The prophet Haggai in 1:4-6 says: “Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?” Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: “Consider your ways! You have sown much, and bring in little; you eat, but do not have enough; you drink, but you are not filled with drink; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages, earns wages to put into a bag with holes.”
The “paneled houses” describe the type of wood working that would only be found in palaces, these folks weren’t just “getting by” they were “buying and getting”! To clarify the people’s position in 1:2 they weren’t saying not to build, NO they were saying, “We’ll do it later”, “It just doesn’t feel like the right time yet!”
Friends, the flesh is never going to get to the place that it just says, “Yeh, I want to die to my self-centered ways.” No, that’s why Paul said in Romans 6:11 that we need to “Reckon ourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Procrastination is the greatest enemy to our sanctification; it is never the wrong time to do the right thing!
Yet, with their pursuit of the things of this world Haggai says, they were “sowing much and bringing in little” and “earning wages to put into a bag with holes”. They weren’t making what they could have been on their investment because they weren’t putting God first in their lives.
If all we do is live for ourselves it is the surest way to have an empty life. If you are “sowing much and bringing in little” and “earning wages to put into a bag with holes” why not try sowing to your spiritual life! Lay up for yourself treasure in heaven that way you won’t have to worry about bags with holes. Haggai says in 1:9 “You looked for much, but indeed it came to little; and when you brought it home, it blew it away. Why?” says the Lord of hosts. “Because of My house that is in ruins, while every one of you runs to his own house.” We need to ask, does God’s house in my heart lay in ruins? Perhaps that’s why what we bring home blows away? The solution to this is: Rebuild the temple of your hearts so that what you bring home won’t blow away!