The Minor Prophets: #10 Haggai

After 70 years in Babylon, the remnant of the people of Yahweh, were allowed to return to their homeland for the purpose of rebuilding their temple in Jerusalem. The exodus of people would have been a sight to see... over 40,000 people formed a caravan, and led by the appointed governor, Zerubabbel, and Joshua, the high priest, the group returned to their homes and their lands. At first, the building project was met with enthusiasm and success. The altar was built and the foundation was laid. But then, enemy resistance came from the local people, and the building process was thwarted. For seventeen years, the work on the temple was halted. Then, God sent the people Haggai and Zechariah, to encourage them to continue! What was their message? Was it successful? How can we learn from Haggai what to say to our brothers and sisters in Christ when their faith or mission may have gotten off track or thwarted by the enemy?

Enjoy hearing Haggai's story, narrated by our friend, Tony Wawzysko. To print the questions and scriptures, click here! To print the worksheet, click here. (10:34)

Scriptures: Book of Haggai, Ezra 5:1-17, 6:1-18, Ezra 1:1-7, Ezra 3: 1-24, Ezra 4: 1-5, Daniel 5, Jeremiah 29:10, Isaiah 45

Discussion Questions:

What was your greatest takeaway from this lesson?
You are now the temple of the Holy Spirit. Has the enemy ever attacked you and thwarted the growth of your Christian faith? What happened? How did you become "unstuck" and start to build again?
What was it that Haggai did or said that encouraged the people to start building again?
What was the real reason the building was "stuck" or halted?
Who in your circle of friends is rebuilding their life? How can you help them?

Activity: Be An Encourager! (Print Worksheet)

Watch this 5 minute introduction to the "Be An Encourager" activity! Or, read the instructions below the video. If you would like, you can download a worksheet above.

Directions:

1. Choose someone from your circle of friends or a person attending your church that you know is rebuilding their life, or struggling in their life. Make a plan to text them every day for seven days to remind them God is with them. Create a text for each day, using the seven steps from this lesson.

2. After the week is over, evaluate. How did completing this activity bless the person you were texting? Are you motivated to continue? Why or Why not?

3. How did completing this activity also bless you personally!

4. Here are the list of the seven steps again to help you with your project.

Notes for Texting a Friend: Create your own encouraging texts, use these concepts as a beginning! But always, follow God’s lead. As you pray for that person, he will give you help with what he wants that person to hear! Don’t forget to pray for them, before and after you write and send the text. Or, fee free to rearrange the order as God leads! Let Him be your guide!

Step 1. Keep reminding them God is with them. God loves them and desires to be with them.

Step 2: Remind them God has made them promises both personal and general and he keeps his word.

Step 3: Tell them the glory of the future they are building will be greater than the life they left behind, even though they can’t see it right now. Remind them God is at work making them into his image, something better.

Step 4: Remind them Peace is coming!! It may not be with them right now, but it is coming!

Step 5: Encourage them to evaluate relationships to be sure they are not being affected. Bad company can be real people or even shows or computer web sites.

Step 6: Remind them God wants to bless them if they are building on his foundation stones. God is not against them but for them. He is encouraging the building process.

Step 7: Remind them God has chosen them to be his special instrument.

Want to learn more about Haggai, and how to encourage others! Watch this 15 minute supplemental video! This is the teaching referenced in the above Building Blocks Video.

Learn about Cyrus the Great (3:03) and his fantastic cylinder.

Here is the entire text of the video lesson below:

The remnant of the people of Israel had now been in Babylon for 70 years. Just like Jeremiah had said. It all happened just like clockwork. The Babylonians came up against Judah three times. The first time, under King Jehoakim, Daniel and many of the young princes were taken captive, along with many of the temple treasures.The country was put under tribute to Babylon, instead of Egypt. King Jehoakim died after ruling Judah 11 years, and the kingdom passed to his son, Jehoiachin, (sometimes called Jeconiah)who only ruled for three months. At that time, King Nebuchadnezzar

of Babylon returned to Jerusalem, angry with them, because they failed to pay their tribute. They took King Jehoiachin as a prisoner along with 10,000 captives, including the military leaders and craftsmen and smiths. The prophet Ezekiel was also taken in this siege. None remained except the poorest people of the land. The temple was stripped of the gold articles Solomon had made in the temple of Yahweh...

Then the king of Babylon put Zedekiah in charge and he ruled for 11 years. He was the brother of Josiah. Again, Zedekiah rebelled against Babylon’s control. This time, the city of Jerusalem was besieged for two years. The people were dying of starvation and disease. The Babylonians finally broke through the city walls and they completely wiped out the city, burning the temple and breaking down the walls, killing many of the people, and burning the homes. Jeremiah was released from prison, and he watched while they dismantled anything of value that was left in the temple, along with more captives and anyone who had surrendered to them. Only a very few people were allowed to remain, just a few poor farmers and vinedressers.

Now, 70 years later, after the first siege of King Nebuchadnezzar, we knew something exciting was coming because of Jeremiah’s prophecy, but we did not know what. God had promised the remnant that we would be regathered in the land. We just were not sure of the logistics. We had Daniel still with us in the capital city of Susa, and these were eventful times. Actually, Daniel was now in retirement. He had served King Nebuchadnezzar well for years. But now, Nebuchadnezzar’s grandson, Belshazzar, was in charge. He had assembled 1000 of his Lords for a drunken party. Do you remember what happened next? That is right! Right in the middle of the banquet, fingers of a man’s hand appeared and began to write a message on the plaster of the wall! None of the king’s wise men could read it, but then, the queen came into the banquet hall. She reminded Belshazzar about Daniel!

Daniel was brought before the king and proceeded to give him a message from Yahweh. The young king, God said, had not humbled his heart before Him. He had angered God, because he had brought out the sacred vessels from the temple in Jerusalem and used them as drinking vessels for his party. Further, he interpreted the message of the writing. The country of Babylon would fall to the Persians. Indeed this message from Yahweh came true. That very night, while the banquet was going on, King Cyrus of Persia stopped up the river that circled the city of Babylon like a moat. The army of Persia walked right into Babylon and took the city by surprise, without a fight.

Well, Daniel was there to meet him of course! This was our chance! We all prayed and waited! He presented King Cyrus with a scroll of Isaiah 45, written 150 years earlier. This scroll named Cyrus as the king who would allow the people of Yahweh to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. Cyrus, the king of Persia, was very taken by this prophecy! He then made a decree that allowed us to go home and rebuild our temple! What a miracle! He even gave us 5400 gold and silver articles that the Babylonians had taken from the original house of Yahweh!! Things were looking up!

Decisions had to be made. Who would want to return, and who would choose to stay? Many were comfortable now with their lives in Babylon. They did not want to uproot their families. In the end, 42,360 people were stirred to return to Judah. We made quite a sight exiting from the Persian empire, as it was now called! What a happy day that was! We were going home! Back to our allotted inheritance… our houses, our farms, our lands. We headed west with Zerubabbel, the grandson of King Jehoichin as our leader, and Joshua, the high priest.

When the group arrived in Judah, most of the people disbursed to see what was left of their homes in their original cities. But in the seventh month, we came together for the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem.

The first thing we did was rebuild the altar of Yahweh, and reinstitute the daily sacrifices. Everyone was willingly offering burnt offerings, and praising God! What a celebration! This kicked off the beginning of the building project. Seven months later, we laid the foundation of the temple! The building process was in full swing. Everyone was in unity working on the project! We had a dedication ceremony, and the priests and Levites sang. Then, all the people shouted with a great shout! It was so loud you could hear it miles away. The people were weeping with joy! But some of the old-timers, who had seen the original temple were both happy and sad. Comparatively, This new temple would be nothing like the old one! But it was a temple to Yahweh just the same!

Like I said, we made such a racket that you could hear our goings on a long way off. Now, at this point ,Jerusalem was lying in ruins. No one was actually living there. Our neighbors, the Samaritans came to see what the noise was about. They wanted to “help” with the project. But when they were told “ no thank you,” their true colors appeared. It was not long until they wrote a letter to Cambyses, also known as Ahasuerus, the newly installed King of Persia. King Cyrus had died in a war. This letter claimed falsehoods and lies about the Jews, demanding the building process be halted. While King Ahasuerus ignored the letter, his successor, Artaxerxes did not. He believed the accusations in the letter, and commanded that the building project be halted.

So, the process was thwarted for many years. The people went on with their lives, rebuilding their own homes and farms. After all, what could they do? Seventeen long years passed, with no progress on the temple.

This is where I come in. My name is Haggai, which means “Festival.” I was part of a newly assembled prophetic duo which included Zechariah and myself. My job was to stir up the people, to motivate them once again to get going and rebuild the temple. I liked that role, because I enjoy being an encourager.

Stirred by the spirit of God, I began by pointing out that since the people had stopped the building project saying that this must not be the right “time” to build God’s house because of opposition, they had still found plenty of time to build paneled homes for themselves! It was true that we had run into an attack from the enemy, but instead of carrying on and pushing through, we had given up and quit. This was making the Lord angry. He warned them to consider their ways! He had withheld the rain and dew… and the work of their hands was not being productive because of this.

The presence of the Lord was upon me as I delivered this message to the people. They became afraid of the presence of Yahweh, and their hearts were stirred! They all returned to Yahweh and began to build the Lord’s house once again. I kept encouraging them with these words, “I am with you, says the Lord.” Just like he said to Moses, Joshua, and the others, now he was speaking directly to us!

The next month, the spirit of God stirred me to speak to the remnant again. This time, he had me ask the people, “Who is left among you who saw this temple in its former glory?” This new one was smaller, small in their eyes. Yet, God was telling the people, don’t give up!

“ Be Strong! “Be Strong and work, for I am with you!” God said. Don’t be discouraged, and compare this temple to the old one. Keep your eyes looking forward, not backward. “The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former. “

How could that be? What could this mean? But God reassured us that in the future, he would shake heaven and earth, and all nations would come up to Jerusalem one day to the temple. And this would be a wondrous time of peace!

That encouraged the people to keep going! Then the foreign governor of the region, Tatteni heard about the rebuilding and sent another letter about the rebuilding of the temple to King Darius, who was the new king of Persia. They were relentless in trying to thwart our progress. But this time, the return letter came back in our favor! We just had to step out in faith, and God took care of the rest! Not only that, King Darius had agreed to finance the operation!

The temple was finished on the 3rd day of Adar,(Ah dar) in the sixth year of King Darius.

The entire camp of the remnant of Israel celebrated with joy! With God’s help and intervention, we had done it!! And from then on, we were blessed as a people again. That’s right! The Lord had given me a promise that he would bless our homes and farms once again and it happened!

And there was one more message, this one just for Zerubabbel. God was so pleased with him! He had pushed through and finished the project. God told him that in the last days, he would make him like a signet ring, for he was chosen by God. We were not sure exactly what that meant, but we knew it was some special assignment! What an honor!

Are you involved in building the temple of the holy spirit, that is, your own body and soul? We, too, need to keep going and partner with him to mold and shape us into the image of Christ. And, we must continue to partner with God in his building project of building us together as the church, into his royal house! Let us not become self focused and distracted or worry about opposition, but rather, push through with God to accomplish his purposes and plans. He has something in mind for each one of us too… a place that he has gone to prepare for us! Just like Zerubabbel! Push through till completion!

In the meantime, keep on encouraging all those around you, just like I did in my day, to keep going! Stay upbeat! Stay “festive!” As soon as they step out in faith, God will provide the resources and strength. We are his beloved bride! And he is coming back soon to take us home!

The Minor Prophets: #10 Haggai

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