Rebuilding God's House

Haggai 1v1-2

14^th August 2020

Haggai 1v1-2
In the second year of King Darius, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest: This is what the Lord Almighty says: "These people say, 'The time has not yet come for the Lord's house to be rebuilt'".

In 722 BC the northern kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians. The 10 northern tribes were taken into exile and more or less disappeared from history. Only the southern kingdom of Judah was left. More than a century later, over a period of about 20 years around 600 BC, Judah also fell, this time to the Chaldeans, often called Babylonians. The Chaldean/Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar (he was Chaldean by descent, but Babylon was his capital) laid waste to Jerusalem, destroyed the Lord's temple built by Solomon, and took almost the whole population of Judah into exile in what we now think of as Iraq.

They stayed in captivity in Babylonia/Iraq for about 70 years, in what we now call the Exile. Then, in 539 BC, the Chaldean/Babylonian empire was destroyed by an invading army from the neighbouring countries of Media and Persia, in what we now call Iran. The Medo-Persian king Cyrus issued a decree that the people of Judah - the Jews - could go home and rebuild their country, their cities, their lives and God's temple. But the Jews had become comfortable in their exile, and many of them preferred to stay in Iraq.

Some did return, however. They began work on God's house but they soon stopped again, and the temple lay desolate for 19 years. Then God spoke to the Jews through the prophet Haggai. It was now 520 BC.

Haggai spoke the simple truth, "These people say, 'The time has not yet come for the Lord's house to be rebuilt'". The returning Jews were preoccupied with their own lives - their farms, houses and comfort.

How many of God's people in Britain today have the same attitude? How many of as are more concerned with our own careers, our own homes, our own leisure activities, our own families, our own pension plans, than with God's temple, which is the church?

1 Corinthians 3v16
Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's spirit lives in you?

God no longer lives in a stone building in Jerusalem. He lives in a temple composed of all the people who have been redeemed by faith in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. The church - this body of redeemed people, whom the Bible calls "the saints" - is God's holy temple. His presence is now found in us, especially when we meet together to pray and worship Him.

Matthew 18v20
"For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them."

1 Peter 2v4-5
As you come to him [Jesus], the living Stone — rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him — you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

The church is now both God's house and God's priesthood.

But do we accept this reality? And are we ready to build God's house? Or do we think now is not the time? We can always put off serving God until another day, when we have more time, more energy, fewer problems, when we feel more spiritual, more "worthy", more ready. But God wants His house, His temple, His church to be built now. He's waited long enough.

At the moment, we have an additional reason to believe this is not the time to build God's house: Coronavirus. Our government has put this nation into a state of fear. It has closed down much of the nation's life, and we're only now beginning to recover. The government has made it illegal to share the Lord's Supper properly, to baptise people, to sing worship together to God, and to come to church without a mask on our faces. It would be easy to persuade ourselves that its safer and wiser to stay home, wait for the government to declare the pandemic over, and leave God's house desolate for a few more months.

Haggai 1v2
This is what the Lord Almighty says: "These people say, 'The time has not yet come for the Lord's house to be rebuilt'".

These people are wrong!

Haggai prophesied these words to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest - to the head of the civil government, and to the head of the religious authorities. In my heart, I believe that God is angry with the British government, and with British church leaders, who are neglecting God's temple, God's worship, God's honour, by submitting to fear.

Dear brother or sister in Christ, now is the time to build God's house! We've put our own safety and comfort before the work of building God's temple for too long.

How do you read:

2 Corinthians 3v18
And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.