Can we not hear the same word as the leaders and the remnant and be as assured as they would have been? The Lord’s promise is just as relevant today. Life in the new covenant is in certain ways strikingly similar to that of the remnant community. They lived in the gap between promise and fulfillment: delivered from exile, but awaiting a greater deliverance. We know and experience that deliverance from the bondage to sin through Christ crucified and raised. Yet, we are awaiting a greater deliverance, the final fulfillment of God’s promises, at the last day. We are waiting. So how do we live? We too must live in faithfulness and obedience to God, even though we too at times cannot see how God is working for our good and his glory. We too grow discouraged. We too become spiritually complacent. We too may even despair at times. But we too must live by hope in the sure knowledge that he will never leave us or forsake us. We too need to be strengthened by the Word of God, in which he promises to be with us always.1 And his promise, his word, is enough.
13 Then Haggai, the messenger of the LORD, spoke to the people with the LORD’s message, “I am with you, declares the LORD.”