Madisonville Church of Christ

Haggai was a prophet of God, who ministered to the Jews that were returning from exile in Babylonia and Persia. He came back to Canaan with Zerubbabel's expedition, and the events recorded in his book are believed to have taken place in 520 B.C. (Hag. 1:1). A statement recorded in Haggai 2:3 leads some commentators to suspect that he may have been taken into captivity as a young boy, and was a very old man when he wrote his book. The book, itself is composed of four short sermons, which he delivered to the Jews to motivate them to get on with the work of rebuilding the Temple of God, in Jerusalem. As is typical of the works of Old Testament prophets, there are many valuable lessons we may learn today from Haggai's ancient work.

Haggai's first sermon is an indictment of the Jews' selfishness and laziness. It begins with a statment from God: "This people say, The time is no come, the time that the Lord's house should be built" (Hag. 1:2). According to Ezra's record of the times, the first expedition of Jews returned to Jerusalem in 536 B.C. and laid a foundation for the Temple (Ezra 3:8), but then the work abruptly ceased (Ezra 4:24). When the people did not get back to work on the Temple for sixteen years, the Lord inspired Haggai and Zechariah to motivate the people to get back to working on His house. The Lord expressed His dissatisfaction with the Jews' procrastination, when He referred to them as "This people." Their excuse for their inaction was that the time was not yet right for building the Temple. Instead, they had been working on their own houses, which they had already finished (Hag. 1:4). The Lord chided them for their attitude with a rhetorical quesiton: "Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in you cieled houses, and this house lie waste?"

Twice, in this sermon, Haggai issued a stern warning from the Lord to His people: "Consider your ways" (Hag. 1:5,7). In no uncertain terms, God indicated that He was not blessing His people because they were not engaged in building His house (Hag. 1:6,9-11). The Jews needed to repent, and get back to the work they ought to have been doing all along. "Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord."

The church of Christ is God's house, in the modern world (I Tim. 3:15). Every member of the church is a living brick in this great spiritual building (I Pet. 2:5). Yet, each of us is responsible for adding more bricks to the building, and thus build up the house of almighty God (I Cor. 3:9-13). The problem with all of this is that we, the members of the Lord's church, sometimes behave like the Jews of Haggai's day; we neglect to build the house of God, and allow our little corner of it to lie in ruin.

Sometimes, we neglect God's house because we are too busy working on our own homes. People who become so involved in their work, or in their secular education, or in their recreational activities that they have no time to worship God, or to study their Bibles, or to talk to others about Jesus have got their priorities misplaced (Mat. 6:33). They may not see the effects of this spiritual neglect right away, but there shall come a time when they will realize, with bitter disappointment, that they ought to have spent more time on building the Lord's house than on building their own houses (Col. 3:2).

Get Back to Work!