Haggai 1:2-5 - Homiletics

The mistakes of the temple builders: a warning.

I. THEY FAILED TO DISCERN THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES . They imagined the time had not come for them to build the Lord's house, whereas it had fully arrived.

1 . What led them to suppose or say so, though not stated, may easily be inferred.

2 . The indications that the time had fully come were so plain that they should hardly have been misread.

II. THEY WERE TOO EASILY DAUNTED BY OPPOSITION .

1 . The nature and source of this opposition is described in the Book of Ezra (4). Prevented from taking part in the building of the temple, the Samaritan settlers first "weakened the hands of the builders," next "hired counsellors against them," and ultimately obtained an interdict commanding them to cease. It was certainly annoying, but:

2 . They should not have been so easily discouraged. No enterprise of any moment was ever carried through without encountering difficulties and frequently hostilities, and without calling for patient perseverance in well doing. How otherwise would Israel have been brought from Egypt at the first, or Judah from Babylon a few years before?

3 . The same mistake is committed still by those who imagine the spiritual temple of Jehovah, either in the individual soul or in the Church as a whole, can be built without difficulty, without experiencing resistance from enemies within and without, or in any other way than by indomitable perseverance.

4 . " Never despair " and " Never give in " should be the twin mottoes of every one engaged in temple building for God —of the individual believer, of the Christian minister, of the foreign missionary.

III. THEY PREFERRED THE MATERIAL AND TEMPORAL TO THE SPIRITUAL AND RELIGIOUS . The ordinary occupations of life had more attraction for them than the duties of religion. To assert that they cared nothing for religion would, perhaps, be wrong, since what had brought them back from Babylon, where for the most part they had comfortable settlements, was a true feeling of piety no less than an ardent spirit of patriotism. Yet were they not long back upon their much loved ancestral soil before they showed they had brought back with them from Babylon a passion stronger than even their love for religion, namely, devotion to the earthly and material pursuits of life. Their zeal in temple building was quickly damped, but not so their enthusiasm in ploughing and sowing their fields, in working for wages, in erecting magnificent mansions, sumptuous palaces like those they had seen and perhaps lived in in Babylon, with walls of polished stone and roofs of cedar. With much case they could see that "the time for building God's house was not come," as they supposed; they had large difficulty in perceiving it was not the season to attend to their ordinary avocations. So do many on becoming Christians carry over with them into their new life "passions for things material and temporal," which, while religious feeling is fresh, are kept in abeyance, but which, the moment this begins to abate, assert themselves to the hindrance of what is properly religious work, and to the detriment of the soul's religious life. This constitutes a third mistake against which Christians should be on their guard.

IV. THEY FOLLOWED THEIR OWN INTERESTS RATHER THAN THE GLORY OF GOD . One cannot help thinking that, had the building of the Lord's house been a matter that concerned their own glory, comfort, or interest, they would not have suffered it to lie waste as they did; but only the honour of the Deity was involved, and what was that to their material advantage and temporal felicity? Was it not of greater moment that they themselves should be well housed, well fed, well clothed, than that even God, who dwelleth not in temples made with hands, and requireth not to be worshipped as though he needed anything, should be well lodged? If it came to the worst, they could do without a temple altogether, could worship in the open air, as they had done since coming from Babylon, but they could not well do without well stocked farms and finely celled houses. And so they let the work, which had only God's glory as its motive, drop, and applied themselves to that which contemplated man's or their own material good. Is it wrong to find in this a parable for Christians? Is not the essence of Christianity just this—that a man, like Christ whom he follows, shall seek, not his own glory, but God's; shall do, not his own will, but the will of him who hath sent him into the world? Yet among professing Christians are those who cannot see beyond their own little selves, and who imagine that a man's chief duty upon earth, even after having become a Christian, is to do the best he can for himself, whereas it is to do the best he can for God. Acting on the former principle leads to spiritual blindness, to cowardice, to this-worldism, all of which are deplorable mistakes; acting on the latter.principle terminates in no such disastrous results, but brings with it to the individual so acting spiritual insight, moral courage, and heavenly—mindedness three qualities which ennoble all by whom they are possessed.

Lessons.

1 . The duty of discerning the signs of the times.

2 . The necessity of combining courage with forethought.

3 . The propriety of guarding against the disturbing influence of supposed self-interest.