Monday: Prophets Encourage
Unfortunately, the opposition that the Jews encountered from the surrounding nations, as described in Ezra chapters 4-6, left them afraid and unwilling to work on the temple.
As mentioned before, Ezra 4:6-6:22 is not written in chronological order. Therefore, we will look at chapter 5 before chapter 4.
Read Ezra 5:1-5. Why does God send the prophets Haggai and Zechariah to the Jews? What is the result of their prophesying?
Image © Standard Publishing from GoodSalt.com
The Jews had stopped building because they were afraid. But God had sent them to Judah to rebuild the temple and the city, and He had a plan. Since they were afraid, He had to do something in order to encourage them. Therefore, He called two prophets to step in. Human opposition doesn’t stop God; even if the Jews contributed to this opposition by their own actions, God did not abandon them. He worked through the prophets to motivate and propel them into action again.
Read Haggai 1:1-15. What is the message for them, and what can we take away from this for ourselves?
“The prophets Haggai and Zechariah were raised up to meet the crisis. In stirring testimonies these appointed messengers revealed to the people the cause of their troubles. The lack of temporal prosperity was the result of a neglect to put God’s interests first, the prophets declared. Had the Israelites honored God, had they shown Him due respect and courtesy, by making the building of His house their first work, they would have invited His presence and blessing” – Ellen G. White, Prophets and Kings, pages 573, 574.
(32)
It is worth taking the time to read Haggai 1:1-15 through. It is a call to reset the focus of the people and to change direction. The issue was that they were focused on themselves.
Haggai continues on a bit about how they are really working for nothing. I suspect that the issue was that every person was looking after themselves rather than working as a team to rebuild a nation.
Then Haggai relays the message:
And to their credit, the people responded:
As I suggested in an earlier comment, Christianity is essentially in ruins, its image tarnished and its ideas on morality considered archaic. Are we guilty of looking after our own interests rather than rebuilding? Do we need a prophet Haggai to inspire us to rebuild?
Wow! You are giving me so much to use in my Sabbath School class tomorrow.
You are so right. We, the remnant, are guilty of thinking and looking after our own interests rather than rebuilding our faith in God (we are the church).
We do need another Haggai or Sister White, someone to help us wake up. Are we waiting for the eleventh hour, just before the time of trouble is upon us, to wake up? I'm not sure. As for me and my house, I plan to finish God's work. I plan to start up the Dorcas society again at my church, even if I'm the only one, so that the community can get to know who we are again, and not know us as those weird people that go to church on Saturday, and eat differently. I plan to show them that God cares for them, and He wants all of us to come back to Him, to believe in Him again, and to study His word; remember, God says in Hosea 4:6-"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children."
Please let's wake up, and put God's work First.
Have a Blessed Sabbath everyone!!
In 538 BC King Cyrus made a public declaration granting the Jews the right to return to Judah and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.
The time has not come -
There were some good reasons why they might say this, and why the work of rebuilding the temple was hard:
· The land was still desolate after 70 years of neglect.
· The work was hard.
· They didn’t have a lot of money (Haggai 1:6) or manpower.
· They suffered crop failures and drought (Haggai 1:10-11).
· Hostile enemies resisted the work (Ezra 4:1-5).
· They remembered easier times in Babylon.
God’s people began to rationalize it wasn’t time to rebuild after all. “If it’s so hard, evidently, God doesn’t want us to do it – at least no time soon.”
The people said that it wasn’t time to rebuild the temple, but their actions said that it was time to live in nicely rebuilt houses.
The problem was simply wrongly ordered priorities. They were content to let the cause of the Lord suffer at the expense of their comfort.
Many of us are no different then the Israelites. Most of us work hard to get the latest of everything and when it comes to tithe and offering, we pass the empty plate as though we have nothing to offer to Lord.
If all of us paid our tithe and offering the church would have finished the work and we would be home with eternity to spend.
I agree with everything but the last comment. We have never been nor ever will be in charge of the Lord’s coming. The Scriptures state multiple times in many places that God has an “appointed time” for His return. To think that we, mere humans, are somehow responsible for when the God of the universe returns is completely beyond my comprehension. The scripture, Matt 24:14, often quoted to support this view, I believe is misunderstood. It’s not a threat put on us as unless we do all the preaching and converting then when we have completed the task to God’s approval then He will come. But rather, it’s a promise! And a beautiful one! God, through the power and work of the Holy Spirit, will reach and convict all who will accept Him. It is a privilege to be used by Him to do touch in a positive way the lives of others. And it should be our constant prayer that we be used only for good and not as a worker for the Evil One by being critical and oppose those who are trying to rebuild the walls.