Route 66: Haggai - Rebuilding Hope Amid Discouragement

Well, good evening all.

It's good to see you.

Let's take our Bible and go over to the book of Haggai.

For those of you that want to look at the Pew Bible, you can go to page 839.

It's easy to miss Haggai.

It's only two chapters.

It's a 1956 book by author EW Heaton and it's a book Everyday Life in the Old Testament Times.

He has an illustration in the book of the exiles out of Jerusalem being taken into Babylon and they're under armed guard of the Babylonian soldiers and they're going through the Ishtar Gate of Babylon, so the sort of big blue brick with the golden lions, and they're being brought in there.

And underneath that picture of these people being led into the city of Babylon, there's a caption underneath the illustration and it says the closing scene of Old Testament times, the Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar.

It's kind of an interesting statement because I think it captures what a lot of people think about the Old Testament.

They sort of see a lot of it moving toward that time of exile and then everything kind of gets a little foggy and then all of a sudden the New Testament pops up.

So there's a lot of lack of understanding about what's going on during that period of time.

But I have to tell you that's not the end of the Old Testament at all, not even close, and so this evening I want to sort of retrace our steps a little bit and talk about where we're at in Old Testament history and how all of the scriptures feed together toward where we are at the moment.

So I'm going to break it up into three little time frames.

Before the exile, we'll call it pre-exilic, or before the exile.

There's the exile time itself and then there's the after the exile, after people return from Babylon, so post-exilic.

So if you hear me saying any of those phrases pre, during and after, or pre-exilic, exilic and post-exilic those are the three different time frames that we're talking about, and, to be sure, the Old Testament focuses most of its attention on the pre-exilic time.

Right, we open up our Bible and what do we enter into?

The book of Genesis, the creation of all things, getting moving very quickly within the first 12 chapters to one man, abraham, and through Abraham and Sarah, a line of people that we know in a couple generations as the 12 tribes of Israel, as Abraham's grandson.

And moving into the book of Exodus, we find them in Egypt, in their own captivity for several hundred years, moses comes onto the scene.

They're brought by way of the Exodus out of there and for 40 years wander in the wilderness as we go through the books of Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy, as they're preparing to enter again, we get into the book of Joshua with a new leader after Moses, and they enter into the land of Canaan and begin to take over, but not completely.

And that brings us into the book of Judges and that launches us into a long history of the people of Israel compromising the covenant that they had made with God, living lives of disobedience to it, avarice, not living in faith at all.

And it carries us not only through the book of Judges but all the way through the historical books, into the monarchial period and even the split to the monarchs, into the northern tribes and Judah.

And so by that time we've read a lot of our Old Testament.

We've also gone through Judges and Ruth and 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings and even into 1 and 2 Chronicles.

A lot of the wisdom literature has also been written by that time, so I can understand the pre-exilic emphasis.

In addition to that are all the number of prophets who rise up during the monarchical period who are speaking to the people of God and warning them about their covenant apostasy and the curses that will come upon them if they don't heed the word of God and repent and return to walking with the Lord in faithfulness.

Those pre-exilic prophets can be broken up into two categories there's the pre-Assyrian captivity prophets and then there's the pre-Babylonian captivity prophets, right so, before the northern tribes of Israel went into captivity as they were taken away by Assyria, we read the book of Joel and Jonah and Amos and Hosea and Micah and Isaiah.

So there's a lot of the prophets there, major and minor prophets.

And then we get after they're taken away by the Assyrian leaders.

We have the pre-Babylonian prophets Nahum, zephaniah, habakkuk, jeremiah and portions of Ezekiel as he talks about the different waves of people brought into exile.

And these prophets speak about the great empire of Babylon taking away Judah into captivity, having not learned the lessons that Israel had, the sins that they had committed in the captivity that they had fallen to In 597 BC, in different waves, some say all the way up to 581 BC.

We have different waves of people being brought by the Babylonians out of the land of Israel and out of Jerusalem, by the Babylonians out of the land of Israel and out of Jerusalem, the exile, significant turning point in the history of the people of Israel.

By this time, judah and Jerusalem had fallen to the armies of Nebuchadnezzar.

Many of the people in the land had been taken captive to Babylon.

Others had fled to Egypt for safety.

If you read the book of Jeremiah, you can read about some of them having gone there looking for security.

Others had scattered to places even unknown and there were a small number of people who remained behind in Judah itself.

By this time, among the people of God, the ultimate curses of covenant infidelity have occurred.

The land of promise is now barren and empty.

The people are not there, the temple is gone, the place is in ruins, and so, going back to that image in Heaton's book, it could feel like the closing scene of the Old Testament, but it's not.

But it's not.

There is the exilic period, that season of time of several decades where the people are in Babylon, are dispersed among the nations of the East.

Life of the people under foreign domination controls our attention.

So we read about Esther, right, we read more of Daniel and Ezekiel and Obadiah, and even a smattering of the Psalms.

But the Old Testament's not over yet there's the pre-exilic, the exilic and then the post-exilic.

There's still a few historical books Ezra and Nehemiah and there are a few prophetic books of the minor prophets that bring us into the life of the people of Israel after they've been given permission to return to the land.

And it begins with a traumatic turn of events on the world stage.

Babylon falls in 539 BC to the Persians age.

Babylon falls in 539 BC to the Persians.

In 538, cyrus issues a decree permitting the Jews to return to Judah.

You can read about it in 2 Chronicles, chapter 36, verses 22 and 23.

2 Chronicles 36:22

Let me read just one verse to you.

This is what King Cyrus of Persia says.

Verse to you.

This is what King Cyrus of Persia says the Lord, the God of the heavens, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and has appointed me to build him a temple at Jerusalem and Judah.

Any of his people among you may go up, and may the Lord, his God, be with him.

What a remarkable statement that this leader of the Persian Empire would have such a frame of mind as to allow those who were under his captivity within his kingdom to actually return to their homelands and to do so for the purposes of worshiping their God and to rebuild for them a sanctuary.

It's just a remarkable edict, and so tens of thousands of people returned, with Zerubbabel and Joshua, and we'll talk about them in just a moment.

But sadly, a large number of people never leave Babylon.

They stay there.

They're not willing to give up their life that they've established over the past several decades, and they remain in the land.

And those who did return don't find it an easy journey or an easy finish to that journey.

They come back to a land that's laid waste.

They come back to a land where the people that were there have taken over property that wasn't allocated to them.

They come back to a land where the Samaritans those people that had been planted in the land from the Assyrian takeover have intermingled with the people in the land and they're not at all happy to have the Jewish people back from Babylon and they give them a lot of opposition and it starts an animosity between the Israelites and the Samaritans, an animosity that continues to this very day.

Part of my trip in Israel a couple years ago was to speak to some Samaritans and they talked about worshiping and how different they were than the Jewish people.

That argument in John, chapter 4, the woman at the well is still going on.

John 4 · chapter mention

It is a live debate still.

They came back and they started to rebuild the temple.

They built the foundations, they started to rebuild the altar but because of the opposition, an edict was proclaimed to stop the building.

And it did stop for 15 years until Darius comes to the throne and, after receiving some complaints from the enemies of Israel, he goes back and looks in the royal archives and finds Cyrus's edict of permission and after he finds that, he orders the opposition against the Jews to cease their opposition and allows the rebuilding of the temple.

And you can read about that in Ezra, chapter 5 and chapter 6.

Ezra 5 · chapter mention

It was near the beginning of Darius's reign that the prophets Haggai and Zechariah are there, coming alongside the people, coming alongside Zerubbabel, and they're helping the people to re-engage and to rebuild the temple and to go forward.

And five years later, in 515 BC, they complete that temple.

I'll allow Mike to talk about Malachi, but a little bit later, a few decades later, malachi kind of goes in there in between times of Ezra and Nehemiah.

So the post-exilic prophets faced a unique problem.

They needed to answer a very significant question, answer a very significant question.

The pre-exilic prophets, and even the exilic prophets, talked about a restoration of the people, a restoration of the temple, a restoration of the worship in which the people would be in a place of glory and would be the drawing in of the nations to them.

The prophets believed that there was still hope for them and that one day, that glorious day would come.

And here's Cyrus giving the edict for the people to be released from bondage and to go back to the land and giving them money and permission to rebuild the temple.

What is that going to do to their expectations?

It's going to cause them to ask the question is this?

It Is this the time?

And so they would ask the question because it was in the air Is this kingdom the one that was prophesied about by Isaiah and others?

Is this the restoration that we were hoping for?

And so Haggai and Zechariah and Malachi deal with that question, and as they go through their ministries, they talk to the people with particular focus on being people who are holy, rebuilding the temple and the focus of a messianic kingdom.

Is it now or is it later?

And so when you read Haggai and Zechariah and Malachi, you're going to feel this tension of the what seemed to be possibly the inauguration of this era, and yet not.

So keep that in mind because it might help you understand some of the excitement and some of the encouragement and some of the disappointment and some of the exhortation that you find in those three books.

They provide the first hints that that promised restoration after the exile is not yet this time.

So Haggai, ministers, and his main ideas we'll see in just a moment is to motivate the Jewish people to get to building the temple and to remind them of the new Jerusalem.

Get to building the temple and to remind them of the new Jerusalem.

Zechariah's idea is to inform the people of the coming messianic kingdom and to be dependent upon God by way of their faithfulness.

And Malachi's main idea is to confront Judah's corruption and encourage them to pursue holiness as they anticipate the coming king.

So let's go to Haggai.

After all that introduction, let's go to Haggai.

After all that introduction, let's go to Haggai.

It's very short, two chapters, so it's not going to take long.

We get to Haggai and his ministry and just to sort of recap what I've said a moment ago, it's 520 BC.

Darius is on the throne, the Babylonian Empire is gone, the Persians have ruled, cyrus has made his edict, 15 years of hiatus to the rebuilding of the temple is already ensued.

Darius has come back and said let's get it started again.

And so now Haggai is now talking to the people, particularly to Zerubbabel and to Joshua, and saying let's get going, let's build this temple.

And so he ushers four prophecies, four prophecies.

The first prophecy is largely all of chapter one, in the first verse of chapter two or into the first verse of chapter two.

And in this prophecy, the first prophecy, he speaks to two men Zerubbabel, who is the governor, and Joshua, who is the high priest, and you can see that in verse 1.

The second prophecy is going to be spoken to three different groups and it begins in verse 2 of chapter 2.

Zerubbabel, joshua again, but also adding in the remnant of the people.

The third prophecy begins in verse 11 of chapter 2.

And this is a prophecy to the priests.

And then there's a final message to one man, zerubbabel, that begins in verse 21 of chapter 2.

So let's look at the first one.

It's a message of rebuke and reassurance.

A message of rebuke and reassurance.

The first message of Haggai is delivered to them.

It says in verse 1, on the first day of the month.

Why is that important?

Well, the book of Numbers, in chapter 28, says that the people of Israel were to bring to the sanctuary an offering on the first day of the month.

So here they are bringing their offering.

Oh, I forgot, there's no sanctuary.

So all the people are confronted immediately with a realization that there's something missing here the temple is not built.

And so he talks to them about that and he says this is why you're saying it's not built.

The Lord of armies says these people say the time has not come for the house of the Lord to be rebuilt.

He speaks this to Zerubbabel, a descendant of David, who is the civic leader or governor of the people.

He says it to Joshua, who is a descendant of Zadok, a priest who is the spiritual leader of the people Together, responsible for the activity of the people of God.

And they haven't moved on this lame excuse.

It's not time to do this.

There's a little hint about what might be behind that If you look at verse 7 and 8, the Lord of armies says this think carefully about your ways, go up into the hills, bring down, lumber you to the passages.

But when Cyrus made his edict?

In the book of Ezra it tells us that they went to Lebanon and they got the wood and they had brought it down.

The big question is where's the wood for the temple?

Why are they told to go get some when they already went and got it?

Well, the scriptures tell us here that it's actually paneling in everybody's houses.

Somebody had been siphoning off all the material goods for the work project for the temple and thinking that'll look good in my den, that'll look really, really nice in our family room, should we build the crib out of that wood?

And off they go, just thinking about their own personal benefit, rather than realizing that those materials were set apart and paid for for the temple.

And they paper it over by saying well, it's just not time yet for the temple to be built.

It's hard to get something started that's been stopped for 15 years.

We understand that, but there's something far worse behind all of that.

And Haggai asked them in verse 4, is it really more important for you to build your houses than to build the temple?

And he says there that they should stop in verse 5.

He says something and he repeats it in verse 7.

He says think carefully about your ways.

He's not going to come right out and tell them that they've been thieving time and material from God's project for this sanctuary.

He's making them stop and give some considered thought to what's behind their words, think carefully, think carefully about what you're saying and think carefully about what's happening in your life.

And in verse 6, he tells them you've planted much but harvested little.

You eat but never have enough to be satisfied.

You drink but never have enough to be happy.

You put on clothes but never have enough to be warm.

And the wage earner puts his wages into a bag and it's got a hole in it.

Now, all of this should sound very, very familiar to them.

Should sound very, very familiar to them, because all of these are the consequences of the covenantal curses on disobedience that was talked about in the book of Deuteronomy.

And here the people are living lives with the exact same heart as the people before the exile.

They hadn't learned the lesson.

They had planted much and harvested little, and God was not going to bless them, even though they had a new address.

They didn't have a new heart.

And so the rebuke comes.

And what's wonderful about this and this is where the remarkable change happens is you go to verse 12, and it says there after the preaching finishes.

Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, the high priest, joshua's son, jehozadak, and the entire remnant of the people obeyed the Lord, their God, and the words of the prophet Haggai, because the Lord, their God, had sent him.

And so the people feared the Lord.

And what did they do?

They started working.

They started working on the project.

They received the rebuke with repentant hearts and receptivity of action and went to work and started doing what God had called them to do.

And what I love about that section of scripture is what's found in the next verse, in verse 13,.

Then Haggai, the Lord's messenger, delivered the Lord's message to the people I am with you.

I am with you.

The wonderful movement of rebuke to repentance, to reconciliation, into the rush of a close, united relationship.

The Lord floods their heart very, very quickly with reassurances of saying you've responded and I'm with you.

It's a beautiful thing for us to keep in mind.

We can often live our Christian lives based upon emotion.

How we feel the distance or the closeness we have to the Lord is largely based upon our emotional state at the moment rather than God's declaration.

And here the Lord is making sure that they keep the understanding from his point of view rather than their own emotional point of view.

And he runs in with the prophet who says this is the Lord's declaration.

I'm with you, I'm with you.

A couple days ago I read a book and it said in it a beautiful thought.

He said we often consider how close or far we are from the Lord based upon an emotional assessment.

But the scriptures tell us that we're in Christ and the reality is we can be no more closer to God than to actually be in Christ.

There's no getting closer to God than that if you're in him.

And I thought that was a wonderful reminder for us that God has brought us near to him because he's put us in the Savior.

And so here's this wonderful rebuke and reassuring comfort of reconciliation.

And that leads us to the next message that begins in chapter 2.

And it's about a month later, haggai again is summoned by the Lord and he wants to bring a continuing word of encouragement about the temple itself.

And it appears that the people who have remembering the loss of the old temple, the discouragement that's ushered in, by realizing that maybe this isn't that glorious age that they were hoping for, and just dejected by it all for, and just dejected by it all.

Their benchmark of hope was based upon what the old temple looked like in relationship to what the new temple is looking like and the beauty and the grandeur of the old one in comparison to what they're building now.

And in verse 3, it says this who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory?

How does it look to you now?

Doesn't it seem to you like nothing by comparison?

In the Babylonian Talmud, they list five things that were absent in this new temple the Ark of the Covenant, the Sacred Fire, the Shekinah Glory, the Holy Spirit and the Urim and Thummim those five things they marked down as missing.

So there's something just not there for them.

And here's this word of encouragement from the Lord.

The Lord knew the heaviness of their hearts.

He knew the discouragement of their souls, the disappointment, perhaps, of not being ushered in to this glorious age that some of the pre-exilic prophets had spoken about.

What does he do?

He gives them some encouragement.

Look at verse 4.

Chapter 2 and verse 4.

He tells them three different times to be strong, to be strong.

And he ends with a command to encourage them to continue to work, and that they would be there working, as it says in verse 5, because his spirit is among you.

Don't be afraid, the manifestation of it may not look like what you were expecting, but he's actually there and he's actually with you and he's actually encouraging you.

And then to encourage them further, he goes on to reveal the future glory of the house of the Lord Verses 6 to 9.

The Lord of armies says this Once more in a little while I'm going to shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land.

I will shake all the nations so that the treasures of all the nations will come and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of armies.

The silver and the gold belong to me.

This is the declaration of the Lord of armies.

The final glory of this house will be greater than the first, says the Lord of armies.

I will provide peace in this place.

This is the declaration of the Lord of the armies.

Quite a remarkable statement, especially to folks who are sitting there looking at it and saying it just isn't what it was.

And yet the Lord makes this declaration that it's going to be far greater than what the first one was, far greater than what you see now.

The Shekinah glory is going to return.

The buildings are going to have great beauty, god is going to grant great peace in this kingdom and there's going to be a glorious temple.

Going to be a glorious temple.

Again, the question, the question is when?

When is this going to happen?

The people are discouraged because they think it should have already happened and it's not.

The prophet is told by God to tell him it's going to happen.

Well, in the book of Hebrews, chapter 12, we're given a quote from the book of Haggai.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

Let me read it to you.

See to it that you do not reject the one who speaks.

This is Hebrew 12, verse 25.

For if they did not escape, who rejected him?

Who warned them?

On earth?

Even less will we turn away from him.

Who warns us from heaven?

His voice shook the earth at that time, but now he has promised.

Quote yet once more.

I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens, quoting the book of Haggai right here.

Listen to how the writer of Hebrews takes this passage and speaks about it.

This expression, yet once more, indicates the removal of what can be shaken, that is, the created things, so that what is not shaken might remain.

Therefore, since we're receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.

Let us be thankful, and by it may we serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe.

What is the writer of Hebrews pointing to?

He's saying that this glorious future temple that is going to be God's presence there, temple that is going to be God's presence there, beautiful, full of peace in a glorious kingdom, is still awaiting us.

Yet, when God shakes the things that are created to establish the eternal kingdom, we're not done yet, though.

You go to the book of Revelation, chapter 21.

Revelation 21 · chapter mention

And we're brought into this glorious scene right, chapter 21 and verse 10.

He carried me away in the spirit to a great high mountain and showed me the holy city, jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, arrayed with God's glory.

And here's this beautiful vision of this magnificent city.

The city was like a precious.

Her radiance was like a precious jewel, like a jasper stone, clear as crystal.

The city had a massive high wall with 12 gates, 12 angels at the gates, crystal.

The city had a massive high wall with 12 gates, 12 angels at the gates, the names of the 12 tribes of Israel's sons inscribed on the gates three gates on the east and the north, and the south and the west.

The city wall had 12 foundations and the 12 names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb were on the foundations.

And it continues in this glorious description.

The one who spoke with me had a golden measuring rod to measure the city, its gates and its walls.

And the city is laid out in a square.

Its length and width are the same.

He measured the city with a rod of 12,000 stadia.

Its length and width and height are equal.

There's only one other building that's length and width and height are equal the temple.

This city is built in the same ratio as the temple.

But let me keep going.

He measured its wall 144 cubits according to human measurement, which the angel used.

Building material was jasper and pure gold, and it gets on to a whole number of jewels.

Let me drop down a little bit.

In verse 22, he says I didn't see a temple.

Hmm, I didn't see a temple.

Hmm, because the Lord, the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.

What is this future glorious temple in a kingdom in which the things cannot be shaken?

It's the actual presence of God, not a place that represents his presence, but his actual presence among his people.

The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine, because the glory of God illumines it and its lamp is the lamb.

Now listen, because he goes back to Haggai here.

The nations will walk by its light and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.

Its gates will never close by day because it will never be night there.

They will bring the glory and honor of the nations into it, exactly what Haggai says here in chapter 2.

The eternal kingdom, the eternal presence of God among his people.

Here they are just a small band, relatively speaking, of returned exiles rebuilding a temple that just doesn't look all that discouraged that.

It isn't what they had expected it to be.

And Haggai lifts them up into the encouragements of the eternal heavens and points them forward to a glorious day in which God himself will be there.

God himself will be there, not just a cloud to represent him Himself.

There we in the church today live within the same eschatological tensions that the people after the exile did.

There's an expectation of glory.

Christ has come, the Holy Spirit is here.

We look for victory and movements of holiness and growth in our lives, and yet we can often think as an over-realized presence and consummation of the things not holding on to the hope, the secure future that we have, where all of that will be actually realized in all of its fullness.

So this word of encouragement and Haggai in this second prophecy resonates in our hearts because we too feel the sense of it could be more now, couldn't it?

But it's actually going to be greater than we ever could consider on that day.

The third message in Haggai is for the priests, and again it's another month later, or two months later, so it's about three months since the people began to rebuild.

And Haggai speaks to the priests about the need for the people to be holy and reminds them that all of their activity before was actually not.

And so he uses an object lesson of consecrated meat and a dead body to kind of help them understand the necessity of them being a pure people.

And in Haggai, chapter 2 and verse 18 and 19, he reminds them of that.

Haggai 2 · chapter mention

But at the end of verse 19, he says but from this day on, I will bless you.

And what he's doing is he's trying to help the people relive the memory of past disobediences and chastisement so that they might be careful in the present day to consider their walk, to consider their walk.

They had changed their address, but he wanted them to make sure that they kept a change of heart in focus, and so that prophecy is for them.

And that gets us to the last message, which begins in chapter 2 and verse 20, in which Haggai receives another message from God, and this is for one man by the name of Zerubbabel, and he was encouraged that God was going to continue the promises of the Davidic covenant through him and that he was going to be set apart as a signet ring of God.

He was going to be the imprint of God's design and purposes and promises among the people.

And so we find Zerubbabel listed in the genealogy on both sides of Joseph and Mary, in the lineage of Jesus Christ in the New Testament.

Zerubbabel was not going to be the Messiah, but he was going to be a Davidic king in the line of David who would bring forth the son of David, jesus himself.

So here, after the devastation of Assyria and the Babylonians, with the people of Israel taken and dispersed and the people of Judah taken, dispersed and some returning, you could think this might be the end.

But it's not the end of the Old Testament.

But it's not the end of the Old Testament and it's not the end of the story of the people of God.

God had purposes and plans to continue them, and he still had promises of a greater glory for them to look forward to.

And so they waited in hope, recognizing that the future was not going to be realized in their day.

But the future would be certain one day, in the presence of God.

And we too can wait in the same hope.

The future is certain for us in the presence of God, in a temple in which his presence is with us, his people.

It's a wonderful, wonderful truth.

Let's pray together.

Father, we thank you for your word.

We thank you for the hope that it gives us, from the very point that you continue your promises through people who have rightly deserved your chastisement and even your punishment.

How quick you are to forgive and to reconcile, and how wondrously full of promises and hope you are in helping us see your grand design to have a people for yourself in which you will dwell and with whom you will live forever.

Father, we long for that day.

We long to be in your presence and to see the unveiling of this kingdom without any loss.

We long for all those things that stand against it to be brought to an end, and we thank you that one day we'll see that last enemy death, destroyed and everything will be full of life and vitality in your presence, and we pray this in Christ's name Amen.