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 a