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Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying, Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your celled houses, and this house lie waste. The seventy years of the Babylonian captivity had passed away. The Babylonian empire had fallen; and Cyrus, the founder of the Persian empire, gave the Jews permission to return to their land, slid commanded them to rebuild the temple of Jehovah in Jerusalem. Hence fifty thousand captives, with their menservants and maidservants, went forth, led by Zerubbabel and by the high priest Joshua, to their own lands. Forthwith on their arrival they commenced restoring the altar of burnt offering and re-establishing. the sacrifical worship, and began to lay the foundation of the new temple. The Samaritans speedily inferrered and impeded their progress. Because the chiefs of Judah would not accept their cooperation in the undertaking they set themselves to the work of obstruction. They made the hand of the people of Judah idle, as we read, in frightening them while building, and hiring counsellors against them to frustrate their design, so that the work at the house of God at Jerusalem ceased and was suspended until the second year of the reign of King Darius of Persia (Ezra 4:24). Hereupon the zeal of the Jews so cooled down that they relinquished the work altogether, and simply began to provide for their own necessities and to build their own houses, Hence Heaven employs Haggai to rouse them, again, from their, wickedness. The subject of verses is the adjournment of duty The time is not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built. They do not question the desirableness or the obligation of the work. This indeed seems to be assumed. During the Captivity, we are told elsewhere that they. hanged their harps upon the willows, and wept when they remembered Zion." Often, perhaps, in those circumstances did they resolve, should they ever be restored, to rebuild that temple which was the glory of the land; but now that they are there on the spot, and the ruins lying before them, their ardour is cooled, and they say, "The time is not come." We see three evils coming out here, which, perhaps, are always connected with the adjourment of duty,

I. COWARDICE. They did not say," We will not build the temple, we Will leave it to remain in ruins;" they were too cowardly for that, Their consciences rendered them incapable of making, such a decision. Men who neglect duty are too cowardly to say, "We will never attend to it, we will never study the Scriptures, worship God."

1. Sin is cowardice.

2. Sin is cowardice because conscience, the truly heroic element, is ever against it.

II. SELFISHNESS. What was it that prompted them to adjorn this duty? The answer is at hand, Selfishness. "Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses, and this house lie waste?" They set to work for their own private interests. Virtually they said, "We must build houses for ourselves first, for all is in ruin about us; we must cultivate our own land first; we must attend to our own business, and after all that is completed we will see to the temple."

1. Selfishness is a perversion of self-love.

2. Selfishness is fatal to self-interest.

III. PRESUMPTION. "The time is not come." How did they know that? Were they judges of time and seasons? Had they the hardihood to suppose that circumstances can set aside or modify our obligations? "Go to, now, ye that say, Today and tomorrow" (James 4:13).

1. Such presumption is always guilty. It implies that we know better than our Maker about times and season.

2. Such presumption is always perilous. It treads upon an awful precipice. - D.T. They were selfish motives that brought secular disasters to the Jews now. The verses teach us that duty is vindicated by the Divine government. We offer two remarks here.

I. THAT THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT RECOGNIZES THE SELFISH MOTIVES THAT ACTUATE MEN. Men are governed in everything by motive. Motive is the mainspring that keeps the world in action; motive is the fountain from which all the streams of life proceed; motive is the germ from which springs every branch and leaf of the great tree of character. We judge each other from appearance; God, from motives. God sees theft, blasphemy, and all other crimes where they have never been expressed in words or acts. This Divine inspection of motives argues three things.

1. The necessity of moral reformation in the world. If all pertaining to human life springs from motive, and the motives of the world are depraved, then the grand necessity of the world is reformation. Knowledge, civilization, refinement, social older, mercantile prosperity, wholesome legislation, - these will be of no real service where the motives are bad. Hence the great Reformer has said, "Ye must be born again." To accomplish this reformation is the great aim of the gospel. It is the fire to burn up false motives, it is the axe to strike the upas at the roots.

2. The necessity for attending more to the spiritual than the formal in the Church. It is not conformity to standards of faith, however scriptural, attention to rituals, however aesthetic and impressive, the repetition of prayers, however beautiful in language, devout in sentiment, and correct in doctrine; it is not, in fact, in any externalism that religion consists or that God delights; it is in holy motive. "Neither circumcision.., nor uncircumcision," etc. (Galatians 5:6). In all true worship man is at once the temple, the sacrifice, and the priest. When will the time come that men shall regard the Church, not as a piece of timber carved into certain forms by the hand of art, remaining the same from age to age, but as a living tree, working itself by the power of its own life into living forms with every season that passes, over it?

3. The possibility of solemn disclosures on the last day. Here men conceal their real hearts from each other. We only know each other after the flesh. Sometimes here Providence takes off the mask from those whom we thought friends, and we recoil from their hideousness with horror. At the last day all will be uncovered. "The hidden things of darkness will be brought to light" (1 Corinthians 4:5). What a revelation on that day!

II. THAT THE DIVINE GOVERNOR AVENGES THE SELFISH MOTIVES OF ACTION. "Ye looked for much, and, lo, it came to little." The passage shows two ways in which God opposes the labour of selfish men.

1. He neutralizes the results of their labour. "I will blow upon it." The man may realize the means which he thought would make him happy; God will hinder it from doing so. One selfish man may get wealth in abundance; another may acquire vast treasures of knowledge; another, immense power in society; yet in all cases there may be unhappiness, because God "blows" upon the whole. In fact, nothing can make a selfish man happy.

2. He renders ineffective the materials of their labour. Labour always employs three things - agent, instrument, and materials. The materials of labour are here specified - "light," "air," "water," "earth." On these men operate. Out of these we weave our clothing, of them we construct our dwellings. God acts upon these and renders them all ineffective for happiness. "Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit. And I called for a drought upon the land."

(1) God directs the universe; not necessity, not chance.

(2) God directs the universe for mind.

(3) God directs the universe so as to meet the state of every heart. "To the pure all things are pure." - D.T.

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KJV: Then came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet, saying,

WEB: Then the Word of Yahweh came by Haggai, the prophet, saying,