Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: One of the lessons of this book: were we disobedient, thus we're discontented? And the Lord will lovingly correct us, so learn to be content with what you have, be obedient to what God wants us to do, and repent and turn and start doing the works that God's called you to do. And then see what the Lord will do from there. That's a good lesson from Haggai.

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador reflecting on the blessing of the Lord that comes with obedience to his will. The Lord's saying, "I want to bless your socks off, but I'm not going to bless you until you do what I've asked you to do."

Though commanded to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, God's people grew discouraged by what they saw until the Lord lifted their eyes to what he was doing. Turning back to the book of Haggai, Pastor Brett Meador discovers how this Old Testament passage from today's word is an important reminder that God's work is not measured by appearances but by his presence.

Brett Meador: The book of Haggai comes with four major sections where the word of the Lord comes to Haggai. So the first word of the Lord is here in chapter one, and we're going to see this first section of Haggai, the charge that Haggai makes or levels toward the children of Israel.

First, the charge. In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, saying, "Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, 'This people say, The time is not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built.'"

Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying, "Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses, and this house lie waste? Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways." The word on the street was we don't need to build the temple, we can do that later, we got all kinds of time to build the house of the Lord.

But Haggai says now is the time. You guys dwell in your ceiled houses. When Haggai says you guys have your fancy houses that are covered with all these fancy ornate coverings, but the temple just sits there in ruin, that's the charge that is leveled here at the people. God caught up with them and said, "You guys are failing in this," because they did start it, but it wasn't finished.

So that's the first thing. The second section of this chapter, the first one's called the charge, the second section is now the change, verses 12 through 15. It says here in verse 12, "Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him, and the people did fear before the Lord."

There's an interesting thing you miss in the Hebrew. It's not that they just had a healthy fear of the Lord; that's great. But they feared in the presence of the Lord. It's like the Lord was there and they had a sense as they were getting back to the building of the temple that God was there and they had a fear of the presence of the Lord, which is kind of an interesting thing.

That's kind of what's going on here when it says that they started to rebuild the temple, and it wasn't that just the Lord they feared, they feared in the presence of the Lord. They had a healthy respect for the presence of the Lord. Verse 13: "Then spake Haggai the Lord's messenger in the Lord's message unto the people, saying, 'I am with you, saith the Lord.'"

Don't you love that? It's like the Lord, as soon as these people start doing what they're supposed to do, the Lord says, "I'm with you," and the Lord is there for them. What a good reassuring word that the people finally hear. Verse 14: "And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and did work in the house of the Lord of hosts, their God, In the four and twentieth day of the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king."

So chapter one sort of ends with the change that was made. They actually started rebuilding and working. They repented from those things. Now, I told you that Haggai receives words from the Lord. The first word was received in September. And by the way, we know the exact date of this because in the first verse we read it was September, the sixth month, the first day of the month, in the second year of King Darius.

We know that exact date; it would be 520 BC for chapter one. But now we have the second word of the Lord that comes to Haggai. And this month here, as it turns out in chapter two, is the month of October and he gets this message. By the way, we're using the Gregorian calendar in our discussion, but they would have, of course, used the Hebrew calendar, which is a lunar calendar of 360 days a year.

Verse one of chapter two: "In the seventh month, in the one and twentieth day of the month, came the word of the Lord by the prophet Haggai, saying, 'Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and to the residue of the people, saying, Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? And how do you see it now? Is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing?'"

Actually, Haggai brought up the subject about the temple and which one was better. Verse four: "Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the Lord; and be strong, O Joshua, son of Josedech, the high priest; and be strong, all ye people of the land, saith the Lord, and work: for I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts: According to the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, so my spirit remaineth among you: fear ye not." What a great word for the people of Israel.

Now, the question that they were going to raise: which temple's cooler? Is this one not as cool or beautiful or impressive? And that's what they're going to ask the old guys here. But what's interesting here, it's like they asked the old guys and then said to the young guys, "Don't worry, be strong," because the old guys are about to give us a really tough report.

The old guys are about to say this is nothing like the temple of Solomon. It's not like the good old days. What did the temple of Solomon look like? Let me show you a few scriptures that are kind of helpful on this. First Samuel 16:7: "But the Lord said unto Samuel, 'Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh at the heart.'"

Remember this temple being your body. So many people focus on the outside of the body, but God looks at the heart of man. Don't forget that when we're talking about the temple and the glory of the temple. They were so impressed with Solomon's temple and the way it looked, but the reason Zerubbabel's temple, as we learn, was going to be more glorious than Solomon's was because of what was in the temple.

Jesus Christ would walk into Zerubbabel's temple. And if it's Christ in you, your body, then don't be discouraged. Your temple's glorious, and it's not because you're 3% body fat that makes your temple awesome. No, it's because you have Christ in you, the temple, your body. Don't be discouraged about the outside; the Lord looks at the heart.

Second Chronicles 1:15: "And the king made silver and gold at Jerusalem as plenteous as stones, and cedar trees made he as the sycamore trees that are in the vale for abundance." During the time of Solomon building the temple, gold and silver became like rocks on the ground. That's how much gold they had in Israel.

Second Chronicles 2:1-2: "Solomon determined to build an house for the name of the Lord, and an house for his kingdom. And Solomon told out threescore and ten thousand men"—how many is that? 70,000 men—"to bear burdens, and fourscore thousand men"—that's 80,000 men—"to hew in the mountain, and three thousand and six hundred to oversee them." Like the foremen on the job, there were 3,600 foremen, 80,000 hewers of stone in the mountains.

One of the things about Solomon's temple that's interesting, they chiseled the stones up in the mountains and then brought the stones down. If you go look at these today, because some of the Solomon's temple stones are still under the ground because of archaeological building up of civilizations, you can go down in what's called the Rabbi's Tunnel in Jerusalem. You get down to the Solomon level stones that are still stacked there.

Some of the stones are bigger than a school bus. So picture, how would we do this today? You take a stone that's as big as a school bus and you haul it down from the mountains and then you set it in place, but it's already chiseled perfectly to match the next stone because they didn't want the sound of the chisel there on the Temple Mount.

When you look at the stones, they fit perfectly. How would we do that? We still don't know how they did it. It's still a mystery how Solomon's stones were cut like this. Well, part of it was there were 70,000 slaves and 80,000 hewers of stone, and it was a massive project. So no wonder these old guys are like, "Yeah, you guys, these little rocks you got here, they're nothing compared to the days of Solomon."

Second Chronicles 3:3-7 says, "Now these are the things wherein Solomon was instructed for the building of the house of God. The length by cubits after the first measure was threescore cubits"—or 90 feet—"the breadth twenty cubits"—that's 30 feet—"and the porch was in the front of the house, and the length of it was according to the breadth of the house, twenty cubits, and the height was an hundred and twenty: and he overlaid it within with pure gold."

Can you imagine that? The whole overlay on the inside of Solomon's temple was just pure gold. "And the greater house he ceiled with fir tree, which he overlaid then with fine gold." So the beams on the inside were big fir tree beams, but they had gold-covered beams. "And he garnished the house with precious stones for beauty: and the gold was gold of Parvaim," the purest gold.

He overlaid also the house, and the beams, the posts, and the walls thereof, and the doors thereof, with gold and graved cherubims on the walls. These angels were depicted in the gold on the walls, big with lots of gold. That's the idea. Zerubbabel's time, does anybody know how much gold they used in Zerubbabel's temple? Zip, zero, zilch. No wonder the old guys are weeping. It's nothing like the old days. That's what we're going here.

So we go on to verse six: "For thus saith the Lord of hosts; Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; 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 hosts." So interesting, we know that was fulfilled when Jesus came.

And we do know the earth shook when Jesus came, right? If you know your Bible, remember when Jesus died on the cross, the earth shook. So you could say it was fulfilled in his first coming. But there is kind of an interesting sort of depiction of this coming from the millennial kingdom. Because when you read about the millennial kingdom and the tribulation period, the earth is going to shake more like what it's saying here. So some see the connection of the millennial coming and the millennial temple of Ezekiel.

Now you say, "But Brett, that's a problem because that temple's been long gone and so this temple's not the same." It's arguable that one of the foundation stones is still there from both Solomon's temple and Zerubbabel's temple. Quiz time: let's see if anybody can know this one. Where is one of those original stones found on the Temple Mount that's very likely from the Zerubbabel's temple or even Solomon's temple?

Some say it's the Dome of the Rock. When you go in the Dome of the Rock—and it's not a mosque, people say Dome of the Rock mosque, nope, it's the Dome of the Rock shrine. Even the Muslims call it the shrine. The mosque is Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is next to that, in the gray dome. But the Dome of the Rock, they claim that was an original stone from Solomon's temple. It's possible, but I don't believe that's it.

If you ask others—and these are some experts, and there's people that disagree—there's this wide-open space on the Temple Mount. Everybody just kind of leaves it alone except for Ramadan. You'll see thousands of Muslims bowing on their mats praying toward Mecca on this wide-open space. But there's this little gazebo. If you look at a picture of the Temple Mount, you see the big golden dome.

Look just to the right if you're looking from the Mount of Olives. Look to the right; there's this little gazebo. That's a rock, old ancient gazebo that's out there in the middle of this big courtyard that's just off by itself. And then underneath that little gazebo, there's a little place that the stone is what they believe is original from the era of Solomon and they believe that could likely be where Solomon's temple is.

Well Brett, how do you know? They think it was where the Dome of the Rock is. Why would you say it's over here? Interesting question you should ask. There's a description in the Bible where the priest could look from the holy place through the curtain of the holy place, through the door of the temple, up the Mount of Olives, and you could look through the east gate.

So the door of the temple lines up with the east gate and then you could see the highest point on Mount Scopus, or the Mount of Olives. You can call it whatever you want. The reason they called it Scopus by the Romans is the Romans would go up there and scope things out. I'm not kidding; that's Latin for scoping. But that's the highest point.

There are some newer experts that are kind of saying, interestingly, they don't believe the temple sat right where the Dome of the Rock is. They believe the temple sat just to the right of that in, interestingly, that big open space that just sits there with nothing on it right now. What's going to happen to the tribulation?

There's going to be a brokering of peace and the Jews are going to be able to build the temple on the Temple Mount. And if you believe the Dome of the Rock was where that was, then you're going to have to tear down the Dome of the Rock to make that happen. However, if you don't believe that's where it is, you believe it's the Dome of the Spirits there, that's the little rock that's wide open.

You say, "But Brett, that's a problem because the temple and its outer courtyard area, that's too big to fit in that area." Wait a minute, though. Do you guys remember they're going to leave something out of the tribulation temple? Does anybody remember what they're going to leave out? They're leaving out the court of the Gentiles.

And there's plenty of room to build the temple there on the Temple Mount right where that Dome of the Spirits sits. I think there's some interesting stuff going on with that, and I believe we'll be in heaven so we probably won't even see that happen. We'll be in heaven at the marriage feast of the Lamb. But when that happens, I can see the scenario where the temple is going to be rebuilt right there on that open porch area of the Dome of the Spirits, as it's called.

All that to say, back to Haggai chapter two. He says there in verses 6-7 the earth will be shaken and then the king, Jesus, will come and rule and reign. And I'll just quickly remind you Matthew 24 talks about the tribulation and the earthquake and the heavens and the earth. But when Christ comes with power and great glory, this is what Matthew 24:29-30, also Hebrews 12:25-27 where the earth shakes when the Lord comes back.

This is probably what Haggai chapter two is talking about. Well, verse eight, it goes on. It says, "The silver is mine, the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than the former, saith the Lord of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts."

Well, it goes on there now in verse 10. And in verse 10, we have the third word from the Lord. This should have probably been a chapter break technically, if you ask me. But this is the word from the Lord and we're going to call this the December word from the Lord. The first one was September, the second one was October, this one's called December.

Verse 10: "In the four and twentieth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying, 'Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Ask now the priests concerning the law, saying, If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt do touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any meat, shall it be holy?' And the priests answered and said, 'No.' Then said Haggai, 'If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean?' And the priests answered and said, 'It shall be unclean.'"

What are they asking? I guess there was a debate on if you're clean and your garment brushes up against somebody who touched a dead body, are you now suddenly unclean? Aren't you glad we're no longer under these laws? Do I need to remind you the 613 laws? I like showing you this, and you say, "Brett, what are they asking Haggai?" Well, let's pull this one out.

"Everyone under a roof with a corpse is unclean." Numbers chapter 19 verse 14. That's one of the 613 laws, and that's one of the ones they're asking Haggai about. They're trying to figure out—and this is the frustration of the laws of Israel—and they're asking what about holiness and does unholiness pass by touch and when you're sick?

It's an interesting thing because the Lord does refer to sin as sort of if you catch a disease. When you're sick, can you catch health? Have you thought about that? You can catch a cold when you're healthy, but when you're sick, can you catch health? The answer's no. So that's the question like, man, if we just touch something that was touched by a dead body, does that make us unclean?

They're trying to get down to the nitty-gritty about this, but they determined, yes, it is unclean. Now you say, Brett, that's depressing. It is, unless you realize Jesus is the one who did away with the law in the sense that he fulfilled the law. We are no longer under that law. And so this is good news for us.

Verse 14: "Then answered Haggai, and said, 'So is this people, and so is this nation before me, saith the Lord; and so is every work of their hands; and that which they offer there is unclean.'" In other words, everything they do is unclean. This is what I was trying to say a few weeks ago when I was saying everything's sinful. We're all sinful.

Even if you think you're good, you're actually not; you're sinful and everything's defiled by sin and that's something we need to remember. It's just part of the human condition and we're all things that are defiled and unclean. That's why the gospel's so important. Verse 15: "And now, I pray you consider from this day and upward, from before a stone was laid upon a stone in the temple of the Lord."

"Since those days were, when one came to an heap of twenty measures, there were but ten: when one came to the pressfat for to draw out fifty vessels out of the press, there were but twenty." This is referring back to verse six in chapter one. Remember when they would grow their fruit but they didn't get the same fruit and they weren't satisfied by their fruit of their farms?

This is going back to that. Verse 17: "I smote you with blasting and with mildew and with hail in all the labors of your hands; yet ye turned not to me, saith the Lord. Consider now from this day and upward, from the four and twentieth day of the ninth month, even from the day that the foundation of the Lord's temple was laid, consider it."

There it is, "consider" again. Think about it to action. "Is the seed yet in the barn? yea, as yet the vine, and the fig tree, and the pomegranate, and the olive tree, hath not brought forth: from this day I will bless you." So once they started being obedient, the Lord says from the day you started the work on the temple, it's like clockwork, I'm going to start blessing you.

I think that's true for us, too. If you feel like you're kind of at battle against things in your life and things aren't working out well and you discern that it's something you've been disobedient in, the Lord's saying, "I want to bless your socks off, but I'm not going to bless you until you do what I've asked you to do." Maybe it's the business venture you've started.

Maybe it's schoolwork that you're trying to complete. Maybe it's a career that you're trying to develop or a family you're trying to grow and you just feel like, "Man, I just feel like I'm stumbling along the way." Do what God's called you to do, be obedient to his word, and then as soon as you start that, it's like clockwork, the same good things will start to happen, fruitfulness and blessing.

And now we come to the final word, which is also December, word number four from the Lord, December, verse 20: "And again the word of the Lord came unto Haggai in the four and twentieth day of the month, saying,"—and this month would be of course December again—"Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I will shake the heavens and the earth; And I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the heathen."

"And I will overthrow the chariots, and those that ride in them; and the horses and their riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother. In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, will I take thee, O Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtiel, saith the Lord, and will make thee as a signet: for I have chosen thee, saith the Lord of hosts."

What's this about him being a signet? The word signet there in the King James, from the Hebrew word, it means Zerubbabel, I'm going to put power upon you. The word signet is like you have the signet of power. Zerubbabel's name is an interesting name that has a lot of interesting implications. Zerubbabel, some people argue that Zerubbabel will be a key figure in the millennial kingdom building the temple of Ezekiel.

Some people argue that because of what Haggai prophesied here in verses 20 through 23. Zerubbabel's name, by the way, is in both genealogies of Jesus: Matthew, Joseph's genealogy, and then the book of Luke, Mary's genealogy. Zerubbabel's in both of those. So Zerubbabel's kind of a key interesting character in the Bible, and I think we're going to see Bubba perhaps in the millennial kingdom and you'll know who he is because you studied the book of Haggai.

But one of the lessons of this book: were we disobedient, thus we're discontented? And the Lord will lovingly correct us, so learn to be content with what you have, be obedient to what God wants us to do, and repent and turn and start doing the works that God's called you to do. And then see what the Lord will do from there. That's a good lesson from Haggai.

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador concluding our verse-by-verse study of the book of Haggai by reminding us of the list of important lessons we glean from the prophet Haggai in today's word. And I trust you'll stay right there as Pastor Brett will join me in a moment for some final thoughts on Haggai.

Today's Word is the radio ministry of Athey Creek Church, just south of Portland, Oregon, where Pastor Brett Meador's the senior pastor. We invite you to find out more by going to todayswordradio.com. That's todayswordradio.com. All right, I have Pastor Brett with me. You know, it's really amazing when you look at the prophet Haggai, this book in the Old Testament, that we see important truths that happened around 500 years before the birth of Christ. Brett, how are these truths critical for us today?

Brett Meador: It is amazing. It's written right around 520 BC, and yet it really feels like it could have been written yesterday. I love that about the whole Bible. But these minor prophets, they were very specific times. The people were discouraged, they had opposition, the work had been stalled. And yet, God says through Haggai, "Be strong, do the work, for I am with you."

What a great word of comfort, and we need that today. Sometimes we look at what's going on around in our world, and you can feel a little overwhelmed. Culture's shifting, morality is eroding. It's easy to get really tired and weary, but the Lord would remind us, even as he did through Haggai, that God's still there. He hasn't changed.

He points forward prophetically and talks about the future glory of the temple, which would be greater than the former. And that's because the future temple that Haggai was talking about was the one where Jesus would show up. It wasn't the building itself; it was the temple that would be most blessed because Christ himself would be. So the idea is just not neglecting what matters eternally, remembering the Lord's with you, and I think that's really fuel for us just to keep pressing on.

Guest (Male): Yes, Brett, absolutely. And thank you for that summary of the prophet and the book that shares his name, Haggai. Well, if you'd like more information about this Today's Word Radio program or Pastor Brett Meador, you can visit our website at todayswordradio.com. Well, next time, Pastor Brett will look at the next minor prophet in the Old Testament, and that's Zechariah.

Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.