THE seventy years’ captivity in Babylon had ended. Under the edict of Cyrus the Jews had returned to Jerusalem, a free people. On the long journey back to the land of their fathers, whatever high hopes had filled their hearts were destined to bitter disappointment and disillusion. What they saw on arrival was a city whose walls were heaps of rubble; and a temple, the beautiful temple in which their fathers had worshipped, in ruins. For a few years after returning, the work of renovation had progressed slowly, but what had been accomplished appeared only to accentuate the vast amount which still remained undone. Moreover, during these years, enemies numerous, powerful and subtle, had arisen, whose intrigues had been all too successful in delaying the work. The very names, Sanballat and Tobiah, have assumed a sinister significance in religious history, proverbial of all that is malevolent and hypocritical. These men have died, but far too many of their kind are still to be met with. The sword of defence was as necessary to each day’s work as the trowel of construction. With all but insuperable difficulties to overcome, faced with constant danger and weary to the point of exhaustion, was it any wonder that the builders grew discouraged and only too ready to listen to the many unbelieving voices whispering both within and without. “What’s the use?” “The task is utterly beyond us and quite hopeless,” “Let’s sit back and take our ease.” A day of small things indeed, and despised.
All this Zechariah saw and heard and the holy man was moved profoundly. But this was not all that he saw; being the man of faith he was he saw also the things of God and assessed their value: “Then he (the angel) answered and spake unto me saying, ‘This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, said the Lord of hosts. Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it.'” Zech.: 4, 6, 7. On these words he takes his stand, and confident of the ultimate success of the great work to which, in the Providence of the Lord, they were dedicated, he reassures the true and loyal remnant whose hearts were downcast, and at the same time
utterly contemns the evil work of both open enemies and false friends, “Who hath despised the day of small things?” The words are a challenge; a challenge of faith and trust and hope and love and devotion; a challenge, moreover, which from the walls of Zion rings in our ears today as surely and as clearly as it did in the days of the Prophet Zechariah.
It is a day of small things with the Church today.
There is no subject upon which men differ so widely in their opinions as the subject of religion. Evidences which to one indicate great prosperity, and to another a cause of censure and grief. To determine the question there must be some common and recognised standard of religious values. That standard we have in the Word of God. By this standard one is forced, however reluctantly, to the conclusion that the present day is indeed a day of small things. The Holy Spirit, who is at once both the source and the substance of true godliness, is greatly restrained. His presence, grace and power are, to a large extent, denied to us as a generation; and is it any wonder! We have grieved the Holy Spirit and He is departed from us. Where the Spirit is, the Word of God will receive its rightful and honoured place as the divinely inspired, infallible Word of Eternal Truth; the discipline within the Church will be according to the government and laws of the Word; the gospel preached will be consistent with the doctrines of Scripture; it will be accompanied with convincing and convicting power in the hearts of the hearers; sinners in considerable numbers will be born again and made new creatures in Christ Jesus, and they will give unmistakable evidence of repentance, faith and new obedience in their lives and conduct; the whole character of godliness in the Church itself will be quickened, purified and deepened. But these signs we do not see, greatly though we desire to see them; instead, other signs of an unmistakably opposite character, and of ominous portent are forced upon our notice. To the small things of the Kingdom of God, the big things of the Kingdom of Darkness stand out in startling and vivid contrast. Witness the godless craze for all kinds of sport, the vast and varied traffic in gambling, the widespread desecration of the Lord’s Day, the shameless immorality, and the all but complete neglect of the House of God which characterise the life of the British nation today. The numbers of sincere men and women devoted to the Redeemer’s person and cause are by comparison lamentably few, and these few scattered in small groups here and there throughout the country. “Yet gleaning grapes shall be left in it, as the shaking of an olive tree, two or three berries on the top of the uttermost bough, four or five in the outmost fruitful branches thereof.” Is. 17, 6.
There are those who despise the day of small things.
The things of God are deemed contemptible by the many, just because they are so small and unpopular. This attitude of mind and the conduct which accompanies it, we are to expect from the godless world, and we need not be surprised at it. “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.” These are, of course, the open enemies of all true
godliness, and we may expect them to oppose the restraints which godliness imposes on all the sinful activities of the world, the flesh and the devil. These sensual and materialistic forces are greatly in evidence today and appear, for the time being, to be in the ascendancy. Their contemptuous and scornful enmity constitute a threat not only to the progress of true godliness but even to its very existence in particular places.
There have always been some even in the Church itself who have made things difficult. Being covered by some kind of attachment to the Church, their true character may not easily be discerned. Situations have arisen which gave opportunity to pride, stubbornness and self-seeking to make trouble, and in the day of small things these difficulties are increased and intensified, because at such a time every man occupying a place on the walls of Jerusalem counts, and when one fails the disastrous effects may be very great. The Church in Isaiah’s day speaks of these in this way, “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.” Was ever the cry of a loving and devoted mother over her unnatural children more pathetic! There is doubtless a good day coming, a day of great things for which we cannot pray too earnestly, when “the watchmen in Zion shall lift up the voice: with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion.” But evidently that day is not yet, for this is a day of small things and there are some who, from motives far other than the glory of God, have been all too successful in making the small things smaller still. They shall doubtless bear their own burden, and it will not be a small one.
In the day of small things there is always a subtle temptation to resort to the use of unscriptural methods for the advancement of the Cause of Christ. Many otherwise admirable people, under the impulse of an unwise zeal grow impatient at the restraints imposed by the ‘small things’; they crave for something big and sensational and advocate the use of more ‘promising’ methods: make the gospel easier, with less emphasis on sin, wrath, hell and regeneration: more emphasis on human will and ability: introduce more modern methods to attract the multitudes, choirs and solo singing by experts, plenty of attractive hymns and music; clear the way for union on a big scale: and much more to the same effect. Such methods cannot be too strongly condemned, and any temptation to adopt them too vigorously resisted.
In such a day it is, moreover, not to be wondered at if some among the truly godly are themselves affected by the low state of things, and they become downcast and discouraged. Satan no doubt has a large hand in this, and as long as these good people give place to the devil in this way they become a burden rather than a help. We have, as we ought to have, every sympathy with those who “sigh and cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst of Jerusalem,” and we would desire to be of them, but such a spirit is of quite a different order to that which despises the day of small things.
It is quite wrong to despise the day of small things. The great Head of the Church, the Lord Jesus Christ, never despised the day of small things, nor does He ever do it. His treatment of the smallest of these small things is the very opposite. “He will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax.” In early Spring the green blade pushing its way through the hard, cold ground, is very small, tender and readily crushed, but Christ does not despise it, nor does He wish it to be despised: “First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.” By means of this figure he fittingly describes His tender and loving sympathy with, and interest in, the earliest beginnings of grace in the soul of a sinner, and shows to us how clearly He recognises the connection between the great and the glorious things of eternity and the earliest beginnings of grace in time, and how inseparable the whole weight of everlasting glory may be from something which in its early beginnings is as weak and fragile as a blade of grass. These small and weak things have in them the promise and potentiality of great and marvellous things. Not only for the individual soul does this hold true, but for the whole Kingdom of God on earth also. There are many precious portions of Scripture which contain this principle—that a very glorious and prosperous future may have a very small and unpretentious beginning, and therefore the beginning, however small, is not to be despised. “Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the Lord and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.” “There shall be an handful of corn in the earth or the top of the mountains: the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon: and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth.” “Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men: and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty: and base things of the world, and things which are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should glory in His presence.”
The Lord has greatly privileged us as a Church with His Word and that form of Worship and of government which are according to His Word. Thereby we become the honoured custodians—not, indeed, the sole custodians, nevertheless as far as our borders go and our influence extends the honoured custodians—of priceless treasure. The vessel containing it is earthen; the treasure itself is priceless. This handful of corn to be cast upon the earth on the top of the mountains; this gospel of the mercy of God conserved and preached in face of difficulties and in circumstances most unpromising; this day of small things is by no means to be despised.
The eternal purpose of God’s mercy and love; the Word itself with all its great and precious promises; Christ and the Gospel of a Crucified Redeemer; the presence, power and grace of the Holy Spirit in so far as He abides on earth; the only hope of a lost world; the life and future prosperity
of the Church of God on earth; and the eternal salvation of a countless number of precious souls are all bound up in these small things. Let us seek to see in them what Zechariah saw in them. Let us identify ourselves with them as he identified himself with them. Let us devote ourselves to them as he devoted himself to them. Let us thank God for them and take courage.
A Sermon.
By REV. JOHN COLQUHOUN.
Preached in Glendale on Sabbath, 6th February, 1955.
“If he turn not, he will whet his sword.” Psalm vii. 12 (first part).
III. The third part that falls to be considered is the result if the wicked continues in his way. “If he turn not, he will whet his sword.”
George Medway, the Old Ploughman. A Marvellous Instance of Sovereign Grace.
From Free Presbyterian Magazine, Vol. xxi. (Abridged).