return to you." He was promising to bless his people--in other words, to repair, to mend, and to lift the curse--so that the hearts of His people would rejoice.
IV. A Challenge for the Present and a Promise for the Future- (verses 18-19)
After sixteen years of misery, the people responded to the ministry of Haggai and Zechariah. They went up to the mountain, brought down timber, cleared the ruin of all rubble, and set their hearts on rebuilding the temple. Just as many of you have responded to the word of God and are seeking first God’s Kingdom. Haggai gives a very bold challenge when he calls the people to consider again. Now this time they are to not look back, but “from this day onward”. They are to look at the present, how life has been for them (not before, but) “since the day” they returned to the Lord and began to build the temple and had put God first.
What was there when you put building your houses and lives first? Trouble, frustration, and disappointment? What is here now that you have surrendered and put God’s house and his work first? The curse has been lifted and the blessing of God is now upon you! Surrender is the means to enjoying fully the most beautiful thing in our lives-our joyous love relationship with God and all the blessings the flow out of that relationship: His eternal companionship: Intimacy, protection, provision, preservation, and powerful provision put in their hearts in order to give a desire and ability to do what He has commanded, companionship, satisfaction, sustaining grace, joy, life abundant, and contentment, in short, a life blessed by God!
This is God’s challenge to us all! Are you bold and courageous to accept it? Will you believe God no matter what you see that if you put Him first the blessings have come and are coming? The way you live your life today is preparing you for tomorrow. God wants to turn your life into His masterpiece of grace and blessings. What are you grooming yourself for-blessings or cursings? Your life will never change until you change the way you have been living. For the Jews 16 years of living for themselves had brought nothing but a life without God’s blessings. Are you living for yourself or for God?
God is saying: today are you going to put yourself first or Me? Are you willing to follow me on My terms and trust Me for the results even if at present you don’t see anything or are you going to do your thing your way? I want you to "Return to me," declares the Lord Almighty, "and I will return to you," says the Lord Almighty.’ God says, “Do it now! Put me to the test. Then, like I challenged the Jews look back and ask yourself, 'Was I a God of My word or not?'” God is not afraid of that kind of test. Are you? He puts the challenge to us directly.
Listen to verse 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." I have spoken, you are experiencing the blessing right now, now trust that my present blessing will be yours tomorrow! I will turn 16 years of chastening and cursings into abundant blessings! He was not speaking about blessing for one day only, but "from this day forward," meaning from the day of repentance, from the day of rebuilding, from December 18, 520 B.C. on.
Up until this point, every year they planted their seed around November, the time of the early rain, and hoped for a good harvest. But every year they experienced only frustration and disappointment as the crops failed to produce as they had hoped. Based on their experience of the past sixteen years, what should they expect? Frustration. But now the prophet was prophesying that in May and June of 519 B.C.--that is the time of the wheat harvest in Israel--they would reap plenty. God was telling his people, "You have already planted your seed, but this year will be different. The years of curse and frustration are over. I have lifted your curse and stopped frowning upon you. I have turned my face toward you in love and approval. You are my beloved remnant, my beloved children. Because you have obeyed me, I am pleased with you and will bless you, for I honor those who honor me. Your past will not determine your future. I will change the way your life has been and turn the barren fruitlessness into rich, prosperous, fruitful abundance!
God has spoken His promise of blessing; you have experienced His blessing, now today you can have the confident assurance as sure as God is God that he will bless your life! In the Spring, every day the people could look at their fields and see the plants growing. As they lived every day by faith, they could see things working according to God’s promise. And such plenty would continue in 518, in 517, in 516 and so on. Psalm 115:12-15, "The LORD has been mindful of us; He will bless us; He will bless the house of Israel; He will bless the house of Aaron. He will bless those who fear the LORD, both small and great, May the LORD give you increase more and more, you and your children. May you be blessed by the LORD, Who made heaven and earth”
I said last week that each and every one of you is capable of being loved and blessed by God. Oh beloved, what a bright future you have! You will never be frustrated, disappointed, and miserable. I challenge you to mark this day and expect him to bless you. May you be blessed when you go out, blessed when you come in, and blessed in everything you touch. "From this day forward I will bless you." Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Numbers 6:24-27 The LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace." So they shall put My name on the children of Israel, and I will bless them."
God's blessings to each and every one of you!
Pastor Bill
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Blessings from Haggai Part 5: THE LIFE THAT GOD BLESSES
"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, saying, "Thus says the LORD of hosts: 'Now, ask the priests concerning the law, saying, "If one carries holy meat in the fold of his garment, and with the edge he touches bread or stew, wine or oil, or any food, will it become holy?" ' " Then the priests answered and said, "No." And Haggai said, "If one who is unclean because of a dead body touches any of these, will it be unclean?" So the priests answered and said, "It shall be unclean." Then Haggai answered and said, " 'So is this people, and so is this nation before Me,' says the LORD, 'and so is every work of their hands; and what they offer there is unclean. ' And now, carefully consider from this day forward: from before stone was laid upon stone in the temple of the LORD -- 'since those days, when one came to a heap of twenty ephahs, there were but ten; when one came to the wine vat to draw out fifty baths from the press, there were but twenty. 'I struck you with blight and mildew and hail in all the labors of your hands; yet you did not turn to Me,' says the LORD. 18 'Consider now from this day forward, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, from the day that the foundation of the LORD's temple was laid -- consider it: 'Is the seed still in the barn? As yet the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have not yielded fruit. But from this day I will bless you.' " Haggai 2;10-19 ESV
God wants to bless you life! Do you believe this? I’m going to say it to you again. God wants to bless your life! He is willing-in fact- He desires to pour out upon you His people His gracious and extraordinary blessings to make your life His masterpiece of grace.
One of my biggest challenges has been convincing myself and convincing others that God delights to bless His people. So many people cannot accept the truth that God delights to bless them. Did you know that over seven verses in the Bible say that God delights, enjoys, or takes pleasure in His people, three verses say that He delights in loving and blessing His people, and one verse tells that He delights in our welfare. In short, those eleven verses say that we bring delight to God.
So I say it again: God wants to bless your life! I pray that God's word and His spirit would convince each and every one of you that you are capable of being loved and blessed by God. The question is: Do you want His blessing on your life? Are you willing to receive His blessing on His terms? When you have God’s blessing, you have it all. You may be rich or poor, healthy or ill, living in a mansion or hiding out in a cave. But if you know that God is blessing your life, you have something that the world cannot give or take away. You are truly satisfied and exceedingly joyful!
The prophet Haggai’s third message (2:10-19) is a message about God’s desire to bless a people who had been formerly cursed. He tells us how we can experience the life that God blesses. Remember from the past few blogs 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 proclaimed the Word of God and called the people to “consider your ways, go, and build”. In short, to put first things first and seek above all God and His Kingdom. As a result, his message produced a powerful 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. So they worked about a month, but discouragement seeped into the community.
So in chapter 2 God spoke again with a word of encouragement for His people to persevere in the work He had called them to do. He said: be strong, do not fear, and work. Then He gave them assurances of His name, the Lord of Hosts, His ongoing and comforting presence with them in their work, His power to enable them to do his will, His ongoing covenant, and a promise that there was more than meets the eye to what He has called them to do. Someday there would be a glorious future temple greater than anything they have seen or could ever imagine. He was saying, be encouraged about the seeming little and insignificant thing that you do. For you build more than you see!
Now this third message comes on December 18, 520 B.C., about three months after the first message in chapter 1 and two months after the second message in chapter 2:1-9. The last half of Haggai 2 gets back to practical matters, probably in response to a question that might have gone like this: "You are speaking of a future glory of the temple, which is all well and good. And I grant that there is some encouragement in knowing that. It makes our labor just a little more meaningful. But still, we are living in a most discouraging time. You speak of the future. That is your unique perspective. But we don't have your perspective, God. We have to live in the present, and day by day as we handle our bricks and apply our mortar and see the walls of the temple slowly rising, we are reminded of how bad things are. What good is a distant future, however glorious, when we live here and now?"
God's Word is for any who may be in this condition. The people had been complaining about the grimness of their present days, so God tells them to pay good attention to those days, especially by comparing the days before they began to work on the temple with the days afterward. God is going to give us both a bold challenge to us and a wonderful promise. God assures the anxious people that because they had put His house first by rebuilding again, He would bless them.
I. Two Curious Questions- (verses 10-13) The challenge was conveyed in a dramatic way. Haggai as to go to the priests and ask them for a ruling on how an object could become consecrated or defiled. He asked the question: "If a person carries consecrated meat in the fold of his garment, and that fold touches some bread or stew, some wine, oil or other food, does it become consecrated?" The priests answered, "No." That was right. Holiness is an isolated virtue. It is not communicable. Then Haggai asked: "If a person defiled by contact with a dead body touches one of these things, does it become defiled?" The priests answered, "Yes." Again they were right. Contamination is communicable. It is far easier to spread evil than virtue. This is really a lesson about the pervasive power of sin. Let me illustrate. Suppose you wash your hand and then touch a dirty plate. What happens? Will your clean hand make the dirty plate clean? No, but the dirt on the plate rubs off on your hand. Now change the image. Suppose your wear a white glove and do yard work in the dirty mud? (Bear with me on the analogy) What happens? You get a muddy glove. But the white glove does not make the dirty mud white, in short, you don’t get glovey mud!
Sin is like dirt. It’s spreads so quickly. Just as it’s hard to keep a white glove clean, it’s hard to keep a life clean because sin stains everything. Or consider this illustration. Sin is like a contagious disease. Suppose a person with a cold kisses a person in perfect health. Will the sick person catch health from the healthy person? No, but the healthy person can easily catch a cold from the sick person. Sin is it like dirt and like disease. It transfers much easier than holiness.
II. An Important Application- (verse 14) So Haggai makes an application to those strange questions. I like the NIV translation here: “So it is with this people and this nation in my sight,' declares the LORD.’Whatever they do and whatever they offer there is defiled”. Haggai applied this priestly wisdom to the lives of the people of Israel, to explain to them why God had not blessed them, and we must apply it to our own lives as well. God explains that it has been like that with Israel. They had been living in a contaminated state due to their inverted priorities, and, as a result, everything they touched had been contaminated.
The key is the word “whatever.” When your heart is not right with God, whatever you do will be wrong. You see, God wanted more than a temple built. He wanted the hearts of the people to be fully devoted to him. God did not want a big house filled with empty hearts. He did not want animal sacrifice unless it was accompanied by a living sacrifice of the people. In Psalm 51:17 David speaks of the sacrifices desired by God: "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." In other words, God will accept the broken and contrite heart. In Isaiah 57:15 God makes a similar statement: "I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite." God is more interested in our hearts than in any external sacrifices. In 1 Samuel 15:22-23 Samuel told King Saul, "Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.”
God wants your heart because if he has your heart, he’ll soon have every other part of your life. That’s why Proverbs 4:23 says “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” The heart of the matter is the matter of our heart. So how about your heart? How is it today? Does God have yours?
"The soul is measured by it's heights, some high and others low; but the heart is measured by it's delights and its pleasures never lie."
To be continued...
Pastor Bill
God wants to bless you life! Do you believe this? I’m going to say it to you again. God wants to bless your life! He is willing-in fact- He desires to pour out upon you His people His gracious and extraordinary blessings to make your life His masterpiece of grace.
One of my biggest challenges has been convincing myself and convincing others that God delights to bless His people. So many people cannot accept the truth that God delights to bless them. Did you know that over seven verses in the Bible say that God delights, enjoys, or takes pleasure in His people, three verses say that He delights in loving and blessing His people, and one verse tells that He delights in our welfare. In short, those eleven verses say that we bring delight to God.
So I say it again: God wants to bless your life! I pray that God's word and His spirit would convince each and every one of you that you are capable of being loved and blessed by God. The question is: Do you want His blessing on your life? Are you willing to receive His blessing on His terms? When you have God’s blessing, you have it all. You may be rich or poor, healthy or ill, living in a mansion or hiding out in a cave. But if you know that God is blessing your life, you have something that the world cannot give or take away. You are truly satisfied and exceedingly joyful!
The prophet Haggai’s third message (2:10-19) is a message about God’s desire to bless a people who had been formerly cursed. He tells us how we can experience the life that God blesses. Remember from the past few blogs 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 proclaimed the Word of God and called the people to “consider your ways, go, and build”. In short, to put first things first and seek above all God and His Kingdom. As a result, his message produced a powerful 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. So they worked about a month, but discouragement seeped into the community.
So in chapter 2 God spoke again with a word of encouragement for His people to persevere in the work He had called them to do. He said: be strong, do not fear, and work. Then He gave them assurances of His name, the Lord of Hosts, His ongoing and comforting presence with them in their work, His power to enable them to do his will, His ongoing covenant, and a promise that there was more than meets the eye to what He has called them to do. Someday there would be a glorious future temple greater than anything they have seen or could ever imagine. He was saying, be encouraged about the seeming little and insignificant thing that you do. For you build more than you see!
Now this third message comes on December 18, 520 B.C., about three months after the first message in chapter 1 and two months after the second message in chapter 2:1-9. The last half of Haggai 2 gets back to practical matters, probably in response to a question that might have gone like this: "You are speaking of a future glory of the temple, which is all well and good. And I grant that there is some encouragement in knowing that. It makes our labor just a little more meaningful. But still, we are living in a most discouraging time. You speak of the future. That is your unique perspective. But we don't have your perspective, God. We have to live in the present, and day by day as we handle our bricks and apply our mortar and see the walls of the temple slowly rising, we are reminded of how bad things are. What good is a distant future, however glorious, when we live here and now?"
God's Word is for any who may be in this condition. The people had been complaining about the grimness of their present days, so God tells them to pay good attention to those days, especially by comparing the days before they began to work on the temple with the days afterward. God is going to give us both a bold challenge to us and a wonderful promise. God assures the anxious people that because they had put His house first by rebuilding again, He would bless them.
I. Two Curious Questions- (verses 10-13) The challenge was conveyed in a dramatic way. Haggai as to go to the priests and ask them for a ruling on how an object could become consecrated or defiled. He asked the question: "If a person carries consecrated meat in the fold of his garment, and that fold touches some bread or stew, some wine, oil or other food, does it become consecrated?" The priests answered, "No." That was right. Holiness is an isolated virtue. It is not communicable. Then Haggai asked: "If a person defiled by contact with a dead body touches one of these things, does it become defiled?" The priests answered, "Yes." Again they were right. Contamination is communicable. It is far easier to spread evil than virtue. This is really a lesson about the pervasive power of sin. Let me illustrate. Suppose you wash your hand and then touch a dirty plate. What happens? Will your clean hand make the dirty plate clean? No, but the dirt on the plate rubs off on your hand. Now change the image. Suppose your wear a white glove and do yard work in the dirty mud? (Bear with me on the analogy) What happens? You get a muddy glove. But the white glove does not make the dirty mud white, in short, you don’t get glovey mud!
Sin is like dirt. It’s spreads so quickly. Just as it’s hard to keep a white glove clean, it’s hard to keep a life clean because sin stains everything. Or consider this illustration. Sin is like a contagious disease. Suppose a person with a cold kisses a person in perfect health. Will the sick person catch health from the healthy person? No, but the healthy person can easily catch a cold from the sick person. Sin is it like dirt and like disease. It transfers much easier than holiness.
II. An Important Application- (verse 14) So Haggai makes an application to those strange questions. I like the NIV translation here: “So it is with this people and this nation in my sight,' declares the LORD.’Whatever they do and whatever they offer there is defiled”. Haggai applied this priestly wisdom to the lives of the people of Israel, to explain to them why God had not blessed them, and we must apply it to our own lives as well. God explains that it has been like that with Israel. They had been living in a contaminated state due to their inverted priorities, and, as a result, everything they touched had been contaminated.
The key is the word “whatever.” When your heart is not right with God, whatever you do will be wrong. You see, God wanted more than a temple built. He wanted the hearts of the people to be fully devoted to him. God did not want a big house filled with empty hearts. He did not want animal sacrifice unless it was accompanied by a living sacrifice of the people. In Psalm 51:17 David speaks of the sacrifices desired by God: "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." In other words, God will accept the broken and contrite heart. In Isaiah 57:15 God makes a similar statement: "I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite." God is more interested in our hearts than in any external sacrifices. In 1 Samuel 15:22-23 Samuel told King Saul, "Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.”
God wants your heart because if he has your heart, he’ll soon have every other part of your life. That’s why Proverbs 4:23 says “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” The heart of the matter is the matter of our heart. So how about your heart? How is it today? Does God have yours?
"The soul is measured by it's heights, some high and others low; but the heart is measured by it's delights and its pleasures never lie."
To be continued...
Pastor Bill
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
BLESSINGS FROM HAGGAI Part 4: YOU BUILD MORE THAN YOU CAN SEE
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
Discouragement is something that all of us face at one time or the other. As we have seen in the book of Haggai, it hit the Jews hard as they were rebuilding the temple. But God had a plan for the Jews and He has a plan for you. 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. So to help the discouraged Jews God has said:
1. Be strong (verse 4)
2. Fear not (verse 5)
3. Work! (verse 4)
II. Why can God give these three demands upon the Jews and us?
1. He is the Lord of hosts
First, who was telling these people, "Be strong," "Do not fear," and "Work"? Notice that Haggai used one particular name for God six times in these nine verses? It’s the name translated as “The LORD of Hosts.” If you look closely at the text, you’ll discover the word “LORD” is capitalized because it refers to the Hebrew word Yahweh, which is God’s personal name. The word “Hosts” translates the Hebrew word sabbaoth, which means “the armies of earth and heaven.” Literally, meaning “He who is sovereign over all the powers of earth and heaven.” It’s an extremely strong name for God. You might even call it a “military” name because it means that He is the God who is greater than all the forces of earth and heaven. No one can stand against him. No one can defeat his purposes. No one can hinder him in the least. When the LORD of Hosts goes out to do battle on your behalf, you’re going to win because he’s never lost a battle yet.
2. The Lord of Hosts is with us
"I am with you." This is the second time that phrase appears in the book of Haggai. We find it first in Haggai 1:13 and now in Haggai 2:4 we read, "’For I am with you,’ declares the Lord of Hosts." God, the Lord of Hosts, is with us/you! He is not sending an angel or some other agent to strengthen us in our task. He will not leave us or forsake us in the middle of our task. He never sleeps nor slumbers. He is the ever-vigilant, almighty, good shepherd who cares for us.
Therefore, we may lean on him, listen to him, and rest in him who says to us, "I am with you!"Do you think God can help us build? Oh, yes.!Our God is the great builder, the one who said, "I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." He is the first builder, and we are but secondary agents. So God told the people of Haggai’s time and he tells us, "Listen, the reason for not fearing, the reason for building, the reason we should be strong, is that I am with you--to guide you, to strengthen you, to encourage you, and to provide you with all your needs."
The assurance of His presence should lift our discouragement and enable us to press on. After many years of hardship and danger in the heart of Africa, David Livingstone received an honorary doctorate from the University of Glasgow. On that occasion, he said, “Would you like me to tell you what supported me through all the years of exile among people whose language I could not understand, and whose attitude toward me was always uncertain and often hostile? It was this: ‘Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.’ On those words I staked everything, and they never failed.” How could we ever, then, belittle a work when God says He is with us in it? When the LORD of Hosts is working at your side, nothing is trivial.
3. God’s covenant was still operative
In Haggai 2:5 God says, "according to the covenant I made with you when you came out of Egypt" These people could take courage because the covenant of God, God’s plan to save his people, was still functioning. Things did not look all that promising to these people. There were just a few of them and they were under Persian control. Materials were scarce, money was tight, and their enemies were many. They knew that the temple they were trying to build could never match the magnificent temple destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. I am sure these people thought that maybe God had forgotten his promises and abandoned them. But, no, God was still on target. He was committed to his covenant, and in due course he would exalt and save his people.
So Haggai was exhorting the people to rely on God’s promises, rise up, and work. Brothers and sisters remember that God is committed to His ongoing New Covenant promise working for you! Jeremiah 31:33-34, “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." Ezekiel 36:26-27 adds, “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”
4. God’s Spirit was remaining among them
In Haggai 2:5 God tells his people, "My Spirit remains in your midst" God’s promise is not only that he will be at your side; he will also be in your heart encouraging you and strengthening you. Look back at the end of 1:13, " 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, "
If we will ask him and trust him, God not only works with us, but he moves in to stir up our spirit and give us a heart, a will, and a desire for the work and the power to do it. He doesn't want crusty diehards in His work; He wants free and joyful laborers. And so He promises to be with them and stir them up to love the work and also enables His people to do their work. God’s work ultimately depends on God Himself. 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.
The other prophet who prophesied at the same time as Haggai is Zechariah, and in Zechariah 4:1-7 we read about the Holy Spirit helping Zerubbabel complete the temple. In verse 6 we read, "This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty." God is telling Zerubbabel and the people of Israel that the work He called them to do will not be completed by human energy. God will give them the strength and power to do the work through His Spirit.
IV. Divine Promises to Live By
God is saying, I understand that compared to the past, the present is bleak. Yes, there was former glory and the loss hurts, but now I want to show you in verses 6–9. I wrote a few weeks ago that God only sends his people in one direction: Forward! He never sends them back to the past, and he never lets them stay in one place too long. The people of Haggai’s had romanticized the past and completely forgotten about the future. What was God telling His people? The best is yet to come! Because the perspective of the people was wrong, they believed that nothing would ever compare to the glory of Solomon’s Temple. Their longing was a nostalgic, "oh for the good old days".
God wants the people to see His perspective; look to the future with hope! God says, “The silver and gold all belong to me; if I wanted you to build an elaborate temple better than Solomon’s then I could give you more than you needed.” God tells the people, “My glory will fill this house; it will be greater than anything Solomon ever experienced.” Don’t look back; the best is yet to come! It’s a new day, a new beginning. Not the same, but new and good and full of possibilities and hope and you will rejoice!
Zechariah told the people the same thing. He writes in Zechariah 4:10, "Who despises the day of small things? “ Oh reader, do you you believe that what your doing won’t amount to much; that it is just a small thing.? Well, you don’t see what God sees; that the best is yet to come! The temple that Zurubbabel and the people completed was visited some 500 years later by Jesus Himself. Jesus Christ who embodied the presence and glory of God honored that Temple with His presence. The desired of nations had come announcing Peace.
God kept His word, the best really was yet to come! God encourages those who were discouraged thinking their work only produces paltry results by encouraging us to be strong, work, and fear not, because you build more than you see. All you see is a paltry temple. But God promises to take your work, fill it with his glory, and make your labors with a million times more than you ever imagined. Dwell on what new things that God has done and is going to do in the sufficiency of His power and grace! Be strong, Lighthouse; you build more than you see. And so it is with every one of us. Nothing you do is a trifle if you do it in the name of God.
Ajith Fernando tells the story of a godly missionary who faithfully served in a village in Sri Lanka over along period of time. He did not see anyone from that community come to Christ during his lifetime. After his death a young missionary came to the village to take his place and was surprised to see almost the entire village respond to the call of same gospel his predecessor had proclaimed to them for so many years. Perplexed and humbled, the young man asked the villagers why they did not respond to the gospel during the time when that great and godly man lived among them. They responded that the old missionary had told them that “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” And if they became followers of Jesus Christ they would not need to fear death. What he said impressed them, but they needed to see if what the man said was really true. So they watched him live and waited till he died. In seeing the way that he lived and the way that he died; it made them all want to become Christians.
Do you see disarray or God's design in your life in these amazing days? He is with us, He is the Lord of Hosts, He is powerful, His Holy Spirit is with us, and He is almighty, and His power is working. He will shake heaven and earth to fill your labor with splendor. Oh Lighthouse; It is a new year; a new beginning, full of possibilities and hope. Rejoice! Be strong, do not be afraid, and work, you build more than you see. Don’t look back, look ahead. The best is yet to come! THE LORD OF HOSTS IS IN US AND WITH US!
Pastor Bill
Discouragement is something that all of us face at one time or the other. As we have seen in the book of Haggai, it hit the Jews hard as they were rebuilding the temple. But God had a plan for the Jews and He has a plan for you. 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. So to help the discouraged Jews God has said:
1. Be strong (verse 4)
2. Fear not (verse 5)
3. Work! (verse 4)
II. Why can God give these three demands upon the Jews and us?
1. He is the Lord of hosts
First, who was telling these people, "Be strong," "Do not fear," and "Work"? Notice that Haggai used one particular name for God six times in these nine verses? It’s the name translated as “The LORD of Hosts.” If you look closely at the text, you’ll discover the word “LORD” is capitalized because it refers to the Hebrew word Yahweh, which is God’s personal name. The word “Hosts” translates the Hebrew word sabbaoth, which means “the armies of earth and heaven.” Literally, meaning “He who is sovereign over all the powers of earth and heaven.” It’s an extremely strong name for God. You might even call it a “military” name because it means that He is the God who is greater than all the forces of earth and heaven. No one can stand against him. No one can defeat his purposes. No one can hinder him in the least. When the LORD of Hosts goes out to do battle on your behalf, you’re going to win because he’s never lost a battle yet.
2. The Lord of Hosts is with us
"I am with you." This is the second time that phrase appears in the book of Haggai. We find it first in Haggai 1:13 and now in Haggai 2:4 we read, "’For I am with you,’ declares the Lord of Hosts." God, the Lord of Hosts, is with us/you! He is not sending an angel or some other agent to strengthen us in our task. He will not leave us or forsake us in the middle of our task. He never sleeps nor slumbers. He is the ever-vigilant, almighty, good shepherd who cares for us.
Therefore, we may lean on him, listen to him, and rest in him who says to us, "I am with you!"Do you think God can help us build? Oh, yes.!Our God is the great builder, the one who said, "I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." He is the first builder, and we are but secondary agents. So God told the people of Haggai’s time and he tells us, "Listen, the reason for not fearing, the reason for building, the reason we should be strong, is that I am with you--to guide you, to strengthen you, to encourage you, and to provide you with all your needs."
The assurance of His presence should lift our discouragement and enable us to press on. After many years of hardship and danger in the heart of Africa, David Livingstone received an honorary doctorate from the University of Glasgow. On that occasion, he said, “Would you like me to tell you what supported me through all the years of exile among people whose language I could not understand, and whose attitude toward me was always uncertain and often hostile? It was this: ‘Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.’ On those words I staked everything, and they never failed.” How could we ever, then, belittle a work when God says He is with us in it? When the LORD of Hosts is working at your side, nothing is trivial.
3. God’s covenant was still operative
In Haggai 2:5 God says, "according to the covenant I made with you when you came out of Egypt" These people could take courage because the covenant of God, God’s plan to save his people, was still functioning. Things did not look all that promising to these people. There were just a few of them and they were under Persian control. Materials were scarce, money was tight, and their enemies were many. They knew that the temple they were trying to build could never match the magnificent temple destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. I am sure these people thought that maybe God had forgotten his promises and abandoned them. But, no, God was still on target. He was committed to his covenant, and in due course he would exalt and save his people.
So Haggai was exhorting the people to rely on God’s promises, rise up, and work. Brothers and sisters remember that God is committed to His ongoing New Covenant promise working for you! Jeremiah 31:33-34, “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." Ezekiel 36:26-27 adds, “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”
4. God’s Spirit was remaining among them
In Haggai 2:5 God tells his people, "My Spirit remains in your midst" God’s promise is not only that he will be at your side; he will also be in your heart encouraging you and strengthening you. Look back at the end of 1:13, " 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, "
If we will ask him and trust him, God not only works with us, but he moves in to stir up our spirit and give us a heart, a will, and a desire for the work and the power to do it. He doesn't want crusty diehards in His work; He wants free and joyful laborers. And so He promises to be with them and stir them up to love the work and also enables His people to do their work. God’s work ultimately depends on God Himself. 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.
The other prophet who prophesied at the same time as Haggai is Zechariah, and in Zechariah 4:1-7 we read about the Holy Spirit helping Zerubbabel complete the temple. In verse 6 we read, "This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty." God is telling Zerubbabel and the people of Israel that the work He called them to do will not be completed by human energy. God will give them the strength and power to do the work through His Spirit.
IV. Divine Promises to Live By
God is saying, I understand that compared to the past, the present is bleak. Yes, there was former glory and the loss hurts, but now I want to show you in verses 6–9. I wrote a few weeks ago that God only sends his people in one direction: Forward! He never sends them back to the past, and he never lets them stay in one place too long. The people of Haggai’s had romanticized the past and completely forgotten about the future. What was God telling His people? The best is yet to come! Because the perspective of the people was wrong, they believed that nothing would ever compare to the glory of Solomon’s Temple. Their longing was a nostalgic, "oh for the good old days".
God wants the people to see His perspective; look to the future with hope! God says, “The silver and gold all belong to me; if I wanted you to build an elaborate temple better than Solomon’s then I could give you more than you needed.” God tells the people, “My glory will fill this house; it will be greater than anything Solomon ever experienced.” Don’t look back; the best is yet to come! It’s a new day, a new beginning. Not the same, but new and good and full of possibilities and hope and you will rejoice!
Zechariah told the people the same thing. He writes in Zechariah 4:10, "Who despises the day of small things? “ Oh reader, do you you believe that what your doing won’t amount to much; that it is just a small thing.? Well, you don’t see what God sees; that the best is yet to come! The temple that Zurubbabel and the people completed was visited some 500 years later by Jesus Himself. Jesus Christ who embodied the presence and glory of God honored that Temple with His presence. The desired of nations had come announcing Peace.
God kept His word, the best really was yet to come! God encourages those who were discouraged thinking their work only produces paltry results by encouraging us to be strong, work, and fear not, because you build more than you see. All you see is a paltry temple. But God promises to take your work, fill it with his glory, and make your labors with a million times more than you ever imagined. Dwell on what new things that God has done and is going to do in the sufficiency of His power and grace! Be strong, Lighthouse; you build more than you see. And so it is with every one of us. Nothing you do is a trifle if you do it in the name of God.
Ajith Fernando tells the story of a godly missionary who faithfully served in a village in Sri Lanka over along period of time. He did not see anyone from that community come to Christ during his lifetime. After his death a young missionary came to the village to take his place and was surprised to see almost the entire village respond to the call of same gospel his predecessor had proclaimed to them for so many years. Perplexed and humbled, the young man asked the villagers why they did not respond to the gospel during the time when that great and godly man lived among them. They responded that the old missionary had told them that “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” And if they became followers of Jesus Christ they would not need to fear death. What he said impressed them, but they needed to see if what the man said was really true. So they watched him live and waited till he died. In seeing the way that he lived and the way that he died; it made them all want to become Christians.
Do you see disarray or God's design in your life in these amazing days? He is with us, He is the Lord of Hosts, He is powerful, His Holy Spirit is with us, and He is almighty, and His power is working. He will shake heaven and earth to fill your labor with splendor. Oh Lighthouse; It is a new year; a new beginning, full of possibilities and hope. Rejoice! Be strong, do not be afraid, and work, you build more than you see. Don’t look back, look ahead. The best is yet to come! THE LORD OF HOSTS IS IN US AND WITH US!
Pastor Bill
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
BLESSINGS FROM HAGGAI Part 3: A Word to Discouraged People
"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...
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 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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