Haggai 1:14

And the place in which power comes is most instructive. It is not before but after obedience, and is connected with the assurance of the Lord's presence among His people. Grasping this would clear away a mistaken idea, often held and sometimes spoken: that we must wait for power before we obey. It is not so. On obedience the Lord gives power. First there must be the obedience of faith, and then the Lord gives power to walk in the divine paths. For example, the Lord said to the man with the withered hand, "Stretch out your hand." He could have replied, "I have no power." But in the spirit of obedience he hurried to do what he was told, and he received strength and was made whole.

Notice also the source of the power for work. It was not in the people, but in the Lord. It was He who stirred up the spirit of His people and urged them forward in His service. He had done the same at the start, when He "raised" their spirit to go up from Babylon to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. It takes us a long time to learn that there is no power except in the Lord. In the Lord's work human energy, will, or persistence count for nothing. They are real barriers in the way of divine strength. As was said to this same remnant, "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts" (Zech. 4:6).

This rebuke brings the people back to the fear of God. Fear is awakened, the conscience reached, the hard ground of nature ploughed up. Then the same voice of God through Haggai begins its ministry of comfort and encouragement: "I am with you, declares the LORD." But the Spirit visited the heart of the people as well as the lips of the prophet, and so the ministry reached its goal.

As to the spirit being a separate formation of God in every man, and not a mere influence, we read of "the spirit of Zerubbabel," and "the spirit of Joshua," and the "spirit of the remnant," in Haggai 1:14; of the "spirit" of Elijah (2 Kings 2:15) … as well as of the "spirit" of Cyrus (Ezra 1:1).

The remarkable fact here is that they built without waiting to hear that the king approved it. They did the work because it was the LORD's message, not because it carried the king's signature. His approval came later. They had gone on boldly in faith, acting on the word of the LORD and waiting for nothing else. Nor did the Lord fail to work for them. If there is opposition, the Lord knows how to turn the many adversaries so that the work goes forward.

The text also gives the date when they restarted their work. It was the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king. That is twenty-three days after Haggai began to prophesy. Three short weeks were enough for the recovery of the people from their backsliding. When God acts in power His work is soon done. The record of the date plainly shows His delight in the obedience of His people. How closely He watches over His saints! How carefully He notices the first movements of response to His word!

Moreover, if the LORD is with us we shall find, as the remnant of old found, that He will stir up our spirits to "work in the house of the LORD."