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Glory Days
Haggai
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Haggai 2:3 Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it nothing in your eyes?[/perfectpullquote]In roughly 530 BC, after the children of Israel returned to Jerusalem from 70 years of captivity. God instructed them, through His prophets, to rebuild the temple. Haggai 3:4 says, “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. Work, for I am with you, Declares the LORD of hosts.”
When we look at Ezra 3:11, 12 we see that the people sang and shouted for joy when saw the foundation of the house of the LORD had been laid. “But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid”.
So, why the weeping? For the most part the people returning from captivity were ecstatic over the thought that the temple was going to be rebuilt. I can see two reasons for the sadness: First, these were the people that had gone into captivity: they were the people who had seen Solomon’s temple in all its beauty and glory. They were the ones who saw it destroyed by the Babylonian savages who had murdered their people and lead them into captivity, with little hope of ever returning to their homeland. And now miraculously they are back in the land and the temple is about to be restored. Second, they remembered the “glory days” and knew that nothing could compare with the beauty of the original temple. Solomon’s temple was one of the show places of the world. Cyrus, king of Persia instructed that the temple treasures, taken from the temple by Nebuchadnezzar, be returned to the people, although there was a part of the beauty that was gone and could never be restored. Also,there was a sense of normalcy that they remembered that never could be returned.
A phrase we hear a lot of today is, “When will things return to normal?” Or people use the expression “the new normal”. People are trying to adapt to this “new normal” but still remember how things were. We see this in worship where older people remember singing the great hymns of the faith that are no longer sung and have been replace by praise songs. They miss the large prayer meetings that are only attended by a few. Or the Sunday evening services that morphed into LIFE studies. We are in a time where “social distancing” is now practiced instead of a hand shake or embrace. However as Hebrews 10:25 tells us, “not neglect to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encourage one another.”
Yes, things change and we need to adapt to the changes that are before us. But rest assured we know that God does not change and his Word stands for ever. Therefore, we can rest upon His promises.
George Apgar
