Haggai was used by God to stir up the remnant of His people to rebuild the temple. This was after the Babylonian exile.

After seventy years, a remnant returns to Jerusalem. They had built themselves houses, but they hadn’t restored and built back up the house of the Lord.

Haggai offers a rebuke but also direction and encouragement from the Lord.

God points out that He had been sending judgments on them, but they hadn’t changed direction. They were still all busying themselves with their own houses and ignoring the Lord’s house.

This chapter reminds me of what happens in churches. They busy themselves with their own “houses” and forget about the Lord’s house. What does that look like? It looks like building the business of church instead of the Body, which is the real church. It looks like running lots of programs to attract people, but not feeding the flock meat to grow strong.

A judgment on them is that there was a drought of grain and new wine and oil. God withdraws in such situations. They stop getting the word of God and the flow of the Spirit because they rely on the methods of man to appeal to the flesh to attract people instead of lifting up Jesus, who, when lifted up draws all men to Himself!

The result is a watered-down gospel, ear-tickling sermons, a lack of holiness, looking like the world. In effect, a lot of vomit-inducing lukewarmness. It’s happened all over America as they’ve figured out the church-growth formula, and so they didn’t need God to build the church. They could build their business. And the true Church has suffered for it.

But there is hope. They respond to God’s prophet, and with the Lord’s own presence and help, they start to build the Lord’s house instead of their own.