Remember the Good Old Days?

I am as bad as anyone when it comes to thinking about the past and finding joy in old memories.  But I am also very aware of the dangers.  Last week at church we looked at the book of Haggai.  In this book, the Jews have returned to Jerusalem after the exile and have rebuilt the Temple destroyed by the Babylonians.  The problem was that the new Temple was a far cry from the glory of Solomon's Temple.  There were those who were longing for the good old days.  There are two things for us to keep in mind.

1) The Good Old Days Are Not as Good as You Remember - Think about the good old days of the Jews.  Most of their kings were bad.  There was conflict between Israel and Judah.  There was war with other nations and even empires.  Their worship was impure, taking on the worship of idols.  Things were far from ideal.  The fact is that we idealize our memories so that we can create a sanctuary to hide from the troubles of the present or the uncertainties of the future.  The fact is that the good old days were not near as good as what we remember.  In fact, there were people in our good old days that themselves were looking back to their good old days.

2) The Good Old Days Are Not as Good as the Better New Days - God promises the people that the latter glory would be greater than the former.  This happened in a couple of ways.  Herod rebuilt this Temple and made it much more glorious.  But even more than that, Jesus became the replacement for the Temple as our way of connecting with God.  Not to mention, the church as the body of Christ has become the new Temple as we have the Spirit within us.  Central to being a Christian is being a people of hope.  We have to believe that in some way things will get better and that the latter days will be better than the former.

The audio for this message can be found at www.stephenjbedard.podbean.com.