Haggai 1

Haggai 1:1-15

HAGGAI—OR GODS’ TEMPLE AND Haggai 1:1 to Haggai 2:23THE Prophet Haggai has been variously estimated by different students. Some have condemned his volume as a tame, uninteresting product; while others have so highly esteemed it as to insist that the phrase, “Jehovah’s messenger in Jehovah’s message” indicated his angelic character, and proved him to be nothing short of a supernatural being who visited the earth to deliver the words of this prophecy. As is usual with those who hold extreme positions, both of these are doubtless wrong. The probable history of the man is that of one of the exiles who returned with Zerubbabel and Joshua, and possibly a man of such age to have seen the first Temple in its splendor. His prophecy seems to date clearly to the year 521 B. C.

The unprejudiced student of his speech will find it vigorous and will be profoundly impressed with the fact that this rugged man was sent of God, and became eminently successful in his mission. There are people who are telling us now that one can accomplish nothing after fifty years of age; but let it be remembered that Bob Burdette entered the ministry at that point in life and without a peer on the Pacific coast; and that the remarkable genius of Grace Temple, Philadelphia, Russell Conwell, had already made himself famous in two or three other professions before he felt called to be God’s spokesman to the people, and yet in the last twenty years the Lord has wrought miracle after miracle at his hands. Too often men excuse themselves from entering the ministry because the conviction of duty came not upon them in youth. God knew better what He could do with Moses when he had seen his eightieth summer than did the adopted child of an Egyptian princess. Haggai should enhearten the man who, in late life, has heard the call of God, and help him to give ready response. Again, the ministry of this man seems to have been but four months long; and only two messages ever fell from his lips. We speak often, and justly, against the short pastorate, but better four months’ ministry under God than forty years without Him; and two sermons preached in the power of the Spirit than two thousand delivered in the energy of the flesh.But we turn from the man to his message and call attention to three suggestions contained in these two chapters, The Temple of God, The Tests of God, and The Triumphs of God.THE TEMPLE OF GOD Haggai seems to have been raised up for the express purpose of preaching the restoration of the Temple. Jehovah spake after this manner,“This people say, The time is not come, the time that the Lord’s House should be built. “Then came the Word of the Lord by Haggai the Prophet, saying, “Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste? “* * Consider your ways, * * consider your ways. “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” (Habakkuk 1:2-5; Habakkuk 1:8). The neglect of God’s House is infidelity in conduct. A careful study of the Old Testament Scripture reveals the unchangeableness of human nature and character. “This people say, the time is not come, the time that the Lord’s House should be built”. How modern that sounds! How many men we have known in churches who were never ready to undertake any work requiring sacrifice. They will admit it is needful; and that it ought to be done; but, with these Jews, say, “The time is not come.” And I find that these are not the men who treat their own business after the same manner. They are not the class who say, “It is not the time to make money; it is not the time to acquire property; it is not the time to build up a great business; it is not the time to provide for a luxurious old age, and the fortunes of our children;” their caution looks to one cause, and one only, and that is the cause of Christ—God’s house.

Such characters are common; they have been the curse of churches in all ages. Any institution situated as this one is, namely, free from men who feel that their vocation in life is to stand on the breaks of church work, is to be congratulated indeed.

This renewed and beautified house is made possible this morning because we have not a man in that company of officials to whom this work has fallen who was ever heard to say, “It is not the time for the improvement of the House of God.”The neglect of the sanctuary is commercial poverty. There are people who never have any money to invest in God’s House because they have to put up one for themselves. They just must provide for their families; children must be sent to college; and the stock of the business must be increased. Yes, we admit it all. It is a good thing for men to have homes of their own; it adds permanence and character to family life. It is a good thing to provide for one’s family; if he does not do it he is “worse than an infidel”, and “hath denied the faith”.

It is a good thing to educate one’s children; they are a charge from God and He will hold us accountable for their training. It is a good thing to build up a business; large amounts of money are needed for the cause of our Christ.

But let it not be forgotten that in nine cases out of ten when a man neglects the sanctuary for the sake of these things he is laying the foundation of his own financial failure, and like the people of Haggai’s day, “looking for much; little will come” because the House of God has been left waste “while they turn every man to his own house”;“Ye run every man unto his own house. “Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit. “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 labour of the hands” (Haggai 1:9-11). Any observing man must have noticed that the most wicked districts of a city are always the poorest districts of a city; the most wicked towns are those in which pauperism abounds. It is written of the righteous “Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper”; “the ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away”. Irreligion impoverishes! People sometimes seem to be profoundly convinced of this fact. When drought has smitten the land, when the last green blade turns crisp, the very leaves droop, and song is parched from the throat of birds, cattle grow lean; when men drink from low water and lie down in fevers, how often they turn to God in unwonted prayer; and, in contrition and confession, ask to be forgiven, and beg for refreshing showers to quicken the earth again! Science may laugh at this; the Sacred Word of God encourages it! So long ago as the time of the dedication of the first Temple, Jehovah appeared unto Solomon by night and said unto him,“I have heard thy prayer, and have chosen this place to Myself for an house of sacrifice. “If I shut up heaven and there he no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people; “If My people, which are called by My Name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from Heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land”. In Kansas they used to plan against the ravages of the grasshopper; in Texas they experiment on the possible extermination of the boll weevil; and in Minnesota we send our scientists to study wheat-rust and watch the seasons with alarm lest it be too wet or too dry and the wheat fail. But the fact is the best way to fight the grasshopper in Kansas, and the weevil in Texas, and rust in Minnesota is to give attention to the sanctuary. Erect houses to God; assemble the people in prayer; and walk according to the Divine will. If it was once true that unfaithfulness upon the part of God’s people reduced “an heap of twenty measures to but ten, and a wine vat of fifty vessels to but twenty”; if it was once true that this unfaithfulness resulted in blasting, in mildew, and hail, who will dare to tell us that God has so far changed that He does not call the conduct of His professed followers into question and correct them by severe afflictions? And if it be true in Haggai’s day that the time when they made sacrifice to rebuild the sanctuary became the very day from which the fields yielded their fruit, the vine and the fig tree and the pomegranate, and the olive tree brought forth, who will dare to stand up and say that God is not now showing favor to that people who remember His sanctuary, and make glad sacrifice for His Name’s sake? This is New Testament teaching.

Philosophize as you will upon this point, the Word of Jesus is plain. The man who lays up treasure for himself, forgetting the Father, is only making ready for rust and moth, and even for thieves.

The man who “seeks first God’s Kingdom and His righteousness” will find all essential things added unto him.The improvement of God’s House is the Divine pleasure. One cannot go through the Minor Prophets in careful study without being impressed with the fact that God gives no respite to His people so long as His House lies in ruins. Rebuilt it must be if they are to know the Divine favor. As Robertson Nichol says, “Without the Temple continuity of Israel’s religion could not be maintained. An independent state with the full course of civic life was then impossible. The ethical spirit, the regard for each other and God, could prevail over their material interests in no other way than by common devotion to the worship of the God of their fathers in urging them to build the Temple. * * Haggai illustrated at once the sanity and the spiritual essence of prophecy in Israel.”We remember that Henry Drummond has a booklet entitled “The City without a Church” in which he exploits the idea that the time will come when in all the cities of the world God will be worshiped so perfectly that no temple will be needful; every man will find Him in every place.

The home will be the place of worship; the street will be the place of worship; and no church house will need to call attendance; no hour of devotion will need to be set apart for worship, for all men, everywhere, will worship at all times and under all circumstances. But Drummond overlooks the fact that his text comes out of the twenty-first chapter of Revelation, which is a description not of this world, but of the New Jerusalem, “Coming down from God out of Heaven” and located in the new earth.

So long as this old world stands as it is, and sin continues to smite, the sanctuary is a necessity. And men will not be forgiven who say, “It is high time that I got my house repainted; it is high time that I had it wainscoted; it is high time I broadened its verandas; it is high time I hung the richest paintings upon its walls and spread more beautiful carpets upon its floors; but as for God’s House the time of its improvement is not yet.” Oh how the speech of such contrasts the disposition of David who said unto Nathan, the Prophet, “See now, I dwell in an house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains”, and who was distressed that he should have made his own home more beautiful than the place dedicated to His Heavenly Father. And, how it contrasts with the conduct of Solomon who would not lay hand to his own palace until he had finished the Temple of God. These are the men worthy of imitation by the modern church. It was their spirit pulsing again in the heart of G. F. Handel when he wrote:“I love Thy Church, O God; Her walls before Thee stand, Dear as the apple of Thine eye, And graven on Thy hand. “For her my tears shall fall; For her my prayers ascend; To her my cares and toils be given, Till toils and cares shall end. “Beyond my highest joy I prize her Heavenly ways, Her sweet communion, solemn vows, Her hymns of love and praise. “Sure as Thy Truth shall last, To Zion shall be given The brightest glories earth can yield, And brighter bliss of Heaven.” THE TESTS OF GOD But we turn from the Temple of God in this subject to the Tests of God. When Haggai, the Prophet, wanted to teach them their true condition he remembered the custom established in the time of the Pentateuch, when it was appointed that, “the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the Law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts”. If any troublesome question arose they were to inquire of him. Now Haggai puts to the priests two questions concerning the Law; First, “If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt do touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any meat, shall it be holy? And the priests answered and said, No”! (Haggai 2:12).Oh, men and women of the nineteenth century, here is suggested a great truth for us:The clean do not necessarily convert all they touch. That makes an end to some of our latest theology and most modern methods.

All up and down the land there are men preaching social regeneration and establishing social settlements in slum-centers, saying, “If we can only come into contact with these people we will show them how to live above sin. We will set them an example, and they will become clean in person, and tidy in their homes.

We will associate with them and they will learn purity of speech at our lips and cease from profanity; we will exhibit before them self-possession and they will come to hate their unholy passions. We will give them a sample of domestic beauty, and family-fussing will find an end.” In other words, “We will show them how to be Christians, and will say, ‘Imitate us’ and so they shall be saved.” But is that according to the Word of the Lord? “If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt do touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any meat, shall it be holy”? If one go live in the midst of wicked people will they be changed by the power of his example? You who preach such a gospel, you who contribute your money to the promotion of such a philosophy, remember the criticism you pass upon Christ! He lived in Nazareth and there was no more wicked village on earth. Did He fail to set them a good example?

He walked the streets of Capernaum; he taught in Chorazin; He visited again and again Bethsaida. And Capernaum went on hellward; Chorazin became more criminal; and the morals of Bethsaida blacker and blacker.

Jerusalem was His favorite city; in its streets were heard His holy footfalls; He stood in its streets to speak; into its synagogues He went to teach; up and down its length and breadth He walked without sin, giving them an example of conscience, of courage, of purity, or sanity and salvation; and what came of it? Society grew more putrid still and as the sun only hastens the decomposition of the dead, so His glorious presence only the more revealed the moral putrifaction of the people with whom He dwelt. No, no, my friends; men cannot manifest forth what is not found within them, and character is not accomplished by change of outward circumstance; and salvation is not wrought by seeing another live sweetly. Ask the priest whether the clean convert all they touch and he has but one answer, “No!” Sometimes a moral leper will live in the church forty years and never lose one white blotch; sometimes an unregenerate man will dwell with a saved and sanctified woman for a half a century and yet die in his iniquity. Salvation is not by contact with the clean; salvation is in Christ! “There is none other name under Heaven given among men”.But the Prophet brings out another great truth:The unclean do defile by their contact. (Haggai 1:13). “Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean”.

Where did he get that notion? From the Law of the Lord, “Whatsoever the unclean person toucheth shall be unclean * * until even”.But some man will say, “A mere assertion does not make a truth”.

Ah, but this is a truth. You will find it so in the street tomorrow. There is a woman that passes you in white—immaculate! She touches you, and you are not a whit improved in appearance; for cleanliness is not communicable after that manner. Here is a chimney-sweep that goes by, and he rubs against you, and lo, as you look, he has left a black mark of soot. Here is a man of health that walks by; you have no sense of increased vigor when he has gone. Here is another of diseased body; you give him wide berth, lest his malady be communicated! Yes, “Evil communications corrupt good manners” and the unclean do defile by their contact.

I knew an office once in which young men, members of my church, forgot the vows they had taken; treated with contempt the church in which they were members; behaved like worldlings indeed, notwithstanding the profession they had made. I could not understand it, and wondered why the men in that particular office seemed to live at such a low level; and to entertain such pauperized notions of their privilege in Christ. Finally I had occasion to visit their chief, the man who was over them all, and the secret was out. He too had professed Christ; he, too, was a member of the church; but profane speech seemed to him no sin; and neglect of the sanctuary he justified; and Christianity he held in practical contempt. The unclean defile by their conduct. You remember that in the sixteenth century the sweating sickness terrorized England; in the seventeenth, the Black Plague almost depopulated the continent; and later, in the nineteenth, cholera cut down its tens of thousands.

Knight, in his “History of England” says, “Filth and imperfect ventilation were among the main causes of epidemic disease in each of these periods.” Yes, Beloved, history attests the truth of Haggai! Contact with the unclean is defilement!

We may not be saved because some holy person has passed, but the very look of an evil one may accomplish defilement!“I believe the Devils voice Sinks deeper in our ear Than any whisper sent from Heaven, However sweet and clear.” What is the message then? This—Prosperity rests with true repentance.“Then answered Haggai, and said, So is this people, and so is this nation before Me, saith the Lord; and so is every work of their hands; and that which they offer there is unclean. “And now, I pray you, consider from this day and upward, from before a stone was laid upon a stone in the Temple of the Lord: “Since those days were, when one came to an heap of twenty measures, there were but ten: when one came to the pressfat for to draw out fifty vessels out of the press, there were but twenty. “I smote you with blasting and with mildew and with hail in all the labours of your hands; yet ye turned not to Me, saith the Lord. “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! “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” (Haggai 2:14-19). The way to God is right-about-face. How often men adopt another method. They forget God, and the fields parch, and the fruit fails, and they make up their minds that they must secure a better variety; plan to accomplish irrigation. They forget God and their business goes on the rocks and they say, “Now how can I find some fellow who has money and inveigle him to invest with me that we may yet lift this whole plant to the point of neat net income?” Ah, that is not the way! The poor prodigal knew better. He did not spend time saying, “How can I recuperate my fortune?

How can I so far recover it as to secure good clothing again; put up at the best inn; and appear afresh in first circles? I will watch my chance and steal some of these pigs and send them to the market. I will wait until this miserable Gentile comes to visit his swine ranch, and I will snatch his purse.” He did not even say, “I will make myself so invaluable to my employer that he will take me into partnership.” He adopted the more direct route! “7 will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son”. “And he arose, and came to his father”. In less time than it takes to tell it, his poverty gave place to riches; his miserable vocation of swine-herd gave place to the office of sonship; his filthy garments went, and he was clothed in the best robe; his hunger was at an end, and he sat a son at the festal board. His unhappy thoughts no longer drove him to despair for now music was in his ears. His father did more for him in a minute than his most strenuous efforts could have accomplished in a thousand years.

Let us see our way, repent and return to God. Peace He can give; prosperity He can bestow; possession He can appoint. Why be a slave of adversity when He stands ready to receive you into His own house and make you His son?But I must pass on to speak finally ofTHE OF GOD Haggai 2:21-23 Look into these last verses. Haggai has another message. It came on the four and twentieth day of the month, “Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I will shake the heavens and the earth; “And I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the heathen; and I will overthrow the chariots, and those that ride in them; and the horses and their riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother. “In that day, saith the Lord of Hosts, will I take thee, O Zerubbabel, My servant, the son of Shealtiel, saith the Lord, and will make thee as a signet: for I have chosen thee, saith the Lord of Hosts”. Three things are perfectly clear concerning the triumphs of God.They will be attended by mighty demonstrations. “I will shake the heavens and the earth”. Men may talk of natural law as they please, and argue, as is their wont, concerning its unchangeableness; but let not men forget that God who created this world has not released His hold upon it. Describe what orbits it may, it will never pass from the hollow of His hand. When He pleases He can shake it; when He likes He can lay His thumb upon it; when He likes He can crush its crust, and release its eternal fires; when He will He can spread His hand before the face of the sun, and fling an awful blackness over the inhabitants of the earth. And He is going to do it one day! That day will be the beginning of His mightiest triumph.

The Son who has been in His counsel from eternity knew and declared this truth. “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken”. The Prophet Haggai, and God’s greater Prophet, Jesus Christ, were speaking of one and the same thing.

And men have always expected, and they still expect, that God will yet fulfill these words.You remember the consternation that we saw in America on the black day more than a hundred years ago. They feared the end had come. Why? Because the sun was darkened. We have heard our fathers tell what fear filled the earth when in 1833 there was a great meteoric display and the inhabitants believed the stars to be falling from their places; and, in our own day the Charleston earthquake sent the people, for miles and miles in that South land, to prayer because they believed the end was on. The earth was writhing at their feet; the sun was darkened; and a sound as of angry voices filled the air.

But, beloved, these are only earnests of the awful hour of which the text speaks. When God shall march forth in triumph, the world to its very center shall quiver at His tread, and the sun shall fade out before His presence, and the moonlight die, for “in that hour” He shall “take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it” (Job 38:13).Again, These triumphs will result in the overthrow of the world-kingdoms.“I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the heathen; and I will overthrow the chariots, and those that ride in them; and the horses and their riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother.” (Haggai 2:22). This is no new teaching. The voice of Prophet joins with that of Prophet and Apostle, and their speech is one. God speaks the same through the Psalmist,“Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations He hath made in the earth. “He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; He breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; He burneth the chariot in the fire. “Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth” (Psalms 46:8-10). The Prophet Ezekiel spake of the same, “Then all the princes of the sea shall come down from their thrones, and lay away their robes, and put off their broidered garments: they shall clothe themselves with trembling; they shall sit upon the ground, and shall tremble at every moment, and be astonished at thee”, Zephaniah was not stranger to this coming event, for at his lips the Lord had said, “My determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them Mine indignation, even all My fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of My jealousy”! While Micah said of the same, “Nations shall see and be confounded at all their might: they shall lay their hand upon their mouth, their ears shall be deaf. They shall lick the dust like a serpent; they shall move out of their holes like worms of the earth: they shall be afraid of the Lord our God, and shall fear because of thee”. Beloved, if the Jews of olden time failed utterly to appreciate the first coming of Christ by refusing to take literally the words of His birth and humiliation, His suffering on the Cross and death at the hands of men, let us not fail to be prepared for His Second Coming by refusing to accept utterly the references to the times of the tribulation, the clear speech concerning the overthrow of the earthly kingdoms, the darkness of the sun and the convulsion of all nature; for when God rides forth in His chariot of triumph I believe the very universe will tremble in its wake.He will reveal a Ruler of His own appointment.“In that day, saith the Lord of Hosts, will I take thee, O Zerubbabel, My servant, the son of Shealtiel, saith the Lord, and will make thee as a signet: for I have chosen thee, saith the Lord of Hosts” (Haggai 2:23). The rebuilding of that Temple was to be accomplished by this man, the man of God’s appointment. The same God who appointed him, empowered him; and God has another man under whose hand a more glorious Temple is yet to arise, chosen to the office of King indeed! And God will yet make Him as a signet; it is the Man Christ! The dominion of the Father will be entrusted to Him and He shall “[reign] from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth”. “All kings shall fall down before Him: all nations shall serve Him”. You remember that in Tytler’s History we are told of the day when “the army of Richmond sang a hymn to God upon the field of battle, (Bosworth) and with loud acclamation proclaimed Henry VII king of England. This auspicious day put an end to the civil wars between the houses of York and Lancaster.

Henry, by marrying the princess Elizabeth, daughter of Edward V united in his own person the interests and rights of both these families. This excellent prince, who knew how to govern as well as to conquer, was one of the best monarchs that ever reigned in England.

The nation under his wise and politic administration recovered the wounds it had sustained in those unhappy contests. The parliaments which he assembled made the most salutary laws, the people paid their taxes without reluctance, the nobles were kept in due subordination, and that spirit of commercial industry, in these latter ages, justly distinguished, began to make vigorous advances under the reign of Henry VII. The only failing of this prince was an economy perhaps too rigid, which, in his latter years, degenerated even into avarice.” Oh, beloved, the kingliest King is yet to come to the throne; the One Man, under whose beneficent reign wars are to cease to the ends of the earth, is the Man of God’s appointment. He is to rule over the whole world. In His person Jew and Gentile will be united indeed; and by His counsel the commerce of the world will flourish in richness; and, when the record is finished it will not be found that they had to write down against Him a single failure; for, as God’s Prophet, He was without sin, and when He shall come to sit upon the thrones of the earth He will reign in righteousness.I never think of this fact without feeling to repeat the words of Joseph Parker, commenting upon the same, “Oh, ye apprentices to the Deity; ye who try to do work for which ye seek the admiration of heaven, know ye that God is the Builder of His own City, the Keeper of His own House, and that not one stone can be touched by fire or by storm, because it is the Lord’s building, and He will bring on the topstone with shoutings of ‘Grace, grace unto it!!’ And He will fill the whole house with glory as with the very morning of heaven. * * ‘The Lord of Hosts!’ ‘The Lord of Hosts!’ In this Name doth the King ride forth in this chapter. It is a Name of significance; it means God’s arm has in it omnipotence. ‘Oh, rest in the Lord; wait patiently for Him, and He will give thee thy heart’s desire’”