Haggai 1:8 Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, said the LORD. In the Word of God warnings and threats are always accompanied with exhortations and promises. Were it not so, the threats would profit us little. It is true that only in the Gospel is the love of God made manifest in its fulness. Only in the Gospel do the promises prevail mightily over the threatenings. As God bids the Jews go up to the mountain and fetch the wood to build His house, so does He command us likewise to go up to the mountain for the same purpose. To what mountain? To the mountain of faith; to the mountain of duty. Faith is a hard mountain to climb for all, above all for those who have been living in unbelief. Duty too is a hard mountain to climb for all, above all for those who have been living in self-indulgence. This is the reward He promises us, if we will climb the steep mountain of faith and duty to seek the graces with which we are to build God's house. He assures us He will take pleasure in that house, and will be glorified in it. What a mighty motive is this! It ought to have great sway over every one of us. If God takes pleasure in our work, that work must be blessed upon ourselves also. God is infinitely more merciful and bountiful than man can believe or conceive. He sees the very first stirrings of an obedient spirit in the heart; and when He sees them, He blesses them, and strengthens them, and helps them forward. No sooner had Zerubbabel and the remnant of the people begun to obey the voice of the Lord, than the prophet Haggai was sent to say, "I am with you, saith the Lord." He had been with them long before. He had shown forth His wonderful loving-kindness in a number of ways. Yet He sent them this comforting assurance. Nor is He less kind, less gracious, less bountiful, less merciful to us who have become His children in Christ Jesus. He comes to us from the very first by His Spirit. He has been with us, as our Guide, Teacher, and Director, during the whole of our journey through the wilderness of the world, from our childhood upward. It is through Him that we have been brought, whenever we have been brought, into the assembly of His people upon His holy hill of Zion. He has ever and anon sent His prophets to Us. Yet when we do begin to turn our hearts towards Him, as soon as we earnestly desire to obey Him, and serve Him, He comes to us more plainly, more openly, more manifestly, and sends us a message to cheer us with the assurance that He is and will be with us. This blessed assurance is vouchsafed to all who sincerely desire and strive to obey God. They feel that they have a wisdom above their own to guide them, that they have a strength beyond their own to support them. May we all be brought to that state in which God will take pleasure and be glorified in us! (Julius C. Hare, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the LORD. |
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