“Is it a time for you yourselves to live in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?”“Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies waste?Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste?Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your ceiled houses, while this house lieth waste?
4 sermons cite this verse
… is it really a time for you to yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house lies in ruins? Paneled houses was considered a great luxury back then. It would be like saying a house today with granite countertops. We're not talking about people just trying to get a roof over their heads. These people are installing wood paneling and pools and saunas and pickleball courts on their properties. Meanwhile, God's house still lies in ruins. I want you to hear me very clearly. God does not object to them working on their houses, but the temple was supposed to be the center of their lives. The temple was to be the place where they would hear from God, the place they could teach their families about God, the place where strangers from other nations could learn about God's salvation. It was to be the headquarters of God's mission on earth and the place of their primary involvement in God's mission, which means that the temple should have been their first thought, not an afterthought. …
… but what did they do instead? Well, Haggai 1.4 tells us, God speaking, is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while my temple lies in ruins? It's easy to numb whenever you feel something unpleasant that you need to deal with. Instead, you just go to Amazon and now you've got something coming to your house. And as long as it's on the way, I don't have to feel the pain because I can have this next meal. I can plan this next trip. Are you feeling me? We can do things to numb the bad feelings, but it just pushes when we need to get healed off into the future because you can't heal while you don't feel. Number five, you can pass the blame. I am this way and it's your fault. I am this way and it's because of what you did. John chapter five, there's a man lying on the ground and Jesus says, do you want to get up? You know what the man says? …
… The word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet. it? Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses? Well, this house lies in ruin. Thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. You have sown much, harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough. You drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. He who earns wages does so, but puts them into a bag with holes. That's likely a reference to some inflation. You got a bag with holes. Your money is just not worth anything. Thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. Go up to the hills, bring wood, build the house that I may take pleasure in it, that I may be glorified, says the Lord. You looked for much and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? See what the sermon is about? Why are things going bad for you? …
… And what you will find is that Haggai is essentially making an indictment of the people. He says in chapter 1, verse 4, that is this a time for you yourselves to live in your paneled houses while this house, meaning the temple, lies in ruins? Haggai points to a simple deficiency that many of us can relate to. It's not that we don't have the capacity to rebuild. It's that we put our focus on rebuilding the wrong things. When the people of Israel return home, they start building these fancy houses for themselves, and they leave the temple lying in ruins. And this is strange because they live in a world where people believe that God could only properly be worshipped in a temple. So how can you put God and worship on the back burner while you focus on the comforts of your own luxurious lifestyle? I'm about to leave this empty sanctuary and pull up in somebody's driveway because if we're honest, all of us have been through seasons of our life where we've made God secondary. …