Our third book in this same time period when some of the Jews came back to Jerusalem to be where the Lord wanted all Israel to be. In Ezra you were reading all the things that happened and also what they did in their work. This book of Haggai is telling us things which the Lord saw in the hearts of these same people at that same time. Interesting? It explains a lot about ourselves when we look below the surface of our circumstances and at our state of soul. Though they had begun to rebuild the temple, not the wall, after a while they grew tired, and also because of opposition, they started to work on their own homes. May Christ be the attraction of our heart, and if so, we won’t slacken in our devotion to Him.
V.1 Haggai was the man to whom the Lord gave a message to deliver to Zerubbabel — remember him from the previous two books?
V.2 When the people returned to their land, the temple was in ruins, and they set to work to rebuild it. But after a while they became careless, and the work stopped. So God raises up a prophet to urge them to go back to work, but they say the time isn’t right.
V.4 The Lord notices that the people were living comfortably in their “ceiled” (like our word “ceiling”) houses.
V.5 This was at the root of their carelessness.
V.6, 9, 11 The Lord controls your every circumstance. If He doesn’t help, it doesn’t matter how much energy we use.
V.13 Contrast. We can count on the Lord to bless when we obey Him. But we sometimes try to use the Lord as a convenience for our own selfish motives, and then we wonder why we are so spiritually poor, and don’t understand the Lord’s Word. The “Lord’s messenger” spoke the “Lord’s message.” Use God’s Word when speaking to people. There is power in it. If you look in Matthew 1:12, 16,12And after they were brought to Babylon, Jechonias begat Salathiel; and Salathiel begat Zorobabel; (Matthew 1:12)
16And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. (Matthew 1:16) you will see who this man Zerubbabel is! What a miracle! This man didn’t know that his faithfulness would be recorded in God’s eternal book. Nor did he know that he would be the ancestor of the Lord Jesus as a Man on earth.