The Message of Haggai

I heard a message in church this morning from a visiting speaker on the book of Haggai.

God said in Haggai 1:4: “Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?”

Now I know this is a favorite verse of pastors seeking to raise money for church building projects. Without it being explicitly stated, people quickly associate the “temple” that needs to be rebuilt with the church building which needs to be constructed. Its the typical Old Covenant mentality of special priests and holy temples to be supported by the common laity. (And if we haven’t got the New Covenant model working in church life, I guess its better than nothing.)

Thankfully that wasn’t the emphasis of the speaker this morning, who was preaching from Haggai.

He was talking about the work of God. Does the work of God lie in ruins today? Depends on your perspective I suppose. Certainly there is a lot of wasted potential in the Body of Christ today. The speaker was pointing out that all our self indulgence is sin. The church does not exist for the church alone, but for GOD and His purposes. We are to remember a lost of dying world. Forty five thousand people die in India every day, and an abortion is committed in India every 2 seconds, according to this speaker.
Serious stuff. Something to think about.

But thinking is not enough. The world is full of thinkers and armchair critics and people with desires to do something good. We have enough of those. What we need today is people who will take action to do what God has told us to do.

I pray that YOU, gentle reader, will be one of the people who takes action to make disciples of all nations and preach the gospel to all creation.