The Faithful Foreman (2)

Haggai 2:1–23 ESV

In the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet: “Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to all the remnant of the people, and say, ‘Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord. Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts, according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. For thus says the Lord of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts. The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts.’ ” On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet, “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Ask the priests about the law: ‘If someone carries holy meat in the fold of his garment and touches with his fold bread or stew or wine or oil or any kind of food, does it become holy?’ ” The priests answered and said, “No.” Then Haggai said, “If someone who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean?” The priests answered and said, “It does become unclean.” Then Haggai answered and said, “So is it with this people, and with this nation before me, declares the Lord, and so with every work of their hands. And what they offer there is unclean. Now then, consider from this day onward. Before stone was placed upon stone in the temple of the Lord, how did you fare? When one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were but ten. When one came to the wine vat to draw fifty measures, there were but twenty. I struck you and all the products of your toil with blight and with mildew and with hail, yet you did not turn to me, declares the Lord. Consider from this day onward, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month. Since the day that the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid, consider: Is the seed yet in the barn? Indeed, the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have yielded nothing. But from this day on I will bless you.” The word of the Lord came a second time to Haggai on the twenty-fourth day of the month, “Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I am about to shake the heavens and the earth, and to overthrow the throne of kingdoms. I am about to destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations, and overthrow the chariots and their riders. And the horses and their riders shall go down, every one by the sword of his brother. On that day, declares the Lord of hosts, I will take you, O Zerubbabel my servant, the son of Shealtiel, declares the Lord, and make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you, declares the Lord of hosts.”

Scripture: Haggai 2:1-23

Sermon Title: The Faithful Foreman

             Before we get into chapter 2, let’s look back at the setting and what we learned from Haggai 1. We know from the first 4 chapters of Ezra that a remnant of the Jews was allowed to come back to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple under king Cyrus of Persia. After 6 years of faithful construction, the work quit due to political shifts with Cambyses coming to the throne and enemy interference.  In 522BC, King Darius took the throne and he was willing to allow the Jews to restart construction and even willing to help them with materials. Haggai 1 made it clear that the people had not taken up this God-given task 2 years into Darius’ reign and thus the prophet Haggai was sent, to Zerubbabel, the governor, and Joshua, the high priest, and to the whole remnant. As we studied the first chapter, we saw the 2-fold act of repentance in the people’s revived fear of the Lord and then their obedient act of rebuilding. However our focus was that God was the one behind their actions, in his 3-fold act of convicting charge, hope-giving call, and his faithful commitment. Haggai 2 now gives us a look at what God’s perfect faithfulness looks like.

           Brothers and sisters, most people who know me back home would not call me a handyman. Give me a paper to write, an e-mail to send, a youth trip or outing to plan, even measurements that require quick math to find the right amount of wood or materials necessary and I’ll help you out, but when it comes to construction I think it’s best if I usually stand out of the way. That being said, over the years when I’m home on a break, I’ve worked for a friend’s dad who has a construction company and is slow to anger, abounding in grace. I bring this up because I’ve seen him be the foreman for different projects, and I know the job isn’t easy or straightforward. On the way to the work site and then throughout the day last winter, his cell phone rang off the hook while we were at a different worksite; the bricklayers, drywallers, flooring people, and painters for his brother-in-law’s house all kept calling to check, double-check, and see when they could come. The foreman on a worksite must understand something about all the tasks, and should probably be somewhat proficient in all of them as well. He must know the work but also must know the people: their roles and characters. As God’s people returned to work on the temple, God’s promise to be with them was a promise to be their foreman, and in this second half of Haggai, we see 3 different messages to different parties, which reveal God’s plan for them and point to a greater event.

The first message comes out of chapter 2, verse 1 through 9. Chapter 1’s end came on the 24th day of the 6th month, and now here we are on the 21st day of the 7th month, almost a month after work had begun again on the temple. By this time, the remnant involved in the construction would have had the plans, the means, and in the process of building again. Some of those leaders on the worksite were probably those about 70-75 years old who remembered the old temple. As the foundations had been put in in the 530’s, maybe needing some fixing now, but a base is starting, and it wouldn’t be hard for these patriarchs and matriarchs to realize this was different, to really wonder even after God had brought such a clear vision a month before, was this really how it was supposed to be? This message goes out to all the people of the land, and I think we can imagine the discouragement in the hearts and minds of the elders of the community extending to the people. God’s timing here is perfect. It’s easy I’d say to be excited about something new as these people were but after 3 weeks, a project like this loses its freshness and add discontentment to the mix and we have a perfect breeding ground for the work to end. So God speaks this message of strength and encouragement to them: “Be strong and work.” This word is reminiscent of Joshua 1, where the Lord encouraged Joshua to be strong and courageous as he was the successor to Moses; it’s reminiscient of David in 1 Chronicles 28 when he is commissioning Solomon to build the first temple; and now the Lord speaks through Haggai directly to Zerubbabel and Joshua once again, as well as the entire remnant in the prophetic manner of encouragement. The old men and women knew how big and tall and ornate the Solomon’s temple was, clearly this temple was not going to be anywhere near that standard. God sees this and again says I am with you calling back to the covenant. We know that by God’s pillar of fire and cloud he led the Hebrews out of Egypt, at Mt. Sinai the covenant made was an everlasting from the Patriarchs to their journey to the Promised Land and beyond; by His word he sent His name with an angel ahead of them to the promised land even after the golden calf incident. Do not fear, God says, my Spirit remains here. Their God was not one who just encouraged from afar, as most of the pagan nations understood in their religious traditions, rather he was a God who stuck in their midst. 

As such the prophetic word of encouragement in the first section is followed by prophetic message concerning the future. God will shake all places of earth and heaven, the desired of nations will come, there will be greater glory out of this house than even that seen ind Solomon’s temple. The temple will be filled with glory and it will be filled with peace. The prophet throughout Israel and Judah’s history was God’s spokesperson, calling his people to account, drilling them on things that may seem minor and through metaphors that may appear to be overkill. To put it into American terms, the prophets were given the difficult task of surrendering life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Word of the Lord might seem crazy, it may seem harsh to those who did not understand how deeply God grived their sin, but it did not come without a word of hope. a promise that God’s faithfulness would abide, that Israel would be blessed again. So here too, Haggai speaks the word of hope, that God’s glory will rise out of this seemingly meek temple, but he’s communicating even more, the Lord’s declaration is a speech that God’s not done with his people. God is behind the people in building the temple because it took the physical temple at that time to draw the people to God and to worshipping him; but lest they think the work of their hands is the end all be all, the Lord declares this is his work and he has greater things in store. The people are invited to work, invited to worship, invited to fear God, but ultimately, He reigns and His glory extends out of himself alone.

That’s the message that moves us into the second group that we find in verses 10-19, the message of God for the priests, which comes 2 months later and 3 months into the rebuilding process. Haggai has gathered the priests together and the Lord sends a request concerning the law for them to answer. On one hand, and if we were to stop at verse 13, it might appear that God is just testing them, making sure that the rules and procedures he set up long before were known and understood. But that’s not what’s completely happening, as Haggai gathers that holiness cannot be transferred by touch but uncleanliness or defilement can, he’s giving the message that holiness is God’s to work out, only he can make things clean and holy, but defilement is of human spreading. Before we saw God’s conviction and call in those words “give careful thought to your ways”, God in chapter 1 was telling the people to take notice of what they were doing for they were at fault. Here again God picks out that before a stone was laid on another, before the reconstruction began, the sin of the people brought barrenness, but the statement to give careful thought now comes in hope. This hope is an invitation to open their eyes, see what is about to happen, see that I will bless you, and God does this because of their obedience and worship. 

Why does God give this message to the priests? The priestly work throughout the OT was as most of us know a participation in sacrifice. The people would bring their firstfruits to the priests to give to God in honor and praise for his blessing; they would also bring animals to be slaughtered or in the act of the scapegoat to take the sins of the people out of the camp. The work of the priests was messy. The priests were also the keepers of the tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant, and the ones who built memorials for the 12 tribes. The life of the priest was focused on God’s message to minister to his people. It required knowing the law and knowing that God had distinctly ordered life in such a way that all parts of it were to be lived for him and dependent upon him. The priestly vocation was necessary because of sin. The priests whole routine revolved around being mediators between the Israelites and God. This relationship and calling made the priests when they were faithful, the ones who could best understand God’s blessing or cursing of his people. It is only proper for the revived priests to receive this word. As he promised again and again, God is with them and he is blessing them. The words contained here also are important because they discuss their location. They are the ones practicing in the Lord’s temple, truly because God’s house was being built, because focus was driving back to him rather than on personal life, God’s call over the priests allowed them to testify to the holiness which only came from God while still warning of the consequences of sin by sloth or outright detest.

The third message of this passage is found in the last three verses, and it’s to one person, Zerubbabel. He’s the governor, but we might look to him in the role of king; he’s the political leader of this remnant. In the first message, God spoke of the shaking of the heaven and earth, in this message he speaks again of these, but directly to the political spheres, proclaiming and promising their overthrow, their downfall, brought about by their own family. I think they serve the capacity of Zerubbabel in teaching him to not fear, that God is sovereign, that he will protect his people. Zerubbabel may be thinking about the fall of Judah, the fall of Babylon, the interference that came about 10-15 years before. He doesn’t have the luxury of a palace as the kings, his lineage as we see in Matt. 1, had, safety is hard to come by; but these words come from a God who can tear down any army or force. But these words are for a future day, quite possibly the Day of the Lord. The language is eschatological, but there’s also language that’s pointing to the not too distant future, to the future of the Messiah’s coming. 

We receive this message in the last verse, where God renews the Davidic covenant, proclaiming he will take him, literally the lineage of kings in Zerubbabel’s ancestry will continue into what God has in store. Zerubbabel is to be made like the signet ring; that is the mark of authority, the mark of the king’s seal that cannot be changed. God has big things in store for Zerubbabel’s line, and the statement that he has chosen is the final blessing that the faithful foreman speaks in through Haggai in this writing. 

People of God, I think God intends for us to gather the message of prophet, priest, and king from this book. The