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SERMON XIII.1

Go

GOD GLORIFIED IN THE BUILDING OF

CHURCHES.

Haggai i. 8.

up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord.

THE best introduction to these words will be to remind you of the occasion when they were spoken.

The Jewish people were recovering from that desolation, in which the magnificent temple built by Solomon had been destroyed. The seventy years had now expired which had been foretold as the term of their captivity: they had been restored to Jerusalem; and the first thing

1 Preached at the consecration of a church.

commanded them, was to rebuild the temple of the Lord.2

They lingered in the work: they did not feel with David "I will not give sleep to mine eyes, nor slumber to mine eyelids, until I find out a place for the temple of the Lord." But their thoughts were of the nature which is more usual among men. "The time is not come, the time when the Lord's house should be built." 3

For this the Lord rebukes them in the language of the prophet, saying, "Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses, and this house lie waste? Now, therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways. Ye looked for much, and lo it came to little : and when you brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the Lord of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man to his own house. Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit." Then, together with the rebuke, encouragement is also added. Go up to the mountain and bring wood, and build the house, and I will take pleasure in it; and I will be glorified, saith the Lord.

2 Ezra i. 3.

'See Haggai i. 3—11.

My brethren, the encouragement is needful. What are the walls which we raise, unless God take pleasure in them? Just what a body is without a soul: hopeless, spiritless, unprofitable. "Except the Lord build the house, their labour is but lost that build it." The word may be sown, but it may fall by the way-side; or it may be choked by thorns, or the heat of temptation may scorch the springing blade. It is only when the Lord gives "the honest and good heart," that a ripe and precious harvest rewards the husbandman.

And therefore we rejoice in those declarations of his will which are afforded us in Scripture. We rejoice that he assured the Israelites," In all places where I record my holy name, I will come unto thee, and bless thee." 4 We rejoice that he declared to Solomon, "I have chosen and sanctified this house, and mine eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually." 5 We rejoice in the encouragement which the text contains, I am with you, saith the Lord. Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house: and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified.

And here we might feel with Solomon, and 5 1 Kings ix. 3.

4 Exod. xx. 24.

ask in humble wonder, as he did, "Will God in very deed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain him; how much less this house that I have builded ?" 6 So might we inquire, Will God indeed be glorified of men? Before him the angels veil their faces; and what is man, that God should be mindful of him, or be glorified by him?

Yet, brethren, there is one thing more strange still; that God should be so little glorified by men. On one side is God the Creator, "in whom our breath is, and whose are all our ways;" "in whom we live and move"-inviting his creatures to glorify him. And on the other side is man, regardless of his Creator, setting up idols in his heart, and forgetting the Lord his Maker. And this, even, where he has revealed himself; where "the true light" shineth, to "lighten every man that cometh into the world." 7

For is it not amongst the dwellers in our land, who are called to be God's people now, much as it was in Judea formerly with those who were then called to be his people? The prophet Jeremiah says of them, “They have 61 Kings viii. 27.

7 John i. 9.

refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock: they have refused to return. Therefore I said, Surely these are poor; they are foolish; for they know not the way of the Lord, nor the judgment of their God. I will get me unto the great men, and will speak unto them; for they have known the way of the Lord, and the judgment of their God. But these have altogether broken the yoke, and burst the bonds." 8

Is it not, is it not, indeed, "a very small remnant" that the Lord hath left us?9 66 Many are called;" but few, alas! are they, who, even if they honour God with their lips, and take his covenant into their mouths, are not given up to "the world and the things that are in the world," regardless, practically, of anything beyond; or else are obeying their natural appetites, fulfilling "the desires of the flesh and of the mind," and openly avowing, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die."

It would be profane and impious to speak of those as glorifying God, who live with no "fear of God before their eyes."

When, then, may we say that God is glori fied? He is glorified, when any are converted

8 Jer. v. 3-5.

9 Isaiah i. 9.