Looking For Hope

Today we are going to take a look at the book of Haggai. 

For centuries the prophets of Israel had been warning Israel that by breaking their covenant with God through idolatry and injustice and if they didn’t change their ways that God would send Babylon to destroy the Temple and take them into exile.

Now all of this happened in the year 587 bc.  Now Biblical prophets spoke heavily upon repentance but they also had hope.  They believed that one day God would bring back the exiled Hebrews a remnant to live in a New Jerusalem where God would live in their midst. 

Now when we turn to Haggai the year is 520 BC almost 70 years after God allowed Babylon to exile the Hebrews.  The Babylonian empire has recently collapsed and the world is now ruled by the Persians.

 The Persians allowed the return of any Hebrews who wanted to go back to Jerusalem even though the city still laid in ruins from the Babylonian era.

So a group of Hebrew’s under the High Priest Joshua and leadership of Zerubbabel returned to Jerusalem from their exile.

So their hopes are high, the holy city has been turned back over to Hebrews and the rebuilding can begin.

The book of Haggai is broken down into 4 sections that takes place over a roughly a 4 months span of time.

Haggai begins the 1st chapter accusing the Hebrews of focusing heavily on their own houses while the land and the Temple of the Lord still laid in ruin.  He accuses the people of engaging in a covenant rebellion as is outlined in the book of Deuteronomy. 

The people are responding positively to the prophetic speech and become motivated to turn their attention to rebuilding the Temple.

Yet in Chapter 2 of Haggai we see Haggai addressing the people shortly after the Temple is being rebuilt and the Temple didn’t meet the standard or the wow factor that Solomon had built previously.  So the expectations of the Hebrews where shattered.  They really had lost their motivation and drive to finish the Temple.  So Haggai draws from previous prophets and shares about the promises of the things to come.  How all nations would come, and God would redeem the whole world from that very spot.  So Haggai called on the people to continue their labor with hope of the future despite their current circumstances.

He continues about 2 months later talking to the Spiritual leadership and he sets forth a parable about Ritual Purity referencing Leviticus.  That if the current generation doesn’t humble themselves, turn from injustice and apathy that everything they build with their hands will be impure too.  He encourages them that only true repentance and faithfulness to the covenant will bring about blessings from the Lord for their labor.  He is laying the future of the Temple and Israel in their hands.  That God is waiting for His people to be faithful and this challenge is similar to the one Moses gave to the generation in the wilderness.  Obedience will lead to success while faithlessness will lead to ruin.

That the success will bring about the Messianic age and the King from the line of David. 

Mashiach ben David.

I am not Haggai, I am not a prophet.  But this week I feel strongly that I am to speak directly to these generations.  The ones who know Yeshua as the Mashiach Ben David, the ones that know of the obedience asked for in the Torah, the ones who have forsaken all logic and rational of the world to keep the Sabbath, honor the Feasts who have grown weary, who have grown tired, who are looking for hope that the promises of God are still true.

Stop building your own houses.  You continue to work and have nothing to show for it, you continue to drink but never have enough, you continue to sow but reap nothing.  You see little fruit from some around you in your corner of Christianity.  The congregation you have attended, sown into it doesn’t look like the one you have seen or envision to be.  Your motivation is waning.  Your issues with your spouse, your issues with your children, your friends, your finances, your co-workers.  You can’t control the past and God has your future.  You can only control your present.  This moment I feel the same way you do, I too have felt the waning motivation and questions if my labors have been in vain.  I have found the answer in God’s word.  I have found that we have placed our own desires over the desires of the Lord, I believe we have missed our calling.  Remember the journey is just that, a journey, not a dash, not a 7 year plan, not a deal of the century.  It is the deal of a lifetime.  One that focuses on the redemption of Israel, Jersualem.  One that places our hope solely on the promises of a task no human can accomplish on their own.  One that was given to a remnant.  One that was given to a generation to fulfill the prophecies of Mashiach Ben David.  We cannot bring peace, only he can, we cannot defeat evil, only He can.  We must stop striving to tend our own gardens by the power of our own hands and stop looking for hope in things that were never developed to give us hope.  We must renew our calling with a vigor to see the kingdom of God be restored to this earth, and realize that in looking for hope in the things of this world will leave us empty, frustrated and waning. 

Haggai makes it clear we aren’t alone, we aren’t the only generation of Hebrew’s to lose our fire, become weary of what we see.  We must examine our body, our community, call for repentance, call for better standards, call for the Holy Spirit to utterly destroy the narrative we have been sold that we have the power on our own. 

For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.   Romans 15:4

But if we grow weary now in the short time we have on this earth how will we ever be able to praise and extol the King of glory for all of eternity?