God’s Answer to Discouragement | Haggai 2:1–5

Last week we finished Haggai 1 with one of the great turnarounds in the Old Testament: sixteen years of neglect ended in twenty-three days. Haggai preached, the people repented, and they went back to work on the house of the Lord. Surely it was smooth sailing from there to the dedication. But when we open chapter 2, we find an enemy already standing on the job site — one that carried no sword, laid no siege, and wrote no letters to the king like the opponents in Ezra 4. This enemy showed up inside the people's hearts while they worked, and its name was discouragement. God's answer to discouragement in Haggai 2:1–5 is not what most of us would expect, and it is exactly what discouraged believers still need to hear. https://youtu.be/RgE6yiSYnxw Table of contentsWhy the Second Temple Looked Like NothingTwo Journeys: Exile and ReturnLesson One: Comparison Often Leads to Pride or DiscouragementWhen the Comparison Flatters UsWhen the Comparison Does Not Flatter UsWe Are Expert ComparersTwenty-Six Days Later, God Speaks AgainWhy the Twenty-First Day of the Seventh Month MatteredGod Said Out Loud What Everyone Was ThinkingLesson Two: Discouragement Is the Worst and Most Common Reason We Step BackLesson Three: God's Answer to Discouragement Is "Keep Working""My Spirit Remains in Your Midst"Why "Fear Not"?Solomon's Gold Was Never the SecretYour Labor Is Not in Vain Why the Second Temple Looked Like Nothing Before we read what God said to these discouraged people, we need the background that explains why they were discouraged in the first place. King David was a man of war who spent decades subduing Israel's enemies, so when he handed the kingdom to his son, the nation was completely at peace. First Kings 5:4 says Solomon had rest on every side. When David wanted to build the temple himself, God told him he could not, because he had shed so much blood; his son would build it instead. So David did everything a father could do to set his son up for success, stockpiling the materials and the wealth the project would require. Those are the two reasons Solomon's temple became a wonder of the ancient world. He built during a season of peace with no opposition, and he built with almost unlimited resources. When the Jews came home from exile to rebuild, they faced almost the exact opposite. They met constant opposition from the surrounding peoples, and their resources were painfully limited. Remember what God told them through Haggai: Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house. (Haggai 1:8) They had to climb into the surrounding hills and haul down the wood and stone themselves. So when the foundation of the new temple was finally laid, how do you think it looked next to Solomon's? Pretty bad. And here is where you might be thinking: who would even notice? Solomon's temple had been destroyed decades earlier. Nobody was left who remembered it. Not quite. Two Journeys: Exile and Return The Jews were not carried off to Babylon all at once. They went in three waves. The first deportation came in 605 BC, when Daniel and his friends were taken. The second came in 597 BC, when the prophet Ezekiel was taken. The third came in 586 BC, when Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed. Now notice something. God told His people through Jeremiah that the exile would last seventy years, and that clock started in 605 BC with the first deportation. So the seventy years ran from 605 BC to 536 BC. But the Jews taken in that final wave in 586 BC were only in Babylon for forty-eight years, from 586 BC to 538 BC. Hold onto that, because the returns came in three waves as well. Zerubbabel led the first return in 538 BC, recorded in Ezra chapters 1–7. Ezra led the second eighty years later in 458 BC, recorded in Ezra chapters 8–10. Nehemiah led the third thirteen years after that in 445 BC, recorded in the book that bears his name. Put the two halves together and something important emerges. A man taken young in that last deportation of 586 BC would have seen Solomon's temple with his own eyes before it burned, lived out the remaining forty-eight years of exile, and come home with Zerubbabel in the first return. He was standing right there when the new foundation was laid. Here is what happened: And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments came forward with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the Lord, according to the directions of David king of Israel. And they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the Lord, "For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever toward Israel." And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. (Ezra 3:10–11) At first glance this looks like an unqualified triumph: priests in their ceremonial vestments, trumpets, Levites with cymbals, two choirs answering one another antiphonally — one side singing, "For he is good," the other side answering, "For his steadfast love endures forever." They were deliberately re-creating the dedication of the first temple. Listen to what happened in Solomon's day, and notice the words: …when the song was raised, with trumpets and cymbals and other musical instruments, in praise to the Lord, "For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever," the house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud. (2 Chronicles 5:13) Same instruments. Same refrain. They were reaching for the greatest worship service in their nation's memory. But at Solomon's dedication, the glory cloud filled the house. At this foundation, the song went up — and no cloud came down. Which is why the joy was not universal: But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers' houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid, though many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people's weeping, for the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard far away. (Ezra 3:12–13) These old men were so discouraged by what they saw that they wept out loud, and everyone else had to shout louder to drown them out. They had a measuring tape in their hands, and the new work did not measure up. Lesson One: Comparison Often Leads to Pride or Discouragement Comparison is dangerous because it almost always produces one of two outcomes, and which one you get depends entirely on whether the comparison flatters you. When the Comparison Flatters Us If we come out ahead, comparison breeds pride. Scripture gives us example after example. Think of the older brother of the prodigal son, measuring himself against his younger brother: "these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command … but when this son of yours came" (Luke 15:29–30). The comparison hardened him into self-righteous contempt. Think of Peter measuring himself against the other disciples: "Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away" (Matthew 26:33). He believed he was better than the men standing next to him, and that pride is precisely what preceded his fall. And think of the Pharisee in the temple: "God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get" (Luke 18:11–12). I saved that one for last because it fits us so well. Every one of us can look around and find somebody we think is a worse sinner than we are. When the Comparison Does Not Flatter Us But when we come out behind, comparison breeds discouragement — which is exactly what happened to those old men at the foundation, and to a number of others in Scripture. Psalm 73 is the account of a man who compared himself to the prosperous wicked and nearly lost his faith over it. "My feet had almost stumbled … For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked" (Psalm 73:2–3). The comparison drove him to this: "All in vain have I kept my heart clean" (Psalm 73:13). That is the precise despair of feeling that your faithfulness bought you nothing while everyone else thrives. Elijah compared himself to the prophets who came before him: "It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers" (1 Kings 19:4). He measured himself against his predecessors, found himself lacking, and asked to die. That is discouragement carried to its lowest point, and it happened to one of God's own prophets. And King Saul was handed a comparison he never asked for when the women sang, "Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands" (1 Samuel 18:7–9). His discouragement curdled into murderous envy. We Are Expert Comparers This has enormous application for us, because comparing is something we do well. We compare our job with other people's jobs, our house with other people's houses, our family with other people's families, our life with other people's lives. And we get into real trouble when we start comparing our spouse or our children with other people's spouses and children. Any guesses what has made this so much worse in our day? Social media. For most of human history, a person compared himself to the twenty families in his village. Those old men in Ezra had to travel to Jerusalem to see Solomon's temple, and then carry the memory of it for fifty years before it could wound them. Comparison used to require effort, distance, and time. Now it requires reaching into your pocket. We are no longer measuring ourselves against our neighbors; we are measuring ourselves against people all over the world who appear to have the best marriage, the best kitchen, the best body, the best children, the best vacation, the best house, the best car,...