Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2495
“Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body touches any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean. Then answered Haggai, and said, So is this people, and so is this nation before Me, says the LORRD; and so is every work of their hands; and that which they offer there is unclean.” Haggai 2:13,14.
THE Prophet Haggai very wisely drew out from the priests a definite answer to certain questions which he put to them. Then, upon their authority, he could say to the people, “This is what your own priests say and this is what you, yourselves, believe.” This was taking them by a kind of sacred guile and it was a powerful means of forcing home the Truth of God to their heart and conscience.
According to the 12th verse, Haggai first put to the priests this question, “If one carries holy meat in the fold of his garment, and with the edge he touches bread, or stew, or wine, or oil, or any food, will it become holy? And the priests answered, and said, No.” Here is a man who is holy—I mean, ceremonially holy—and he is carrying in the fold of his garments, part of a holy sacrifice. Now, if he touches anything, will he make it holy by that touch? The priests said, “No.” They could not say otherwise. So, if a man is, himself, holy, however holy he may be, can he make another man holy simply by touching him? If he speaks of good things, or does good actions, will it be certain that he will, thereby, affect others by his good words and good works? Oh, no! There does not seem to be that spreading power in holy things that there is in unholy things! At any rate, not in those that are merely ceremonially holy. Here, then, is a man who is, in a legal sense, clean before God and he is carrying a holy thing in the fold of his garment, but he does not, therefore, make that which he touches to be clean or holy.
Then the Spirit of God, having by the mouth of the Prophet put the Truth of God in that way, suggested to him to ask the priests another question. “Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body touches any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean.” There is such a terrible contagion about uncleanness that he who is affected by it spreads it wherever he goes. Whatever he puts his foot upon, or touches with his hand, becomes thereby defiled. We cannot communicate holiness, but we can communicate unholiness! It will cause us labor and agony and anguish of spirit to impart to another even one right idea—and when it is imparted, it is not fully fixed in the hearer’s heart till the Spirit of God comes and works a miracle of Grace! But it is easy enough to communicate evil. A lewd song may have but one hearer and yet never be forgotten! A wrong action may never be chronicled by the public press, yet some little eye that saw it shall have learned from the evil example something that shall never be unlearned! The horribly contagious and infectious power of sin, wherever it is displayed, is terrible.
But the thing to which I want especially to call your attention is this. See what a picture is before us. Here is an unclean man—he has touched a dead body and so become unclean—therefore whatever he touches also becomes unclean. There is a loaf of bread. He has cut a slice off it and all that loaf has become unclean! Here is a mess of stew on the table— he has taken a portion from it and so made it all unclean. There is a cup of wine. He has sipped it, or he may have only touched the cup that contains it—but the whole of the wine is unclean! Here is oil, which one would think would be medicinally useful without being at all harmful, but this unclean person has put his finger to it and it is unclean! Here is meat, or vegetable food of any kind—he has touched it, so it is all unclean. I should not like to be that man—to make unclean even a chair that I might touch! To pollute the very house in which I dwelt, to be unable to shake hands with a friend without making him defiled through contact with me because I was unclean! I say again that is a dreadful picture and you must bear with me when I tell you my fear that it is not only the portrait of the erring people in Haggai’s day, but also a life-like representation of some who are now present—and of multitudes who pass for very good people in these, our days! It can still be said with utmost truthfulness, “So is this people, and so is this nation before Me, says the Lord; and so is every work of their hands; and that which they offer there is unclean.”
I. So this is my subject. FIRST, THE TERRIBLE UNCLEANNESS. And here I will keep to my text.
If you want to fully understand the text, or to have it put into New Testament language, you must look at Paul’s Epistle to his son, Titus, for there, in the 15th verse of the first Chapter, you get this same picture in other colors—“Unto the pure all things are pure: but to them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.” They are themselves so impure that everything becomes impure to them. Every man whose heart is not renewed by Grace is in this sad and terrible condition!