Haggai 1:1-15
In the second year of King Darius, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest:
2 This is what the LORD Almighty says: “These people say, `The time has not yet come for the LORD’s house to be built.’”
3 Then the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai: 4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your panelled houses, while this house remains a ruin?”
5 Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. 6 You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”
7 This is what the LORD Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. 8 Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honoured,” says the LORD. 9 “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?” declares the LORD Almighty. “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house. 10 Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops. 11 I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the oil and whatever the ground produces, on men and cattle, and on the labour of your hands.”
12 Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the whole remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the LORD their God and the message of the prophet Haggai, because the LORD their God had sent him. And the people feared the LORD.
13 Then Haggai, the LORD’s messenger, gave this message of the LORD to the people: “I am with you,” declares the LORD. 14 So the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of the whole remnant of the people. They came and began to work on the house of the LORD Almighty, their God, 15 on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month in the second year of King Darius.
In Matthew 16:18 Jesus says “I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”
In other words, satan will not destroy the Church or the work of the Church. That’s great news: he won’t destroy it, but I’d like to suggest that he can slow it down to not much more than a crawl…
The last 12 books of the Old Testament are commonly known as the books of the ‘minor prophets’, mainly because they wrote relatively short prophetic statements, but there is nothing minor about their messages.
Just because the books are shorter does not mean that the words they contain are less important than the words of the other prophets.
In verses 5 and 7 Haggai writes “This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘Give careful thought to your ways.”
In the KJV those same verses say “Thus saith the LORD of hosts: ‘Consider your ways.”
Haggai is described as a prophet in verse 1. In verse 13, he’s called the Lord’s messenger; and in verse 12 he’s a man whom God has sent to a particular time and place.
Everybody lives in a culture, and cultures have dominant themes. Sometimes the dominant theme of a culture is wrong, and it’s at times like this that someone needs to stand up and point out the things that are wrong.
It is this quality which makes a person a prophet, and that is what Haggai was.
Being a prophet is not about predicting the future, although this is what some of the Old Testament prophets did – the main task of a prophet is to speak the Word of God. A prophetic word usually follows the statement “Thus saith the Lord”.
So what was Haggai’s message all about?
Firstly we need to understand the historical background. When God called Abraham, He promised to give him a special land and to establish his descendants as a great nation. Later, Joshua brought these people into the Promised Land.
Then under King David they established a great empire and David built himself a palace in Jerusalem. But he was concerned that the Ark of the Covenant was kept in a battered old tent. He wanted to build a temple as the dwelling place of God, but the Lord told him, “Thank you very much, but I want your son, Solomon, to do it.”
So the great temple of Solomon was built. Years passed, and the Babylonians swept over this Promised Land, besieged the city of Jerusalem, overthrew the king, and destroyed the temple.
The people were herded off into exile in distant Babylon, and the land was desolate.
But God promised to restore His people to Judah, and the day came when a new emperor—King Cyrus of Persia—issued an edict for the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. You can read about this in Ezra 1.
A delegation of exiles returned to Judah, but the task of rebuilding the temple was a lot easier said than done.
It became a thankless job, and the surrounding people fiercely opposed them. Eventually in utter discouragement, work on the temple stopped, and they concentrated on rebuilding the rest of the city – including their own houses – instead. This is all described for us in Ezra 4.
Now however, they were finding themselves in need, and this is where the prophet Haggai comes onto the scene.
They were now faced with famine, drought and poverty, and nothing seemed to satisfy their needs.
Haggai’s message to them was, “Consider your ways.”
They needed to think about the fact that what they were really telling the Lord was: “We don’t have time to rebuild your house. We’ve been too busy with our own houses.”
It’s not that the Lord minded them having their own houses, because God provides everything in the first place. In 1 Timothy 6:17 we’re reminded to keep possessions in the right perspective. “Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.”
The problem with the people in Jerusalem was one of perspective.
There was something fundamentally wrong with their lives. They were so busy planting, eating, working, and getting all the things they needed that they totally neglected God’s priorities for them, and as a result, nothing satisfied.
They ate, but stayed hungry. They drank, but stayed thirsty. They put on clothes, but stayed cold. They made money, but it went through holes in their pockets. They couldn’t find anything that gave them deep, lasting satisfaction. And God’s message through Haggai to them was: Stop and think!
A pilot who flew for a small airline always looked down intently on a particular valley on every flight. One day his co-pilot asked “What’s so interesting about that spot?”
“See that river? When I was a kid I used to sit down there on a log and fish. Every time an aeroplane flew over, I would look up and wish I were flying. Now I look down and wish I were fishing.”
That’s often the emptiness we experience in life. Even when we get the things we want, we’re still not satisfied. Everyone wants more. A little child wants more toys and more TV time. A teenager wants more clothes, more freedom and a better cellphone. Most adults want more also – a nicer house, a newer car, a better job and more prestige.
Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Temporal things do bring satisfaction, but they are only temporary.
When there is a gnawing emptiness, when there is something wrong deep inside that you can’t quite put your finger on, try applying Haggai’s challenge to your own life: Consider your ways.
The people in his day were not making the connection between what was lacking in their lives and the fundamental spiritual issue at the core of their lives.
The real issue here is spiritual indifference. Spiritual indifference was the root cause of all the disasters they were experiencing.
When things go wrong with us, we turn to experts. If we have a financial problem, we go to a financial expert. We’ve got a family problem, so we go to a family therapist. These are all legitimate responses unless, of course, the root problem is spiritual.
Haggai was saying, “The reason there’s blight on your harvest and emptiness in your life is that you are neglecting God’s priorities.”
The Lord wanted them to do something He could take pleasure in and be glorified by but they were too busy in all their other pursuits.
As Christians today we understand that Jesus is meant to be at the centre of our lives, but is He really? Joan challenged us last week with much the same thing. Remember the choice which Joshua gave to the people – choose this day whom you will serve.
The point is that God in His grace, has given us a choice.
The question we need to be asking ourselves is this: What have we chosen?
Just where on our list of priorities is Jesus Christ?
Because if we choose Jesus, He will be faithful to us.
Just look at what happened with the people in Haggai’s day.
As we read through the Old Testament we often see the same pattern repeated when God sent His prophets. More often than not, they preached to deaf ears, but that was not the case here.
As soon as the people heard Haggai’s message, they listened and obeyed, and this brought about an amazing transformation in their lives.
The promise of God in verse 13 is so important: “I am with you.”
Just as the people’s indifference had cause the Lord to withdraw His favour and blessing, so their renewed obedience brought divine favour once again.
The Jews to whom Haggai spoke had their priorities all wrong. With just a little bit of opposition, they turned away from the Lord’s work and enthusiastically built their own homes, in all probability using the very materials that had been set apart for the temple.
Haggai’s message should be challenging us just as much as it challenged them. We know Jesus’ words in Matthew 6:33 so well: “Seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you.”
But do we live out those words?
Is the Kingdom of God and His righteousness the first thing in our lives? With every little bump in our lives, we are tempted to turn our focus away from the Kingdom of God and direct it to ourselves.
We want to improve our lives and we want to fix the things that are wrong. There is nothing wrong with that, but often our methods leave a lot to be desired.
Our tendency is to try to make things the way we want them, instead of seeking God’s will in all things.
Haggai’s call to repentance should resound loudly in our ears. The same God who called His people to faithfulness more than 500 years before Christ calls us to obedience now.
The question is, are we listening?
Will you change and adapt your thinking, your speech and your behaviour so that it purposely directs you to Jesus?
Is the Kingdom of God your highest priority?
The people responded to Haggai’s message in three ways.
Firstly, they recognised that God was speaking through him. Secondly, as they listened they were reassured that the Lord was with them, and finally they were stirred up and they said, “We have neglected the spiritual dimension of our lives, and as a result we’re empty.”
They refocused on God and began building His temple once again, and the blessings returned.
What Haggai said to his people is what the Lord is still saying to us today: Consider your ways!
They did, and just listen to how their lives were changed.
Haggai spoke God’s Word to them in 2:15-19. “Now give careful thought to this from this day on–consider how things were before one stone was laid on another in the LORD’s temple. When anyone came to a heap of twenty measures, there were only ten. When anyone went to a wine vat to draw fifty measures, there were only twenty. I struck all the work of your hands with blight, mildew and hail, yet you did not turn to me,’ declares the LORD. `From this day on, from this twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, give careful thought to the day when the foundation of the LORD’s temple was laid. Give careful thought: Is there yet any seed left in the barn? Until now, the vine and the fig tree, the pomegranate and the olive tree have not borne fruit. `From this day on I will bless you.’ “
A better day was coming. God promised that from the day the people resumed work on building the temple He would bless them. Instead of experiencing life’s shortages, they would experience life’s fullness.
It begins by realigning our priorities with God’s priorities. Like with Israel, it begins with renewing our commitment to trust in God. And we do this by spending time in reflection, asking God, “Show me where I’m not pleasing you. Show me where my priorities are wrong.” This renewal of commitment means renewing our allegiance to Jesus, affirming our commitment to live under His Lordship. Only then, when we’re fully submitted and open to the Lord, does He then stir our hearts to do what He wants.
But just how do we do it?
How do we put this theory, wonderful as it is, into practice?
By considering our ways.
And the truth is that it takes a dramatic mindshift to remove ourselves from and to place God at the centre of our thinking.
“Seek first the Kingdom of God.”
When we learn to do that, when we change the default setting, the starting point, to Kingdom thinking, we’ll find that the rest kind of recalibrates itself.
Or in other words, “And all these things will be added to you.”
It really is that easy. And that hard.
Consider your ways.
Phew! A lot to think about here ….
By: koreacareer on November 28, 2011
at 2:42 am