HAGGAI
The name Haggai is taken from
the Hebrew word Hag for “festival.”
Perhaps that is appropriate, for there is something festive about the
message of this book. It is a call to
worship and a call to action, but it is also a call to celebrate the Lord and
His presence.
DATE OF WRITING
Haggai is one of the
post-exilic prophets. His book contains
three discourses, all of which were written during the second year of Darius
the Great. Darius was the third of the
rulers of the Medo-Persia Empire. What Cyrus the Great had won and what his son
Cambyses had extended, Darius took and secured and administered.
|
King |
Dates |
Biblical
References |
|
Cyrus the Great |
550-530 B.C. |
2 Chronicles
36:22-23; Ezra 1:1-8; Daniel 1:21 |
|
Cambyses |
530-522 B.C. |
Not mentioned
in Scripture |
|
Darius the Great |
522-486 B.C. |
Ezra 4-6;
Daniel 9:1; 11:1 |
|
Xerxes |
486-465 B.C. |
Ahasueras
of Esther |
|
Artaxerxes |
465-424 B.C. |
Ezra 7;
Nehemiah 2:1 |
HISTORICAL SETTING
Haggai is one of the
post-exilic prophets. That means he
prophesied after the return from the Babylonian Captivity. He prophesied in that period when the people
of God who had been forcibly removed from the promised land
had not been allowed to return and rebuild.
Not all had come back. It was a bit like what might happen if the
present political situation were to change in
In the same way, the majority
of Jews had elected to remain in the foreign lands to which they had been
scattered, but there were some who DID go back.
They went to a desolated and poverty stricken land and they began to
rebuild their homes and to rebuild their temple.
But then arose
opposition. It came through political
channels and it came in the form of a royal edict ordering the halting of the
reconstruction of the temple. The work
stopped and the temple stood abandoned and unfinished.
Life went on.
A year passed.
Then
another.
Ten years came and went.
Life was tough and the people
focused on eeking out a living.
Then God spoke. He spoke through two prophets -- two
witnesses to the Word and Message of God.
When the prophets, Haggai
the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied
to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem, in the name of the God of Israel,
who was over them, 2 then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel
and Jeshua the son of Jozadak
arose and began to rebuild the house of God which is in Jerusalem; and the
prophets of God were with them supporting them. (Ezra 5:1-2).
The book of Haggai can be
divided into three sections. Each of
these three sections begins with a question and in each case,
the question introduces a sermon that is given to answer the question.
|
1:1-15 |
2:1-9 |
2:10-19 |
2:20-23 |
|
First Sermon |
Second Sermon |
Third Sermon |
Closing words to Zerubbabel |
|
People’s Work Prominent |
God’s Work Prominent |
||
|
Question: How do we live in
luxury when the temple is in ruins? |
Question: How does this |
Question: Does the Unclean produce that which is
Clean? |
|
|
Problem: People reluctant to restore covenant
fellowship |
Problem: People unconvinced of restoration
possibilities |
Problem: People unfit to take part in restoration |
Zerubbabel as symbol of the
people |
|
Charge to begin Building |
Encouragement to Finish |
||
These three sermons comprise
a call to action. The action involves
the completion of the work of the rebuilding of the
FIRST SERMON - DEVELOPING
A KINGDOM PRIORITY
Priorities are
important. They help us to determine
what we need to do and when we need to do it.
There is nothing so useless as doing well that
which does not have to be done at all.
|
First Sermon 1:1-15 |
||
|
Question: |
Twofold
Response: |
|
|
Is it time for
you to dwell in paneled homes while the House of the Lord is desolate? |
The people
showed reverence for the Lord. |
They came and
worked on the house of the LORD of hosts, their God |
Twice in this section Haggai
calls for the people to consider your ways -- literally, “Set your
heart” (1:5; 1:7).
1. The
people had a problem with priorities: Is
it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house
lies desolate? (1:4).
It
is easy to understand how they could fall into this sort of thinking. We do it all the time. That means Haggai’s message can be applied to
us today. Where are your
priorities? Is the building of the
Lord’s house and the Lord’s kingdom first place in your life?
The
story is told of a teacher who was speaking to a group of business
students. As he stood in front of the
group, he pulled out a one‑gallon jar and set it
on the table in front of him. He also
produced about a dozen fist‑sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at
a time, into the jar. When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks
would fit inside, he asked, “Is this jar full?”
Everyone
in the class yelled, "Yes."
The teacher replied, “Really?” He
reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. He dumped some
gravel in and shook the jar causing pieces of gravel to work themselves down
into the spaces between the big rocks.
He then asked the group once more, "Is the jar full?"
By
this time the class was on to him.
"Probably not," one of them answered.
"Good!" he replied. He reached
under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in the jar and it
went into all of the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel. Once more he asked the question, "Is
this jar full?"
"No!"
the class shouted. Once again he said, "Good." Then he grabbed a pitcher of water and began
to pour it in until the jar was filled to the brim.
Then
he looked at the class and asked, "What is the point of this
illustration?" One eager beaver raised his hand and said, "The point
is, no matter how full your schedule is, if you try
really hard you can always fit some more things in it!"
"No,"
the speaker replied, "that's not the point. The truth this illustration teaches us is: If
you don't put the big rocks in first, you'll never get them in at
all."
It
is a good story, but it still misses the point.
Developing priorities must begin with recognizing that there is ONE real
priority. If the BIG rock in your life
is not the One who is THE Rock, then you have bought into an imbalanced sense
of priorities and your life will not be what it should.
2. The
people were experiencing a dissatisfaction: You have sown much, but harvest little;
you eat, but there is not enough to be satisfied; you drink, but there is not
enough to become drunk; you put on clothing, but no one is warm enough; and he
who earns, earns wages to put into a purse with holes (1:6).
There
is a corollary between what you give to God and what you enjoy from God. When John Rockefeller was asked how much
money he needed to be happy, his reply was, “Just a little bit more.” The quest for happiness through the obtaining
of wealth is a vain effort. Someone
said, “I know that money cannot buy happiness, but I would not mind being
miserable in style.” However, misery is
miserable, no matter how much money one has.
When
I say that there is a corollary between what you give to God and what you enjoy
from God, I am not speaking only of the giving of money, though this also
applies to how you utilize money. There
are many different ways you can give to the Lord and I have found that the Lord
will press you on exactly that point where you want to hold back from Him. Why is that?
It is because the Lord wants you to enjoy Him to the fullest.
God
is most pleased with you when you are most pleased in Him. He wants you to enjoy Him to the
uttermost. One of the means of
accomplishing that is when you give of yourself to Him.
3. The
people were more concerned with their own comforts than with the glory of the
Lord: “Go up to the mountains, bring
wood and rebuild the temple, that I may be pleased with it and be glorified,”
says the LORD (1:8).
What
you do with your resources is a reflection of your concern with God’s
glory. I didn’t say that; Jesus
did. He said, “Where your treasure is,
there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:21).
This
is a call to get out of your comfort zone and into God’s worship zone. I say it that way because the two are
mutually exclusive. By contrast, man’s
natural tendency is to sit down and stay seated. We gravitate by nature to that which is
comfortable. To put it another way, we
tend to avoid the extremes of hot or cold and to move to the lukewarm.
What is the answer to such a
situation? It is given in verse 12. It is the fear of the Lord: And the people showed reverence for the
LORD (1:12b).
How do you get that kind of
reverence for the Lord? You get it by
first repenting and confessing that you do not have it and then by asking God
to give it to you. And then there is one
more step. You show the reverence that
you want to have.
Jesus gave this same formula
in Revelation 2:4-5 when He spoke to the church that had left their first
love. He said...
• Remember therefore from where you have
fallen.
• Repent
• Do the deeds you did at first
That is not the same as
pretending. I am not talking about an
act of hypocrisy. I am talking about
repenting and telling God about your lack of faith and your lack of love and
then stepping out in an act of faith and love as you look for the Lord to give
you on the inside what you are doing on the outside.
SECOND SERMON:
ENCOURAGEMENT IN GOD’S PROMISES
|
Second Sermon 2:1-9 |
||
|
Question: |
Twofold
Response: |
|
|
How does this |
The nations
will come and I will fill this House with glory |
The latter
glory of this House will be greater than the former |
Haggai lived in a day of past
glory. The
It is hard to continue in
faithfulness when you can’t see the results.
This chapter is written to combat that kind of discouragement.
1. You
can be encouraged by the Presence of God: “But now take courage,
Zerubbabel,” declares the LORD, “take courage also, Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and all you people of the land
take courage,” declares the LORD, “and work; for I am with you,” says the LORD
of hosts. 5 As for the promise which I made you when you came out of
This
is covenant language. The covenant that
God made with His people when He brought them out of
The
Pentecost event took place when, instead of a cloud and a pillar of fire over
the Tabernacle, the Spirit of God came upon man and woman alike and was
manifested in flaming tongues of fire over each person.
There
is a lesson here. It is that the same
Spirit that led the Israelites through the wilderness is with you personally
today. This truth has several
ramifications:
• If God’s Spirit is with you, then you do
not have to be afraid of anything. The
Lord is bigger than any of your problems and, as Paul asks in Romans 8, “If God
is for us, then who can possibly be against us?”
• If God’s Spirit is with you, then you can
attempt great things with confidence that the One who is with you can see you
through.
I
must insert a cautionary disclaimer here.
When I speak of doing great things, I am not speaking of greatness in
the way the world sees greatness. God’s
presence is no guarantee that you are going to receive a financial raise or a
job promotion. It doesn’t mean you are
going to marry the prom queen or the millionaire. It does not say that you are going to drive
an expensive car or live in a luxurious home.
I
am speaking of doing great things for God and for His kingdom and that often
has a quality of greatness that is exactly the opposite of the way the world
sees greatness.
At
the same time, Jesus said: Truly,
truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works
that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I
go to the Father (John 14:12).
2. You
can be encouraged by the Power of God: For
thus says the LORD of hosts, 'Once more in a little while, I am going to shake
the heavens and the earth, the sea also and the dry land. 7 And I will shake all the nations (2:6-7).
God
shook the heavens and the earth...
At creation
At the flood
At Sinai
When Jesus came, there was a star in the
sky, the sun turned black, there was an earthquake.
But
the greatest shaking of all was not physical.
It was spiritual. At Pentecost
there was a shaking of the nations. They
were shaken so that they might enter an unshakable kingdom.
The
shaking of the heavens and the earth was done in the same way that the wind
might shake a tree that is full of ripened fruit. The wind blows and it shakes the tree and its branches and
the fruit literally falls to the ground.
The
writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews quotes this passage to speak of the
eternal kingdom to which we are called.
See to it that you do not refuse
Him who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused him who
warned them on earth, much less shall we escape who turn away from Him who
warns from heaven. 26 And His voice shook the earth then, but now He has
promised, saying, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the
heaven.”
And this expression, “Yet once
more,” denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created
things, in order that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
Therefore, since we receive a
kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to
God an acceptable service with reverence and awe (Hebrews 12:25-28).
God
has “shaken things up” so that you might enter into something that is unshakable. This is a promise of security. It means that you have something that all the
forces of darkness cannot take from you.
Is
God shaking things up in your life? Have
you found yourself recently removed from your comfort zone? Do you find the ongoing changes in the world
and maybe even in the church to be distressing?
There is a message of hope here.
It is that God is shaking things up so that He might bring about that
which is unshakeable.
3. You
can be encouraged by the Possessions of God: “And I will shake all the nations; and they
will come with the wealth of all nations; and I will fill this house with
glory,” says the LORD of hosts. 8 The
silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine,” declares the LORD of hosts (2:7-8).
Are
you having problems with your finances?
Have you been wishing that you had a rich uncle? You do have a rich Father -- all of the gold
and silver belongs to him. He has
blessed you with everything that you need.
Notice
how that silver and gold and wealth are described as coming to Him. They are brought by the nations.
This
was very literally fulfilled in Haggai’s day.
The very people who had opposed the rebuilding of the
Moreover, I issue a decree
concerning what you are to do for these elders of Judah in the rebuilding of
this house of God: the full cost is to be paid to these people from the royal
treasury out of the taxes of the provinces beyond the River, and that without
delay (Ezra 6:8).
I
believe this verse also to have a long range application. God has shaken the nations and they have come
with their gold and their silver. That
is US. We are not only the recipients of
the wealth of the Lord, we are also the means by which
that wealth is distributed.
The
church in the
4. You
can be encouraged by the Peace of God: “The
latter glory of this house will be greater than the former,” says the LORD of
hosts, “and in this place I shall give peace,” declares the LORD of hosts (2:9).
It
is true that the
What
made the
He
is the One who came to be the Prince of Peace.
Islam often presents itself as though it were a religion of peace. But the story of Mohammed is not a story of
peace. On the other hand, when Peter
whacked off the ear of the high priest’s servant, Jesus told him to put his
sword away. Jesus came to bring
peace. He brought peace by dying.
THIRD SERMON: GOD’S
CLEANSING WORK OF GOD
I’ve spent a large part of my
life as a career fire fighter and I can attest that fire fighting is often
dirty work. The soot and the grease and
the grime seem to permeate everything. Many a time I have taken a shower, only to find that the smoke odor
continues to exude from the pores of my skin.
The Bible teaches us that we
have a cleansing problem. It is called
sin. There are some today who do not
like to use that word, but it is a perfectly legitimate word. To ignore it would be like a fire fighter
coming out of a working fire and ignoring the fact that he was contaminated by
the scene in which he had been working.
You may choose to ignore the sin in your life, but it will not ignore
you.
The third sermon of Haggai
deals with this issue of being clean from sin.
It introduces the subject with a question.
|
Third Sermon 2:10-19 |
||
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Question: |
Twofold
Response: |
|
|
Does the
Unclean produce that which is Clean? |
Consider from
this day: I have brought economic sanctions against you |
Consider from
this day: I will bless you |
Haggai begins this sermon
with a riddle. The riddle asks the
question: “How does something that is unclean produce that which is
clean?” The answer is obvious. It isn’t possible.
This had direct application
to that day when it came to the rebuilding of the
We often do the same
thing. We work at the obvious outward
problems in our lives and we pick away at those things that are not socially
acceptable while ignoring that they are only indicators of a problem within.
How does something unclean
produce something that is clean? And how
can that which is clean come into contact with that which is unclean and not be
contaminated by it?
This question points us to
the gospel. It is in Christ that we find
the answer to the riddle. God has
produced in Him the means by which we can be made clean. This worked out in a very practical way in
that day. It was the discipline of God
upon His people that drove them back to Himself. Because of their repentance, they are now
left with a promise. It is a promise of
present and future blessing. There is
coming One who will be able to touch the leper and the
unclean and who will not be polluted by it, for He will cleanse the leper.
What Jesus does in the physical
realm, He also does in the spiritual realm.
He is the One who bore our sins upon Himself, yet He did so without
becoming polluted by our sins. Though He
paid the penalty for our sins, He did so without becoming a sinner. He is the Healer who heals without becoming a
carrier of the disease.
EPILOGUE: CLOSING WORDS TO
ZERUBBABEL
Then the word of the LORD came a
second time to Haggai on the twenty-fourth day of the month saying, 21 “Speak
to Zerubbabel governor of
|
There is a possible play on words with the previous
verses. Verse 19 closed with the
question: “Is the seed yet in the barn?”
The name Zerubbabel literally means “seed of |
Notice the closing promise of
this book. It is that Zerubbabel would
be made like a signet ring. A signet
ring had a special use:
It served as a person’s legal signature
It validated royal authority when used to
seal a document
It was a guarantee of a future promise.
This is a significant
promise, for it is the overturning of a curse that had been made back in the
book of Jeremiah.
“As I live,” declares the LORD, “even though Coniah
the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were a signet ring
on My right hand, yet I would pull you off; 25 and I shall give you over into
the hand of those who are seeking your life, yes, into the hand of those whom
you dread, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the
hand of the Chaldeans.” (Jeremiah 22:24-25).
The blessings of God had been
taken away in the days of Coniah, but now there is a
promise of their restoration under Zerubbabel.
The promise is that Zerubbabel would be “like a signet ring.”
Where do you put a signet
ring? On your right hand (see Jeremiah
22:24). That is where we find Jesus --
He is seated at the right hand of God.
He is the fulfillment of this promise.
He is the descendant of Zerubbabel who would be the signet ring of God.
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