HIS Interests or Our Own?

Thoughts on Haggai 1

The fear of man bringeth a snare: and a snare of a most deadly character. Even an apostle fell in an unguarded moment into a snare of this character, and had to be withstood to the face (Gal 2:11).

Paul says “I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision” (Acts 26:19): and vision on vision, revelation on revelation, came to him in consequence.

Now notice God’s attitude towards these restored people; no longer is it the word of a prophet, bringing home to the conscience of a backsliding people the solemn warnings of the “Lord of hosts,” but a “messenger” and a “message” (Hag 1:13): the same servant but in a different character. We can well understand with what joy this servant of the Lord would deliver his soul-inspiring message “I am with you, saith the Lord" (Hag 1:13). How truly it has been said, “the man who is with God is in a majority.” God is pleased to link His almighty strength with an obedient God-fearing people.

Haggai 1:14 presents to us a spirit-stirred people: whose spirits the Lord had stirred. It is here where we first decline, and it is here we must get recovery. It is noticeable how often the Apostle Paul speaks of the “spirit” in his epistles, (2 Tim 4:22) “the Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit.” The awful tendency of this day is to decline in spiritual fervour, to be neither cold nor hot. Our spirits need to be stirred up constantly, that we too may come and “work in the house of the Lord," then there will be a “revival” indeed.

We are so apt to concentrate our attention on some “ceiled house” of our own, whether this be natural or ecclesiastical, and to forget the larger interests of His house, and, alas, to say “The time has not come.” This is the pivot on which all turns: what have we before us? Is it His things or our own, the wide circle of His interests or some narrower circle in which we have especial interest? His interests take in every one of the saints of God upon the face of the earth, and if lie but give us this larger outlook, then shall we be more fitted to build, not pull down; to work, not selfishly neglect; and to be willing “workers together” in “the house of the Lord of hosts,” our “God.”

In conclusion note the emphasis with which, all that was merely preliminary and preparatory being over, and the foundation of the Lord's house being laid on the 24th day of the ninth month, God announces that from that day He would bless them (Hag 2:18,19).

Unknown