In 520 BC, the prophet Haggai (Hag-eye) recorded four messages to the Jewish people of Jerusalem, eighteen years after their return from exile in Babylon (538 BC).
Haggai 2:3 seems to indicate that the prophet had seen Jerusalem in all her glory, before the destruction of the temple, and the exile in 586 BC…meaning Haggai was more than seventy years old by the time he delivered his prophecies.
From these facts, the picture of Haggai begins to come into focus.
* He was an older man looking back on the triumphs of his nation
* He was a prophet infused with a passionate desire to see his people rise up from the ashes of exile and reclaim their rightful place as God’s light to the nations.
Haggai’s prophecy came at a time when the people of Judah were extremely vulnerable.
* They had been dragged off into captivity by the Babylonians and humbled by it.
* Many of them had experienced the joy of returning to their Promised Land but as they tried to rebuild their temple, Ezra chapter four tells us, they became discouraged by opposition and the work ceased (vs. 24)
* Now, sixteen years later, (after they had gone through the Lord’s chastening for not finishing the job-Haggai 1:6, 9-11) the Jews were receptive to the message of rebuilding the Lord’s house.
The Prophet Haggai’s message from the Lord was plain and simple: It’s time to get back to the Lord’s work.
By the time we get to chapter two, we hear the second of Haggai’s three messages from the Lord.
Hag 2:3 ‘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?
When Zerubbabel and Ezra attempted the first rebuilding of the temple, there were those still living who remembered Solomon's temple…the original temple…that Solomon built, with the best talent and spared no expense.
The book of Ezra reported that those who remember the temple in its former glory wailed so hard you couldn’t tell the difference between those who shouted for joy and those who wept. (Ezra 3:12-13)
Haggai encouraged the people in the second attempt at rebuilding the temple…yet there were those who took a fatalistic view of the project…still believing that they would never build a temple like Solomon’s. They had lost even the will to try.
Over the last three years we have seen an economic boom in the United States…
* The unemployment rate dropped to 3.6%, the lowest in five decades.
* Average hourly earnings had increased.
* Americans from every demographic were finding success in what has been called, “Trump’s economy”.
Now we see just the opposite. One news agency reported that April 2020 experienced “the biggest monthly decline since 1946.”
Just like in Haggai’s day, we have people who are old enough or sharp enough to have experienced the U.S.A. in her glory days.
Back in Haggai 2:3 God says to those who were old enough to have seen Jerusalem in her glory days: “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 other words, God, who knows all, is telling His people that He knew what they were thinking. He knew that they were comparing what was, with what is, and what might be.
Some of them had witnessed and experienced the grandeur of Solomon’s temple and now were ashamed of the pathetic building they were attempting to construct.
It was like downsizing from a BMW M5 to a Hyundai Accent.
What God’s people were forgetting is that anything they could build (whether Solomon’s temple or Zerubbabel’s temple) is not worthy of God.
Solomon recognized this in his dedication prayer of the first temple. He says in his prayer, “But who is able to build a temple for God, since the heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain Him?” (2 Chronicles 2:6)
Haggai cautioned the people against comparing what they were attempting to do with what someone else did in the past…comparing what was to what it. Today, we need to be careful that we don’t fall into that same trap.
Perhaps we need to be asked a similar question as the Lord, through Haggai, asked His people:
“Who is left among you who saw this nation in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes”?
Our nation is in a mess.
* Many businesses have suffered first-quarter losses. Location closures
* Loss of customers
* Supply chain interruptions
* Production delays
* Workforce changes
* Loss of contracts
* Market value declines
Many are thinking that businesses that were started 10, 20, 40 years ago will not be the same as they used to be, so why even try to do anything about it?
The people in Haggai’s day believed they could never rebuild the temple like it was in Solomon’s day, so they were discouraged from trying.
Back in Haggai 2:4-6, the LORD God gives three clear commands to the children of Israel through the prophet Haggai:
The first command was to “Be strong”.
Comparison with what the past looked like brought about a spirit of resignation and these desires to quit were contagious and weakened, even destroying any faith the people had.
Today, we need to be reminded that God is in control. COVID-19 didn’t take Him by surprise. We are commanded in Scripture to “Be strong in the Lord and the power of His might.”
We need to be reminded that we “walk by faith, not by sight.”
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Be strong.
The second command was to “Get to Work”.
The people had grown accustomed to things as they were because they lost their dissatisfaction; They had become content with the status quo and were no longer seeking to live for and glorify the Lord.
They had lost their devotion and drive to honor the Lord in their service to Him. Haggai rebuked them early in his book for “dwelling in their plush paneled houses while the temple of God was in ruin”. (Haggai 1:4)
Great things are not accomplished without action. The LORD of hosts says to His people in Haggai 1:5-8,“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. ”
God’s message to His people was “Get to work”!
The third command was “Do not fear”.
According to an ancient legend, a man driving one day to Constantinople was stopped by an old woman who asked him for a ride. He took her up beside him and, as they drove along, he looked at her and became frightened and asked, "Who are you?"
The old woman replied: "I am Cholera".
Thereupon the peasant ordered the old woman to get down and walk; but she persuaded him to take her along upon her promise that she would not kill more than five people in Constantinople. As a pledge of the promise she handed him a dagger, saying to him that it was the only weapon with which she could be killed. Then she added: "I shall meet you in two days. If I break my promise, you may stab me."
In Constantinople 120 people died of the cholera. The enraged man who had driven her to the city, and to whom she had given the dagger as a pledge that she would not kill more than five, went out to look for the old woman, and meeting her, raised his dagger to kill her. But she stopped him, saying: "I have kept my agreement. I killed only five. Fear killed the others."
Fear is man's greatest adversary; it is one of the greatest enemies of faith.
We conquer fear by looking to the Lord.
* The Psalmist says in Psalm 34:4. “I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears”.
* In Psalm 46 we read, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear”
Fear departs in the presence of the Lord!
Thus God tells His people in Haggai 2:4-5: “Be strong, work, for I am with you, declares the LORD of armies…I made a covenant with you when I delivered you from Egypt (I do not lie). My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not.”
In Haggai 2:6-8 the Bible says:
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.
God is telling His people that He has always been in control.
* He was behind their exile into Babylon; He told them through the prophet Jeremiah that they would be taken captive.
* He was behind the destruction of their beloved temple; He told them their beloved Jerusalem would be destroyed (Jeremiah 6).
* He was behind their return to the land to rebuild the temple.
The Lord is the Omnipotent Creator. The earth is the Lord’s and all it contains. When He created the heavens and the earth and man, He was aware of how it would turn out. Adam’s sin didn’t take Him by surprise.
Paul writes that it was God’s purpose that all things would be consummated in God the Son, Jesus Christ. Ephesians 1:9-10 says that God has “made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth”.
We are living in a time when we get our news from people who, for the most part, are reprobate, atheist, Christ-rejecting globalists who want nothing to do with God and His glory.
News reports will steal your joy and have you focusing (like the Jews of Haggai’s day) on what was, and not what could and will be.
Yet, let God be true and every man a lie (Romans 3:4).
Christians are called to “Be strong”, “Do the Work” and “Do not fear”; God is in control!
Hag 2:9 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.’”
As the second temple was being built, there was a group of older Jews who recalled the size and grandeur of the first temple and regarded the smaller and meager Zerubbabel’s temple as a poor substitute for the original.
To their minds, it did not even begin to compare with the splendor of Solomon’s temple.
Solomon’s temple had housed the Ark of the Covenant, which was no longer in Israel’s possession.
When Solomon’s temple was dedicated, the altar had been miraculously lit by fire from heaven, and the temple had been filled with the Shekinah glory of God…but attendees at the second temple’s dedication witnessed no such miracles.
Even so, Haggai prophesied that the second temple would one day have a magnificence to outshine the glory of the first (Haggai 2:3–9).
Haggai’s word was fulfilled 500 years later when Jesus Christ arrived on the scene! (Luke 2:22, 46; 19:45).
Haggai 2:9 says, “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.’”
Zerubbabel’s temple was not as outwardly impressive as Solomon’s, but it had a greater glory: the Messiah Jesus, the Prince of Peace Himself walked the courts of the temple that Zerubbabel built!
What is the message for us today living in the midst of the effects of COVID-19?
Can God restore a booming economy? Yes!
Will He? We don’t know.
Yet, God calls us to continue the work He’s commissioned us to do.
We are “light-bearers” for Jesus Messiah.
We are witnesses of “Good News!”
Christ died for our sins, was buried and raised from the dead for our salvation. Someone needs to hear this good news; especially in the times in which we find ourselves.
Let’s be strong, get to work and do not fear. God is in control and He is with us.
