“Thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘Consider your ways!’” Haggai 1.7 NKJV
The king sends envoys and messengers to communicate because ostensibly he’s too busy running the kingdom to run the errands, right?
Or perhaps he sends messengers because it would be inappropriate, beneath the dignity of the office, to galavant all over the world and communicate directly, in person.
The very fact of the existence of the message means there’s a messenger, which means there’s a go-between. There’s insulation between the king and his people. There’s a disconnect. That’s one way of looking at it, for sure. But there’s another, and that’s that there’s an intermediary, which means the king’s people have an advocate. An advocate is someone who speaks for you.
In John 14, Phillip came to Jesus and asked Him to show the Father to the disciples, saying that this revelation would be enough. In other words, Phillip believed that if he could behold the Father, he would never need to ask for anything ever again. Take that in for a moment. It’s a stunning statement in the form of a request, and Jesus doesn’t rebuke his faith. In fact I believe He encourages it in v9 by saying, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.”
Yesterday’s blog was written to demonstrate how God works through His messengers, His agents, to reveal His will and His Way. Today’s Firewatch is all about how, paradoxically, God can be the messenger too. In fact He can be the message itself.
Jesus was born to die, at once the prototype and the archetype life of man perfected by virtue of God indwelling the dust of the earth. He is the first and the best, and He is the example and the intent. Jesus is the Word God meant to say, and what a message He bore: that the law which barred the gates of heaven had been fulfilled, the blood sacrifice our sin required was provided, the faith we needed to be able to please God was given. He was sent as a messenger, and, being the Word of God made flesh, He was the message too.
What the prophet Haggai wrote is instructive. It is an imperative, a command from the King to consider our ways. We can only do that properly in the light. What better light is there than the Word, who, if we have beheld Him, we have beheld the King?
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