As we saw last time, the prophet Haggai addresses the people of God at a time when they were rebuilding their lives after the exile – rebuilding their houses – restoring their fields and vineyards – but not really seeking the LORD. They were drifting.
Drifting is dangerous.
Last time I quoted D. A. Carson and his warning: "People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated." (D. A. Carson, For the Love of God, 2.25).
The only way to holiness is the way of the cross. Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus. Or as Haggai 2:4 puts it: "Work, for I am with you, declares the LORD of Hosts."
And since all of the Christian life is about temple building – building up the body of Christ – Haggai's basic point is a point that we need to hear!
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