3442. “The Desire of All Nations.”

A Sermon Published On Thursday, January 21, 1915.

“And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory,” says the Lord of hosts. {Hag 2:7}

1. The second temple was never intended to be as magnificent as the first. The first was to be the embodiment of the full glory of the covenant of symbols and types, and was soon to pass away. This comparative feebleness had been proved by the idolatry and apostasy of the people of Israel, and when they returned to Jerusalem they were to have a structure that would be sufficient for the purposes of their worship, but they were not again to be indulged with the splendours of the former house which God had erected by the hand of Solomon. Had it been God’s Providence that a temple equally magnificent as the first should be erected, it might have been very readily accomplished. Cyrus appears to have been obedient to the divine will, and to have been a great favourer of the Jews, but he expressly by edict diminished the length of the walls and gave express command that the walls should never be erected so high as before. We also have evidence that a similar decree was made by Darius, an equally great friend of the Jews, who could with the lifting of his finger have outdone the glory of Solomon’s temple, but in God’s Providence it was not arranged that it should be so, and though Herod, not a Jew, and only a Jew by religious pretence to suit his own particular purpose, lavished a good deal of treasure on the second temple, for the pleasure of the nation he ruled, and to gain some favour from them, yet he rather profaned than adorned the temple, since he did not follow the prescribed architecture by which it ought to have been built, and he did not have the divine approval on his labours. No prophet ever commanded, and no prophet ever sanctioned, the labours of such a horrible wretch as that Herod. The reason seems to me to be this. In the second temple, during the time it should stand, the new covenant of Christ was softly melted into the light of spiritual truth. The outward worship was to cease there. It seems right that it should cease in a temple that did not have the external glory of the first. God intended to light up there the first beams of the spiritual splendour of the second temple, namely, his true temple, the Church, and he would put a sign of decay on the outward and visible in the temple of the first. Yet he declares by his servant, Haggai, that the glory of the second temple should be greater than the first. It certainly was not so as in respect of gold, or silver, or size, or excellency of architecture; and yet it truly was so, for the glory of the presence of Christ was greater than all the glory of the old temple’s wealth; and the glory of having the gospel preached in it, the glory of having the gospel miracles performed in its porches by the apostles and by the Master, was far greater than any hecatombs {a} of young bulls and he-goats—the glory of being, as it were, the cradle of the Christian Church, the nest out of which should fly the messengers of peace, who, like doves, should bear the olive branch throughout the world. I take it that the decadence of the old system of symbols was a most fitting preparation for the incoming of the system of grace and truth in the person of Jesus Christ; and the second temple has this glory which excels, that while the first was the glory of the moon in all its splendour, the second is the moon going down: the sun is rising beyond her, gilding the horizon with the first beams at the morning.

2. I intend to speak to you at this time about the true spiritual temple; the true second temple, the spiritual temple, which, I think, is spoken of here—although the second temple literally is also intended—the true spiritual temple built up, according to the text, of the desire of all nations.

3. I find this passage a very difficult one in the original; and it bears several meanings in itself. The first meaning that I give you, though it runs contrary to the great majority of Christian expositors; is the most accurate explanation of the original. We shall bring in the other explanations eventually. Reading it like this, “I will shake all nations,” and the desire—the desirable people, the best part, or as the Septuagint reads it, the elect of all nations—shall come. They shall come—the true temple of God, and they shall be the living stones that shall compose it; or, as others read it, “The desirable things of all nations shall come,” which is, no doubt, the meaning, because the eighth verse gives the key “‘The silver is mine, and the gold is mine,’ says the Lord of hosts.” The desirable things of all nations are to be brought in as voluntary offerings to this true second temple, this spiritual living temple.

4. I. Let us begin, then, and take that sense first, and in this case we are told, in the text concerning the second temple, what these living stones are:—THE HISTORICAL DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS SHALL COME.

5. The choice men, the pick, the best of all men shall come and constitute the true temple of God. Not the kings and princes, not the great and noble after the flesh—these are only the choice of men after the manner of man’s choice; but not many great men after the flesh, not many mighty are chosen and called; but still, those whom God chooses must be the choice ones of mankind. They will not claim to be so by nature; on the contrary, they will repudiate any idea of any natural goodness in themselves. But God sees them as what they are to be, as what he intends them to be, as what he makes them to be, and in this respect they are the desire, they are the choice of all nations. To God, his people are his royal treasure, his secret jewels, the treasury of kings—they are very precious in his sight. Their very death is precious. He keeps record of their bones, and will raise their dust at the last day. If the nation only knew it, the saints in a nation are the aristocracy of that nation. Those who fear God are the very soul, and marrow, and backbone of a nation. For their sakes God has preserved many a nation. For their sakes he gives unnumbered blessings. “You are the salt of the earth”: the earth would be putrid without them. “You are the light of the world”: the world would be dark without them. They are the desire, I say, though often the world treats them with contempt, and would cast them out. It has always been so with the blind world—to treat its best friends worst, and its worst enemies often receive the most royal entertainment. Now what a joy it is for us to think that God has been pleased to make for himself a people according to his own sovereign will and good pleasure, and that he has made these to be the desirable ones out of all nations—that with these choice and elect ones he will build up his Church.

6. But the text not only tells us of the stones, but of the remarkable mode of architecture. “The desire of all nations shall come”—they shall be brought together. Human means shall be used to bring each one to its place, to excavate each one from its quarry; but while it is God who speaks, he speaks like God, for he uses shalls and wills most freely, and according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus, even before the earth was, so shall the fulfilment be. We who preach the gospel may preach with devout assurance of success. The desire of all nations shall come, Out of this congregation the truly desirable ones shall come to Christ. Out of the soil in which the sower sowed—the honest and good ground—the harvest is produced. Out of the nations, though they reject Christ and continue in their idolatry, yet there are some choice spirits who come; some whom the Lord looks at with great delight, and these shall come. We do not labour in vain, neither do we spend our strength for nothing. We fall back on the doctrine of divine working and divine choice for consolation—certainly not for an excuse for indolence, but for consolation when we have done our best, that God is glorified in the end—“the desire of all nations shall come.”

7. And if you will notice in the whole text, it appears that they do not come without much shaking. In one sense, no man comes to God with compulsion; and in another sense, no man comes without compulsion. You see two boxes opened. There are two ways of opening them. You see one box wrenched: there has evidently been used rough means. Who opened it? A thief. God never opens men’s hearts in that way. You see another box open—no sign of damage, no sign of any particular labour. Who opened it? The person who had the key—probably the owner. Hearts belong to God, and he has the keys and opens them—sweetly opens them. And yet, though no force is used, that puts aside the positive, free agency of man which God does not interfere with; yet there is a spiritual force which may well be described as a shaking. It is only when the tree of the nation has a thorough shaking, that at last the prime, ripe fruit will drop down into the great Master’s lap. He shakes by Providence, by the movement of the human conscience. He shakes by the impulses of his Holy Spirit; he shakes the spirit, and as the result the desirable people out of all the nations are brought to himself. Stones that he would have, come at last out of the quarry, and he builds them up into a temple.

8. And now observe that these people, according to another rendering of the text, when they come to build up the Church they always bring their desire with them—they bring with them the most desirable thing. The desirable things of all nations shall give the silver, and the gold, and so on. He who comes to Christ brings with him all he has, and he has not come to Christ who has left his true substance behind him. What, now, is the desire of all the nations when hearts are renewed? Well, silver and gold will always be desirable, and men who give their hearts to Christ will bring what they have of that to Christ. But the most desirable things of manhood are not metals—dirt, mere dross, hard materialism—no, the desirable things of manhood are things of the soul, the heart, the spirit; and into the temple, the great second temple, there shall come, not masses of gold and silver merely, that can adorn with outward splendour, but also love, and faith, and holy virtue, more priceless than gems, far richer in value than rarest mines. Oh! what a sight the Church of God is when holy angels look at it. We hear of some of the first Spanish invaders going into the temple of Peru, and seeing floors, roofs and walls made of slabs of gold, and standing astonished. But oh! in the Church there are slabs of faith on the floor of that great temple, and walls of love, of Christian self-sacrifice, and roofs of holy joy and Christian consolation. It is a temple that makes spiritual eyes flash with gladness. What do they care for the splendour of kings and princes. But they care much for the true, desirable things of nations—holy emotions, holy desires, ascriptions of gratitude, and devout acts of service for the Lord God. Oh! how glorious is the second temple then, when the desirable men come to it, and bring with them all the desirable things to make it glorious in the sight of God.

9. And then this temple, built and adorned like this, will continue. The text implies that “I will shake all nations.” The apostle says that this means the things that can be shaken; that the things that cannot be shaken will remain, and that the desire of all nations must be put down as a thing that cannot be shaken. The Church, then, shall never be shaken, and the precious things that the Church gives to her God shall not be shaken. Time will change many things. Great princes will be considered mere beggars eventually in the esteem of men who know how to judge by character. Great men will shrivel into very small things—when they come to be tried, even by posterity. And the judgment day—ah! how will that try the great ones of this earth? But the Christian Church—the very gates of hell shall not prevail against her. Time shall not be able so much as to chip one of her polished stones. Her treasures of faith, and what not, the rich things that God has given her—these things shall never be stolen: they can never be shaken. And then the crown of it all is, “‘I will fill this house with my glory,’ says the Lord.” This is the reason, the great charm of it all. God himself dwells, as he dwells nowhere else, in his glory. The Church, which we think two, and call militant and triumphant, is only one, after all, and God dwells in it. Oh! if we only had eyes to see it, the glory of God on earth is not much less than the glory of God in heaven, for the glory of a king in peace is one thing, but the glory of a conqueror in war is another thing, though I know which I prefer; yet if I transfer the metaphor, I have no preference between the glory of the God of peace in the midst of his obedient servants in his ivory palaces, and the glory of the Lord of hosts in the thick of this heavenly war, as he fights with human evil, and brings glory to his saints out of all the mischief that Satan seeks to do to his throne and to his sceptre. God is known in the Jerusalem below, as well as in the Jerusalem above. “The Lord is in the midst of her.” Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God has shone. God is in the midst of her: she shall not be moved; and though the kings gather together for her destruction, yet his presence is the river, the streams of which make glad the city of God. Yes, glorious things may well be spoken of Zion when we have such stones as precious men, such gifts as precious graces, such enduring character as God gives, and such a presence as the presence of God himself.

10. II. But now in the next place, if we take the other rendering of the text:—THE GLORY OF THE SPIRITUAL SECOND TEMPLE IS ACTUALLY THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST.

11. “I will shake all nations,” and he who is the desire of all nations shall come—a rendering which is not incorrect, and is established by a great number of theologians, though, according to some of the ablest critics, a rendering scarcely to be sustained by the original. He who is the desire of all nations shall come, and that shall be the glory of the second spiritual temple. Jesus Christ, then, is the desire of all nations, if we read the text like that, and this is doubtless true. All nations have a dark and dim desire for him. I say a dark desire, for without that adjective I could scarcely speak the truth. Most interesting chapters have been written by students of the history of mankind on the preparedness of men’s hearts for the coming of Christ at his incarnation. It is very certain that almost all nations have a tradition of the coming one. The Jews, of course, expected the Messiah. There were people instructed according to the culture of various nations, which, though they do not expect the Messiah quite so clearly as the Jews, had almost as shrewd a guess as to what he might be and do as the mere ritualistic and Pharisaic Jews had. There was a notion all over the world at that time of Christ’s coming, that some great one was to descend from heaven, and to come into this world for this world’s good. He was in that respect darkly and dimly the desire of all nations.

12. But in all nations there have been some people more instructed to whom Christ has really been the object of desire with much more of intelligence. Job was a Gentile and a fearer of God. We have no reason to believe that Job was a solitary example of enlightened people: we have reason rather to hope that in all countries all over the world God has had a chosen people, who have known and feared him, who have not had all the light which has been given to us, but who better used what light they had, and were guided by his secret Spirit to much more of light, perhaps, than we think it right, with our little knowledge, to credit them with. These, then, as representatives of all the nations, were desiring the coming of the great Deliverer, the incarnate God; and in this sense, representatively, the whole world was desiring Christ in that higher sense, and he was the desire of all nations. But, my brethren, does this mean, or does it not mean, that Christ is exactly what all the nations need? If they only knew, if they could only understand him, he is just what they would desire and should desire. If their reason was taught correctly, and their minds were instructed by the Spirit to desire the best in all the world, Christ is just what they need.

13. All the world desires a way to God. Hence men set up priests and anoint them with oil, and smear them with I do not know what, only that they may be mediators between them and God. They must have something to come between their guilt and God’s glorious holiness. Oh! if they knew it, what they need is Christ. You need no priest, but the great “Apostle and High Priest of our profession.” You need no mediator with God, but the one Mediator, the man Christ Jesus, who is also equal with God. Oh! world, why will you gad about to seek this priest and that other deceiver, when he whom you need is appointed by the Most High? He whom Jacob saw in his dream as the ladder which reached from earth to heaven is the only means—the Son of man and yet the Son of God.

14. The world needs a peacemaker; oh! how badly it needs it now! I seem as I walk my garden, as I go to my pulpit, as I go to my bed, to hear the distant cries and moans of wounded and dying men. We are so familiarized each day with horrible details of slaughter, that if we give our minds to the thought, I am sure we must feel a nausea, a perpetual sickness creeping over us. The reek and steam of those murderous fields, the smell of the warm blood of men flowing out on the soil, must come to us and vex our spirits. Earth needs a peacemaker, and it is he, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, and the friend of Gentiles, the Prince of Peace, who will make war to cease to the ends of the earth.

15. Man needs a purifier. Very many nations feel, somehow or other, that political affairs do not go as one could wish. There are great excellencies in personal government, but great disadvantages. There are great excellencies in republican government, but remarkable difficulties too. There are supreme excellencies, as we think, in our own form of government, but a great many things to be amended, for all that; and this world is altogether out of joint; it is a crazy old concern, and does not seem as if it could be amended with all the tinkering of our reformers in the lapse of years. The fact is, it needs the Maker, who made it, to come in and put it to rights. It needs the Hercules that is to turn the stream right through the Augean stable; {b} it needs the Christ of God to turn the stream of his atoning sacrifice right through the whole earth, to sweep away the whole filth of ages, and it never will be done unless he does it. He is the one, the true Reformer, the true rectifier of all wrong, and in this respect the desire of all nations.

16. Oh! if the world could gather up all her right desire; if she could condense in one cry all her wild wishes; if all true lovers of mankind could condense their theories and extract the true wine of wisdom from them; it would just come to this, we need an Incarnate God, and you have the Incarnate God! Oh! nations, but you do not know it! You, in the dark, are groping after him, and do not know that he is there.

17. Brethren, I may add, Christ is certainly the desire of all nations in this respect, that we desire him for all nations. Oh! that the world were encompassed in his gospel! Oh that the sacred fire would run along the ground, that the little handful of grain on the top of the mountains would soon make its fruit to shake like Lebanon. Oh! when will it come, when will it come that all the nations shall know him? Let us pray for it: let us labour for it.

18. And one other meaning I may give to this: he is the desirable one of all nations, bringing back the former translation of this text. He is the choice one of all nations. He is the chief among ten thousand, and the altogether lovely. He, whom we love, is such a one that he can never be matched by another, his rival could not be found among the sons of men. There is no one like him; there is no one like him among the angels of light; there is no one who can stand in comparison with him. The desire, the one that ought to be desired, the most desirable of all the nations, is Jesus Christ, and it is the glory of the Christian Church, which is the second temple that Christ is in her, her head, her Lord. It is never her glory that she condescends to make an iniquitous union with the State. It is her glory that Christ is her sole King, it is her glory that he is her sole Prophet, and that he is her sole Priest, and that he then gives to all his people to be kings and priests with him, himself the centre and source of all their glory and their power.

19. I cannot take any more time, though the theme tempts me, but I must just give you the last word, which is this, the visible glory of the true second temple will be Christ’s second coming. He, himself, is her glory, whether at his first coming, or at his second coming. The Church will be no more glorious at the second coming than now. “What!” you say, “no more glorious!” No; but more apparently glorious. Christ is as glorious on the cross as he is on the throne; it is only the appearance that shall alter. “Then the righteous shall shine out as the sun in the kingdom of their Father,” but they are for evermore brightness itself, in the person of Jesus Christ.

20. Now, brethren, we are to expect, as long as this world lasts, that all things will shake that are to be moved. They will go on shaking. We call the world sometimes “terra firma”; it is not this world, surely, that deserves such a name as that; there is nothing stable beneath the stars; all other things will shake, and as the shaking goes on, Jesus Christ will, to those who know him, become more and more their desire. I suppose, if the world went on, in some things mending and improving, and were to go up to a point, we should not need Christ to come in a hurry, we would rather that things should be perpetuated; but the shaking will make Christ more and more the desire of the nations. “The whole creation groans,” is groaning up to now, but it will groan more and more “in pain together travailing”—the apostle says—“even until now.” The travailing pains grow worse and worse, and worse, and it will be so with this world; it will travail until at last it must come to the consummation of her desire.

21. The Church will say, “Come, Lord Jesus.” She will say it with gathering earnestness; she will still continue to say it, though there are intervals in which she will forget her Lord, but still her heart’s desire will be that he will come; and at last he will surely come and bring to this world not only himself, the desire of all nations but all that can be desired, for those days of his, when he appears, shall be for his people as the days of heaven on earth, the days of their honour, the days of their rest—the day in which the kingdoms shall belong to Christ. Oh! brethren, it is not for me to go into details on a subject which would require many discourses, and which could not be brought out in the few last words of a discourse. But here is the great hope of that splendid building, the Church, which is desired. Her glory essentially lies in the Incarnate God, who has come into her midst. Her glory obviously will lie in the second coming of that Incarnate God, when he shall be revealed from heaven to those who look and are waiting for and hastening to the coming of the Son of God—looking for him with glad expectation. And this is the joy of the Church. He has gone, but he has left word, “I will come again, and will receive you to myself, so that where I am, you may be also.” Remember the words that were spoken by the angels to the Church, “You men of Galilee, why do you stand here, gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus who is gone up from you into heaven shall so come in the same way as you have seen him go up into heaven.” In propria persona—in very deed and truth, he shall come:—

   These eyes shall see him in that day,

      The God that died for me;

   And all my rising bones shall say,

      Lord, who is like to thee?

22. Then shall come the adoption, the raising of the body, the reception of a glory to that body reunited to the soul, such as we have not dreamed of, for eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man to conceive what God has prepared for those who love him. Though he has revealed them to us by his Holy Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God, yet our ears have heard very little about it, and we have not received the full discovery of the things that shall be hereafter. May the Lord bless you! May you all be parts of his Church, have a share in his glory, and a share in the revealing of that glory at the last.

23. Dear hearer, I would send you away with this one query in your ear—Is Christ your desire? Could you say, with David, “He is all my salvation and all my desire?” Could you gather up your feet in the bed, with dying Jacob, and say, “I have waited for your will, oh God?” By your desire you shall be known. The desire of the righteous shall be granted. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and he shall give you the desire of your heart.

24. But the desire of many is a grovelling desire: it is a sinful desire: it is a disgraceful desire—a desire which, if it is attained, the attainment of it will afford very brief pleasure. Oh! sinner, let your desires go after Christ. Remember, if you would have him, you do not have to earn him—fight for him—win him—but he is to be had for the asking. “Lay hold,” says the apostle, “on eternal life.” As if it were ours, if we only grasped it. May God give us grace to lay hold on eternal life, for Jesus from the cross is saying, “Look to me, and be saved, all you ends of the earth,” and from his throne of glory he is still saying, “Come to me,” exalted on high, “to give repentance and remission of sin,” and he will give them both to those who seek him. Seek him, then, tonight. May God grant it for his Son’s sake. Amen.

{a} Hecatomb: A great public sacrifice (properly of a hundred oxen) among the ancient Greeks and Romans, and hence extended to the religious sacrifices of other nations; a large number of animals offered or set apart for a sacrifice. OED.
{b} Augean: Abominably filthy; i.e. resembling the stable of Augeas, a fabulous king of Elis, which contained 3000 oxen, and had been uncleansed for 30 years, when Hercules, by turning the river Alpheus through it, purified it in a single day. OED.

Expositions By C. H. Spurgeon {Hag 1; 2:1-9 Heb 7:15-28}

The subject is the building of the second temple. The people had been busily employed in building their own houses—some of them had gone to great expense and much labour on these houses, but they had not built the temple of God. The prophet Haggai was sent to incite them to holy labour.

1, 2. In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet came to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, saying, “Thus speaks the Lord of hosts, saying, ‘This people say, "The time is not come, the time that the Lord‘S house should be built."‘”

A bad excuse is thought to be better than none. These people would not object to the building of the Lord’s house, but they were willing to postpone so expensive a matter. There are always some people who will not say that they decline self-sacrifice for Christ—that would be more honesty than it would be reasonable to expect from them, and honesty might cost their feelings too much, but they have some other reason or pretence of reason—“The time is not come that the Lord’s house should be built.” Men are generally quick enough for anything that is for their own interest. “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” We must catch time by the forelock. Oh! if we had the same desire in the work and service of God—if we had the same desire—we should have the same promptness to do our task. “The time is not come—the time that the Lord’s house should be built.”

3, 4. Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying, “Is it time for you, oh you, to dwell in your panelled houses, and this house lies waste?”

They had wainscoted {panelled} their houses with cedar and odoriferous {fragrant} wood, decorated them with carving, whereas the plainest edifices would have sufficed. God will allow them to build their own house for necessary dwelling, but next to that should certainty come his house, before they took to decorating their own. “Is it time for you to do this?” and, indeed, it may well be said to many a wealthy man, “It does not appear to you to be time to aid foreign missions, but it does seem to you to be time to put another thousand pounds in Consols. {c} It does not seem time for you to help the Bible Society, but it seems to be time to make another investment, and purchase another estate that adjoins your own.” “Is it time for you, oh! you, to dwell in your panelled houses?”

5, 6. Now therefore thus says the Lord of hosts; “Consider your ways. You have sown much, and bring in little; you eat, but you do not have enough; you drink, but you are not filled with drink; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages, earns wages to put it into a bag with holes.”

Those people did not prosper: they were very prudent in a worldly way, but somehow they did not prosper. No! it is not what we do so much as God’s prospering us that will make us really succeed. It is vain to rise up early and sit up late, and eat the bread of carefulness. God must give us prosperity, and he often withholds this where he sees it is not right. A man will not trust a bad steward, and though God has trusted very many bad stewards for wise reasons, yet among his own people he often gives chastisements, and deprives them of worldly comfort, when they do not use what they have for his service. I think I have heard some people say that ministers never ought to talk about money in the pulpit. The prophet Haggai did, however; and it is because ministers say so little about the consecration of their substance to God’s cause that this most important part of true piety is often treated with levity, and with some even by disgust. No, brethren, we must speak often. The great sin of the Christian Church is withholding from God. Now it is the sin as in the days of Haggai. “Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘Consider your ways.’” If you considered your ways, you would see that you have been losers by your attempts to gain. Consider your ways practically by altering them.

7, 8. Thus says the Lord of hosts; “Consider your ways. Go up to the mountains, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified,” says the Lord.

That should be the great object that we should aim at in all we do, that God may be glorified—that God may take pleasure in it. It does not matter who we please if God is not pleased, nor who gets honour from what we give, if God is not glorified by it.

9. “You looked for much, and, lo it came to little.

It vanished: the breeze was so strong that the unconsecrated substance went away like chaff.

9-11. I blew on it. Why?” says the Lord of hosts. “Because of my house that is waste, and every man of you runs to his own house. Therefore the heaven over you withholds the dew, and the earth withholds her fruit. And I called for a drought on the land, and on the mountains, and on the grain, and on the new wine, and on the olive oil, and on what the ground produces, and on men, and on cattle, and on all the labour of the hands.”

Men make an inventory: item—so many cattle, item—so much grain, item—so much wine. God can make items too, and he can curse all our blessings one by one. This catalogue looks like it. If they have saved in all these, robbing God, God will take care that they shall get nothing by their doing.

12. Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Joshua, the son of Josedech, the high priest, with all the rest of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him, and the people feared before the Lord.

There is a good heart in those men who are led to duty when they are reminded of neglect, and it is blessed work preaching where there is a conscience quick to accede to the admonition. I do not suppose it was so with all the people of Jerusalem, but it was with some of them, and those the leading men. Where high priests and men of authority lead the way, others, if not so prompt, are often guided by the principle of imitation, and they follow the leader.

13. Then Haggai the Lord‘S messenger spoke the Lord‘S message to the people, saying. “‘I am with you,’ says the Lord.”

Here was the best cheer for them. They had engaged in God’s business, and God would be with them.

14, 15. And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and did work in the house of the Lord of hosts their God. In the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king.

Notice that date—the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month.

2:1. In the seventh month, in the twenty-first day of the month.

Not very long after.

2-4. “Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest and to the rest of the people, saying, ‘Who is left among you who saw this house in her first glory? And how do you see it now? Is it not in your eyes in comparison to it as nothing? Yet now be strong, oh Zerubbabel,’ says the Lord; ‘and be strong, oh Joshua, son of Josedech, the high priest; and be strong, all you people of the land,’ says the Lord, ‘and work: for I am with you,’ says the Lord of hosts.

It appears that the spirit of idleness had broken out again. As the walls began to rise the older men wept at the memory of what an inferior structure it would be compared with the former building of Solomon, and the idolaters, ready enough to get an excuse, are ready enough to cease work. Therefore, God’s prophet is at it again. If the fire begins to die out, the bellows must be used again. The zeal of the Christian is very much like the zeal of these men of Jerusalem—very apt to flag; and the zeal of God’s messenger must come to stir them up again.

5, 6. According to the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, so my Spirit remains among you: do not fear.’ For thus says the Lord of hosts; ‘Yet once, it is only a little while.

Though as some read it, it is “only a little structure,” but our reading is, perhaps, better—it is only a little while.

6-9. And I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘The silver is mine, and the gold is mine,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘The glory of this latter house shall be greater than the former,’ says the Lord of hosts: ‘and in this place I will give peace,’ says the Lord of hosts.”

Clearly encouraging them to proceed with their work.

Hebrews 7

15-18. And it is yet far more evident: for in the likeness of Melchizedek there arises another priest. Who is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life. For he testifies, “You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.” For there is truly an annulling of the commandment going before for the weakness and unprofitableness of it.

The old Levitical law is annulled; it became weak and unprofitable; and now a higher and better covenant is ushered in with a greater and undying priesthood.

19. For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by which we draw near to God.

That is all it did; it was a stepping-stone towards something better, “by which we draw near to God.” “The Lord has sworn and will not repent.”

20-24. And inasmuch as not without an oath he was made priest. (For those priests were made without an oath; but this with an oath by him who said to him, “The Lord swore and will not repent, you are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.”) By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better Testament. And they truly were many priests, because they were not permitted to continue by reason of death. But this man, because he continues for ever, has an unchangeable priesthood.

I think they thought that there were eighty-three high priests in regular succession from Aaron to the death of Phinehas, the last high priest at the siege of Jerusalem. One succeeded another, but this one goes on continually, for ever, having an untransferable priesthood. That word “untransferable” is nearer to the meaning than this “unchangeable.” If any of you have old Bibles with the margin, you will see “has a priesthood which cannot be passed from one hand to another,” and the margin happens in this case to have the true rendering, “This man has an untransferable priesthood.”

25. Therefore he is able also to save to the uttermost those who come to God by him, since he lives for ever to make intercession for them.

“For such a high priest became us.”

We need just that high priest who would live on throughout all the ages for ever to sustain his people, and do for them all they should need to have done for them, until time should have been no more.

26-28. For such a high priest is fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once, when he offered himself up. For the law makes men high priests who have infirmities; but the word of the oath, which was since the law, makes the Son, who is consecrated for evermore.

There is our joy.

{c} Consol: An abbreviation Consolidated Annuities, of i.e. the government securities of Great Britain. OED.