Wm. Bousfield
Haggai
Haggai 1:1-15
1. In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, saying,
2. Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the Lord’s house should be built.
3. Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying,
4. Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your veiled houses, and this house lie waste?
5. Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways.
6. Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages, earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.
7. Thus smith the Lord of hosts, Consider your ways.
8. Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord.
9. Ye looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the Lord of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house.
10. Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit.
11. And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground bringeth forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labor of the hands.
12. Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Josedech, 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 did fear before the Lord.
13. Then spake Haggai the Lord’s messenger, in the Lord’s message unto the people, saying, I am with you, saith the Lord,
14. And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Scrub-babel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and did work in the house of the Lord of hosts, their God,
15. In the four and twentieth day of the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king.
Haggai 2:18-19
18. Consider now from this day and upward, from the four and twentieth day of the ninth month, even from the day that the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid, consider it.
19. Is the seed yet in the barn? yea, as yet the vine, and the fig-tree, and the pomegranate, and the olive tree, hath not brought forth: from this day will I bless you.
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One of the first marks of soul declension is loss of spiritual perception.
In the book of Ezra we read of the zeal and energy with which the rebuilding of the house of God was commenced by the godly remnant of the Jews on their return from captivity. But opposition arose, and in Ezra 4:23-24 we find that their opponents made them to cease “by force and power.”
Then with them, as with all who cease to advance, decline set in: they speedily fell into line with their surroundings, and put forth the miserable excuse for their lack of interest and loss of zeal, that the time had “not come, the time that the Lord’s house should be built”; when, as a matter of fact, they had lost spiritual understanding as to what was suited to God, and as a natural consequence they fell into the condition so sorrowfully mourned over by the Apostle Paul, when, writing to the Philippians he said, “all seek their own” (Phil. 2:21).
But if they had lost heart and interest in God and His things, God had not lost His interest in them nor in His house. Therefore He sends the prophet Haggai to them with “Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts saying” (verse 2).
Fellow Christians, do we find ourselves beset with spiritual drought, blight, barrenness, want of dew; have we to mourn the lack of satisfaction and precious sheaves of harvest? If so, God would put to us the same solemn question today as He put to His people then, “Why? saith the Lord of hosts” (verse 9).
There can be nothing more searching than this one word from God “Why?” Let us take it into the sanctuary of His presence, and answer it there, and we shall certainly get the same word now as then, “Because of Mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house” (verse 9). When God’s things are neglected for our own, when “all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s,” spiritual poverty must result. That is its secret and source.
But God presented Himself to them as “the Lord of hosts.” They had desisted from the work of the house of God under pressure of the authority of an earthly king, but He was the very Lord of hosts, and would have put forth His mighty power for them had they been but true to Him and to His interests.
It is most interesting to trace the various steps in connection with this wonderful revival, ‘ and to see how blessedly God can work in a short time (here it was 24 days, compare verses and 5), when there is obedience to His word, and a willingness to respond to His claim on our obedience and affections.
How solemn and searching are the words “Consider your ways” (verses 5 and 7): the “ways” go to the root of things.
“He made known His ways unto Moses, His acts unto the children of Israel” (Psalm 103: 7).
“When a man’s ways please, the Lord he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him” (Prov. 16:7).
The ways include the hidden springs which lead to the outward acts, and we need in self-judgment to take our ways into the divine presence and let them be fully weighed in the balance of the sanctuary. Then much of the “own ceiled house” hindrance would be exposed, and dealt with, and we should learn in God’s way the answer to His “why” (verse 9). We should find out the “why” of the absence of blessing and power, and the awful barrenness and blight which have so long fallen upon us.
But, the darkest hour did but herald the dawn of a brighter day; and as then, so now, for are we not even now on the eve of a wonderful blessing? Everywhere there is great expectancy and a quickening of the pulses of God’s dear saints, with increased interest in things of God. We do not expect things to get better in Christendom generally, for Scripture witnesses to the contrary, but individual souls and true hearts everywhere will have great blessing and encouragement as the days get outwardly darker and more difficult. All that is needed is a moral condition suited to the ways of God, then shall we enter the harvest field, and share in the blessing He is so ready to bestow.
The second step towards recovery is to “go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house” (verse 8). Let our souls but “go up” in prayer, in confession, in intercession, in divine blessed reality, and we shall have no lack of material for building the house. Let us “wait upon the Lord” and we shall “renew” or change (see margin) our “strength” (Isa. 40:31). That is, we shall get strength of a new kind; in our strength we can do nothing, but in His strength everything is possible.
Now mark how God connects with His house two of the greatest things we can possibly think of, His “pleasure” and His “glory” (verse 8). How intense must be the interest of God in that house with which He is pleased to connect these two immeasurably great things! And how we should long in this our day to have our hearts set on that which makes for His pleasure and His glory, the whole wide range of His interests, for that which is typified in the “house” of Haggai’s day is vast in its extent.
The 12Th verse depicts the actual work of restoration. Commencing with the highest, Zerubbabel, and going down to the feeblest of the remnant of the people, it came out in two blessed ways in its effect upon their hearts: they “obeyed the voice of the Lord their God,” and they “did fear before the Lord.” Everything is possible to the obedience of faith, and to the one who fears before the Lord; for is not “the fear of the Lord the beginning of wisdom” (Psa. 111:10), and “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to hearken than the fat of rams” (1 Sam. 15:22)? On the other hand the fear of man bringeth a snare: and a snare of a most deadly character. Even an apostle fell in an unguarded moment into a snare of this character, and had to be withstood to the face (Gal. 2:11).
Paul says “I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision” (Acts 26. 19): and vision on vision, revelation on revelation, came to him in consequence.
Now notice God’s attitude towards these restored people; no longer is it the word of a propjet, bringing home to the conscience of a backsliding people the solemn warnings of the “Lord of hosts,” but a “messenger” and a “message” (verse 13): the same servant but in a different character. We can well understand with what joy this servant of the Lord would deliver his soul-inspiring message “I am with you, saith the Lord” (verse 13). How truly it has been said, “the man who is with God is in a majority.” God is pleased to link His almighty strength with an obedient God-fearing people.
Verse 14 presents to us a spirit-stirred people: whose spirits the Lord had stirred. It is here where we first decline, and it is here we must get recovery. It is noticeable how often the Apostle Paul speaks of the “spirit” in his epistles, (2 Tim. 4:22) “the Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit.” The awful tendency of this day is to decline in spiritual fervor, to be neither cold nor hot. Our spirits need to be stirred up constantly, that we too may come and “work in the house of the Lord,” then there will be a “revival” indeed.
We are so apt to concentrate our attention on some “ceiled house” of our own, whether this be natural or ecclesiastical, and to forget the larger interests of His house, and, alas, to say “The time has not come.” This is the pivot on which all turns: what have we before us? Is it His things or our own, the wide circle of His interests or some narrower circle in which we have especial interest? His interests take in every one of the saints of God upon the face of the earth, and if He but give us this larger outlook, then shall we be more fitted to build, not pull down; to work, not selfishly neglect; and to be willing “workers together” in “the house of the Lord of hosts,” our “God.”
In conclusion note the emphasis with which, all that was merely preliminary and preparatory being over, and the foundation of the Lord’s house being laid on the 24th day of the ninth month, God announces that from that day He would bless them (Haggai 2:18-19).
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A grateful heart is the mainspring of obedience.
God’s commands are God’s enablings.
The only path of safety and happiness is prompt unquestioning obedience to the commandments of the Lord.
It is good to bear in mind that whatever our circumstances, it cannot be necessary to disobey God.
We may be too engrossed with the shell even of heavenly things.
The Bible is like the leaves of the lemon tree — the more you bruise and wring them, the sweeter the fragrance they throw around.
Note how grace throws the virgins, who all slept, not back on themselves and their failure, but forward to the coming Bridegroom. The Bridegroom cometh! Go ye out to meet Him. Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. (Matt. 25:7).
So entirely redeemed are we that not a hair of our heads is omitted from the inventory of the possession which He has purchased in purchasing us.
There is nothing that the hearts of God’s children should more sedulously cultivate than the thought that we have to do with God. Christ hath “once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.”