Haggai 2:19 - The Biblical Illustrator

Bible Comments

From this day will I bless you.

The birthday of blessing

The cause of much ill success in life is often to be found in the want of zeal for God’s house. The temple was a type of that Church of which every individual believer is a living stone. From the day when the foundation of that temple is laid, the promise of the text is ours. When is the foundation day from which the blessing dates? In one sense it is from everlasting, for God’s people are, in purpose, part of the building from before all time. But the day of conversion is the day on which is laid--as far as our experience is concerned--the foundation of our salvation.

I. A specified day. This blessed day goes by different names in Scripture. A day of espousals: the day in which Jesus, our heavenly Bridegroom, wins the heart of His bride. A day of power. It is a mighty act to convert a sinner, infinitely beyond the power of man, and glorifying even to the omnipotence of God. The “day of salvation.” This name describes itself.

1. This day often has a cloudy dawning. The day of grace begins before there is actual light. Just before the light breaks in, the power of darkness makes its most desperate resistance.

2. The day has often a secret dawning. There are those who cannot say exactly when or how they were converted. Foolishly they fear they can never have been converted at all, as they are unable to say it was then, and it was there.

3. Sometimes this day has an early, and sometimes a long-delayed dawn. God has no fixed age at which to convert.

4. This day, like all others, has a silent dawn. It is seen, but not heard.

5. The dawning of this day, like the dawning of all other days, is irresistible. If it is the work of God, it must stand.

6. The dawn is but the commencement of the day. The morning is the noon in childhood; the noon is but the dawn fully developed.

II. A declared blessing. It includes all spiritual blessings; pardon, peace, etc. It rests on all our temporal affairs. It extends to all future things. (Archibald G. Brown.)

Promises to bless encouragements to work

1. Concerning the great Promiser, the following considerations are interesting.

(1) He is Jehovah.

(2) The Promiser is the God of the people to whom the promises are made.

(3) The Promiser is strong and faithful round about.

(4) The Promiser is Lord of elements and seasons.

2. Concerning the good things which the Lord our God promises. Comprehended in the term, “bless.” Includes--

(1) The removal of material evils.

(2) Means of fertility and plenty.

(3) A blessing with the means.

(4) A blessing upon the possession and use of those good things which the Lord produces by the means.

3. The people whom the Lord promiseth to bless.

(1) They were His own people.

(2) A people for whom the Promiser had lately done great things.

(3) A people who had been negligent and slothful in the work which the authority of the Promiser required, and gratitude to their Redeemer bound them to perform.

(4) A people whose negligence had been chastised.

(5) A people who were now learning to do well.

4.The day on which the Lord promiseth to bless His people.

(1) A specified day.

(2) The day on which they turned to the Lord, and began to build.

(3) The day on which the promise began to be performed.

Learn--

1. For the good things of this life the people of God have His covenant and promises.

2. Operations of material power are operations of God.

3. The zeal of the Lord of hosts hath done ,great things for the house of His name.

4. Building the house of the Lord is connected with blessing. (A. Shanks.)

The benediction of Haggai

These are the words of Haggai, whom the Lord raised up in his old age for the purpose of calling His people from the sin of religious indifference to the earnest performance of duty. As God’s prophet, it was his duty to expostulate, to trace the connection between sinful neglect and its effects, to picture in dark but true colours the woes of the people, but also to pronounce the promise of benediction and peace.

I. The promise asserts that in God and from God is the blessedness of his people.

1. There is nothing we can satisfactorily substitute for the blessing of God.

2. If we have it we need fear no evil from any other source.

II. The promise directly refers to temporal blessing, but includes spiritual. The picture presented is descriptive of the people’s estate. We ought to connect the goodness and love of God with all the material blessedness of life, as well as with the higher spiritual side of it. There is no department of life from which God need be shut out. But the promise certainly includes the higher blessings belonging to spiritual life and development.

III. The promise is given as the result of obedience, the sincerity of which practical proof has been supplied. We must not try to drive a bargain with God. The service our Lord wants is the service of faith and love. Let that be rendered and the blessing may tarry, but come it will, and just because it has tarried it may be all the richer and better.

IV. The promise is fixed and continuous. “From this day. That is definite enough. The benediction had been stored up--now it was to fall like the refreshing ram over all the land. And the blessing is to be continuous. To-day, and every succeeding day, I will bless you. The premiss is most reliable. From the words of the promise we look to Him who made it. He is able to fulfil it. (Adam Scott.)

The day of dedication to God is the day of blessing

I. The promise--blessing. This blessing of the Lord conveys a promise that He would not only withdraw the evils under which they suffered, and send fertility and plenty, but also pour down on them the Spirit of His grace. Esau was blessed with outward prosperity. Jacob had the full blessing, spiritual and temporal. He whom God blesses is blessed here and hereafter in body and in soul.

II. The time of it--“from this day; that is, from the day the foundation of the temple was laid. On this the prophet lays great stress. Who has not noticed a turn of providence in favour of those who have returned into the way of duty; and that, from that very day, God has blessed them? Indeed, this is aa unchangeable law in God’s government of the world.

III. The reason of this promise of the Lord. It seems that the people busied themselves with their own temporal affairs, purposing to build the temple when they could better afford it. God frustrated their selfish policy, by sending blasting and mildew in their fields, and causing their money to waste away insensibly, as though it had been put into a bag with holes. But when they reversed their mode of proceeding, from that very day God blessed them. God ordinarily proceeds to deal with men as they deal with Him. They who freely offer to Him their goods to carry on His work are blessed by Him with increase.

IV. This temple at Jerusalem was typical of the Church of Christ, of which He is the foundation and the superstructure. In this spiritual house we are all more immediately interested than in the building of the material temple. As Christians, we are all members of this spiritual building. Are we building on Christ, the only foundation? (Alfred Jones, T. A.)

Haggai 2:19

19 Is the seed yet in the barn? yea, as yet the vine, and the fig tree, and the pomegranate, and the olive tree, hath not brought forth: from this day will I bless you.