If your priorities are misplaced; if chapter one, the worship of God, is not your chief delight; if it is not the highest marker in your life to adore your God, whether in public or private worship—then everything else is a fake. Then you can go through the motions of worship, but it is polluted. How do we know if that is the case with us? Because you see, we are not in the same situation as Haggai’s folk were. We are not in a situation where we are deliberately showing our neglect, because we are not building or rebuilding an actual temple edifice; that was very clear for them. The temple was still in ruins. They started to rebuild and they knocked off. The Lord could very clearly say, I can see how much My worship matters to you, you don't even rebuild the temple while you run to eke out the best living that you can! So he is very clear with them. But how do I know if my condition is such that my God’s worship does not have supreme place in my life? Well, you could probably test yourself by what you do on your own. By what you do when you are at home and when you're by yourself and in your private and personal devotions and life. Not just “Do I necessarily come to public worship, (although that is an expression of the desire for the supreme affection for my God. But what do I do when I am by myself, in my home: Do I worship there? Is that my supreme delight, to adore my God personally, and in my own home?
How do we do that? Well, part of it certainly has to do with desiring to hear his Word. Do I love my Father's words? If I'm his child, do I seek the Scriptures now? I don't mean to read nine chapters of it, but do you seek regularly to hear your Father speak in the Scriptures? Does that matter to you? Do you feel famished? Have you ever for some reason or other been unable to take even 10 or 15 minutes a day to meditate on the Scriptures? Perhaps because of the pressure of travel or something like that, and you've gotten thrown off your regular schedule and you can't do that? Do you feel famished? Do you not feel hungry? You have not been able to have your food, so you feel empty? If we are God's children, we must have an appetite for our Father's words. What about worship in prayer? Surely church is not the only place where we pray? I don't mean, please, that you go through the progress of every institution and Christian organization that sends you their monthly prayer list with everyday requests. You may have four or five come to your door, that's fine, but I don't mean that you cover all those needs everybody by mail asks you to pray for, good as that may be. I mean, do you, as you pray, give yourself to God afresh? Do you express your love for him? Do you tell him you adore him? Do you cast your needs before him? Is that part of your worship? In other words, how much does the worship and adoration of God have in our lives when we're not in church? That can be probably a fairly true index of whether that matters to us or not. And if there isn't, then could it be a sign that our public worship is lacking? Could it be that the Lord God could turn to ask the Presbyterian and say of our worship services, what you offer there is unclean? We need to reflect on our worship.1
Dale Ralph Davis
13 Et Aggée dit: Si quelqu'un souillé par le contact d'un cadavre touche toutes ces choses, seront-elles souillées? Les sacrificateurs répondirent: Elles seront souillées.