Haggai
The (Long) Road Back
Survival and a Reality Check
There are times when we get so busy that we end up in survival mode. When this happens we focus on our needs and lose sight of what is really important. Like the frog in the kettle, where the heat is slowly increasing, we do not realize the reality of our worsening situation. We just work harder. People may ask how we are doing but we always answer “fine” even though life is crumbling down all around us.
The book of Haggai is written to the people of Israel who were allowed to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple after living 70 years in exile in Babylon. But things got hard and there was opposition to the rebuilding of the Temple just two years after starting the reconstruction. The Medes and the Persians went through a time of political instability after Darius and Cyrus died and two more kings take the throne before the Darius mentioned in Haggai becomes king. It would be fourteen years before the work resumed. During that time the people fell into the old trap of trusting in the economy, the latest fads and fashions, and anything else that came along that promised hope or blocked out the fear. The rebuilding of the temple would have to wait. As the people ran into opposition they went in survival mode and abandoned the work on the Temple. God sent Haggai to give them a reality check and ask the people how things are really going for them.
God said “Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.” 1:5&6 NIV
In this series, The Long Road Back, we have drawn a parallel to building our Temple with the reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Perhaps we need to be asked a couple of questions like, so how is that new job working for you? How are things going with that new diet? How are those hopes and plans going with that new budget? How is your relationship with God going? I could go on but God says it better in verse 9. “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home I blew away.” Why? declares the Lord Almighty, “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house.” NIV
In Chapter 2 God said trusting in these things rather than Him had caused them to defile themselves with dead things. Paul writes that our body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit. The Greek word he used for temple means Holy of Holies or the Most Holy place, the place where God dwelt in the Tabernacle and later the Temple, and now He dwells in our heart.
Earlier, before the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, in Ezekiel 9&10 we read that the priests who served in the Temple had defiled themselves by what they were trusting in and longing for in their hearts. Their influence mislead the people into false hope but the people listened to them, rather than the prophets God had sent, so they became defiled as well. The people and the priests had become so corrupt and so focused on the things they were hoping in that they did not even notice that the Spirit of the Lord went from the Holy of Holies to the door of the Temple and then out into the city until finally to a mountain outside the city. When God’s Spirit departed it was just a matter of time before the city of Jerusalem was taken by Babylon and the Temple was destroyed along with the city.
So this is why God says,“Give careful thought to your ways.” God says. How is that which you are doing, that which you are trusting in, that in which you have put your hope, working for you? Is God on the throne of your heart or has he been crowded out? Have you pushed His hand of protection away?
The rebuilding of the Temple in Haggai represents the rebuilding of the people of Israel’s relationship with the Lord. In Chapter 2 verses 4&5 God tells the governor, the priest, and the people to be strong. God tells them they can be strong because He is with them. His Spirit remains among them.
The same is true for us. God does not want us to be driven by fear or looking for “life” in things that are dead, but to be strong in Him. He wants to be on the throne of our heart. The same pattern is repeated with the church of Laodicea in Revelation 3:14-22. Jesus has been forced outside the church and He stands at the door and knocks, desiring to come in and be reunited with His Church. You can almost hear Him ask, how are things really going for you? “Give careful thought to your ways.” What emotions are at the core of what is driving you?
Knock, Knock, Knock.
Pastor Dave