Today we come to the last of our studies in Haggai. It is a small book but one that packs a big punch. A book written for God’s people in difficult and discouraging times. A book that reassures God’s people that He is with them as they commit themselves to His work.
Today’s final message is for Zerubbabel the governor of Judah. Every leader of God’s people needs encouragement and in these final verses God provides it.
Work on the temple has recommenced, the people are at last doing what God had called them to do. On 18th December, 520 BC, there is solemn ceremony marking the relaying of the temple foundations. On this day God speaks once again through His prophet Haggai calling his people to understand that there is a deeper issue that is contaminating everything the people do and touch.
Psalm 24 asked the questions, “Who may ascend the hill of the LORD? Who may stand in His holy place?” The answer - “He who has clean hands and pure heart.”
But what do you do if your hands are unclean and your heart is impure? God sets before His people the need for real repentance if they want to experience real blessing.
The work of rebuilding the House of the LORD in Jerusalem has finally recommenced. But it is not long before discouragement sets in particularly as the Remnant look back to the past and remember the splendour of Solomon’s temple.
Malachi’s second message from the LORD recognises the reality of their present circumstances but also brings real encouragement to sustain the work in the present and gives them glimpses of a glorious future.
The message for God’s people, then as now, is that the best is yet to come.
Last time we looked at the diagnosis of the problem in Jerusalem from God’s perspective and sat that it was the failure of God’s people to rebuild the house of the LORD. We saw also God prescribe the remedy in chapter 1 verse 8,“Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house so that I may take pleasure in it and be honoured, says the LORD.”
The remedy was obedience, it was getting on with the task that God had given them to do.Today we look at how the people responded to God’s word through Haggai.
Haggai, along with Zechariah and Malachi, is one of the three prophets of the Restoration Period. Their ministry took place in the closing years of the Old Testament after the exiles had returned to Jerusalem and were seeking to rebuild their temple and their nation. They found themselves back in a Jerusalem where things had changed beyond all recognition. These were difficult and challenging days. This was, ‘the day of small things,’ as Haggai’s contemporary Zechariah described it.
Over time the remnant of God’s people became discouraged and gradually lost sight of the reason they had returned home in the first place. But God still had his plans and purposes for His people and they would learn through Haggai’s ministry that the LORD was still with them.