Bring wood, and build the house.
The building rising
I. An important operation engaged in. “Building the house.”
1. Its actual nature. The building of the temple of God on Mount Zion. Solomon’s temple had been dismantled and razed to the ground. The first act of the restored captives was to rebuild the temple, so that they might once more perform Divine worship. The spiritual import of it was the formation and the gradual perfecting through successive generations of time, of the spiritual Church of God, under the dispensation of the Gospel of His Son, which in Scripture is known by the similitude of a house or a temple.
2. Its attendant difficulties. External adversaries around them. Powerful obstacles arose from the Jews themselves. Their numbers were scanty, and their resources were feeble; some were depressed and fearful, and some were indifferent and apathetic. Subtle objections against undertaking the work just then were started. Difficulties which common agency and common exertion might well despair of removing. These facts suggest the circumstances attendant on the erection of the spiritual temple of Divine grace, under the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. The work has to progress amidst immense difficulty and opposition. External enmity has abounded, arising from the radical depravity and alienation of the human heart against God, and employing against His truth all the weapons of tact and force: heathen imposture, antichristian superstition, Mohammedan fanaticism, infidel impiety, worldly contempt and neglect. And the professed friends of the Gospel have themselves interposed serious difficulties in the path of progress and success. What injuries have come through the corruptions of the Church; by the divisions of the Church; and by the indolence of the Church. The inertness of some among us has been a most serious injury to the progress of truth and righteousness. It has contracted the resources of the Church; it has given to the Church a false aspect, and a false reputation in the eyes of the world. It has damped the zeal and paralysed the energies of pious, active, and devoted men; and it has prevented the announcement of saving principles to multitudes, who thus have lived in ignorance, have died in darkness, and have gone down in despair.
II. An agency in connection with which this operation is to be conducted.
1. It is instrumental and secondary. The personal exertions of the Jews themselves were demanded, and were enlisted under the guidance of certain men who had been specially appointed by God for that purpose. The instrumental and secondary agency, appointed for the purpose of promoting the designs of Divine mercy, under the Gospel of our Redeemer, consists in the devoted labours of men who have been themselves redeemed. When the Saviour had completed His own personal mission among the sons of men, He consigned the instrumentality we have noticed, mainly to those whom He had constituted His ministers: some amongst them to labour in temporary offices, and others again to be raised up in long succession, and in such succession to labour until the end of time.
2. It is an agency efficient and supreme. The Divine agency, connected with the instrumentality of men, was to direct them in their counsels, and to give efficiency and success to their movements. It is the agency of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the agency of the Holy Spirit. Zechariah presents Christ as the foundation-stone of the building, and as the architect of the building. The Spirit is presented under the figure of the “seven eyes.” Obstacles would remain undiminished, the “great mountain” would always frown upon us in equal and unmitigated power, were it not for the agency asserted and vindicated here. The best instrumentality devised and employed by man, and operating with whatever of industry and skill, would not advance one solitary step, were it not for the agency asserted and vindicated here.
III. A result, in which this operation, so conducted, shall terminate. The operation shall be triumphantly completed. The head-stone of the temple was brought on. And we can securely anticipate the certain and appointed consummation of the efforts, which in the cause of God we are now, although inadequately, assisting to promote. There is to be the completion of the structure of Divine grace. Nothing can injure the progress and the advancement of our religion. And being triumphantly completed, it will eminently redound to the Divine glory. And the final triumph will be hailed with ecstasy and rapture by all holy created beings. Application--
1. What encouragement to those already engaged and labouring for God!
2. What rebuke to those, professing the religion of Jesus, who are yet indolent and inactive!
3. What warning to those who are avowedly hostile to God and to His truth! (James Parsons.)
The sanctuary built
It is vain to contend that there exists an exact correspondence between the Jewish and the Christian Church. Yet, as they were constituted and ruled by the same authority, and for the same great ends, the history of the former cannot be otherwise than pregnant with instructions suited to the condition and wants of the latter. The principles of truth and righteousness are immutable. These remarks are applicable to the present portion of Jewish history. The returned captives let the house of God lie waste until they had made ample provision for themselves and their families. With this course God was displeased, and He punished them in a manner exactly corresponding with the offence. They wanted to accumulate more of the world for themselves and families. But God rendered abortive every labour of their hands. By drought and famine He dried up the sources of their gains, and withered their hopes. There is nothing to render this case inapplicable to the Christian Church. The great law of God’s providence, in this respect, is maintained even down to the present day.
1. God has, from the beginning, been worshipped in temples made With hands. While the Jews were passing through the wilderness, they built a portable tabernacle for God’s worship. When their migrations were ended, they built a costly and magnificent temple to the honour of Jehovah. Thus it has been in all time where Jehovah has been known. Even heathen nations have everywhere had public edifices devoted to the rites of their idolatrous worship. There never was a community that did not consecrate to the object of its worship some structure,
2. As respects the true religion, these edifices have been built by command of God. See injunctions given to Moses and to Solomon. History records not one instance of the pervading and sanctifying power of religion in any community where the regular and stated convocations of the people for the worship of God had been abolished.
3. A house of worship, where the people may convene to make a public recognition of God, and offer to Him their homage, is indispensably necessary to a diffusion of the blessings of religion, and a perpetuation of its institutions. The advantages resulting from a convocation of the people at stated periods for religious instruction are perfectly obvious. Let the house of God go to decay, let the sanctuary be demolished, and the strongest bonds of the social state will be dissolved, and all combinations of effort or sympathy to sustain the ordinances, or propagate the doctrines of religion, come to an end. Religion could, under these circumstances, have no organised existence. The solemn convocations of the Church of Christ constitute the heart, whose pulsations send the vital fluid through all the ramifications of the system. Let its Sabbath assemblies be given up, and its existence would speedily come to an end.
4. The ministrations of the house of God have a powerful influence upon the intelligence and good order of the community. There are susceptibilities to religious influence which belong to man’s nature. They must either be developed and trained under scriptural instruction, or they must take on a character from some superstitious and inadequate culture. The objects presented before the mind in the sanctuary, by an able and scriptural ministry, are of the most exalted and commanding character. How is it possible that the constant exhibition of themes like these should fail of producing an elevation and expansion of intellect through all the grades of society that no other agency is capable of producing? How great must be the moral power of the pulpit. The principles of the Gospel are all holy. Whence come the perpetrators of crimes? I have no recollection of even one individual who was an habitual worshipper in the sanctuary being convicted of a States’ prison offence. There are still higher interests to be secured by this agency--the interests of the soul. In the house of prayer there are peculiar manifestations of the Divine glory. Here souls are trained for heaven.
5. The building destined to this high purpose should, in some sense, correspond to the great design of its erection.
(1) It should be a true exponent of the estimation in which the people hold the institutions of religion.
(2) It ought to be rendered as attractive, by its architectural beauty without, and by its well-appointed arrangements within, as is consistent with the sacred and holy purposes which it is designed to subserve.
(3) When it becomes necessary to erect a house for the worship of God, the people should well consider the character of the Being to whom it is to be consecrated, and take care that the structure be such a one as they will not be ashamed to present to Him as an expression of their gratitude and love. Closing remarks--
1. We owe primarily to the sanctuary the intelligence, refinement, good order which prevail in Christian communities, and the security of life and property which we enjoy.
2. We do not recommend extravagant expenditures in building a house for the worship of our God. We would have everything simple and chaste, but, if the ability of the people permitted, rich and commodious.
3. To accomplish a work of such magnitude, the utmost harmony is demanded; a perfect union of views and efforts. Divided counsels always tend to weakness and ruin.
4. Nothing but the spirit of an enlightened and enlarged liberality will be equal to the demands of such an emergency, as the erection of a house to be consecrated to the worship of Jehovah.
5. The condescension of God, in recording His name in temples made with hands, and in permitting Himself there to be sought and worshipped by His sinful creatures, ought to excite our highest wonder, and gratitude, and love for ever. (J. W. Adams, D. D.)
The encouragement to build the Lord’s house
In the Word of God warnings and threats are always accompanied with exhortations and promises. Were it not so, the threats would profit us little. It is true that only in the Gospel is the love of God made manifest in its fulness. Only in the Gospel do the promises prevail mightily over the threatenings. As God bids the Jews go up to the mountain and fetch the wood to build His house, so does He command us likewise to go up to the mountain for the same purpose. To what mountain? To the mountain of faith; to the mountain of duty. Faith is a hard mountain to climb for all, above all for those who have been living in unbelief. Duty too is a hard mountain to climb for all, above all for those who have been living in self-indulgence. This is the reward He promises us, if we will climb the steep mountain of faith and duty to seek the graces with which we are to build God’s house. He assures us He will take pleasure in that house, and will be glorified in it. What a mighty motive is this! It ought to have great sway over every one of us. If God takes pleasure in our work, that work must be blessed upon ourselves also. God is infinitely more merciful and bountiful than man can believe or conceive. He sees the very first stirrings of an obedient spirit in the heart; and when He sees them, He blesses them, and strengthens them, and helps them forward. No sooner had Zerubbabel and the remnant of the people begun to obey the voice of the Lord, than the prophet Haggai was sent to say, “I am with you, saith the Lord.” He had been with them long before. He had shown forth His wonderful loving-kindness in a number of ways. Yet He sent them this comforting assurance. Nor is He less kind, less gracious, less bountiful, less merciful to us who have become His children in Christ Jesus. He comes to us from the very first by His Spirit. He has been with us, as our Guide, Teacher, and Director, during the whole of our journey through the wilderness of the world, from our childhood upward. It is through Him that we have been brought, whenever we have been brought, into the assembly of His people upon His holy hill of Zion. He has ever and anon sent His prophets to Us. Yet when we do begin to turn our hearts towards Him, as soon as we earnestly desire to obey Him, and serve Him, He comes to us more plainly, more openly, more manifestly, and sends us a message to cheer us with the assurance that He is and will be with us. This blessed assurance is vouchsafed to all who sincerely desire and strive to obey God. They feel that they have a wisdom above their own to guide them, that they have a strength beyond their own to support them. May we all be brought to that state in which God will take pleasure and be glorified in us! (Julius C. Hare, M. A.)
God glorified in the building of Churches.
“What are the walls which we raise, unless God take pleasure in them? Just what a body is without a soul, hopeless, spiritless, unprofitable. Will God indeed he glorified of men? There is one thing more strange, it is that God should be so little glorified of men. It would be profane and impious to speak of those as glorifying God, who live with no “fear of God before their eyes.” When is God glorified?
1. When any are converted to Him who, heretofore, either in accordance with bad principles, or in contradiction to better principles, have been alienated from Him, or transgressing against Him.
2. When men accept the way of salvation which He has prepared. When the Gospel offer is accepted, and men thank God for His unspeakable gift, God is glorified.
3. When they who have repented do “works meet for repentance,” live “righteously, soberly, and godly,” and wait for His heavenly kingdom. God is dishonoured when any who profess to take His yoke upon them walk unworthily “of the vocation wherewith they are called”; when any, who pretend to be His friends, are really enemies of the Cross of Christ.
4. When men are saved. This is the crown of all; and truly is it the glory of God. Whoever is made meet for the heavenly inheritance, will ascribe it to God alone. “He that glorieth will glory in the Lord”; will acknowledge that His Spirit influenced him, His wisdom guided him, His goodness converted him, His power defended him, and that with anything less than that all-sufficient hand, he must have sunk under the dangers with which he was assailed. (T. B. Summer, D. D.)
The duty of building the spiritual house of God
God’s material temple at Jerusalem was typical of the spiritual temple to be erected in the hearts of the people. The words of text are applicable--
I. To the spiritual house to be raised in every individual’s heart. St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, says, “Ye are the temple of God; and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.” Yet what minister can look over his congregation and not see manifest proof that in the case of too many this temple is altogether in ruins. Even where there is good reason to believe that the rubbish of sinful habits has been cleared away, the foundation been rightly laid, and the building is making progress, will not most allow that’ the lets and hindrances perpetually occurring, render the exhortations of the prophets both salutary and expedient? Some may say, What can we do in this matter? Is not the building of this spiritual house the work of God? Yes, it is. But because God’s material temple was to be raised, not by human power, but by God’s Spirit, therefore the people were urged to persevere and fear no obstacle: and it is because God worketh in us both to will and do, therefore we are exhorted to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. Man can do nothing in spiritual things without God, and God seldom acts without being pleased to use the co-operation of man. We are to be active in the carrying on of t-hies spiritual building, that the Lord may take pleasure in it, and that He may be glorified thereby.
II. To the Church of Christ in our own land. But there are many living in our land without Christian ordinances, and in a state of heathenism. Then there is a call to “build this house.”
III. To the Church of Christ throughout the world. Our charity should indeed begin at home, but it should not stay there. Missionary exertion has a reflex effect. If ever there was a Church, or nation, to which God, by His providential dispensations, might be supposed in an especial manner to say, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel,” that Church and that nation is our own. (T. Grantham, B. D.)