Summary:

Most of the time when preachers talk about the Jews it is in a negative way, and there is nothing wrong with this. God recorded their sins “for ensamples” for us (I Cor. 10:11), and if preachers don’t use those examples, they can’t give us the “admonition” we need. So we should point out their sins as faithfully as we point out the sins of the Corinthians and other Gentiles. But we should also give the Jews credit when it is due, and it is due in Haggai 1:12! And when everyone in Israel obeyed God, from the governor down to the people, it was a type of the kingdom of heaven on earth.

Zechariah also prophesied at that time (Ezra 5:2), and he gave another type of the kingdom. He tells how God told him to put two crowns on the high priest (Zech. 6:10,11), but high priests were only supposed to wear one (Ex. 39:27-30). Why two? The only other men in Israel to wear a crown were kings (II Ki. 11:11,12). But kings weren’t allowed to be priests and priests weren’t allowed to be kings! Saul lost his kingdom that way (I Sam. 13:9-14). So why would God tell Zechariah to put two crowns on the high priest? He was acting out a prophecy (cf. Ezek. 24:16-24) that he was about to give (Zech. 6:12,13). Christ will be a king and a priest in the kingdom, and Zechariah was acting that out. He says the Lord will build the temple (Zech. 6:13), so if the Jews at that time rebuilt the temple, they would be acting out their part of this prophecy of the kingdom!

They feared the Lord (1:12) because of the judgments that were already falling on them (1:6). They took Haggai’s advice and began to “consider” (1:5) that the last time they persisted in disobedience they ended up in Babylon for 70 years. Of course, grace believers think they needn’t fear God because He won’t chasten us like that, but Paul says otherwise (II Cor. 7:1). We should be afraid to grieve the Spirit who has sealed us to the day of redemption (Eph. 4:30).

It’s for your own good. When Christ will be both the political leader and spiritual leader of the world in the kingdom, it will be heaven on earth. Well, Christ is already your spiritual leader. If you make Him the king of your life, you can experience a little bit of heaven on earth right now!

Any prophet who ever delivered a message from God was a messenger of the Lord, but only Haggai is called that (1:13). That’s because he was a messenger “in the Lord’s message,” which was “I am with you.” That was God’s main message for Israel, so the message was delivered by the messenger.

But God was only with them if they were with Him (I Chron. 15:2). And they didn’t start building the temple till Verse 14. So how could God say He was with them in 1:13? What proof did He have they were with Him? Well they resumed work on the temple (1:14) 21 days after Haggai told them to go gather the wood (1:1 cf. 1:8). That means they must have gathered the wood in those 21 days. That’s how they “obeyed” in 1:12, and how God could say He was with them.

God “stirred” them (1:14) as he did Cyrus (II Chron. 36:22,23). He stirred him by naming him centuries before he was born and predicting he’d build the temple (II Chron. 36:22,23). When Cyrus saw that, he knew Israel’s God was the true God, and knew he’d better do what His Word said! In other words, God stirred him up using His Word, and that’s how He stirred the Jews in Haggai’s day as well. Haggai and Zechariah preached and got them stirred up.

It’s a pastor’s job to get people stirred up, so if you’re not feeling stirred up about the things of the Lord, get to church! You may know the Word well, but it’s the pastor’s job to stir you up about the things in the Bible you already know (II Pe. 1:12,13). Peter stirred them up even though they were “established in the present truth.” The present truth then was the New Testament, but today we need to be established in the truth of the Old Testament, the truth of the New Testament, and the truth of the grace message (Rom.16: 25,26), and let the pastor stir us up about it all!

Summary:

The hard financial times the Jews were experiencing (1:5,6) meant God was chastening them, as He warned He would (Deut. 28:15-41). God told them they’d sow much and reap little (28:38) and it was happening (1:6). Their fruitful land wouldn’t prosper if they were bad (Ps. 107:33,34).

Often they knew they were being chastened and were ashamed (Jer. 14:4), but when they forgot God reminded them (Joel 1:11). Here in Haggai they forgot, so God tells them to “consider” their ways (1:5). They ate, but didn’t have enough to eat (1:6), something else God warned about (Lev. 26:14,26; Hos. 4:10; Mic. 6:13,14). They drank but weren’t filled with drink (1:6) as God also warned (Ezek. 4:16,17; Deut. 28:39).

They ignored Leviticus 25:4 for 490 years, so God allowed them to be taken captive to let the land catch up on her sabbath years of rest (Lev. 25:33,34 cf. II Chron. 36:17-21). That means all the nutrients farming takes out of land were restored, and their land should have been producing big time. When it didn’t, they should have known they were being judged.

Just as the coats they were putting on weren’t warming them, the money they were making wasn’t profiting them (1:6). God warned them they’d spend their strength at work in vain (Lev. 26:14,20). So when God told them to consider their ways they should’ve done what the psalmist did (119:59,60).

They should have gone back to work on the temple. God repeated that order after chastening them (1:7,8) just as He repeated His order to Jonah after chastening him (1:1,2; 3:1,2)

Of course, when you’ve been away from the Lord for awhile, a sort of spiritual paralysis sets in, and you want to return, but are not sure how to start. God knew this, so told Israel what to do, step by step, i.e., to go up to the mountain and get the wood to build the temple and bring it back (1:8). He started with the basics, and built from there. If you feel spiritually paralyzed, you too need to get back to basics! And the first thing Paul tells us to do is stop doing bad things and start doing good things (Rom. 6:12,13). That’s pretty basic, but no more basic than “go get the wood…”, etc.

God said He’d take pleasure in the rebuilding of the temple (1:8). He knew that they knew if they started obeying, He would not only stop chastening them, He would start blessing them, so He gave them this added incentive. Then He gave them more incentive by saying it would glorify Him (1:8). In saying that, He was asking them to look past what obeying would do for them, and look at what it would do for God. Obedience glorifies God in any dispensation! We should remember that, since God is not spanking us when we are bad and blessing us when we are good in this dispensation, our only motivation to obey Him is to glorify Him!

Why would they look for much if they knew they were bad and deserved the chastening of getting little for their efforts (1:9)? Ah, they thought they were being good, obeying the king like God’s people should, when he ordered the work on the temple stopped. But they should have known from the example of the 3 Hebrews in Daniel 3 that they weren’t to obey the king if he ordered them to do something against God’s orders. They also should have known it was time to build the temple from Daniel 9:25, so they shouldn’t have been saying it wasn’t time to build the temple (1:2).

What little they did bring home God blew upon (1:9) with His fiery breath (Isa. 30:33 cf. 40:6,7), and it went up in a figurative puff of smoke. All because they let the house of God lay “waste” while they “ran” to build their own houses (1:2 cf. 1:4). That word “run” shows they were obeying God but their heart wasn’t it in. They couldn’t wait to stop serving God and start serving themselves (cf. Amos 8:4-7).

God not only cut off their rain, He cut off their dew (1:10), and thoroughly chastened them (1:11). But He doesn’t chasten us. We’re not under the law that says God will chasten us if we break it (Rom. 6:14,15). Your apostle never says to consider your ways, consider what you’ve done, he says to “forget” what you’ve done (Phil. 3:13) and think about virtuous things (Phil. 4:8). But sin will have a deadening effect in your life (Rom. 8:13), so don’t watch your circumstances for evidence God is chastening you, but watch your heart for signs of deadening. Serve Him by “considering” all He has done for you (I Sam. 12:24).

Summary:

Israel’s prophets usually dated their prophecies by the reign of Jewish kings (Isa. 1:1;Jer. 1:1-3; Ho. 1:1; Mic. 1:1; Zeph. 1:1) But Israel had persisted in sin and rebellion so God allowed the Babylonians to conquer them. Then when the Persians conquered them, Hosea and Zechariah were forced to date their prophecies by a pagan king (1:1 cf. Zech. 1:1). God warned this would happen (Deut. 28:1-44).

Babylon’s victory over Israel began “the times of the Gentiles,” i.e., the time when Gentiles rule the world instead of Jews as God intended. These times will continue till the Lord returns and the Jews once more rule the earth under Him (Lu. 21:23-27). They are why we must obey the government even if unbelievers are our rulers (Rom.13:1-8).

You’re not under the law that says God will make someone else your king if you disobey Him (Rom.6:15), but you can make sin your king (Rom. 6:16). Balaam couldn’t curse Israel but taught Balak how to get them to curse themselves (Num. 31:16). No one can curse you, but you can curse yourself by not obeying God.

The Persian king allowed Israel a “governor” (1:1). His name means “born in Babylon,” which means he was born on the wrong side of the tracks, spiritually speaking, but he built Israel’s temple and helped bear the Messiah (Mt. 1:12,13; Lu. 3:23-27). You too can be used of God no matter where you were born.

Haggai prophesied “in the second year of Darius” (1:1) which means right after some troublemakers convinced the king to order work on the temple stopped (Ezra 4:1—5:2). Haggai wrote “the governor” because he could order the Jews back to work (1:1), but he also wrote “the high priest” because the problem wasn’t the king’s order to stop the work, the problem was how the Jews were reacting to it. They were too quick to give up (1:2).

“Aren’t God’s people supposed to obey the government?” Yes, unless they order something contrary to God’s orders (Acts 4:19,20). If they order us to stop preaching Christ, we shouldn’t because we are building the temple of Christ’s Body (I Tim. 3:15).

God called the Jews “my people Israel” 28 times, but called them “this people” when He was displeased with them, like the Lord called His Father’s house “your house” in speaking to those who rejected Him (cf. Jo.2:16; Mt. 23:37,38).

Only the most luxurious houses were ceiled (1:2) or plastered, so God was saying, “How come it’s not time to build Me a nice house but it is time to build yourselves nice homes?” They should have felt as David did (II Sam. 7:2), and challenged the ruling on legal grounds. Long before a Persian king ruled the temple not be built, an earlier king ruled it be built (Ezr. 1:1-3). They should have pointed out that that earlier law could not be altered (Dan.6:8).

Instead they did what Christians today do, they interpreted God’s will by their circumstances instead of by God’s Word. They knew Cyrus was right to order the temple built because Isaiah predicted he would (Isa. 45:28). Instead of interpreting the opposition to the work as God’s will, they should have remembered that any time you serve God you will experience opposition.

It’s always easier to let opposition make you think something is not God’s will and then find ways to justify it. God says men should work for a living, but men come up with excuses not to (Pr. 26:13-16; Eccl. 11:4). If you stop serving God every time the going gets tough, you’ll never accomplish anything for Him. Paul says we are appointed to opposition (Acts 14:22; I Thes. 3:3).

Instead of giving up on building the temple, the remnant should have had the same attitude David had when he was just trying to find a place to pitch the tabernacle for God. He said he wouldn’t sleep in his bed till he found it (Ps. 132:1-5), and he said that amid his “afflictions.” They included dodging javelins chucked at him by Saul! So no matter what afflictions are in your life, why not choose to say with David that God’s will comes first in your life?