In His final letter to His churches, Jesus Christ writes to a people whose focus and spiritual vision are so skewed that He threatens to expel them from His Body by the unpleasant metaphor of vomiting (Revelation 3:16). The attributes He finds so distasteful include a self-sufficiency that leaves even God out in the cold (“. . . and have need of nothing”; verse 17, emphasis ours). Their assessment of themselves is diametrically opposed to the perfect judgment of Jesus Christ, who proclaims that they are “wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.”

One of His prescriptions is that they “anoint [their] eyes with eye salve, that [they] may see” (verse 18), showing that a prominent cause of their dangerous spiritual condition is being unable to see—both God and their own precarious state—clearly. This hazy vision causes them to make incorrect judgments about where to apply their time and attention.

A Remarkable Contrast

We can find an example of these same spiritual symptoms in a remarkable contrast contained in the book of John. The chapter break between John 7 and 8 obscures a striking incident in which the religious leaders of the day—the chief priests and the Pharisees—were at odds with Jesus Christ. Without the chapter break, John 7:53—8:1 reads: “And everyone went to his own house. But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.”

Here, John contrasts the activities of the religious elite and the God they were supposed to represent. While the priests and the Pharisees returned to their own homes, Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. This detail becomes especially meaningful to us at the end time because the Mount of Olives is the place on earth where Scripture says Christ will return (Zechariah 14:4; Acts 1:11-12).

Consider this passage from the standpoint of the near future when Jesus once again sets foot on the Mount of Olives. If we continue in John 8:2, we see that “early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people came to Him; and He sat down and taught them.”

This sequence of events appears to correlate directly with what will happen when our Savior returns. He “will suddenly come to His temple” (Malachi 3:1). The repentant peoples of the earth will come to Him, and He will willingly teach them. So, these events recorded in John’s gospel match closely with what is prophesied to happen soon.

But what applies to us most right now is the statement in John 7:53: “Everyone went to his own house.” The people did this because of a lack of spiritual vision—not recognizing Jesus Christ or His actions. Notice the preceding verses:

Then the officers came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, “Why have you not brought Him?” The officers answered, “No man ever spoke like this Man!” Then the Pharisees answered them, “Are you also deceived? Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed in Him? But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.” Nicodemus (he who came to Jesus by night, being one of them) said to them, “Does our law judge a man before it hears him and knows what he is doing?” They answered and said to him, “Are you also from Galilee? Search and look, for no prophet has arisen out of Galilee.” (John 7:45-52)

The religious leaders of the day did not have the spiritual discernment to recognize the Messiah or what He was doing. So, they all went back to their houses—back to what was comfortable, what they were used to. Submitting to Jesus Christ would have cost them their positions, statuses, and egos. Thus, rather than following Him as He continued teaching, they returned to their respective domains. Instead of following God’s lead, they retreated to a safe space, one where they would not be challenged.

Revealing Dialogue

The dialogue in this passage is very revealing. Earlier in the chapter, the Pharisees and chief priests had sent officers to arrest Jesus. These officers had returned (verse 45), but they could not arrest Him. Part of the reason they could not is that it was not yet His time. Another part of the reason is that they did not suffer from the same preconceptions and expectations as the religious leaders because they did not have as much to lose. They knew nobody spoke the way Jesus did, and what He said affected them enough that they could not bring themselves to arrest Him. As a result, the leaders chastised them for being taken in by this Man.

The Pharisees’ following statement shows their regard for their positions. They ask the officers rhetorically, “Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed in Him?” They told the officers not to pay any attention to Jesus because none of them paid any attention to Him. They set themselves up as the standard of judgment and their own examples as the only acceptable ones to follow. They essentially say, “You should not pay this man any heed because we do not pay Him any heed. And the rest of this rabble is clueless about the law.”

This last accusation is especially ironic because Nicodemus points out that the Pharisees were being especially quick to judge. He notes that the law, which the Pharisees accused the people of not knowing, does not judge a man before the whole matter has been brought forward and examined. Yet the Pharisees had no interest in hearing anything that contradicted them. So, even though Nicodemus spoke rightly, they turned on him and asked if he also came from Galilee. They meant it as an insult because Galilee, a backwater in their eyes, was not highly favored.

The Pharisees also used the matter of Galilee as “proof” that Jesus could not be the Messiah because the Jewish leadership commonly taught that no prophet had come from Galilee, based on a misinterpretation of Isaiah 9:1-2. However, Micah, Elijah, and Jonah were all from Galilee, and Nahum and Hosea may have been too. These Pharisees did not know Scripture quite as well as they believed. As Nicodemus points out, they did not grasp the intent either. Even more, they missed the very embodiment of that law—the Word of God—when He stood before them.

These religious leaders were so focused on themselves and their positions that they could see nothing else. The incident ends with each of these blind men returning to his house. They went back to their concerns, activities, wealth, and sense of security. As they did so, they were at odds with Christ, who was going to the Mount of Olives to instruct the people gathered in the Temple. While the leaders retreated to what was familiar, He was busy restoring the true worship of God.

Like the Laodiceans, the religious leaders of Jesus’ day did not perceive any spiritual lack in themselves. They were so confident they had their spiritual houses in order that they fell back on their routines even when their God was working before their eyes, willing to teach them as much as they could handle. Had they perceived a spiritual lack or a need to draw closer to God, they would have set themselves on a path to correct it. But in judging that they needed nothing—that they already had all the answers and could learn nothing from this Man from Galilee—these religious leaders showed just how “wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked” they were.

Neglecting the Temple

We find a second example of neglect of the worship of God in the book of Haggai:

Thus speaks the LORD of hosts, saying: “This people says, ‘The time has not come, the time that the LORD’s house should be built.’” Then the word of the LORD came by Haggai the prophet, saying, “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.”

Thus says the LORD of hosts: “Consider your ways! Go up to the mountains and bring wood and build the temple, that I may take pleasure in it and be glorified,” says the LORD. “You looked for much, but indeed it came to little; and when you brought it home, I 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.” (Haggai 1:2-9)

The point of contention God has with His people here is not that they had houses or even very nice houses. Their problem boiled down to focus and priorities. It was a matter of what they were neglecting and what they were not doing. They were neglecting the Temple—the House of God—and Haggai points to the peoples’ focus on their own houses as the competition for their energy and attention.

The Temple was far more than just an ornate, ceremonial building. It was and is a symbol of the worship of God. The people went there to come before Him; it facilitated their relationships with Him. God’s real concern was their worship of and relationship with Him. He did not want their focus to be on the physical building any more than He wanted it on their houses. He wanted the people to give their attention to the proper response to Him, and building the Temple would help facilitate that response.

What Else Can Houses Represent?

The paneled houses Haggai speaks of can represent much more than physical dwelling places. As mentioned above, an individual’s house can represent his concerns, activities, family, wealth, and sense of security. But we can easily see another application here, one that is especially fitting for us right now:

The individual houses in Haggai 1:3 and John 7:53 could also represent physical church organizations. Like houses, church organizations are a necessary thing. They are needed for a person’s spiritual well-being and can be a great source of comfort, encouragement, and edification. They are a substantial part of how we all come “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13). But as with the Pharisees in Jesus’ day and the Jews of Haggai’s, it is quite possible for us today to focus on the houses while God is trying to return our focus to giving a correct response to Him.

Jesus writes the letters in Revelation 2 and 3 to seven churches in existence at the end. We know this because each letter contains language indicative of the end time. Likewise, in the vision in Zechariah 4, there are seven lamps, all being supplied with oil simultaneously (Zechariah 4:1-3; see Revelation 1:20). If our interpretation of these symbols is correct, it does not appear that the church will be regathered into a single “house” before the end. Evidently, despite the church being unified in the Spirit, God will work out His purpose in us without bringing us back together corporately. Moreover, we realize from the Worldwide Church of God’s history that simply being in one organization does not effectively deter members from losing their focus on God.

We can see God’s hand in the church’s scattering and putting us each in the fellowship He knows will be best for us to learn, grow, and serve. But there is a warning in these two examples that the worship of God must remain the focus, not the houses—not the physical organization of which we happen to be a part. Church organizations are a means to the end but not the end.

Notice in Haggai 1 that God points out that people are very busy but produce little (Haggai 1:6, 9). There was not quite enough food, water, or clothing. Their money was slipping away. What little they harvested was blown away before they could use it. In verse 11, God calls for a drought on all the labor of their hands because they were laboring for the wrong thing.

The people were working to enrich their houses while the Temple lay in ruins. So, God held back His blessing and, furthermore, cursed all the work of their hands because it was not properly focused. The Temple should have been their focus.

The people did not think it was time to build the Temple because they were satisfied with how things were. They felt no need for God’s presence in their lives to a greater degree. The worship of God was not their top priority, as evidenced by what they applied themselves to do. Like the Pharisees in Judea and the Christians in Laodicea, they were content with the spiritual status quo and so pursued other things like building their own houses. They felt no need to draw any closer to God or restore the true worship of Him to the emergent nation, so the Temple was an afterthought.

We find ourselves in a situation similar to that of the remnant who came back from captivity. For many of us, the scattering of the church severely disrupted our lives, and its aftereffects still do. We seek a sense of normalcy and security, and many have turned to the different houses—corporate churches—which can provide a measure of that. However, the examples in John 7 and Haggai 1 warn us against focusing on the houses themselves while the Temple lies in ruins.

Today, we see some laboring mightily to enhance and embellish this or that corporate church and even competition to try to prove that one particular church is the only one. Such great effort says, in essence, that it is not time to build the Temple—only to focus on this or that narrowly defined “work” a particular house is pursuing. Meanwhile, what does the Temple look like? Is it in a condition to glorify God? Is it in a state for Christ to return to it?

We can do little about the scattered condition of the church; we cannot make straight what God has made crooked (Ecclesiastes 7:13). But these examples show that rather than focusing on our houses—in whatever form that may take—our priority must be the proper response to God. When the spiritual Temple is in good working order, and our worship of God is in spirit and truth (John 4:23-24), then God will bless the work of our hands. Then, all of the houses will benefit. But it begins with each individual servant of God.

Haggai 1 has a happier ending than the example in John 7. Later, in Haggai 1:12-14, the prophet records that the people “obeyed the voice of the LORD their God,” they “feared the presence of the LORD,” and “they came and worked on the house of the LORD of hosts, their God.”

We must do the same.