Taking our text from Zechariah. Zechariah. Go back to the last
book of Malachi and then go back one more and you're in Zechariah.
Zechariah chapter 4. We'll read our text in a moment
but just give you a little background of this book of the Bible. It
speaks much to Zerubbabel who was the governor. And it concerns
the rebuilding of the temple. And God raised up Zechariah to
go tell Zerubbabel and the people to continue to build that temple. And this man, this governor,
this prince in Judah, after the captivity, after they're led
back, and the temple lay in ruins, They're instructed to rebuild
it, to carry on the work which they had let go. This governor,
Zerubbabel, he's a great type and picture of our Lord Jesus
Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
builder of his church. God himself laid Christ as the
foundation of his church. I have laid in Zion a chief cornerstone,
Isaiah 28, and it's repeated throughout the New Testament,
this prophecy of our Lord, about our Lord. I have laid in Zion,
God says, a chief cornerstone, a let precious for a sure foundation. And they that believe in him
shall not make haste. No need to panic. All is well
if we're laying up on the rock Christ Jesus, if we're built
on him. Philippians 1 and 6, he that
hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, he's the builder of the
church. We read in Acts that the Lord
added unto the church daily, such as should be saved. such as should be saved. Shortly
after the foundation of the temple was laid and the work was begun,
many began to despise it. They looked upon the work of
God that he had entrusted into their hands as a small insignificant
thing, and remembering the greatness and the grandeur and the glory
of the first temple built by Solomon, they thought What's
this compared to that? Why bother? Why waste our time? And even Joshua the high priest
at the time and Zerubbabel, the prince, seemed to have doubted
whether the work was necessary or not, whether it would go on
or not. They were so few in number after
coming back out of the captivity of Babylon, and the laborers
were even fewer. And the whole thing seemed impossible. It's just impossible. Why bother? And the enterprise just seemed
to be too great. And having laid the foundation
and raised a portion of the walls, they just quit. They just quit. And that's why this prophet is
raised up by God to go to them and tell them, don't do that.
Don't do that. As a matter of fact, God raised
up two prophets, Haggai, previous to Zechariah, and Zechariah. If you go to the book of Haggai,
you'll find his message the same. Don't stop the work. Don't stop
the work. Haggai chapter 2, we read that
he went and told Zerubbabel and Joshua, be strong, for I am with
you. God's message to them. According
to the word that I have coveted with you, My spirit remaineth
among you. Fear ye not. Don't be afraid. I'm with you. Fear not. And that's
God's word to his church today. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. And then comes another prophet's
sin of God. speaking the words of God, the
message of God. That's what his prophets, his
preachers, do. How do you know they're saying
of God? They tell you the truth. They preach the gospel of God's
grace. And Zechariah came behind Haggai
and he said concerning Haggai's message, Amen, brother Haggai. He told them he's been telling
you the truth. He's been telling you God's message. That's good preaching, brother
Haggai. When I was preaching up in the conference at Lantana
Grace Church, where Donny Bell pastors in June. I think it was
Friday evening that Paul Mahan preached the first
message and then he was followed by Bruce Crabtree. And during
Bruce's message, about midway through it, he said, you know
Paul preached a good message, but I'm preaching one better
than he did. Zachariah came along and he said,
hey guys, told you the truth and I'm gonna repeat to you just
what he said. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Now with that in mind, with that
background, let's look in chapter 4 and begin reading at verse
6. Verses 6 through 10 of Zachariah
chapter 4. 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. Oh, I like that tune. Moreover,
the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, The hands of Zerubbabel
have laid the foundation of this house. His hands also shall finish
it. And thou shalt know that the
Lord of hosts has sent me unto you. For who had 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,
seven, the number of perfection, God's number, perfect knowledge,
perfect wisdom. They are the eyes of the Lord
which run to and fro through the whole earth. The very name
Zachariah means God remembers. God remembers. God helped us
today to remember that. He remembers. He never forgets
his people, we're never out of his heart, never out of his hand. As he said to Moses, when he
revealed himself to them, he said, Moses, surely I've heard
the cry of my people in Egypt, I've heard their moans and their
groans, I've heard their prayers and I've come down to deliver
them. Yes, God remembers, and as we
said a moment ago, Zerubbabel is a picture, a type of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Small things, that's the title
of my message from verse 10. Small things, it's a question.
Small things, question mark. Dash, not really. Not really. In their perception
it was, but it wasn't really so. Anything done for God is
not a small thing. Any promise of God is not a small
thing. Any endeavor for God's glory
and for the gospel's sake can never be a small thing. It may,
by our misguided perception, appear to be so as it was with
them, but it really wasn't so. I think this is what our Lord
taught in Mark chapter 4. The Lord Jesus Christ speaking,
verse 30, and he said, Where unto shall we liken the kingdom
of God? Or with what comparison shall
we compare it? It is like a mustard seed, a
grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth,
it is less than all the seeds that be in the earth. But he
didn't stop there, did he? When it is sown, it groweth up,
and becometh greater than all the herbs, and shooteth out great
branches, so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow
of it. God has chosen to give birth
to great things by insignificant small beginnings, and you know
why he does that, why he deliberately does that, why he does it as
he does all things on purpose, that no flesh should glory in
his presence. He begins his great works in
the day of small things to show that the instruments that he
uses are nothing in themselves or by themselves, but to show
that the work is his alone and to prove and try the faith of
his people. That huge oak tree, that huge
oak tree started with a small acorn buried in the ground. That mighty rushing river, it
begins with a small trickling stream. And in spiritual things,
in spiritual things, great things always have small beginnings.
The Protestant Reformation under Martin Luther, you know how it
started? By him nailing his thesis. upon the church in Wittenberg,
Germany. The Great Awakening started with
some young men meeting together in Oxford University in England
to study and pray and study God's Word. The modern missionary movement
began with one man's vision, William Carey. His determination
to preach the gospel to the barbarians in India. And never forget David. Oh, what a blessed example that
is. David with his sling. He takes his elder brother's
lunch because he's the youngest and he's the shepherd. He's not
even in the war. So his father says, take lunch
to your brothers. And while David's there, Goliath
comes out, challenging the people of God, challenging Israel. Just
mocks them. Is there not a man among you?
Goliath says. Is there not a man? Are you all
cowards? Send out somebody to fight me.
And whoever wins, decide the whole battle. Just bring them
out. Pick one. Bring them out. And there wasn't
a man, including Saul. There wasn't a man that would
answer the challenge. And David heard that and he said,
why do you allow this? Why are you allowing this to
happen? And he said, I'll tell you what. I'll take on the challenge. I'll go out to meet Goliath and
his brothers heard him. And one of them said, who do
you think you are? You've always had the big head. Who do you
think you are? But David goes out. Not with
Saul's armor. They tried that on. David said,
I just can't work in this. No, this won't work for me. I'll
take my sling. And he picked up some stones
out of the brook as he went out to meet Goliath. And you know
what happened? You know what happened. Goliath fell down. Paul says, you see your calling,
brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many
mighty, not many noble are called. Why, Paul? Because God had chosen
the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God
has 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 naught things that are, that no flesh,
that no flesh should glory in his presence. As it is written,
he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. You'll find no restriction
there. You'll have all the elbow room
you need there. All the ground you need there,
glory in the Lord. God forbid that I should glory,
Paul said, save in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. You
can glory there by God's grace all you want, but nowhere else.
Small things, not really. God do for us, for me. what he did in response to Elisha's
prayer on behalf of his servant. Open his eyes, Elisha. Pray,
God, Lord, open his eyes that he may see. And he did. And he saw, Elisha's servant
saw, that things weren't as they appeared to be. They weren't
as he thought they were. He saw not through a glass darkly,
not through eyes of unbelief and fear. Fear paralyzes you,
doesn't it? Fear just paralyzes you. You're
afraid to move. If David had been afraid of Goliath,
he'd have been just like the rest of them, hiding in the mountains.
Oh, fear paralyzes us, but by the grace of God and through
the gift of faith we know we can do all things through Christ
that's strengthening us. Is that true or not? This young
servant of Elisha's now saw, not through the eyes of unbelief
and fear, but he saw things as they really are, not as he perceived
them to be. And he realized then what Paul
says, if God be for us, if God be for us. You can camp out there,
pitch tent there. If God be for us. We read a little
in Psalm 89. God, who is like him? He has
his way all the time. I don't mean this imaginary peep-squeaking
imposter they talk about today that can't have his way. I'm
talking about God Almighty, God high and lifted up, God over
all. If God, that great God before
us, who can be against us? Who can really be against us?
Oh, that we would believe, that we would believe by God's grace
that. As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians
4, familiar passage, for our light affliction, now fear makes
us doubt the truth of this, but faith doesn't. Our light affliction,
which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding.
It's not working against us. That heartache's not working
against you. By the great potter's wisdom and grace, he's molding
you. He's using those things and molding
you into the image of his own son. And when he gets done, through
mountaintop and valley, through rejoicing and heartache, he's
going to present you faultless before the presence of his glory.
God take us down occasionally to the potter's house. And behold,
he wrought a great work upon the wheels. Our light affliction,
which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and
eternal weight of glory. Paul said in Romans 8, wasn't
it? I suppose that these present sufferings are not worthy to
be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us. While
we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which
are not seen. For the things which are seen
are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. As I mentioned earlier, in a few days, Lord willing,
I'll drive up to Kentucky to preach in the conference there
in Danville. And I'll go a few days early
so I can spend some time with my grandchildren. And one reason
I enjoy that so much is because they, as I said, haven't got
to that place where they don't enjoy pawpaw. You know what I
enjoy being around them, John? Their wide-eyed wonder. They
haven't become hard and skeptical of everything. They still have
that wonder of living, that wide-eyed amazement. When they visited
me here not too long ago, Larry and his two daughters, my two
granddaughters. I took them out to that Emery's
Marble Quarry Overlook. And man, they just thought that
was something. And we went there and then we stopped down at Blue
Bell Ice Cream and went in there and watched that and went into
the little parlor and had ice cream. Then we were driving back
home, and the two girls were sitting in the back seat, and
Laura, the older one, looked at Allie, the youngest one. She
said, man, I wish we lived here. That Pawpaw, it's all kinds of
things to do around here. And Allie said, now, Laura, we
can't live here. What about all our friends? Oh,
we'll make new friends. They were just amazed about what
they saw. They said, wow, Pawpaw, I'd like
to live where you live. God keep me. in wonder of your
amazing grace. I'm afraid we, if we're not careful,
can just grow so complacent. So complacent. I read a statement
by Spurgeon the other day. He said either he was just passing
the story on down or it may have been his experience. I don't
remember. But he said a woman praying to God and said, oh Lord,
if you'll save me, If you'll have mercy on me, and when this
life's over, take me to heaven to be with you forever, you'll
never hear the end of it. You'll never hear the end of
it. God, keep me in wonder of your amazing grace to me. May
I keep that wide-eyed feeling. Oh, how can it be? How can it be, John? that thou
should love a soul like me, how can it be? How in the world could
I ever get over that? Small thing? I don't think so. Brother Henry Mahan wrote an
article concerning faith along this very line. The title of
it was, Believing is No Small Thing. The person who believes
God in spite of his sin and infirmities, who believes God in spite of
fleshly wisdom and opposition, who believes God, come what may,
gives the Lord God more honor. Now listen to this statement.
Gives the Lord God more honor and glory than the cherubim or
the seraphim in their continual adoration. Man! To believe God in the teeth
of all my sins, To believe that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth
me from all sin, even when I'm crying out, O wretched man that
I am, that honors God. Small thing. Here, here we represent
God's little flock. Yes, we're a little flock, that's
true. Are you sometimes tempted to think as they did concerning
the rebuilding of the temple? that this is a small thing. Despise
this day of small things, but not really. Their perception
was wrong, as we said. No, we're not a mega church.
We're not one of those mega churches. And we don't have anything to
attract the crowds. No really big shows. No entertainment,
no celebrities, no football players or actors here giving their testimony. No, we don't have that. Your
pastor is not a doctor of theology or a professor or a reverend.
You don't ever call me that. William Huntington, I believe
it was William Huntington, he used to sign his name William
Huntington, B.A. And someone saw it and they said,
Well, Brother Huntington, I didn't know you had a Bachelor's of
Arts. He said, oh, no, no, no. William Huntington, BA, born
again, born again. That's how he signed his name. I remember hearing a story about
Rolf Barnard. You hear a lot of stories about
Rolf Barnard, but I've heard it several times from different
men. He was somewhere in a meeting, sitting on the front pew with
some other preachers. And the fellow leading the service
was introducing some, and the fellow that was sitting right
next to Barnard, the spokesman said, we're so good to have Reverend
so-and-so with us this morning. He's a doctor of theology. He's
got degrees from blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he's
been here, and he's done this, and he's done that, and we're
just so honored to have him. And the story says that Ralph
Barner stood up right next to him and said, well, how do you
do? No, we're not reverend. We're
not doctors. We're not priests. We're not
popes. No. All we do here, by the grace
of God, is worship God Almighty and preach the glorious gospel
of the blessed God. And let me tell you, that is
no small thing. No small thing. In John chapter
4, our Lord deliberately goes through Samaria, encounters deliberately
the woman at the well. I must go through Samaria because
I've got a sheep there and I've come to seek and save my sheep.
And he encounters her at the well. And she gets nervous and
starts showing him her self-righteous fig leaves. And he said, lady,
you don't know who you worship. He said, let me tell you this,
the true worshippers of God, they worship Him in spirit and
in truth. For God seeketh such to worship
Him. God seeketh such to worship Him. And if you do, if by the grace
of God you worship Him, if you bow down in your heart before
Him, it's because God Almighty has implanted something in your
heart. He's revealed Christ to you.
You know who He is. Bless God, that's not a small
thing. God found you. God found you. That's what we do here. By the
grace of God, we come worship the triune God, Father, Son and
Holy Spirit and thank God that we do. Nothing else. We don't
want nothing, none that would hinder that. Brother Maurice
Montgomery made the statement in one of his articles. and said,
there is absolutely nothing in true worship that appeals to
the flesh. My soul, that knocks down about
99% of the churches around here, doesn't it? You take away everything
that's going on around us this morning that appeals to the flesh,
that's what you'd have left. You wouldn't have nothing left
because it all appears to the flesh. Maurice was exactly right. Brother and sister, true worship
doesn't need nor involve any so-called aids to worship, helps
to worship, no flowery oratory, no clergyman's robes, no dim
lighting for effect, no we are the true circumcision, Paul said,
the true children of Abraham, true believers that worship God
in the Spirit, rejoicing Christ Jesus and have no confidence,
no confidence in the flesh. Amen? That's exactly right. Several years ago I was going
in Walmart during the winter one night. Man, the wind was
howling. It was pretty nippy. And two
ladies came up next to me just as we was walking in. And one
looked at me and said, man, I left Kentucky. I didn't know it was
going to be wintertime like that. I didn't think it got this cold
down here like it did in Kentucky. And I said, oh, you're from Kentucky?
So am I. She said, I was. She said, oh, what are you doing
here? I said, I pastor a church here in Sylacauga. She said,
oh, really? Well, we're looking for a church.
We might come visit you. What do you offer there? We're
Pentecostals. I thought, oops. We're Pentecostals. What do you do there? And I said,
we preach the gospel. We preach the gospel. She said,
that's nice, but what else do you do? I said, nothing else.
Nothing else. She said, well, bye. Bye. Haven't
seen them. They've not visited yet. Yes,
we gather here to proclaim and to hear and to rejoice in that
glorious gospel of the blessed God that concerns his son, Jesus
Christ. Jesus the Christ, Jesus our Redeemer,
Jesus our Mediator, Jesus our High Priest, our Intercessor,
our High Treasure, Jesus Christ everything. My soul, how can
that ever be a small thing? I don't think so. Let me read
you an article along this line that Henry's son wrote, Paul. It's going to be in one of our
bulletins, I think, in two or three weeks. I forget which one
it's in. I've already done it. But it's entitled A Little Church
by Pastor Mahan. A neighbor who attends a rather
large Methodist church in town introduced me to a friend with
these words. He is pastor of a little church
up the road. He pastors a little church up
the road. And my flesh took offense, Paul said, until my faith gave
me comfort. In the eyes of the world, numbers
are everything. Isn't that so? Especially in
religion. Numbers indicate right. Can all
these people be wrong? Numbers indicate success and
prosperity. Numbers are how the world measures
validity and security and the certainty of something. But nothing
could be further from the truth. In fact, the opposite is true. The majority is always wrong. Let God be true and every man
a liar. The Lord was very angry with David for numbering the
children of Israel. It was a matter of pride on his
part. The church has always been little compared to false religion.
And with his promises of health and wealth, false religion easily
packs them in. And the church has always been
made up of little people in the eyes of the world. Not many wise,
not many mighty, not many noble. There was a preacher, and I especially
like this, there was a preacher years ago who preached the truth
for 120 years. and his little congregation was
made up of eight souls. And the world made fun of, they
scoffed at that little Noah's Ark Grace Church. While vast
numbers attended the big place downtown, and we know how that
ended up, the salvation of one's soul is no little thing. but a great work of God. There
is no such thing as a little church with so great a God in
its midst, so great a gospel to be preached, that took so
great salvation to form it. It's no little thing to God.
It's no little thing to be a member of His church, but great mercy
and great grace and a great and undeserved privilege. Thank God
for this little place with all its little people. And I say
amen. Brother Paul, small thing, I
think not. We are not only believers in
God, God's little flock, the sheep of his pasture, but the
second thing, brothers and sisters, Christ is ours. Like Bobby sang
earlier, Christ is ours. High King of heaven, My treasure
thou art. Christ is ours. Isaiah 42 will
not turn there. That blessed passage that God
says concerning his servant, he shall not fail. He shall not
fail. He'll bring in righteousness.
He'll not be discouraged. He says in verse 6, I've given
him. I've given him. That is Christ
as a covenant for the people. All the promises of God are yea
and amen in him. As I said in the reading, a covenant
is an agreement, a pledge between parties. And God gave us to Christ
in that covenant of grace before the world began. Now the God
of all grace, Hebrews 13, that brought again from the dead our
Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, make you perfect
in every good work, to do his will working in you. that which
is well-pleasing in his sight." Everything God does, he does
as he promised he would to his son in the covenant of God's
grace because his son fulfilled and is fulfilling every stipulation
that God committed into his hands. No wonder David, when he lay
upon his deathbed, thought about that and he said, oh, though
my house be not so with God yet, yet. Absalom's rebellion incensed in my family, that's not changed this yet. Oh my soul, I think David just
rolled that blessed thought of God's everlasting, secure, unchanging
covenant around him like a warm blanket and went out to meet
his God. Yet God had made with me an everlasting
covenant ordered in all things and sure, nothing can change
it, nothing can stop it, nothing can make it null and void. This is exactly what our Lord
referred to in John 17. It was his last will and testament.
Covenant testament, it's the same word. In the Lord's prayer,
his last will and testament, and you know what he does? He
gives everything to us. Louis, I forgot your name. Louis,
he gives everything to us. He wills everything to us. Father, I will. This, that, and
this, and this, and this, and this. I want them to have it
all. Oh, high king of heaven, what
an inheritance, what a treasure. Years ago, years ago, I had a
cousin who started calling us, and that was quite a few of us,
relations. And he said that he had found
out that there was a descendant of ours that had died, lived
in England. and left an unclaimed inheritance. What about that? And if he could
prove, my cousin, if he could prove like he thought he could
that we were heirs of this guy, we'd have the right to it. We'd
have the right to it. And I said, go for it. Go for
it. Well, he dug a little further
and found out what it would cost to do it. And what you might
get that it would boil down to maybe $6.50 a piece. So it just
wasn't worth the effort. It wasn't worth claiming. Oh,
but this, this is no small thing. Christ, in the everlasting covenant
of grace, left everything to us and we'll have it all. We'll have it all. What an inheritance
that brings me to my last point. Among those things that he willed
for his children, In John 17, Father, this is the icing on
the cake. Father, I will also that those
whom thou has given me be with me where I am, that they may
behold my glory, the glory I had with you before the foundation
of the world. Children of God, we're going
to heaven. We're going to where Christ is.
I mean, that's just a fact. That's a fact. You say, well,
Larry, isn't that presumptuous? No, no. If I believe God, it's
not presumption, it's just faith. I take him at his word. If I'm
believing on the Son of God, he says, I want Larry Chris with
me where I am. I loved him with an everlasting
love. I lived for him. I laid down my life for him.
He's one of my sheep, and he'll be with me in glory. And there's
nothing come hell or high water, as we say, that's going to stop
that. That's exactly what Zechariah
talks about in the last chapter of his book, chapter 14. Verses
6 and 7, no more darkness inside or out. No thirst, no more sin,
verse 20. Every service, every thought
will wring out holiness unto the Lord. Verse 21, no more Canaanites. No enemies to bother us. No foes
to arrest us. No foes against our souls. No evil to drive away inside. I'll be made like the Son of
God. No part of God's promise unfulfilled. Let me close by
reading a few verses in Revelation chapter 7. What Zacharias said
in his prophecy in chapter 14 is exactly what we read here
in chapter 7. A picture of the fulfillment
of it. God's Word will never return void. Revelation 7, verse
16, And they, God's people, shall hunger no more in any way, neither
thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any
heat. For the Lamb, which is in the midst of the throne, shall
feed them, and lead them unto living fountains of waters, and
God shall wipe away all tears from your eyes. I know some of
you weep. So do I. And I can't dry your
tears. Oh, but God can, and He does. With the omnipotent hand of our
Heavenly Father, He's going to wipe all tears away. There'll be no reason to cry
in Heaven, and that's no small thing. We read of a place that's
called Heaven. It's made for the pure and the
free. These truths in God's word he hath given, how beautiful
heaven must be. In heaven, no drooping nor pining,
no wishing for elsewhere to be. God's light is forever there
shining. How beautiful heaven must be. How beautiful heaven must be.
Sweet home of the happy and free. Fair haven of rest for the weary. How beautiful heaven must be. And we'll soon see it for ourselves. Small things? I don't think so. God bless you. Thank you for
your time.