Seeking for the help of the Lord
I direct your prayer for attention to the prophet Zechariah and
chapter 4 reading for our text verse 9 I'm sorry verse 10 verse
10 Zechariah chapter 4 verse 10
for who hath despised the day of small things and For they
shall rejoice and shall see thee plummet in the hand of Saravabal
with those seven. They are the eyes of the Lord,
which run to and fro through the whole earth. Zechariah chapter
four, verse 10. We spoke this afternoon of the
encouragements that God gave to his people in Babylon through
Ezekiel. And one would think that when
the children of Israel did come back to their own land, that
then everything would go well. But we see quite a different
picture. They had opposition almost straight
away. The building of the temple ceased
for some few years, and then restarted again, so it was some
20 years before it was built. But then we go many, many more
years, 78 or so more, through to Nehemiah's day, when the walls
are still all broken down, there's still all much rubbish, and they
had all the opposition of Tobias and Ballot and all of those around. And we are reminded that the
Church of God is seldom out of one trouble that it is in another. And we think of the children
of Israel going through, delivered out of Egypt, out of that trouble,
but then they've got the wilderness. And then when they go into the
promised land, then they've got the fights and the battles there.
And of course, all of these are types, but it's a reminder, this
side of the grave, there will be in the world, ye shall have
tribulation. And yet in that tribulation,
there shall be deliverances, demand deliverances for Jacob. So don't let Satan take a deliverance
from you by saying, but I've still got a trial, or it's still
difficult and still troubles. And, you know, I remember one
of our dear friends over in Australia, when we exercised, coming back
in, when we came back, And it was a bring to pass of what the
Lord did. My exercise is a burden. It's
an answer to prayer. One of the friends said, you
know, she said, you're not escaping anything going over there. You'll
jump out the frying pan into the fire. And yes, we have had
severe trials over here as well, but that hasn't taken away. the
blessings that the Lord gave us and what the Lord did for
us, and maybe in your lives as well, you know the balancing
of the clouds, but it's a great blessing when even you can be
like Job, with everything taken away, he's still able to say
the Lord gave, and I've known what that is too. Before the
Lord takes something away, he gets me to know the blessing
of it, And then I can say, the Lord gave, and the Lord hath
taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. I often find this in the way,
actually, of illness. I might go, and I can remember
spots in the road where I've been driving along, and suddenly
come over me. Roland, you've had three or four
months without illness. You've had health and strength.
And next day I've come down sick and ill, and they decide. Now
the world would say, well, that was bad luck. You should never
have thought of that without touching wood or something. That's
the way the world would interpret it. The way that the Lord has
shown it to me, he's made me value a blessing before he has
taken it away. And then, instead of being angry
with the Lord, I can feel, well, I felt such a blessing. I was
undeserving of that. I had that time of health, and
now the Lord has given me this time. And I've noticed that he's
done that several times. And in my life, there's other
times, I haven't got time to say it now, but times when things
have been taken away, and just before he's taken it away, he's
made me to see what a wonderful blessing that was. And it's been
a help. People have said, well, you just
said it was a blessing, now it's taken away. Where's your God?
Yes, but he's shown. And he gave it me for that season
and for that time, and here's a right then to take that away. And so the children of Israel,
they come back to their own land, and then They get the difficulties,
the discouragements, and even in the temple, even in the building
of the temple. You know, we read this, and that's
why we read the passage in Haggai, because there they have Zerubbabel,
the son of Sheateel, the governor of Judah, and Joshua, the son
of Josedek, those two characters. you come back to them later and
we have a people when the foundation is laid those has seen the temple
in its glory before they must have been quite an old people
that was had seen that and and they thought this was not as
big and they were discouraged and sad. Some were glad at it
being built and their foundation, and there was a mixture. You
could tell some were weeping and some were praising. There
was that difference, but the word the prophets were sent to
encourage them that the glory of this latter house, that it
shall be greater than the former. The Lord himself was to walk
in it. Now I believe that from this
time, because this is only my calculation, some 20 years in
building total, that the Jews in John chapter 2, when our Lord
said, destroy this temple, in three days I'll raise it up again,
speaking of the temple of his body, this temple was 46 years
in building. And they were looking at the
literal building, but probably a renovated building that Herod
did. They obviously viewed it as a
longer time than this, but it's the same building. The same one
that the Lord Jesus Christ himself was to walk in it. And the building
wasn't going to have the glory, not like Solomon's as a beautiful
tight order of Christ, here Christ was going to come himself. And what a reminder there. We
often judge something by the outward appearance, don't we?
But what a difference when we can look by faith and we can
look at what the true and real blessing is. In the New Testament
it's spoken of, especially regarding the the women whose adorning,
let it not be the outward adorning of putting on of apparel, but
the inward adorning of a meek and a quiet spirit. And the Lord
is pointing to that, which is an inward, a hidden work. But
the work of the Lord Christ in you formed the hope of glory. And so they needed encouragement
at this time. Many times God's children need
encouragement. It's a good thing for us to be
encouragers, an encourager in Zion. Think of that. If you're
a person that is always one, that the only time you speak
to a pastor or deacon or someone is you're finding fault with
them or something that's not quite right, is always discouragement. But you think, how can you encourage? And even if you have to put someone
right, or perhaps be a bit of advice, think of what you can
balance that with that will be an encouragement. And we need
those times. And especially if there are times
that you need to have something pointed out that's very humbling
It's good if you look on that person and think that person,
to me, has always been an encourager. They would not point that thing
out unless they really felt it to be important. I believe there
are precious souls in Zion that are encouragers because there's
many things to pull us down, many things to discourage us.
Satan does, our own wicked heart does. It doesn't mean to say
you've got to be a flatterer. but just a genuine encouragement. A little thing said, a little
thing done, can mean such a lot. Well, here the Lord is using
encouragement. And he's using encouragement
through his servants and through the prophets, through the word
he is giving them. And I hope you, dear friends,
often have that through your dear pastor. Encouragement through
the word. And the Lord encouraging you
through the words, speaking to you, be not silent unto me, lest
if thou be silent unto me, I become like them that go down into the
pit. And so the temptation is to think,
well, This day is a day of small things, and to despise those
small things. And this is the word of our text
here. 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. So I want to look firstly at
a day of small things as not to be despised and then secondly
a day of rejoicing very clearly set forth here they shall rejoice
And then the reason for rejoicing. and what they shall see. And
they shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel. And I
thought really the middle hymn was quite a good commentary on
that in a way. And the word over it, eternal
settlements, is when you see the Lord is in control, when
you can see that actually the plummet, the plumb line, the
plan is all in the Lord's hand. And when you can see that, That's
a real encouragement. It's the eternal plan. And under
that, we'll have a little look at also the vision here, the
candlesticks as well. But firstly, a day of small things. And of course, we meet here for
Thanksgiving and thinking of the harvest. And of course, a
harvest, it begins with a small thing, a seed that is planted
in the ground. And our Lord spoke of, if you
had faith, there's a grain of mustard seed, the smallest of
seeds, you could say to this mountain, be removed and cast. Into the depth of the sea and
he's not saying well because that faith is so small. It's
useless. He can't do anything He said
don't despise that that small faith that little faith. Oh,
yeah little faith. Wherefore didst thou doubt? We're
not to despise it But right from the very beginning of the Word
of God you think of the first promise of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ wasn't even spoken directly to Adam and It was Adam
listening to the Lord speaking to Satan. But it was spoken to
the church, a promise to the church. The seed of the woman shall bruise
thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. I just say a small
gleam of promise. And some of us can look back
It's a promise as we've had, and you wonder, has that been
of the Lord at all? You know, my dear mother, she
had, and I never knew what it was, but she had encouragement
when she was 19 years of age. And she clung onto that right
through life. She never was baptized. She wasn't
blessed with assurance until on her deathbed when she died. And then in such a blessed way,
it's just unmistakable to me. Well, not at the time, but afterwards,
looking back. But, you know, I said to her
when she was dying, I said, you know, Mum, perhaps it is because
you keep holding on to this that you felt the Lord gave to you
that you're not blessed. If you let go of that, then the
Lord will bless. And she said with such feeling,
if I let go of that, I'd lose everything. And that what she had, it wasn't
enough to raise her up to assurance, it wasn't enough to say she was
a child of God, it was enough to raise up her hope that the
Lord was her God and that he would work in her heart. And
she brought us children up in all of those years in the fear
of the Lord, without assurance of self. There's many parents
like that, trying to bring up their children when they want
the same blessing. They long for a blessing in their
own soul. It's a good thing then when the
parents can seek with their children in the same things of God. Remind
your mother, she saw me blessed, she saw me baptized, joined the
church, and not into the ministry, not married, not back to here,
anything, she wasn't able to see. She passed away before that. But those things the Lord gives,
sometimes it can be so small, so quick, so fleeting, and you
wonder whether it was the Lord at all. One of the most precious
blessings that I had, and it was, I was working in my office
over in Australia, and the Lord just dropped in, I love thee
with an everlasting love, and therefore with loving kindness
have I drawn thee, and then it was taken away. It was so fleeting,
I could never really say, was that really the Lord, or had
I imagined it? And then several years later,
over here, and we'd just been here a week or so, we'd got a
car and it went wrong and I had to take it back to Haverty, driving,
wasting, as I thought, four hours. And as I came up through Hawkers,
just five miles from home, coming to my mind, you pray to the Lord
that he would bless this force taking away from your work and
he met you and blessed you. And I can remember that spot,
driving past the common hawkers and the Lord dropped in that
same word again. I've left even the last of that.
This time with real power and immediately brought my mind straight
back to my office in Australia. And it was as if he said, that
was I blessed you there, and I blessed you here. I knew you
in Australia. I know you here. And it was one
word, one blessing that linked from one side of the world to
another. And those are precious times
when the Lord does that. But it went for several years,
thinking of that time, was that the Lord? Was it not? And maybe
some of you are like that. you've got a time, an occasion,
and you can't let it go, you can't forget it, and you go over
it, and you ponder it, and you wonder, was it the Lord? Was
it the Lord's voice? He confirmeth the word of his
servants. If it's the Lord, he won't let
it go. He'll bring it again and again. So we're not to despise those
days who pondered and watched it. You think of Abraham. The Lord
said, I called him alone. He was giving blessing. He said,
we called to you. Look at the stars of heaven and
the sands of the sea. So shall I seed be. But he hadn't
got any seed. And then the Lord gave him one.
And then when he had children, he had twins too. One was cast
away, another was taken. What small beginnings the fathers
had before the 12 tribes and the beginnings of Israel. We're
to remember that, how small that was. You think of Elijah going
to Zarephath. And the Lord said he's commanded
a widow woman to sustain him. And he sees the widow woman,
and she's gathering sticks, and he asks that she make him a cake. She said, but I've only a little
meal in a cruise, and an oil in the cruise, and I'm gathering
sticks and going to bake a cake for my son, and I am dying. He said, make one for me first.
For thus saith the Lord, the barrel of meal, the crucible
of oil, shall not fail till the Lord's sin reign upon the earth. And it did, that little multiplied
and multiplied. Not a big store, but as they
needed it. And it's like the manna. You
know, they despised the manna because it was small and because
it was constant. Don't always think that your
spiritual life will rely on big blessings. The Lord does give
those blessings that are remarkable. You remember them all your life.
But you and I need, day by day, occasion by occasion, the manna
to feed upon it. Those are nice times when we
sit under the word, and we say no special blessing, but we're
fed under the word. We've drunk in, or like the two
on the way to Emmaus, our heart burned within us while he taught
with us by the way. Or like the Bereans, they heard
Paul preach once. He only preached on the Lord's
days. And then they searched the scriptures
daily whether these things were so. be a good catalyst, wasn't
it? What is spoken today fuels your
study of the scriptures the rest of the week. And we read, therefore
many of them believed. Small things. You think of the
woman with, again, the widow with her sons and the debts and
the creditors coming to take her away. And all she had was,
again, oil. Go and borrow pots, not a few,
empty vessels, not a few. And they just poured out and
poured out from that few. We think of our Lord, the multitude,
with five loaves, few fishes, but what are these among so many?
But with the Lord's hand breaking in, how far they went. Despise
not the day of small things. The vital thing is it be real.
It comes from the Lord, it's been given. There's been many
times I've proved blessings like that. You know, the time when
I was brought into the ministry, well I'd been exercised 13 years,
but when I was 25 I'd been exercised already about five years or so.
A dear sister in faith died and I took her funeral. And because
I was exercising the ministry, I preached at that funeral. And
the dear friends at Melbourne, they pressured me and pressured
me to stay preaching. But I felt I'd stepped over the
mark. I shouldn't have done so. And
it was the start of seven years of bondage. I was taking reading
services at the time. And I used to comment on what
was in the reading service. From that time, for seven years,
I couldn't comment at all. I just read the sermon, and that
was it. And the deacon. We had prayer
meetings. We had times of seeking the Lord
to bring it forward. In the end, I said to him, look,
it's no good. Until the Lord turns my captivity,
I'm not coming to preach. I cannot preach. And I said,
when the Lord breaks that captivity, I will come to you. And you know,
it was reading through Ezra, unexpected in our kitchen. that the Lord may give you a
little reviving in your bondage. And you know, I felt I needed
such a great reviving, but a little reviving, my faith could hold
that, I could grasp that. And as I read that, it started
to grow. And you know, before long, I
started to have texts come that I could meditate on. And I was
due to take the, and I read Mr. Anspotton's sermon on Wednesday,
that before I did so, I said, friends, I'd like to just speak
for 10 minutes on this. So I spoke on that Isra for just
10 minutes. And in that 10 minutes, I felt
my bondage go. And then we called the church
meeting, and I started preaching from that time. The Lord had
ordered it, that Robert Field was actually coming over the
next month or so And actually, it's 30 years this next month
since I was sent out. And well, I started preaching
in the August, actually, so it's been 30 years. But that releasing
of that bondage started with a very small thing, just one
text, one word, a little reviving in my bondage. And my faith could
grasp hold of that. It just grew and grew. And I've
found that so many times, to be hard of heart, to be far off
from the Lord, and you're reading the word, and you get one verse,
one word, and your heart starts to soften, and you start to pray. and you feel the difference,
you feel the opening and you feel access and suddenly the
heart is broken and suddenly you can repent and you can pour
out your heart and pour out your tears and bring all of those
things before the Lord and all the sins that you couldn't for
months and months and you can pour them all out before the
Lord and it begins small. And it grows. Do not despise
those small softenings, a small word, a small opening. And you
think of the harvest, that small seed, and it begins to grow. And your farmer wouldn't look
around and say, well, that's just a little blade of green. I want
a stalk that high with nice lots of wheat on it. The farmer, by
experience, he says, that'll grow. That'll grow. I think it
was probably in the pulpit here, Gray Hazelwood. I'm not sure.
Mr. Raven, when he first started
to preach in some of his congregation, they said, well, he's not like
the older ministers at all. And one said, yeah, but he will
grow. He will grow. And you don't look
for old heads on young shoulders. And it's a good thing to remember
that. Those that are brought forth,
and many of those in the scriptures that were converted, you think
of the eunuch. They had no depth of theological
knowledge or anything like that. You don't have to have a degree
in theology to join the church of God. You want the work of
God, the blessing and the belief in the Lord. You want that root
of the matter in you. A hearing ear, he that hath a
hearing ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches,
and then obey that growth through the word. Never stifle or put
under where that work is truly the Lord's work. and where there
is that willingness and that desire to go forward and suffer
the little children and little children in grace and in the
things of God to come. Despise not the day of small
things. When the Lord has a work to do,
whether it's in the church, whether it's in our heart, When we look
at that, that the Lord is doing, he will have regard to the work
of his own hands. And it will be our privilege
to recognise the work of his hands. And so, I hope this word
perhaps will be a timely word to some that may be tempted to
despise something or be discouraged at what the Lord's done for you.
cast not away your confidence which hath great recompense of
reward. He which hath begun a good work
in you will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. And so we see here with the Jews
and with the foundation stone and what they were likely to be discouraged at. And it would
have stopped them building. It would have stopped them going
on. You think of it in a literal sense. And it may be with you. If what the Lord has done for
you, if that is damned, if that is discouraged, it will hamper
that growth. But encouraged and strengthened,
it will grow. I want to look then secondly
at a day of rejoicing. We had one of these shalls this
afternoon. The shalls of the Lord. There
shall be showers of blessing. There shall be a day of rejoicing. For who have despised the day
of small things for they shall Rejoice. And really there's the
implication as well that in that small thing there's not rejoicing
yet. How many are beginning? So the
child of God is actually a conviction of sin. The malady is coming
first. Or, as the hymn writer says,
those wishes so weak, those feeble desires, tis Jesus inspires and
bids thee still seek. and is one of these shells joined
with this. What a thing to put together
here. Day of small things, rejoicing, right next to each other. It's
one of the shells that the Lord has said, this is what it will
end in. This is what it will result in.
And of course, looking at the wider view, he shall give grace
and glory, no good thing. shall he withhold from them that
walk uprightly. With our Lord Jesus Christ, when
the hymn says, from what beginning small, our great salvation rose. And dear Simeon, he could take
up by faith our Lord as a babe. Lord, now let us, thou servant,
depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation. According
to thy word, the Lord had given him the word in that way. The
rejoicing will only come as Christ is seen. They'll rejoice in God
our Saviour. If that beginning small was a
beginning of a conviction of sin, a casting down, the malady
The rejoicing is when the remedy is seen, when Christ is seen.
When Christ was crucified, then were the disciples sad and distressed
and troubled. I often say this, we need a third
day religion. You wait to the third day, the
end of the third day, then were the disciples glad when they
saw the Lord. And you go for even further and
you think with the idea of something taken away and being able to
rejoice. When the Lord was taken away
from the disciples after 40 days being with them after he'd risen
from the dead, they went back to the temple and daily they
were praising God, daily rejoicing. your saviour's right, he's no
longer with you. But their knowledge of where
he was and that he was alive, that was their source of joy.
So in one sense it was taken away, on the other sense they
realised the conquest, what had been done. Our Lord was ascended
into heaven. And thinking of the third day,
Abraham, he saw Christ's day, he rejoiced at it, When he was
told in the trial of offering up his son Isaac, the first day,
in effect, Isaac in his mind would have been dead. The second
day, the third day, the third day going up the mount, my father,
the fire, the wood, where is the lamb for burnt offering?
Keen, right at that third day, just before there's gonna be
the change of deliverance, That keen question, my son God will
provide himself a lamb, and the Lord did. But how to need to
wait to that third day? Wait for the Lord to finish his
work. Judge nothing before the time. What would we think of a farmer
who planted his field up? And before it was ever half the
time for germination, he said, oh, no hope of that. They'll
never, never pop up now. Another neighboring farmer said,
we haven't waited long enough yet. They won't germinate in
that time. You've got to wait a bit longer
than that. And you could end up destroying
the whole crop just through bond of knowledge. But there's a waiting
for it in the Lord's time. And so that rejoicing is when
we see so clearly what the Lord has done. Sometimes it's not,
and as I said this afternoon, until you can look back, thou
shalt remember all the way the Lord has led thee. And it often
is to prove thee, to try thee, to know what was in thine heart.
It's when the Lord then shines upon the work, what I do, thou
know'st not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. There shall be
light on it, and then thou shalt see a interest in Christ, He
can see why he died and for whom he died and what his sufferings
meant for us. They shall look upon him whom
they have pierced. They shall mourn for him. Remember,
it is our Lord that bore the wrath of God, that propitiation,
wrath-ending sacrifice. It was paying the debt, satisfying
justice, bringing in an everlasting righteousness. His whole life,
a life to be as a second cloak. He that hath two coats, let him
give to him that none. The Lord as God himself had a
righteousness that could not be imparted, because it is eternal
righteousness. But that which is wrought out
as God and man in one person here below, that is imparted
to his people. faultless to stand before the
throne. It's not the righteousness of
Christ that puts away sin or even covers sin. It's the precious
blood of Christ that puts it away and covers it, but it's
the righteousness of Christ that enables us to stand, not naked,
but clothed and faultless before the throne of God. We need that. Can you imagine? If we had to
get to heaven and then give an account of our righteousness,
could you pick out anything in your life that you could say,
look, this is the scriptures say, our righteousness is filthy
rags. There was a time that I was so
fearful of this, and it was a temptation to me, even if you get to heaven.
Can you imagine having to give an account? We can give an account
to one another as sinners, can't we? But you imagine having to
give an account of all my black life, even after I've made profession,
and that's with me eternity? No. The wedding garment, Christ. is Christ instead of me as seen
when I approach to God. And he is our righteousness.
I love that in Jeremiah. This is the name wherewith he
shall be called the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord our righteousness.
And this is the name wherewith she shall be called the Lord
our righteousness, the church of God. So the day of rejoicing. when we see so clearly our interest
in Christ, what he has done for us, the blessing of the Lord
that maketh rich and addeth no sorrow with it, that blessing
of the soul that really centers in the Lord Jesus. Thirdly, the reason for rejoicing. Now we have, the reason is given
here. They shall rejoice and shall
see the plummet. So the plummet is the idea of,
well, often we use now a spirit level. I've got some plumb lines
at home. So a line of string with a weight
at the end of it, and it's hanging central on the string line. And
it's used to tell whether something is vertical or not. It'll give
a straight line down because of gravity. And that line, of
course, in building a building, they need to make sure the walls
are straight and up and down, that the building is being made
correctly and to plan. And they can see that is in the
hand of Sir Abel, hand of the prince. And of course, in the
Old Testament, There's two anointed officers. We have the king, and
we have the priest. And they never should go into
two. This is why Samuel so reproved
King Saul, because he forced himself. He offered the sacrifice
that belonged to the priest, not to the king. But in the Lord
Jesus Christ, both of those officers, they come together in one. But the Old Testament, you're
pictured with these two. So obviously this prophecy is
to encourage both Rabbable and Joshua the high priest, also
a type as well of our Lord. And the message here is that
they shall see this plan, they can see It is the Lord's plan
and the Lord's provision. And I want to think of this picture
of the trees now. I wouldn't be dogmatic on it
because there's much difference amongst the churches. We have
a reference as well in the Revelation to these two anointed ones. But it's very clear in Scripture.
When we think of the first chapter in Revelation, we have the seven
golden candlesticks. And we're told that they are
the churches. And in the midst of them, we
have the Lord in the midst of those churches. And the stars,
they are the angels of the churches. And then we have the letters
to the seven churches of Asia. So it is picturing of the church
as a complete church represented by individual churches. And then
we think of the candlestick with its seven branches out, what
was in the tabernacle and what is pictured there of the church. Well, here we have a picture
that the candlestick is not fed by man, but it's fed in a perpetual
way by these olive trees on the top of the top of the candlestick,
you've got a bowl and into that bowl from two sides is placed
oil. So it is being perpetually supplied
with this oil and the oil then flows down to the lamps. And the way I view it, is that
those two anointed ones beside the Lord are the Son of God,
our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. We have
the Trinity there, the supplying for the Church of God is through
our Lord and through the Holy Spirit. Now it's spoken of here
as two branches, and in one sense, there's the branch in the Old
Testament. In the Old Testament, our Lord
Jesus Christ was secret, it was through the types and the shadows. In the New Testament, it's our
Lord revealed clearly in the light of the gospel. So that
is one sign, the olive tree with these two branches from the New
Testament, Old Testament, but each one, the pipe, it comes
as to the word of God. The pure word of God. Remember
this candlestick is pictured as gold and the oil is pure oil. Everything about it is precious.
Everything about the church is precious. The means of grace
is precious. The oil of grace is precious.
Everything is precious. But then you've got the other
side of it, the other side with the Holy Spirit. And again, in
the Old Testament, it was limited. It was through the prophets.
In the New Testament, it's open to all believers. It's very,
very clear, but it's still coming through the Holy Spirit. We're
told in Hebrews 1, that God in time past spake unto us by the
prophets. And so it was through that means
that the church was given the spirit. But then in the New Testament,
then it is the Holy Spirit poured out. And so that then is mixed
together. You cannot have the preaching
of the word without the spirit. You can't have the spirit without
the word. They must be together. They are part of those. witnesses
in 1 John 5 that are upon earth. And it must be tarry at Jerusalem
until ye be endued with power from on high. And so in one sense,
we have the church supplied by God himself perpetually. And
they went forth working, preaching, The Lord working with them, confirming
the word with signs following. They had preached the word, but
they needed the Holy Spirit. And the church is exactly the
same today. And that provision then is given
to the church, and it is, of course, through the ministry,
preaching the word. Preach the word. There is the
strength. And so we have the encouragement
When we are able to see this, and this is what's on my spirit,
they shall rejoice and shall see the plumber. It's when you
actually see the Lord is in control, see that he is supplying the
needs of the church. You're looking above the instruments,
looking above man, and you can see the plan of the master builder. When our Lord was on earth, the
scriptures were filled in this. that they despised him because
he wasn't what they expected him to be. This is the stone
that the builders rejected. But there's a master builder
and it is the right stone. I remember years ago, and dear
Mr. Allen, is Mr. Allen in Bethesda
now? Well, I knew his father from
Clapham, and his father was a structural engineer. In fact, He did renovations
in the gardens at Kew, all of the great
steel gardens there. But he showed me a picture. And he showed me a picture of
a brick building, a stone building. And all those stones, different
shape, they all had a number on. He said, you know, all the
stones in the temple, he said, they ought to be being designed.
all the dimensions done in the quarry and then brought and put
in that building. Don't think just because they
were stones there wasn't any dimensions. Those of you who
are draftsmen here and draw things up like I used to do in engineering,
that was a precision thing. They were made exactly for that
spot. But then he said when you come to the top stone, the top
stone had to have a shape on it so that it had a lip so that
when it rained, The water went down and it couldn't go up the
lip to then go down the wall. It had to drop free of the wall
so the water didn't run down the wall of the building. And
because of that, because it was so fine, it had to be a very
fine textured stone so it didn't just break off. But what happened
when you came to the corner of the building? because you've
got the lip going that way and the lip going that way and suddenly
the cornerstone, part of that same stone had to have a lip
on one side and a lip on the other. What do you do? And he
said to me, he said, you know, they chose out a stone that had
such a fine texture, it didn't matter which side that lip was,
it was still strong. And he said, those Jews, they
would have looked at that cornerstone, said this stone is different
than all the rest and rejected it. That is Christ, unique, different
than all the rest. He is the true topstone, the
foundation stone, the topstone. His children are built up in
him. He's building his church. He'll
finish his work. And the top stone brought forth
crying, grace, grace unto it. And the more clearer we can see
the Lord is in control. He is building it. The gates
of hell will not prevail against it. And that will give joy and
comfort to the people of God. The Lord is in control. And in
our days, maybe we didn't realize that. Why don't we know that?
You know, recently we've been reading through, we read through
consecutively through the word of God. We notice so many times
through Jeremiah, Ezekiel, there's so many prophecies talking about
other nations of the land and what is going to happen to them.
That's so needed today, isn't it? When we see all these things
happening in the world. And when you read that, And you
might say, well, where is Christ here? I can't see this, or I
can't understand that portion. But if you could look at it whole
and say, here is the Lord speaking about the nations of the world.
He is in control, and he is building his church. And the whole reason
why this world remains is because the Lord has his church. And
that will make us rejoice when we see the plummet, where we
see the control in the hand of the Lord. May you see it in your
lives. I hope some of you can see that.
You can look in your lives, look at what the Lord has done. You
say, the Lord has been in control. He hath done all things well.
He hath already ordered it and he'll continue to order it and
he'll bring me safe home at last. May the Lord help us to trust
him and lean hard upon him and see him in his love and design
for the church of God. and His coming fulfilling this.
And may we look for His second coming. The Thessalonian church
were called, they weren't only called to follow the disciples
and to follow the Lord, but they were to look, look for His coming. And may that be our desire too. to look for his coming. May he
come to us in blessing, may he come to us at last and bring
us safely home to him. The Lord add his blessing. Amen.