Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Introduction...
Less than two months after their obedience and the Jews are already getting discouraged.
The people were discouraged by two things.
The enormity of the task.
Solomon’s temple was built in 7 years by 180,000 men during peace time with an abundance of resources at their disposal.
Now there was a remnant with limited resources.
How many of you walked away from the seminar last weekend overwhelmed by the task?
The results were not what they thought they would be.
They had a picture in their mind of how they thought the Temple should look.
This might have been superficial thinking.
This might have been a genuine concern for God and His glory.
They were using experience to interpret God’s command.
God told them to build the temple.
Their experience was Solomon’s temple.
Rather, they should have been shaping their reality with God’s commands.
God told them to build the temple.
He knew it wasn’t going to look like the first one.
Once again we see there is nothing new under the sun!
Thousands of years ago the Jews were given a task to do.
They were excited about it until they started.
They quickly became discouraged because of the size of the task and it wasn’t turning out the way they thought.
Let’s look at the first two verses.
We see the same pattern...
The Word of the Lord came through Haggai
To the leaders and it is assumed then to the people.
Just like chapter 1.
1. God confronts their discouragement with three rhetorical questions questions.
QUESTION 1: Who actually saw the Temple in its former glory?
This question came over 65 years after Solomon’s temple was destroyed.
There would have been a few old men who had seen it.
Most hadn’t and the memory of those who had was fading.
But there was a longing for the good ‘ol days.
Let’s be fair to the Jews… let’s also learn a lesson.
Solomon’s temple had been dedication more than 4 centuries earlier around the same time.
In the 7th month during the Feast of Booths.
Naturally the Jew’s mind was on Solomon’s temple.
We would call it circumstances causing excuses.
The timing was not outside of God’s plan.
Therefore, they couldn’t use their circumstances as an excuse nor can we.
We too easily get sucked back into “the good ‘ol days”.
QUESTION 1: Who actually saw the Temple in its former glory?
We should not live in the past.
It is fine to enjoy memories, even to long for days with loved ones we miss.
We should not wish for the “good old days” of America.
We should not wish for the “Good old days” of the Church.
Celebrating the past is good.
Longing for the past is not.
Nostalgia has a power grip on us.
If we live in nostalgia we are forced to watch helplessly time ticks and generations slip away.
Living this life is living a defeated life.
QUESTION 2: How do you see this temple ?
They were looking at every flaw.
QUESTION 2: How do you see this temple ?
Back when they first started building people were unhappy with the results.
The were weeping at the contrast of the new temple compared to the previous one.
There were five major things missing from the second temple.
1. Shekhina Glory
1. Shekhina Glory
2. Ark of the Covenant
3. Fire from Heaven on the alter
3. Fire from Heaven on the alter
4. The Urim and Thummim
4. The Urim and Thummim
Passages seem to indicate the High Priest used these to help determine the will of God.
5.
The Holy Spirit
In the Old Testament the Holy Spirit indwelt in special occasions.
The HS gave special gifts.
Especially prophecy.
Preparing them for 500 silent years.
Malachi to John the Baptist.
QUESTION 3: Don’t you see it as nothing?
They were discouraged.
They were overwhelmed.
They didn’t have the right perspective.
The were looking at the present not the future.
Their disappointment could only be summed up as nothingness.
Hebrew grammar would be put like this: “It and nothing, are they not identical in your sight?”
Let’s not judge them...
QUESTION 3: Don’t you see it as nothing?
It is believed that within the Holy of Holies there was over $4,000,000 worth of Gold in the temple Solomon built.
God’s estimate of things is very different from our own.
Too often we see our own work as nothing.
But God has a different view.
QUESTION 3: Don’t you see it as nothing?
We think we are nothing.
We think we can’t do it.
We think we aren’t getting anywhere.
2. God follows His questions with three commands.
COMMAND 1: Be strong.
to make strong or prevail.
To seize, grasp, or take hold of.
As is seize the day.
Seize the moment.
Never the less seize the opportunity to build the House of the Lord!
These are the same words David gave Solomon.
COMMAND 1: Be strong.
In times of prospering and times of hardship we need to be strong.
This is a command that was echoed all through the Old Testament.
Given time and again to the Israelites.
We are told the same thing.
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