Haggai 1:12-15- Obedience

Intro:

Open in Prayer.

Today we have just a small chunk of text that I honestly wrestled with whether to simply include it in the last message or to take it up on its own. These verses from 12-15 simply describe the response of the people to the original command of the Lord through Haggai that the people set themselves to the task of rebuilding the temple and stop making excuses for not continuing the work all the while being self absorbed with their own homes and livelihoods thinking that what they were currently doing for worship at the Temple site was sufficient.

Ultimately I decided to let this text stand alone because I think it was helpful to sit on the original command for a while and I also think that we can take a great measure of encouragement from seeing the response here of the people to the message of Haggai.

Now, lets take a moment to look back and see again what God had commanded the people to do.

If you remember when the people had come into the land with the full support of the Persian empire and Cyrus the King they had rebuilt the alter of burt offerings and laid the foundation sof the temple with great fanfair, the shouts and teatrs that the people let out could be heard from a long distance away and this naturally lead to curiosity from those who had dwelt in the land since the days of the Babylonian deportation and these pagan people who had in some sense added the worship of YHWH to ther other pagan rituals had come and sought to take paert in the building of the temople and when Zerubbabble had told them no because they were pagans and had no place in the building of the temple they had retialiated by opposing the building of the tempe and even had likely gotten the Persians to issue a command to stop the construction.

During theser days of persecution and opposition the people had begun to rebuild the rest of their lives in the land, their cities, houses, towns, and farms. Now while this was not a bad thing for them to do, God had afterall given them the land and expected them to manage that land and to live in it and make it their home, however, now a new king had arisen over the Persian empire and some 17 years has passed since the opposition to the rebuilding had begin and Israel had not yet sought to begin the rebuilding again. They had grown content to be offering their burt offerings and keeping the feasts and generally believing that what they were doing in worship was fine when in reality they were actually more concerned with their own houses and livelihoods than the true and proper worship of God.

Remember, this is a book all about worship. It draws straight lines for us between being a people who worship God rightly and our own identity as the children of God!

Importance of their being called a remnant

Connection to the Spirits working in the original building of the tabernacle