Haggai - A Prophet for Today - Part 1
by Rich Murphy
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Of all the books of prophecy in the Bible, Haggai, not Revelations, speaks the most to the church of today. That may seem like a strange statement with all the interest we have in the church about the end times. But, in reality the book of Revelations, and the events of the last days don't apply to the church; we aren't supposed to be here when they happen! On the other hand, the book of Haggai talks to the people of God when they were despondent, beaten down by their enemies, and had put aside the work of the Lord in favor of taking care of their own needs. In many ways, the condition of the people of God in the times of Haggai, and the condition of the people of God today are the very similar. Because of that, what the prophet said to them applies very clearly to the church of today. But, I'm getting a little ahead of myself.
Before we look at what the prophet said to the people of Judah, we need to take a moment to look at the background, both historic and spiritual, of the situation. After the reign of King Solomon, the nation of Israel divided into two parts, as the Holy Spirit had prophesied. The northern kingdom kept the name Israel, and built their capital in Samaria. The southern kingdom, which was centered on the tribe of Judah, took the name of that tribe as their national identity. Their capital remained in Jerusalem, the city of King David. Almost immediately, the northern kingdom fell into idolatry. This was, more than anything, the fault of their king, Jeroboam, who was afraid that if the people of Israel went down to Jerusalem for the three annual pilgrimage festivals, he would lose them to his rival, King Rehoboam. In order to forestall this eventuality, Jeroboam had two golden calves made and told the people that these were the god who brought their forefathers out of Egypt. God sent a series of prophets to wake up the northern kingdom, and turn their hearts back to Him. Unfortunately, it is easier to fall into idolatry than it is to lift oneself out of it, and the people of the northern kingdom never managed to turn their hearts back to Jehovah God. Because of their idolatry and other sins, God allowed Shalmaneser, king of Assyria to attack and conqueror the Israelites in the year 722 bc. Assyria had its capital in Nineveh, a city made famous by the book of Jonah for its wickedness. The Assyrians not only conquered Israel, but resettled the people of Israel in other parts of their kingdom, bringing in people from those parts to settle in Israel, therefore destroying the purity of the northern ten tribes of Israel.
The Samaritans, which are mentioned in the New Testament, are the mixture of these people who were brought in by King Esarhaddon (who ruled after King Shalmaneser of Assyria), and the remnant of Israelites who remained after all the others who had been deported. Because they had left the one true God, Jehovah, and also had intermarried with other people (which is strictly forbidden in the Old Testament law), the Jews hated them. Okay, that's enough about the northern kingdom, but what about Judah? What happened to them? Although the southern kingdom did much better then the northern one, they too fell into idolatry; not because their king made them idols, but because they accepted the false gods of the people who lived around them. Just as He did with the northern kingdom, God sent prophets to warn the people, and ultimately allowed them to be captured; this time by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, in the year 586 bc.
So, what we have here is all of God's chosen people in captivity, Jerusalem in ruins, and the temple which King Solomon built to glorify Jehovah God destroyed as well. Obviously, God couldn't leave things like that, and He didn't. As He usually does, God started by telling His people His plans through the prophets. In this case, He used both the prophets Isaiah, and Jeremiah to foretell the reconstruction of His temple in Jerusalem. According to the book of the prophet Isaiah, God does that so that when He accomplishes what He has prophesied, we know it is Him doing it. Otherwise, some person, or false god could try and steal the credit.
Just to keep things clear, let's take a look at the prophecies about the reconstruction of the temple:
There's quite a bit included in those few verses, but let's concern ourselves
with the high points. They are:
Both history, and the Bible show that all of this was accomplished, and that the person who God used to bring it about was Cyrus I (the great), who was the first king of the Persian Empire.
All of that brings us up to the beginning of the book of Ezra. Why is that important? Because, the prophecies which were written in the book of Haggai actually form a part of the story of the book of Ezra. In the beginning of the fifth chapter, Ezra tells us that Haggai prophesied his first prophecy, which we find written in the first chapter of the book of Haggai. But, I'm getting ahead of myself again. The book of Ezra opens with a proclamation that King Cyrus made in the first year of his reign:
Now, before you get excited, and think that Cyrus converted and accepted Jehovah as his god, I've got bad news for you. There is ample evidence to show that Cyrus maintained the religious beliefs of the Persians, called Zoroastrianism which while very similar in its beliefs to Judaism, had its own god, named Ahura Mazda. However, probably partly as a political move, and partly to garner favor of the various "regional gods" that the people of the day believed existed, Cyrus started a policy of encouraging the various people groups under his rule to return to their ancestral religions, and even helped pay for the reconstruction of their temples. This wasn't only for the Jews, but for the other people groups who were part of his kingdom. That's okay; God will use the things that unbelievers do for their own benefit in order to accomplish His purposes. We can see this in Mexico, where President Benito Juarez allowed missionaries to bring the gospel to Mexico. Why did he do this? Because he was a Mason, and wanted the ability to allow freedom for Freemasonry to come into Mexico. Some 42,000 Jews took the opportunity offered by King Cyrus and returned to Jerusalem (Ezra ch 2). Before leaving, they took up an offering for the rebuilding of the temple, and also took along with them all the articles of gold and silver which Nebuchadnezzar had stolen from the temple (Ezra 1:6-11). On the first day of the seventh month of that same year, the Jews, having arrived and settled in Jerusalem, reconstructed the altar and started making the sacrifices to God required by the Law of Moses (Ezra 3:1-3). Typically, in our studies of the Bible, we wouldn't bother thinking much about a date that's mentioned in there, but it wouldn't be included if there wasn't a purpose for it. So, what's the importance of this date? The first day of the seventh month is the feast of Rosh Hashanah, the festival of trumpets (Lev 23:23-25). It is the first day of the year on the Jewish religious calendar. Prophetically, this day represents the return of the Lord, and the rapture. Because of that, it also symbolizes God's restoring His people back to Himself. Seeing that, it seems rather appropriate that they rebuilt the altar, and started making their sacrifices to God on that date. Almost immediately, they started preparations for the construction of the temple (Ezra 3:7-8). However, for reasons that aren't explained in the Bible, it was a year and a half later that they actually started the construction.
Once the returnees started reconstructing the temple, the very next thing that the book of Ezra tells us is that enemies rose up against them and brought opposition to the work they were doing on the temple (Ezra ch 4). While that isn't particularly surprising, it does illustrate a point I'd like to make. Some people have taught, "If Satan is attacking you, you must be in sin." That teaching isn't true. If someone is living in sin, they're falling right into the devil's lap. Satan doesn't have to attack those who are in sin, just like any other soldier, he attacks his enemies. Or, in other words, being attacked by Satan is a pretty good sign that you're doing something for God. The main thrust of this opposition seems to have been political, probably because these enemies were the governor and secretary of the neighboring province. Although the Bible doesn't say so, we find in Josephus's history that these enemies bribed other governmental officials to help them in this opposition. In fact, the opposition went so far as to reach the king in Babylon (Ezra 4:8-16). As with much of the opposition that the enemy brings against us, the letter that was sent to the king consisted of more lies than truth. However, even so, it contained enough distorted truth to convince the king that there was a problem. He then issued an edict commanding the Jews to stop construction (Ezra 4:17-22). With the king's edict in their hands, those same enemies quickly went to Jerusalem to stop the construction by force. Since the Jews apparently didn't have any other choice, the work on the temple came to a halt.
For a number of years the situation remained like this, with the temple partly rebuilt, and the people ignoring God, and His work to get on with their own lives.
In many ways, the situation of the Jews in the book of Ezra is the same as that of the church of today. When the United States was founded, it was done so as a Christian nation. The revolution which gave us freedom from the tyranny of England was fueled by the preaching of Christian ministers. All of the signers of the Constitution, with the exception of two, were Christians. Somewhere along the way, we, the church, the people of God, stopped taking an active part in our government. There's an old saying which goes, "When good men do nothing, bad men take control." Well, we've proven this true. When the good men of God stopped taking an active interest in the governing of our country, and left that work to others, the "others" who came along weren't people with an interest in obeying God's Word. They were people with their own agenda, with humanistic beliefs, and with liberal philosophies. The church today complains about how our government and our courts is slowly taking away our religious freedom, and turning farther and farther away from biblical precepts. But, whose fault is that? When a dog pees on a car tire, he isn't bad; he's just being a dog. When a sinner sins, he's just showing his true nature; that is, the nature of sin within him. When a liberal politician votes for things that are opposite our beliefs, he is also just showing his true nature. Just as the Jews in the time of Ezra lived under a anti-biblical government, today we too live under an anti-biblical government. It is unreasonable for us to expect that government to do things according to the Bible, because they don't know the Bible. It is unreasonable to expect that they will support the work of the church, because the church is unknown territory to them. It is unreasonable to expect that they will have our values, because their values have come from a very different place than ours. It is only reasonable to expect that those who are against the church will act in accordance with their nature, and make things harder and harder for the church; both in having freedom to love our God, and in having freedom to do His work. God's way of dealing with this type of situation is to raise up prophets to declare His will, to His people. These prophets are God's spiritual alarm clocks; sent to wake up the mighty men who are sleeping, and put them to work, fighting on their knees for the Kingdom of God to be manifested here upon the earth.
This is why the prophetic voice has been raising up in these days, to wake up God's people, and to prepare us for war. Not a war against the people in our governments, but a war against the principalities and powers who are behind them.
Okay, now we finally get to the prophet and his prophecy. In the fifth chapter of Ezra, the first verses tell us that God raised up Haggai, in the midst of their despondency, in order to motivate them to get back to work on the temple. The very first verse of the book of Haggai gives us the date in which the prophet gave his first prophecy, the first day of the sixth month. Why on that particular date? Like many ancient people groups, the Jews had a "New Moon Festival" every month. So, by giving the prophecy on the first day of the new moon (first day of the month), the Holy Spirit could guarantee a good audience, because many of the people came to Jerusalem from the outlying villages. Not only that, but they would be at the temple site for the sacrifice. Haggai's first prophecy to the Jews of Jerusalem deals very directly with the fact that they had stopped building the temple. We can think of it, like many prophecies, as a letter from God to His people. So, let's look at what he said:
Okay, that's not exactly what Haggai wrote in his prophecy, it's a more modern paraphrase of it. I wanted you to get the emotional impact of what he said to them, which you wouldn't have gotten if you had read him prophesying about building the temple. What's the importance of building the temple, anyway? It may not seem like much to us, but the temple was very important to Israel. In a sense, their not having the temple denied them their identity. How could they be God's people if they didn't have God's temple? How could they say their God was powerful if they couldn't even build a place to call His? How could they be sure God was in their midst, if they were still living under the destruction that had happened because of their disobedience.
The temple symbolized a number of things to the Jews:
Although we don't have a physical temple as the Jews did, the church building holds a similar place for us today. We can also apply the idea of the church representing the Kingdom of God here on earth very clearly. As believers, our job here on the earth is to expand the Kingdom of God, if we don't it shows that we aren't very loyal subjects to our king. Let's take a closer look at a few of the verses in this first prophecy of Haggai, and see how they apply to us today.
The Jews understood the opposition they were receiving as a message that they were out of God's timing. Or, maybe they were just using that as a convenient excuse. How many times have you started out to do something for the Lord, and ended up with all kinds of problems? Why? Because we have an enemy, and his plan is to thwart God's plan in our lives. We can't expect the enemy to roll over and play dead, just because God has told us to do something. He's going to fight tooth and nail to prevent us from finishing it. In fact, I would have to say that his opposition is a pretty good sign that we're in the will of God. Otherwise, why would he bother to attack?
The term "paneled houses" in this sentence is interesting. This specifically refers to solid wood walls, probably of cedar, and possibly even carved. It was something one would expect to find in the palace of a king, or a temple, or maybe the house of a very wealthy person. But, this prophecy wasn't just written to the king, or even just to the wealthy, it was written to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. It appears from the context, that most, if not all of the people living there had very nice houses. In contrast to all this finery, the house of God, the temple, in its incomplete state, looked like it had been abandoned. God was asking the people if this was the right way to do things. In other words, it was as if he was saying, "Hey is it right that you have fancy luxurious homes, and have ignored the simple task of completing the temple? Where are your priorities?" It is actually rather obvious where their priorities were, just the same as it is with us. Since they had what they thought was a valid excuse to set aside the work of the Lord, they were concentrating on making things better for themselves. Or, we could say that they were living a self-centered, godless life. Now, don't get yourself up on a high horse about how the Jews didn't do what they were supposed to do. Remember the letter earlier on in this study; we have been just as bad as the Jews. In fact, I think I can safely say we have been worse. We probably live in the most materialistic time of the world's history. Not only that, but the United States is the most materialistic country in our age. We're so good at it, that we're teaching the rest of the world how to be the same. How many times have we, the church, had the ability and the money to do something for the kingdom of God, but instead used the money for our own desires. Let's take for example the area of missions, or outreach to the poor. How man churches have had the opportunity, and the money, but not done it, because they felt they needed new carpeting, or new pews, or needed to redecorate the Sunday school rooms? Or, how about looking at that question individually? How man times have we not given to a worthwhile work in the church because of something we wanted to buy for our homes? We're the same people, just in a different place and time. We can always justify ourselves to ourselves, but that doesn't make it right.
God continues the prophecy by talking about the financial hardship the people were living under. Even though they had enough money to make their houses elegant, they were having a problem putting food on the table. God's purpose in reminding them of their condition is obvious; He wants them to reflect upon their lives, and figure out why they're having so much trouble. He's trying to show them that it isn't just something that happened, nor is it an attach of the enemy, nor is it that He's forgotten them. Their problems are consequences of their actions (or lack thereof). If they had done what they were supposed to do, and build the temple, they'd be in good shape, but since they'd left God's work, in favor of their own, they were in problems.
Just to be sure they get the message, God continues to talk about their problem. I don't think He could have gotten much clearer than this. It's like saying, "Wake up there. You're having problems. You know it, and I know it. Those problems are your own fault. If you did what you are supposed to, you'd have rain, then you'd have a good harvest, then you could eat well. What are you going to do about it?" There's one more thing that God says in this prophecy:
"Do my work. Build my kingdom. Finish the work on the temple." That seems like a pretty simple message to me. But, you know, a lot of people have trouble understanding it. Not the people who Haggai prophesied to, they understood it. The same chapter of Haggai tells us that when the leaders and inhabitants of Jerusalem heard these words, they returned to the work of rebuilding the temple, even though they didn't have permission to do so! There have probably been people who had problems understanding these simple instructions from the time of Adam, until today. But, I'm not concerned about them, I'm concerned about us; I'm concerned about the church of today. How many times have we set aside the work of the Lord for something else? How many times have we spent our tithes and offerings for something we want, instead of what the Lord wants? How many times have we justified to ourselves stopping something that the Holy Spirit told us to do? How many times have we been cursed, instead of blessed because we put our desires before those of God? God hasn't changed. Jesus told us in the New Testament, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you" (Matt 6:33). Don't seek your own thing, seek God's. Seeking His kingdom means we have to do something about manifesting His kingdom here on earth. Otherwise, we won't ever see it. Seeking His righteousness means that we have to life a righteous and holy life. Otherwise, we can't enter into His presence. Seeking other things means that we don't have the time, energy, or focus to seek His kingdom and His righteousness. Do you see why I call Haggai a prophet for today? Although his message was spoken to a select group of people, for a specific purpose, it still speaks today. They were to build the temple, a representation of the Kingdom of God. We too are to build a temple, the temple of the Holy Spirit within us. Why? So that God may be glorified in and through our lives. Let's heed the prophet's word, and become active participants in building the Kingdom of God. |
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Copyright © 2007 by Richard A. Murphy, Maranatha Life. All rights reserved. |
