Let's turn to Haggai chapter two, if you would at this time.

Haggai chapter two.

Now Haggai the prophet, we're going to find out that he was a prophet during the time of the

rebuilding of the temple.

And there's kind of a thing, we need to do a little bit of review, perhaps, to make sure

that we're all on the same page,

because there's an interesting history, at least I think it's interesting, I hope you do too, but as it turns out, the temples of Jerusalem do matter, even to you Gentiles from Portland.

And there's stories and there's lessons to be learned from the story of the temple and what have you.

But the history of the temple, let me just give you a quick summary.

It all kind of started there when the children of Israel left Egypt as slaves.

And they were wilderness wandering for those 40 long years.

While they were there, the Lord instructed Moses and Aaron to

build a tabernacle, a place of meeting, a place of worship, the Holy of Holies, and the altar,

and the altar of incense, and the table of showbread, and the candlesticks and all those things.

So a guy named Bezileel was one of the artisans that was used to fashion this beautiful tabernacle.

And I say beautiful.

It was kind of beautiful in the inside, but the outside of the tabernacle was fairly plain.

It was covered in badger's skins.

And so it really didn't look that impressive on the outside, but you'd walk inside,

and there were beautiful pieces of furniture and gold and vessels and all kinds of stuff

that they would do there with the tabernacle. And that would be the place of worship even when

they conquered the promised land in the land of Canaan. They would bring the tabernacle and eventually

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