Synod Sermon by Rev W A Weale
Zechariah 4:5-10. Then the angel that talked with me answered and said unto me, Knowest thou not what these be? And I said, No, my lord. Then he 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, saith 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. Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also finish it; and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you. For who hath despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven; they are the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro through the whole earth.
The prophets Haggai and Zechariah were raised up to encourage those who returned from captivity in Babylon to continue to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, which had been destroyed by the Babylonians. It is clear from the Book of Haggai that there was an element of rebuke here also, for while they neglected building the temple for a time, many were busy repairing their own houses. We see this brought out in Haggai 1:4-6: “Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste? Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes”.
So an element of judgement was experienced by those who did not carry on with the work that they were meant to do. The work was, of course, delayed by enemies for a time, yet at this point they were free to continue. But they were putting more emphasis on building their own houses, to the neglect of the temple. When we come to Zechariah’s prophecy, however, we find that his messages rather gave encouragement, in a series of visions, one of which is in the chapter 4.
In verses 1-3 we read of “a candlestick all of gold”. It is generally agreed that the candlestick here represents the Church, whose duty is to shine forth as a light in a dark world. The Saviour tells us that He is “the light of the world”, but He also says that His people are “the light of the world” – that is, His people reflect His light and shine as lights in a dark place. The fact
1The sermon preached at the opening of this year’s meeting of Synod in Glasgow.
that the candlestick was all of gold speaks of it being precious in God’s sight; the Church is precious in God’s sight. Although His people feel so often that they are poor and worthless, yet, if we are the Lord’s people – if we belong to the Church of Christ – we are precious in His sight, and this is something that we ought to remember and be humbled by and be thankful for. Then we have the two olive trees that “stood by it”, which seem to refer to the Spirit of God, from whom comes forth all necessary supplies of strength for the Church.
Notice also that the message is in the first instance to Zerubbabel, who was the head and representative of the royal house of David. And there is no doubt that, if the line of the kings had continued after the captivity, he would have been one of those kings. We also find in the Gospel according to Matthew that the name of Zerubbabel appears in the genealogy of the Lord; so it is no surprise that he had a special responsibility in the rebuilding of the temple.
We are concerned, however, just now with the message of the angel and the relevance of this to ourselves as a Church in our day and generation. In looking at this we may notice: (1) The sin that the returned captives had fallen into; (2) What they needed to be reminded of; (3) The assurance, or promise, they were given.
1. The sin that the returned captives had fallen into. It was despising “the day of small things” (v 10). But what was this “despising of a day of small things”?
As we look at this people, we have to remember that here we have a godly generation. Some are of the opinion that they were a more godly generation than those who entered Canaan under the leadership of Joshua. It may be unprofitable to try to make a comparison, but we may think of those who entered Canaan. We know how 12 men were sent to spy out the land and only two gave a good report. They all, of course, acknowledged that the land was good. Indeed they had evidence of this in the cluster of grapes they carried from the brook Eschol. But the report of ten of the spies was that, although the land was good, there was no possibility of taking possession of it: there were high-walled cities, and there were men who were like giants in comparison to the people of Israel. “We were as grasshoppers in their sight”, they said. Now the people, it would seem without exception, listened to what was said by the unbelieving spies; but they refused to listen to the reasoning of the two faithful spies, Caleb and Joshua.
We know the outcome. Everyone over the age of 20 – and there was a large number of them – with the exception of Caleb and Joshua, perished in the wilderness. Now, this no doubt must have had a tremendous effect on the
younger generation. This gives some idea to us of the kind of people they were who were preserved. They would have seen their parents and grandparents taken away as described in Psalm 90: “as with an overflowing flood” they were carried away into eternity. It would have become very evident to those who were younger that the older generations had been swept into eternity because of their unbelief; they also witnessed the miracles in Egypt and in the wilderness. Of course those who perished also witnessed those miracles, but it would seem that what the younger generation witnessed of God’s power had a great effect on them. Those who entered the land of Canaan under the leadership of Joshua were a most godly generation.
All these generations afterwards, Cyrus gave the people who returned from captivity the opportunity to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. God had put this into his heart. God had indeed mentioned him by name through the prophet Isaiah long before he was born: “My servant Cyrus”. Yet many did not return; they were quite satisfied where they were, in captivity. And that is something to remember: their captivity in Babylon under the Babylonians and later, when under the Persians, was not a harsh captivity; it was not to be compared with the captivity in Egypt. Accordingly many of them felt quite happy to remain in that country.
But the faithful remnant did return – those who were truly the Lord’s people, those who had the Lord’s cause at heart. But here is the question, In what sense was this for them a day of small things. What is being referred to when it was asked, “Who hath despised the day of small things?”
In Ezra 3, we are told that after the foundation of the temple was laid, the younger men rejoiced that this part was complete, but the older men, who recalled Solomon’s beautiful temple which was destroyed 70 years previously, wept as they thought of its glory, and how inglorious the new one was likely to be in comparison. As they understood it, things would never be the same again as they remembered them in their youth.
Now there is a danger here for ourselves. It’s true that even the oldest of us here cannot remember a time of revivals, which is so very different from the present situation. I am thinking of such times as we read of, and our hearts are stirred by them – better days in the Highlands and Lowlands of this land and in other lands also. But some of us can remember much larger congregations, and even congregations that no longer exist, where church buildings have now been sold and have become warehouses or dwelling houses. It is easy to despise the present, when we compare the small numbers of today with the much larger numbers then. We might all be guilty of it who can remember other days and might say, I remember when there was a congregation in this place and in that place, and there would be quite a large
congregation gathering on Sabbath Days and on weekdays. It is very easy in that situation to despise the present when we compare things today with things in the past.
A second factor here was their enemies reproaching the Jews and how, after they had laid the foundation of the temple, the Samaritans in the northern kingdom brought the work to a stop for a time. These Samaritans were descended from Jews, and from Assyrians who had been settled in the land earlier; they were hostile to the Jews and to the rebuilding of the temple, and did their utmost to put a stop to it. This went on for 18 years. They sent false reports to the authorities in Persia, saying that the Jews who were building the temple intended to rebel.
Eventually however, when Darius became king, they got the all-clear and were able to go ahead again. But although they were now free to proceed, this setback led to them losing heart, for the same thing could well happen again. Yet at this time the Jews were building their own houses. Again there is a danger of us losing heart when things are so low, when the truth is so much despised, and indifference and opposition to the truth are so common – as is the case today.
I remember, for example, when I was fairly young, you would not see any shops open on the Sabbath Day in the villages in the north of Scotland. But a time came when shops began to open. Then one could go to the people who were opening their shops and protest against it, although they would not always give up the practice. But at least they knew very well that they were doing wrong in breaking the Sabbath. Today, however, it is different, people no longer see the Sabbath Day as different from any other, and people no longer understand why one would protest against it.
Now one can become cast down in the light of these things, and one can come to the point that there was here, of despising “the day of small things”, of thinking back and saying, This is such a wicked day. Of course, we need not go outside our own heart to see coldness and hardness, in comparison to how it was with our fathers in better days in the land, and we feel as midgets in comparison with those of that time. There is a danger here of despising a “day of small things”, as those of this time did.
2. What they needed to be reminded of. That is: for those with God on their side, a “day of small things” may become a day of great things. It is significant that Haggai, Zechariah’s contemporary, had assured the Jews: “The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts; and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts” (Hag 2:9). Here we have the words of the Lord to the people, through the prophet Haggai. We are looking at what this godly generation, who neverthe-
less were guilty of despising a day of small things. What they needed to be reminded of was their past history.
They had to be reminded, for example, of how they came into the land of Canaan, how the Lord opened the Jordan River, just as He had opened the Red Sea earlier, to let the people pass over. That was a great miracle. They saw miracles constantly when travelling through the wilderness: for instance, in the provision of manna from heaven to sustain their bodies as well as water from the rock. They had their history to remind them of all this.
Yet when they entered Canaan, they were no doubt afraid to think of what to expect if they were to take over the whole land, which was then in the possession of the Canaanites. Even Joshua was told: “Be of good courage”, although there is no mention of him being afraid. It is not without reason that he was told this. He was, after all, a man “subject to like passions as we are”; so he would no doubt have had his own fears. But this is the thing: remember the Man that Joshua was confronted with, who had a drawn sword in His hand. It must have been quite a thought for Joshua: here he was with the cities in front of him that others in the past had spoken of as having such high walls, and giants within them, so that there seemed no hope of overcoming them.
When Joshua and the others had crossed over Jordan, Joshua asked this Man, with a drawn sword in his hand, the question, “Art thou for us or for our adversaries?” (Jos 5:13). He identified Himself as “the Captain of the Lord’s Host”. We do not hear any more about Him as such (and we are not suggesting that He was visible in leading the people into battle); but Joshua knew, and the people knew, that this One was on their side. He was none other than the Lord Himself. “The mighty Lord is on my side, / I will not be afraid; / For anything that man can do / I shall not be dismayed.” Because of this, we find that the Israelite army, although outnumbered on many occasions, overcame all their enemies time and time again, for the Lord was on their side.
When we go on to the time of the Judges, the same was true. After the time of Joshua and the elders that outlived Joshua, there was great declension. The people turned aside and worshipped the gods of Canaan. It is quite remarkable that this should be so, but it shows the wickedness that is in the heart of us all, if left to ourselves. We see this with those descendants of Joshua’s godly generation. He was gone and the elders that outlived him were gone. Then the people turned aside and worshipped the false gods of Canaan. But, time and time again, the Lord would raise up an adversary against Israel to punish them – maybe the Philistines or the Midianites. They were used as instruments in God’s hand to punish the people.
A point would come when they were brought back to their senses and to appreciate the greatness of their sin, and they would repent. They would turn again to the Lord and the Lord would raise up an instrument to lead them against their enemies. We have men like Gideon and Jephthah and Samson, and there were others. And this is how it has been in the history of the Church. This has happened since the time of the Apostles. We could think of men like Augustine of Hippo, and we could think of Luther and Calvin, and Knox in Scotland, and there were many others who were raised up and mightily used as instruments in God’s hand. As long as the Lord was with His people, there was no enemy on the earth that could overcome them.
The people of Zechariah’s time needed to recall this, as David reminded them, and ourselves also, in so many of the Psalms. They would have been familiar with Psalms, going back to the Lord’s deliverance of His people from Egypt – to the time when He brought them through the Red Sea and into the wilderness. He provided for them there day by day throughout all those years.
We also find in the Psalms references to the Lord giving power and strength to His people to overcome. For example, we were singing in Psalm 44, “For neither got their sword the land, / nor did their arm them save; / But Thy right hand, arm, countenance; / for Thou them favour gave”. Yes the Lord gave them the victory, time and time again, and the lesson in all of this is: “If God be for us, who can be against us?”
How do we apply this to ourselves today as a Church? When Mr Macfarlane and Mr Macdonald took a stand for the truth in 1893, things did not look all that promising and no doubt they were ridiculed by those in the Church they parted from. Yet the Lord honoured the stand they took and brought our denomination on and, although there have been ups and downs over the years, we continue until the present day. We have great reason to thank God for preserving us. While we are undoubtedly shrinking numerically in our congregations in the UK, we should be encouraged when we consider that we have congregations in Australia and New Zealand as well as in Singapore, Ukraine, the United States and Canada. And what about the Zimbabwe Mission? Did that not begin in a very small way? Yet there are a goodly number of congregations there, and it is very encouraging to see ministers and students from there and the cause continuing and, we trust, thriving in those parts. Yes, there is much to encourage and we should beware of despising “the day of small things”.
Thus, as these returned captives needed to remember their history and the encouragements it gave them, so also do we as a Church, and indeed as a nation.
3. The promise they were given. The promise amounted to this: as the foundation was laid under the oversight of Zerubbabel, so would the building go up. “The hands of Zerubbabel . . . shall also finish it” (v 9).
As we know, history would prove the fulfilment of that promise, as well as Haggai’s prophecy that the glory of the second temple would be greater than the first temple. How did that come about? We know that, as far as appearances were concerned, and as far as the gold and the silver that went into the first temple were concerned, the second temple did not match it at all.
Of course not. How then was the second temple greater than the first? It was because the Messiah whom the temple represented, or typified, was to appear there. He was taken there as an infant of days by His mother and was recognised as the Messiah by old Simeon who, we are told, took the Child up in his arms and blessed God and said, “Lord, now lettest thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word: for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation . . . a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel. . . ” (Lk 2:25-35).
Then later, when the Lord was taken to Jerusalem as a boy, we read of how He stayed behind in the temple and was found, after some days, by His mother and Joseph, “sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions” (Lk 2:46). He was in the temple on many other occasions during His ministry, along with His disciples, and no doubt He was there on many occasions before His ministry began. The Lord, of course, purged the temple at the beginning and at the end of His ministry, which showed that the people did not take what He did to heart – things just went back to the way that they were before. Eventually the Lord, who referred to the temple as, “My Father’s house”, spoke of it as, “Your house”: “Your house is left unto you desolate”. He was saying, in effect, It has been given over to you. And indeed, having served its purpose, it was utterly destroyed by the Romans not very many years later. So the promise of greater glory in the future than in the past had its fulfilment in the Lord being there on many occasions.
We do not know how things will be with ourselves as a denomination in the future. We may in the years ahead become a lot smaller than we are at present. There may be, and no doubt will be, many ups and downs ahead of us; but one thing is sure: if we are kept by the Lord and remain faithful, if we “do the first works”, then God’s blessing will remain upon us. But if we do not remain faithful, God will forsake us, as He forsook many churches down through the centuries, as history shows us. And it is solemn to consider how quickly a church can depart from the truth.
We mentioned Joshua and the godly remnant that came into Canaan with him. But what are we told of the following generation? “The people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord, that He did for Israel”. And then what? “The children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served Baalim: and they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the Lord to anger. And they forsook the Lord and served Baal and Ashtaroth” (Jdg 2:7,11-13).
We see this recurring pattern throughout the days of the judges and later in the days of the Old Testament kings and in the days after the completion of this second temple. There were only about 50 years between the time we are looking at here and the time of Malachi, and things were very much in decline by then. And at the time of the Saviour’s coming some 400 years on, a faithful remnant remained, and there always was, of course, a remnant. There was a faithful remnant even in the days before the flood, when the earth was filled with violence, and in the days of Baal-worship in Israel, although the cause was very low.
But we are looking at the recurring cycle of declension in the Church and the fact that this is how it has been down through its history. There is faithfulness for a time, and then coldness or error comes in and the candlestick is taken away. Many examples of this could be given but perhaps one of the clearest and more recent examples of this is to be seen in Scotland: the Free Church of 1843 gave every appearance of being faithful to the Lord and zealous for Him. It must have given promise of remaining so for many years; yet, less than 40 years later, there was serious decline and we know what the outcome was.
The reality is that, if we remain faithful to the Lord, and only if we remain faithful to Him; if we turn neither to the right hand or to the left, God will maintain us in existence and He will at length build us up. Is this not the promise He has given: “I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”? That is what we have here in verses 6 and 7, and if we think of the Lord’s promises to extend His Kingdom in the last days, there is much cause for optimism, although things are low at present. “His large and great dominion shall / from sea to sea extend: / it from the river shall reach forth / unto earth’s utmost end” (Ps 72:8).
We should encourage ourselves with such promises. And we should be pleading those promises at the throne of grace, remembering that all the promises of God are “yea and amen in Christ Jesus”.