Refocus: Spiritual Blindness
Refocus • Sermon • Submitted
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· 7 viewsThe nation of Israel has returned from captivity prepared for the Lord’s blessings to be showered upon them and the land. The reality is the opposite. The desert is overtaking their fields and homes. The Israelites were so caught up in making their surroundings better that they missed what had driven them into captivity in the first place, their lack of relationship with God. If God is in control and has authority over all things, we cannot hope to see our circumstances change until our eyes are open to our need for God.
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The Setting
The Setting
In Genesis, God promised to make a mighty nation from the descendants of Abraham. They would outnumber the stars in the sky and through them the world would know of the God of Abraham.
The beginning of this promise is seen as the book of Exodus opens with the Israelites flourishing as a people in the nation of Egypt. It is because of this that the Pharaoh of the day enslaves the people of God for they outnembered the Egyptians in the land. Exodus continues though with the faithfulness of the Lord to continue his promise to Abraham and to give His people a promised land. God delivers His people, freeing them from captivity, that they might be free to wroship Him.
From Exodus, the Israelites begin a downware spiral of losing persepective on the Lord through the time of the Judges and the Kings. There are moments in that history that provide of glimmers of hope, but in the lifetime of every king that ruled over Israel, save David, the idols to Baal and the Ashera poles were resurrected and the people lost sight of God once again.
It is as a result of this violation of the Mosaic law that led to the Lord raising up Assyria to take the Northern Kingdom into captivity in 722BC and the the Babylonians to take the Southern Kingdom in 586BC. The southern Kingdom was transplanted 900 miles away to serve needs of the empire.
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 Jozadak, the high priest:
Haggai opens with the most detailed account of the occassion of the writing of any book in the Scriptures. “in the second year of King Darius on the first day of the sixth month...” In 538BC, Cyrus, the king of Persia, issued a decree allowing the Jews to return to Jerusalem. Almost 50,000 Jews returned to Jerusalem to start to rebuild. There was an attitude of the people that because they had been set free, the Lord would bless them and they would return to the land of promise flowing with milk and honey.
Haggai opens with the most detailed account of the occassion of the writing of any book in the Scriptures. “in the second year of King Darius on the first day of the sixth month...” In 538BC, Cyrus, the king of Persia, issued a decree allowing the Jews to return to Jerusalem. Almost 50,000 Jews returned to Jerusalem to start to rebuild. There was an attitude of the people that because they had been set free, the Lord would bless them and they would return to the land of promise flowing with milk and honey.
This was not what they found. After nearly 70 years of neglect, the desert had overtaken the city and their homes were being consumed. For the next fifteen years, the people begin to labor in vain to rebuild what they had once had. It is in the midst of this rebuilding that the word of the Lord comes to Haggai.
Spiritual Blindness
Spiritual Blindness
This is what the Lord Almighty says: “These people say, ‘The time has not yet come to rebuild the Lord’s house.’ ”
Haggai 1:2
The people looked at the situation that surrounded them and they began to meet their immediate, present needs first. The mess that laid before them became their priority. This priority then moved them to continue to grow and develop their comfort.
How often do we become wrapped up in our current circumstances and the need to accomplish the task. We begin to make our hearts believe that as long as we are busy, we must be doing good. We become consumed by the tasks before us and miss the reason why they should be done or more importantly who they should be done for. In our pursuit for gain, we even lose sight of who is the one responsible for our accomplishing of our very tasks.
Our spiritual blindness leads our hearts to become hard. In our blindness, we can not see what God desires to do or even how or why God is moving.
Labor in Vain
Labor in Vain
Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?”
Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”
When we labor in vain, we labor in our own strength and for our own gain. First, we have no strength or authority to actually accomplish the work of our labor. In the same vain, we labor for our gain, but true end of our gain is dead.
We are dead in our own strength. Apart from God, all that we can hope for is death.Every work of our hand is fleeting and is dead. Only in the Lord is there life. When we work apart from God, our only hope is death, but when we work in unison with the Lord, we find that every act, big or small, every deed, success or failure, is used for His good and results in life.
The issue at hand is not time, but authority. It is not about one day walking in perfect step with Christ. If our hope is to do well in life and to accomplish good work that will result in life, laboring in Christ is the only hope that we have.