Haggai 1: "In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest: “Thus says the LORD of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the LORD.” Then the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins? Now, therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider your ways. You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.
“Thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider your ways. Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the LORD. You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the LORD of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors.”
Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the LORD their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the LORD their God had sent him. And the people feared the LORD. Then Haggai, the messenger of the LORD, spoke to the people with the LORD’s message, “I am with you, declares the LORD.” And the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people. And they came and worked on the house of the LORD of hosts, their God, on the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king.
This is an adaptation of a lesson I shared today at Church.
Verse 1 provides us with the context. This prophecy comes during the reign of Darius of Persia. This was not the Darius with whom we are familiar from the book of Daniel. This Darius came a few kings later. This book of Haggai occurs about 18 years after the remnant of Israel returned to the Promised Land.
God sends Haggai with a message to Zerubbabel, the governor (Israel, being under Persia, could not establish a king of her own), and Joshua, the high priest. God has a bone to pick. The Israelites were living in nice houses, but God house lay desolate. They had laid a foundation for the Temple years before, but had stopped when persecution arose. That persecution had since ceased, but they had never found time to begin building again. "The time has not come to build the house of Yahweh," they said.
In Verses 5-11 we see the chastening hand of God described. He calls them to consider their ways. In other words, think about what you're doing and what the results have been! They had ignored God in order to seek their own gain, but God had turned their efforts around on them. Their efforts produced very little (see Vs 6). It was ultimately God Himself that enabled them to provide for themselves, so when they ignored Him to focus on their own things, they were shooting themselves in the foot. Matthew Henry said, "That poverty which they thought to prevent by not building the temple God brought upon them for not building it."
In Verses 12-15 we see the people respond obediently, led by Zerubbabel and Joshua. God stirred up their spirits, and they diligently set out to build His temple.
In apply this chapter, we must all ask ourselves these questions. Are God's priorities my priorities? Do we care about the things of God? Do we share His concerns?
In this day and age, the tendency can be to get so caught up in life that we ignore God and His house. We get caught up in cars, careers, and vacations and forget God. We imbibe the ideas of consumerism, entertainment, and materialism, and God takes a sideline in our lives.
I have two ways that we can avoid that tendency. Firstly, we need to seek first the Kingdom of God. Matthew 6:33 says, "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." Too often we go straight to the "added unto you" part of that. We want God's blessings, but we won't prioritize His Kingdom. When we do this, those blessings will not satisfy us, and God will take them away. Our country is currently discovering that.
Secondly, we need to build the Church of Christ. Now, God no longer dwells in buildings. There is no temple that we need to go out and physically rebuild. God dwells is us--His people. Therefore, we need to build up our fellow believers. We need to edify and sanctify each other.
Hebrews 10:24-25 tells us a little bit about the communal, corporate nature of sanctification. It says, "And let us consider one another to provoke one another unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching."
As we seek God's kingdom first, and as we build the Church of Christ, we can be assured that God will be glorified (Verse 8) and that He will be with us (Verse 13). God wants to see hearts that love what He loves. He wants to see hearts that prioritize the things about which He cares.
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