It’s Time To Rebuild

Haggai

Main Idea: The book of Haggai is the story of God’s people who were focused on their own satisfaction and failed to flourish because of it. Their repentance and obedience would result in God’s blessing.

In many ways it’s the same story that we see of God’s people throughout all of Scripture and even in today’s church. God has designed the world to work in a specific way. When the people of God disobey him by sinning, humanity is not able to flourish as God intended. This lack of human flourishing can be made right if the people repent and obey Him. The prophet, then, is God’s good gift to the people, calling them to repentance and obedience and sharing with them the hope of God’s blessing.

We must hear the call.

Haggai 1:2–4 (KJV 1900)

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. 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?

“The time has not come” is code for “I have better things to do.”

This was not new for the Israelites of Haggai’s time, nor is it foreign in our day. Overlooking the things of God in favor of our own things is fairly commonplace.

I believe that God is always talking to his children but many times we cant hear him because of the clutter we allow into our lives. There are times that God speaks to us in a loud and boisterous voice and then again there are times when it is faint and weak, almost like a whisper. Psalms 46:10 tells us “to be still and know that he is God”.

We must see the condition.

Haggai 1:4 (KJV 1900)

Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, And this house lie waste?

The term “ceiled houses” or “paneled houses” refers to the practice of laying wood paneling over the basic stone walls and indicates that the people had gone far beyond providing for their real needs and were primarily concerned with personal luxury while totally neglecting the temple.

The temple laid “in Waste”. It was utterly destroyed by the Babylonians when the Hebrews were taken into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar.

Cyrus (Persian king who ruled at the fall of Babylon) proclaimed that the temple should be rebuilt. Ezra 1:1-4

The Hebrews were allowed to return and rebuild the temple but just like many of us when we face opposition or become complacent , we walk away leaving things unfinished.

Haggai specifically uses a word for paneled that implies “well appointed” or “comfortable.” In other words, they were not only settled in their homes, they had been to their equivalent of Pier One, had acquired all sorts of beautiful accoutrements for their homes, and were living comfortably. While Haggai is not condemning their comfortable living, he is condemning this living at the expense of obedience to God’s commands. He specifically contrasts their “paneled houses” with the temple, which “lies in ruins.” These are strong words and are intended to clarify the radical disparity between their own standard of living and the condition of the house of God.

The danger for the Israelite people was not that they had abandoned the building of the temple, it was that they had abandoned God. Their comfort rose in importance, their fear of the Samaritans, among others, was greater than their fear of God, and they succumbed to the pressure of self-preservation. Sadly, as Haggai would go on to point out, their attempts at self-preservation, or human flourishing, would backfire. What they believed to be critical to the advancement of their comfort actually served to accomplish the opposite. They desired to flourish and instead they were failing, all because they had rejected God as the primary object of their worship.

We must count the cost.

Haggai 1:5–11 (ESV)

Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes. “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord. You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the Lord of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors.”

Father God was blessing His children as he blesses many of us. But the Hebrews weren't experiencing the full blessings that god had prepared for them.

I believe and submit to you that there are times that we aren’t fully receiving the blessings that God has prepared for us.

There are times that we allows cracks to form in our foundation. Things that go unresolved will destroy our temple. 1 Cor 6:19

1 Corinthians 6:19 ESV

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,

We must Glory in the completion.

Haggai 2:3–9 ESV

‘Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord. Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts, according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. For thus says the Lord of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts. The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts.’ ”

We Must search our hearts and return to God.

Psalm 139:23 (ESV)

Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!

Lamentations 3:40 (ESV)

Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the Lord!