Messages from Heaven Part 3, Monday

Hey kids, welcome to Junior's for Jesus.

Go grab your Bibles, we're going to be digging in

and learning some really exciting stories.

Let's get started.

We've been studying the minor prophets

over the last few weeks in a section entitled

Messages from Heaven.

And our memory verse is Malachi chapter 3 verse 16.

It reads,

then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another

and the Lord listened and heard them.

So a book of remembrance was written before them

for those who feared the Lord

and who meditate on his name.

That's Malachi chapter 3 verse 16.

Monday, about 100 years after Habakkuk and Zefania lived,

the King of Persia gave the captives from Judah

permission to return to Jerusalem

and to rebuild God's temple.

About 50,000 people, including Haggai and Zachariah

returned to Judah at that time.

Ezra chapter 1 verses 1 through 3

and chapter 2 verses 64 and 65.

The returned exiles started building with great enthusiasm

but the older people among them

remembered the beautiful temple that had been destroyed

and wept loudly over how different

the new temple was by comparison.

Ezra chapter 3 verse 12, Haggai was probably older

than Zachariah.

Perhaps he was even among those

who had seen Solomon's temple before it was destroyed.

He didn't argue about it being more beautiful

than the new one that they were building

but he didn't join the weeping about it.

When their enemies stopped their work,

the people started building their own houses

and planting their own fields.

Then, of course, God couldn't bless them.

Their gardens dried up for lack of rain

and nothing seemed to go right.

They were forgetting that they needed God's help

and protection.

So what message did God send them?

Haggai chapter 1 verses 2 through 10

and chapter 2 verse 4.

Thus speaks the Lord of hosts saying,

this people says, the time has not come,

the time that the Lord's house should be built.

Then the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet saying,

is it time for you yourselves to dwell

in your paneled houses and this temple to lie in ruins?

Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts,

consider your ways.

You have so much and bring in little.

You eat but do not have enough.

You drink but you are not filled with drink.

You clothes yourselves but no one is warm

and he who earns wages, earns wages

to put it into a bag with holes.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways.

Go up to the mountain and bring wood

and build the temple that I may take pleasure in it

and be glorified, says the Lord.

You looked for much but indeed it came to little

and when you brought it home I blew it away.

Why says the Lord of hosts?

Because of my house that is in ruins

while every one of you runs to his own house.

Therefore the heavens above you withhold the dew

and the earth withholds its fruit.

Yet now be strong, Zerubbable, says the Lord

and be strong Joshua, son of Jehazadek, the high priest

and be strong, all you people of the Lord

says the Lord and work for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts.

That message of courage started the people building again

and they kept right on until the temple was finished

and from the day that they went back to work

what did God say he would do for them?

Hagia chapter two verses 18 and 19,

consider now from this day forward,

from the 24th day of the ninth month,

from the day that the foundation of the Lord's temple

was laid, consider it.

Is the seed still in the barn?

As yet the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate

and the olive tree have not yielded fruit.

But from this day I will bless you.

God said that since they had remembered him

and built his temple he would bless their crops

and give them a harvest to put in their barns.

God also said that the temple they were building

would be more glorious than the one Solomon built.

Why more than 500 years later Jesus,

the desire of all nations would come and teach in its courts

and give it glory by his presence verses seven through nine.

Now let's apply it.

Do you know that you are the temple of God too

and with the Holy Spirit living in you,

your life will be more glorious and honorable.

You will witness to all who see Jesus in your actions.

That's 1 Corinthians 3 verse 16.

Do you not know that you are the temple of God

and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?

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