The Blessing of Uncertainty – Ezra 5:1 and Haggai 2:10-23

Key Principle: God has designed life with an uncertainty of outcomes so that we will not simply “do right to get right” and be satisfied, but be forced to lean on Him for each day and each need as we obey – still uncertain of the short term outcomes – certain only of His long term GLORY.
 

We started in the short mini-series in Haggai through the back door of the story of the children of God as they were returning from Babylon. The problem was God’s people had rebelled, and the chastising of God led them into captivity. That was just the beginning. Almost two generations passed in captivity, so the people about which we began our study we the grandchildren of the rebellious that were brought into captivity. They had a faith that spoke of a Promised land that they never saw. They learned of a Temple they never experienced. By the time they were born, nothing about life was “right”. They were living in “PLAN B” – a life that knew of righteousness and unparalleled blessing, but they hadn’t been experiencing it.
 
They were captives when God opened the door of freedom to them. They began to experience the blessing of God, but found that it was not without an enemy, and some difficult choices.

In that way, every believer I know is very much like them. We came out of a darkness but found that light also has its problems. How do we restart a life? What do we do when we are outflanked by a smart enemy and the progress of our lives is stalled? These have been the subject of the first four chapters of Ezra.

By chapter five, we saw a people demoralized by an enemy’s trick that caused the stalling out of the progress of the work. Life was now settling into a pattern of the ordinary. The exciting days of early growth slowly waned in zeal under the hot dry summer sun
of Israel. The work stopped, the people wilted and redirected their seal to self interest.
 

Into this scene God sent two prophets – Haggai and Zechariah (Ezra 5:1). We stopped our story to look more closely at what Haggai had to say to the people, and found four prophecies in the book.  

First, Haggai 1:1-15 offers the account of God’s encouragement through Haggai beginning in the end of August of 520 BCE. This message of renewal of commitment was picked up and applied within the month as the people began to renew the work on the Temple by late September (cp. Haggai 1:15). The story helps us to see how God’s people could respond when the enemy used discouragement of the older believers, took a shot at deception with the untested younger leaders, distracted and deterred the work of God, and finally used lies to derail and delay the progress (cp. Ezra 4). Into that scenario of defeat God marched with His prophetic voice and pushed the work back onto its feet!
 

A second prophecy came after another month went by, and Haggai 2:1 indicates that by mid October the work’s restart didn’t produce all the exhilaration that the initial trip from Babylon once had. The older people kept working, but were still discouraged (Hag. 2:3) and could not help but look back at former days. Leadership was still shaking about the lack of supply to build what they envisioned (2:4-7). Discouragement didn’t stop the work, but it took some joy out of the work and made it harder to complete.
 

By the time God used Haggai for a third prophetic word, nearly four months had passed. December’s winter rains and cooler weather had set in, and God wanted to address an important issue in the lives of His people. He wanted them to see that “Trust and Obey” was a means to an end of intimacy, not self interest. This lesson is a powerful maturing process lesson that many overlook. It must marinate in your heart. It is not a searing process – it is learned by a soaking process. You must think carefully, introspectively and truthfully about motives to grasp this.

Haggai 2:10 opens two final prophecies of the Word of the Lord that were given on the same day, and must be carefully examined.
 
In a sense, the whole message of Haggai is about principles for turning our theoretical priority to “live for God” into daily practice. I appreciate Pastor Timothy Peck who wrote about a series he was preaching on this book:
 
“The first week we talked about what happens when our priorities are out of focus, and last week we talked about how to deal with discouragement when it seems like we’re spinning our wheels. Today we’re going to talk about …turning kingdom priorities into action in our lives.”
 

I appreciated the way he put that. Focus priorities correctly, pull out from the rut of discouragement, put action on the priorities. Good words. At the same time, I want to probe deeper into what I believe was the underlying lie that kept bringing back discouragement to the people as they continually labored for God at His Temple.
 

Why was discouragement such a problem of people that are busy DOING THE WORK?

Let me suggest that we look past the obedience for a moment and into the motive… If we trust and obey God’s Word because we think it will work out well in our lives, if we raise kids in God’s Word believing somehow that God will surely honor us with Godly children as they grow, if we work and minister because we believe God will surely bring many to Christ because of us, if we give to God’s work somehow believing God will surely enrich our lives materially - we live our lives based on the LIE that God’s objective in life is to tell OUR STORY.
 

Before you hear the wrong thing, do not assume that I am saying that God does NOT bless obedience – of course He does. I am not saying that God will not honor our lives with good gifts. I am arguing that obedience has only one GUARANTEED reward in this life – the honor and glory of my Master. That alone must be my cause, or I live with some immature sense of entitlement
that is neither guaranteed nor universally experienced. God’s mercy and grace are never deserved – not even in my obedience. He owes me nothing, despite the reality that He offers me so much.
 
Godly people do face martyrdom. Godly men and women are hit hard by the enemy and will face the reality that obedience cannot be for self affirmation and self reward. God says that all things will work together for GOOD, but He makes no claim that I shall live long enough to understand that good this side of Heaven. I need to understand that. I can do right and NOT get the reward I think I am due. That will invariably bring disillusionment and discouragement. Yet, God has not promised what we have claimed that He has! Because this message flies in the face of so much that is said, I must take it slowly and show it carefully from the Word.  

God’s TIMING: Look at the first verse, Haggai 2:10 and observe first the TIMING of the prophecy: “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,…”
 
 
 

The was the month Chislev, the lunar one about our December 18, 520 BCE. The returnees made considerable progress since the October prophecy (cp. Hag 2:15-18). They had been at this since the summer, and had really moved ahead since the Autumn feasts. They weren’t wondering IF they should obey, they were OBEDIENT – but they were discouraged.
 

God’s TESTS: Keep reading, and God offers two TESTS in the word He gave Haggai:
 

Test #1:
Can holiness be caught by osmosis? Can you get clean by rubbing up against clean things?
 
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.”
 

Test #2:
Can defilement be transferred by contact?
 
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.”
 

What are these tests about? Well, there are a number of layers to this onion of truth. Let’s peel a bit to see some of them. We can simplify the equations as follows:
 
First, if the holy touches the unholy, the unholy remains unholy. Second, if the unholy touches the holy, the holy is defiled and becomes unholy.
 

One way to see the principle was stated better by Matthew Henry than I could, when he said: “…The sum of these two rules of the law is, that sin is more easily learned from others than holiness. The impurity of their hearts and lives shall make the work of their hands, and all their offerings, unclean before God.” – Matthew Henry
 

Second, I like the way one Pastor wrote it. He said: “You might think of it this way. Holiness is like being healthy… impurity is like being sick. If you’re sick and you go out among people, you spread your sickness as you come in contact with people. But if you’re healthy, you don’t spread around your healthiness when you come in contract with sick people…. so also impurity spreads but holiness doesn’t. The people of Haggai’s generation figured that because they were rebuilding the temple that automatically made them holy in God’s sight. They thought holiness could be caught by being around holy things or holy people. ” (Pastor Timothy Peck)
 

Finally, I want to dig one more layer. I don’t think these tests were about the people having bad HEARTS. The problem was much more subtle. They thought that DOING HOLY THINGS could make them holy. They thought that OBEDIENCE WAS THE GOAL of their walk with God. The truth is, many believers think that even now. The goal IS NOT OBEDIENCE, that is the means to the goal. The goal is DEPENDENCE AND INTIMACY, and that means that God didn’t simply set the world up to have believers pull certain levers and get guarantee. This is the ‘PRAYER OF JABEZ’ problem. Everyone wants a formula that will bring blessing. In the prosperity movement we are taught to GIVE so we can GET. In many evangelical circles we are taught to OBEY so we can EXPERIENCE BLESSING.

But there are several problems:
 

First, by working for God, we can get the idea that makes up for a WALK WITH GOD. In my journey with other people in ministry, I have quite often come across someone who was DOING the work of God, but had long since left an intimate experience WITH GOD. It is actually a lot easier to do than you may believe.
 

Second, we can easily begin our work for God in honor of His greatness, and in the end enshrine our greed and self interest. How often I have sat with an embittered Christian who was broken-hearted because they worked so hard for God and HE DIDN’T SEEM TO COME THROUGH for them when they felt He should. The problem was they truly believed that because obedience MAY bring blessing, and because real blessing ONLY COMES through OBEDIENCE, that God is obliged to repay my loyalty and obedience in this life and according to my rules – and that just isn’t true!
 
Haggai reminded them that holiness doesn’t work that way. Holiness sees as its goal the desire to serve the Master’s purpose for the Master’s joy. It is a story of a vessel that serves well.

Some will feel inside that I am robbing the blessing from our message, but I truly believe we have drenched the message of Jesus in self interest to the point that God is barely allowed to work with us in a way that is not of our choosing. Brothers, we are in need of an adjustment. A self interested heart taints the work of a Holy God.
 

• How many Pastors are broken for the lost as much as they hunger for the recognition of a larger crowd?

• How many churches are seeking the salvation of national leaders in prayer more than complaining about them because we feel they are robbing us of the peace, prosperity and power that came by following unashamedly the Word of God?

• I may walk with God and pray for my nation and yet they will stray.
• I may seek God for my children and yet they will rebel.
• I may live for Christ in my job and find myself fired.
• I may walk with integrity and yet suffer from a lie of the enemy told about me.
• I may eat well, exercise and die of cancer.