Minor Prophets Haggai

once again I want to thank you for joining us for this special series of lessons on the Minor Prophets today we're looking at the Prophet Haggai his name means festive but in his day there wasn't a lot of festivity going on up until now when we've looked at the prophets we have been looking at prophets who did their work prior to the captivity whether it was those prophets who spoke to the Northern Kingdom of Israel it was prior to the Assyrian captivity or whether it was prophets that were speaking to Jerusalem and Judah prior to the Babylonian captivity beginning now with Haggai Zechariah and Malachi now we're looking at what are called post-exilic prophets these are prophets who did their work after the captivity was over and so now the 70 years of captivity are done God's people had been through that period of discipline and Punishment because of their idolatry and other sins but now the people have returned back to Judah that remnant has returned that the prophets spoke about and so they've returned from captivity the historical account in the Old Testament of that would be in Ezra chapter three and four and having returned they had begun to rebuild the temple when Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon and his armies invaded Judah and they ransacked Jerusalem one of the things that they did was they destroyed the temple and now that the people have returned they want that place of worship back so that they can offer to God the worship the sacrifices that the law required of them and so they're going to rebuild the temple and so they started they get the foundation in place but then they face some difficulties they got an offer of help from their nation from their neighbors to the north the Samaritans and basically God's people said to the Samaritans thanks but no things will take care of this ourselves the Samaritans were basically arguing you know we we worship the same God that you do we'd like to help you with this and they said no they didn't want the help and so the Samaritans send word back to Persia the world empire the dominating power at the time basically said that if you let them rebuild this temple and then rebuild the walls around the city and all that you're gonna be sorry because you're gonna have trouble from these people well Persia listens to the Samaritans and they order the work on the temple to be halted they tell them to stop and so basically the people do they got the foundation of the temple in place but then they've had pretty much done nothing else and for some 16 years there was no activity taking place on this temple project the temple was essentially still in ruins well Haggai and Zechariah were two prophets that were sent to basically stir up the desire to rebuild in the people people had gotten used to life without a temple and we learned from the first few verses of Haggai chapter 1 that they didn't really care anymore the temple wasn't in place but didn't bother them and so the prophets were sent there to rebuke their apathy and their indifference and to encourage them to stir them up to get this temple project back running and to get the temple finished and in place now let's take a moment and make a little application for some of us today the New Testament speaks of the Church of the Lord as the temple of God of course back then in the Old Testament era the temple was intact you know was a physical structure that was the place where God said he would come and dwell among his people specifically in a section of the temple the Holy of Holies well the church today is not a physical building we in English the word is used that way sometimes but the church is actually people it's it's the people who make up the body of Christ and in that context the New Testament says by inspiration of the Holy Spirit the church is the temple of God 1st Corinthians 3 verse 16 Paul asks that as a rhetorical question do you not know that you are the temple of God same thing 2nd Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 16 Ephesians chapter 2 verses 20 through 22 Paul makes that point that we as the church are being built up as a spiritual house as a dwelling place for God by the spirit so we are today the Church of Jesus Christ the Church of Christ is the temple of God the dwelling place of God and sometimes congregations of the Lord's Church may find themselves in varying degrees of disrepair sadly tragically sometimes congregations go through periods of of strife periods of division and so those congregations may find themselves in need of repair just in a similar way the Old Testament temple needed repair in the days of haggai the prophet but even if a congregation has not gone through a period of division or strife there are always things within our churches that that need attention and so in that sense and in that way the Prophet Haggai speaks to all of us today and has a lot of good practical lessons for us to consider first of all I want us to think about these lessons from chapter one we learned that important projects call for diligent workers important projects call for diligent workers one of the things that we notice in the early verses of chapter one is that there were some misplaced priorities in the lives of the people of Haggai state and those misplaced priorities led to negligence with regard to the temple work notice how he addresses it in verses 2 and following beginning chapter 1 thus speaks the Lord of Hosts say this people says the time has not come the time that the Lord's house should be built then the word of the Lord came by haggai the prophet saying is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses and this temple to lie in ruins notice what's happened here there was a lack of activity on the part of the people but that lack of activity was not due to ignorance in other words the reason why they weren't finishing the temple project was not because they didn't know that it needed to be done they had returned from captivity for that very purpose Ezra chapter 1 verse 3 reveals that so it wasn't that they didn't know that they needed to rebuild the temple it was an ignorance the problem was the unpleasantness of their present circumstances remember we mentioned that they had gotten opposition from their neighbors to the north the Samaritans were giving them grief and trouble and they would continue to do that but all of that made circumstances such that the people just didn't feel the need the desire to finish the project that they were sent there to to finish and so as they thought about their circumstances they probably thought you know what we've got opposition from our neighbors we certainly don't have as much money as we did before think about that you know they were they were trying to replace Solomon's Temple you go back and read in the book of 2nd Kings how about Solomon's Temple and all of the the the money and the gold and everything that was poured into that project Solomon had all the money that he would need and then some to make that thing as extravagant as possible and he did that because it was - to reflect the glory of God but these people didn't have those resources I mean that the land had been desolate for 70 years and now they've come back and they don't have the resources and so the opposition from their neighbors the the the poor resources all of that resulted in a cloud of discouragement that had just kind of lowered itself on the people and so the people had developed the attitude according to verse number two that you know the time has not come for the temple to be rebuilt and so the Prophet comes and basically says to them would you step back for a moment and take a look at this tip at this temple he says is it time for you to dwell in your paneled houses while this house the temple lies waste whenever I read that I think about my own childhood I can remember my brothers and I being in in our bedroom when we were kids and we would be in there and there would be toys and clothing and everything else just strong strewn all over the place it was it was it was a mess and I can remember my mother coming to see where we were and what we were doing and she would look at that room and then she would have us do something that reminds me of hey guys words here she would tell us she would literally make us do this she would say look get up and come over here and stand by me and so we would do that we'd climb over all of the junk and we'd go and we'd stand by our mother and then she would say now turn around and look at this room and we would literally have to do that look at this room now get in there and clean up that mess and so we'd have to clean our room in in a similar way that's what Haggai is doing here he's basically saying to the people would you come over here and stand by me and take a look at this mess of a temple is it time for you to dwell in your paneled houses while this house lies in ruins you see they had seen that that temple in ruins for so long they had gotten used to it that's that's kind of way we were in our rooms when we were little we've got you know everything's right where we put it right it was right out there you know we put it there we knew it was there we just got used to it so we had to get a little fresh perspective on things and that's what Haggai is trying to do with the people here they weren't inclined to change anything because they've gotten you to the temple being in the condition that it was in you know getting used to a broken temple could hurt us if we're in one of those situations where a congregation perhaps that we're part of has gone through some difficulty has gone through perhaps a period of strife and division we can't allow ourselves to get used to a broken-down temple because it could end up hurting us just like it hurt these people I want you to notice how the Prophet describes their circumstances and how some adverse conditions had affected them in a bad way notice if you will in chapter 1 verse number 6 you have sown much the prophet said and bring in little you eat but you do not have enough you drink but you're not filled with drink you clothed yourselves but no one is warm and he who earns wages earns wages to put into a bag with holes and chapter in the verses 9 through 11 he goes on to describe their their condition he says you looked for much but indeed it came too little and when you brought it home I blew it away why I says the Lord of hosts because of my house that lies in ruins while every one of you runs to his own house therefore the heavens above withhold the do the earth with holds its fruit for I called for a drought on the land and the mountains on the grain the new wine the oil whatever the ground brings forth man livestock all the labor of your hands notice God is saying you went through a period of time where there was drought where your crops were not producing like you thought they would you thought you'd bring in X amount and you'd never bring in as much as you knew you should whatever you did bring back home I blew away and and God said you know you're eating but you're not satisfied you know you have some to drink but you're not filled all of that he says why do you think all that was happening God says it's because of my house that lies in ruins while all of you are just running to your own paneled sealed and furnished and finished houses and so if they were hurting themselves by not following through with what God wanted them to do God was withholding blessings and it wasn't just because times were tough according to God it was because few people cared it's because they didn't care about the condition of the temple let me encourage you today not to live beneath your privileges and let us not keep blessings from ourselves by thinking that a broken temple will just rebuild itself and that we don't need to be concerned about things with regard to the church that are not as they should be it may be the case that there are blessings that God would very much desire that we have but because we perhaps don't care we're not receiving those blessings and so the prophets remedy to that when we go back to the text his remedy for that was very simple and the remedy was get busy follow through with your original goals look at verse number eight go up to the mountains and bring wood and build the temple that I may take pleasure in it and be glorified and so it wasn't you know the remedy was not difficult it was simply go to the mountains get the wood bring it down here and finish the project but notice what the motivation was to be at the end of verse number eight he says that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified the reason why God wanted them to finish the temple was so that he would receive the honor and the glory that he was due it was to hold him up as being worthy of praise and respect and reverence and so if finishing the temple was that which would bring honor and glory to God what did it say about their lack of interest in completing that project what did their lack of interest in the temple show to the nations around them for example can you imagine what they might have thought maybe they thought well you know what I guess their God is not deserving of their time I guess their God is not worthy of their service is not worthy to even have a temple they haven't worked on it in 16 years they got the foundation in place and now they're not doing anything with it they're very concerned about their own houses and those houses are looking great but the house of their God is being ignored and so perhaps even the nations around them we're thinking well their God must not be worth much because they don't have very much interest in his house there's a lesson in that for us folks did you know one of the reasons why the church today exists is for the testimony that it gives to the greatness and depth of God's wisdom in Ephesians chapter 3 verse 10 Paul makes that point that it is through the church and I believe he's saying there through the existence of the church through the existence of the church as a part of God's plan for the redemption of man that the existence of the church in that respect is a testimony to the manifold wisdom of God that's one of the reasons why the church exists to bring honor and glory to God as a manifestation of his great wisdom in bringing about the salvation of souls which souls are in and a part of the church that he planned from all eternity Ephesians 3:10 and 11 and so if that's the case and it is then when the church itself is neglected when the church itself is in a sense torn down and then when members leave it that way it reflects on God it reflects on our attitude toward God it's almost as if people could say well if his own people care so little for the church why should i if you've got people on the outside that look at us and if they see perhaps in our communities if they see congregations of God's people that are constantly in the midst of strife and division and bickering and infighting to where essentially the church is being ripped asunder by selfish individuals who care more about their own personal agendas than God's will what are people on the outside think well if that's what they think about the church of their God of their Savior if they care so little about it as to treat it that way why should I care about I would suggest that some folks and some of our congregations need to think long and hard about that God wants to be glorified by us he wants to take pleasure in us in his people just like he wanted to be glorified and take pleasure in that temple but it's not going to happen if we're content for the temple to remain less than what God desires it to be and so the Prophet Haggai had come to encourage them think not about yourselves think about God think about his glory and what this temple means and so important projects demand diligence we learned that in chapter 1 now we move to chapter 2 and the main lesson we learned from chapter 2 is that we must deal properly with past present and future all of those things are at play here in chapter 2 and let's see how it plays out how these principles apply it had been 66 years since the destruction of the temple the captivity of course had been 70 years long but the captivity started before the temple was actually destroyed and so the captivity was 70 years the temple had not been in a state of destruction for quite that long but pretty close and there were some who were still alive in the days of haggai the prophet who had seen the former temple think about that you know a lot of those people who had come back from captivity many of them were born in captivity they had never lived in Judah before right had been 70 years since the captivity started and so a lot of them had been born there and they were coming back to that to the homeland of their ancestors but they'd never lived there but there were some who had some of these people in in their in their declining years some old people that had been a part of Judah before the captivity and they had seen Solomon's Temple before it had been destroyed well no doubt they were gonna make comparisons they were gonna think about Solomon's Temple and all of its glory and grandeur and beauty and then they were gonna look at this new one that was being built and the comparisons were not equal look at Haggai chapter 2 and verse number 3 when the prophet asks who is left among you who saw this temple in its former glory and how do you see it now in comparison with it is this not in your eyes as nothing see how God understood he got it they didn't have the resources Solomon had that new temple was not going to be nearly as as beautiful as Solomon's was and it was causing discouragement among the people if you'll hold your place there in Haggai and turn back to the book of Ezra and look at Ezra chapter 3 verses 12 and 13 we see the same account in the book of Ezra and here's how its worded there but many of the priests and Levites and heads of the father's houses old men who had seen the first temple wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this temple was laid before their eyes yet many shouted aloud for joy so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people for the people shouted with a loud shout and the sound was heard afar off in that an interesting description you have the younger folks who didn't know solomon's temple they see the new foundation in place and they're shouting out for joy the older people who had seen solomon's temple and knew that this new one was not going to be as good as the old one as far as material things were concerned they wept out of sadness and Haggai asked them about that he says how many of you saw the former temple and doesn't this one seem like nothing in your eyes Haggai wanted them to be cautious with the past and with how they thought about the past and the same thing is true with us you know if we could we could go back if we were able to we probably change some things today and bring back some things into our day that were characteristic of life in the past perhaps the respect for the Word of God that used to be found in a lot more people than it's found today if we could go back in time and bring that back I'm sure we would but you know it's easy for us to become disheartened when we think about the past and maybe you know maybe that's why Cleese yes t7 verse 10 warns us against living in the past that passage says do not say why were the former days better than these or you do not inquire wisely concerning this yes we should learn from the past the Bible is clear on that right things written before were written for our learning Romans 15 verse 4 able though dead he yet speaks Hebrews 11 verse 4 right so we learned from the past yes but we can't change the past and therefore we shouldn't live there that's why Paul would say let's press on let's forget it those things that are behind and let's reach forward to what's before and press on toward the mark Philippians 3 verses 12 through 14 Haggai wanted them to do that he wanted them to be careful with their comparisons to the past and so must we and so he's dealt with the past now he deals with the present Haggai chapter 2 verses 4 & 5 he says be strong zerubabbel who was one of their leaders in Joshua the high priest be strong all you people for he says I am with you says the Lord of Hosts according to the word that I covenant and with you when you came out of Egypt so my spirit remains among you do not fear instead of living in the past live in the present when Haggai saw what the people were doing and how they were comparing the past and the present they were getting discouraged because they didn't think it was going to be as good he reminded them look God is with you today God had not forsaken them to live in the past note the present tense I am with you my spirit remains with you God was with them in the present and even though they had returned from captivity and and had found the Temple in ruins and their joy over the foundation of the temple had been dashed by opposition by the realization of this new temples inferiority to the the past temple with all of that being the case the very message that they needed at that point in their lives was the message that hag I gave them God is with you even today you know sometimes our needs are no different we need to know that God is with us that God hasn't abandoned us to live in the past and so because our needs are no different the message is no different God has delivered us the same message if God is for us who can be against us Romans 8 verse 31 I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength Philippians 4 verse 13 I'll never leave you nor forsake you therefore we may boldly say the Lord is my helper I'll not fear what men will do unto me Hebrews 13 verses 5 and 6 God has the same message for us in the present that he had for through Haggai in his day God is with you and what a comfort that is and so don't live in the past learn from the past yes but don't live there live in the present because that's where God is working with us and then we must have hope for the future look at chapter 2 verse 9 of Haggai and we read this the glory of this latter temple shall be greater then the former says the Lord of Hosts and in this place I will give peace he's dealt with the past he's given him hope and and and encouragement in the present and now there's hope for the future he says concerning this new temple the glory of this temple is going to exceed that of the former I imagine that was a pretty startling statement for them because of Solomon's great temple and now God says this temple which is clearly going to be inferior monetarily than Solomon's this temple is going to be more glorious indeed how so well I suspect it was probably due to some messianic implications that the Messiah would come and visit this temple and so the point is their work was needed for future generations they were working for generations yet unborn and we are too it's easy for us sometimes to let the discouragements of today blind us to the future implications of our present activity but we can't allow that to happen Romans 8:18 says the sufferings of this present world are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us we've got to think about the future and have hope for it our light affliction which is but for the moment works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory second Corinthians 4 verse 17 we can't be weary in well-doing for in due season will reap if we faint not Galatians 6 verse 9 you see the work we're doing now has future implications and so what will the future look like if we let despair and discouragement over present conditions keep us from fulfilling our duties in the here and now I want you to think about that what will the future look like if our discouragements today keep us from fulfilling our duties now what will that do for the future and so Haggai says to his contemporaries look remember the past learn from the past don't live there God's not living there God is with you in the present and you're working now for future glory so don't let your current discouragement over the past keep you from fulfilling your obligations in the present because that's going to affect the future and the same is true for us and so let me close with something that Haggai said to his contemporaries on two occasions both recorded in chapter 1 chapter 1 verse 5 and chapter 1 verse 7 Haggai said to his people consider your ways I encourage you to do that - examine yourselves whether you be in the faith 2nd Corinthians 13 verse 5 consider your ways today and if your ways are not in harmony with God's will I encourage you to turn from that way of life before it's too late

Channel: Gospel Broadcasting Network

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Length: 28min 30sec (1710 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 12 2016