74. Beginner Bible Course: The prophet Haggai

EPISODE 74  The simple Bible overview of…A REMNANT OF JUDAH RETURNS HOME AND IS SCOLDED BY THE PROPHET HAGGAI

In our remaining four or five episodes...

1

00:00:04

...from the old Testament. We're going to look at the last three history books. Ezra Nehemiah and Esther, and the last three sticky note prophets. These three history books in three profits cover a time period of just over a century from five 30, eight to four 32 BC, except for the book of Esther, they cover what happens to a small group that returns to Judah to rebuild the temple, the Capitol city of Jerusalem and their nation. We learned in Daniel's visions of the parade of human history, that there would be four kingdoms. The first Babylon that's the one that took Judah captive. And the one Daniel was living in when he received that vision, we learned in Daniel chapter five, that first kingdom came to an abrupt end when the Medes and Persians entered the Capitol city of Babylon.

1

00:00:54

The night of Belshazzar's is drinking party. The handwriting on the wall night by the next day, Babylon was in the hands of the second kingdom, the Medes and Persians under the leaders, Cyrus, the great Cyrus, the great had a different policy than the Babylonians. He believed in letting captives returned to their Homeland. He hoped that there they would flourish and be loyal subjects, providing food and other materials to his empire. So in five 38, he made a decree that the captives from Judah could return to their own land. The promised land archeologists have demonstrated. This is exactly what he did. They've dug up a cylinder with an inscription on it.

1

00:01:35

They call it the Cyrus cylinder. It's from Cyrus. The great, and it declares that policy of letting captives go home. We also learned in Daniel that he had favor with Cyrus, maybe that's why Cyrus added a bonus to the people from Judah. They could return home with all their gold and silver vessels. Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple 70 years prior, just to remind her about Cyrus. Isaiah had predicted him by name 200 years earlier in his prophecy. The book of Ezra chapters, one through six, explain what happens next. A leader was appointed a governor as it were Zahra Bible as well as a leader of the religious community, Joshua, the high priest, they scrounged up just under 50,000 people that wanted to go home.

1

00:02:24

We use the term remnant for this first group of return captives. You know what a remnant is, right? You have a small room in your house. You want to carpet. So you go to a big box store. You ask him, where do you keep your remnants there? On the back wall rolled up or small rolls of carpet. Remnants are what come off the very end of the huge carpet roll, or perhaps what their installers bring back after finishing up a job. They're just a fraction of the large role and they're cheap. That's what happened with the captives of Judah just a fraction went home. There was a many stayed. Put the word comfort in the term status quo, come to mind or the song for moral war to how are you going to keep them down on the farm?

1

00:03:08

After they've seen Perry, the kingdom of Babylon now under Mito Persian rule was quite a place. The rim that would be going back to mostly just fields. The cities had been leveled. They be leaving Perry for the farm. Another reason was the trip. It was 900 miles taking about four months and that was pushing it. But about 50,000 do return. And when they get there, the first thing they do is set up an altar and they have a feast. The feast of booths. That's the one God said, pitch tents. To remember how I took care of you and the wilderness. Shortly after this, they're in the ruins of Jerusalem.

1

00:03:49

They lay the cornerstone and blocks for a new temple. This two is allowed by Cyrus. The great when they get the foundation laid, while all of the youngsters are jumping for joy, this is a brand new beginning of the nation. What a gracious God and a new beginning, the really old geezers are grumpy. They're comparing the new foundation to the old magnificent temple of Solomon that they remember. As little kids will come back to those old geezers in a moment with the prophet Haggai guy. After finishing off the foundation, they get some local neighbors popping by. Most of these are folks that the Assyrians transplanted into this area after they conquered the Northern kingdom of Israel, their Symeria tens as it were.

1

00:04:35

They come asking if they can help in any way, but Joshua in <inaudible>. And some of the remnant folks remember from their history, how help from EITs and pagan nations never really seem to help much. So they said, no, the neighbors then begin to intimidate them and threatened legal action. Finally, they tattle. They send a message back to the emperor. Their message basically says they're rebels, go back and check some of your records. You'll see, stop this work. You'll regret it. If you don't they're right. I'm sure they found the records of Zedekiah remember him, the puppet King.

1

00:05:16

And Judah the one who stopped paying taxes, ran to Egypt for help requiring Babylon to come in and put them under an 18 months. Siege. Yeah, that kind of stuff. In the historical record or the people I left behind after destroying Jerusalem, assassinating the governor, they put in place get Elia as well as Babylonian officials and then fleeing to Egypt. Yep. Those records Cyrus issues of stop work order on the temple and the remnant return captives stop work actually for about 15 years. It's during this time, the prophet Haggai guy shows up with his sticky note message.

1

00:05:56

He basically wanders around Judah then to Jerusalem and he notices a few you things. Hey guys, nice houses. Wow. They're even paneled. If you were looking, bring in a house with paneling, you'd strip it off. But paneling in those days meant you had to go get it from far away. And that was pretty impressive. Anyway, Hey guys said, that's beautiful paneling, but what's up with God's house over there. Why is that still lie in ruins? This brings us to Haggai guys. Sticky note is this, your priorities are showing Haggai gives the governor and priest, LTL and Joshua a real earful.

1

00:06:37

Then he adds to his message. A little motivation. Hey, have you noticed how much you've people? So in the fields and how little you reap what's up with that? I wonder. Or have you noticed how you seem to drop a whole bunch of coins into your money bag? And when you get to the bank, it seems like some of them have fallen out. Hmm. Then I imagine Haggai guy walking down the street to the old geezers, sitting in front of the ruins of the old Jerusalem barbershop. And he says to the old gazers are you partially responsible for this project? Shutting down with your tears and your what? A joke, new temple. Here's a word from God size does not determine significance, help these whippersnappers get back to work and had guy adds one more brief warning to the remnant with his own little word picture, Hey guys, I got a question for you.

1

00:07:30

And now his question might not mean much to us or even sound a little weird, but to them, they got it right? The way his question was this. If you take something that's wholly dedicated to God and you touch something, that's unclean does the Holy make the unclean thing? Holy, think back to our Nazarite vow. If a Nazarite touched a dead thing, did the dead thing become Nazarite Holy or did it defile the NAZA right? Hey guys, audience replies. The clean does not make the unclean clean. You're one for one. Then he asks this question does an unclean thing, touching a clean thing, make it unclean again. They get it right.

1

00:08:10

The unclean makes the clean clean Haggai guy then says, I want you to do remember that godliness is not contagious, but ungodliness is contagious with my students. I use an illustration. I heard from my own college professor. I come in from the barn after working out there and I'm covered in manure. I walk across my wife's clean carpet with my poopy boots and flopped down onto her brand new sofa in my coveralls, which is more likely to occur the carpet and the new sofa cleaning up my boots and my coveralls or my boots and my coveralls dirtying the carpet and the new sofa.

1

00:08:50

I'm guessing you get the point. They immediately resume building house. Shortly thereafter, the local media Persia building inspector arrives. He wonders why they're not listening to Cyrus's stop work order. They respond. Hey, Cyrus gave us a building permit and we'll continue with this until we get a cease and desist order until Cyrus red tags it permanently. The building inspector communicates this back to the capital city. The new emperor, by the way, was Darius the first or Darius. The great Darius does his own little looking into the record. He finds that building permit from Cyrus and Darius, not only okays the project, he adds his own decree.

1

00:09:33

Tax revenues will be gathered to pay for the expenses of the temple. When it's completed. Then he adds this little warning. Anyone else who tries to stop this project? We're going to tear down your house and impale you on one of the two by fours. Nice. Huh? You can do that stuff. When you're the most powerful ruler in the world by five 15, four years later, the temple is done. It's smaller and less ornate than Solomon's, but it's finished. It is a monument to God's faithfulness to bring this remnant back to the land. He promised Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They have a big sacrifice. They celebrate the Passover as well as the festival of unleavened bread.

1

00:10:16

It's 23 years after returning to the land of promise. And the remnant is off on a pretty good note. Soon, an expert in the law of Moses. One who studied the law, practiced it and taught it to others is about to arrive. His name is Ezra, but before he arrives in Judah to spiritually guide the remnant, something happens back in Persia that almost nukes God's entire plan for the remnant nation of Judah. In fact, for all God's people who are surviving children of Israel, that event is explained in the historical account of Esther, which we'll look at in our next word picture.