The Pulpit Commentary — Haggai — Section 10

Vers. 5, 7.-0onsidering one's ways. I. AN EXALTED PRIVILEGE, 'fhe faculties of introspection and reflection, which enRble man to consider his ways, constitute a lofty endowment, which places him incontestably at the apex of creation. 1. It distinguishes himfrom the wwer animals. These may be possessed of capabilities which enable them to perform actions in rnme degree resembling the fruits of intelligence-it may even be conceded are, in some instances at least, endowed with faculties of memory, imagination, and judgment; but they are wholly devoid of the powers of self-introspection and reflection here ascribed to man. Of the noblest of brute beasts it still remains to be proved that it ever said to itself," I communed with mine own heart: and my spirit made diligent search" (Ps. lu:vii. 6); or "I thought on my ways" (Ps. cxix. 69). 2. It sets him in the neighbourhood of God. The Hebrew pse.lmist conceived the ideal man as a being only a little short of Divinity (Ps. viii. 5); and though the basis on which he rested this conception was man's manifest dominion over the creatures, yet this arose, as he well 1..-new, out of tbe fact that man, as distinguished from the lower creatures, had been made in the Divine image (Gen. i. 26); which again, in part at lea.st, consisted in his capacity to consider his ways, or to look before and behind in whatever way he was treading. "Known unt.o God are all his works from the beginning of the world" (Acts xv. 18); "He decle.reth the end from the beginning" (Isa. xlvi. 10); and though the Preacher affirms that "no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to tbe end" (Eccles. iii. 11), yet to each man bas been granted the ability to consider the way in which he himself goeth (Eccles. v. 1), and in this high capacity of pondering the path of his feet he possesses an endowment that in bim a finite being corresponds to the omniscience of the infinite God. II. .AJ. URGENT DUTY. The consideration of one's we.ys required by two things. 1. Divine commandment. In addition t.o the twice-repeated exhortation here addressed to the buiiders, the admonition frequently occurs in Scripture (Ps. iv. 4; Prov. iv. 26; 1 Cor. xi. 28; 2 Cor. xiii 5; Gal. vi. 4) to commune with one's own heart, to search and try one's ways, to examine carefully int.o one's spiritue.l condition. And this to a good man is enough to constitute an imperative obligation. "Where the word of a king is"-much more where the word of the King of kings is-"there is power." 2. Present Befety. No one can travel long securely or comfortably along the path of life who does not ponder well at the outset from what point the course he is pursuing starts, who does not frequently pause to notice whither it is tending, e.nd who does not always have an eye upon the where and the how it shall terminate. 'l'he man that lives purely by haphazard, that rushes on blindfold into whatever enterprise he takes in hand, whether in business or religion, is sure to come to grief, if not to fall into the ditch. 3. Futll,f'e responsibuity. There might be less need for attending to this duty if the issues of our ways and actions always exhansted them.selves on earth and in time. But they do not, "We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, end give an account of the deeds done in the body, whether these be good or whether they be bad" (2 Cor. v. 10). The ways of every man project themselves into the unseen beyond. Every man is making his future by the ways he is travelling and the deeds he ie doing in the present. III. A PB0FITABLE EXEBCISE. Apart altogether from the duty of it, the advant~ges to be derived from it should go far to recommend thi8 practice. 1. Self-knowledge. No one will ever attain to a trustworthy or valuable acquaintance with hie own heart who does not frequently undertake a review of" the issues of life" (Prov. iv. 23) that proceed from it. Yet next to the knowledge of God and Christ, which constitute the essence of" life eternal" (John xvii. 2), the knowledge of self is the highest attainment to which one can rise. 2. Moral discernment. The power of distinguishing between right and wron.g, which belongs to all as an intuitive endowment, is ntivertbeles11 Oll, t, 1-16.] THE BOOK OF HAGGAI. 9