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The book of Haggai is a brief collection of messages written by Haggai as given to him by the Lord in 520BC. It takes us past the exile period to the time when the people of Israel were repatriated.  The prophet charges the people to build the house of the Lord and promises the receiving of God’s blessings for such an undertaking. The prophet tells the people that by looking at their own interests they will not please God.

The prophet laments that the people build their own “panelled” houses while the Lord’s house, the temple, lies in ruin.

The word “panelled houses,” can lead us to meditate that sometimes we “panell” our own worldly things together for ourselves.

However, this does not last. Only the Godly, is eternal and that is the way that God wishes us to serve Him, not by our own thoughts and ideas, but by the way He wishes us to serve Him.

Haggai starts off by speaking in the second year of King Darius reign to Zerubbabel, Governor of Judah and grandson of king Jehoiachin, and Joshua the son of the Jehozadak, the high priest, stating that the Lord says that His people says that it is not the time yet to build the house of the Lord, yet all the people live in their own panelled houses while God’s house is in ruin (Haggai 1: 3-6).

One may say that the rebuilding was important as God’s honour was at stake as the temple and the covenant went hand in hand. God therefore asks through Haggai that the people consider how they have fared, they have sown much, but harvested little, and they have earned wages but have placed them in bags with holes.

Haggai urges the people to go and fetch wood so that the house of the Lord may be built, but is disappointed in that the people rush away to build their own houses. Seeing this attitude of the people, God withheld the rains from heaven and this affects all the animals and soil produces (Haggai 1: 11).

Therefore, Haggai comes in the seventh month of the second year of king Darius’s reign and affirms God’s covenant with God’s people and says unto them that they will be God’s people and that His spirit will dwell among them (Haggai 2:5). God is ever faithful. Haggai continues to bring God’s promise of victory to them when he says that God will shake the heavens and the earth and all nations so that His house can be decorated with splendor. God assures His people that the latter splendor of the new temple will be greater than the former.

When Zerubbabel and Jehozadak heard the call from God to rebuild His temple from the prophet Haggai, they, together with the remnant people obeyed the voice of the Lord their God and the words of his prophet Haggai. This caused God to say that He is with them. Consequently, they all came to work on the house of the Lord of hosts on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month (Haggai l:15-15).

The Lord shows them that before they started to build His temple, they laboured in vain, however, He says now that they have come together and worked together so that the foundation has been laid, He will bless them abundantly.

Haggai tells the people that through obedience to their covenant, they will be blessed.  When the day came that they put God first God blessed every aspect of their lives (Haggai 2 10-19).

We find written in the Prophet Haggai Chapter 2 verses 6-9 the prediction of what would happen within the world:

“For thus saith the Lord of hosts; Yet once, it is a little while, 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, saith the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts.”

We see therein the prophet was foretelling that there would be a great shaking throughout the whole world, a shaking that would have the people of the nations of the world to come unto the house of the Lord, not the natural house and temple that had been built by the former kings, but a latter house, the house of God, the spiritual house, the church, where every baptised soul becomes a living stone in that living temple, and it shall be glorious and there shall be peace found there, for the Prince of Peace will have come and established the building of this temple. We today are recipients of this.

That shaking came about in a very small way. It came about with the birth of a child, the second created man of God who was now born into this world without sin, because He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and He lived His life without sin. He paid the atonement necessary for the sins of the world, and on the cross He requested His Father to forgive them for they know not what they do, meaning the nations of the world who did not know of Him and did not know what they were doing for they were following the traditions of their forebears which had been contaminated by Satan.

He asked then according to the Scriptures where the prophets foretold, ‘Ask of me, and I will give you the nations of the worlds for thine inheritance.’ Our Lord, when He asked for that forgiveness for the nations of the world, our Heavenly Father then opened and shook within their midst over a period of time.

That shaking is still going on. That shaking shows that the Word of God is valid and powerful, and can bring about the promise of God and the Kingdom of God and eternal life.