Haggai Week 2: December 17th 2006

It was sixteen years since the foundation of the temple had been laid and the people were now arguing that the time for building had not yet come. The Lord challenged their inconsistency. His house lay desolate under the plea that the time to reconstruct it had not yet arrived. Yet the people found time to build their own luxurious homes. If they didn’t have the resource to build his house, they could still build their own houses. Not only that, but the modest stone buildings, with which they might reasonably have been content, were regarded as inadequate. They had to have paneled wood walls and ceilings. Stone was available at low cost; timber was scarce and expensive…nothing would satisfy them but the best.

They were robbing God of his due, and they were paying the price of this consistent stealing for their own purposes. (drought, eating but never full, drinking but always thirsty, had clothing but never warm)

This might be the place to consider what Biblical judgment looks like in general, because I think we often carry an approach to judgment that makes the world into something like this ( a rigid system where if you do something wrong, you’re gonna pay)

- Cat/dog animation

- Now, I may be a bit off, but I’d suggest the situation Biblically’s a little different than that, and I’ll give you a glimpse into what I see, and you can judge for yourself as you continue to read God’s Word in your life…but I think this simple understanding will

- Often looks like this: Action (or inaction), Prophetic utterance, response of faith/unfaith, consequence of lifestyle and decisions

King Asa ( 2 Chronicles 16:1-10)

- Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the LORD his God. 3 He removed the foreign altars and the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. ^[a] 4 He commanded Judah to seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, and to obey his laws and commands. 5 He removed the high places and incense altars in every town in Judah, and the kingdom was at peace under him. 6 He built up the fortified cities of Judah, since the land was at peace. No one was at war with him during those years, for the LORD gave him rest.

- Zerah the Cushite marched out against them with a vast army ^[b] and three hundred chariots, and came as far as Mareshah. 10 Asa went out to meet him, and they took up battle positions in the Valley of Zephathah near Mareshah. Then Asa called to the LORD his God and said, "LORD, there is no one like you to help the powerless against the mighty. Help us, O LORD our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this vast army. O LORD, you are our God; do not let man prevail against you." The LORD struck down the Cushites before Asa and Judah. The Cushites fled, 13 and Asa and his army pursued them as far as Gerar. Such a great number of Cushites fell that they could not recover; they were crushed before the LORD and his forces.

- The Spirit of God came upon Azariah son of Oded. 2 He went out to meet Asa and said to him, "Listen to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin. The LORD is with you when you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you. 3 For a long time Israel was without the true God, without a priest to teach and without the law. 4 But in their distress they turned to the LORD, the God of Israel, and sought him, and he was found by them. 5 In those days it was not safe to travel about, for all the inhabitants of the lands were in great turmoil. 6 One nation was being crushed by another and one city by another, because God was troubling them with every kind of distress. 7 But as for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded." 8 When Asa heard these words and the prophecy of Azariah son of ^[a] Oded the prophet, he took courage. He removed the detestable idols from the whole land of Judah and Benjamin and from the towns he had captured in the hills of Ephraim.

2 Chronicles 16:1-10

- Baasha attacks, Asa responds by taking consecrated gold and silver out of the temple, giving it to King Ben-hadad of Aram to buy him off and get him to break his treaty with Baasha, and he does

- prophet Hanani comes along and laces into him, saying, “Because you relied on the king of Aram and not on the LORD your God, the army of the king of Aram has escaped from your hand. 8 Were not the Cushites ^[b] and Libyans a mighty army with great numbers of chariots and horsemen? Yet when you relied on the LORD, he delivered them into your hand. 9 For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. You have done a foolish thing, and from now on you will be at war."

- (Now how did Asa respond here?) “Asa was angry with the seer because of this; he was so enraged that he put him in prison. At the same time Asa brutally oppressed some of the people. The events of Asa's reign, from beginning to end, are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. 12 In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa was afflicted with a disease in his feet. Though his disease was severe, even in his illness he did not seek help from the LORD, but only from the physicians”

In this situation, Asa was faced with two threats: one, a Cushite (Egyptian) army of one million, and the other, the king of Israel doing a couple border skirmishes to cut off Jerusalem from the north. In the first, Asa relies on the Lord, who saves them miraculously from their predicament. The prophet Azariah tells him, what you’ve done was good. He listens. In the second, Asa relies on Ben-hadad, Hanani gives him the what-for, what the consequence would be, and Asa hardens his mind and heart and rejects

Hanani’s word and lives in rebellion to his death. Consistent rebellion.

He has a short-term consequence, but the long-term consequence destroys him…his obedience would’ve turned things around

- Haggai

o The problem of King Asa was the same one the people of Judah faced here in Haggai: As long as they looked to the Lord and completely trusted Him, they found blessing and security; but when God ceased to fill their eyes; suuposedly plausible reasons were given; “It’s not time to build the temple” was secret code for “I care more about my life and my job and my things than I do about God and what God expects from me.”

o You see, it’s not just the actions that God looks to, because we all stumble and fall…it’s the state of the heart. Are we listening to God? Are we humbling ourselves before God?

o It was not unnatural that the Jews should be afraid of their watchful enemies; but they should have looked to God. Where there is simplicity of confidence in the Lord, it is astonishing how the tables are turned, and the adversaries stand in dread of the weakest folk who trust in the living God

o Too often we think spiritually in terms of tomorrow, when the obligations of faithfulness face us today, to wave aside the responsibilities of faithfulness today and speak of hoping for success tomorrow does not justify our laziness and neglect

o Too often we lay that on our friends who don’t know Jesus: “get right with God while you have today,” when the truth is that we are just as responsible as they are and more accountable to the call of faithfulness than they are because we supposedly have said YES to God!

o Jesus was compassionate and patient and incredibly forgiving (broken), but also was consumed with zeal for God’s house and righteousness (pissed at the self- righteousness and elitism of those who knew better

But here in Haggai, the people, even though they’ve failed God, snap to their senses, listen to what God is saying through Haggai, and turn around and start walking the path of obedience.

And the whole remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the LORD their God and the message of the prophet Haggai, because the LORD their God had sent him. And the people feared the LORD. And because of their willingness to listen and act, God no longer aligns himself against them, instead saying, “I am with you.”

2:1-3

Just to give you a glimpse of the incredible nature of the other temple, one historian has written that “besides the richness of the sculptures in the former temple, everything was overlaid with gold. Solomon overlaid the whole house with gold, the whole altar, the two cherubims, the floor of the house, the doors of the holy of holies, and the ornaments of it, the palm trees he covered with gold on the carved work, the altar of gold and the table of gold, on the table ten candlesticks of pure gold, flower and lamps and tongs of gold, bowls, basins and spoons of pure gold, even the hinges were pure gold. The equivalent of 4.5 million dollars worth of gold was in the holy of holies alone.”

So Haggai brings this out for the people.

Does that sound like anything in your experience? I think anybody who has ever undertaken a work for the cause of Christ has felt that kind of discouragement: the sense that you work and work and the product seems so paltry. You pour yourself into a thing week after week and month after month and the fruit is so minimal. Then you look back in history or across town and see the grand achievement of others, and your temple seems so trivial. And you get discouraged and are tempted to quit and put away your aspirations and drop your dreams and put your feet up in front of the television and coast. Who wants to devote his life to a second-rate temple?

Middle River is, in some ways a prime target for criticism. Back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, it was such a committed, growing church that it planted four churches (Forest Chapel, Barren Ridge, Pleasant Valley, and a mission church that ceased to exist when the Shenandoah Nat. Park was established); in 1851, at the Annual Meeting of the COB, 15 people were converted and baptized…but

Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel…and be strong, O Joshua; and be strong, all you people of the land, and work’ for I am with you…so my spirit abides among you: fear not.

It was not for them to sit down despondently and to deplore the lost glory of the past. They had been given a work to do in their own day. The past was irretrievable: it had gone beyond control.

Many speak regretfully of “the good old days” and contrast the feeble efforts of the present day. But we are not called to live in the past. Our lot was cast in the present, with all its abounding and unprecedented opportunities. So we strive with every power and ability to do God’s service now. His power is with us in our consistent obedience. Let us go on.

Thus says the Lord of hosts…it is a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land; and I will shake all nations and the desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory…the latter glory of this house will be greater than the former…

Shaking of all nations to be followed by the desire of all nations. The Jews were unable to cover the building in gold as Solomon did, and were depressed by that fact. But the Lord declared that the silver and gold were his. The people’s inability was irrelevant. The One to whom the treasures belonged accepted the responsibility of glorifying the building.

It is not for us to be concerned with how beautiful or earth-shattering our work is. The apparently trivial and humdrum service we perform in the name of our Lord may seem unexciting and almost worthless…we feel less and less important in our world by the day.

But one of the great realities that Jesus taught us in his coming was that the gospel is as simple as a glass of cold water on a hot day, a shirt, a coat for those who don’t have one, a meal for the hungry, your willingness to love and forgive when its easy or hard, a paintbrush in the basement of a small country church…

Purity of heart, then, is found in willing only the good, which is God. To do unifies and simplifies everything. But Kierkegaard warns that to desire the good for the sake of the reward is not to will one thing, to desire the good out of fear of punishment is not to will one thing, to desire the good with a half-hearted commitment is not to will one thing. Utter abandonment, absolute commitment to God, is the requirement for willing one thing, for simplicity, for purity of heart.

VS4-
Be strong. I love that. At least in this context, His answer for their discouragement? Get over it! Buck up. No- it’s not like it was, but this is what I’m calling you to do now, so dust yourself off, get up off the ground, take your eyes off your focus on what you don’t have, and… Get to work.
I love this- God tells them, “Now get to work!”
Be about the mission I have given you- the reason why you are where you are at.

And at a certain point, people who claim to belong to God, to be the people of God, have to roll up their sleeves and do the work of God- get about the business of God in this world. But notice what else He says: more than just get to work- He says to them again “I am with you.” The people of God never do the work of God alone. They ask- God where are you already working, what are you inviting us into, asking us to do. And then they listen- they do their best to hear what specific ways, to see what specific places God is asking them to be present in, to join Him in. And then… they get to work. And they do so with the presence of God Himself in and through, behind and before them.

VS5
And that’s the tendency whenever you are undertaking something bigger than yourself. What if we fail? Easier not to try than to try and fail- easier emotionally, physically, in every way possible.
But God says: Do not be afraid. I am with You. I am for You.

Whatever it is, in whatever ways you hear that still small voice of God prompting you to action, take some steps out there, and invite the rest of us along. Maybe it flies, maybe it flops… but in either case, some good will be done, and we’ll be exploring together what missional living as a community doing it’s best to live life in the way of Jesus looks like.
Yeah?

He gives two arguments why they should take courage and work heartily. And both of these are crucial for us as well. The text continues in verses 4 and 5: "Work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts, according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit abides among you; fear not." God's first argument why they should "take courage," "work," and "fear not" is that he is with them. For most of us the value of a job increases with the dignity and prestige of the people who are willing to do it. How could we ever, then, belittle a work when God says he is with us in it? When God is working at your side, nothing is trivial.

But the promise is not only that he will be at your side; he will also be in our hearts encouraging us. Look back at the end of 1:13. "I am with you, says the Lord. And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and worked on the house of the Lord." If we will ask him and trust him, God not only works with us, but he moves in to stir up our spirit and give us a heart for the work. He doesn't want crusty diehards in his work; he wants free and joyful laborers. And so he promises to be with them and stir them up to love the work.

“Certainly I will be with you,” he said to Moses out of the burning bush. “I will be with you,” he promised Joshua when he was given the leadership of Israel from Moses. “I am with you,” he said to Isaiah. He told Jeremiah, “Do not say, 'I am only a child.' You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you," declares the LORD. And God is with us as his people here at Middle River if we continue in faithfulness, pursue Him, and show the willingness to listen, admit it, and buck up and keep working when we fall flat on our faces.