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TIME to REBUILD! Part Two: “Fresh Fire” Haggai 1:12-15 Whenever We

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TIME to REBUILD! Part Two: “Fresh Fire” Haggai 1:12-15 Whenever We TIME TO REBUILD! Part Two: “Fresh Fire” Haggai 1:12-15 Whenever we sing as a congregation, we’re doing more than meshing words and music together. We are communicating truth. We are conveying concepts about God that have tremendous implications for our everyday life. In his book, The Knowledge of the Holy, A. W. Tozer wrote, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”1 Tozer went on to say, Were we able to extract from any man a complete answer to the question, “What comes into your mind when you think about God?” we might predict with certainty the spiritual future of that man. Were we able to know exactly what our most influential religious leaders think about God today, we might be able with some precision to foretell where the Church will stand tomorrow. A right conception of God is basic not only to systematic theology but to practical Christian living as well. It is to worship what the foundation is to the temple; where it is inadequate or out of plumb the whole structure must sooner or later collapse.2 This is where our lives converge with the people of Haggai’s day. To rebuild the temple, they had to reorder their priorities. To reorder their priorities, they had to regain a right conception of God and relate that to their everyday life. Let’s quickly review the historical setting, because it helps us to understand the text and how it applies to us. After the reigns of David and Solomon around 1,000 B.C., civil war broke out, and the nation of Israel split into two kingdoms – the Northern Kingdom (Israel) and the Southern Kingdom (Judah). All the kings of the N.K. were bad, and the majority of the kings in the S.K. were bad too. They led the people into idolatry and all kinds of other sins. So God sent prophets to both nations, urging the people to repent of their sin and return to God. But they wouldn’t listen. So God sent both kingdoms into captivity. The Northern Kingdom was carried off into captivity by Assyria in 722 B.C., and the Southern Kingdom was carried off into captivity by Babylon in 586 B.C. The Northern Kingdom was never heard from again. The people were absorbed into the surrounding nations. But God had other plans for the people of Judah, the Southern Kingdom. After all, the Messiah was to come through the line of Judah, so that line had to be preserved. Plus, certain prophecies about the Messiah were tied to the city of Jerusalem and the temple itself. 1 A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy (San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers, 1961), p. 1. 2 Ibid., pp. 1-2. 2 One good example is the Triumphal Entry. The prophet Zechariah, who lived at the same time as Haggai, predicted this 500 years before Jesus’ birth, saying, Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; Righteous and having salvation is he, Humble and mounted on a donkey, On a colt, the foal of a donkey. - Zechariah 9:9 Psalm 118, a Messianic psalm, anticipates this same future event and what would be sung to the Messiah when he entered city of Jerusalem: “Save us, we pray, O LORD! … [“Save us, we pray” = Hosanna in Greek] Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD! We bless you from the house of the LORD.” - Psalm 118:25-26 “We bless you from” where? “from the house of the LORD.” That last phrase is significant! The only way the people could bless the Messiah “from the house of the Lord” was if the Temple was there! The completion of the temple was crucial to its fulfillment of prophecy! Here’s a principle that should blow us away: The God who controls the course of history involves his people in making it happen! This was true then, and it’s true now! Jesus said, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” - Matthew 24:14 Then, just before he was taken up into heaven, he said to his disciples, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.” - Mark 16:15 Just as the people of Haggai’s day were involved in building a temple that would fulfill prophecy, so are we! Only the temple we’re building is made of living stones – people who are “coming to Christ” … that God is building into his spiritual temple” (1 Peter 2:4-5 NLT). Elsewhere, Paul says, “we are God’s fellow workers. You are … God’s building” (1 Cor. 3:9). Remember this as we study Haggai! God was involving his people in carrying out his plan! 3 When God’s people were taken into captivity, God kept his promise to bring them back home to Jerusalem. The year was 537 B.C. At that time, the people began working on the temple. They laid the foundation and praised the Lord (Ezra 3:11). But when opposition and difficulties arose, they got discouraged and stopped construction (Ezra 4:4). Things stay that way for the next fifteen years, until Haggai showed up (Ezra 5:1-2). What had the people been doing all this time? Building their own houses instead of God’s house. Thank heavens we never do that, do we? Of course we do! Despite all our good intentions to serve the Lord, God keeps taking a back seat to whatever else we have on our agenda. I have an online productivity tool that allows me to prioritize my tasks and assign due dates. This program highlights the tasks I have assigned for today and for the next seven days. As I’ve used this program over time, I’ve noticed a pattern: There are certain tasks due today that I reassign for tomorrow, or tasks due this week that I reassign for next week. And they tend to be the same kinds of tasks. I list them as a priority, but I keep putting them off. That means they’re not a priority. Because if they were, I’d get them done. The same is true when it comes to our spiritual priorities, whether it be our time with God, our attendance at church, our participation in ministry, or our tithes and offerings. We intend to do it, now’s just not the time. It’s been a long week. Finances are tight. The calendar is full. Now’s not the time. Yet strangely we have time to do what we want to do – earn that degree, climb the corporate ladder, beautify our home, get into shape, spend time with our boyfriend or girlfriend. There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of these things. But good things become bad things when they crowd out the most important things. That’s why God says, “Consider your ways.” God said this – not just once, but twice. God wanted his people to take a good, hard look at their lives. What they saw was a lot of dissatisfaction and frustration. No matter how hard they worked, they never had enough. They were putting their money into pockets full of holes. In Haggai 1:9-11, God points out the cause of their misfortunes. It wasn’t bad luck; it was the Lord! 9 “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. 10 Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. 11 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.” - Haggai 1:9-11 4 This was a wake-up call to God’s people. God frustrated their efforts to get their full attention. Sometimes God does that with us, because when things are going well, we don’t listen well. But hard times have a way of improving our hearing.3 The psalmist wrote, “Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I obey your word.” - Psalm 119:67 NIV By considering their ways, the people came back to God. Response of the People (v. 12) 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 LORD. - Haggai 1:12 Up until this time, they had feared their enemies. They had feared failure. But now they “feared the LORD.” Spurgeon said, “The fear of God is the death of every other fear; like a mighty lion, it chases all other fears before it.”4 John Piper described the fear of the Lord this way: “To fear the Lord is to tremble at the thought of offending him by unbelief and disobedience. It is the feeling that God is not to be trifled with….”5 If you are a believer in Christ, you don’t have to be scared of God.
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