13 APRIL
Kingdoms shaken
‘For thus saith the LORD of hosts; Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land.’ Haggai 2:6
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Jeremiah 9:7–16
The effects of Messiah’s appearance: shaking the heavens and the earth. The prophecy was, in a measure, fulfilled literally: at his birth—a new star; at his death—the sun withdrew its shining, the earth quaked, the rocks rent, and the dead arose. In his life, he often suspended and overruled the usual laws of nature and exercised supreme power over the visible and invisible world. He shook the kingdom of darkness, spoiled principalities and powers. He shook the kingdoms of the earth—the idols trembled and disappeared before his gospel, till at length the Roman Empire renounced heathenism and embraced the Christian name. But the language of prophecy is highly figurative. Mountains and trees, land and water, sun and moon, heaven and earth, often signify nations, peoples and states. And particularly heaven and earth are used to denote the religious and political establishment of Israel—or, as we say, their constitution of Church and State. This, without doubt, is the primary sense here. The appearance of the Messiah shall be accompanied with the total dissolution of the Jewish economy. The whole of their Levitical institution was fulfilled, superseded and abrogated by the Messiah. Before he died he said, It is finished [John 19:30]; the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. And in a few years the temple itself was destroyed and therefore their former worship rendered utterly impracticable. Their civil state likewise was dissolved, they were extirpated from the promised land and sifted as with a sieve among all nations. Though in one view they are preserved a distinct people, in another view they are not a people—having neither settlement nor government, but living dispersed as strangers and foreigners among the nations (Hosea 3:4).
FOR MEDITATION: Nothing like this ever happened to any people. It is a striking, obvious and perpetual proof of the truth of the Scriptures. What was foretold by Moses and the succeeding prophets, is fulfilled to a demonstration in our eyes. How unlikely that it should be so, yet it must be so because the mouth of the Lord had spoken it.
SERMON SERIES: MESSIAH, NO. 3 [4/5], HAGGAI 2:6–7
