Before, the Holy Spirit was strong in this world, since then He is being shortchanged.

Haggai 2:15-19

Click for a description of the mark of the beast.
Click for a description of the image of the beast.

“‘And now, carefully consider from this day forward: from before stone was laid upon stone in the temple of the Lord— since those days, when one came to a heap of twenty ephahs, there were but ten; when one came to the wine vat to draw out fifty baths from the press, there were but twenty.” Haggai 2:15-16

As followers of Jesus Christ, from this day forward we should consider how the temple of God was built up during the days before the establishment of the United Nations in 1945, as described in Daniel 8. Since those days, building up the temple of God through the Holy Spirit has come up short. People are not able to draw from the New Wine which refers to the Gospel of Jesus Christ to bring reconciliation to God through the Lord Jesus. We know how things were before in America because there is practically a church building on every street corner. If someone were to argue about America being founded on God and His Son Jesus Christ, the question to them is, “Where did all the churches come from?”

Nowadays, nations around the world are coming up way short in building people up as the temple of the Holy Spirit. The USA itself has fallen far away from the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Message of the Cross is no longer found in the churches, government lawmakers no longer include the values of the Bible in their policies, the educational system rejects the teachings of the books of the Bible, and every sector of society rejects Christianity. There is no place to draw the New Wine which refers to reconciling to God by the remission of sin through Jesus Christ to receive the Holy Spirit.

“I struck you with blight and mildew and hail in all the labors of your hands; yet you did not turn to Me,’ says the Lord.” Haggai 2:17

The “labors of your hands” refers to what people do to improve their own life and to make the world a better place. They put their faith in human effort while turning away from belief in God and rejecting His Son Jesus Christ who atones for sin. They serve the creature human being and all the creation of this planet while rejecting the Creator God.

“I struck you with blight and mildew and hail” refers to the corruption of spiritual Holiness which is a result of turning away from what God offers us through Jesus Christ. The temple of the Holy Spirit has become filled with spiritual withering and death as the thing forming what people think, feel, do, and say sits in the temple, our body, as if it is God. Click here for a post on the “man of sin”. 2 Thessalonians 2:4

The “hail” is the judgment coming to the global government of the beast, and already we see the Fourth Plague of global warming in the world. Global warming is instrumental in bringing the collapse of the power center of beast, which is the power behind the global government, as described in the Fifth Plague. When the power center of the beast collapses, the thing which forms thoughts, feelings, words, and deeds will no longer exist. There will no longer be uncanny knowledge, nor extraordinary skills and talents, nor heightened intuition, no more amazing physical abilities and feats, no more uncanny authority over others, etc. The image of the beast will be powerless to live and speak through people, and the mark of the beast will no longer be able to hold people to a specific station in life. After that, comes the Battle of Armageddon as described in the Sixth Plague.

“‘Consider now from this day forward, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, from the day that the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid—consider it:” Haggai 2:18

We must consider our life and the state of the world today according to the day “…the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid”. That is the day which Jesus Christ came to this earth to give us the Holy Spirit by atoning for sin on the Cross. Our Lord Jesus came to make us the home of the Holy Spirit so that we can have fellowship with the Spirit of God.

“Is the seed still in the barn? As yet the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have not yielded fruit. But from this day I will bless you.’” Haggai 2:19

As we consider the foundation of the Lord’s temple, which builds our body as the temple of the Holy Spirit, we have to ask a question. “Is the seed still in the barn?” Is the seed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ implanted within us and within the global culture? Or is the barn of our soul filled with the thoughts, feelings, words, and behaviors of the anti-Christian thing which has power over our physiology? It’s obvious that the seed of the word of God is not yielding the fruit of the Spirit in this world today. The “…vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have not yielded fruit.” Even so, from the day we come to Jesus Christ for the remission of sin, God will bless us with the Holy Spirit and eternal life.

The anti-Christian global culture hides behind the fig leaf of humanism for its clothing as it lives by the thing forming thoughts, feelings, words, and deeds. For example, the killing of the unborn is called “Reproductive Rights”, etc. A ton of humanitarian and churchy sounding words are used to cheat us out of our reward in Jesus Christ. They worship angels instead of Jesus Christ as they intrude into the unseen realm in controlling thoughts, feelings, behaviors and words. They exalt themselves within the carnal mind as they throw the Gospel of Christ to the ground, as quoted below,

“Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.” Colossians 2:18-19

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“….to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan’s so-called deep secrets,“
‘I will not impose any other burden on you, except to hold on to what you have until I come.’”
“I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.”
Revelation 2:24-25, 3:11