Haggai 2:14-15

Then Haggai said, “‘So is this people. And so is this nation before Me,’ declares the Lord, ‘and so is every work of their hands; and what they offer there is unclean. ‘But now, do consider from this day onward: before one stone was placed on another in the temple of the Lord,^[1]

The people returning from exile to the land of promise had an assignment, rebuild the Lord’s Temple; but there was a problem. The people were in a deplorably sinful condition because of everything with which they had come into contact. In the earlier verses, Haggai establishes with the priests that one cannot be made pure by contact alone with that which has been consecrated. However, one can be defiled by contact with that which has been itself defiled.

Haggai is presented with a huge dilemma, he has a project to advance but the sin of the people makes anything they touch unacceptable to the Lord. “Like a cancer that has invaded a human body, bringing destruction and disintegration to the cells it comes in contact with, so these people were bringing spiritual defilement to everything they touched.”^[2] How could the work go forth with such spiritual defilement? Until the spiritual issue of defilement was resolved there would be no way anything the people offered to the Lord would be accepted. If the work was to continue repentance was the order of the day.

What was true in Haggai’s day is still true in our generation. We have a huge issue of spiritual defilement just as in Haggai’s day. Everything we touch becomes defiled because we have allowed ourselves to come into contact with those things that are dead and defiled. Our sin is ever before us and without repentance we expect our labor to be acceptable to God. Haggai says to us over the generations, just as he said to the people of his day, “do consider from this day onward.” In other words, check yourself and repent before “one stone [is] placed on the other in the temple of the Lord.” The great thing is that when we do repent God is “faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Only then will what we bring be acceptable in His sight.

Lord Jesus, we humbly repent of all our sin. We have been recalcitrant, unruly, hard to handle, and stubborn. We know the right way to go but persist on doing things our own way. Instead of resisting the pull of our flesh our weak spirits betray us. But our earnest desire is to do Your will and to walk in Your way. We surrender to You everything that we have stubbornly held onto, and submit ourselves to be washed by the water of Your Word. Like David, create in us clean hearts and renew a right spirit within us. Amen.

^[1] New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), Hag 2:14–15.

^[2] Richard A. Taylor and E. Ray Clendenen, Haggai, Malachi (vol. 21A; The New American Commentary; Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2004), 179.