Penalties for Failing to Maintain the Temple of the Holy Spirit – Part 1: Individual & Corporate Discipline

“For now have I chosen and sanctified this house, that My Name may be there forever; and Mine eyes and Mine heart shall be there perpetually… But if ye turn away, and forsake My statutes and My commandments, which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other gods, and worship them, then will I pluck them up by the roots out of My land which I have given them; and this house, which I have sanctified for My name, will I cast out of My sight, and will make it to be a proverb and a byword among all nations.
 
"And this house, which is high, shall be an astonishment to every one that passeth by it; so that he shall say, ‘Why hath the Lord done thus unto this land, and unto this house?’ And it shall be answered, ‘Because they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, which brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods, and worshipped them and served them:  therefore, hath He brought all this evil upon them.” 
2 Chronicles 7:16, 19-22
 
In answer to Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the temple, God warned Solomon in 2 Chronicles 7 that idolatry would lead to the destruction of the temple.  In the book of Haggai, we see the aftermath of the destruction God promised in the event Israel disobeyed and worshipped idols.  Furthermore, Haggai also describes the discipline imposed upon the Children of Israel individually and corporately when they failed to repair the destroyed temple as He commanded.  Specifically, Haggai 1:4-11 reads as follows: 
 
“Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses while this house remains a ruin?  Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Give careful thought to your ways.
 
“You have planted much, but harvested little.  You eat, but never have enough.  You drink, but never have your fill.  You put on clothes, but are not warm.  You earn wages only to put them in a purse with holes in it.’
 
“This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Give careful thought to your ways.  Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,’ says the Lord.
 
’You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little.  What you brought home, I blew away.  Why?’ declares the Lord Almighty.  ‘Because of My house which remains a ruin while each of you is busy with his own house.  Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops.
 
‘I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the oil and whatever the ground produces, on men and cattle, and on the labor of your hands.”   Haggai 1:4-11
 
1.            Individual Discipline

a)            Haggai 1:6a - “You have planted much, but harvested little.”
b)            Haggai 1:6b and c - You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have                   your fill. 
c)            Haggai 1:6d - You put on clothes, but are not warm. 
d)            Haggai 1:6e - You earn wages only to put them in a purse with holes in it.
e)            Haggai 1:11 - “I called for a drought…on the labor of your hands.”
 
2.            Corporate Discipline

a)            Haggai 1:10 - “The heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops.”
b)            Haggai 1:11 - “I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the                           grain, the new wine, the oil and whatever the ground produces.”
c)            Haggai 1:11 - “I called for a drought…on men and cattle.”
 
The temple discussed in 2 Chronicles and Haggai is representative of the temple of the Holy Spirit, our in the same way that animal sacrifices pointed to Jesus’ ultimate act to redeem us.  Consequently, when we commit the sin of gluttony and make idols of our stomachs, God’s discipline applies for us today as it did with the Israelites in the Old Testament Book of Haggai.  God was angry with His people then for disobeying as He is now for the same reason.