Haggai

 How many of you have read the Old Testament prophets? Amos, Nahum, Joel are strong Old Testament prophets. They didn't mince words, They had a message from God, and it cost many of them very deeply to stand and deliver that message.

Nahum - calling out Nineveh 140 years after Jonah. Apparently they went right back to their sin.

Haggai - calling out the Children of Israel for not restoring the Temple. 

The Old Testament is a wonderful way to know God, what He wants.

There is the old adage that those that forget or ignore history are destined to repeat it. Well all the old sayings are still being used because they are true, if they were not true they would not be used.

Hag 1:3  Then came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet, saying, 

Hag 1:4  Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste? 

God asking the children of Israel if it is not time to put His house in order, for they have theirs, yet His lies in waste. God wants to be first in your hearts, in all your ways. The peoples hearts were far from Him.

Hag 1:5  Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways. 

Hag 1:6  Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. 

Does this sound familiar? God has limited the returns on their actions,  their crops with low yields, the money burning through with out paying the bills or meeting all the needs. God wasn't put first, and He is calling them out on it.

Hag 1:12  Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the LORD their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the LORD their God had sent him, and the people did fear before the LORD. 

The people were told of their mistake, they turned their hearts back to God and got busy on His House.

This book, Haggai is a good reason for reading the OT prophets.

Everyone who says God is love, He won't judge or condemn, needs to read the Old Testament. 

God has boundaries, He has lines you can not cross. 

There are those that want you to think that no matter what you do God will love you. No matter what you think, what you do, how you neglect Him and live only for yourself, God will leave you be because truly He only cares about you and your happy.

God, the Lord God Jehovah, cares for all, that all may come to repentance and what you, the born again Christian, are doing to further His Will. Which is that all may know Him and come to a saving knowledge of Jesus.

That is what God cares about. That you are using all He has given you to further His Will, to spread His Word.

In Haggai He is worried about His house and you know why? This is how the world knows Him, they see His people do not care about Him so why should the world? There is concern from God when it comes to His image and how His people are portraying Him.

He worries about His House, for it has His name on it. He worries about His people and how they represent Him, for they have His name. 

It is time for the House of God to be back to serving Him, open daily to the public that they may know Him. Time to get the dust out, the Word ready, and the Spirit rocking folks.