What does this title mean? It is simply a description of a huge number of Christians today. Let me give you a mental picture. You are in a canoe and paddling up a river. Sometimes the current is strong, and other times the current is weak. But you paddle and progress is made as you head toward the destination you have set out for. Something happens in your mind. You begin to make decisions that no longer keep you headed in that direction you so desperately were trying to reach. It wasn’t a major choice to turn around and paddle back downstream, you just decided you would stop paddling.  You know the result. The current will drift you away from your destination. That simple little example is what happens every single day in the lives of massive numbers of Christians. They don’t publicly announce they are quitting on God and His work, they just stop paddling. Other things take priority. That happened to the nation of Israel. The prophet Jeremiah warned their disobedience was bringing the judgment of God. They laughed at the old prophet, ridiculing him. Then the unthinkable happened. God sent the Babylonian armies and on three different occasions swept into Israel taking thousands captive and thousands slain. Seventy years would pass, and God would give them another shot at being obedient. Cyrus the Persian sent them home. Fifty thousand Jewish people left captivity and headed home to Israel with the intention of building the house of God, the Temple. Haggai, the minor prophet, tells this part of the story. They began strong, rebuilding the sacrificial system and even laying the foundation of the Temple. But then they stopped paddling. Other things took the pre-imminent priority above the Lord. Haggai tells them some things we all need to learn.

  1. God Speaks to the Drifters. “Consider your ways.” Five times in the short two chapters of Haggai, this phrase is used. To consider something means to think about it. God is telling Israel to think about their lives and what they are prioritizing. After two years of working on the house of the Lord, their attention changed to personal things. They began working on their own personal houses forgetting all about the Lord’s house. Solomon’s Temple was located on the prime piece of real-estate because David made sure of it when Jerusalem was conquered and became the capital of the nation. That was the Temple that the Babylonians destroyed. Now, Haggai is telling the people, rebuild that Temple before focusing on personal things. The word “amusement” means to not think, to divert attention so as to deceive. When our attention is diverted, we deceive ourselves often thinking we are the same dedicated Christian we’ve always been. God says, “consider your ways”, think soberly about where you are.
  2. God gives Examples to the Drifters. V. 6. You have sown a whole lot of seed but reaped little. You eat but never seem to be full. You drink and are never satisfied. You have clothes, but in the winter, you are still cold. You earn money, but your money bag has holes in it causing them to ask, “Where did my money go?” The basic needs of food, clothing, and shelter always seem lacking. Why was this the case in the lives of these people? They had drifted away from the Lord. They probably didn’t intend to drift; it just happened. Remember this truth, God will make us dissatisfied to drive us to satisfaction in Christ. Spurgeon drives this point home in some of his sermons. He said, “God doesn’t allow his children to sin successfully.”
  3. God Commands them to Change their Ways. V.8. Just start doing the right thing. “Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house.” That’s straightforward and simple. Just do what you know to be the right thing. Make the Lord first place and his work a priority in your life. Don’t stop paddling because the result is always drifting disobedience.