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Bitter Opposition Fails
253
God’s Work Grinds to a Halt
These were the conditions during the early part of the reign of
Darius Hystaspes. The Israelites were in a sad state. They com-
plained and doubted and chose to make their personal interests first.
Seeing the Lord’s temple in ruins did not stir them to action. Many
had lost sight of God’s purpose in restoring them to Judea, and these
were saying, “The time has not come, the time that the Lord’s house
should be built.”
Haggai 1:2
.
But God raised up the prophets Haggai and Zechariah to meet the
crisis. These appointed messengers revealed to the people the cause
of their troubles. Their lack of prosperity resulted from neglecting to
put God’s interests first. If the Israelites had honored God by making
the building of His house their first work, they would have invited
His presence and blessing.
Haggai raised the pointed inquiry, “Is it time for you yourselves
to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?”
Verse 4
. Why do you feel concern for your own buildings and
unconcern for the Lord’s building? The desire to escape poverty has
led you to neglect the temple, but this neglect has brought on you
the very thing you feared.
“You have sown much, and bring in little; you eat, but do not
have enough; you drink, but you are not filled with drink; you clothe
yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages, earns
wages to put into a bag with holes.”
Verse 6
.
Then the Lord revealed the cause that had brought them to
poverty: “‘You looked for much, but indeed it came to little; and
when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why?’ says the Lord of
hosts. ‘Because of My house that is in ruins, while every one of you
runs to his own house. Therefore ... I called for a drought on the
land.’”
Verses 9-11
.
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“Consider your ways! Go up to the mountains and bring wood
and build the temple, that I may take pleasure in it and be glorified.”
Verses 7, 8
.
Haggai’s hearers took the message to heart. The leaders and
people dared not disregard the instruction sent—that prosperity, both
temporal and spiritual, depended on faithful obedience to God’s
commands. Stirred to action, Zerubbabel and Joshua, “with the