Minor Prophets 10 - Haggai - The Rousing Prophet

Haggai: The Rousing Prophet – Cory Collins

(Sources include The Wiersbe Bible Commentary and the ESV Study Bible.)

Name: “festive.” A hopeful promise of happier days that God offered Judah after the exile.

Date and setting: Haggai is the first of the “post-exilic” Minor Prophets (after the Babylonian exile). His recorded preaching lasted just four months, in 520 BC. His contemporaries were Zechariah (prophet), Zerubbabel (governor), and Joshua (high priest) (Ezra 5:1-2). The Jews had returned home. They began to rebuild the temple but soon gave up. Inspired by the prophetic ministries of Haggai and Zechariah, they finally completed the task in 516.

Outline:

1:1-15                  First Message: Conviction

1:1-4          Stop making excuses. Put God first in your lives.

1:5-11        Consider your ways. Believe God’s promises. Honor His name.

1:12-15      Begin to serve the Lord. Obey His command.

2:1-9          Second Message: Comparison

2:1-3          Discouragement (when remembering the former glorious temple)

2:4-9          Encouragement (when thinking of God’s future blessings)

2:10-19     Third Message: Contamination

2:10-13      The question of defilement

As an impure object might defile holy meat, they had defiled God’s holy ways.

2:14-19      The assurance of blessing

2:20-23     Fourth Message: Coronation

2:20-22      The judgment of the nations

2:23           The promise to Zerubbabel

The Christ would come through Zerubbabel. (Matt 1:12, 16)

Key principles from Haggai:

Be the one person who can move a multitude to action. Don’t just follow; lead.

Set goals. Finish what you begin. Do not let laziness or procrastination defeat you.

Do your part in building God’s “house.” Prepare for the shake-up to come.

Key verses from Haggai:

Hag 1:3 Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, 4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?”

Hag 2:6 For thus says the Lord of hosts: “Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land.” (Cited in Heb 12:26)

Hag 2:9 “The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former,” says the Lord of hosts. “And in this place I will give peace,” declares the Lord of hosts.