Honor God's Name from Haggai 1:7-8

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/26/2016 10:11 PM

My Worship Time                                                                              Focus:  Honor God’s Name

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                             Reference:  Haggai 1:7-8

            Message of the verses:  “7 Thus says the LORD of hosts, "Consider your ways! 8 “Go up to the mountains, bring wood and rebuild the temple, that I may be pleased with it and be glorified," says the LORD.”

            Dr. Wiersbe tells an interesting story as he begins this third main point that I will try and put into my own words.  He begins by telling about how the Babylonians set fire to the temple in 586 BC when they destroyed Jerusalem and the temple and the wood that burned was used to hold the massive stones in place.  Solomon bought the timbers from Tyre and Sidon when he built the temple as seen in 1 Kings 5:6-12.  When Cyrus first let the 50,000 Jews return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple according to Ezra 3:7 “Then they gave money to the masons and carpenters, and food, drink and oil to the Sidonians and to the Tyrians, to bring cedar wood from Lebanon to the sea at Joppa, according to the permission they had from Cyrus king of Persia.”  As mentioned this is the same place where Solomon bought the timbers for the first temple.  Now we read in the portion of Scripture that I highlighted that Haggai tells the men to go up to the mountains to get wood to rebuild the temple.  OK the question of the day is what happened to the wood that was first bought from Tyre and Sidon to rebuild the temple?  Perhaps some of the wood made it into some of the houses that we have been learning about in our previous SD’s.  It just seems funny that they mention two times about getting wood to rebuild the temple.  Dr. Wiersbe writes “Did some clever entrepreneur profit by selling wood that had been bought with the king’s grant?  We don’t know but we wonder where the people got the wood for their paneled houses when no wood was available for God’s house.”

            We know that this kind of things goes on in the church today as people buy the best for their houses and then give “junk” sometimes to the church.  Malachi writes about this “6 "’A son honors his father, and a servant his master. Then if I am a father, where is My honor? And if I am a master, where is My respect?’ says the LORD of hosts to you, O priests who despise My name. But you say, ’How have we despised Your name?’ 7 “You are presenting defiled food upon My altar. But you say, ’How have we defiled You?’ In that you say, ’The table of the LORD is to be despised.’ 8 “But when you present the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And when you present the lame and sick, is it not evil? Why not offer it to your governor? Would he be pleased with you? Or would he receive you kindly?" says the LORD of hosts.”   Yes there is a lot of things that we can learn from these OT prophets.

            Dr. Wiersbe writes about when we don’t give our best to the Lord:  “But when we do this, we commit two sins: (1) we displease the Lord, and (2) we disgrace His name.  The Lord told the people through Haggai, ‘Build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored’ (Hag. 1:7).  God delights in the obedient service of His people, and His name is glorified when we sacrifice for Him and serve Him.” 

            It brings honor and glory to our Lord when we follow His commandments, commandments like “Hallowed be Thy name” which the first petition in the Lord’s Prayer.  We need to follow the example of Jesus who said in John 8:29 “"And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.’”  Oh that we could say that about our lives.  We also read what Jesus says in Matthew 5:16 “"Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

            We know that the Lord does not live in a temple like the one that the Jews were trying to build, but in their case they were not doing what was pleasing to the Lord and therefore that was wrong.  In the church age believers are the temple of the Holy Spirit.  We will finish with a quote from Dr. G. Campbell Morgan who is quoted in Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary:  “Whereas the house of God today is no longer material but spiritual, the material is still a very real symbol of the spiritual.  When the Church of God in any place in any locality is careless about the material place of assembly, the place of its worship and its work, it is a sign and evidence that its life is at a low ebb.”  I have to say that this statement has spoken to my heart.

 3/26/2016 11:01 PM