Come Thou Long Expected Jesus

Introduction

This Christmas, the Lord laid it on my heart to do a series on the Christmas Carols that we sing. My father in law recently switched to using a hymn book in their church which has a lot of the old Baptist Hymns and some of the traditional ones we are used to, but one nice feature about this hymnal is that it has scripture references next to every line of the hymn. This helps us take a deeper look at the scriptural basis for the hymn. One hymn that isn’t in our hymn books, that I would like us to sing is Come Thou Long Expected Jesus written by Charles Wesley.

Come, Thou long expected Jesus Born to set thy people free, from our fears and sins release us, Let us find our rest in thee:

Israel’s strength and consolation, hope of all the earth thou art, Dear desire of every nation, Joy of every longing heart.

Sing to the tune of Our Great Saviour

Tonight I want us to focus on the line Dear desire of every nation, Joy of every longing heart. In my hymn book, the bible reference next to this passage is Haggai 2:7 “And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: And I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts.” We are going to ask what is this desire of all the nations, when will it come and what are the implications for us today?

What is the Desire of all the Nations?

The answer to our first question is so clear as we would hope it would be and it is necessary to take a look at the context. The book of Haggai is a pretty short book so it isn’t hard to get a full picture on what the book is about in one reading. Israel has been in exile for the past 70 years and when Cyrus allows Ezra and Nehemiah to return to the land two prophets go with them who worked hand in hand. In fact, every time you see Haggai mentioned in the book of Ezra he is mentioned alongside Zechariah. The people have returned to the land and they began the work of rebuilding, but God’s temple lay in ruins. Haggai begins his prophecy by challenging them to rebuild the temple. Chapter two begins with a word of encouragement because the temple they are building isn’t as glorious as Solomon’s temple. It is in the midst of this encouragement that the verse we are looking at occurs.

God says in vs 6 there is coming a day in which he will shake the heavens and the earth and in that day the desire of all the nations will come and the temple will be filled with glory. But what is this desire of all the nations?

The desire of all the nations is ambiguous because the subject is singular while the verb is plural. If you are familiar with the way most languages work subjects and verbs can be either singular or plural. I go to the store vs we go to the store. In English, we don’t have as many distinctions as other languages, but proper grammar in all those languages requires the subject and verb to agree in number. Singular subject with singular verbs and so forth. That isn’t what is happening in this passage and sometimes Hebrew and Greek break this rule on purpose; sometimes its just bad grammar. Because of this multiple interpretations have arisen. Among them, two stand out:

The traditional interpretation- Christ

based on the singular subject- This interpretation focus on the fact that the desire is singular. It is one thing and not a bunch of things. What could be the one thing that the nations desire?

This passage points us forward to a time in which the temple will be restored to its former glory. In fact the latter glory will be greater. Haggai 2:9 The ultimate fulfillment of this prophecy of a greater temple comes in the second coming of Jesus Christ.

It is often argued that the lost world does not desire Jesus. This is true, but there will be people from every tribe and tongue and nation who worship the Lamb; so representatives from every nation do desire Him. Revelation 7:9–10 “After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.”

This passage is quoted in Hebrews 12:26–27 “Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.” The author of Hebrews argues that this verse implies the removing of all of the old world. God is a consuming fire who will come in judgment and only those who didn’t refuse to have faith in the message of the gospel will escape. Vs 25. Believers now are receiving a kingdom and this kingdom will remain because it is unshakeable. Vs 28 The culmination of the Kingdom of God is the Millennial kingdom where Christ reigns on earth.

The phrase has been used to refer to people 1 Samuel 9:19–20 “And Samuel answered Saul, and said, I am the seer: go up before me unto the high place; for ye shall eat with me to day, and to morrow I will let thee go, and will tell thee all that is in thine heart. And as for thine asses that were lost three days ago, set not thy mind on them; for they are found. And on whom is all the desire of Israel? Is it not on thee, and on all thy father’s house?”

The Jewish and modern interpretation- the riches of the nations

based on the plural verb- the emphasis here is placed on the fact that the verb is plural, so the desires are plural. This interpretation has strong support and many commentators hold to this view.

Verse eight seems to be random if the desire is Jesus Christ because it speaks of all the riches of the world. Haggai 2:8 “The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts.” Contextually, if this is the interpretation, it makes sense because the Jews saw a temple that fell far short of the glory of Solomon’s temple with all its gold and splendor. God is saying all the gold and silver are mine if I wanted them.

We see the riches of the world being brought to God in the book of Zechariah 14:14 “And Judah also shall fight at Jerusalem; And the wealth of all the heathen round about shall be gathered together, Gold, and silver, and apparel, in great abundance.”

Glory could speak of the wealth of the temple

Personally, I think both interpretations are true though I might lean towards the second one. But even if it is the riches of the nations that are being spoken of here, we have to ask when this actually happens. I think the answer to that question ties both interpretations together.

When will this desire come?

The keys to determining when this prophecy is fulfilled are found in some of the descriptions of that time:

There will be a great earthquake

A. First coming Matthew 27:51–53 “And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.”

B. Second Coming Zechariah 14:4 “And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, Which is before Jerusalem on the east, And the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, And there shall be a very great valley; And half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, And half of it toward the south.” Revelation 16:18 “And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.”

2. The wealth of the nations will be brought to the Lord after the second coming. Revelation 21:24 “And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it.”

3. The temple will be rebuilt and glorious. Another prophet Ezekiel prophesied that a day would come when the temple would be restored, Israel would repent and turn back to God and would be ruled by their Messiah. During this time, a new temple would be built. All the implications of that prophecy point forward to the Millennium.

The two interpretations are really not at odds with one another because it is when Christ appears that the world will be set right again. It is then that the glory of the temple will be restored and it is then that the nations will bring tribute to their true King.

What are the implications for us today?

Are we longing for the coming of our Lord today? This longing really points us past Christmas toward the Second Coming of Christ. The Jews for thousands of years yearned for the coming of the Messiah, but when he came, there was nothing in desirable. Isaiah 53:3 “He is despised and rejected of men; A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: And we hid as it were our faces from him; He was despised, and we esteemed him not.” For thousands of years now, we as believers have looked for His coming, but have we lost our desire for His coming?

In Haggai’s day, the people had forgotten God. Their hearts desired something else. I want us to look at what it was that caught their attention and distracted them from desiring God. Haggai 1:4–6 “Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, And this house lie waste? Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways. Ye have sown much, and bring in little; Ye eat, but ye have not enough; Ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; Ye clothe you, but there is none warm; And he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.” They had been so focused on building for themselves nice houses and had forgotten God’s house. Especially during Christmas time, we face a similar struggle. We get distracted by toys, and parties and find that our hearts have not desired and longed for His coming like they should have.

When this happens, when you find yourself not desiring God as you should how can you find your first love again? Desire isn’t after all something you can fake it until you make it. You either feel it or you don’t. I think a key solution is found in:

Psalm 37:4 “Delight thyself also in the Lord; And he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” Delighting in God stirs up desires for what God desires us to desire, but the chiefest desire God wants us to have is Himself.

Laura Elliott with reviveourhearts.com used this illustration to show how this works:

Close your eyes, and remember for a moment the most amazing meal you’ve ever eaten or the most delectable dessert you’ve ever had. What did you love about it? The warm and comforting aroma? The way your tastebuds came alive the moment it hit your tongue? I’ll bet thinking of it even makes you smile a little. Once you’ve tasted this amazing food, it’s not that hard to recapture the wonder of that first bite. In fact, if you think about it long enough, you might even begin to want more

Delighting is something we are commanded to do. That means it is something we can do. Finding delight in God is taking the baby steps to find and see goodness in him. This Christmas it is seeing the blessing of family and friends that God has put in your life and connecting that with how good He is. This Christmas it might be in the wonder of Christmas. How could he love me so much that he would leave heaven’s glory and become a little child in a cattle stall? As I meditate on that wonder my heart is warmed. It might be in the beauty of Christmas with its twinkling lights, warm woolen mittens and crackling fire places knowing that God is a God of beauty and created all things richly to be enjoyed. We delight as we see and savor God’s goodness in the world around us, in his word and in our lives.

The best way to bring the desires of our hearts into conformity with God is to put all of our energy and all of our effort into enjoying God himself. When we enjoy God, not just his gifts, but God himself, then the desires of our heart are shaped, are defined and created, in accord with our delight in him.- John Piper

Conclusion

Christmas is about waiting for more. We are reminded that Christ came to earth to make us whole again, but there is more of Him to be experienced. We long for the second coming when we will see Him as He is. In the mean time, we long for more. Maybe you aren’t desiring Him like you should this Christmas. Maybe you have already become distracted by the pretty houses and things this world offers. Meanwhile his home in your heart lies cold, and empty. This Christmas, I want to challenge you to rediscover your longing for Christ.