In the midst of our rebellion, the Lord offers the hope of a rescuer...

This week we are looking at a letter that is recorded for us in the Old Testament of the Bible, called the book of Zechariah. We looked on as the Lord proclaimed to the Jewish people who had returned from captivity to the Jewish nation “What I have to say to you now that I have brought you back into the land that I promised you is the same thing that I said to your parents and grandparents before I removed them from the land. As I have always said, what I require of you is to demonstrate your love for Me by how you love and treat those around you. You are to demonstrate your love for Me by promoting justice and kindness towards one another. You are to demonstrate your love for Me by refusing to exploit the poor and marginalized among you. However, your parents and grandfathers refused to listen to my spokesman the prophets who I sent to warn them. Instead, the hardened their hearts and refused to listen to Me or obey Me. Therefore, I treated them in the same way that they treated Me. Just as they refused to listen to Me, I refused to listen to them and instead exercised my right and just response to their rebellion by sending them into captivity in Babylon.”

However, in the midst of the rebellion of the Jewish people; in the midst of the Lord exercising His right and just response to the selfishness and rebellion of the Jewish people by sending them into captivity in Babylon, the Lord still had a plan for the Jewish people. A plan that Zechariah reveals in Zechariah 8:1-8:

Then the word of the LORD of hosts came, saying, ² "Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'I am exceedingly jealous for Zion, yes, with great wrath I am jealous for her.' ³ "Thus says the LORD, 'I will return to Zion and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. Then Jerusalem will be called the City of Truth, and the mountain of the LORD of hosts will be called the Holy Mountain.' ⁴ "Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'Old men and old women will again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each man with his staff in his hand because of age. ⁵ 'And the streets of the city will be filled with boys and girls playing in its streets.' ⁶ "Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'If it is too difficult in the sight of the remnant of this people in those days, will it also be too difficult in My sight?' declares the LORD of hosts. ⁷ "Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'Behold, I am going to save My people from the land of the east and from the land of the west; ⁸ and I will bring them back and they will live in the midst of Jerusalem; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God in truth and righteousness.'

Here we see the Lord proclaim to the Jewish people that there would be a day in the future when the Lord Himself would return and dwell in the city of Jerusalem. There would be a day in the future when the city of Jerusalem would be recognized as a bastion of truth. There would be a day in the future when the Temple of the Lord would be viewed as set apart to the Lord.  There would be a day in the future where the young and old would dwell in safety and security in the city. There would be a day in the future when the Lord would bring the Jewish people from across the planet to dwell in the presence of the Lord in the right relationship with the Lord that they were created for. And just a few verses later, we see the Lord continue to proclaim His promises and plans for the Jewish people in Zechariah 8:14-17:

"For thus says the LORD of hosts, 'Just as I purposed to do harm to you when your fathers provoked Me to wrath,' says the LORD of hosts, 'and I have not relented, ¹⁵ so I have again purposed in these days to do good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. Do not fear! ¹⁶ 'These are the things which you should do: speak the truth to one another; judge with truth and judgment for peace in your gates. ¹⁷ 'Also let none of you devise evil in your heart against another, and do not love perjury; for all these are what I hate,' declares the LORD."

Here we see the Lord remind the Jewish people of Zechariah’s day that He was a promise maker and a promise keeper. The Lord reminded the Jewish people that just as He fulfilled His promise to exercise His right and just response to their past selfishness and rebellion if they continued in that rebellion, He has promised to bring good upon the Jewish people. The Jewish people were not to look back in fear of their past. And the Jewish people were not to live in fear in the present.

Instead the Jewish people were to live in the land that the Lord had returned them to in a way that promoted truth, justice, and peace with one another as they lived in community with one another as the people of God. The Jewish people were to reject the selfishness and falsehood that marked the lives of the Jewish people prior to being conquered and led captive by the Babylonian Empire. The Jewish people were to move away from their past rebellion and opposition against the Lord and one another and move towards a life that trusted in the promises of the Lord so as to obey the Lord and represent the Lord to the nations of the world. We see this reality revealed to us in Zechariah 8:18-23:

Then the word of the LORD of hosts came to me, saying, ¹⁹ "Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'The fast of the fourth, the fast of the fifth, the fast of the seventh and the fast of the tenth months will become joy, gladness, and cheerful feasts for the house of Judah; so love truth and peace.' ²⁰ "Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'It will yet be that peoples will come, even the inhabitants of many cities. ²¹ 'The inhabitants of one will go to another, saying, "Let us go at once to entreat the favor of the LORD, and to seek the LORD of hosts; I will also go." ²² 'So many peoples and mighty nations will come to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the favor of the LORD.' ²³ "Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'In those days ten men from all the nations will grasp the garment of a Jew, saying, "Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you."'"

The Lord proclaimed to the Jewish people “you know those four days of sadness and fasting that you have done to commemorate the major disasters connected with the fall of Jerusalem that came as a result of your selfishness and rebellion: Well, in the future those days will become times of joy and gladness for the Jewish people. So make sure that in the present you are leaning into lives that love what is true and what promotes harmony with one another as you live in community with one another. You are to live such lives, understanding that there will be a day in the future when the nations of the world will come to Jerusalem to seek the favor of the Lord.

There will be a day in the future when the nations of the Lord will seek you as a people because they recognize the reality that I am present with you as you live in a right relationship with Me. There will be a day in the future when your right relationship with Me will cause the nations of the world to recognize My presence with you so that they would desire to seek and know Me as well. Then, just a few verses later, we see Zechariah proclaim one of the clearest promises of the Messiah that has been fulfilled by Jesus in all the letters that make up the Bible. So let’s look at that promise together, which is found in Zechariah 9:9-10:

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, Humble, and mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey. ¹⁰ I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim And the horse from Jerusalem; And the bow of war will be cut off. And He will speak peace to the nations; And His dominion will be from sea to sea, And from the River to the ends of the earth.

And a little over 500 years after proclaiming this promise, we see Jesus fulfill this promise in Matthew 21:1-11:

When they had approached Jerusalem and had come to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, ² saying to them, "Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied there and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to Me. ³ "If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, 'The Lord has need of them,' and immediately he will send them." ⁴ This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: ⁵ "SAY TO THE DAUGHTER OF ZION, 'BEHOLD YOUR KING IS COMING TO YOU, GENTLE, AND MOUNTED ON A DONKEY, EVEN ON A COLT, THE FOAL OF A BEAST OF BURDEN.'" ⁶ The disciples went and did just as Jesus had instructed them, ⁷ and brought the donkey and the colt, and laid their coats on them; and He sat on the coats. ⁸ Most of the crowd spread their coats in the road, and others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them in the road. ⁹ The crowds going ahead of Him, and those who followed, were shouting, "Hosanna to the Son of David; BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD; Hosanna in the highest!" ¹⁰ When He had entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred, saying, "Who is this?" ¹¹ And the crowds were saying, "This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee."

Now you might be here this morning, and at this point a question or objection has been raised in your mind. And if we were to have a conversation in the courtyard coffeehouse, the conversation would sound something like this: “Well Dave, what about all the stuff that Zechariah said in verse 10. I mean, if Jesus actually fulfilled this prediction and promise, then all of the things in verse 10 should have happened too. But they haven’t happened. So how can you say that Jesus actually fulfilled this prediction and promise and is the Messiah?” 

If that question or objection is running through your mind, I want to let you know that you have a fair question. And my response to your question and objection is this: The reason why what is predicted and promised in verse 10 did not take place is because the Jewish people rejected Jesus as their Messiah. And because the Jewish people refused to place their confident trust in Jesus as their Messiah, because the Jewish people continued to rebel and reject the Lord, verse 10, like the previous promises and predictions that we have looked at this morning are for a day in the future. And in that day in the future, the Jewish people will recognize the gravity of rebelling against the Lord and rejecting Jesus as Messiah. We see this reality revealed for us just a few chapters later, in Zechariah 12:10:

"I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.

Here we see Zechariah proclaim that, on that day in the future, the Lord will, by the power of the Holy Spirit, pour upon the Jewish people His grace and compassion. And in His grace and compassion, the eyes of the Jewish people will be opened to see that Jesus was the fulfillment of His promise to send a rescuer, a deliverer, a Messiah, to bring the Jewish people, and all people, back to God. And on that day in the future, when Jesus returns to earth to usher in the kingdom of Heaven in its fullest sense, the Jewish people will see Him whom their forefathers wrongly rejected and handed Him over to be pierced by crucifixion.

Now remember, this was written over 500 years before Jesus entered into humanity to live the life humanity refused to live and die the death that humanity deserved to die. And on the day in the future, as the Jewish people see Jesus, they will weep bitterly like the bitter weeping over a firstborn. The Jewish people will recognize that they missed and rejected Jesus and will weep over the loss of the blessings that their ancestors missed as a result of that rejection. However, upon Jesus return, Zechariah reveals the promise of what is to come for the Jewish people and all humanity in Zechariah 14:9:

And the LORD will be king over all the earth; in that day the LORD will be the only one, and His name the only one.

Upon Jesus return, Jesus will defeat selfishness, sin, and death and will usher in the spiritual and the earthly blessing of the kingdom yet be fulfilled for the Jewish people as well, which is referred to in church mumbo jumbo talk as the Millennial Kingdom. During the time of the Millennial Kingdom, the Lord will dwell with the Jewish people who placed their confident trust in Jesus, and who will experience the fulfillment of the promises that the Lord made to the Jewish people. During the time of the Millennial Kingdom, Jesus will rule and reign as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Jesus will rule and reign as a result of being the One True God and the One True King.

And, it is here, when God speaks, that we discover a timeless truth about the nature and character of God and God’s activity in history. And that timeless truth is this: In the midst of our rebellion, the Lord offers the hope of a rescuer. You see, the point of the book of Zechariah is that the Lord is just and will execute justice upon the wrongdoing and injustice of those who rebel and reject Him. Yet in the midst of the Jewish people’s rebellion and rejection of the Lord, the Lord offered hope in the promise of a rescuer, a deliverer, a Messiah, who would bring the Jewish people back to the Lord.

And just like the Jewish people, all of humanity has done things that hurt and wronged the Lord and others as a result of our rebellion and rejection of the Lord. And just like the Jewish people, in the midst of our rebellion and rejection of the Lord, the Lord offered hope in the promise of a rescuer, a deliverer, a Messiah, who would provide all humanity the opportunity to experience forgiveness and the relationship with God that they were created for. In the midst of our rebellion, the Lord promised that whoever responded to that hope by responding to the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel by believing, trusting, and following Jesus as Lord and Leader would be rescued from God’s right and just response to selfishness and rebellion to live in relationship with the Lord as part of the people of the Lord.

So here is a question to consider: How will you respond to the reality that, in the midst of our rebellion, the Lord offers the hope of a rescuer?  How will you respond to the offer of rescue that the Lord extends through the fulfillment of His promise of rescue through His Son Jesus?

Because, in the midst of our rebellion, the Lord offers the hope of a rescuer…

When we refuse to learn the lesson...

At the church where I serve, we are in the middle of a sermon series entitled When God speaks. During this series we are spending our time together looking at these letters that we often have a tendency to skip over, which are referred to as the prophets. We are discovering who these letters that we have a tendency to skip over were written to. We are discovering what these letters that we have a tendency to skip over reveal about who we are. We are discovering what these letters that we have a tendency to skip over reveal about the nature of God and God’s activity in history. And as we go through this series, our hope and prayer is that God would move by the power of the Holy Spirit in our heads, hearts and hands so that we understand and embrace the timeless and timely truths that these letters that we often skip over have for our lives.

This week I would like for us to spend our time together looking at a letter that is recorded for us in the Old Testament of the Bible called the book of Zechariah, which is the next letter that was written by a prophet chronologically, which is not necessarily the order that they are found in the Bible, where they are organized by size. So let’s look at the man and the message of the Book of Zechariah.

Now, as we discovered last week, after the Lord removed the Jewish people from the Promised Land and destroyed the Temple through the Babylonian Empire, the Jewish people lived as a conquered people in captivity in the nation of Babylon from 586 to 538 B.C..  Then, in 538 B.C., as predicted and proclaimed by the prophet Isaiah, the Persian Emperor Cyrus, after conquering the Babylonian Empire, began to allow the Jewish people to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple.

Under the leadership of a man named, Zerubbabel, who was the governor of the Jewish people, and Joshua, who was the high priest of the Jewish people, some 50,000 Jews returned in 538 B.C. and began to rebuild the temple. However, after some immediate opposition, work on the Temple ceased. And, for the next eighteen years, the Temple remained in ruins. And it is in the context that God raised up two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah to deliver His message to the Jewish people who had returned from exile to the Jewish nation.

In Zechariah 1:1, we discover that Zechariah was both a prophet and a priest. Zechariah then explained that, “in the eighth month of the second year of Darius”, which was in November of 520 B.C., Zechariah was sent by the Lord to deliver a message from the Lord to the Jewish people. This means that Zechariah’s message from the Lord would have been given between Haggai’s 1st and 2nd messages, which we looked at last week. Thus, the Lord sent both Haggai and Zechariah to confront the Jewish people, when it came to how they were living their lives in relationship to the Lord after the Lord had brought them back to the Jewish nation.  

While Haggai focused on the Jewish people’s misplaced priorities, Zechariah was sent by the Lord to deliver a different message. As a matter of fact, the book of Zechariah contains more predictions concerning Jesus Christ than any other minor prophet. So let’s jump into this letter that is found in the Old Testament of our Bibles, because it is in this letter that we will discover a timeless truth about the nature and character of the Lord and His activity in history that has the potential to powerfully impact how we view the Lord.

In December of 518 B.C., a little over two years after proclaiming his original message to the Jewish people, we see Zechariah respond to a question that he was asked by the Jewish people that described the state of the Jewish people. So let’s look at that question and Zechariah’s response beginning in Zechariah 7:1-4:

In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chislev. ² Now the town of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regemmelech and their men to seek the favor of the LORD, ³ speaking to the priests who belong to the house of the LORD of hosts, and to the prophets, saying, "Shall I weep in the fifth month and abstain, as I have done these many years?"

Now to fully understand the question that was being asked Zechariah, we first need to understand something about the Jewish people and how they lived while in exile during their 70 years in Babylon. While living in captivity in Babylon, the Jewish people practiced four days of fasting to commemorate the major disasters connected with the fall of Jerusalem.

In the 4th month, the Jewish people fasted to commemorate the walls of the city being breached. In the 5th month the Jewish people fasted to commemorate the day that Jerusalem was conquered. In the 7th month the Jewish people fasted to commemorate the assassination of the appointed governor, Gedaliah, which led to the Jewish people fleeing to the nation of Egypt. And in the 10th month, the Jewish people fasted to commemorate the day that the siege of the city of Jerusalem had begun.

However, now the Jewish people were back home in the Jewish nation, having returned after spending 70 years in captivity. So the question being raised was “Shall we continue these observances now that we are back in the land?” We see the Lord’s response through Zechariah, to this question in verse 4-7:

 ⁴ Then the word of the LORD of hosts came to me, saying, ⁵ "Say to all the people of the land and to the priests, 'When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months these seventy years, was it actually for Me that you fasted? ⁶ 'When you eat and drink, do you not eat for yourselves and do you not drink for yourselves? ⁷ 'Are not these the words which the LORD proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous along with its cities around it, and the Negev and the foothills were inhabited?'"

In other words, the Lord basically said to the Jewish people “when you fasted those 70 years while in Babylon, were you actually fasting to create space to hear from Me? And now that you have returned to the land that I promised to give you, when you feast and celebrate your return, you feast and celebrate yourselves and not Me. Is this not exactly what you were warned about by all the previous prophets who I sent to you before I sent you into captivity by the hand of the Babylonian Empire? How you acted when in captivity was no different than how you acted before I sent you into captivity”. We then see what else the Lord had to say through Zechariah in verse 8-14:

Then the word of the LORD came to Zechariah saying, ⁹ "Thus has the LORD of hosts said, 'Dispense true justice and practice kindness and compassion each to his brother; ¹⁰ and do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the stranger or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.' ¹¹ "But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears from hearing. ¹² "They made their hearts like flint so that they could not hear the law and the words which the LORD of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets; therefore great wrath came from the LORD of hosts. ¹³ "And just as He called and they would not listen, so they called and I would not listen," says the LORD of hosts; ¹⁴ "but I scattered them with a storm wind among all the nations whom they have not known. Thus the land is desolated behind them so that no one went back and forth, for they made the pleasant land desolate."

Here we see the Lord proclaim to the Jewish people “What I have to say to you now that I have brought you back into the land that I promised you is the same thing that I said to your parents and grandparents before I removed them from the land. As I have always said, what I require of you is to demonstrate your love for Me by how you love and treat those around you. You are to demonstrate your love for Me by promoting justice and kindness towards one another. You are to demonstrate your love for Me by refusing to exploit the poor and marginalized among you. However, your parents and grandfathers refused to listen to my spokesman the prophets who I sent to warn them. Instead, the hardened their hearts and refused to listen to Me or obey Me. Therefore, I treated them in the same way that they treated Me. Just as they refused to listen to Me, I refused to listen to them and instead exercised my right and just response to their rebellion by sending them into captivity in Babylon.”

However, in the midst of the rebellion of the Jewish people; in the midst of the Lord exercising His right and just response to the selfishness and rebellion of the Jewish people by sending them into captivity in Babylon, the Lord still had a plan for the Jewish people.

A plan that Zechariah reveals in Zechariah 8. A plan that we will look at on Friday...

God deserves, desires and demands to be our highest priority...

Last week we were looking at a letter that is recorded for us in the Old Testament of the Bible called the book of Haggai. We looked on as the Jewish people selfishly rebelled against the Lord by failing to place the Lord first in their lives. Instead, despite the Lord’s activity through Cyrus that provided them the opportunity to return from exile to their own country, the Jewish people selfishly placed themselves first. And because of their selfishness and rebellion against the Lord that placed themselves over the Lord, the Jewish people experienced economic insecurity from the hand of the Lord.

We looked on as the Lord commanded the Jewish people to stop delaying and to start rebuilding the Temple. And is His command, we see the Lord call the Jewish people to consider their ways. The Lord wanted the Jewish people to consider that the way that they were living their lives resulted in economic ruin and poverty. And the Lord wanted the Jewish people to clearly understand that the reason that they were experiencing economic ruin and poverty was due to the fact that they had selfishly placed themselves and their plans before the Lord and His commands.

The Lord wanted the Jewish people to consider that the way that they were living their lives resulted in the Lord bringing a drought upon the Jewish people. And the Lord wanted the Jewish people to clearly understand that the reason that they were experiencing a drought was due to the fact that they had selfishly placed themselves and their plans before the Lord and His commands.

After spending 23 days finishing the harvest season while preparing and planning how they would go about rebuilding the Temple, the Jewish people began the work of rebuilding the Temple. And as the Jewish people began the work of rebuilding the Temple, the Lord proclaimed a promise to the Jewish people: “I am with you”. The Lord wanted the Jewish people to clearly understand the He would be present with them and would empower them to rebuild the Temple as they strove to place the Lord first and follow His plans and commands.

We looked on as Haggai delivered a second message from the Lord. As the Jewish people had laid the foundations of the Temple, hopes were running high among the Jewish people who grew up living as a captive in the nation of Babylon. Hopes were running high because they had never had the opportunity to see the Temple that was built by Solomon, which was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

However, for those who were older and who had seen the glory of Solomon’s temple, hopes were not high. Instead they were incredibly disappointed, as they viewed the foundation of the Temple as though it “seemed like nothing” in comparison to Solomon’s Temple. The Lord proclaimed a command, promise His presence, and provide a promise for the future. Even though the Temple that they were building seemed like nothing in comparison to the Temple in the Days of King Solomon, the Lord commanded the Jewish people to take courage and continue the work that they had began to rebuild the Temple. 

The Jewish people were to take courage and continue the work that they had began because although the temple being constructed was very humble, the Lord promised that there would be a day in the future when the nations would bring their treasures to it in the times when God would fill His house with glory. The Lord wanted the Jewish people to clearly understand that when our lives seem like “nothing in comparison” remember that God is in the midst of the small things. The Lord wanted the Jewish people to live their lives in a way that did not despise the small things. Instead, the Lord wanted the Jewish people to remember that the Lord was present with them, even in the small things, and often worked in and through the small things to accomplish great things in the future. Today, we see Haggai deliver the third of four messages from the Lord to the Jewish people in Haggai 2:10-19. So let’s look at that message together:

On the twenty-fourth of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to Haggai the prophet, saying, ¹¹ "Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'Ask now the priests for a ruling: ¹² 'If a man carries holy meat in the fold of his garment, and touches bread with this fold, or cooked food, wine, oil, or any other food, will it become holy?'" And the priests answered, "No." ¹³ Then Haggai said, "If one who is unclean from a corpse touches any of these, will the latter become unclean?" And the priests answered, "It will become unclean." ¹⁴ Then Haggai said, "'So is this people. And so is this nation before Me,' declares the LORD, 'and so is every work of their hands; and what they offer there is unclean. ¹⁵ 'But now, do consider from this day onward: before one stone was placed on another in the temple of the LORD, ¹⁶ from that time when one came to a grain heap of twenty measures, there would be only ten; and when one came to the wine vat to draw fifty measures, there would be only twenty. ¹⁷ 'I smote you and every work of your hands with blasting wind, mildew and hail; yet you did not come back to Me,' declares the LORD. ¹⁸ 'Do consider from this day onward, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month; from the day when the temple of the LORD was founded, consider: ¹⁹ 'Is the seed still in the barn? Even including the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate and the olive tree, it has not borne fruit. Yet from this day on I will bless you.'"

On December 18^th 520 B.C., two months after the second message, Haggai delivered a third message from the Lord to the Jewish people. In this message, the Lord commanded Haggai to ask the religious leaders for a ruling regarding what would cause something to be considered holy, or set apart, to the Lord. In addition, the Lord commanded Haggai to ask the religious leaders for a ruling regarding what would cause something to be considered unclean, or unacceptable, to the Lord.

After receiving the correct answer from the religious leaders, Haggai applied their answer to the condition of the Jewish people. The Lord commanded Haggai to ask these questions because the Lord wanted the Jewish people to clearly understand during the past eighteen years, all of their acts of worship to the Lord were unclean and unacceptable to the Lord because they had been living their lives in a way that was unclean and unacceptable to the Lord.

You see, the Lord commanded Haggai to ask these questions because the Lord wanted the Jewish people to clearly understand that they were not to assume that religious activity somehow cleaned up and made acceptable an unclean and unacceptable lifestyle. The Lord wanted the Jewish people to clearly understand that something unclean and unacceptable to the Lord does not become set apart and acceptable to the Lord simply by association. Instead, the Lord wanted the Jewish people to clearly understands that the opposite always happens- the things that are unclean and unacceptable to the Lord will always contaminate that which has been set apart and acceptable.

And because of the reality the Lord called the Jewish people to live their lives from that day forward in a way that was set apart to a life of faithfulness and obedience to the Lord. By living in such a way, the Jewish people would no longer experience the seasons of economic insecurity and drought that came as a result of their selfishness and rebellion against the Lord. Instead, the Jewish people would experience the blessings that the Lord had promised the Jewish people and that flowed from living a life that faithfully placed God first. Haggai then delivered a fourth message from the Lord to the Jewish people in Haggai 2:20-23. Let’s look at that message together:

²⁰ Then the word of the LORD came a second time to Haggai on the twenty-fourth day of the month, saying, ²¹ "Speak to Zerubbabel governor of Judah, saying, 'I am going to shake the heavens and the earth. ²² 'I will overthrow the thrones of kingdoms and destroy the power of the kingdoms of the nations; and I will overthrow the chariots and their riders, and the horses and their riders will go down, everyone by the sword of another.' ²³ 'On that day,' declares the LORD of hosts, 'I will take you, Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, My servant,' declares the LORD, 'and I will make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you,'" declares the LORD of hosts.

On the same day as the third message, Haggai delivered a fourth message from the Lord that proclaimed a promise from the Lord. And that promise from the Lord was that the Lord had removed His curse on the house of King Jehoiachin as a result of their previous selfishness and rebellion against the Jewish people that led to the Jewish people being conquered and led into captivity by the Babylonian empire. Instead of a curse, there was hope that a descendant of Zerubbabel the governor, who was from the house of Jehoiachin, would be the fulfillment of the Lord’s promise to send a rescuer, a deliverer, a Messiah who would bring the Jewish people back to God and usher in the Kingdom of God here on earth.

However, it is here when God speaks through the prophet Obadiah, that we discover a timeless truth about the nature and character of God and God’s activity in history. And that timeless truth is this: God deserves, desires and demands to be our highest priority. You see, the point of the book of Haggai is that God deserves to be our highest priority. God deserves to be our highest priority because it is God who is the Creator who is in charge of history. God deserves to be our highest priority because it is God who is worthy of worship and worthy of glory as our provider, protector, rescuer, and deliverer.

The point of the book of Haggai is that God desires to be our highest priority. God desires to be our highest priority because it is when God is our highest priority that we experience the lives of meaning and purpose that we were created to experience. God desires to be our highest priority because it is when God is our highest priority that we live in light of our true identity as a child of God. God desires to be our highest priority because it is when God is our highest priority that we experience His presence and activity in our lives most powerfully.

And the point of the book of Haggai is that God demands to be our highest priority. God demands to be our highest priority because God alone is worthy of being our highest priority. God demands to be our highest priority because when anything other than God is our highest priority, we are committed idolatry. You see, idolatry is taking a good thing and making it a God thing. Idolatry is taking a good thing and making it an ultimate thing.

Now a natural objection that could arise here is “Well Dave, God sounds arrogant. God sounds needy. It sounds like God is just running around like ‘worship Me, worship Me, worship Me’. It sounds like God is He is full of Himself”. If that question and objection is running through your mind, I just want to let you know that is a fair question and objection to have.

And if we were able to have a conversation out in the courtyard coffee house, here would be my response: You are absolutely right. God is all about God. Because if you were God, who else would you be into? If you were God, would you be into you? I don’t think so. If you were God would you be into me? I don’t think so? God is into God. God is totally into Himself. God is full of Himself.

God is totally into Himself because for God to point you to something that was less than the best would mean that God did not know what was truly best, which would mean that God was not really God. You see, God is totally full of Himself because there is no other being other than God that deserves to be our highest priority. There is no other being that is all powerful, all knowing, ever present, everlasting, never changing, perfectly right and just, perfectly merciful and loving. So who else would God point you to when it comes to what should be our highest priority. And because of that reality, God deserves, desires and demands to be our highest priority.

So here is a question to consider: What is the highest priority in your life? And what does how you spend your time, talent, and treasure reveal about what is the highest priority in your life? Does your behavior betray what you say is the highest priority in your life? What priorities in your life are competing with God to be the highest priority?

Because God deserves, desires and demands to be our highest priority…

The God who is in the middle of the little things...

This week we are looking at a letter that is recorded for us in the Old Testament of the Bible called the book of Haggai. Yesterday, we looked on as Haggai revealed the reality that, once again the issue for the Jewish people was their selfishness and rebellion. The Jewish people selfishly chose to disobey the Lord’s call for them to rebuild the Temple. The Jewish people selfishly rebelled against the Lord by failing to place the Lord first in their lives. Instead, despite the Lord’s activity through Cyrus that provided them the opportunity to return from exile to their own country, the Jewish people selfishly placed themselves first.

And because of their selfishness and rebellion against the Lord that placed themselves over the Lord, the Jewish people experienced economic insecurity from the hand of the Lord. We looked on as the Lord command the Jewish people to stop delaying and to start rebuilding the Temple. The Lord wanted the Jewish people to consider that the way that they were living their lives resulted in economic ruin and poverty.

And the Lord wanted the Jewish people to clearly understand that the reason that they were experiencing economic ruin and poverty was due to the fact that they had selfishly placed themselves and their plans before the Lord and His commands. Instead of following and bringing glory to the Lord by rebuilding the Temple, the Jewish people selfishly chose to follow and bring glory to themselves by building fancy and expensive houses for themselves.

The Lord wanted the Jewish people to clearly understand that the issue for the Lord wasn’t about wealth or poverty: the issue wasn’t about whether or not they should have a nice house; the issue was about priorities. The issue was that the Lord was not the highest priority in their lives.

After spending 23 days finishing the harvest season while preparing and planning how they would go about rebuilding the Temple, the Jewish people began the work of rebuilding the Temple. And as the Jewish people began the work of rebuilding the Temple, the Lord proclaimed a promise to the Jewish people: “I am with you”.

You see, the Lord wanted the Jewish people to clearly understand the He would be present with them and would empower them to rebuild the Temple as they strove to place the Lord first and follow His plans and commands. We see Haggai deliver the second of four messages from the Lord to the Jewish people in Haggai 2:1-3. So let’s look at that message together:

On the twenty-first of the seventh month, the word of the LORD came by Haggai the prophet saying, ² "Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people saying, ³ 'Who is left among you who saw this temple in its former glory? And how do you see it now? Does it not seem to you like nothing in comparison?

On October 17^th 520 B.C., a month after beginning to rebuild the Temple, Haggai delivered a second message from the Lord. This message fell on the seventh day of one of the major religious festivals of the Jewish people, called the Feast of the Tabernacles. Normally the Feast of the Tabernacles was a time of rejoicing that looked back and celebrated the Lord’s faithful care of His people.

And as the Jewish people had laid the foundations of the Temple, hopes were running high among the Jewish people who grew up living as a captive in the nation of Babylon. Hopes were running high because they had never had the opportunity to see the Temple that was built by Solomon, which was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

However, for those who were older and who had seen the glory of Solomon’s temple, hopes were not high. Instead they were incredibly disappointed, as they viewed the foundation of the Temple as though it “seemed like nothing” in comparison to Solomon’s Temple. We see the Lord’s response to their disappointment in verse 4-9:

 'But now take courage, Zerubbabel,' declares the LORD, 'take courage also, Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and all you people of the land take courage,' declares the LORD, 'and work; for I am with you,' declares the LORD of hosts. ⁵ 'As for the promise which I made you when you came out of Egypt, My Spirit is abiding in your midst; do not fear!' ⁶ "For thus says the LORD of hosts, 'Once more in a little while, I am going to shake the heavens and the earth, the sea also and the dry land. ⁷ 'I will shake all the nations; and they will come with the wealth of all nations, and I will fill this house with glory,' says the LORD of hosts. ⁸ 'The silver is Mine and the gold is Mine,' declares the LORD of hosts. ⁹ 'The latter glory of this house will be greater than the former,' says the LORD of hosts, 'and in this place I will give peace,' declares the LORD of hosts."

Here we see the Lord proclaim a command, promise His presence, and provide a promise for the future. Even though the Temple that they were building seemed like nothing in comparison to the Temple in the Days of King Solomon, the Lord commanded the Jewish people to take courage and continue the work that they had began to rebuild the Temple.  The Jewish people were to take courage and continue the work that they had began because although the temple being constructed was very humble, the Lord promised that there would be a day in the future when the nations would bring their treasures to it in the times when God would fill His house with glory.

There would be a day in the future when the glory of the Temple would be even greater than that of Solomon’s temple. You see, the Lord wanted the Jewish people, and us today, to clearly understand that when our lives seem like “nothing in comparison” remember that God is in the midst of the small things.

The Lord wanted the Jewish people, and us today, to live their lives in a way that did not despise the small things. Instead, the Lord wanted the Jewish people, and us today, to remember that the Lord was present with them, even in the small things, and often worked in and through the small things to accomplish great things in the future.

Friday, we will see Haggai deliver the third of four messages from the Lord to the Jewish people...

A prophet speaking to people who had holes in their pockets...

At the church where I serve we are in the middle of a sermon series entitled when God speaks. During this series we are spending our time together looking at these letters that we often have a tendency to skip over, which are referred to as the prophets. We are going to discover who these letters that we have a tendency to skip over were written to. We are going to discover what these letters that we have a tendency to skip over reveal about who we are. We are going to discover what these letters that we have a tendency to skip over reveal about the nature of God and God’s activity in history. And as we go through this series, our hope and prayer is that God would move by the power of the Holy Spirit in our heads, hearts and hands so that we understand and embrace the timeless and timely truths that these letters that we often skip over have for our lives.

This week I would like for us to spend our time together looking at a letter that is recorded for us in the Old Testament of the Bible called the book of Haggai, which is the next letter that was written by a prophet chronologically, which is not necessarily the order that they are found in the Bible, where they are organized by size. So let’s look at the man and the message of the Book of Haggai, beginning in Haggai 1:1:

In the second year of Darius the king, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the LORD came by the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, saying,

Now to fully understand the man and the message of the book of Haggai, we first need to understand what happened between the time of the book of Lamentations, which we looked at two weeks ago, and the book of Haggai. In 609 B.C., King Josiah, who ruled over the Southern Kingdom of the Jewish people was killed.

After his death in 609 B.C., King Josiah was succeeded by a series of Kings who did evil in the sight of the Lord.  In spite of repeated warnings by the prophets, these kings led the Jewish people to turn from the Lord to worship false gods instead of the Lord. Then, in 586 B.C., the Lord fulfilled the promise that He had made to the Jewish people, through His spokesman the prophets, when it came to what would happen if they continued to follow false gods instead of following the Lord. The Lord rejected the Jewish people as He had been rejected.

The Lord removed the Jewish people from the Promised Land and destroyed the Temple through the Babylonian Empire who conquered that capital city of Jerusalem and carried away the Jewish people to captivity in Babylon. And from 586 to 538 B.C., the Jewish people lived as a conquered people in that nation of Babylon.

Then, in 538 B.C., as predicted and proclaimed by the prophet Isaiah, the Persian Emperor Cyrus, after conquering the Babylonian Empire, began to allow the Jewish people to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple. Under the leadership of a man named, Zerubbabel, who was the governor of the Jewish people, and Joshua, who was the high priest of the Jewish people, some 50,000 Jews returned in 538 B.C. and began to rebuild the temple.

However, after some immediate opposition, work on the Temple ceased. And, for the next eighteen years, the Temple remained in ruins. And it is in the context that God raised up two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah to deliver His message to the Jewish people who had returned from exile to the Jewish nation. And on August 29^th 520 B.C., which was the second year of Darius the King, Haggai delivered the first of four messages from the Lord to the Jewish people. So let’s look at that message together, beginning in Haggai 1:2-6:

 ² "Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'This people says, "The time has not come, even the time for the house of the LORD to be rebuilt."'" ³ Then the word of the LORD came by Haggai the prophet, saying, ⁴ "Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house lies desolate?" ⁵ Now therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts, "Consider your ways! ⁶ "You have sown much, but harvest little; you eat, but there is not enough to be satisfied; you drink, but there is not enough to become drunk; you put on clothing, but no one is warm enough; and he who earns, earns wages to put into a purse with holes."

Here we see the Lord, through Haggai, proclaim the position of the Jewish people when it came to rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem: "The time has not come, even the time for the house of the LORD to be rebuilt." Even though the Jewish people had been back in the Jewish nation for eighteen years, they proclaimed that rebuilding the Temple was something that could wait until a later date. “Now is not a good time to rebuild the Temple; the Temple can wait until later” was the position of the Jewish people.

However, we see the Lord, through Haggai, reveal the true reality of the situation in verse 4: "Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house lies desolate?" You see, the issue for the Jewish people wasn’t a lack of time. After all, the Jewish people had eighteen years. And the issue for the Jewish people wasn’t a lack of resources. After all, in 538 B.C. Cyrus had allowed the Jewish people to return to Jerusalem and was willing to provide the resources necessary to fund the rebuilding of the Temple. In addition, as the Lord sarcastically pointed out, the Jewish people had the resources to build expensive homes for themselves.

You see, once again the issue for the Jewish people was their selfishness and rebellion. The Jewish people selfishly chose to disobey the Lord’s call for them to rebuild the Temple. The Jewish people selfishly rebelled against the Lord by failing to place the Lord first in their lives. Instead, despite the Lord’s activity through Cyrus that provided them the opportunity to return from exile to their own country, the Jewish people selfishly placed themselves first.

And because of their selfishness and rebellion against the Lord that placed themselves over the Lord, the Jewish people experienced economic insecurity from the hand of the Lord. The Jewish people experienced the economic insecurity that flowed from a series of poor harvests that left them without enough food, clothing, or financial resources. Haggai then recorded the Lord’s response to the selfishness and rebellion of the Jewish people that led to them to place themselves before the Lord in verse 7-11:

 Thus says the LORD of hosts, "Consider your ways! ⁸ "Go up to the mountains, bring wood and rebuild the temple, that I may be pleased with it and be glorified," says the LORD. ⁹ "You look for much, but behold, it comes to little; when you bring it home, I blow it away. Why?" declares the LORD of hosts, "Because of My house which lies desolate, while each of you runs to his own house. ¹⁰ "Therefore, because of you the sky has withheld its dew and the earth has withheld its produce. ¹¹ "I called for a drought on the land, on the mountains, on the grain, on the new wine, on the oil, on what the ground produces, on men, on cattle, and on all the labor of your hands."

Here we see the Lord command the Jewish people to stop delaying and to start rebuilding the Temple. And is His command, we see the Lord call the Jewish people to consider their ways. The Lord wanted the Jewish people to consider that the way that they were living their lives resulted in economic ruin and poverty. And the Lord wanted the Jewish people to clearly understand that the reason that they were experiencing economic ruin and poverty was due to the fact that they had selfishly placed themselves and their plans before the Lord and His commands. Instead of following and bringing glory to the Lord by rebuilding the Temple, the Jewish people selfishly chose to follow and bring glory to themselves by building fancy and expensive houses for themselves.

The Lord wanted the Jewish people to consider that the way that they were living their lives resulted in the Lord bringing a drought upon the Jewish people. And the Lord wanted the Jewish people to clearly understand that the reason that they were experiencing a drought was due to the fact that they had selfishly placed themselves and their plans before the Lord and His commands.

The Lord wanted the Jewish people to clearly understand that the issue for the Lord wasn’t about wealth or poverty: the issue wasn’t about whether or not they should have a nice house; the issue was about priorities. The issue was that the Lord was not the highest priority in their lives. Haggai then recorded how the Jewish people responded to the message that they received from the Lord in verse 12-15:

Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Jehozadak, 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 showed reverence for the LORD. ¹³ Then Haggai, the messenger of the LORD, spoke by the commission of the LORD to the people saying, "'I am with you,' declares the LORD." ¹⁴ So the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and worked on the house of the LORD of hosts, their God, ¹⁵ on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month in the second year of Darius the king.

Haggai records for us that on September 21^st 520 B.C., 23 days after receiving the message from the Lord, the Jewish people began the work of rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem. After spending 23 days finishing the harvest season while preparing and planning how they would go about rebuilding the Temple, the Jewish people began the work of rebuilding the Temple. And as the Jewish people began the work of rebuilding the Temple, the Lord proclaimed a promise to the Jewish people: “I am with you”.

You see, the Lord wanted the Jewish people to clearly understand the He would be present with them and would empower them to rebuild the Temple as they strove to place the Lord first and follow His plans and commands.

Tomorrow we will see Haggai deliver the second of four messages from the Lord to the Jewish people…

Arrogantly rejoicing and exploiting those who experience distress and destruction will result in distress and destruction from the Lord...

This week we are looking at a letter that is recorded for us in the Old Testament of the Bible called the book of Obadiah. So far this week, we discovered that Obadiah was sent by the Lord to proclaim a message from the Lord concerning the nation of Edom. In the letters that make up the Bible, the descendants of Esau would eventually form the nation of Edom and were referred to as the Edomites. And throughout the letters that make up the Bible, we repeatedly see that the relationship between the descendants of Esau, who became the nation of Edom, and the descendants of Jacob, who became the Jewish people, was marked by hostility and animosity.

And in 586 B.C. the centuries of hostility and animosity reached its climax as the Jewish people were conquered by the Babylonian Empire. We looked on as Obadiah proclaimed that he, along with the Jewish people, had received word from the Lord that a messenger had been sent to the nations surrounding Edom to form a military coalition in order to attack the nation.

Obadiah revealed the arrogance of the nation of Edom, and then proclaimed that the Lord wanted the nation of Edom to clearly understand that their arrogance had deceived them. The Lord wanted to nation of Edom to clearly understand that they were about to be brought down and belittled. The nation that viewed themselves as invincible would be despised and destroyed.

The prophet then painted two word pictures to proclaim the reality that the nation of Edom would be completely and utterly destroyed. And as Obadiah continued to proclaim the message of the Lord to the nation of Edom, we see him reveal the reasons behind the Lord’s judgment of the nation in Obadiah 1:10-14:

 ¹⁰ "Because of violence to your brother Jacob, You will be covered with shame, And you will be cut off forever. ¹¹ "On the day that you stood aloof, On the day that strangers carried off his wealth, And foreigners entered his gate And cast lots for Jerusalem-- You too were as one of them. ¹² "Do not gloat over your brother's day, The day of his misfortune. And do not rejoice over the sons of Judah In the day of their destruction; Yes, do not boast In the day of their distress. ¹³ "Do not enter the gate of My people In the day of their disaster. Yes, you, do not gloat over their calamity In the day of their disaster. And do not loot their wealth In the day of their disaster. ¹⁴ "Do not stand at the fork of the road To cut down their fugitives; And do not imprison their survivors In the day of their distress.

Here we see Obadiah reveal four different ways in which the nation of Edom committed violence against the Jewish people in spite of the reality that the nation of Edom shared a similar family tree with the Jewish people. In spite of the reality that the Lord called the Jewish people to not demonstrate hatred to the nation of Edom as a result of their common ancestry, Edom responded with hatred and hostility upon the misfortune that fell upon the Jewish people at the hands of the Babylonian Empire. The violent selfishness and rebellion that the nation of Edom committed against the Jewish people progressed and escalated as the Jewish people were conquered.

First, the nation of Edom did not come to the aid of the Jewish people. Instead, the nation stood by and watched while Jerusalem was invaded. Second, the nation of Edom rejoiced and celebrated as the Jewish people were conquered and led into captivity. Third, the nation of Edom chose to respond to the capture of the city of Jerusalem by joining in and actively participating in the sacking of the city. And fourth, the nation of Edom helped set roadblocks the prevent the escape of the Jewish people from the invading Babylonian army.

And as a result of the nation of Edom’s arrogant rejoicing and exploiting of the Jewish people as they experienced distress and destruction at the hands of the Babylonian Empire for their selfishness and rebellion, the Lord was about to cover the nation of Edom with shame. The nation of Edom would soon experience the Lord’s justice and judgment for the violence and exploitation that they committed against the Jewish people, as Obadiah reveals in verses 15-16:

 ¹⁵ "For the day of the LORD draws near on all the nations. As you have done, it will be done to you. Your dealings will return on your own head. ¹⁶ "Because just as you drank on My holy mountain, All the nations will drink continually. They will drink and swallow And become as if they had never existed.

Here we see the Lord proclaim that the future judgment of the nation of Edom would be a prelude to a day in the future when every nation would have to stand before the Lord and answer for their opposition to the Lord and the people of the Lord. Just as the nation of Edom would experience the Lord’s right and just response to their selfishness and rebellion, every nation will stand before the Lord and experience the Lord’s right and just response to their selfishness and rebellion.

And just a few years after proclaiming the Lord’s message against the nation of Edom, the nation of Edom found themselves being gradually overrun by the Nabateans, who lived in what is now modern-day Jordan. And the Lord’s rejection of Esau and his descendants was not temporary. While the Edomites believed that they would simply rebuild their nation that had been crushed and destroyed by the Nabateans and return to power and prominence, the Lord had other plans.

First, the Nabateans eventually drove them from their territory. Then, in 185 B.C., Judas Maccabeus led the Jewish people to crush the remaining resistance of the nation of Edom. Fifty years later, in 135 B.C. John Hyrcanus, the nephew of Judas Maccabeus, forced the Edomites to be circumcised. Finally, the Jewish historian Josephus recorded the end of the nation of Edom in the first century as they had become fully engulfed by Jewish culture. Obadiah then ended his message from the Lord by proclaiming what the future would hold for the Jewish people. So let’s look at that together. Beginning in verses 17-21:

 ¹⁷ "But on Mount Zion there will be those who escape, And it will be holy. And the house of Jacob will possess their possessions. ¹⁸ "Then the house of Jacob will be a fire And the house of Joseph a flame; But the house of Esau will be as stubble. And they will set them on fire and consume them, So that there will be no survivor of the house of Esau," For the LORD has spoken. ¹⁹ Then those of the Negev will possess the mountain of Esau, And those of the Shephelah the Philistine plain; Also, possess the territory of Ephraim and the territory of Samaria, And Benjamin will possess Gilead. ²⁰ And the exiles of this host of the sons of Israel, Who are among the Canaanites as far as Zarephath, And the exiles of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad Will possess the cities of the Negev. ²¹ The deliverers will ascend Mount Zion To judge the mountain of Esau, And the kingdom will be the LORD'S.

Here we see the Lord proclaim to the Jewish people that there would be a day in the future when the Jewish people would experience an opportunity to live in the territory that had been lost as a result of being conquered and carried into captivity by the Babylonian Empire. During a time that is known in church mumbo jumbo talk as the millennial kingdom, the Jewish people will experience a restoration of the land that they had lost as a result of their selfishness and rebellion against the Lord. The Lord, through His grace, would fulfill His promises to His people.

Now a natural question that could arise at this point is “Well Dave that sounds interesting, but what does any of this have to do with us today? If Edom does not exist, and if these promises involve land for the Jewish people in the future, then what point does this letter have for us today?”

 If that question is running through your mind, I want to let you know that you are asking a great question. And my response to that question is this: This letter has everything to do with us today because it is here when God speaks, that we discover a timeless truth about the nature and character of God and God’s activity in history. And that timeless truth is this: Arrogantly rejoicing and exploiting those who experience distress and destruction will result in distress and destruction from the Lord.

You see, the point of the book of Obadiah is that the Lord is large and in charge of all of humanity and that the Lord will exercise His right and just justice against the selfishness and rebellion of humanity. And the point of the book of Obadiah is that the Lord will respond to those who arrogantly gloat and rejoice over the distress and destruction of others by bringing the same distress and destruction upon their heads.

The point of the book of Obadiah is that there is a day in the future when the Lord will return to bring justice and judgment to every nation and all humanity. And on that day, those who arrogantly looked down on other nations in their time of distress will be looked down upon by the Lord. On that day, those who arrogantly did not come to the aid of those in distress but instead rejoiced and celebrated their distress and destruction will experience the Lord’s right and just response to such arrogant indifference and celebration.

You see, so often we tend to read the letters that make up the Bible from an individualistic perspective. We tend to read the Bible from the perspective “what does this have to say to me?” However, the letters that make up the Bible were written to people who had a corporate perspective and who lived in community with one another. The letters were written to people who lived with a sense of corporate responsibility, with a sense that they were part of a community and nation and would be held responsible for the actions of that nation.

And for an individual or a nation to arrogantly believe that they were superior and invincible as a result of their location and resources; for an individual or a nation to arrogantly rejoice and exploit other individuals and nations in their time of distress and destruction will result in distress and destruction for that individual and nation from the Lord. We see this reality repeatedly throughout the letters that make up the Bible. And the timeless reality is that arrogantly rejoicing and exploiting those who experience distress and destruction will result in distress and destruction from the Lord.

So here is a question to consider: How do you respond when you hear about others who are experiencing distress and destruction in their lives? How do you respond when another nation or people group experiences distress and destruction? Do you rejoice as you arrogantly look down on others who experience distress and difficulty?

Are you arrogantly looking at the distress and destruction that may happen to other nations as evidence of American exceptionalism? Do you arrogantly believe that America is “God’s chosen nation?”

Because, as we have discovered, arrogantly rejoicing and exploiting those who experience distress and destruction will result in distress and destruction from the Lord...