“The Desire of All Nations”

Haggai 2:7

Who is the desire of all nations? Some commentators think it must refer to antichrist, for who can say that the nations really desire Christ? They want His opposite and the antichrist will be the apotheosis of all that the natural man craves for. He will be attractive, dazzlingly attractive to the carnal mind, and will evoke delirious outbursts of praise and admiration.

But antichrist will be in God’s sight the maximum of sin—sin incarnate—sin that must be smitten, for when once a creature aspires to deity judgment does not linger. Satan aspired to deity and fell. Herod was saluted with the shout, “It is the voice of a god, and not of a man,” and because “he gave not God the glory” the angel of the Lord swiftly smote him, and he was consumed of worms and died. So it will be with the antichrist. His triumph will be measured by months, long enough to carry out the purpose of God, and then the blow will fall.

Others think the desire of all nations will be the Lord Jesus Christ, and surely they are right. Examine Haggai 2:6-9, and that will appear abundantly plain. The expression, “The Desire of all nations shall come,” lies between the Lord of Hosts shaking all things in judgment, and His filling the house of the Lord, the Temple, with His glory, surpassing even the scene at the first dedication by King Solomon, when the priests could not stand because of the overwhelming glory.

The nations cannot be said to desire Christ at this moment, but they do desire the blessings that only He can bring.

For instance the nations desire peace. Who can give it to them? The League of Nations ardently works for peace. It labours for the disarmament of the nations, and yet the nations are armed as never before. It hands in its ultimatum to distant nations, and they pay no heed. The League of Nations has not even moral force enough behind it to control the nations, and it certainly has not physical force. However much we may admire the humanitarian efforts of the League of Nations, we can see that peace, so much needed by a world bled white, will not come that way.

Only the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, the Prince of peace can satisfy the craving of the human heart and bring in peace.

The nations desire righteousness. China would like to get rid of her bandits; Chicago would like to get rid of her toughs and gunmen; commerce would like to get rid of her wild-cat company promoters; the working classes cry aloud for righteousness; employers cry aloud for the same, as the one class feels it is being sweated and imposed upon, the other complaining that labour does not give them an adequate return for their wages. The nations desire righteousness. Acts of parliament will not give it; international law will not encompass it. The outlook is hopeless as far as man is concerned.

Only the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, the Prince of peace can bring in righteousness.

The natives desire prosperity and plenty. But things wax worse and worse. One nation has too little gold, and population grows and unemployment mounts higher and higher.

Another nation has too much gold—frozen gold it is called and it has an appalling sound—difficulties increase and unemployment and misery mounts higher and higher. Even the produce of the ground is ruthlessly destroyed. Coffee destroyed by thousands of tons; cotton destroyed; the produce of the soil destroyed. Want and misery and starvation on every hand, and yet produce, that would help to solve the difficulty, destroyed. Fishermen come in from the sea, learn how much fish has been caught, and that there is no demand, and overboard goes all or part of their fishing. It is a strange condition of things, passing the wit of man to rectify.

Only the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, the Prince of peace can bring prosperity.

Aye, and when the shaking of all the nations comes according to Haggai’s prophecy, we shall see men in their abject misery, in the utter failure of all their efforts to right things, discovering that what they want—peace, righteousness, prosperity, plenty—will never come through an earthly dictator, will never come through the Roman Empire with its superb organization, will never come through antichrist and the negation of every divine principle. The nations will at last discern that only the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, the Prince of peace, can bring in their desire, such desire being purified and elevated through the sorrows of the great tribulation. Their desire will be the Son of God at last, and in Him they will find every desire amply fulfilled.