The Fear of God
The Book of Haggai
Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV5ycYJsQew
We’ve been working our way through the minor prophets looking at their major themes, and in the process seeing some of God’s characteristics to boot. To date we’ve looked at the prophet Jonah and the theme of God’s goodness. We then took a look at the prophet Hosea and the faithfulness of God. A couple of weeks back we then looked at the prophet Malachi and saw the unchangeableness of God.
Today’s what I’d like to look at is the fear of God through what is written by the prophet Haggai. Now, this is not usually what we consider when the prophet Haggai is mentioned, but rather a phrase God tells the people who had returned to Judah to rebuild the temple, and that phrase is “Consider your ways.”
But what I see from what God gave to Haggai to say is more about our need to fear Him.
Now, before we move forward, it might be good to see what is meant in God’s word when we are told to fear Him, especially when we are told several times in Proverbs how it is the fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 1:7; 9:10).
To fear God isn’t what we normally think about when we are told about fear, in other words it isn’t to shake and tremble for the evil that may befall, but rather to fear God is to have a deep sense of reverence and respect for Him. It is to live in a continuous state of awe and wonder of His might, power, holiness and righteousness, not to mention being totally in awe of His love for us, especially seeing how much we disobey and rebel against His rule over our lives.
Now, this is speaking to those who have come into a belief and relationship with Him, but on the other side of the coin, the fear of God to those who do not believe ends up being that of trembling in fear because of His coming judgment and eternal death, that is eternal separation from God, which while they won’t admit it, they know instinctually within their hearts.
Now, while this is far from a complete discourse on what fear of God means, it is sufficient for an understanding, especially as we enter into God’s word through the prophet Haggai.
Now, the best summary of Haggai’s message might best be found in what Walter Kaiser, evangelist and Old Testament scholar wrote. He said, “God’s work done in God’s way will never lack in splendor, eternal significance, or the personal presence of our Lord.”
To understand what Haggai was writing is to know that Haggai was a prophet to the nation of Judah after their return from Babylonian exile, and that God’s voice had not been heard in the nation of Judah since the prophet Jeremiah. Yes, there were prophets after Jeremiah and prior to Haggai, that is, Daniel and Ezekiel, they were writing from Babylon during the time of exile. Further, it had been 16 years since their return that these words were spoken. So, the question becomes, what happened to warrant these words.
Upon their return to Judah and Jerusalem under the leadership of Ezra, the people began to rebuild of the temple, and they had just finished laying the foundations and it was a time of celebration, but then the work came to a halt.
It seems like their neighbors, the Samaritans were rebuffed when they wanted to join in, and so they began a campaign of fear and intimidation, and even wrote a letter to king Artaxerxes of Persia to have the work stopped. And so now 16 years had passed, and nothing more had been accomplished.
From what happened, and what the prophet Haggai said, there were several things that contributed to the work not being started up again. That is, there are several things that not only dissuaded them but also dissuade us from starting and accomplishing God’s Kingdom work.
What Dissuades Us?
Excuses
We see this in the first thing that Haggai says.
“In the second year of King Darius, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest saying, “Thus speaks the Lord of hosts, saying: This people says, ‘The time has not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built.’” (Haggai 1:1-2 NKJV)
Too often we find excuses as to why things are not accomplished, and thus, without knowing it, we end up blaming God for His inactions when the truth is we’re the ones who have not done the work, or His work. Today we hear such excuses saying that God is not calling us, or God is not calling us to this or that ministry anymore, as if it were God’s fault.
Now, isn’t it amazing how we love to spiritualize our excuses when the reality usually we make these excuses because things aren’t or weren’t done our way, or the way we like for them to be. Maybe someone hurt our feelings, or what we’re asked conflicts with our schedules, which usually involves something we want rather than what God wants.
Benjamin Franklin had this to say about excuses. He said, “He that is good at making excuses is seldom good at anything else.”
Then Haggai addresses the second thing that dissuades us, and that involves our failing to put the first things first, whether that is in our worship, time, and our resources to the Lord.
Wrong Priorities
Haggai said, “Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?" Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘Consider your ways!’” (Haggai 1:4-5 NKJV)
And then the Lord shows them the consequences of having the wrong motives and priorities.
“You have sown much, and bring in little; you eat, but do not have enough; you drink, but you are not filled with drink; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages, earns wages to put into a bag with holes.” (Haggai 1:6 NKJV)
What we see here is that the spiritual condition of the people’s hearts towards God can often times be gauged by their attitude towards working on God’s house. That is, the building of the temple was and is a barometer of the people’s spiritual condition. And the temple not only refers to the physical structure, but also the temple of God that is within our hearts as well.
When we become Christians, the Holy Spirit takes up residency within us where the Apostle Paul says that our bodies are now the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). And so, building up the House of God today refers more to our own spiritual growth, but not excluding the physical structure.
This is then the 2nd pillar of our church is discipleship or building up the house of God within each person. And so, Haggai tells them to consider their ways that is, he’s telling them of their need to examine their hearts and search out God’s direction for their lives.
Let me just say that if God’s work is not at the top of our lists, then we, like they, have fallen into idolatry. Now idolatry is putting any idea, person, goal, or commitment on par with or equal to, or above the Lord. And what we see from our text is that no one can cheat God without cheating themselves, or as we saw in Malachi, no one can rob God without robbing themselves.
In addressing this area of wrong or faulty motives Jesus tells us, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33 NKJV)
And finally, the third thing that dissuades us from doing the work of God is fear.
Fear
They were so concerned with their wellbeing and survival that they stopped the building project of the temple.
We must be careful not to be overcome with fear and be paralyzed by our circumstances. What we must do is to learn to fear the Lord more than we fear other people or even political pressure. We must learn that “The function of fear is to warn us of danger, not to make us afraid to face it.”
It was such a fear that got a hold of little Tommy. He was afraid to enter into 1st grade. He said, “I don’t want to go to first grade, because my teeth will begin to fall out like Johnny’s did when he started to go to school!”
And so, we need to face our fears, not be overcome by them, because as Paul says to Timothy, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV)
How Do We Respond
Get Involved
“Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘Consider your ways! Go up to the mountains and bring wood and build the temple, that I may take pleasure in it and be glorified,’ says the Lord. ‘You looked for much, but indeed it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why?’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘Because of My house that is in ruins, while every one of you runs to his own house. Therefore, the heavens above you withhold the dew, and the earth withholds its fruit. For I called for a drought on the land and the mountains, on the grain and the new wine and the oil, on whatever the ground brings forth, on men and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands.’ Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, 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 presence of the Lord.” (Haggai 1:7-12 NKJV)
We see something very interesting and telling about God’s people from these verses. Notice they are told to go up into the mountains to cut down timber to build God’s house. This leads to a very interesting question. “What happened to the logs that they had 16 years earlier?”
There are two possibilities both equally bad. First, because they didn’t proceed with the building of the temple the logs on the construction site and rotted. These were logs of cedar from the country of Lebanon that they paid good money for. This is bad use of God’s provision.
The other possibility, which I lean toward, is that they used these logs for their own homes. Notice it says their homes were all paneled. Haggai accused them of this very thing in verse four saying, “Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?" I see this as them taking these logs and using them in their own homes, putting up wood paneling. Is it then any wonder why God withheld from them the labors of their hands and the blessing of both rain and produce?
As we look at our work for God, and why we need to join in and get involved in God’s work, what we will realize is that what we are doing is bringing pleasure to God and glorifying His name. God reveals this in verse eight.
He said, “Go up to the mountains and bring wood and build the temple, that I may take pleasure in it and be glorified.” (Haggai 1:8 NKJV)
So, our sole motivation in doing what the Lord calls for us to do is to glorify Him.
Now the second way the people responded is by fearing God.
Fearing God
This is found in the end of verse 12. “And the people feared the presence of the Lord.” (Haggai 1:12b NKJV)
What we could say is that the people became God fearers, that is they began to understand who God is, that is, His holiness and righteousness, as well as what He was doing in their midst. They became burdened with what burdened the heart of God. But they also knew one more thing, that God was greater than their present circumstances and far greater than whatever their problems were.
God fearers are those who fear God, and because they fear God, they need to fear nothing else. But if a person does not fear God, they end up fearing everything else.
“The fear of God eliminates all other fears.”
The problem the people faced in Haggai’s time is that the Lord wasn’t feared or reverenced as He should have been, thus He was thought of well below the political pressures of that day.
And it is no different in our own day.
• The Lord is great as long as we don’t have anything coming against us.
• The Lord is mighty as long as trials and tribulations stay away.
• The Lord is the best as long as our financial picture is somewhat rosy.
We need to have a healthy fear of God. We need to be God-fearers and no longer pleasers of man or should I say, pleasers of our society.
The third way we need to respond is to reject disappointments.
Reject Disappointments
To Haggai the Lord said, “Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, saying: ‘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?’” (Haggai 2:1-2 NKJV)
Here, Haggai points out to the people just how little and insignificant this new temple was as compared to the temple Solomon built, which was the one they were trying to duplicate. But then when you think about it, doesn’t that just add to their overall disappointment? But the reason the Lord said this is because He was about to reveal its eventual greatness.
And this should speak volumes to how we often feel disappointed and inadequate when what we do don’t measure up to what we believe we should. But instead of getting or feeling disappointed, we should instead look to God because He will bless us far beyond what we can imagine or think. It is in this reality that God goes on to say for us to be strong and do the work of the Lord.
We see this in verses four and five.
“‘Yet now be strong … all you people of the land,’ says the Lord, ‘and work; for I am with you,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘According to the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, so My Spirit remains among you; do not fear!’” (Haggai 2:4-5 NKJV)
Here God is reminding them that His presence is promised and that the Holy Spirit would abide with them, therefore they have nothing to fear.
But the Lord doesn’t stop there. He goes on in verse seven to reveal that His presence will fill this temple; that is the one that is so small and insignificant to the former one. In other words, the glory of this new temple will be greater than the glory of Solomon’s.
But the question is how could it be greater? I mean, when the ark of the covenant was brought into Solomon’s temple, it says that the glory of the Lord filled the house, and His glory was so great that the priests couldn’t even continue to stand and do their ministry. And it says that the Lord descended and consumed the offering, and so great was the presence of God that the priest couldn’t even enter.
The answer is found in verse 7 where it says that the “Desire of All Nations” will come, and then the Lord will fill this temple with glory, which is exactly what the Lord said to Haggai in verse 9, “The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former.” (Haggai 2:9 NKJV)
And so it came about that into the second temple the very presence of God, the 2nd person of the Godhead, the Lord Jesus Christ, the desire of all nations, came. That is why the glory of the second outshined that of the first.
But I see this as something even more, and that is the temple of God that indwells every believer in Jesus Christ. That now resides within us the Lord Jesus who sits upon the throne of our hearts, and where also the Holy Spirit dwells. And so, the presence of God isn’t something that is here one moment and gone the next, like He was during the times of both temples, but the presence of the Lord God lives and dwells within us at all times.
Conclusion
And so, we’re called upon through the prophet Haggai to fear the Lord, and we do so by acknowledging what He says, that is, by being obedient to His word. And what does His word tell us?
• First to build His temple, and while this does refer to His church, which the Bible tells us is the body of Christ, we are to build up His temple within us.
• Next, we are to get our priorities straight, as Jesus tells us to seek first after the Kingdom of God, and then all the rest will be added to us.
•And lastly, we are to fear the Lord by being God-fearers more than we are men-pleasers, and this is through having a thorough understanding of who God is, that He is a holy and righteous God, and that He is doing something special in our midst.
And so, let’s consider our ways by having a good long look at our lifestyle and way of life, and then asking, “Does it coincide with God’s word, His will, and His ways?” Let’s consider our ways and fear God, that is, let’s give Him the holy reverence that is His due, that is, let’s glorify Him.
