I Am With You

Haggai 1 and 2
It is commonly held at present, that so far as the Church on earth is concerned, we are in the wreck and ruin of things. But if so, is that to imply that a collective testimony is impracticable and impossible? Definitely not. There is a collective witness still, though it be of a remnant character. We see a witness of this even in the early days of the Church in the address to Thyatira, where a remnant is specially singled out by the Lord. "Unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as ninny as have not this doctrine..." etc.
This was not a new thing in Scripture. When the Lord Jesus was born into the world, there were found in the midst of prevailing confusion in that day. a faithful few in Jerusalem such as Simeon, Anna, and others. So also at the close of Old Testament times there was a like residue, which the Spirit of God notices in the book of Malachi: "Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another.”
In the days of Haggai a remnant is very fully brought before us. Released captives from Babylon had come back to Jerusalem, but only a fragment of the chosen people of God. They were a despised generation and the taunt of their adversaries, who boasted that a fox could break down the wail they were building, a people with no outward or visible clothing of authority to inspire respect from those outside of themselves. Even the outward unity of the nation was broken, for the ten tribes were gone. The temple, the Ark of the Covenant, and any visible sign of God's glory—all were gone! None of those imposing witnesses were there to accredit these people in the eyes of others. But were they left without hope, or help, or divine resource? According to the prophet Haggai they were not.
Consider the fads, and the way in which a ministry of grace was wrought on behalf of this remnant.
After they had returned from Babylon, as recorded by Ezra, they had laid the foundation of the temple and that in the midst of praise and thanksgiving.