God’s Promise of Future Blessing (Haggai 2:10-19)

Good morning, everyone Good to see you all welcome to Kootenai Church adult

Bible study This morning. We're going to continue our study of the prophet Haggai.

So I invite you to open your Bibles to Haggai We're going to be looking at chapter 2 verses 10 through 19 this morning, but you could also bookmark

Ezra once again Ezra who wrote the history of this period of time We're going to be going back and spending a little bit of time in Ezra.

But before we do let's commit our time to our Lord Oh, are these for me?

Bunch of presents up here you shouldn't have you didn't Let's commit our time to our

Lord and ask his blessing on our time our father we do thank you once again that we are able to gather and Fellowship In the name of our great

God and Savior Jesus Christ We know that it is by your grace that we are able to do this

Thank you that we can open your word and be taught by your spirit this morning So we just ask your blessing help us all to understand your word more clearly

Help us to be more obedient to what we learn and then help us to praise you For all that you're doing in our lives and we just thank you in Jesus mighty name.

Amen Well last time just a real quick review we we looked at God's promise of future glory and that was chapter 2 of the first nine verses and We saw that he had them remember past glory or actually some of them are remembering the past glory as the old

People and as the old King James said the ancient ones I was going to make a direct application that last time

But we don't have any ancient people here Okay, just thought I'd let you know and whether or not we have any old people

It doesn't say how old you have to be to be an old person. So personally, I'm gonna make a rather liberal application of that but There there were people that were obviously

Upset that the this new temple was not quite as great as the old temple enough of an issue for God to use

Haggai to to bring it up and remind them who is left among you who saw this house and its former glory

He asked how do you see it now? Is it as nothing in your eyes? He said and I was you know, and looking at that we went back and looked at Ezra I'm kind of wondering were they thinking that maybe they deserved a bigger temple

Possibly Well, then we saw that he reminded them of their present glory what they have to do now and exhorts them to be strong three times

Be strong They have a they have the promise of God that he is with them

No matter what they're doing and then he moves to revealing the future glory there's also going to be a future judgment and we saw this cataclysmic event not a local earthquake, but a a

Cosmic earthquake of giant proportions that's going to take place and then the future glory will be greater

And then the future peace will be greater So were there any questions or comments you might have had about what we saw last time?

Any Ancient people got offended. Okay good Well, how about some questions from verse chapter page eight questions to consider?

How did the older the ancient returnees possibly discourage or contribute to the discouraging of the rebuilding effort?

Any thoughts on that? We know that they were discouraged by the the people group that was there by the existing indigenous people

Also in there but okay

So the same audience is exhorted now to be strong and he says it three times says it to each

Individual and the whole group of people they are reminded of the Mosaic Covenant which obligated them to obedience but also promised

God's protection and presence the presence of God It's okay.

That's what why we're doing what we're doing Okay, number two since none of you ancient people want to talk about that first one doing

God's work God's way means working in total dependence on his

Okay, we got to depend on God's what? Spirit okay, or you could put strength spirit

His spirit is represented in his presence which he provides by his continual presence

Which he had promised in the Mosaic Covenant I am with you. He says what a promise if you're tasked by God with doing something no matter what it is

Good to know you have his presence Should remind you of the Great Commission Matthew 28 all authority is given unto me right and then what make disciples and Then the final part of that is and I am with you always

So number three at Mount Sinai Yahweh shook the mountain and the surrounding region in the future he promises to shake everything yeah cataclysmic and multiple references there

He's going to shake the heavens and the earth in other words all everything the nations as well And then number four between verses six through nine

Yahweh says I will four times Do you think he will actually accomplish what he says he will do vote for one?

It's an election So you know kind of was getting in the spirit.

Maybe okay? No, maybe I don't know or an emphatic.

Yes Okay, and I'm not trying to influence your vote here That's you can't do that not supposed to do that not supposed to tamper with ballots or influence votes

Just thought I'd let you know Except this is my ballot, and I can do what I want with it

Number five the promise of the latter glory being greater and peace in this place

That place being Jerusalem where the temple was that has not happened yet These will be features of the millennial kingdom

Jesus Christ will establish at his second coming multiple references there.

This is not a thin doctrine in Scripture It is absolute promise of the coming kingdom, and this is cover to cover in throughout

Scripture We have then a reference to Peter's Preaching he's preaching to the

Jews Down at the bottom of the page there Acts chapter 3 verses 18 through 21 And he says but what

God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets in other words. This is nothing new This is this is

God's plan God's Word from the very beginning That his Christ would suffer he thus fulfilled

Repent therefore and turn back that your sins may be blotted out that times of refreshing That's a technical term meaning the restoration of God's creation

Times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord and that he may send the

Christ appointed for you Jesus whom heaven must receive until the time for Restoring all the things about which

God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago bracketing this statement or is a reference to the prophets the prophets and That that phrase restoring of all things that again

The Jews would have understood what he meant by that This is God's restoring the fallen earth and the restoration of it that will happen when

Christ comes back And that will be part of his kingdom the the earth will bloom and blossom and it'll be restored creation will be restored

This is the same root word that is found in Acts 1 6 when the disciples after being with Jesus for 40 days after he was raised from the dead and He gave them a 40 -day clinic on the kingdom.

It says the kingdom they had one question that question was what? When they didn't ask anything else about it why he'd already answered those questions

They had a 40 -day clinic about the kingdom and their one question and they used the same the same root word as user

Is it at this time you will restore the kingdom to Israel? There was a high messianic expectation in those people and you see that all through the

New Testament They were expecting the coming Messiah in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.

They believed what God said simple they just believed what he said and so there was a high messianic expectation and When this happens and I think this passage is one of the key passages for understanding the nation will be saved

Then Christ will come back the exegetical Look at this would tell you that this is what he's calling them to do be saved so that Christ can return and he will

And when he comes back, he's going to come back to a saved nation of believing Jewish people

Okay, any other thoughts you might have or questions about what we saw last time Well, we're into week three

This is going to be page 9 and we're looking at verses 10 through 14.

This is the third oracle as it's called or message by Haggai and It starts out in verse 10 on the 24th day of the ninth month in the second year of Darius The word of the

Lord came by Haggai the prophet now once again we have that we've seen it over and over again this timestamp right

Mentioned it before I think that Haggai is called the most chronologically sensitive of the prophets and he is

He's so specific getting down to the days and here we have 24th day of the ninth month second year of Darius All of these oracles or messages of Haggai took place within about a four month period in the same year the second year of Darius and one of the things we need to notice is chapter 2 verse 1 in the seventh month and Then this one starts on 24th day of the ninth month, but if you turn one page ahead to Zechariah Zechariah returned

Somewhat after Haggai did but his ministry is going to overlap with Haggai's ministry so you see the verse 1 of Chapter 1 in the 8th month in the second year of Darius the word of the

Lord came to the prophet Zechariah so if you like to Scribble in your

Bible you could put between verse 9 and verse 10 Zechariah begins here.

So we're talking a lot about dates and times in our study That shows you there's some overlap there because Zechariah Clearly tells us he's beginning in the eighth month.

So we have 7 8 and then 9 Starting in verse 10 right there So Zechariah begins here.

And what does this Oracle talk about? Well, ultimately it's going to talk about a future blessing.

That's way at the end. So But what he has to deal with first is problem and you're gonna you've noticed this sort of a cycle, right?

There's a problem and God deals with that then talks about the solution talks about what it's doing to their lives

But then he gives a promise a future blessing and we're just sort of cycle back and forth

Around through the same sort of a sequence. So the first thing he's going to do is deal with this problem of unclean

Worship and the way he does it is to simply ask two questions what he's really doing here

He's taking them back to basics back to the basics of the law and the law early on I mean, this is even all the way back to Mount Sinai.

I think we talked about that last time Basics basics, there's God and he's holy.

He's up on the mountain and you are down here We're not holy and there's separation or distance between God and people

He's holy. We're not and he even put the barrier Around the mountain you can't come up to me

You can't approach God on your own basis If you're gonna approach God you have to approach

God his way and of course God made the way through that sacrifice that was made and at that particular covenant on Mount Sinai was a

Bilateral covenant the blood some blood poured on the altar representing God's part other blood was spattered on the people they were obligated to obey the

Mosaic Covenant and so what we have here is a is a

Return back to the very basic question of holiness and it says in verse 11

Thus says the Lord of hosts ask the priests about the law because the priests would have been the ones

Who would have interpreted the law and the people would have asked them questions about the law and so on Here's question number one if someone carries holy meat in the fold of his garment and touches with his fold

Bread or stew or wine or oil or any kind of food? Does it become holy?

the priests answered and said no in other words basic question can holiness be transferred or communicated

Merely by contact or touch and even here it's it's in the fold of the garment So it's not really even direct contact

But the but the basic principle is can holiness be transferred the answer is no in verse 12

And then the second question he asks Then Haggai said if someone who is unclean by contact with a dead body

Touches any of these in other words any of this food Does it become unclean?

The priest answered and said it does become unclean so the second question is

Defilement transferable the answer is yes and The difference in the answers there one one said no and the other one there is no word in Hebrew the biblical

Hebrew for the Word yes, so they just answer with a positive statement. It does become Unclean so here we have back to basics this basic Attempt by God to say here's the fundamental issue here holiness or unholiness and holiness can not be transferred but defilement can and Then he makes application of it in verse 14

Then Haggai answered and said so is it with this people and with this nation before me declares the

Lord and So with every work of their hands and what they offer there is

Unclean what's going on here? Why why is he bringing them back to this basic fundamental issue and back to what?

What was wrong with was in their lives they had gone back to work We know that from chapter 1 they had begun to rework work on the temple again

And yet as we're going to see they're still suffering the chastening of God Well, let's go back to Ezra since Ezra wrote the the history of this we looked last time at the event concerning the old people complaining about the uh,

The temple not being what it used to be but prior to that in Ezra chapter 3

We have the account of right when they came back Right when they came back to Jerusalem to begin to build the temple and remember they were sent back in order to build the temple

Even cyrus the great who had issued the decree To let them go back understood that This is the purpose.

You're going back to jerusalem to rebuild the temple And even financed by the persian empire so they really had no excuses

But in chapter 3 verse 1 of ezra, here's the history of when they write just when they came back

Look what they started to do When the seventh month came and the children of israel were in the towns the people gathered as one man to jerusalem

Big massive gathering of people this would have been thousands and thousands of people back into jerusalem

Then arose jeshua That's joshua the son of joseph with his fellow priests and zerubbabel the son of shealtiel with his kinsmen and they built

Not the temple they built the altar of the god of israel to offer burnt offerings on it

As it is written in the law of moses the man of god They set the altar in its place

Now here's a real There's a real tell For fear was on them because of the peoples of the land

Their motivation is not obedience to god if it would have been they would have been Busily building the temple right but for fear of the people in the land.

They got busy being religious Okay back to the law back to the requirements of the levitical law and all of these offerings

So they built the offer the altar And they offered burnt offerings on it to the lord burnt offerings morning and evening

Verse four and they kept the feasts of booths As it is written And offered the daily burnt offerings by number according to the rule as each day required.

They weren't missing anything They were getting it all down. They were checking every box and after that the regular burnt offerings the offerings at the new moon and at all the appointed feasts of the lord and the

Offerings of everyone who made a free will offering to the lord offering offering offering they were getting really busy really religious, right?

Then verse six Verse six. Once again, there's a time stamp that sort of is a bracket that closes this off From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the lord but the very next statement but The foundation of the temple of the lord was not yet laid

So they started to do that They gave money to the masons and the carpenters and food drink and oil to the sidonians and the tyrians

To bring cedar trees from lebanon to the sea to joppa according to the grant that They had from cyrus king of persia so They had a priority that was not god's priority

And you could say well, okay Well, what's wrong with going back to the levitical law and doing the offerings that it said to do there?

What's wrong with that? Wouldn't you call that good works? Sure, right

Yeah, I and well and they did not they weren't doing what god told them to do Your parents can probably come up with some illustrations concerning your kids, right?

billy clean your bedroom and billy Is doing some other stuff maybe good stuff, right?

But Billy you're not cleaning your bedroom, right? the question the cornell's comment is

I can come to god on my terms We're back to mount sinai they thought they could approach god on their terms

And god put barriers. No, you can't I'm, the one that's going to create a way for you to come to me apart from that You can't come to me.

Well, let's go back to haggai Now that we see the background of this this indictment He's taken them right back to basics right back to spiritual life

I'll say 101, but what's the 1 .0? Is that the better more contemporary? Okay back to basics and then he says

So so that's the problem unclean worship. They get they understood this that holiness is is not transferable

But defilement is And what is defiled every work of their hands?

And what they offer there is on clean Do you want a kind of a good working definition of paganism?

Okay religion without revelation When I say revelation, I mean the word of god religion without revelation

External religious ritual and it could be lots of stuff. I mean it could be good stuff You know everything and why of course it's going to be good stuff because you're using as a substitute for for internal spiritual reality external religious ritual as opposed to Internal spiritual reality and that external stuff could be probably is really good stuff

And I mean you can think of movements and groups who who emphasize that well We feed 10 000 people a week through our church.

We got rid of the pulpit and all that I mean we're turning this into a food bank. Isn't that a good thing? I mean and you can go down the list you can find all kinds of things that are good

But when you use them that way you're displacing the best You're displacing the word of god and the place that is supposed to have

In the body of christ and in the church. This is what they were doing External religious ritual is no substitute for internal spiritual reality

Think of nicodemus john chapter 3 this guy could check all the boxes right right down the line jewish a pharisee

Jesus referred to him as the teacher the article is the teacher of israel Now he may have been the preeminent teacher of his day

But he was at least a very prominent teacher and yet he didn't know the basics about being born again

And the lord rebuked him You're the teacher of israel. You don't understand these things.

Well, he's a pharisee. He's an expert in the old testament He could have understood it from many places right

Genesis 12 the abrahamic covenant. He could have understood it from ezekiel. He could have understood it from many places

Paul even told timothy because timothy he said you grew up you had the sacred scriptures He would have had the old testament.

He's not talking about the new testament. They're Able to make you wise unto salvation You can get saved from reading the old testament

I want to get off down a rabbit trail, but what do we have nowadays? We have a lot of people running around saying well, we just need to just focus on the new testament

Uh, the famous well -known andy stanley says we should decouple ourselves from the old testament

He didn't get that from god Okay. Well The problem was unclean worship

The people then are called once again to consider or to think carefully

In verse 15 it says now then Consider from this day and there's a very interesting textual issue here some commentators have said that all of the interpretive issues of haggai are between verses 15 and 19 and they are

And a very interesting one is right here the word onward there And in the esv here, there's a little footnote that takes you down to the bottom and it says or backward now usually when there's a little footnote concerning a word and you're looking at The semantic range or the the range of meaning, you know, you're going to have they want you to know

Well, there's a different kind of a nuanced meaning or a couple of them here. Well, that's not exactly nuanced, right?

I mean Is it going to be look onward or look backward? I mean that's kind of a polarity, right?

So that is an issue, but I think and and I the best uh commentators I think understood this that needs to be backward mainly based on context what he's calling them to do

Think back like he has before think about your life think back And he says consider

From this day and i'm going to use backward think back Because he calls him in the next sentence before stone was placed upon stone in the temple of the lord

How did you fare? When one came to a heap of 20 measures there were but 10

When one came to the wine vat to draw 50 measures there were but 20 in other words

The heap would have been the heap of grain From the threshing they would pile the grain up and then the the wine

So you have the basic staples of life back then, you know, you have bread and wine

That would have been the basics, but you didn't have what you thought you were going to have Even though you began to build the temple

There is still chastening taking place up to this point There were but 10 but There was only you came to draw 50 measures.

There were but 20 And then here's why god says I struck you

With and all the products of your toil with blight and with mildew and with hail

Yet you did not turn to me declares the lord He calls them to consider what their lives were like up to that point

Even though they began to rebuild the temple It just wasn't what it should have been there was still chastening continuing on even after their obedience

Their punishment was unproductive work Think carefully about this

They were back in the land and since stopping work on the temple for 16 years their hard work was not productive yet They still didn't turn to god in repentance

That's the blank there for verse 17 And then verse 18 calls them to carefully think back

From that day. This was the 24th day of the ninth month. And again, the time stamp is the laying of the temple foundation

He says in verse 18 consider from this day onward or backward Think back from the 24th day of the ninth month since the day that the foundation of the lord's temple was laid consider

Is the seed yet in the barn Expecting a no answer

Indeed the vine the fig tree the pomegranate and the olive tree have yielded nothing at this point in time

They were being Still being chastened because of their disobedience.

They had not returned to the lord yet. They had not In repentance turned to the lord what they early on got busy with external religious ritual

But they had neglected the internal spiritual reality Some scholars believe the stress placed on this date means that this day was the last day of their 70 year

Chastisement and why they still suffered the consequences of this judgment for 18 years after entering the land

But regardless of their past failures and disobedience they now have this glorious promise and that's at the very end there of verse 19, but from this day on I will bless you and so that's why some scholars believe that the

They're out from under the 70 year chastening now and now from now on in their land.

God is going to bless them the blessing or cursing all through scripture is Has to do with them being in their land

If you want to see the the relationship between the abrahamic covenant and the mosaic covenant read leviticus chapter 26 leviticus 26 because he's going to go through and it's a horrific list of chastening and and and All of the punishment that god will give them for disobedience to the mosaic covenant

But then he repeatedly says as jeremiah does but I will bless you There's a promise of future blessing and that's based on the abrahamic covenant made four plus centuries before That was not conditioned on their obedience.

It was conditioned on the faithfulness of god And so that's probably could be what is in view

In the end of verse 19 from this day on god's making a real point of marking the day one more time stamp in scripture

From this day on I will bless you one commentator says this

The people were to notice something on the day this prophecy reached their ears the 24th day of the ninth month

They were to notice that from the day they started to rebuild the temple looking back their hardships had continued

They still suffered shortages of staples Such as seed grapes olives and luxuries such as figs and pomegranates

However, the lord revealed that he would now bless them beginning that very day the 24th of the ninth month

This oracle explained why agricultural blessing had not begun immediately after the people resumed reconstruction on the temple

Their present dedication and obedience Did not wipe out their previous covenant unfaithfulness and its punishments

That punishment had to run its course. But now As the day of this prophecy god would begin to bless the people with better harvests

This message surely must have encouraged the jews to persevere in their obedience God will bless his people for their obedience

But sometimes he will not erase the punishment that previous sins have made necessary Sometimes that punishment must run its course before blessings can begin so god's promise of future blessing

Is based upon his covenant faithfulness by which he bound himself

To the terms of the abrahamic covenant and all its provisions. Remember abraham did not participate in that God put him in a trance

And he was on the sidelines just watching in a vision This covenant promise in genesis 15 the the cutting of the covenant and god himself passed through the parts of the animals

It was Unconditional Unilateral and it depends totally on the faithfulness and the power of god to bring it to pass.

That's why these people are still Surviving after 70 years of captivity They are going to be the people through whom god provides messiah

The seed promise and that's what we're going to look at next time Do you have any thoughts or questions about?

this oracle here brian He wanted to know who the commentator was i'd have to get back with you on that I don't have it here on my notes.

It might have been Sounds like him Yeah, could it be charles feinberg i'd have to check and see to verify that It's not my comment.

I just want to make sure that that'd be plagiarism. We Can't do that Well, you can do that and maybe rise to some higher heights in It's any any other questions?

cornell Yeah, all scripture is god breathe.

I think jim brought that out in our study of god wrote a book all scripture god breathed and profitable so There's a prophet even in the very short things that people that that god has written and communicated.

So Any other thoughts or questions that you might have? There is a uh, There's if you didn't get notes, there's more of the notes

Around but then there's also uh, this little time chart here I was kind of hesitant about reproducing this but we're going to talk about a little bit next time

You've noticed how how much how many time? Uh, how much time is part of what we've been studying right?

In fact, it's it's a major part of a lot of things if you even some of the sort of the historic Uh arm wrestling theologically back and forth if you just kind of boil it down what's it about it's about timing

You know, are you pre are you post are you all those are timing issues? So it's it's an important issue

And uh, what kind of motivated me motivated me to put this together was in in my studies of haggai of of course and i'm looking at commentators that are um conservative for the most part and and exegetical commentators that kind of get you back behind the the um

The the usual english translations, but even they are mentioning other commentators and historically um

There have been commentators who have looked at the 70 years that we see in jeremiah and so on And they basically kind of can't put it all together

And they can't figure it out. So what do they immediately do they pronounce it as well that that number can't be taken literally

You can't that's not 70 years That's so you have to spiritualize that okay and um

That's something that um, I I personally Disagree with on a on a on an exegetical basis from scripture

But it's a it's kind of a it's kind of a way that people reconcile in their own minds

Apparently how they can't figure this out. And the second way is if it if it conflicts with their theological

System well, they have to pronounce instead of changing their theological system to Come closer to identifying the word of god with the word of god.

They say well that word can't be taken Literally, you must have to spiritualize it and there are scholars who want to say this can't be taken literally

Well, I came across an article there and it's that's under At the very back on page three um, dr.

Talbert It's a real you can look that article up. It's it's A short article and basically so was it 70 years or not?

And as I read through that article what he did he basically showed from the text of scripture There are different aspects to this 70 years

And uh, so what I thought I would try to do is try to chart this. Okay. Now, this is a draft

Okay, and it says possible. All right, so don't you know, don't hold me to this is not for public consumption

Just for you guys. Okay We're going to talk about this a little bit next time But I encourage you just kind of go through this and see what you think

So if and I believe he's correct in this understanding there are different aspects to the 70 years

There is a 70 year land Issue, right? And what did we see back from second chronicles 36 and we talked about from leviticus

They failed to let the land lie fallow or desolate To let the land have its rest and they did that for 490 years

And so when they went out of the land that 70 years is just not an arbitrary number God is basically saying you're not letting the land have its sabbaths

So I will and out they went so there's a 70 years that's applied to the land But then there's also the 70 year captivity of the people

This is the one people most people commonly think of the 70 year captivity in babylon It probably started in somewhere around 606

The decree of cyrus was 538 and the bottom line is if you just kind of Look at these as individual aspects.

You can easily see how 70 years Fits this and it does And then babylon.

This one's a fascinating one to me the babylonian Neo -babylonian empire came into existence 609.

You can just you look that up on any any Source you have they'll they'll say if you look up a syrian empire

It came to an end in 609 why because the neo -babylonians conquered them in 609

So whether it's the end of the the syrian empire or the start of the babylonian empire at 609

That's a pretty firm number And then when did it come to an end? Daniel five that night in one night.

Boom. It came to an end. Daniel witnessed that handwriting on the wall, right? and uh

In fact, we have time real quick. Let's let's look at daniel Well, we won't take time this time.

We'll do it next time. But daniel when he's reading the handwriting on the wall He says your the you days have been numbered.

Okay, and when you see this timeline you realize he's He's really means this your days have been numbered and tonight's the end of it

And it's 539 that is a well agreed upon date And it's what's amazing about it is is that this kingdom was surrounded by massive walls

And they were impregnable. They had the river running right through the middle of it. They were growing crops in there They were storing grain.

They were impregnable and even the siege of jerusalem took 10 years to go back to To jeremiah 52 in those passages they they put the siege around it would take a long time

But in one night babylon that amazing kingdom fell boom They were pretty smug pretty secure inside of there because they had all the provisions

They had this massive wall that two chariots could pass by on the top They could parole patrol their perimeter from the top of the wall

And yet the emido persian empire took them down in one night and that very night It says belshazzar was killed and daniel witnessed that and so daniel at that point in time would have said

This is this is the end and he could have calculated back And he also could understand and he received in a letter form jeremiah's prophet of the 70 years

So we'll talk about this a little bit next time But I think you can you can know that when god says 70 years, it's 70 years

Okay. Now your first impulse should not be Well, you can't take that literally it's an indefinite period of time

Your first impulse should be I can't figure it out because i'm fallible but i'm going to take god for what he says in his word and Again this is just a possible time chart

And by the way If you turn to page two and i'm giving you this because I know a bunch of you guys are a whole lot better on A computer a calculator than I am.

So check this one out. Check out page two This guy actually figured out from this date in haggai

He figured it out and calculated it all out down to the day And so this timeline is 70 year captivity based on the captivity of ezekiel in 590

To haggai's date in 520. Okay, and that may be

That may be the an actual timeline as well. So Look at this. We'll talk a little bit about it next time but really the bottom line is we can trust the word of god for what it says and we don't need to Spiritualize the text of scripture.

It is not spiritual in the positive biblical sense to do that to the word of god Okay, you have any thoughts or questions?

About what we saw No, do I need to raise some more controversial, uh issues here

Yeah Yeah, and I I think he's going to do that based on their obedience now we know

Because we have the history of jerusalem and israel after that This temple was was um

Rebuilt by herod the great at about 10 bc and that temple Was destroyed in 70 so clearly they went back to their old ways

There's a principle in scripture concerning prophecy that oftentimes Well, you what you'll see is a a a far fulfillment

But then there will be a near fulfillment So when isaiah told king ahaz the lord himself will give to you a sign

And that sign was the birth of this one called emmanuel. Well, we know who that is, right? But that was the birth of christ centuries into the future, how can that be assigned to to ahaz well so you have this principle of A prophecy given but you have a near fulfillment which is serves as the guarantee

Paul develops this in ephesians one with the spirit And he uses the word that is actually commonly translated earnest or down payment

The spirit that is that indwells a believer here and now is just a down payment There will be a far fulfillment in the future that it will be beyond your wildest imaginations of the spirit's activity, so um

If that answers the question, I think you find if you say well, how is how can this be a fulfillment?

Well, there's a near fulfillment that guarantees the future fulfillment in these prophecies It has been called that yeah

Yep, there's a bunch of them. I tend to not call it dual I just say near versus far

Because paul uses the word are a bone in ephesians one. That's a greek term for it means earnest in other words

Just apply it to purchasing anything you purchase a house You have an earnest payment, but that what does that do that guarantees the future full full payment that will come?

Exactly. Yeah Yeah that um, he brought up.

Um Robert culver was his name. I believe i'm not sure the name but in the 1940s

He wrote a book and that's where that quote comes from and it's absolutely true to this day if if the if the

The basic sense the literal sense the normal sense makes plain sense seek no other sense of the scripture

Yeah, so we're talking about hermeneutics here or how do you interpret scripture?

This this gets back down and accounts for a lot of the differences you see, you know

There's how does how does one group of people? Read the same scripture and come up to this conclusion and another group reads it comes to this conclusion

And then they you know, they arm wrestle about what does it mean? Well back back back go clear back back back

How do you interpret and and that's going to tell you how they got there? Your theological conclusions will never be more biblical than your hermeneutics ever

Another way to say that is your hermeneutics will determine your theology always

Let me hear your theology Can tell you what your hermeneutics are and so yeah, um

Hermeneutics are a critical issue to understand I think cornell's going to be talking about that too. He's going to solve all the problems next time

No, but it is it is a big issue and and daniel and he's brought this out in daniel

Daniel has just been ravaged by the by the critics through the years. Why because it's predictive prophecy

I mean it is so clearly predictive prophecy and predictive prophecy in scripture is

Probably the most powerful argument for this being the word of god God uses this in isaiah.

Basically. He challenges the idols Can you can you prophesy the future you idol and can you bring it to pass?

God can do both and he does and so The the critics don't don't like that because if it's true what it says about the predictions that it makes

What's it say about them and their future? They got a problem. And so if you even go, uh wikipedia check out wikipedia prophet daniel and what it's going to say is second -century bc prophet second century

There you go But I mean this is commonly Thought you know, how could daniel be second century?

They have to date him there because they have to make him a historian They can't make him what he is in scripture a prophet used by god to predict the future with precision and accuracy and going across vast periods of time and even well into the future and has to be done away with if you're someone who does not believe the bible is the word of god because What it says about you, right?

John said it men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. So they got to extinguish the light any way they can

Okay, any other thoughts that you might have? Well, we've opened up multiple cans of worms here today and that's good.

That's good These are issues we need to be talking about because the bible does have answers for them. Well, let's pray

Our father thank you for our time in your word this morning and thank you that we can trust your word Whether it's haggai or daniel or as as we will hear now from from hebrews we

Your word is trustworthy and even though critics assail it Apostates twist it and pervert it

We can trust your word and we just thank you For your spirit who is our teacher and now father as we gather to worship you

We pray that you would be exalted that you would just give strength and encouragement to those who minister to us in leading worship and from the pulpit today help us to be

Not just hearers of your word but doers as well help us to learn and to grow in the grace and knowledge of our lord and savior jesus christ and Accomplish it all for your glory in his name.