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Good Monday to you my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
Have you ever stood in a place that you sense will someday be very special, perhaps even a famous place?
Join me again back in Jerusalem about 2500 year ago, at the construction site of a building which, even though being built amidst rubble, was one day going to be very special indeed! We’re on the Temple mount with Haggai the prophet and hundreds of Jewish exiles who have returned from Babylon, feverishly working to clear away rubble and rebuild the Temple of God. What rubble you ask? Well rubble from the first Temple, King Solomon’s Temple, which was demolished by King Nebuchadnezzar 66 years before. (2 Chronicles 36:15-21)
These were discouraged workers and yesterday we heard Haggai give them an encouraging message from God that HE, the Almighty God, would be with them as He had been with Moses and their ancestors coming out of Egypt! (Haggai 2:4,5)
But there was more in this message Haggai was receiving from God which was very important. While God was watching the work that day, God was also looking forward in time and God wanted the workers to know this second temple they were building would become very, very special in Israel’s history and our world.
Do you know, my friends, that God is looking at our world today in the same way? He sees your life and mine both in view of the history of our families all the way back to Noah, and also the future through our descendants all the way till Jesus finally returns! God sees it all and He’s working today in our world, in view of what He wants to accomplish in the future! Now can you personalize that?
So, Haggai continued his message with these words: “This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations, and what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory’, says the LORD Almighty.” (Haggai 2:6,7)
Was Haggai predicting a great earthquake or a tsunami? Oh no my friends! And what was it that God was declaring ALL nations desired that God would supply? And how would it be that God’s glory would fill this rebuilt Temple as He did the first Temple?
The answer is simple yet profound. Haggai was predicting the Messiah, Jesus Christ! The incarnation of the Son of God, to live a sinless life here on earth for about 30 years and then die an atonement death to provide deliverance from sin bondage and sin condemnation for any and every person of the world!
That world shaking event is what God was predicting through Haggai! It was to this second temple, about 500 years later, that Joseph and Mary would bring infant Jesus for dedication and Simeon would meet them and declare that his lifelong hope was realized! (Luke 2:22-35)
And in this Temple Jesus as a young boy would amaze the religious leaders as He engaged them in discussion about His Father Almighty God and God’s Word including the Torah. Remember Joseph and Mary came looking for young Jesus and they found Him here in this Temple with the scholars of that day? (Luke 2:41-52)
And of course it was to this Temple adult Jesus Himself came, not once but many times, teaching and performing miracles, and oh my, the Glory of God filled that place like never before because God Himself was visibly, tangibly, practically present in the person of Jesus Christ!
But Haggai’s message was not finished. God wanted that generation of His people to know that HE had all resources, for Haggai said: “The silver is Mine and the gold is Mine,’ declares the LORD Almighty. ‘The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house…and in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the LORD Almighty.” (Haggai 2:8,9)
God’s reference to the silver and gold was surely encouraging to those workers for the supplies they had were very little compared to the piles of abundance those who built the first Temple used. God was assuring them He would supply, and He would guide them to use what He supplied.
Unknown to the workers or to Haggai, God was also looking down through time to 37bc when God would lead King Herod the Great to undertake a massive, 20-year expansion and restoration project of this Temple mount. That great undertaking would make this second Temple, in Jesus’ day, even more spectacular to visitors and worshipers than how Solomon’s first Temple appeared!
But what about Haggai’s statement: “The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house…and in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the LORD Almighty.” (Haggai 2:9) What was God saying to them and to us? I urge us to consider these key thoughts:
1. Simeon, the Holy Spirit filled man of God who prayed over infant Jesus, said: “Sovereign LORD, as you have promised, You may now dismiss Your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen Your salvation, which You have prepared in the sight of all nations; a light for revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of Your people Israel.” (Luke 2:29-32) Jesus Messiah came to offer Israel and the people of ALL nations peace! Peace with God that could not be found any other way! (John 14:6)
2. Every time Jesus walked into this great Temple area, the glory of Almighty, Creator, God of Israel was present, in a far more magnificent way than even when fire from heaven fell on the Altar when King Solomon was dedicating the first Temple, or when the cloud of God’s presence settled on the Temple. (2 Chronicles 7:1,2)
3. When God tore the veil, from top to bottom, separating the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place in the Temple, at the moment Jesus Messiah was giving His life on the cross, as an atonement sacrifice for all sin, the glory of the LORD filled the Temple like never before, for God was opening His throne room to any person, at any time, who would come to Him in the Name of Jesus Messiah! (Matt. 27:50,51; Heb. 10:19-23)
As the people worked in the hot sun those days on that Temple mount, it was exhausting work but Haggai’s messages from God greatly encouraged them. They were building under God’s watchful eye and building for a future only God could see, but a future which would change the world when Jesus Messiah came to this Temple!
So, as we close today, I invite us to consider how our lives and what we put our hands to today is part of what God is doing as He builds for a future only, He can see.
Does that encourage you to keep your heart aligned with God’s heart; your priorities aligned with God’s priorities; your life goals aligned with God’s life goals for you? Let’s ponder that for a while as we worship with this Caribbean flavor song about our Unlimited God!
Today’s Scripture: Haggai 2:6-9.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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