A word of encouragement
On the twenty-first day of the seventh month, the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai: 2 “Speak to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people. Ask them, 3 ‘Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Does it not seem to you like nothing?
4 But now be strong, O Zerubbabel,’ declares the LORD. ‘Be strong, O Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land,’ declares the LORD, ‘and work. For I am with you,’ declares the LORD Almighty. 5 ‘This is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt. And my Spirit remains among you. Do not fear.’
At the beginning of this second word from the Lord, the cast is the same: the governor, the priest, and the people. The Lord asks these people, “Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Does it not seem to you like nothing?” These were questions the Lord wanted taken literally. Some in the crowd had seen the old temple. It had been destroyed 50 years earlier. God calls our attention to the past. He even asks us, “Doesn’t what exists today seem like nothing compared with what was?” Yet our God is not a God of the past, a “has-been” God. He works with us today. He is a God of the present. We are to be thinking of the present too. There is no dark age in the church. There is no golden age. There is, instead, the ever-ongoing present age of the church in which God’s people, moved by his Spirit, do what he wills and pleases.
To be sure, there was the example in the past of the temple. But this does not mean that the believers of today are incapable of such a monument of love to their God, something just as good to give testimony to our faith. We don’t look back like Lot’s wife and turn to salt. We don’t exist in the church for “the good old days.” Today is the only day. The book of Hebrews says, “Today I have become your Father” (1:5). In Hebrews chapter 3 in discussing God’s house, a number of times the Lord mentions “today.” “Encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness” (verse 13).
In the face of the discouragement, the grandeur of the past, and the edifices that were, God speaks: “But now be strong and work . . . Do not fear.”
There are three imperatives: be strong, work, and do not fear. Strength is required to overcome the inertia of sinful flesh, which is going to drag its feet when it comes to building God’s house. Fear can cripple and hamstring the effort. The Lord says, “I am with you . . . Do not fear.” With fear aside and strength at work, progress is made. In physics, work is defined as “the product of a force acting and the distance through which the force acts, the force and the distance being in the same direction.” The Lord has worked it into his equation too.
The Lord is aware of the listless state we are in when it comes to building his house. The size of the work frightens us. We say lamely with the apostle Paul, “I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out” (Romans 7:18). Into this void and empty state with its surrounding weakness and hesitancy, God sends his Spirit, who talks to our spirits and stirs them up: “Be strong and work and do not fear.”
The Spirit speaks creative words. These are words with power and force in them, like the words “Let there be light.” And there was light! Darkness retreated when God said those words. Fear and weakness must also retreat at the powerful words “Be strong and do not fear!”
This isn’t a godly pep talk in which he tells us that we can do it if we look far enough inside ourselves. He isn’t hinting at the fact that there may be latent reserves of power inside that we haven’t tapped yet. No, the power comes from God. The courage comes from him. It comes through his words. We hear them, and what the words say happens. The proof of this is in the wonderful phrase “For I am with you.”
Fear not, I am with you. Oh, be not dismayed, For I am your God and will still give you aid;
I’ll strengthen you, help you, and cause you to stand,
Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand. (Christian Worship [CW] 416:3)
God’s Spirit remains closely connected to the work at hand: “My Spirit remains among you. Do not fear.” We think of Pentecost. Three thousand living stones were added to the church that day. No small work!
This work of getting people converted—building God’s house—is the most challenging work. The believer is tempted to say, “They won’t believe . . . they won’t accept what I am saying . . . they won’t support the work that we are trying to do for the Lord.” We need to hear, “Be strong and work . . . my Spirit remains among you.”