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The Abiding Gift of Prophecy

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Haggai Rallies the People to Their Task

At this crisis, after a long period of quiescence, God again spoke to His people through the gift of prophecy. It was, as we are told with remarkable exactitude, “in the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month,” that “the word of the Lord” came to Zerubbabel and Joshua. The prophet, or spokesman for Jehovah, was Haggai. Haggai 1:1. AGP 154.3

In this message, God gave them the reason for the adversity and calamity that had come upon the people. They had abandoned their work on the Lord’s house, and were selfishly seeking to enrich themselves. The drought was God’s response to their neglect of the service which should have rested first upon their hearts. AGP 154.4

This prophetic message brought a hearty response. The people rallied to their unfinished task, and the prophet brought them the promise, “I am with you, saith the Lord.” Verse 13. AGP 154.5

By the twenty-fourth day of the month, three weeks after the vision of Haggai, all hands were working energetically to complete the house of the Lord. AGP 154.6

About a month later, a second prophetic message was delivered by Haggai, assuring the people—some of whom had wept at the memory of the glories of Solomon’s temple—that “the glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former.” He referred not to the physical glory, but to the fact that the AGP 154.7

courts of this temple would be trodden by the feet of the long-promised Messiah,—“the Desire of all nations.” Chapter 2:9, 7. AGP 155.1

Thus encouraged, the people went forward heartily with their task. Soon the prophet gave them a further message from heaven, assuring them of God’s blessing “from this day and upward.” Verse 15. His frown, long indicated by years of adversity, was now to be changed into His favor, and marked by bountiful harvests of field and tree. A personal and special assurance of God’s favor was addressed by the prophet to Zerubbabel. Thus we see the profound and determining influence exerted upon the ancient people of God through the prophets of His choosing. AGP 155.2