About a month after the people began building the temple, God sent another prophecy to Haggai. Apparently the people had been comparing this temple to Solomon's temple and noticing that this new one would be inferior. This apparently had caused them to stop working. God's message to them was that He was with them. His Spirit remains in their midst. God tells them to fear not. He also tells them to work. He promises to provide the materials for them. Gold and silver belong to God so He is able to provide them. God then promises that the latter glory will be greater than the former glory of the temple and in this place He will give peace. This is ultimately fulfilled when Christ comes to the rebuilt temple. It indeed had more glory than even Solomon's temple. I think this prophecy can be applicable to us when we compare our ministry to other ministries. Sometimes we can get discouraged when we see another ministry has more fruit than ours. When that happens, it is important to focus on God's promise to be with us and provide for us. It is our job to obey Him more than it is our job to have an effective ministry.
Two months later, God has another message for the people. Apparently they had this idea that since they were doing something holy, they should be seen as holy and should be blessed. This hadn't happened and they were actually dealing with a famine. God then asks the priests if something holy touches something else does that item become holy? No it does not. However, if something comes in contact with something unclean, it becomes unclean as well. Doing something holy does not make you holy. Since we are unclean. our uncleanliness spreads to whatever we touch. Anything we offer God is unclean. God then calls them to turn to Him and he will bless them. This is definitely applicable to us. It reminds us that no matter what we do we are sinful. There is nothing good in us, it is only because of Christ's mercy that we even have an opportunity to serve God. God makes us holy, not what we do.
This last prophecy comes on the same day as the previous one. This is directed to Zerubbabel specifically. God promises to shake the earth and destroy the strength of kingdoms. When that happens, He will make Zerubbabel like a signet ring. God has chosen Zerubbabel. There is some back story here. In Jeremiah 22:24, God curses Jeconiah by telling him that though Jeconiah was the signet ring on His right hand, He would tear him off and give him to Babylon. Jeconiah was the grandfather of Zerubbabel. This promise at the end of Haggai is basically God telling the heir of the throne of Judah that he was chosen to be a signet ring. This was after his grandfather was the signet ring which God had given into the hands of Babylon. These last few verses of Haggai are a beautiful picture of God redeeming and reconciling the line of David and Zerubbabel specifically and placing him back into favor. Sure enough, in Matthew 1, we see that Zerubbabel is in the line of Jesus. This entire book is a cool picture of God motivating, correcting, and restoring His people.
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