Haggai 1:1
In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, saying,
The word of the Lord came in the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, by Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest. This message begins the call to consider the neglected work of building the Lord's house. It came after the return from captivity in Babylon, when the temple still lay in ruins and the people had delayed rebuilding it while caring for their own houses and interests.
The coming of the word was an act of tender compassion to save God's chosen people from utter spiritual ruin in a dark hour when the forces of evil seemed to triumph, giving hope to those whose trust was in the Lord God of Israel. Haggai with Zechariah was raised up to meet the crisis. In stirring testimony the message revealed to the people the cause of their troubles, that their lack of temporal prosperity, connected with drought and want, was the result of their neglect to consider God's interests first. By honoring God and showing Him due respect and courtesy through building His house, they would have invited His presence and blessing.
The verse opens a rebuke for putting their own houses and interests ahead of God's house. It calls God's people to consider the neglected building of the Lord's house and to examine whether neglect of building and maintaining it reflects selfish priorities and disobedience. The rebuke condemns delay, for prompt obedience is expected of those whom the Lord chooses and leads, while pleas for delay are a dishonor to God. Those who choose to follow their own way frame ingenious excuses in self-justification, as when the Israelites declared they had begun to rebuild but were broken off because of hindrances devised by their enemies, reasoning that the hindrances showed it was not the proper time to rebuild and that the Lord had interposed difficulties to reprove their hot haste. This is why they are called not my people but this people when they say the time is not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built.
The call to account shows that dearth of means in the treasury is the sure result of work God cannot sanction. It rebukes robbing brethren of their rights and selfishly grasping all available means for the advantage of one institution while claiming to do it for the cause of God. It condemns confederating under human preferences and prejudices to sustain methods contrary to His Word, with selfishness leading those who ought to be true to principle to make crooked paths for their feet.
The verse calls God's people to make building a house for the Lord the first consideration and not leave it until the last. It urges the prompt construction of a chapel where people can worship and serve God reverently, in order, and in a correct and suitable manner. A proper place of worship must be built without delay on the most favorable and precious portion of land, easy of access, large enough for the people to assemble, and fitted with proper seats.
The call to arise and build rebukes churches burdened with debt for thinking much of self and selfish interests while neglecting to build or building on hired or borrowed money without donating to free church buildings from debt. It dishonors God to leave His house under debt through wrong management from beginning to end. Duty requires considering and sacrificing year by year to lessen the debt and pay off the principal instead of letting interest swallow up the means that should pay it.
The chapter's call to restore the Lord's house applies to the duty of using God's resources to relieve and sustain His institutions, to be read and acted upon by all who realize the near coming of the Lord. When one of God's instrumentalities is languishing or in peril, faith must act, with those heart and soul in the work manifesting interest, becoming one in mind and heart with heavenly intelligences, and unitedly taking of the Lord's own substance to lift the burdens resting on His institutions. When His stewards act together in this way, the Lord will cooperate with them.