SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/4/2016 8:27 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 Question # 2-Defilement
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Haggai 2:14-19
Message of the verses: “14 Then Haggai said, "’So is this
people. And so is this nation before Me,’ declares the LORD, ’and so is every
work of their hands; and what they offer there is unclean. 15 ’But now, do consider from this day onward:
before one stone was placed on another in the temple of the LORD, 16 from that time when one came to a grain heap
of twenty measures, there would be only ten; and when one came to the wine vat
to draw fifty measures, there would be only twenty. 17 ’I smote you and every
work of your hands with blasting wind, mildew and hail; yet you did not come
back to Me,’ declares the LORD. 18 ’Do consider from this day onward, from the
twenty-fourth day of the ninth month; from the day when the temple of the LORD
was founded, consider: 19 ’Is the seed still in the barn? Even including the
vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate and the olive tree, it has not borne fruit.
Yet from this day on I will bless you.’"”
We want to
know what Haggai is driving at, and what we learn is that the people who were
building the temple could not impart a bit of holiness to it, however they
could defile it by their sins. It was
important that the people do God’s work, but more important that they do His
work from the hearts that were pure and also devoted to God. Now one of the things that I face every day
whenever I am doing my Spiritual Diaries is that I must keep my heart devoted
to the Lord, and not just understand the Scriptures that I am studying, but
also live by what I learn. The same can
be true when praying from my prayer list as I must think about the things that
I am praying about and not just read them from the paper that they are written
on.
Dr. Wiersbe
writes “During the years when they were selfish, they experienced the
discipline of the Lord (1:1-11). The
Jews weren’t keeping the terms of the covenant, so God couldn’t bless them as
He promised, and their economy fell apart.
When the grain was in the fields, God smote it with mildew and hail, and
after the grain had been harvested, the supply didn’t last (Deut. 28:22).”
The reason that
God did this to His people was so that they would turn back to Him with all of
their hearts, but Haggai writes “Yet you did not turn to Me” (Hag. 2:17). The problem was that they were so concerned
with building their fine houses that they did not have time to build the temple
of the Lord, and this was the reason that they returned to Jerusalem.
Verses
18-19 show us that Haggai was issuing a call to repentance, and if they did
repent then they would receive once again the blessings of the Lord. When Solomon built the first temple he said
the following “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble
themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then
will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
Dr. Wiersbe
compares this building of the temple to a proposed church constitution: “May local church constitutions assign to the
elders the ‘spiritual direction’ of the church, and to the deacons the
responsibilities for the ‘material’ aspects of the ministry. For organizational purposes, this may be convenient,
but this separation of ‘material’ and ‘spiritual’ is not biblical. The construction of a new church sanctuary
should be just as spiritual an endeavor as an evangelistic crusade or a
missions conference. One of the best
ways to show our spiritual devotion to the Lord is by using material things to
His glory, including money and buildings.
The managing of material blessings demands as much sanctity as the
managing of the ‘spiritual’ ministries of the church.”
We must
remember that sin is what will stop the blessings of the Lord and can rob what
blessings the Lord would give people if they had not sinned. Proverbs 14:34 says, Righteousness exalts a
nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.”
Dr. Wiersbe
concludes “Haggai has asked the people to look back and then to look
within. They’ve learned about God’s
glory and God’s holiness.
“There is
now a third look and a third lesson to learn.”
4/4/2016 8:53 PM
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