THE BOOK OF HAGGAI
CHAPTER 1
GOD ABOVE ALL ELSE TRUTH
HOW TO PUT GOD FIRST JOURNEY
What a great day to share some Daily Bread! What happens when you put your own desires ahead of the Lord's?
Haggai, one of the twelve minor prophets, tells the children of Israel how
God feels about them dragging their feet in completing the second Temple,
while their own houses were completed. Haggai prophesied in approximately
520 B.C.
The Temple that
Solomon built for God (the first Temple) took only seven years to build, whereas
this second Temple took about forty six years to complete. (John 2:20) Two of the
people who were in charge of this rebuilding were Zerubbabel, who was the
son of the governor of Judah, and Joshua, who was the son of the high
priest.
In the second year
of the reign of Darius the king, on the first day of the sixth month, Haggai
tells them the Word of the Lord and says:
WHY WE ARE TO GOD ABOVE ALL ELSE
HOW TO PUT GOD FIRST PATH
These people say it's not time yet for the Lord's house to be finished.
While you live in your roofed houses, should this house lie waste?
Think about your ways, the Lord said.
You've planted a lot, but you harvest little, you eat,
but you don't have enough,
you drink but you're not quenched,
you clothe yourself, but you're not warm,
and he that earns wages, earns money to put it into a bag with holes.
Think about your ways.
Go up to the mountain, and bring wood,
and finish the temple; and I will take pleasure in it,
and I will be glorified, said the LORD.
You expected a lot, and look, it came to little;
and when you brought it home, I did blow upon it.
Why? said the LORD of hosts.
Because of my house that lies unfinished,
and you run every man into your own houses.
So the heaven over you is halted from dew,
and the earth is stopped from her fruit.
And I called for a drought on the land,
and on the mountains, and on the corn,
and on the new wine, and on the oil,
and on whatever the ground grows,
and on men, and on cattle,
and on all the labor of the hands.
GOD ABOVE ALL ELSE CONCERN
HOW TO PUT GOD FIRST WARNING
It's a shame that
people in this day and age don't realize that we've certainly put our desires above God's, and in the last
generation there have been more "Acts of God" than ever in history. Think of
how many hurricanes, tsunami's, tornadoes, droughts, and earthquakes, just
to name a few things, that have happened just in the last ten years.
Now,
think about things that you may not consider an act of God, but may very
well be, like disease (God used disease several times to "act" on the people
when they were ungodly.) or what about global warming, or the diminishing
ozone layer, or the shortage of natural resources, or these other alarming
disasters: Now, we have ... Covid.
GOD ABOVE ALL ELSE DANGER
HOW TO PUT GOD FIRST IN PROPHECY
Ask yourself this
question. If fornication alone was reason enough for the Lord to "act" on
people back in Biblical times, what makes the world today think that God has
changed His mind about what is righteous and what isn't? (Not to mention the
myriads of other sinful acts that our generation performs.) Yes, we are
fallen creatures, and God's
Grace is bestowed upon us if we sincerely
repent, however, today, people don't even think it's wrong. So, maybe God
really is blowing on our desires when these disasters happen, and we're just
so blinded by the commonplace ungodliness of the world to realize it. It
truly is a shame.
Fortunately, the
Lord sends warnings through prophets and those who realize their fault, heed
those warnings. Zerubbabel and Joshua along with the remnant of the people
of Israel, listened to Haggai and they respected the Word of the Lord. Then
Haggai gave them this message from God:
GOD ABOVE ALL ELSE VOW
HOW TO PUT GOD FIRST BLESSING
I am with you, said the LORD.
And the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel
and the spirit of Joshua
and the spirit of all the remnant of the people;
and they came and worked in the house of the LORD,
in the twenty fourth day of the sixth month,
in the second year of the reign of Darius the king.
Did you go back
and do the math on all of that? It took twenty four days from the time
Haggai spoke to them, until they finally went back to work on the rebuilding
of the temple. Don't put the Lord off any longer in your own life. Build His
house in your heart first, and then your desires won't be blown away.
GOD ABOVE ALL ELSE SUMMARY
HOW TO PUT GOD FIRST IN CONCLUSION
Join us again soon
and we'll take a look at what the Lord tells Haggai after they start back to
work constructing the second temple, right here at Daily Bread.
Spirit of Truth
