1In the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, 2"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, 3'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? 4Yet 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, 5according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. 6For 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. 7And 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. 8The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the LORD of hosts. 9The 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.'"
So let’s back up just a bit and look at what we have learned while studying here in Haggai. 1st Haggai the prophet comes to the people who had returned from the exile and had been given the task of rebuilding the wall and the Temple in the city of Jerusalem.
With Nehemiah’s help they completed the wall in less than 2 months, but it had now been 16 years and the Temple was left unfinished. They had stopped and had been focused on their own houses and lives. Haggai was sent by God to get their attention and to tell them that their focus was wrong… they had lost sight of what God wanted, and God was calling them to refocus.
The people were scared because they had just returned from a long exile and they knew that the reason they had been exiled in the first place was disobedience to God… they were afraid that God was going to exile them again! So they repented, changed their lifestyles and began to accomplish what God desired. They became obedient to the call of God.
Upon their repentance and submission to obedience, God comes to the people again thru the prophet Haggai, but this time it was NOT a message of judgment…but redemption! God promises them that He is WITH THEM. He reassures them that He would NOT abandon them to exile or to another nation.
His loving reassurance is made known to the people and they begin to work with a renewed spirit and courage. God stirred their hearts to be faithful in their obedience and submission to His plan. All of this happens in a three week span after Haggai’s first prophetic sermon and the Temple begins to be rebuilt.
Now, when we reach chapter 2 we find that another month has gone by when God speaks through His prophet once again, and that is where we pick up the story tonight!
In v.1 of chapter 2 we find out that it has been 28-29 days since God had reassured these people and they had gotten back to the work of rebuilding the Temple. And the people had begun to see what they were doing and the implication from the verses here in chapter 2 is that the Temple they were building was FAR smaller than the Temple they had known prior to the exile, and for many, this was a heartbreaking revelation.
2"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,
Here in v.2 God speaks again in a comforting and reassuring manner to the people about what they are doing. HE speaks again through the prophet Haggai…
3'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?
Here we see the problem, God knows their hearts and even if none of them were lamenting about this out loud, it was in their hearts!
I can just imagine their heart break… the Temple had been a massive monument to God, it was constructed by Solomon and it represented the great glory of the God they served… tall and majestic, overlaid in gold with all the royal trimmings fit for the King of Creation, the Temple was actually a source of pride for the Jews.
They were looking back at the ‘glory days’ of the kingdom and lamenting the fact that those days were gone and WOE unto us because this is ALL we can do now… this is ALL we have now… what we have now is so much LESS than what we had then…
What can we learn from this? Well we learn that it is human nature to look back to the ‘glory days’! When we are in tough times our minds seeks out those times in our memory that comfort us and let us know that we have experienced success. These people had known God’s glory in the old Temple and now they saw a reduced glory in the smaller and much more subdued Temple they were constructing… but I want us to look and see what God had to say to them!
God speaks thru Haggai and basically gives the people a message that comes in 2 parts… the first part of His message is found in v.4-5
4Yet 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, 5according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not.
God speaks directly TO the people. He addresses the political leader in the governor, Zerubbabel. He addresses the religious leadership in speaking to Joshua. We also see though that God speaks directly to the people as well… God’s message is FOR all the people! His message was a message that they were not expecting.
The first part of this message is for the leadership and the people to remain strong in the Lord, to take courage and to not be afraid in this time of rebuilding. This message to the leaders and the people is amazingly familiar to what God had told Joshua in the book of Joshua when Joshua was taking over for Moses…
There God told Joshua to be strong and of good courage that He would lead, guide and direct his steps and that He would protect Joshua and the people as long as they remained faithful to Him. Here God was giving the same reassurance to Zerubbabel and Joshua the high priest AND to the people themselves. Be strong… be of good courage…
Basically what God was saying is, “I know your hearts, I know what you see is discouraging to you, but I want you to be strong and take courage and complete the task… I am with you! I am FOR you! Take courage!”
God even illustrates HOW He is going to be with them by stating the Mosaic Covenant… the covenant brought forth to the people after they left Egypt and that they received at the foot of Mt Sinai… Don’t be afraid because I am with you!
Then at this point God reveals the 2nd part of His message thru Haggai, and what He has to say is something they probably had trouble believing based on what they were seeing at this time!
In these verses God’s promise to the people is HUGE… God promises that He is going to bless them above and beyond what they have ever experienced in the past, let’s look at those verses right now:
6For 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.
First in these verses we can see where the message is coming from… when it says, “…for thus says the Lord of hosts…” Haggai was the messenger, but God wanted the people to know that these words were NOT the words of a mere prophet, but they were the very words of God! This gives the people encouragement and comfort that God is speaking to them!
They had been disobedient and had repented, and this was further comfort from God that He had forgiven their disobedience and had seen their repentant hearts at work doing what He had called them to do… His words were given to sustain them thru their own doubts about the progress of the project!
Then comes the promise from God when He says, “…yet once more, in a little while…” Here God reminds Israel that He had been there for them in the past, and that now in the future… the very near future, God was going to provide for them again!
How often do we get caught up in our own self-centered pity and we lose sight of both what God has done for us already AND what God has promised to those who are obedient? I find myself in that boat a lot and it takes much prayer and communion with God to keep my focus where it needs to be…
But when we do go to the Lord, He is faithful and trustworthy to be there for us. He comforts us and encourages us even in the difficult times! These people needed His encouragement and God provided it for them!
But God does much more than provide a promise and comfort to the people… God’s promise is that He will move heaven and earth to bless them! “…I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land…” God wants them to understand begins to describe how richly He is going to bless them…
But God continues in His description of His blessing…
7And 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. 8The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the LORD of hosts. 9The 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.'"
“…I will shake the nations…” This is a promise that Israel will once again rise in the eyes of the outside world. For a long time Israel had been a non-entity and had no place on the world stage, but God is promising that was about to change as He was going to shake things up politically so that it would benefit the nation of Israel.
But I want us to understand WHY God is doing this… it was NOT to elevate Israel in the eyes of the world. It was not to restore Israel’s dignity! This was done so that the world would know that God was faithful, and the glory for this must go toward God. “
7And 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.
God’s desire was to reveal His glory to His people so that they could in turn share that glory with other nations and become a part of God’s family. God’s promise is to FILL His house with His glory, and that is all we can ask as believers. For God to bestow His glory upon us, reveals that we have been obedient… these Jews had been obedient and God was going to bless them for that obedience.
8The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the LORD of hosts.
In this verse, we find God revealing His sovereignty over all things. I believe there were those among the people who simply could NOT believe Haggai or their leaders because the odds seemed so stacked against them, but God was promising to provide!
Here He informs them that He owns all things… He reassures them NOT to worry about resources because He will provide! He says that He will shake the nations and the resources will come…
Basically what we can say God is telling them is, ‘if you will honor and obey me in my calling, I am going to provide you with the resources to make it happen… resources that you could NEVER believe would be there!’
Now let me ask, ‘how familiar does this sound to us here in our congregation today?’ The Jews probably thought to themselves, ‘how are we going to pay for this?’ where is the money going to come from?
God instructed them that HE would provide the resources for their rebuilding of the Temple, and today God makes that same promise to those who remain faithful and obedient. We face some very difficult choices in our own ‘Temple project’ Our preschool, our sanctuary lighting, the audio system, the Bob Hale bldg, the church office bldg, and there are many other areas of challenge…
But what God is saying to us thru this passage is that we cannot allow those things to be our focus… our main focus must be on and about what God has called us to do! The church is called to make disciples, and then train those disciples to become disciple makers themselves. This is our sole calling as a church.
We can dress up that calling in a myriad of ministry options and directions but the bottom line for any fellowship is that the church’s main responsibility is to make disciples for the Kingdom of God.
But MORE than just the resources, God promises success in ministry! Look at what He tells the nation who is obedient to His calling…
9The 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.'"
The ‘latter glory’ in this verse represents the Temple that is being built in the time of Haggai… the ‘former glory’ here represents the Temple before the exile! God tells them NOT to look at or focus on the outward appearance of the Temple, but to be obedient and He will work things out…
For us this could represent the glory days vs what we face right now… In past years the SS here ran around 600-700 per week, with thousands in worship each week. There is nothing to be ashamed of in those glory days… but here God is saying, your future is much brighter than your past… it may not look like it to you… you may not recognize it yet… but trust Me… it is!
In this passage God promises tremendous blessing to those who are obedient. The task at hand… for our church, the task is to make disciples… THAT TASK it is meant for a deeper purpose and not simply for numbers! It is NOT about numbers, but it is all about souls! Our task is to further the Kingdom of God thru the making of disciples. And when we are obedient to that task, God has promised He is going to deliver.
Finally, in this passage we find God promising “peace”. God tells the nation through the prophet Haggai, “…And in this place I will give peace, declares the LORD of hosts.'" God is making a solemn promise to the nation here that He is about to bring peace… Now the peace that He promises here is the Hebrew word “Shah-Loam”… which carries a very broad definition.
The word Shalom actually means many things, and here God is promising ALL of these things to the people if they are faithful and obey…
It is defined as a soundness of being.
It speaks to one’s overall welfare.
Shalom means to be fully complete in body and soul, to be safe, to have prosperity, to have health, to experience friendship, to experience a tranquility and contentment within your situation.
It also describes the absence of war and conflict… but the most important meaning for this word and I am sure that this is the main focus of God here in this verse is that it means a complete covenantal relationship with God.
God is promising ALL of this to these people who are being obedient and submitting to His plan for them. He tells them, “…and in THIS place…” This place can mean many things, the word used here can mean a region or extended locale. God was using the Temple as an illustration for these people, but His glory and His blessing would not be limited merely the Temple, but would extend to the people as they continued in their obedience.
Now how does this apply to us today? Well, God is promising a peace, a completeness, a wholeness, a soundness, and even a prosperity to those who obey Him in His calling for their lives!
Individually this means we are to submit to His calling on our lives and He is going to bless us, but as I stated last week, although the Christian life begins on the personal level, it was NEVER meant to be lived out individually, but corporately in a fellowship of believers!
This means that the corporate fellowship that is obedient to God, is going to receive the Shalom of God upon their fellowship, a shalom that will bring blessings upon blessings from places they could never comprehend…
Our fellowship is struggling in attendance, in finances, and in ministry and many of us are wondering just where the resources are going to come from… but what this passage tells us is that if our focus in on God and obedience to our calling, then God is going to provide the resources and bring us that holy shalom to complete our fellowship.
Our calling as a church is to MAKE DISCIPLES, all other things are secondary to that calling. If anything… any program or situation within the church takes away from making disciples the church must remove that which is taking away from our MAIN focus, which is to make disciples!
This means that as a church we have to EVALUATE everything we do… we have to go over ALL our programs and ministries and see what they are geared to do and what they are actually doing… then we have to put into action a plan that carries us forward in our MAIN calling… to make disciples in the Kingdom of Christ.
These people saw where they had failed God and they repented and God forgave them and honored their repentant hearts and submissive spirit and willing actions with His many blessings! Blessings they could not comprehend!
The question is are we willing to repent, submit and step into action for Christ… because He has promised that if we are willing to do this, He is willing to bless us beyond our wildest imagination… are you ready? Let’s pray…
