God is with us
Haggai 1:12-15
28th August 2020
In Haggai's first two prophesies, God spoke to His people, convicting them of procrastination, of saying "The time has not yet come for the Lord's house to be rebuilt" and challenging them "Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your panelled houses, while this house remains a ruin?".
God explained them why life was so hard for them, saying "You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why? Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house. Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops." God will not send His abundant blessing on people who refuse to put Him, His house and His kingdom first.
The people listened to God's words. It is possible that God's people can repent of our self-centeredness and put building God's house first:
Haggai 1v12
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.
Zerubbabel was the provincial governor and Joshua was the high priest. So this verse is saying that the civil authority, the religious authority and the whole community obeyed God. How wonderful it would be if we witnessed that in our generation! The whole remnant of God's people in Judea obeyed God's instruction to "Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house" (Verse 7). Again, how wonderful if all God's people in our land obeyed His voice and began to prepare to rebuild His house here!
Haggai's third prophecy was simply:
Haggai 1v13
Then Haggai, the Lord’s messenger, gave this message of the Lord to the people:
"I am with you," declares the Lord.
And as a result:
Haggai 1v14-15
So the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of
Judah, and the spirit of Joshua son of Jozadak, 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,
on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month.
The raw materials had been gathered and the people set to work. The Lord's house had lain desolate for 19 years, but now the God-given task of rebuilding began in earnest.
Dear brothers and sisters, The Lord is with us! We have the raw materials. God's New Testament temple is made of living stones (1 Peter 2v5). It's made of you and me. We need to go out into the streets and find more stones - more men, women and children that God is calling to faith in Jesus Christ, who will also be living stones in His temple. But we have ourselves, and we are enough to start the work. And, dear brothers and sisters, God is with us.
We are God's people. Are we guilty of procrastinating? Are we waiting for Coronavirus to disappear before we build God's house? We have God's call. We have God's Holy Spirit. We have the raw materials. We have God's presence. Can we sense the Lord stirring up out spirits? Will we build? Will we start now?