The Desire of All Nations Read Haggai 2:6–9. What is being promised here, and how are we to understand its fulfillment? Through Haggai, God announced a great earthshaking of nations on the day of the Lord when the temple will be filled with Divine pres-ence. The prophet called on his contemporaries to look beyond the present adversities and poverty to the future glory of God’s kingdom toward which the temple pointed. The main reason for the splendor built into the temple of Jerusalem was to make it worthy of God’s presence. Yet, according to this text, the Lord was willing to inhabit the less-than-glorious house and sub-sequently bring splendor to it. The people did not need to be overly concerned with the ways in which they could finance the temple’s rebuilding. All treasures belong to God, who had promised to dwell in this new temple. The Lord Himself was the provider of the temple’s splendor. “As the people endeavored to do their part, and sought for a renewal of God’s grace in heart and life, message after message was given them through Haggai and Zechariah, with assurances that their faith would be richly rewarded and that the word of God concerning the future glory of the temple whose walls they were rearing would not fail. In this very building would appear, in the fullness of time, the Desire of all nations as the Teacher and Saviour of mankind.”—Ellen G. White, Prophets and Kings, p. 577. God promised that the splendor of the present temple would be greater than the glory of the former temple. It would be a different type of glory because this temple would be honored by the presence of Jesus, in the flesh. Indeed, Christ’s presence made the glory of the new temple greater than that of Solomon’s temple. Read Hebrews 8:1–5. Whatever the glory of the earthly temple, we never must forget that it was only a shadow, a symbol of the plan of salvation. Think about what it means that, right now, Jesus is ministering in our behalf in the “true tabernacle,” the one made by God, not man. How can we learn to better appre-ciate the importance of the sanctuary message in the plan of salvation?
Posted on: Wed, 05 Jun 2013 06:11:52 +0000
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