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The Temple to Remain as Nations Are RockedParadise Restored to Mankind—By Theocracy!
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11 “For this is what Jehovah of armies has said, ‘Yet once—it is a little while—and I am rocking the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry ground.’
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The Temple to Remain as Nations Are RockedParadise Restored to Mankind—By Theocracy!
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There was to be a universal shaking. He would cause it. Things high and low with respect to their earth would be rocked—out of their place, if not also to their destruction! But, through all this rocking, one thing was bound to remain standing—that house that the Israelite remnant had built! That meant that the pure worship of Jehovah was to endure, even as His house endured.
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The Temple to Remain as Nations Are RockedParadise Restored to Mankind—By Theocracy!
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19. According to Haggai 2:6, Jehovah was to do another rocking, but this time of what?
19 According to his declaration in Haggai 2:6, Jehovah purposed to do another shaking or rocking of the earth, this to be accompanied by a rocking also of the heavens and the sea and the dry ground. When? “Yet once—it is a little while,” said He.
20. As regards the literal rebuilt temple at Jerusalem, during what period of time would that rocking have to occur as a primary fulfillment of Haggai 2:6-9?
20 It was on Tishri 21 of the year 520 B.C.E. that he said this. The rebuilding of the temple was not finished until the third day of the twelfth lunar month (Adar 3) of the sixth year (515 B.C.E.) of the reign of the Persian Darius I. That was more than four years four lunar months later than Jehovah’s prophecy of Haggai 2:6-9. After that would come the inauguration of the rebuilt temple. Following that, Jehovah would fulfill his word and fill that sacred house with glory. (Ezra 4:24; 6:14, 15) Hence the shaking and rocking of things to fulfill his prophecy in connection with that literal rebuilt temple at Jerusalem would have to occur during that period of time (520-515 B.C.E.), as a primary fulfillment of the prophecy. The records of history would have to show how the prophecy was fulfilled in the international affairs of that particular time. It was indeed a time of considerable disturbance for the Persian Empire.
21. Why should we today be interested in a larger fulfillment of the prophecy of Haggai 2:6-9?
21 However, we must remember that the rebuilt temple at Jerusalem was typical. It was a small-scale representation of Jehovah’s greater temple, his spiritual temple where his dedicated people worship him today. So the larger and final fulfillment of Haggai 2:6-9 is the fulfillment in which we today should be interested.
THE CERTAINTY OF A MODERN FULFILLMENT
22. Since what year have modern nations been unsteady, and what question arises?
22 All informed persons will readily agree that, ever since the fourteenth year of our twentieth century, something out of the ordinary has been happening to the nations. World War I, which began in 1914 C.E., unloosed a chain of events that have sent all the nations reeling today. All their efforts to steady themselves, even with the aid of the United Nations organization for world peace and security, continue to fail. What is the meaning of it all? How will it at last turn out? Political forecasters of events and world historians have no reliable answer. But is there no answer?
23. The answer is contained in what message out of the sixth century B.C.E.?
23 The answer is contained in the words that come ringing out to us from Jerusalem of the sixth century before our Common Era: “This is what Jehovah of armies has said, ‘Yet once—it is a little while—and I am rocking the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry ground.’ ‘And I will rock all the nations, and the desirable things of all the nations must come in; and I will fill this house with glory,’ Jehovah of armies has said.”—Haggai 2:6, 7.
24. What questions arise as to the application of those prophetic words?
24 How, though, do we know that those thrilling words transmitted to us by Jehovah’s prophet Haggai do not just apply back there in that prophet’s time or a “little while” after? How can we be sure that those same words have a modern application in our own day?
25. (a) The answer is indicated for us in what quotation made later to people of the same race? (b) Why did those people need to be careful because of an impending catastrophe?
25 We know, because, a long while after Haggai’s prophecy, in fact, about 580 years after, those prophetic words were quoted under divine inspiration and were given a future application, to the end of this international system of things. As with Haggai’s prophetic words, this quotation of his words was made to Hebrews, to the descendants of the patriarch Abraham the Hebrew, only these latter Hebrews had become Christians in the first century of our Common Era. (Genesis 14:13; Hebrews 1:1, 2; 2:16) The quotation from Haggai’s prophecy was made to them about ten years before the destruction of Jerusalem and its rebuilt temple by the Romans in the year 70 C.E. Consequently a great change was impending, and the Christianized Hebrews had to be careful now that they did not suffer harm and loss along with those unbelieving Hebrews who still clung to the earthly Jerusalem and its material temple.
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The Temple to Remain as Nations Are RockedParadise Restored to Mankind—By Theocracy!
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No matter what world-shaking events might take place around them, this goal would be gloriously attained. Let all the rest of the world be disturbed, frightened and preoccupied by the shaking and rocking that unsettled them, the work of building the house of worship to Jehovah must go forward—to glorious completion!
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The Temple to Remain as Nations Are RockedParadise Restored to Mankind—By Theocracy!
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14, 15. The expression “yet once” is in relation with what—where and when?
14 When, though, is this to be? Jehovah of armies said: “Yet once—it is a little while—and I am rocking the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry ground.” (Haggai 2:6) “Yet once”—in relation to what previous? When, previous to this, did he do a rocking of things? This must have been down south at Mount Sinai in the third lunar month (Sivan) in the year of the exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt, the year 1513 B.C.E. On the first day of that month (Sivan) they encamped in front of Mount Sinai, the mountain at which Jehovah by means of his angel had appeared to the prophet Moses by miraculous manifestation of the burning bush that did not get consumed. On the third day of their encampment there, what happened? Let us read the account in Exodus 19:16-19:
15 “And on the third day when it became morning it came about that thunders and lightnings began occurring, and a heavy cloud upon the mountain and a very loud sound of a horn, so that all the people who were in the camp began to tremble. Moses now brought the people out of the camp to meet the true God, and they went taking their stand at the base of the mountain. And Mount Sinai smoked all over, due to the fact that Jehovah came down upon it in fire; and its smoke kept ascending like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain was trembling very much.
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