Friday, Aug. 31

Friday

This week we have spent a good deal of time talking about sin and repentance.  This is not always the most pleasant or comfortable topic.  Today we come to the reason for all the depressing talk about sin, we come to God’s amazing and wonderful remedy for it.

On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.   - Zechariah 13:1

This verse is (in my opinion) the most important prophecy/promise in the entire book.  The reason why this is the most important promise, is because if it is not true, then all of the other promises really don’t matter that much.  If God does not provide a way for us to be cleansed from our sin, then we are stuck in our sinful condition and doomed to spend eternity apart from God.  Ah, but Zechariah tells us that God has made a way for us to be cleansed of our sin - he has opened a fountain!  

This is a picture of God’s inexhaustible fountain for sin and for impurity. It flows and flows and flows. God has grace greater than all of our sins!  You may be thinking, “But you don’t know how terrible some of my past sins were!” True, but God does know, and He opened this fountain for sin and for impurity.  What is this fountain?  The question is not what, but who?  Who is this fountain?  The answer is Jesus Christ!

The fountain in 13:1 is the culmination of what Zechariah is prophesying about in 12:10, And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.  This is a clear prophecy about Jesus the Messiah!

This fountain won’t do you any good if you look at it and think, “I wish my husband or wife would get into that fountain”, or I wish my kids would get under that water!”  It won’t do you any good to stand there and think, “It probably would be refreshing to plunge in.” To receive the cleansing grace of God’s fountain, you must look to Jesus and recognize that your sins put Him on the cross.  As God’s Spirit opens your eyes to your true guilt before Him, you will mourn.  But don’t stop there! Let that mourning motivate you to jump into God’s fountain.  You’ve got to apply it individually to your heart.  The instant that you do, you will know the joy of God’s forgiveness.

If we are to be forgiven and cleansed, it can only come through God’s undeserved favor, His grace.  Augustus Toplady puts this beautifully in his hymn, Rock of Ages;  “Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling; Naked, come to Thee for dress, helpless look to Thee for grace; Foul, I to the fountain fly, wash me Savior or I die!”  

This is the same fountain that cleansed the sins of murder and adultery in the life of King David.

This is the same fountain that cleansed the heart of a man named Saul, who rejected Christ and persecuted his church, but was transformed in the Apostle Paul.

This is the same fountain that cleansed the sins of a notorious charouser and womanizer named Augustine.

This is the same fountain that cleansed the heart of the slave trader John Newton, who once cleansed penned the words to the great hymn, “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.”

This is the same fountain that cleansed the proud heart of the atheist and scoffer, Clive Staples Lewis!

This is the same fountain that cleansed the sins of my wicked heart, and it can cleanse your heart too!

To enter a relationship with Almighty God, we must come to Christ (His fountain) to cleanse us from our sins.  And, we should take frequent showers to wash off the defilement of the sins that we commit after salvation! As 1 John 1:9 promises, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  Oh let us come often to God’s fountain!

Jeff Frazier

Thursday, Aug. 30

Thursday

I looked again—and there before me was a flying scroll! He asked me, “What do you see?”  I answered, “I see a flying scroll, thirty feet long and fifteen feet wide.”  And he said to me, “This is the curse that is going out over the whole land; for according to what it says on one side, every thief will be banished, and according to what it says on the other, everyone who swears falsely will be banished. The Lord Almighty declares, ‘I will send it out, and it will enter the house of the thief and the house of him who swears falsely by my name. It will remain in his house and destroy it, both its timbers and its stones.’”  Then the angel who was speaking to me came forward and said to me, “Look up and see what this is that is appearing.”  I asked, “What is it?”  He replied, “It is a measuring basket.” And he added, “This is the iniquity of the people throughout the land.”   - Zechariah 5:1-6

President Calvin Coolidge was not known for his talkativeness.  A story, perhaps apocryphal, says that one Sunday he attended a worship service without his wife who was a devout Christian.  When he returned home, she asked him what the minister had talked about. “Sin,” replied silent Cal.  “Well what did the preacher say about sin?” his wife persisted.  Coolidge replied, “He was against it.”  Coolidge’s answer is a succinct summary of Zechariah 5, which tells us what God thinks about sin. In a nutshell, He is against it.

The scroll symbolizes God’s Word, especially His law as contained in the Ten Commandments. Just as God wrote the Ten Commandments on both sides of the stones (Exod. 32:15), so both sides of the flying scroll contain writing.  The one side of the scroll mentions stealing, the middle commandment of the second table of the law, which deals with our relationships with one another.  According to some commentators, the dimensions of the scroll are identical with the size of the holy place in the tabernacle and the porch of Solomon’s Temple (1 Kings 6:3), where the law was read to the people.

The other side of the scroll mentions swearing falsely by God’s name, the middle commandment of the first table of the law, which deals with our relationship with God.  As Jesus pointed out, the whole law can be summed up with, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart...” and, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:37, 39).

The book of Zechariah is full of strange imagery and visions, and they are not always easy to interpret.  But don’t get lost in the imagery and miss the application.  The flying scroll tells each of us who name the name of the Lord that we must judge our lives by His holy Word.  Our culture drifts morally with the times, but God’s Word is an absolute, unchanging moral standard.  The basket symbolizes the fact that we are all covered in iniquity.  This is a hard truth to hear for many people, and it is very unpopular concept in our culture today.  

Too many people minimize the problems of sin and guilt by portraying God as very tolerant of sinners, and by viewing ourselves as not such bad folks after all.  We see God primarily as our heavenly grandfather, or our good buddy in the sky, who may sigh about our sin, but who would never really get angry or deal severely with His children.  But it is essential for us that we form our view of God and ourselves from Scripture, not from the prevailing opinions of our culture.  When we examine Scripture, we find that God is far more holy than we ever imagined, and we are far more sinful than we ever fathomed.  This is the reason that God hates sin, because He is holy and because He loves us.  His holiness will not allow sin to be in His presence, His love will not allow us to wallow in sin without hope.  

The early 20th century evangelist, Billy Sunday, said, “I’m against sin. I’ll kick it as long as I’ve got a foot, and I’ll fight it as long as I’ve got a fist. I’ll bite it as long as I’ve got a tooth. And when I’m toothless, I’ll gum it ’til I go home to Glory, and it goes home to perdition.”  That’s God’s view of sin. He’s relentlessly against it, and so we should be against it, beginning with our own sin.

Jeff Frazier

Wednesday, Aug. 29

Wednesday

 In the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Zechariah son of Berekiah, the son of Iddo: “The LORD was very angry with your forefathers.  Therefore tell the people: This is what the LORD Almighty says:  ‘Return to me,’ declares the LORD Almighty,  ‘and I will return to you,’ says the LORD Almighty.  Do not be like your forefathers, to whom the earlier prophets proclaimed: This is what the LORD Almighty says:  ‘Turn from your evil ways and your evil practices.’ But they would not listen or pay attention to me, declares the LORD.  Where are your forefathers now? And the prophets, do they live forever?  But did not my words and my decrees, which I commanded my servants the prophets, overtake your forefathers?  “Then they repented and said,  ‘The LORD Almighty has done to us what our ways and practices deserve, just as he determined to do.’”   - Zechariah 1:1-6

In the introduction (1:1-6), Zechariah answers a basic, crucial question: How can we experience God’s blessing? Remember, this was written to people who knew God and were in the process of rebuilding His temple.  Zechariah did not offer a new or different message.  But since we do not always apply what we already know, he starts with a fundamental principle of the life of faith:  

We must continually return to the Lord!

Dr. Charles Feinberg notes, “This call to return dare not be passed over lightly, for it is the basic and fundamental plea of God throughout the Bible to all sinful men”.  The Hebrew word for “return” is the word teshuvah, and it comes from the Hebrew root shuv, which means to turn around.  This is what the Bible means when it speaks about repentance.  We first come to God in repentance and faith, but it is not a one-time thing.  A walk with God is marked by continual repentance or returning to Him because we are, as the hymn says “prone to wander”.  Zechariah’s audience had returned to the physical land.  God wants them to return to Him not just physically, but with their hearts.  They were rebuilding the temple, doing the Lord’s work, they may have thought, “Why do we need to return to God?”  Zechariah answers that question.

It may seem odd that Zechariah would begin a message of hope and encouragement by talking about God’s fierce anger to- ward sinners!  The Hebrew expression is very strong. There are three interesting grammatical devices used here to emphasize the intensity of God’s anger.  First, the verb, “to be angry,” is placed first in the sentence for emphasis. Second, the Hebrew uses what is called the cognate accusative, “he was angry with anger,” which means, “God was really ticked off!”  Third, the Hebrew word itself means to be full of wrath (see 2 Kings 5:11; Esther 1:12).

Does the picture of God being very angry against sinners fit with your view of Him?  We live in a time that emphasizes God’s love to the neglect of His holy wrath against sin and against sinners.  We glibly say, “God hates the sin, but, loves the sinner” as if somehow the sinner will never experience God’s wrath against him, but just against his sin (as separate from him)!

Certainly, God is full of love and mercy to every sinner who repents.  But in His holiness, God cannot and does not wink at our sin, turn a blind eye, or treat it lightly.  His terrible wrath against all unrepentant sinners, should cause us to fear sinning because we fear God!

But how is this message about God’s anger a word of encouragement or hope for these remnant Jews, or for us for that matter?  The warning of divine wrath is a prerequisite to the acceptance of divine grace.  In other words, you must sense the serious danger that you are in before you gratefully accept the offer of being rescued from that danger.  Frederich Buechner puts it this way, “before the gospel can possibly be good news, it must first be bad news.” 

Notice the order of the Apostle Paul’s famous words...

Romans 3:23 - For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,  3:24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 

Concerning his own salvation experience, the great Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon wrote; “It is only when sinners realize that they are under the fierce, eternal wrath of God that they will cry out, “What must I do to be saved?...Only he who has stood before his God, convicted and condemned, with the rope about his neck, is the man to weep for joy when he is pardoned, to hate the evil which has been forgiven him, and to live to the honour of the Redeemer by whose blood he has been cleansed” (C. H. Spurgeon, Autobiography).

Jeff Frazier

Tuesday, Aug. 28

Tuesday

In the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Zechariah son of Berekiah, the son of Iddo: “The LORD was very angry with your forefathers. Therefore tell the people: This is what the LORD Almighty says:  ‘Return to me,’ declares the LORD Almighty,  ‘and I will return to you,’ says the LORD Almighty.   - Zechariah 1:1-3

The people to whom Zechariah brought this “word of the Lord” (1:1) were probably a lot like you and me. They were, for the most part, believers who would have voiced their allegiance to God.  They were a remnant of 50,000 Jews who had made the difficult commitment to return to Jerusalem from the Babylonian captivity in 538 B.C. In 536 B.C. they had begun reconstruction of the devastated temple. But opposition had mounted, and for several years the work had been set aside.

Meanwhile, the people got caught up in the busyness of life. It was probably not an intentional decision. They meant no harm to God.  But God raised up the prophet Haggai to ask the question, “Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house lies desolate?” (Hag. 1:4). The people responded to Haggai’s message and began to work again on the temple.

Two months into the project, “in the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah the prophet” (Zech. 1:1). That date is significant!  Two months into any volunteer project of this magnitude, people need a word from the Lord! They need hope and encouragement.  They need the motivation that comes from knowing that this project is worthwhile.  That is especially true when the people are a bunch of refugees returning to a devastated country, still surrounded by hostile neighbors.  

Zechariah’s prophecy was directed to such people. He has been called the prophet of hope. His message is filled with the encouragement that God will keep His promises to His people, especially His promises regarding the Messiah. Zechariah has more Messianic prophecy than all of the other Minor Prophets combined and he is second only to Isaiah in the number of references to Christ.

You can remember the overarching theme of the book of Zechariah if you will remember the Hebrew meanings of the three names in the first verse.

Zechariah = “whom the Lord remembers.” 

Berekiah = “the Lord blesses.” 

Iddo = “at the appointed time” 

God raised up Zechariah to proclaim that God remembers His chosen people and He will bless them in His appointed time.

That message applies to us, especially if you are discouraged. When you look around at the evil in the world and the apathy or hostility toward the gospel, you may feel as if God has forgotten you.  But He remembers!  He has not forgotten!  He will bless in His appointed time!  Our job is to be obedient and faithful to Him.

I recall once hearing Bill Hybels (senior pastor and founder of Willow Creek Community Church) say that people in the church need constant reminders that their work for God is worth it, and that they are not crazy for giving so much time and money to the work of God.  Why?  Because it is easy to forget, to get distracted or discouraged, and because the rest of the world around them cannot understand why they would give and serve and make such sacrifices.

Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.                  - 1 Corinthians 15:58

Jeff Frazier

Monday, Aug. 27

Monday

Not long after we began our summer series on the minor prophets, a young man approached me and asked me a very good question.  He said, “If all of these prophecies we are reading in the Old Testament are given to the Jews, how do I know they are for me today?”  Since then I have been asked similar versions of this question several more times.  It is a good question because one of the problems for Christians like us is how a book full of promises to ancient Israel can be a help to us today.  I thought it would be helpful to sketch very briefly five guiding principles for the interpretation of prophecies like this. (much of these 5 principles are borrowed and adapted from pastor John Piper)

FIRST - These prophecies are aimed primarily at the ethnic people of Israel. They were the audience; and when they heard Zechariah refer to "the house of Judah and the house of Israel," they would naturally understand the Jewish people, not the Christian Church. These prophecies are aimed at the ethnic people Israel.

SECOND - God is not done with Israel.  It is too simple to say that since the time of Christ the Church has replaced Israel as God's chosen people, even though that is true, in a sense. The reason it is too simple is that in Romans 11 Paul teaches that God is not finished with ethnic Israel. In verse 1 he says, "Has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin." Paul insists that God has not finished with the Jews, first of all, because he is a Jew (of the tribe of Benjamin!).

Now Paul does admit that the Jews are temporarily rejected through their unbelief, but this is for the benefit of us Gentiles; and when the full number of Gentiles is complete, the remaining Jews, too, will repent and be saved.  Romans 11:12, 15 "Now if their (Jews) trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean! . . . If their (Jews) rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?"  Here Israel is distinct from converted Gentiles and is promised a glorious future. So a few verses later, in verses 25, 26, Paul says, "A hardening has come upon part of Israel until the full number of the Gentiles comes in, and so all Israel will be saved."

THIRD - Gentile believers (that’s us) become full partners in the promises made to Israel in the Old Testament by faith in Jesus Christ.  The two key texts to support this principle are Galatians 3:29, “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”, and Ephesians 2:19, “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household”, and Ephesians 3:6, “This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.”

FOURTH - The prophecies of the Old Testament made to Israel are not less than literal (as though ethnic Israel were not intended), but more than literal, because they embrace not only the ethnic Israel but also the Gentile children of Abraham by faith who will not be second-class citizens in the final kingdom.

FIFTH - and finally, many of the benefits promised to the people of Israel are fulfilled in stages.  This is especially true since the expected coming of the Messiah has occurred in stages. Christ came the first time as Hebrews 9:26 says, "to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself."  And he will "appear a second time not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him."  For the most part, Old Testament prophecy does not distinguish these two comings. Therefore, very often some aspects of Old Testament promises are fulfilled already in Christ, but the final fulfillment still waits for the last day.

So these guiding principles are helpful when we try to understand and apply the promises for God’s people in the Old Testament.  1) it is aimed primarily at ethnic Israel  2) God is not done with Israel  3) by faith in Christ we Gentile believers become full fellow-heirs of the promises made to Israel  4) therefore, the Old Testament prophecies concerning Israel are not less than literal but more than literal: they embrace not only ethnic Israel but also us Gentile believers  5) many of the benefits promised to the people of Israel are fulfilled in stages, especially since the promised Messiah himself comes in two stages.

The practical implication of all this is that whenever you read "Fear not!" or “I have not forgotten you” or “I will deliver you” in the Old Testament, you can take it for yourself as a fellow heir if you are a Christian!

Jeff Frazier

Friday, Aug. 24

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Friday

“This is what the LORD Almighty says:  ‘In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land.  I will shake all nations, and the desired of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the LORD Almighty. 

‘The silver is mine and the gold is mine,’ declares the LORD Almighty.  ‘The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,’ says the LORD Almighty.  ‘And in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the LORD Almighty.”   - Haggai 2:6-9

There are many prophecies in Scripture that contain promises from God, this is a particularly  wonderful promise from God to His people.  In this passage, God is giving these remnant Jews (and us today) something we all desperately need, an eternal perspective.  God is reminding us that He sees more than we see.  We are finite creatures with limited understanding, and He is the infinite and eternal God who knows and sees all.

Not too long ago I was asked to perform an outdoor wedding ceremony at the Morton Arboretum.  As I was leaving the Arboretum after the rehearsal, I passed by a large maze garden.  On the outside of the garden wall was a 15 ft. raised observation platform.  There was a man standing on that platform calling down to his young son somewhere inside of the maze.  I could not see the little boy, but I could hear him, and I could hear the emotion in his voice.  It was obvious that he was lost and his father was trying to guide him out of the maze and back to himself.  The father could see exactly where the boy needed to go in order to find his way out, but all the little boy could see were large green hedges everywhere.  The young boy needed to trust his father’s voice and obey what his father told him to do.  He needed to trust that his father saw more than he did.  

This story is a powerful image of what we need from God!  We must trust that He sees far more than we do.  It is easy for us to feel lost in the maze of life, it is easy for us to lose our way or make a wrong turn. We must listen to what God tells us and obey the commands He gives us, if we want to end up in the right place.  

The people in Haggai’s day had drifted off course, they had forgotten why they came back to Jerusalem in the first place, and they had stopped doing what God wanted them to do.  They had experienced opposition, setbacks and discouragement and had finally settled into a life that was clearly not what God wanted for them.  So God sent His messenger Haggai to speak His words to the people.  Haggai not only calls them to action, but he reminds them of who God is.  He reminds them of the promises of their great God.  He reminds them of how God has been faithful in the past, and he tells them of God’s promise to be faithful in the future.

Commentators differ on when the shaking of heaven and earth and the nations would take place and what it means.  Some say that it referred to God’s stirring up Darius to supply help and materials for this rebuilding of the temple (Ezra 6:6-15).  Others say that it refers to God’s bringing future judgment on the Persians, Greeks, and Romans.  While these may have been an initial fulfillment, like many biblical prophecies, there are multiple fulfillments.  In this case, it refers ultimately to the Second Coming of Christ, when God will shake the heavens and the earth and conquer all the rebellious nations (Rev. 16:18- 20).

God also says that He will “fill this house with glory” and that “the glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house” (2:7, 9).  Again there is some debate.  How could Zerubbabel’s temple be greater in glory than Solomon’s?  While king Herod replaced this temple with more glorious buildings (the temple in Jesus’ time), this verse probably refers to the coming of Jesus into that temple.  His presence made it even more glorious than Solomon’s Temple. When Christ returns, His presence as King of Kings and Lord of Lords will surpass the veiled glory of His first coming.  In the new heavens and earth, there will be no temple, “for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple” (Rev. 21:22).

When we see how God has worked down through the ages in accordance with what He told His people in advance, it encourages us to remain faithful in our obedience to Him, knowing that the remaining unfulfilled prophecies will surely yet be fulfilled. The many prophecies in Scripture are not given for us to speculate about the future, but to help us be faithful in the present!

Jeff Frazier

Thursday, Aug. 23

To download an audio version of this, click here.

Thursday

Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: “give careful thought to your ways.”   
- Haggai 1:5

This is what the LORD Almighty says: “give careful thought to your ways”.  - Haggai 1:7

Now give careful thought to this from this day on - consider how things were before one stone was laid on another in the Lord’s temple.   - Haggai 1:15

From this day on, from this twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, give careful thought to the day when the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid. Give careful thought              - Haggai 1:18

Four times in these two short chapters, God says to His people - “give careful thought to your ways.”  Some translations say, “consider your ways”.  

Con-sid-er; (v) to think carefully about, contemplate, reflect on, or examine.  

The Hebrew figure of speech for this phrase is literally "put your heart on your paths." Haggai asks God's people to consider what direction their life is headed, and if they really want it to continue that way.  When God’s Word confronts the way we live, we can either resist it by making up more excuses, or we can obey it.  The problem for most of us is that we do not stop often enough to read it and to reflect on the direction of our lives in light of it.  How do we do this?  To put it simply, this means to stop long enough in your busy schedule each day to evaluate your life in the light of God’s Word.  To do what David wrote about in Psalm 119:15, “I meditate on your precepts, and consider your ways.” 

Here are some questions that will help you in this kind of reflection...

1.  How are you spending your time? These people had plenty of time for themselves, but they didn’t have time for God. Rearrange your schedule!

2.  How are you spending your money, which is really God’s money?  These remnant Jews claimed that they had to get their own houses built first, and then they could build God’s house. That was backwards. God says that we are to give Him the first fruits, off the top. We are to give Him the best. We are managers of all that He has given us, to invest it profitably for His kingdom.

3.  What are your goals? What is it that you’re aiming at in life? If you live to an old age, what do you want to look back on as far as accomplishments?

4.  What do you think about the most? What secretly occupies your thought life? Do you dream of getting rich, of achieving fame, of some hobby or leisure pursuit, or do you think about the Lord and how He wants you to spend your life?

5.  Who are your heroes or models? Whom do you most admire? Whom would you like to be like? Why?

6.  Who are your friends? Whom do you like to spend time with? Why do you like to be with them?

7.  How do you spend your leisure time? When you have time off, how do you spend it? Do you watch TV? Do you live for sports? Do you hang out with friends? How does your leisure time reflect and affect your devotion to Jesus Christ?

Speaking only for myself (obviously), the last few months have been a weird whirlwind of craziness. Lots of good work, and overall, a very fruitful season. However, I’ve also found that because there’s been an incredible amount of stress, it’s been completely messing with my priorities (to the degree that I feel a lot of the specifics of Haggai’s rebuke hit a little too close to home).  And it is really not something that is acceptable, especially when I see Jesus’ words in Matt. 6:33 “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”  

Regardless of your season of life, this is the call. We’re not to spend our time busying ourselves with our own houses at the expense of what God requires of us.  We do not seek our own kingdoms, but seek His kingdom first. “All these things”—the stuff of life that you truly need—”will be added to you.”  So let us all stop and think carefully about our ways!

Jeff Frazier

Wednesday, Aug. 22

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Wednesday

On the twenty-first day of the seventh month, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai:  “Speak to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people. Ask them, ‘Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Does it not seem to you like nothing?  But 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, ‘and work. For I am with you,’ declares the Lord Almighty.  ‘This is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt. And my Spirit remains among you. Do not fear.‘               - Haggai 2:1-5

It’s easy to start a new diet. It’s tough to stick to it when you crave that cinnamon roll. It’s easy to start a new exercise program. It’s tough to persevere when your aching muscles scream, “No more!” It’s easy to get married. It’s tough to hang in there and work through problems over a lifetime. It’s easy to begin a new ministry in the local church. It’s tough to keep on when problems arise or when the results don’t match your initial expectations.

That describes the people in Haggai’s day, just shy of a month after they had obeyed his first message and resumed work on re- building the temple. The foundation had been laid about 15 years before, but the project had been set on the shelf. But now, in response to Haggai’s word from the Lord, the leaders and people had begun to rebuild on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month of the second year of Darius (Sept. 21, 520 B.C.; 1:15). The seventh month in Israel began with the Feast of Trumpets on the first day, followed by the Day of Atonement on the tenth day. Then the Feast of Tabernacles went from the 15th to the 21st. On the last day of that feast (Oct. 17th), Haggai delivered his second message to the people (2:1-9). It is a message of God’s encouragement to discouraged workers.   Discouragement for God’s people can take many different forms.

Delays can discourage us.

There is always a certain sense of excitement when you begin a new ministry or project. But the glow easily rubs off in the grind. There were probably piles of rubble that needed to be removed. Perhaps some of the workers had envisioned putting the finishing touches on some gold work or other craftsmanship, but they hadn’t thought about hauling rubble. Their initial enthusiasm was already wearing thin.  

External opposition and criticism can discourage us.

In verse 5, the Lord says, “Do not fear!” He would not say that unless they had a reason to be afraid. Probably the same men who had threatened them and lobbied against them at the Persian court 15 years before were at it again. Any time you attempt to do God’s work, Satan will stir up opposition. We’re in a battle with the forces of darkness that are opposed to the church of Jesus Christ. Expect opposition!

Internal opposition in the form of comparisons & faulty expectations can discourage us.

When I began in ministry, I naively thought that most of the opposition would come from outside the church. Boy, was I wrong!  Most opposition comes from within, and it takes different forms.

When they had laid the foundation years before, there was great joy mixed with weeping (Ezra 3:11-13). The young people who had not known the glory of the former temple were rejoicing. But the old-timers, who had seen Solomon’s Temple, wept at this new temple, because it just didn’t measure up. Although they would be in their seventies or older by now, a few were still around when the work got started again.  The old-timers were saying, “You should have seen Solomon’s Temple. Now that was a temple! This new one is hardly worth calling a temple compared to the old one!  Where is all the gold?  Solomon’s Temple was lined with gold. Why isn’t this one?”  There were probably all kinds of comparisons going on.

I’ve had people tell me about their former pastors who must never have slept and changed into their pastor uniforms in a phone booth!  These pastors would visit everyone in the church, preach superb sermons, attend all the church activities, and always have time for drop ins. Besides that, they never neglected their families!  Implication: “Why aren’t you like they are?”

Shortsightedness, or limited perspective can also discourage us.

If the people in Haggai’s day were viewing success from the short range, they would have been very discouraged. With God, a thousand years is as a day. True success will be measured in the light of eternity, not in our lifetimes. We need to keep this in mind as we labor for the Lord. The harvest is at the end of the age, not at the end of the meeting. God’s timing is not our timing.  

Whatever our source of discouragement, God understands and He cares. But He doesn’t coddle us or let us stay there.  Three times the Lord repeats, “Be strong!” (“Take courage!”) And He tells them to work. Keep going! Persevere!  Twice the Lord reminds the people that He is with them and that His Spirit remains among them.  This is where our strength to persevere comes from, not from ourselves, but from the knowledge that God is with us!

Jeff Frazier

Tuesday, Aug. 21

Tuesday

 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 have 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.”   - Haggai 1:3-6

You can sum up the problem in a simple sentence - They had put the needs of their own house before the needs of God’s house.

Shortly after returning from exile, the people had made an attempt to rebuild the Temple, but the opposition had stopped the project. Gradually, they had lost their vision and had drifted into a lifestyle where God’s house was no longer the priority. They probably viewed it as nice, but not necessary; extra, but not essential.

If you had asked them why the temple had not been built, they would have responded, “Don’t get me wrong! I’m all for rebuilding the Temple. It’s a great cause. But the timing just isn’t right. We’re in an economic down- turn right now. Everyone’s pinched for money. There aren’t enough good jobs. It’s all I can do to provide for my family. But times will get better, and then we’ll rebuild the temple!”

We need to see ourselves in this picture. If you know Christ, there was a time when you made a personal commitment to Him. You decided to follow Jesus, as the chorus goes. At first, you were zealous for spiritual things. You read your Bible every day. You got involved with groups, you got involved serving in a local church. But perhaps your efforts met with difficulties. You had a personality clash with another Christian, or you were disillusioned with the disappointing results, or you encountered personal trials that God didn’t remove, even after much prayer.

Meanwhile, life moves on; you started a career and a family. You had bills to pay and other demands on your time. Church and the Lord’s work drifted into the background. You still attend church as often as you can, but it has become a slice of life, not the center. You tell yourself that you just don’t have time to serve as you used to. Someone else who doesn’t have the responsibilities that you have will have to get involved. Without deliberately rebelling against God, you have drifted into putting your house above God’s house. 

We’re all prone to make up excuses for why we are not obedient to put God first with the time and money He entrusts to us -  “I’m just trying to obey that verse by providing for my family. But someday I’ll have all the kids through college and the bills paid, and then we’ll give more to the Lord’s work.”  Or, “This is a hectic time in our family life. The kids demand so much attention. Every day is taken up with meeting their needs. But someday we’ll be through this phase, and then we’ll get involved in the church.”

We must deliberately and continually put God’s house above the needs of our house.

Let me clarify what I mean by “God’s house.”  In the context of Haggai, of course, it refers to the temple in Jerusalem, which was the center for worshiping God.  Although God is everywhere, the temple was the place on earth where God dwelled in a special sense.  He revealed His glory there.  The sacrifices offered there pointed ahead to the coming of God’s Messiah, Jesus, who would offer Himself as God’s final and complete sacrifice for our sins. To allow the Temple to lay in ruins was to neglect the worship of God, in other words, to ignore Him. 

In the church age (today), God’s temple is not a physical building, but rather, His people, both individually and corporately,  Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? (1 Cor. 3:16). God dwells in individual human hearts, and together we are being built into the temple or house of God, In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.  And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Eph. 2:21-22).  To make God’s house the priority in life means that your number one aim is to make your own body a fit dwelling for the Holy Spirit and to devote yourself to building others in Christ so that their lives are a proper dwelling for God. It means that your main goal is to know Christ at home in your heart by faith and to do all that you can to help others do the same.

Jeff Frazier

Monday, Aug. 20

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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 Jehozadak, the high priest: This is what the LORD Almighty says:  “These people say,  ‘The time has not yet come for the LORD’s house to be built.’” 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.   
- Haggai 1:1-5

Every day you exchange a day of your life for something. It’s as if at the start of life each of us were issued a certain number of coins. Each day, we are issued a new coin. It may be the last coin we get, or we may get many more. All we know is that the average person in America gets between 70 and 80 years’ worth, but some get far less; a few may get more.

You take each day’s coin and exchange it for something: a day at work or school, shopping, church, leisure, or whatever. Once spent, you can never get the coins back to spend them differently. The art of living wisely is largely a matter of spending your coins on the things that really matter in light of eternity and not frivolously wasting them. 

The Book of Haggai, second shortest in the Old Testament, has a potent message. It tells us to put first things first in our lives. It was written to people, like us, who would have told you that God must be first. They believed that; we believe that. But, they had drifted into a way of life where their intellectual belief in the supremacy of God was not reflected in the way they were living. They gave lip service to the priority of God, but in fact they lived with other priorities. God sent this prophet to help His people get their priorities in line with what they knew they should be.

The historical setting is the early chapters of Ezra (see Ezra 5:1). In 536 B.C., a remnant of about 50,000 Jews had returned from Babylon to Judah under the decree of Cyrus, King of Persia. They quickly rebuilt the altar and began offering sacrifices. Two years after returning, they had laid the foundation to rebuild the temple.  Shortly after the foundation was laid, the work came to a halt due to difficult conditions, and hostile opposition from neighboring people.  At least 14 years had passed. The people got caught up in the routine of life—farming, building houses, raising families, and that sort of thing. They got used to life without a temple. Even their leaders, Zerubbabel the governor and Joshua the high priest, had gotten used to things as they were. Into that scene, God raised up Haggai and (two months later) Zechariah to proclaim His message to this returned remnant.

“In short, Haggai is saying, ‘Give God the supreme place in your life.’” Or, as Jesus put it, “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you” (Matt. 6:33). We all know this, but ...

We are still prone to put the needs of our house above God’s house.  This is the default mode of our hearts.  If we give no thought to how we’re living, we will naturally live for our agendas, not for God’s.  All of us who have trusted Christ as Savior know (intellectually) that it is foolish and vain to live for the things of this world.  We know that these things never deliver the satisfaction that they promise.  We know that we will not find true happiness apart from God. And yet we keep drifting towards loving the world if we don’t fight against it.

C.S. Lewis puts this brilliantly in his essay First and Second Things...”every preference of a small good to a great, or partial good to a total good, involves the loss of the small or partial good for which the sacrifice is made. . . You can’t get second things by putting them first. You get second things only by putting first things first.”

Jeff Frazier

Friday, August 17

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Zephaniah 3:9-17

“Then I will purify the lips of the peoples, that all of them may call on the name of the Lord and serve him shoulder to shoulder.

From beyond the rivers of Cush my worshipers, my scattered people, will bring me offerings.

On that day you will not be put to shame for all the wrongs you have done to me, because I will remove from this city those who rejoice in their pride. Never again will you be haughty on my holy hill.

But I will leave within you the meek and humble, who trust in the name of the Lord.

The remnant of Israel will do no wrong; they will speak no lies, nor will deceit be found in their mouths. They will eat and lie down and no one will make them afraid.

Sing, O Daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O Daughter of Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away your punishment, he has turned back your enemy. The Lord, the King of Israel, is with you; never again will you fear any harm. On that day they will say to Jerusalem, “Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands hang limp. 

The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”

Several times a year I get some version of the following question:

“Pastor Brian, I’ve been trying to read the Old Testament but there’s just so much judgment and violence! How can that be the same God we see in Jesus in the New Testament? Why do we as Christians have to read the Old Testament at all?”

It’s a good question! 

The answer lies in a full understanding of the gospel; for before the gospel is good news it is bad news. Before we can talk about the grace of Jesus Christ, we must understand the absolute holiness of God. And when we understand even a part of God’s holiness we begin to see the ugliness of sin.

In the prophet Isaiah we read:

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple…

(v.3) And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;

The whole earth is filled with his glory.”

(v.5) “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty,”

Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” Isaiah 6:1-6 selected)

Here we see what might be called the “gospel pattern” quite clearly. Isaiah begins with the absolute holiness of the Lord Almighty; which, in turn, makes him acutely aware of his own “uncleanness”; which then allows him to experience the forgiving grace of God.

And this is why, in the big picture, we must venture into the strange and sometimes frightening world of the Old Testament! From beginning to end; from Genesis to Malachi; the Old Testament overwhelms us with the holiness and glory of Almighty God. In fact, one could accurately say that without an understanding of the Old Testament the New Testament doesn’t make much sense!

Think about it. If God is not absolutely holy; if sin is not a life and death issue; if the eternity of every human soul isn’t hanging in the balance, why would God send his own Son to take on human flesh through incarnation, die a horrific death on a Roman cross, and then rise from the dead to demonstrate his authority over death and sin so that we can experience his salvation? None of it makes sense without the holiness of God!

But because God is holy our sin matters to him. And because our sin matters to him God not only calls us to himself in repentance, but provides for our atonement and forgiveness through his great love for us.

Sing, O Daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O Daughter of Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away your punishment, he has turned back your enemy. The Lord, the King of Israel, is with you; never again will you fear any harm. 

If you’ve seen any of the Olympic coverage at all you’ve undoubtedly watched as the camera is turned on an athlete’s parents as they are watching their son or daughter compete. You can almost feel their anxiety as they root their children on toward a medal of some kind. When their child falls off the balance beam you can see their obvious pain and disappointment. But when their child wins the race or performs a near-perfect routine; when their son or daughter stands on the podium to receive a gold medal, you can see the joy and pride explode from their hearts with tears and great laughter. And in both cases, when the competition is over and their son of daughter finds them in the stands, they embrace them with both tenderness and delight.

This is the image in my mind as I read the words of the prophet:

The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.

Pastor Brian Coffey

Thursday, August 16

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Zephaniah 2:1-3

Gather together, gather together, O shameful nation, before the appointed time arrives and that day sweeps on like chaff, before the fierce anger of the Lord comes upon you, before the day of the Lord’s wrath comes upon you.

Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, you who do what he commands.

Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the Lord’s anger.

One night when I was a junior in college my roommate and I decided to walk across campus for a late night snack at the Student Union. We took a short cut through the main administration building, which was always open all night. As we walked down the long deserted hallway, my roommate suddenly and inexplicably leaped up and punched a ceiling tile. The tile split in half and fell to the floor. As I stared in shock he looked at me and said, “There! Bet you can’t do that!” 

Knowing I was a better leaper than my roommate, I responded without thinking about what I was doing. I jumped up and punched out my own ceiling tile. We laughed as if what we had done was great fun – and continued on our mission for late night snacks.

The next morning we returned from class at about 10 am to find a note on our dorm room door that said the Dean of Students wanted to see us in his office. We assumed we were busted. 

As we walked into his office the Dean looked up from behind his desk and said, “What in the world were the two of you doing in the administration building at midnight?”

We immediately repented on the spot. We blurted out something like, “We’re sorry we broke the tiles, it was a dumb thing to do, we’ll never do it again, please let us pay for the damage!” 

When we finished the Dean responded with a surprised look on his face, “You guys did it!? Someone just told me they saw you in the building last night and I thought you might have seen who did it!”

When I look back on that story I smile at the foolishness of my youth. There’s something funny about a couple of guilt-ridden college kids confessing even before they were confronted with their deed! But I also see a picture of repentance. We knew we had done something wrong even before we were confronted with any evidence. We actually wanted and needed to confess before we walked into the Dean’s office. His question simply provided the opportunity for both confession and repentance.

“Repentance”, Biblically speaking, is both confession and commitment. Repentance begins with a sense of sorrow over one’s own sin and continues through the humility of confession and then a return to God. 

And this is the invitation God provides his people in Zephaniah:

Gather together, gather together, O shameful nation, before the appointed time arrives and that day sweeps on like chaff, before the fierce anger of the Lord comes upon you, before the day of the Lord’s wrath comes upon you.

Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, you who do what he commands.

Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the Lord’s anger.

A couple of weeks ago Pastor Ali Kalkandelen from Turkey spoke of what he called “100% repentance.” I love that phrase! But it occurs to me that the only way we can be 100% repentant is to be 100% certain of God’s love and forgiveness. 

God calls us to seek him in humility and repentance because he loves us. And because he loves us we can come to him in 100% repentance.

Are you 100% certain of God’s love for you?

Pastor Brian Coffey

Wednesday, August 15

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Zephaniah 1:4-6

“I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all who live in Jerusalem.

I will cut off from this place every remnant of Baal, the names of the pagan and the idolatrous priests – those who bow down on the roofs to worship the starry host, those who bow down and swear by the Lord and who also swear by Molech, those who turn back from following the Lord and neither seek the Lord nor inquire of him.”

Years ago, when I was serving in Student Ministries, I was wrapping up a Bible study session and I invited students to share their prayer requests. Several kids asked for prayer for the typical kinds of things kids are worried about; upcoming tests, family members struggling with poor health, etc. 

But one young man, who was very new to the group, raised his hand and said, “Pray that my parents won’t ground me.” 

Of course, I immediately wondered about the story that was behind that curious request. So I said, “Do you mind me asking why you think they might ground you?”

He said, “Because I went out to a movie late last night and missed curfew – then I decided not to even go home at all.”

I said, “So this is Wednesday night and you haven’t been home since yesterday (Tuesday) after school?”

“Yeah,” he said.

I said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can pray that prayer for you.”

He looked surprised and a little disappointed.

I said, “I can’t pray that your parents won’t ground you. I’d rather pray that God will give you the courage to go home tonight, admit to your parents what you did, and humbly accept any discipline that they feel is appropriate, and then promise never to do that again,” or something very close to that. 

Then I took a few minutes to explain to the whole group why I responded that way. I explained that asking God to remove the consequences of his decision to disobey his parents would not only be a dishonest prayer, but would be to deny his parents the opportunity to express their love for him through discipline. It would also have robbed the young man of a chance to grow wiser and more mature through that same discipline.

In the same way we can understand God’s discipline of his people:

“I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all who live in Jerusalem.

I will cut off from this place every remnant of Baal, the names of the pagan and the idolatrous priests – those who bow down on the roofs to worship the starry host, those who bow down and swear by the Lord and who also swear by Molech, those who turn back from following the Lord and neither seek the Lord nor inquire of him.”

God loves his people and has promised them his blessing. He is also the sovereign Lord to whom alone belongs the worship and obedience of his people. Throughout the reigns of Manasseh and Amon the people of Judah had slipped further and further away from YHWH and toward the worship of pagan idols like Baal and Molech, gods of the surrounding Canaanite culture. Some even worshiped the stars that God had created rather than the creator himself.

God knows that their fascination with other gods will ultimately destroy them because those gods are not only impotent, but do not love them and cannot offer them either protection or salvation. So God, in his love, is willing to discipline his people just as a loving parent is willing to appropriately discipline a child for his or her ultimate good.

J.D. Greear writes, “An idol is whatever takes the place of God in our lives…an idol is not necessarily a bad thing…it is a good thing made into a god-thing.” (From Greear’s book, “Gospel”)

That young man who broke curfew years ago needed the discipline of his parents because he needed to know he was loved. In the same way, when we make “god-things” out of good things we need the discipline of God so that we will know his furious and everlasting love for us.

Pastor Brian Coffey

Tuesday, August 14

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Zephaniah 1:2-3; 7

“I will sweep away everything from the face of the Earth,” declares the Lord. 

“I will sweep away both men and animals; I will sweep away the birds of the air and the fish of the sea. The wicked will have only heaps of rubble when I cut off man from the face of the earth,” declares the Lord

(v.7) “Be silent before the Sovereign Lord, for the day of the Lord is near.”

As I mentioned yesterday, I love the Olympics. One of the things I like most about sports is the clarity. By “clarity” I mean that in most sports, especially most Olympic sports, you get immediate and clear feedback about your performance. You finish a race, look up and see that the clock says, 9.63 seconds (the time it took for gold medal winner Usain Bolt to cover 100 meters - or roughly the time it takes me to move from the recliner to the refrigerator!), and that’s it. That’s what you did. There’s no debate, no wondering, no one else to blame; that’s your time. We see essentially the same thing in gymnastics (I never did figure out exactly how they score that sport), basketball (that one I get), and skeet shooting.

In most sports, judgment is swift, clear and final. So it will be, says the prophet Zephaniah, on the day of the Lord.

“I will sweep away everything from the face of the Earth,” declares the Lord. 

“I will sweep away both men and animals; I will sweep away the birds of the air and the fish of the sea. The wicked till have only heaps of rubble when I cut off man from the face of the earth,” declares the Lord

(v.7) “Be silent before the Sovereign Lord, for the day of the Lord is near.”

As we have seen throughout this study of the minor prophets God’s message has been quite clear: judgment is coming.

God is the sovereign authority over all the earth and he will judge all people and nations according to their deeds. Many scholars believe that the “Day of the Lord” points to three “horizons” of God’s judgment.

First, God is warning his people of imminent judgment in the form of the hostile armies of Babylon, which destroyed Jerusalem in 586 BC.

Second, the prophet is pointing toward the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD at the hands of the Roman Empire.

Third, God’s word is looking forward to the final judgment described in the great book of Revelation (19:11 – 22:5) when sin, death and Satan are utterly destroyed by the sovereign and eternal reign of Jesus Christ.

“Judgment” is not a fun word. Most of us would rather just skip over this part of the Bible. While we don’t really mind other people being judged by God – you know, the really bad people – we don’t much like the idea of being judged ourselves. 

But judgment is an important word; and, according to God’s word, judgment is coming for every human being who has walked and breathed on this earth. Judgment is also a good word because judgment, properly understood, flows from God’s holiness and love.

It is difficult to find language to describe the Biblical concept of God’s holiness. The word “holy” means “set apart” or “utterly distinct,” and when used in reference to God means that God is set apart by his absolute purity, absolute goodness, and absolute authority. God’s holiness, therefore, is a form of power that is found nowhere else in our experience. In fact, the Bible makes it clear that, if we as sinful human beings were to come into direct contact with the holiness of God, we would be utterly consumed (see Leviticus 10:1-3).

The best analogies to holiness that I have heard would be either electricity or nuclear power. Both are “holy” in the sense of being “set apart” as forms of energy and in the sense that a human being must be fully and uniquely prepared before coming into contact with either one. You can’t just stand in a lightning storm with a metal pole in your hand for the fun of it. If lightning touches that pole you are seriously fried. And it wouldn’t be because the lightning is angry with you – it would be because that’s just the nature of electricity – and that you approached it frivolously. The same would be true of nuclear energy and radiation.

God is holy; and in his holiness he must be approached on his terms not ours. In fact, when you think about it, if God were not holy he would not be God at all. Who wants a God who is ordinary; who is not “set apart”; who is not holy?

How, then, can we dare to approach our holy God? 

We approach God on the basis of his provision of grace alone. There is nothing we can do to earn his favor; there is nothing we can do to deserve his love. He has, however, offered us his own righteousness and holiness as a gift in the person of Jesus, who became the final sacrifice for sin.

On the “Day of the Lord”, on that day when God’s judgment comes, those who have received the gift of God’s grace through Jesus Christ will not fear for they will be found righteous.

Pastor Brian Coffey