Haggai Archives - Christ Church

Consider Your Ways (Haggai 1) (King’s Cross)

Lindsey Gardner on November 6, 2024

1 In the second year of King Darius, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, saying, 2 “Thus speaks the Lord of hosts, saying: ‘This people says, “The time has not come, the time that the Lord’s house should be built.”’”

3 Then the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet, saying, 4 “Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?” 5 Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: “Consider your ways!

6 “You have sown much, and bring in little;

You eat, but do not have enough;

You drink, but you are not filled with drink;

You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm;

And he who earns wages,

Earns wages to put into a bag with holes.”

7 Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Consider your ways! 8 Go up to the mountains and bring wood and build the temple, that I may take pleasure in it and be glorified,” says the Lord. 9 “You looked for much, but indeed it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why?” says the Lord of hosts. “Because of My house that is in ruins, while every one of you runs to his own house. 10 Therefore the heavens above you withhold the dew, and the earth withholds its fruit. 11 For I called for a drought on the land and the mountains, on the grain and the new wine and the oil, on whatever the ground brings forth, on men and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands.”

12 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 presence of the Lord. 13 Then Haggai, the Lord’s messenger, spoke the Lord’s message to the people, saying, “I am with you, says the Lord.” 14 So 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, 15 on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month, in the second year of King Darius.

The Pickle God Puts Us In

Grace Sensing on June 16, 2024

INTRODUCTION

Starting a project is one thing, and finishing it is another. For this reason, the wise preacher said that the end of a thing is better than its beginning (Ecclesiastes 7:8).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

Haggai 1:1-15

At the decree of Cyrus, 50,000 exiles returned to Jerusalem in 539 B.C. They quickly got to work laying the foundation of the temple and the altar. But the work slowed as the people began to mind their own affairs. Darius I came to rule the Persian Empire. And in his second year, 520 B.C., some nineteen years after the exiles returned, God spoke to His people in Jerusalem by the prophet Haggai. The Lord spoke particularly to Zerubbabel, the governor, and Joshua, the high priest, noting that the people said the time had not come that the LORD’s house should be built (v. 2).

To this sentiment, the LORD asked if it was time for His people to live in paneled houses while the temple lay in waste (v. 4). He told them to consider their ways for they had sown plenty but reaped little. They ate and drank but were not full. They clothed themselves but remained cold. And they earned money only to have it fall through the hole in their wallets (v. 6). Again, He tells them to consider their ways (v. 7). If they would haul down the wood from the mountain and build the LORD’s house, then He would take pleasure in it and be glorified (v. 8). That would fix the problem they faced, which was God blowing away all of their profit to the wind (v. 9). Why would God do such a thing? Because they left His house in waste while they each ran off to see to their own house instead (v. 9). They had bitten the hand that feeds, and the result was no rain, no corn, no wine, no oil, no milk, no steak (v. 11).

The governor, priest, and all of the people obeyed the voice of the LORD and feared Him (v. 12). God replied by saying that He was with them (v. 13). Then, the LORD stirred them and twenty-three days after the LORD’s rebuke, you could hear the sound of construction on the temple mount in Jerusalem (v. 14).

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

This is an age-old story of unfinished business. The man started well, but something went awry. Ah, the lot of being temporal creatures. We must start, endure, and finish. The Galatians stumbled in the same way these returned exiles did—”Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?” (Galatians 5:7).

In the case of the exiles, you have to remember what they had accomplished. They had come a long way out of Babylon. Then, of course, they had established the foundational thing, the temple foundation itself. And they had the most essential thing. The altar, from which the seraphim, like our Lord, cleanse the lips of men. These were not exactly prodigal sons rolling around with the pigs. They had given to the building campaign. But they had grown slack and distracted.

PROPHETIC MERCY

God interrupted them. And it is the kindness of the Lord to be so deep into our business. There they were, neglecting the Lord, painting the house, carrying on with their weekly routine, and up walks Haggai with all of his questions, “Hey, why do you work so hard only to lose your money?” The quicker you call Nathan’s feet blessed when he walks up to you to remind you about your Bathsheba, the better off you will be. The welcomed rebuke is distinctly Christian. The only people who can do it are those who have had their sins forgiven and know it.

WHY NO STEAK?

The LORD asks the question and answers it. After telling them they have toiled and reaped no fruit, He asks, “Why?” The answer is because His house lies waste (v. 9). Here is a central truth: This is God’s world and He brings the growth. More to the point is the word from Solomon, “Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase: so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine” (Proverbs 3:9-10).

Honor comes from the heart. The text does not say, “Slip the Lord a twenty and you will receive twenty-five in return.” You will get nowhere pulling the Lord’s lever like some divinity slot machine. The point is that you must honor Him top to bottom, lips and pocketbook, children and business, from Dan to Beersheba. When you do, the Lord sends the blessing rain. When you don’t, He turns off the faucet.

GOD’S METHOD OF OPERATION

Our passage displays a clear method for God’s operation. He delivered His Word of correction (v. 1-11). The people obeyed in fear (v. 12). The LORD assured them of His presence (v. 13). He stirred them to work (v. 14). His way is: Word, Obedient Fear, Presence for Blessing, Work. There are multiple ways to jumble things, but one major error is to look at joyful and flourishing saints and seek to emulate their good works apart from obedient fear. Do that and you will end up in just the situation in which the returned exiles found themselves. You will neglect the LORD, His kingdom, and His Christ for the sake of your own affairs. The reason those saints are so joyful and productive is that they hear the Word and obey in fear.

That fear is only found in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the glorious one. Away from Him is darkness, obscurity, lack, the bottomless void. But, look to Him and it is transformation, from one degree of glory to the next (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Surveying the Text: Haggai

Joe Harby on August 30, 2015

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Introduction

Haggai’s name means “festal,” and this gives us a key note for the book. Like other prophets, he rebukes the sins of the people. But unlike most other prophets, the people listen to him, and he promises great glory to come. What we know about Haggai is found in this book, and in Ezra 5:1-2 . Along with Zechariah, Haggai is a post-exilic prophet, and his entire recorded ministry lasted only a few weeks in the year 520 B.C.

Exiles had returned to Jerusalem after the decree of Cyrus in 539 B.C. They built the altar and the foundations of the Temple, but then got distracted, and began work on their own homes and estates. It is now some 19 years later, and the word of the Lord comes to Haggai.

The Text

“For thus saith the Lord of hosts; Yet once, it is a little while, And I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: And I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts” (Hag. 2:6–7).

Summary of the Text

The book of Haggai consists of four prophetic oracles, and one very brief narratival response. The first oracle rebukes the people for neglecting the rebuilding of the Temple while paying attention to the building of their own paneled homes (1:1-11). We then have a brief narrative of the positive response by the people (1:12-15). The second oracle answers a concern by some of the older Israelites who remembered how glorious Solomon’s Temple had been (2:1-9). In the third oracle, Haggai answers a question arising from the laws governing ritual defilement (2:10-19). And then in the fourth oracle, Haggai gives a great promise to Zerubbabel, grandson of King Jehoiachin, and vassal governor under the Persians. Contrast what is spoken of their respective signet rings (Hag. 2:23; Jer. 22:24).

Rhetorical Devices

As you read through this short book, take note of some of Haggai’s literary devices. He frequently uses the rhetorical question. He is also accustomed to the device of repeating key phrases. He employs parallelisms, and his book is filled with allusions.
For example: “Is this the right time for you to dwell in your paneled houses?” (1:4, 9; 2:3, 12-13, 19). For the second, “consider your ways!” (1:5, 7). For the third, “you have sown much, but harvest little” (1:6; cf. 1:4, 9-10). And for the allusions, Hag. 1:6 contains echoes of Deut. 28:38-40). And compare Hag. 2:17 with Deut. 28:22.

Centrality of Worship

In the third oracle (2:10-19), we learn that touching an unclean thing contaminates the holy. And in the same way, the prophet showed that Temple ruins contaminated all of life. When worship is ruined, so will everything else be. We will come back to this.

Desire of Nations

Solomon built the first Temple. After it was destroyed, the people of Israel were taken into exile. When they returned after seventy years, they rebuilt the Temple, establishing what is called “Second Temple Judaism.” Some centuries after this, Herod completely refurbished this Temple, but in such a way as to keep it the Second Temple. Work started on this project in 19 B.C, and 10,000 skilled laborers worked on it. One thousand Levites were trained as masons and builders so that the work could be done without interrupting the sacrifices.

When Jesus first came to the Temple during His ministry, it was still under construction and had been for 46 years. It was not completed until 63 A.D.—just 7 years before the Romans destroyed it. Now when Jesus came to the Temple, He cleansed it, and He plainly identified Himself as the new Temple, the final Temple, the ultimate Temple. And this is how the author of Hebrews describes it when he quotes the second chapter of Haggai. The entire passage is worth quoting:

“But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: For our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:22–29).

What does this signify? We are told plainly what it signifies. We are being given an ultimate and final kingdom, one that cannot be shaken, and it cannot be shaken by definition. And why? Because the foundation is the cornerstone of the Lord Jesus, and the walls are built out of the promises of God. Over the gates we have the embedded jewels of our gracious salvation, which cannot be pried out their places by any sin of man. The sins of men can be shaken, but the salvation of men cannot be.

What should our response to the words of Haggai then be? We must “have grace.” We come before God in worship with reverence and godly fear. Why do we fear Him? We fear Him because we have nothing to fear. We tremble in awe because trembling with craven fear has been banished. The salvation of the world is an eschatological earthquake, a profound earthquake, in which every tawdry thing is absolutely destroyed, reduced to powder, and every noble thing remains standing, revealed for what it is in everlasting glory.

Future Glory (Haggai 2) (King’s Cross)