Haggai 1 - It’s A Big Big Unbuilt House

Hello, and welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. We are beginning a brand new book of scripture, and it's going to take us all of two episodes.

So I'm looking forward to going through the book of Haggai. And Haggai is one of the minor prophets, one of what was known as the Book of the Twelve. And this particular book of scripture takes place after the Babylonian exile.

So Israel, they leave captivity and slavery in Egypt. They go into the Promised Land. They have judges for a while.

Then they have the kingdom, and the kingdom ends. They are taken away into, initially the northern kingdom of Israel is taken away into Assyria, and then the southern kingdom a couple decades later goes into Babylon for their captivity.

God had promised a 70 year captivity for a number of reasons that I won't get into right now because they are plentiful. But he had said, you're going to be in captivity for 70 years, because then you're going to come back.

I'm not going to throw you guys off forever. You guys will return and there will be a rebuilding of everything that was lost. And that included Jerusalem and the temple.

When the people were coming back, they came back as Babylon had been supplanted by Persia, the Medo-Persian Empire. And so in that, then the Persian Empire was like, yeah, you guys can go back to your homeland, whatever. It was beneficial for them.

You know, you get an ally by saying, hey, go do this, go make your nation again that Babylon took from you. We took out Babylon. So now we can kind of, you know, ally ourselves together.

We can have some friendship there. And you can read the book of, it used to be one book of Ezra Nehemiah that goes over the rebuilding of the temple and the rebuilding of the the walls and the gates of Jerusalem.

So the book of Haggai happens kind of in the during the course of the book of Ezra.

And so as the people are coming back from decades of captivity, like you know, almost almost four fifths of a century later, they come back and they are very happy to be back, and they're just worried about themselves.

Obviously, we would know about Solomon's Temple. It was the temple that initially David had wanted to build for the Lord to give him a permanent dwelling place that wasn't like the Tabernacle, which would move around and go kind of place to place.

But David said, man, I want to make something really nice and beautiful and amazing for the Lord. God said, that's not quite the role that I have for you, but I am going to have Solomon build this.

And so David put together a bunch of the supplies, and Solomon eventually built the temple. It was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC.

And now that Israel was back from captivity, God had an expectation of them, that they would rebuild a place of worship, that they would have somewhere that they would go.

That they would offer the sacrifices, that they would go to celebrate the different feasts and festivals that were commanded for them in the Book of Leviticus. And they were not doing any of that.

There wasn't any worship of God that was happening, at least not in any, like, organized way. Everyone was just kind of doing their thing. And so Haggai comes into this environment.

There is a king that's there, or a king-type person named Zerubbabel. This would be jesus's, it's his grandfather with 18 greats in front of it.

So I could go through for a second and count all of those great, great, great, list all of those grandfathers out. But it's someone that was 18 generations before jesus. And he was a descendant, obviously, of King David.

Pardon me. Then there was a high priest, Joshua, the son of Jehoshedek. So let's dive into the book.

I've connected the Bible Project video summarizing the whole book of Haggai. And I would invite you to look at that. It was very helpful for me as I was learning more about this book.

Let's begin in Haggai, Chapter 1 and Verse 1. We're going to go through Chapter 1 today and then Chapter 2 tomorrow to finish out the week. And then we're going to be going through Second thessalonians 3.

And then we're going to kind of our last thing for the year. We'll be going through the Book of Hebrews together. And I'm really looking forward to that.

But we'll do that. And then I will take a hiatus after. By that point, we'll be nearing like 250 episodes of Tabernacle Talk.

So after Second thessalonians 3 and Hebrews, then we'll be taking a break.

Haggai 1 and Verse 1 says this, In the second year of King Darius on the first day of the sixth month, so this would be about 520 BC and in the month of August, the word of Yahweh came through Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, the

governor of Judah, and Joshua son of Jehoshadak, the high priest. Yahweh of Heaven's armies says this. these people say the time has not come for the house of Yahweh to be rebuilt. The word of Yahweh came through Haggai the prophet.

Is it a time for you yourselves to live in your paneled houses? Well, this house, this temple lies in ruins. Now, Yahweh of Heaven's armies says this.

Think carefully about your ways. If I build a temple, then I will be pleased with it and be glorified, says Yahweh. You expected much, but then it amounted to little.

When you brought the harvest to your house, I ruined it. Why? This is the declaration of Yahweh of Heaven's armies, because my house still lies in ruins while each of you is busy with his own house.

So, on your account, the skies have withheld the dew and the land its crops.

I have summoned a drought on the fields and the hills, on the grain, new wine, olive oil, and whatever the ground yields, on man and beast and on all that your hands produce. So here's what God says.

In essence, you guys are caring about your lives, about the temporal, but you're not caring about the spiritual or the eternal. You guys aren't looking after the state of your souls.

And so to help them recognize your souls are what are most important. I will take care of your crops. I will take care of the water, the grain, the new wine, all of these things, your animals.

I will take care of everything. But you need to care about what God cares about. And man, this is so true for our lives today.

How many times do we like ignore God's word? We ignore the Bible. We don't spend time in it.

We ignore gathering together with God's people. We ignore church. We devalue time spent in fellowship with other people.

We just don't place importance on what God does.

And I'm grateful that under grace, we are not necessarily treated in the same way here as these people under this old covenant where God says, here are these promises that I made to the children of Israel back in the Book of Deuteronomy to say, if

you follow what has been said, then there are all of these blessings and these incredible wonders. He says, but if you'll remember in the Book of Deuteronomy, I also laid out, here is what I told you would happen if you neglect your worship, if you

neglect your souls, if you neglect the reason that you were put on this earth, which is to have a relationship with your Creator. He says, all of these things will happen.

And that's where he's listing out about planting, not having enough to eat, about drinking, but not being able to be drunk, about putting on clothes, but not having enough to get warm.

All of this is a reference back to God's promises that he had done hundreds of years before. And he says, I'm still faithful to my word. So remember the promises that the children of Israel made to God in this covenant.

And he says, if you rely on me, there is going to be blessing. So what's the response of these leaders? Because this is coming from a prophet, from Haggai, that's going to the governor, the ruler over Judah, and the high priest.

What do they do?

Verse number 12, Then Zerubbabel son of Shaltiel, the high priest Joshua, son of Jehoshadak, and the entire remnant of the people obeyed the voice of Yahweh, their God, and the words of the prophet Haggai, because Yahweh, their God, had sent him.

So the people feared Yahweh. They obeyed him. They listened.

They were doing their own thing, were caring about their own houses, but now they were actually doing the work that God had instructed them to do. What an awesome thing.

Verse number 13, Haggai, Yahweh's messenger, delivered Yahweh's message to the people, I am with you. This is Yahweh's declaration. What a wonderful thing here.

Just that same exact promise that was given to the children of Israel when they first went into the land of Canaan, that the Lord said to Joshua, where he says, don't fear, don't be dismayed, because I am with you wherever you go.

Now, God is giving that same statement, I am with you to these people who are coming into the land of Canaan for the very first time in their lives. Some of them anyway, but that's another rabbit trail that you can read through in the Book of Ezra.

So as they're doing this, God says, I am with you. And this is my declaration. Wonderful.

Verse number 14, Yahweh stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, the spirit of the high priest Joshua, son of Jehoshedek, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people.

That is not just like their actions changed, but their spirits, who they really were on the inside, that thing that God breathed into man at the beginning. Now God has stirred up that wind that the Hebrew word is ruach.

He has stirred it up so that there is a vibrancy to action and to life in these people. It says, they began work on the house of Yahweh of heaven's armies, their God, on the 24th day of the sixth month in the second year of King Darius.

So this is an elapsement of about 23 days between when God first brought this message to Haggai to when they started building. It was just 23 days between where this word first came and then when they were working on God's house.

What can we learn from Chapter 1 of Haggai? I think this, number one, let's place importance on what God does. This is something that I try and mention often because I think that the word of God puts an impact, put places importance on this for us.

Do you love God's word? Do you spend time in it? Do you talk about it with others?

Do you spend time reading it? Obviously, here you are, you're listening to it, being read and talked about. That's commendable.

That's good. But don't let me be the only one that's studying God's word for you. Do it for yourself, too.

There are so many resources today for the child of God who wants to learn more about Scripture. I love some of the resources like Blue Letter Bible, Enduring Word.

Looking over on my shelf, I've got several different commentaries and study bibles, like the Life Application Study Bible, the ESV Study Bible, and many others.

There are just so many great resources that we don't have to kind of be fumbling in the dark when we're reading through Scripture, but that there are wonderful resources available to us. So, like, love the Word of God, place importance on that.

Let's place importance on prayer.

That's something that, for me as a pastor, like when I physically write a sermon or when I physically record a Tabernacle Talk, it feels like there's something concrete that I've done that I can be like, hey, guys, you know, here's this, I actually

did something. Prayer sometimes feels like it's less concrete, but really from Scripture, if not more valuable, it's at least as valuable as any other action that I can do and as any other action that you could do. So, let's be faithful to pray.

And then, as I've mentioned often, like, let's place value on gathering with God's people. The church should not be an afterthought to us. The church is God's plan A, and he doesn't have a plan B.

God saved you into a family, into a nation, into a priesthood, and you should not be doing your life alone.

It is meant to be lived with other people, intentionally that they know you, that they are able to encourage you and pray for you and call you out on your sin, that you can worship together and serve and evangelize and give and love.

All of those things are God's intent. So let's love the church and give ourselves for it, even as our Savior did, following in His footsteps.

And then I think from the latter part of Chapter 1, when God tells us to do something, let's be faithful to obey.

Here, all of the people, they repent, they turn, and who they are on the inside is stirred up to action to say, yes, we are absolutely on board for what God wants and we're going to do it.

And in less than a month from hearing this word, they were already building God's temple. So what is God talking to you about today? What does He want you to begin taking action for?

That you would repent from sin and turn in faith to say, this is what God wants. And so I'm going to do it. Thank you for tuning in today.

Tomorrow, we will end the Book of Haggai with Chapter 2 as we see what some of the next steps are as they build this temple. And I'm looking forward to that time together. Thanks for tuning in.

Have a wonderful day.