Haggai 1:1 In the second year of King Darius, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest: This is what the Lord Almighty says: “These people say, ‘The time has not yet come to rebuild the Lord’s house.’” Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?” Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.” This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the Lord. “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?” declares the Lord Almighty. “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house. Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops. I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the olive oil and everything else the ground produces, on people and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands.” Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, Joshua son of Jozadak, 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.
The citizens of Jerusalem told themselves that it wasn’t yet time to resume work on the temple. The people made their excuse sound spiritual. They couldn’t speak against the idea of building the temple, so they spoke against its timing. They said, “It isn’t God’s timing to rebuild the temple.” Because of the great obstacles against the work, God’s people began to rationalize and decided that it wasn’t time to rebuild after all. “If it’s so hard, evidently, God doesn’t want us to do it – at least no time soon.” We never like to hear God speak to His people this way – saying, “this people” instead of “My people.” He said this because He saw their excuses and their poor priorities and noticed that they were not living like His people. God saw and heard their excuses and poor priorities – and He had something to say to them. The people said that it wasn’t time to rebuild the temple, but their actions said that it was time to live in nicely rebuilt houses. The problem was simply wrongly ordered priorities. They were content to let the cause of the Lord suffer at the expense of their comfort. Instead, they should have felt no rest until the work of God was as prosperous as their personal lives, and been as willing to sacrifice for work of God as they were for their personal comfort and luxury. God sees through similar excuses today and is like an unwelcome but necessary alarm clock. Haggai asks God’s people to consider what direction their life was headed, and if they really wanted it to continue that way. The cause of their financial difficulties was their wrong priorities. They suffered setback after setback because the blessing of God wasn’t on them. The people of Israel were being judged and they didn’t even know it – they probably wrote it all off as bad luck or tough economic times, but God was trying to tell them something. Sometimes our priorities are out of order and we seem to suffer no hardships. In such times we should never presume on the mercy of God – we should turn to Him and re-order our priorities before He needs to use crisis to get through to us. If our priorities are wrong, nothing will satisfy us. Each accomplishment soon reveals that there must be something more, something that can really satisfy, Nothing fills the God-shaped void in our life except putting Him first.
