The Book of Haggai talks about a people who knew the goodness of God, a people who knew that God could bring them out of captivity and release a blessing over them.
They returned from captivity to a temple that was ruined and in rubble but with excitement and were eager to rebuild. Then something happened, a snare that the adversary brings that halted the rebuilding. When the adversary decided that it was time to shut the belief down, they humbled to it. The people had started rebuilding but stopped, and some eighteen years later the process that was halted had not started. Haggai comes to stir the hearts of the people, to renew courage in the Lord, and to renew holiness and faith in God who controls everything including the future. When you research the story, it tells you that the people still had a measure of desire to worship. The foundation in which they had started for the temple was the place where they had worshiped. Instead of rebuilding, they were content to worship on unfinished ground. There is a drought in the land. People had be come indifferent about spiritual priorities. They put their desires before the things of God’s house, rebuilding of the temple, and today it is our spiritual walk. I still have a foundation of who God is and how awesome He is, so I am okay. I will just rest in the fact that I know Him but don’t need a relationship with Him.
Most are content to worship in an unfinished temple. I am not talking about a church, but I am talking about your temple, that temple in 1 Corinthians 6:19 which says: Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God, and you are not your own? Your foundation may be stable on the outside, but what is really holding it together? Haggai 1:6 says: “You have sown much, and bring in little. You eat, but do not have enough. You drink, but you are not filled with drink. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages, earns wages to put in to a bag with holes.” Doing all you know how to do and still nothing is happening. We get complacent with the drought in the
land, and this has been happening in the land for a long time. You are not about Father’s business, but you are all about your business.
It is amazing to see that Haggai prophesied to the people in Verse 8 to go to the mountain and bring wood and build the temple, the house of God. Cut down a tree. God is getting ready to show the people something. Cut it down, and raise it up to build the house and I will be glorified. I take pleasure in it. You have a foundation, but I need to raise up something on this foundation so that you will have confidence in me that I can do anything. In order to build on this foundation, you have to come to a true knowledge of who you are and what Jesus did, and a belief that 2015 is the year that God will reveal His glory to the people. He is going to stir up and raise up a temple, a people who truly know Him.
The temple was a shadow of Christ in the reality. The natural temple had a veil between the Holy of Holies and the most Holy place. When the cross was raised at Calvary and Jesus cried out in a loud voice and gave up His spirit, the wall was split from the top to the bottom giving us access to God to go boldly to Him. Matthew 27:50-51: Jesus, when He had cried out again with a loud voice, yielded up His spirit, and behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. There was a significant reason for the wood to be brought. God was getting ready to show the people that He was getting ready to do something in this season that would build the temple on a true foundation. The same wood, cross, that Jesus was raised on at Calvary that set His people free will be the wood that will be raised on this foundation to set the Jewish people completely free from bondage. No longer when the adversary says “Halt!” will you quit without knowing that if God is for me, no man can be against me.
All of this ties into what God was about to do to bring about His Son, Jesus Christ, to the earth. It was not by accident that Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah, was chosen and Joshua the High Priest. In the New Testament, they lead Jesus to a High Priest, Caiaphas, and the chief priests and the elders who persuaded the people to crucify Jesus. He was necessary, because the law required that if there was to be a sacrifice, the priest had to offer it up. He offered Jesus up not as a criminal but a sacrifice. Jesus became High Priest over a New Covenant. That is why 1 Peter 2:9 says we are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people. We cannot be a royal priesthood without a High Priest, Jesus, the blood sacrifice who washes off every weakness, every depression, every sickness, every generational curse, every suicide spirit, and every demon that comes against us. Haggai 2:6: “For thus says the Lord of hosts:‘Once more (it is a little while) I will shake heaven and earth, the sea and dry land; the drought is about to end, and all nations shall come. I will fill this house, your temple, with the glory,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘The silver is Mine and the gold is Mine,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘And in this place I will give peace,’ says the Lord of hosts.” There is a glory I believe for 2015 that will be like we never experienced before. Similar to how we felt when we first fell in love with Him, when we first came to know Him. God will reveal His presence in this temple, in us, like we have never experienced before. When we are in His presence, all things are possible. We rest is assurance that nothing is too hard for a Father who loves us.
