Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, they set the priests in their apparel with trumpets and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals to praise the Lord after the ordinance of David, king of Israel. A time for praise and adoration in today's word, says Pastor Brett Meador, for the provision of the God of Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.

Kurt: The people in the Prophet Haggai's day were tasked with rebuilding the temple that had been destroyed decades earlier. Yet after only the foundation was laid, there was disappointment among many who had known the former majesty of Solomon's temple. But in today's word, Pastor Brett Meador reflects on the promise of God, assuring them of his even more glorious plan still to come.

And we're so glad you've joined us on Today's Word. For the past several months, we've been looking at the minor prophets in the Old Testament, and today we get to the next prophet and book, which is Haggai. This book begins after the Israelites' freedom from captivity in Babylon, and it deals in part with the rebuilding of God's temple. Pastor Brett, there's some important lessons for us from the prophet Haggai, aren't there?

Brett Meador: Haggai is one of those short little books. Like many of these minor prophets, they're small but mighty. They pack a serious punch. The people had been freed from Babylonian captivity, which was a miracle in and of itself. But when they got back to Jerusalem, they were given clear instructions what to do.

They got a little distracted with their homes, paneling their walls and fancy ceilings and getting comfortable, all the while the house of the Lord sat in ruin. The Lord calls Haggai out to talk to the people. Haggai 1:4 says, "Is it time for you, oh you that dwell in your sealed houses, and yet this house lies in waste?" The temple just was in disrepair, and the people had neglected it.

The lesson really for us is powerful. We have freedom, they had freedom from captivity, but oftentimes it's possible to be delivered from whatever you're in but then drift on your mission. That's really what Haggai's trying to do. He calls the people over and over, using the phrase "consider your ways," which is a good word for us. What is the priority that God has for our lives? Haggai calls us back to a spiritual alignment with the Lord.

Kurt: Thank you, Brett. Let's jump into the book of Haggai now with a message called "What's in Your Temple?" Here again is Pastor Brett Meador.

Brett Meador: Let's turn to Haggai chapter two. Haggai the prophet was a prophet during the time of the rebuilding of the temple. We need to do a little bit of review to make sure that we're all on the same page because there's an interesting history. As it turns out, the temples of Jerusalem do matter even to you Gentiles. There are stories and lessons to be learned from the story of the temple.

Let me just give you a quick summary. It all started when the children of Israel left Egypt as slaves and they were wilderness wandering for those 40 long years. While they were there, the Lord instructed Moses and Aaron to build a tabernacle, a place of meeting, a place of worship, the Holy of Holies, the altar, the altar of incense, the table of showbread, the candlesticks, and all those things.

A guy named Bezalel was one of the artisans that was used to fashion this beautiful tabernacle. It was beautiful on the inside, but the outside of the tabernacle was fairly plain. It was covered in badger skins, and so it really didn't look that impressive on the outside. But you'd walk inside and there were beautiful pieces of furniture, gold, vessels, and all kinds of stuff that they would do there with the tabernacle.

That would be the place of worship even when they conquered the promised land in the land of Canaan. They would bring the tabernacle and eventually set it up at Shiloh. But eventually, King David takes the throne. He was the second king of Israel. David, being a man after God's own heart, said, "I want to build a temple in the city of David, which is Jerusalem, a place to worship God." He reasoned, "I've got a palace, a place to live. We need a place where we can worship God."

David said, "I'm going to build a temple." Nathan the prophet came in and said, "That's right, David, go for it, man, knock yourself out. That's awesome." Well, Nathan goes home that night, and the Lord said, "Nathan, you spoke too soon. David is not supposed to build the temple. He's a man of war, and he's got blood on his hands. He is not the temple builder." So Nathan had to take a little humble pie and go back the next day and say, "Sorry David, I spoke too soon, but you can't build the temple."

I love what David does here because when you read that story in the Bible, the next chapter, David goes on a military rampage. Is he mad because he can't build the temple? I don't know. I think it's more that David just thought he would do what he was good at. David was one of those guys who said, "Don't complain about what you can't do, do what you can." David finds out he can't build the temple. He decides to go do what he is really good at: slaying people.

If you read that next chapter, it's like David slew, David killed, David crushed, David took, David spoiled. Sentence after sentence, David just wiped out this group. They were all enemies of Israel. They were all evil, God-forsaken pagans. David says, "Okay, if I can't build the temple, I'm going to finish cleaning up." Not only does he clean up there, but he also collects all kinds of gold and silver, and he starts stacking up all the supplies you'd need to build the temple in Jerusalem.

He didn't build it, but he got everything you'd need and he prepped it all ready for his son Solomon, who would then build the temple once Solomon became the king. That temple would last from Solomon's era, and it was a glorious temple because David got so much gold and silver and fancy brass. They made the temple beautiful and glorious. It was one of the most incredible buildings in history.

That temple would be the Jews' for hundreds of years. They'd worship God there in the temple. The problem was many of the kings of Jerusalem and of Israel, the northern tribes, when they split up into civil war, the temple was in and out of good times and bad times. Some kings even brought in pagan idols into the temple in Jerusalem to worship these pagan deities in the temple of God.

That's why God says this place is defiled. Eventually he says through the prophets that this temple will be destroyed. It finally came to pass in 586 BC. The Babylonians led by Nebuchadnezzar came and crushed Jerusalem, destroyed the temple of Solomon, and the sacrifice ceased there. The altar ceased there in 586 BC.

When you're talking about temple history, whether you're reading the Bible or watching the History Channel, they talk about the two main temple periods of the city of Jerusalem. Historians sort of refer to the second temple period or first temple period. The confusing part is they're not talking about temples built by so-and-so, but it's more about when the sacrifice started and when the sacrifice ended.

In this case, the first temple period was the time of Solomon's temple, from the time Solomon built it to 586 BC when the Babylonians crushed it. It sat in ruin there for 70 long years. But after the children of Israel spent their 70 years in captivity in Babylon, Artaxerxes gave the commandment to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. A small group of people, about 50,000, went back to Jerusalem.

A lot of the Jews became happy Babylonians, and they didn't want to go back. But 50,000 of the Jews went back under the leadership to repair and restore Jerusalem and the temple and the walls, led by guys like Ezra, Nehemiah, and Zerubbabel. Often the second temple that was built is called Zerubbabel's temple. The temple was rebuilt, but it wasn't as fancy as Solomon's temple, not even close.

They built the temple and the wall of Jerusalem under real duress. They didn't have the materials and the supplies, so it was fairly plain, fairly simple, not as big, and not as glorious, but it was a temple nonetheless. Zerubbabel's temple made it from that time when the Jews came out of the Babylonian captivity all the way to the time just before Christ.

That temple remained. But during the time just before Jesus came on the scene, a guy by the name of Herod the Great said he was going to remodel the temple there in Jerusalem. They were going to do a massive remodel of the temple. Herod the Great, as bad as he was in so many areas, was responsible for building amazing things. He's the guy who built Masada, that palace fortress that's out in the middle of the desert of Israel. It's an amazing place.

He also built the Herodium. There was a little hill, and he said, "I want to be able to see Jerusalem from the top of this hill." They said, "Yeah, but we'd have to build this mountain to be like a thousand feet taller than it was before." He said, "Exactly." And they did. Jerusalem was 10 miles away. If you go to the Herodium today, there's a cone-shaped hill that's just perfectly shaped that goes up, and his palace was on top. To this very day, you can stand there and look into Jerusalem 10 miles away.

Herod the Great was trying to gain favor and cause there to be peace with the Jewish people, so he remodeled their temple. He took many years and tons of money and remodeled Zerubbabel's temple. That doesn't bring in the third temple period. Zerubbabel's temple is called the second temple period because the sacrifice began again right after the Jews were in captivity in Babylon. That begins the second temple period.

It goes all the way through, even after the remodel of the temple. Jesus would come on the scene and he'd walk in the temple of Herod the Great. Then he would make a prediction that the temple would be destroyed, not one stone of it would stand upon another. The Romans and the Jews started to not get along worse and worse, and eventually Titus, the Roman general, came in 70 AD and crushed Jerusalem and destroyed the temple.

The story goes where one of Titus' archers lit a fiery arrow and indiscriminately shot the arrow. It went over the wall into the Temple Mount, through the doors of the temple, and into the temple itself. Everything ignited, and the temple itself became like an inferno oven. Everything burned. The cedar from Lebanon was all melting and burning. All the gold and silver melted and went down into the cracks of the stones there on the Temple Mount.

Once that happened in AD 70, that would be the end of the second temple period because there was no more sacrifice there. The Jews were driven out by the Romans, and the temple period stopped there. They haven't had a temple in Jerusalem since then. There's many lessons that we get from the temple that I want to point out. I have first a practical lesson, secondly a prophetic lesson, and then thirdly, a personal lesson.

Number one, we've got the practical lesson of the temple. And that is our text, Haggai chapter two. It says in Haggai chapter two, beginning in verse seven: "And I will shake all nations and the desire of all nations shall come and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of host. The silver is mine, the gold is mine, saith the Lord of host. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than that of the former, saith the Lord of host. And in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of host."

Haggai the prophet was on the scene when Zerubbabel was building the temple. He was going to crack the whip saying, "You guys, let's get this temple done." It was a splash of cold water on the Jews because they were already building their houses and getting everything dialed in personally, but they were neglecting getting the temple rebuilt there in Jerusalem. Haggai is just two chapters, and he's going to crack the whip of, "Let's get her done."

He prophetically says some stuff here that is really quite profound when you know the history and the story. He claims the glory of the latter house, that is the newer version, the Zerubbabel version, the glory of that house will be greater than that of the former, Solomon's temple. You might think it must be more beautiful, more architecturally pleasing to the eye, or more glorious in gold and silver. How was the latter temple going to be more glorious and greater than the former? That's where you have to know the rest of the story.

Turn over to Ezra chapter three, which is the same time period as Haggai chronologically. They just finished laying the foundation of this new Zerubbabel temple. After Solomon's temple's destroyed, after the 70 years of captivity, now these guys are rebuilding the temple. We pick it up in Ezra 3, verse 10: "And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, they set the priests in their apparel with trumpets and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals to praise the Lord after the ordinance of David, king of Israel.

"And they sang together by course in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord because he is good, for his mercy endureth forever toward Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. But many of the priests and the Levites and the chief of the fathers who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, they wept with a loud voice and many shouted aloud for joy. So that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of the joy from the noise of the weeping of the people, for the people shouted with a loud shout and the noise was heard afar off."

What a strange thing. The foundation is built. I know what this is like because when I was a kid, my dad was a hard worker but he didn't have a big retirement. He worked really hard. One of the things we'd do is we'd build a house, live in a travel trailer, and then sell it. Then go build another house. He'd do this after work, and he did all the work. I hear people say, "Yeah, we're building a house." You mean you contracted it, because to me there's a big difference between you swinging the hammer and pulling wire and plumbing.

Well, that's what my dad did. We'd just build houses. I remember we'd get the foundation down and maybe the floor on it. That's when we would get out our sleeping bags and we'd sleep out on the new house. We were excited to actually have something other than a travel trailer to sleep on. We'd get out early and we'd start cooking in the house before there was even sheetrock. I kind of sense that's what they're doing. The foundation is laid, so everybody got their fancy priestly garments on to sing songs and use the foundation to worship God.

The young people are just rejoicing, being thankful to the Lord, but there's the old guys crying. They said, "Oh, you guys don't know what you're missing. The former glory of Solomon's temple, even this foundation is like garbage compared to what Solomon had." They're weeping because it's just not as good. These old dudes are saying this temple is garbage compared to Solomon's temple. But what if these old dudes have a point? Maybe it is true that Zerubbabel's temple was less attractive and not as impressive?

As it turns out, they're right about that. The situation was very different, but these old guys had a very mixed feeling at the celebration. There are people rejoicing, and then there are other guys going, "It's not like the good old days." Be careful if you're like me and you're getting in the older crowd where you're starting to remember the good old days. We do that sometimes, and we have to be careful about that.

There is some truth to some of those things, by the way. I'm not knocking older people. There's places in the Bible where the young people should have been listening to the older people and they didn't. But when it's an old-timer saying, "It's not like the good old days," that's what's happening here with the new temple. There's a practical lesson that has to do a little bit with the clash of age and youth.

I remember seeing this in the church over the years. I've been a church person since I was but a baby. I remember when I was a little kid, we'd travel around for my dad's construction work. Wherever we went, we went to church on Sunday, and I remember singing the old hymns with all the old-timers. As a little kid, I remember kind of liking the hymns. But I'll never forget when I turned 10, we had this young pastor start a church. It was during the Jesus movement of the 1960s and 70s.

They weren't singing the hymns, they were singing what they called praise music. That was a new thing. I remember thinking this was different than those old hymns, and I remember liking the praise music. My parents would play praise music at home. A lot of it was scripture right out of the Bible, but they would sing the same phrase over and over again. It was kind of hippie music. I remember thinking it was awesome.

But I also remember there was a bunch of old-timers saying, "That's not real music. Praise music is from the devil. Why is it from the devil? Because there's drums." Everyone knows the drums are the devil's instrument. It's a funny thing, there were arguments where unless you're singing the hymns, you're not singing God music. I heard a bunch of old-timers say that for years.

I remember one discussion I had with an old-timer who said the hymns are better than the praise song. I asked, "Which one's better?" I showed him one of our praise songs and he said hymns are better. I asked if he knew where the lyrics from the song came from. I told him it came straight from the Bible, word for word. I asked which one was better, the Bible or his hymn? He was hesitant, but he said the hymn.

He thought his hymn by Martin Luther or all these people was better than the Bible. I understood his worldview. Now, I'm not against the hymns. I remember we were doing praise music back in the old days like we do now, but we were also starting to implement more hymns because we like hymns too. It's so funny because now that generation that was doing the 60s praise music is weeping.

They say they miss the old praise music from the 60s and the old Calvary Chapel days. It's just a cycle, like a pendulum back and forth. Be careful. We could talk about what people wear, music styles, whether you have a pulpit or stools, everybody's got these things that they get all up into and say it's just not as good as this or that. This is a funny dilemma that the Bible shows. The old guys were saying the foundation was nothing compared to the good old Solomon's day.

Which group was correct? Which group actually gets it right? Was it the old guys or was it the new kids who were excited? The answer in this case is the young people were correct and the old guys were wrong. Haggai says the glory of this latter house shall be greater than that of the former. This is the Lord of hosts who says this. He uses that term over and over again in this passage.

This is an important phrase, one of the titles of God. He's the Lord of armies. Don't forget that the Bible says the Lord is a warrior, he is mighty in battle, and he's the same yesterday, today, and forever. So it's interesting that Haggai, in talking about the temple, he keeps saying "the Lord of hosts." But who was correct? The glory of the newly built temple foundation by Zerubbabel or the temple of Solomon? Haggai says the glory of the latter will be better than that of the former.

The young guys were right to be thankful and worship the Lord, and the old guys should have got off their traditional bandwagon and realized that God was doing something different. It doesn't look like what they used to do, and it doesn't feel the same. That happens throughout our lives, and there's times we have to be careful. There are some things we need to hang on to, of course, but there are other non-essential issues that we hang on to. These old guys were wrong. Haggai says the glory of this new temple's going to be better than that of the old.

Kurt: Pastor Brett Meador pausing at the close of just the first of three lessons from a study of the rebuilding of the temple drawn from Haggai chapter two on Today's Word. And there's more to learn as you'll want to be along next time as well. But first, Brett Meador is the senior pastor of Athey Creek Church just outside of Portland in West Linn, Oregon. We invite you to find out more about Pastor Brett and Athey Creek Church by going to todayswordradio.com.

If you missed any portion of this study, you'll find all of his messages online at todayswordradio.com. I also want to mention that in addition to the main Athey Creek campus in West Linn, we also have locations in Hillsboro and McMinnville. For more information, go to todayswordradio.com and click on the link "Locations." Next time, Pastor Brett Meador will deliver an in-depth look into Haggai, alerting us to some important practical, historical, and prophetic lessons we should respond to in our lives today. Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.