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Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango and I'm your host for the Bible Department podcast. Powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the journey. Let's be honest, a lot of us are still treating digital ministry like it's a backup plan from 2020. But discipleship isn't just happening on Sundays anymore. People need gospel centered connection every day of the week. And if you're stuck juggling five different platforms, one for giving, another for sermons, something else for events, it's no wonder engagement feels off. That's not ministry. That's a mess. Subsplash changes that one platform. Everything you need. Media, giving, events, messaging, your app, your website built specifically for churches. No hacks, no workarounds, just clarity and simplicity. Because every day you wait, families scroll past your sermons, new guests click away from clunky sites, and real people miss real moments with Jesus. Don't waste another summer stuck in digital survival mode. Use it to get ahead, simplify, upgrade, get back to what matters. Head to subsplash.combible-dept and schedule a free no pressure demo. And let this be the summer your church gets focused and fully equipped. Family let's dive into the Book of Haggai together. It's day 244 here at the Bible department and we are diving into the Book of Haggai. We're just spending one day on the Book of Haggai. It's a really, really short book of the Bible and my job is to give you context clues, give you some nerdy nuggets, and leave off with a timeless truth so that you can apply the Book of Haggai to your life. So let's dive in. If you've done the reading, then everything that I'm going to say is going to make perfect sense. But if you haven't done the reading, then you're probably going to be a little lost as to what I'm exactly talking about in today's episode. So let's dive in. If you haven't done the reading, stop the video, pause the audio, go get the reading done. Just two short chapters from the Book of Haggai today and you could, you could honestly do the reading really, really, really, really, really fast. Let's dive in. Okay, so Haggai is our first post exilic prophet. Post exilic. That means that Haggai is actively Prophesying after the exile. Okay, so we took a whole chunk of time and focused on pre exilic prophets. Those are the prophets who were prophesying or predicting that the exile was going to happen. They were prophesying before the exile prophets like Micah, prophets like Isaiah. And then we focused on exilit prophets, prophets who are alive during the exile, prophets who are prophesying to the community of exiles living in Babylon. Jeremiah would be a pre exilic prophet and an exilic prophet because he lived through the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. he predicted it and lived through it. So he is kind of a transition prophet. But Ezekiel and Daniel, like these people prophesied as exiles, they're living in Babylon. They would be exilic prophets. Now we've got three post exilic prophets. The people are back in the land, the people are attempting to rebuild their lives, and God is going to send three prophets to encourage, admonish, rebuke, correct the people. Those three post exilic prophets are Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. So over the next couple of days, we're actually going to look at all three of these prophets because we are studying the prophets in chronological order. So now that you kind of have an orientation of like where Haggai falls falls, we can dive in. Okay. We actually have an exact date for Haggai's prophecies. Haggai is going to give four oracles and they're all going to be dated. Okay, short book, two chapters, and he's going to give four oracles. All right? This post exilic prophet is prophesying in 520 B.C. 520 B.C. so again, to get some context around when is is. Is Haggai prophesying? What are the circumstances around his prophetic ministry? He's prophesying in 520 B.C. okay, what, like what, what importance does that date have? Well, let me give you some context. Okay, the people are exiled for 70 years in 539 B.C. okay, so 19 years before the Ministry of Haggai. Okay, in 539 BC Cyrus gives a decree and Cyrus gives a decree that the people of Israel who have been exiled can go back home. Everyone who's been exiled can go back home. Now, historically, here's what happened. The Babylonians believed in exiling people, but the Persians believed in sending people back home. And I don't know if you remember this. This is right around Daniel, chapter five. If you've been rocking with us for a long time. Daniel, chapter five. A regent, AKA king by the name of Belshazzar is giving a feast in, in the palace. And the Persians overtake the Babylonians. And in a night, the leading empire of the world switches from the Babylonians to the Persians. And when the Persians take over the Babylonian empire, the Persians, aka Cyrus, has a different political M.O. he has a different way of dealing with subjugated foreign people groups, okay? The Babylonians wanted to take the best and the brightest, bring them to Babylon, in, in. In exile them into Babylon. But the Persians believed keep people back home, like send everybody back, okay? So the, the Jews aren't the only group that the Persians sent back home. Like, hey, anybody want to go back home? You can go back home. And so the, the Jewish people get to go back home. They start going back home in 538 B.C. so 539 B.C. the edict by Cyrus gives them permission to go back. And then within a year, they're back in Jerusalem, okay? By 5:37, 5:36. So two years after they get back to Jerusalem, they have finished the altar, okay? The altar for the temple is rebuilt. Now Ezra is really gonna focus the book of Ezra is really gonna focus on the temple getting rebuilt. Nehemiah is gonna focus on the walls of Jerusalem getting rebuilt. And both Ezra and Nehemiah are both going to talk about the ministries of Haggai and Zechariah. Here's what Ezra, chapter 5, verse 1 and 2 says. This is Ezra 512 says. Now Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the prophet, a descendant of Iddo, prophesied to the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel who was over them, okay? When Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and Joshua son of Jozadak set to work to rebuild the house of God in Jerusalem. And the prophets of God were with them, so supporting them. So Ezra, chapter 5, verse 1 and 2. And Nehemiah is going to talk about the ministry of Haggai and Zechariah. So you can think about Haggai and Zechariah as a pair. And what is Haggai's message? Well, Haggai's message is fascinating. Remember I was kind of giving you an, an outline like, like a historical outline. So 539 B.C. cyrus declares all the Jews can go back home. Within a year, they're back in Jerusalem. That's 538 B.C. by 537, 536 B.C. they have rebuilt the altar, okay? The altar of the temple is Rebuilt. Remember, these people get back to Jerusalem and it's rubble, okay? Everything is just destroyed. It's been destroyed for 70 years. And then in 5:36, the work stops. They build the altar and they don't do another thing. They don't lift the finger. They don't continue the work of rebuilding the temple. They've rebuilt the altar. It took them about two years to rebuild the altar. Cyrus said they could go home at 5:39. By 5:36, they've rebuilt the altar and then the work stops in 5:20, 16 years have gone by where they've done nothing. The people have come back to Jerusalem and they have not done anything. They've made no progress. They built the altar and then they just got tired. They stopped for 16 years. They've hit the pause button on building. And this is what is going to prompt Haggai to kick them in the rear end and begin to get them working to rebuild the temple again. I'm actually gonna read some of Haggai. So Haggai starts prophesying in 5:20, okay? After a 16 year hiatus where the people are literally not doing what Yahweh sent them back to Jerusalem to do, it says this, verse three of Haggai chapter one. Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses while this house remains a ruin? So you came back and you built your house, but you've yet to build God's house. Now this is what the Lord Almighty says. Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much but harvested little, which means you're living in poverty. You planted, but you're not harvesting. 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. I don't know why Haggai doesn't get preached more because this is fire right here. Okay, here we go. This is what the Lord Almighty says. Give careful thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored, says the Lord. How dare you wait 16 years before you make progress on my house and you're over here building your house essentially, man. Oh, this is going to get into our timeless truth for the day. The people are saying we're not building God's house because we're poor. We're not building God's house. We're poor. You know we can't do it. We don't have the Resources, we're impoverished. And Haggai turns it, flips it on the head and goes, no, you're poor because you're not building God's house. You think that you're not building God's house because you're poor, but actually you're poor because you're not building God's house. And until you build God's house, until you put the house of God in, into the center of your society, then you will continue to plant, but not harvest. You will continue to eat but not have enough. You will continue to drink but never have your fill. You'll put clothes on but not be warm. You'll earn wages only to put them in a purse with holes in it, go up to the mountains, bring down timber and build my house. And then verse nine, Haggai gets into their emotions, gets into what's going on at a heart level, says you expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. It's, can you imagine being in exile for 70 years? And prophets like Ezekiel prophesied that one day God was going to bring you back to Jerusalem. And so you signed up to go back to Jerusalem, and then you got back to Jerusalem and it's just rubble. It's just destroyed. It's literally just ruined. Everything is ruined. Everyone's been telling you all these stories about how awesome Jerusalem is, but Nebuchadnezzar didn't leave one stone on top of the other. When he came in 586 B.C. and destroyed Jerusalem, he utterly destroyed it. He. He burned it to the ground. And so Haggai's saying, hey, you expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why did you, Declares the Lord, because of my house, which remains a ruin while each of you is busy with your own house. Verse 10. Therefore, because of you, the heavens have withheld their due and the earth its crops. I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the olive oil, and everything else the ground produces on people and livestock and on all the labor of your hands. Verse 12. Then Zerubbabel, son of Shaltiel, Joshua, son of Jozadak, the high priest, and the whole remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the message of the prophet Haggai, because the Lord their God had sent him, and the people feared the Lord. And so the people start building again. They get it back. They get their mojo back. They like, yo, let's, let's stop, stop messing around, okay? We, we gotta Build. We gotta build this thing. Okay, so that's the first prophetic word. Okay, family, the wait is over. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos is out now and available everywhere. Books are sold. Literally today I walked into a Barnes and Noble and I signed a bunch of copies at a physical location. So you can grab this book at a physical Barnes and Noble or you can go to a Books a Million or Amazon or anywhere books are sold and grab a copy. If you enjoy reading the Bible from an ancient perspective, if you understand that the beauty of scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this book. And if there's any chaos in your personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an ancient perspective can actually help to crush the chaos in your life. I think this book is going to be a New York Times bestseller. I really do. I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. All right, back to the episode. Hey, are you looking for a really cool gift or just solid tools to support your faith in daily Life? Check out Mr. Pen. They've got no bleed Bible pens and highlighters that actually work on thin Bible pages. Journaling bibles, Bible tabs and faith based journals. Even school supplies for parents, teachers and students. Mr. Penn was started by Christian teachers in Louisiana on a mission to serve the schools in their local community. And now They've got over 100,000 five star reviews on Amazon. I'm a huge fan of their Bible highlighters and pens. Super smooth and gentle enough to write notes in the margin of your Bible. Whether you're digging into scripture or stocking up for back to school. Mr. Pen has you covered. Shop the best Bible journaling supplies on the market and fantastic gifts for the ladies in your life@mrpenn.com that's m r p e n.com and guess what? Our audience here at the Bible department gets a special discount. Use code DEPARTMENT10 at checkout to get 10% off your entire order. I'm actually going to give you a timeline because the prophetic words are all dated. Okay, so that's the first one. You kind of just read through a good chunk of that first prophetic word. God is saying you're building your own house. You're not building my houses and you're building your houses, but you're not building my house. And you think that you're too poor to build my house, but the reality is that you're not building my house and that is why you're poor. And if you begin to prioritize my house, then I'll open up the windows of heaven. I'll bless you. I think that when we start talking about tithing and prioritizing God's house and church, we always go to Malachi. But this content here in Haggai is inspiring. It's motivating, and it worked. The people begin to get, you know, get it. Get it together, and they begin to build God's house. They obey. Now, Haggai, chapter two, verse one, tells us of the second oracle, which is going to happen. So this first oracle happens on the 29th of August, 520 B.C. okay, the 29th August, 520 B.C. after 16 years of the people just doing nothing, the second oracle is going to happen on the 17th of October, 520 B.C. so the end of August and then the middle of October. So we got almost two months. Okay, and then we're going to get the second oracle. What is the second oracle about? Haggai is going to address the people at the temple on the final day of the feast of tabernacles. His message was again of encouragement, but this time to encourage. Despite what they had built, the impression is that the people who had just gone through the first feast and the new temple were not impressed. And honestly, this is where we're gonna get a famous verse. Okay, so I want you to go to chapter two, verse three. Okay? Chapter two, verse three. Cause in church, we always say your latter will be greater than your former. Like, we say that a lot. But that comes from chapter three, verse nine says, this the glory of this present house, that's the one that they're rebuilding, will be greater than the glory of the former house. That would be Solomon's temple. Okay, so Haggai is actually talking about the glory of Zerubbabel's temple versus the glory of Solomon's Temple. So verse three. I'll start in chapter two, verse three. Who of you is left who saw the house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Does it seem to you like nothing? He's saying, hey, you're actually. You got a bad attitude because you're comparing the glory of this new thing that God's doing to the one that you remember. And the reality is that this new one pales in comparison to Solomon's Temple. Solomon's temple is built at the height of Judah and Israel's power, economic power. And the Bible tells us that Solomon is gonna get gold from all over. He's gonna get the most exotic building materials to build the temple. However, the way that God measures Glory and the way that we measure glory are not the same. And so Haggai's gonna prophesy. He's gonna say, hey, hey, hey. This is what I covenant with you when you came out of Egypt. And my spirit remains among you. Do not fear. Verse 6. This is what the Lord 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 the nations, and what is desired by the nations will come. And I will fill this house with glory. Man. But this temple never got to be beautiful. So what kind of glory did God fill it with? Oh, there was a poor peasant couple named Mary and Joseph who brought a baby named Jesus to this temple, to Zerubbabel's temple, to the temple that the people in Haggai's context are rebuilding. And he gets circumcised in the temple, and then as a boy, he's arguing in the temple. And Jesus is going to teach in this temple. Oh, Jesus actually visited this temple multiple times. Which means that the glory is not in how beautiful the stones were or in how. How much gold there was. The glory is in who would be in it. Which means glory is never about how much wealth we have. Glory is always about how many relationships we have. It's the human experience. It's the human dynamic. I actually was telling one of my spiritual sons today, I was saying, hey, your net work is your net worth. Because human beings are the most valuable thing on the planet. And Jesus is. Is the most valuable of the most valuable of the most valuable. And so Jesus is going to step foot in this temple. And so Haggai is trying to help the people from being carnal. Right now we're in the middle of church planting, and I'm trying to pray carnal people away. Cause carnal people want LED screens and carnal people want fog machines, and carnal people want all their senses titillated. Then when you're church planting, you don't need carnal people. You need builders. You need people who are down to build. You need people who are down to sit in uncomfortable chairs. You need people who are okay in the building season of a ministry. And so Zerubbabel and Joshua, they're getting help. They're the leaders, okay? Joshua is the high priest. Zerubbabel is the leader. And they need Haggai to remind people, hey, stop being carnal. Stop looking at this with your natural eyes. You need to look at the situation in the spirit and spiritually. I'm telling you right now that the glory of this former, of this latter temple is going to outshine the glory of the latter temple. But if you're just looking at it with your eyes, you'll always think Solomon's temple is more beautiful or more majestic or more glorious. But the glory doesn't lie in how much gold and silver and ornate stones were built into it. No, the glory lies in who's in it. And Jesus is going to walk into Zerubbabel's temple and it's the people, it's the human, it's the. It's the image bearer, it's the glory of God in the person of Jesus that is actually going to make the latter temple more glorious than the former temple. All right, there's a, a third oracle. In this third oracle, the Haggai begins to teach a lesson. Using an analogy. He says, hey, if somebody, if a, if a priest touches something dead, and then they go touch something in the temple, they've contaminated it, right? And the priest is like, yeah. And he goes, all right, well, the people are getting their hands dirty by not being holy. And then they're coming here to help build the temple. They can't do that. The temple is holy. You can only build the temple if you got clean hands. And clean hands mean there's gotta be some sin and some habits that you remove out of your life so that you can dedicate your hands to building what God has called you to build. Because what God's called you to build needs to be holy, needs to be set apart. And, and you can't contaminate what you're building with the sin that's in your life. I remember for a season, man, I really just battled with a lot of anger. But I'm trying to build this thing called the Bible department or build this thing called arma. And I remember realizing, wait a second, I keep contaminating what I'm building with the anger that I've got on the inside of me. I need to go get this anger dealt with because I'm gonna keep coming up against a wall. And, man, I need to be able to lead from a place of love and lead with a heart of patience. So I'm building something holy. And so Haggai begins to prophesy to the people, hey, you gotta get your actions, your heart, you gotta get that stuff in line. Cause you're building something holy. And then there's a fourth oracle. That third oracle is chapter 2, verse 10, 19. And then the fourth oracle is chapter 2, verse 20 to 33. This final oracle is both a personal one for Zerubbabel and also a corporate message for the people. Some context is needed to fully appreciate the image here. In Jeremiah 22:24, Jeremiah spoke a word against Jehoiachin, the last legitimate king of Judah. In this word, he is described by. Jehoiachin is described as a signet ring on Yahweh's finger, a ring used to sign documents with the authority of the owner. Jehoiachin was king with the authority of Yahweh, the true king. But Jeremiah says that Yahweh was tearing off his signet ring and hurling it to Babylon. Jehoiachin had lost the authority, but not only him. He was the son of David, of the house of David. But now the authority David's line held was gone, lost in the exile. But the promise had been made, not just to David, but to the people. That future hope was in the line of David. And here now, Zerubbabel, the grandson of Jehoiachin, the son of David, has led the people home, had rebuilt the temple as Solomon, the son of David, had done. So Yahweh picked up the signet ring and put it back on his finger. He had chosen Zerubbabel to bear his sign, to have his authority. David's line had been restored. So they may no longer be kings. Zerubbabel's not a king. But the promise to David still holds true. His family was still the hope of Israel. Through them is the authority of Yahweh. And through them, salvation would come. So that's an overview of all four oracles given by Haggai to the people. Our timeless truth. Okay, our timeless truth for the day is really, really simple. The people believe that they are too poor to build God's house. But in reality, it's their refusal to build God's house that's making them poor. Oh, man, I wish I had money for every person who said, I'm too poor to tithe. I can't afford to tithe. I can't give God 10%. And man, you're talking to the wrong person. Because I watched my mom tithe off of her disability check, I watched my mom tithe off of her welfare check. And we defeated poverty in one generation. I am no longer poor. I grew up poor, but I'm no longer poor. Because I prioritize God's house. I prioritize the house of God. And because I prioritize the house of God. Can I be honest? God has blessed my house. And that's not just true for the book of haggai or in 520 B.C. when these words were prophesied or spoken to the people of Israel. That's true today. There are many people who believe, oh, I, I, I'm not tithing because I'm poor. And I think God would flip that and say to them, nope, you're poor because you're not tithing. And a lot of times we have the cause and the effect reversed and God begins to go ahead and put the cause where it needs to be and the effect where it needs to be. And I think that is timelessly true. That's true for Haggai and that's definitely true for me and I believe it's true for you. Tomorrow we got day 245 and we're gonna talk about Haggai's prophesying buddy, his prophecy pal, Zechariah. We're gonna be in the book of Zechariah for a couple of days. It's gonna be great. I'll see you right here tomorrow for another day studying the Bible together. We got a brand new book of the Bible tomorrow. If you're on a streak, don't break it. If you're on a streak, I'm so proud of you. I'll see you right here Tomorrow for day 245 of the Bible department. Love you. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show@thebibledepartment.com and on Instagram hebibledepartment. If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free free access to our library of courses@thebibledepartment.com we'll see you back here tomorrow.