My family went camping over the first few days of Thanksgiving week. As happens, very little went to plan. We got rained out our last night and a few people left early due to sickness. But that is how it goes sometimes. I took my oldest son with me on Saturday morning, and it was our job to set up the campsite and prepare for the arrival of everyone else. We had a job to do and there were plenty of decisions to think through.
First, we had to pick a good campsite. We camp in tents and have a large family, so we like to be away from other campers. We also like having lots of trees around us for exploring, finding wood, and hanging hammocks. One must also consider that it might rain, and the location of one's tent becomes more important as the chances of rain increase.
Once you have the campsite picked out, it is just a matter of unpacking the truck, setting up the tents, chairs, tables, hammocks, cots, etc. Tents can be tricky and some are fairly complex, so they come with instructions. In my experience, the instructions are not typically fantastic, but they do the job. I do have a confession, though. I never keep those instruction books. I didn't think it mattered.
We needed to replace one of our tents before this last trip. The first tent our family ever purchased had been to several states and seen some severe weather. Not to mention that our kids grew up in it. It was time. We bought an exact replica of the tent that we had purchased a few years ago for my wife and I to use. When I opened this brand new package and saw the instructions, I flipped through a few pages. I was shocked when I discovered that there were parts to our tent that I was not using because I didn't understand the function. And I didn't understand the function because I threw away the instructions. And I threw away the instructions because I didn't think they were necessary. After all, the tent functioned as at tent. How was I to know I was missing out on even more functionality!
But many of us live our lives this way. We think we are functioning just fine. We look like we are serving the function of a believer. For all outward intents and purposes, things are great. But are they, really?
God's people found themselves in this situation in the book of Haggai.
The second part of the book finds that the people were well underway working on the temple, and were no doubt eagerly awaiting the day that it would be finished. After all, God had promised them that this temple, although less beautiful, would boast more glory than Solomon’s temple!
But Haggai’s message in this section is one of caution. You see, the work in which they were engaged was a good work. It was needful work. It was commanded work. God told them to do it. But the caution here is that they make sure to do it in a right manner. You see, nothing that we do, no matter how great or how noble it may seem, if done with impure motives or an improper spirit, will be accepted by God. And the same is true here.
There are those involved in the building of the temple with impure hearts and hands. If we are honest, there are many times that we run around attempting to build the temple of our heart and life while hiding impurities.
It is interesting that God specifically tells Haggai to ask the priests about the law (2:11). Although a prophet, Haggai was not a priest. And so the instruction was to go to the priests for direction concerning the law. God has given different jobs to different people, and in this case, it was needful for the priests to have input. After all, what God had to say to the people went for the priests as well. And so, from their own mouths they would be condemned.
The apostle Paul tells us of the importance of different gifts in the church in the book of Romans (12:4-8). Paul specifically mentions each of us has something to do for God, and each of us has an office in which to use our gifts. So, let each of us use our own gifts to serve in the way that God has given us. And in this case, Haggai was in the office of a prophet, and the priests were in the business of interpreting the law.
Part of that law is seen in Leviticus 10:10-11. Here, in the King James, it says, "And that ye may put difference between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean; And that ye may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the LORD hath spoken unto them by the hand of Moses."
So we see that it was the job of the priests to know and declare the difference between that which was holy and that which was not holy, and they were to teach the Israelites and put them in remembrance of what God had said.
Now the rules of the law, in this case are,
- That one cannot transmit holiness (Haggai 2:12).
- That one can transmit uncleanness. The law is express on this issue (Numbers 19:22).
Simply put, the truth that Haggai was trying to get them to recognize is that holiness is not communicable, but wickedness is. Many people think that they are somehow improved by rubbing shoulders with men and women who are spiritual, or by keeping company with those who walk close with the Lord. Understand this: there may be benefit in those things in regards to learning from them and being exhorted and encouraged by them, but we dare not think that a right standing with God and righteousness in thought and deed can be somehow spread to us automatically by contact.
Maybe it will help us to consider it this way: when a healthy person walks into a hospital room, their health does not spread to the diseased person in the bed. However, depending on the disease, sickness can and will spread to a healthy person.
Do not think that living by good people, or working with good people, or going to church with good people will make you pleasing to God if you are not right with him yourself. Rather, we each need to fear that touching anything unclean will defile us, and we must keep our distance from it (2 Cor. 6:17).
It may be good for us to peruse Paul's exhortation in Ephesians 5:1-12. If this passage steps on our toes, it is likely because our feet are planted in the wrong spot. The message to the people was that wickedness and uncleanness and unrighteousness spreads like a virus. Paul says that it is a shame for the children of God to even speak of the things that are done in secret by those reveling in their sin and debauchery. But we speak about those things. We read about them. We watch those things on television and in movies. In the worst cases, we seek them out on purpose and actively participate in them ourselves.
The main problem here for the Israelites was this: the whole time that they had been neglecting the temple, worrying about making their own houses look glorious, they were still offering sacrifices. They didn’t even recognize that God was rejecting all of their worship. They thought that their ritualistic worship would make their offerings acceptable to God, but their disobedience and neglect polluted their worship.
Does that describe your life - or mine - today? Do we assume that our holiday busy-ness and church parties and jovial spirits automatically equate a right relationship with God? Do we assume that God is forced to accept what we offer Him in worship?
One of my former pastors preached a series of messages called: Celebrate Worship. During one of these messages, he explained how worship is two parts: our giving it and God accepting it. And God was not accepting their worship in Haggai. I wonder…does He accept yours? Does He accept mine? Many people all over this country go to church regularly. Many of them probably had very similar thoughts to what we see in Haggai: no thought for God in their life, but certain that their attendance in church would count for something good.
I love the way Matthew Henry puts it in his commentary on the passage: “No,” says God to the Israelites, “your holy flesh and your altar will be so far from sanctifying your meat and drink, your wine and oil, to you, that your contempt of God's temple will bring a pollution, not only on your common enjoyments, but even on your sacrifices too; so that while you continued in that neglect all was unclean to you, nay, and so is this people still; and so they will be; on these terms they will still stand with me, and on no other - that if they be profane, and sensual, and morally impure, if they have wicked hearts, and live wicked lives, though they work ever so hard at the temple while it is building, and though they offer ever so many and costly sacrifices there when it is built, yet that shall not serve to sanctify their meat and drink to them, and to give them a comfortable use of them; nay, the impurity of their hearts and lives shall make even that work of their hands, and all their offerings, unclean, and an abomination to God.”
And the case is the same with us. If your devotions seem reasonable, but your lifestyle is wicked, you will find that your devotions are unable to purify your enjoyments and entertainment, but your wickedness will be able to pollute them.
May He be satisfied to receive our worship both during the holidays and all year long!
No comments:
Post a Comment