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I. THE BUILDING OF GOD'S HOUSE WAS CARRIED ON IN FACE OF OBSTACLES. Every important work has its hindrances. No great results have been achieved without meeting obstacles. But men have always been found qualified for the hard tasks. A clear brain, boundless energy, and unflinching will are hidden away in the right man, ready to be revealed at the right time. The tremendous barriers that stand before the waiting and needed reform chill the courage of the many, while they also arouse the energy and provoke the will of the true leader. Haggai had counted the cost, and knew exactly what he had to contend against. There was the cry of procrastination. "The time is not come — the time that the Lord's house should be built." "The time is not ripe" is a phrase that might often be interpreted to mean, "the people are not ready." When any reform is pressing, you hear a clamour for delay. There are some who take counsel of their fears rather than of their faith. When Lincoln read his Proclamation of Emancipation to Seward, the Secretary of State counselled delay, until at last the President took the matter into his own hands and sent the message of liberty ringing through the land. Haggai understood the reason for delay, the people were filled with self-love and desire for display.

II. THE BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE HAD A MORAL AND SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE ON THE PEOPLE. At the dedication they offered a sin offering of "twelve he goats, according to the number of the tribes of Israel." When once the temple was furnished, and the people saw all the appointments complete and an altar standing before them and in use, their sense of sin was aroused. The first sacrifice on that new altar was for their sins. With their new house they began a new life. The house of God in a community stands for a spiritual idea. The school-house and college stand for the intellectual needs of man. The moral and spiritual side finds its exponent in the church. These silent memorials of God's grace compel us for a moment to think of duty and the hereafter, and they are suggestive of the rest that "remaineth." A reverential soul can worship God anywhere, but a house dedicated to Him is an aid to such worship. While there we are released for the time from the distracting sights and sounds of outside life, and under the singing of hymns and the uplifting influence of prayer the mind becomes calmed for the consideration of truth.

III. THE HOUSE OF GOD IS THE HOME OF JOY. The Oriental expressed his feelings in most demonstrative ways. He shouted, clapped his hands, and danced when happy, and these extravagances were carried into his religious worship. Worship with the Jew was a natural channel for the display of feeling, while the Occidental suppresses his emotion in worship. We need more naturalness in the house of God. We come before God to express ourselves, not to suppress ourselves. The very truth proclaimed in God's house is fitted to produce the liveliest emotions. Mankind ought to be induced to come to the house of God because of the abundance of peace to be found there. The view of God should be the one fitted to draw all hearts to Him. A young man, homeless and lonely, wandered through the streets of one of our cities. He could get no work, and had had no food for some time. Despair had seized his soul, and in that frame of mind he entered a church and dropped into a back seat. The sermon was being delivered, and it presented such a view of God and emphasised certain elements of truth that it deepened his despair, and he rushed from the church and threw himself into the river. This ought not to have been. There are stem truths in the gospel, yet to give them undue prominence, and make them overshadow the obvious intent of the gospel is to deprive it of its essential quality of hopefulness. The house of God stands for the best and brightest and cheeriest in human life.

(Monday Club Sermons.)

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KJV: And the elders of the Jews builded, and they prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo. And they builded, and finished it, according to the commandment of the God of Israel, and according to the commandment of Cyrus, and Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia.

WEB: The elders of the Jews built and prospered, through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo. They built and finished it, according to the commandment of the God of Israel, and according to the decree of Cyrus, and Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia.