As with the books of Ezra and
Nehemiah, the prophecy of Zechariah is set at a time when the Jews
were brought out of captivity in Babylon, brought back to Jerusalem
which had once been razed to the ground along with the temple
and they began to rebuild the temple. Zechariah speaks of these
times and of the pictures that this rebuilding has of the Gospel
and of the coming of Christ. And in the fourth chapter of
Zechariah, we read of these things which Zechariah is brought to
see and of the encouragement to Zerubbabel and the priests
and the men of Israel who were tasked with rebuilding the temple.
We read in chapter 4 and verse 1, And the angel that talked
with me came again, and waked me as a man that is waken out
of his sleep, and said unto me, What seest thou? And I said,
I have looked, and behold a candlestick all of gold, with a bowl upon
the top of it, and his seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes
to the seven lamps which are upon the top thereof. and two
olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl and the
other upon the left side thereof. So I answered and spake to the
angel that talked with me, saying, What are these, my Lord? 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.' Then answered
I and said unto him, What are these two olive trees upon the
right side of the candlestick and upon the left side thereof?
And I answered again and said unto him, What be these two olive
branches which through the two golden pipes empty the golden
oil out of themselves? And he answered me and said,
knowest thou not what these be? And I said, no, my lord. Then
said he, these are the two anointed ones that stand by the lord of
the whole earth. 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. Grace, grace unto it. A wonderful
chapter depicting the gospel, the preaching of the gospel,
the power of the gospel, in contrast to the might the wisdom and the
power of man. God's church is built not by
the wisdom of man, not by the might and the power of man, not
by the pragmatic, clever ideas of how men think the church should
be built, not by the means and the wisdom of this world, Not
by the many devices which so many in the professing churches
use to add people to their congregations. God's church is not built by
having programs to get different age ranges to come along with
meetings and activities that appeal to them in the flesh. It's not built through the use
of music and entertainment. to get people who would otherwise
go to the nightclub to come along to your meeting. It's not built
by social programs which address the needs of many in this world
and therefore attract them to your meeting because it provides
what they want on a fleshly level. God's church is not built by
adapting the message of Christ to the times and the ages and
the fashions and the thinking and the ideologies of a particular
time in which you live. God's church is not built by
adapting the truth of God to the particular country and culture
in which you live. All these means, all these programs,
all this wisdom of man will build congregations, will build up
meetings, will fill young people's meetings, There are many clever
and highly organized and professional and slick methods by which so-called
churches have added to their numbers and have transformed
diminishing congregations into what they consider to be thriving
and lively meetings and gatherings. There's no doubt that these programs,
these means will build congregations will add numbers just like the
world can gather thousands into a football mat and just like
the world can gather thousands into a theater or a cinema and
just like the world can gather thousands to a musical concert
these means will gather But there's no more of God, no more of truth,
no more of spiritual life in these means and in these congregations
than there is amongst those thousands who gather at a football ground. You can gather people if you
dangle the right carrot before them, but God's church is not
built in such a manner. Not by might, nor by power, but
by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. Oh, you may say, those
congregations which seem to be full of people and full of life,
though, have followed these means. And those congregations which
have rejected these means are dwindling in number. And there's
so few there. And if I gather with them, then
I'll be alone. There's no other children in
their meetings for my children to mix with. Who will my older
children marry when they get older when there's so few gathered
in these places? and the pragmatism and the pressures
of the flesh cause people to question and to follow the majority
and ultimately to despise those gatherings in which the spirit
in a still small voice is speaking through his gospel, though there
be but two or three who gather to listen. Ultimately the flesh
is constantly warring against the spirit and constantly encouraging
our hearts to despise the day of small things and to despise
the meagerly gatherings of God's saints, to despise the twos and
the threes, and the fours and the fives, to despise the little
rooms in which they gather, to despise the manner in which they
worship, to despise the scriptures from which they read, to despise
their listening to the preaching of the gospel, to despise all
that the true church is, to despise the preaching of the gospel to
despise the gospel itself and ultimately to despise Christ
who preaches that gospel and despise his building of his church
as though by his means it will not be built. Do you despise
the day of small things. Faced with a choice of going
to meet with two or three where the Gospels preach or going to
meet with the hundreds and the thousands because it suits you
and provides every social means and benefit that you can find
in this world, where do you go? Who have despised the day of
small things? Well, you can go with the majority.
You can go with the multitudes. And you can be filled now. You
can pass your days, your weeks, your months, your years, encouraged
by the friends you have in the meetings, encouraged by the social
connections, entertained by the meetings that they provide for
you. You can grow old and never be
lonely, but your soul will be dead because there's no food,
there's no word of God, there's no feeding up on the Lord Jesus
Christ in the midst of these congregations which have collectively
despised the day of small things. It's not by might, nor by power,
but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts. You must hear my Spirit,
and you must go where the Spirit blows. And it's where my Spirit
goes, and where the Spirit of God speaks, that you will find
the blessing. Even though externally, That
might mean you're with a few. That might mean that the world
around despises you. That might mean that you're alone. That might mean that you suffer.
That might mean that in a physical sense you've had to depart from
the crowds and their buildings and go outside the camp and gather
with one or two but that will mean that where you gather will
be at the foot of the cross with your eyes opened to see a Saviour
crucified for sinners and that will mean that you are there
where the Spirit of God speaks as he testifies of the one that
the Lord of hosts sent into this world to be a sacrifice for sinners. 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. Who art thou O
great mountain? The thing is you have a great
mountain before you and you may meet many mountains in your journey
through this world and your temptation is to climb that mountain to
overcome that mountain to deal with that mountain whatever it
is by your own strength, your own might, your own power But
if God speaks to you, and if God teaches you, and if it's
his voice you ever hear, you will soon discover that your
strength, your might, your power can't overcome that mountain.
It towers up above you, you cannot climb it, you cannot pass it,
it's unpassable. And the more you strive, the
harder you fail, the harder you fall. It's too much for you. But God makes a promise to his
people. 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. By his spirit God can take the
mountains and make them plains. Do you have a mountain in your
way? Is there a mountain in your life that you've been brought
to see? that you know you cannot overcome? Does your sin and rebellion stand
between you and God as a mountain? Or is it nothing to you? Are
you yet so blind that your corrupt heart, your sinful ways are nothing
to you? You blindly stumble through this
world as though you are righteous. As though you've done nothing
wrong. And should any question anything
you do, your immediate reaction is to defend, to justify and
to hit out at them in response. Or has God shown you that you're
full of sin? and not only are you full of
sin but every day you commit sin and not only have you committed
sins to this day every day of your life but you can't help
committing sins every day you wake up and you stumble through
the day and by the end of it you've done a multitude of deeds
which fill you with shame And you know that everything you
say, everything you do is setting you further from God. Is it all
mounting up as a mountain? And have you discovered that
it's utterly unpassable? There's nothing you can do to
take it out the way. There's nothing you can do to
blot out what you've done. There's nothing you can do to
make amends. You strive to live better and
you get worse. Having been shown that you're
a sinner in need of salvation, you strive to turn from sin.
You strive to read the Bible. You strive to serve God and you're
getting worse. Nothing gets better, it's a mountain. It's unpassable. It's unclimbable. It's unmovable. How would you
try to pass this mountain? How are you trying to pass this
mountain? How are you trying to overcome
it? By your might? By your puny little strength? By your feeble free will? By your disgusting works of self-righteousness,
which God calls filthy rags, do you think that you're gonna
overcome your sin and stand before God, claiming to be righteous? By your might, by your power,
by your works, by your will, you'll soon find, if God is opening
your eyes, that all your efforts, all your might, all your power
comes to nothing. It's not by might nor by power,
but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts. How do you have a mountain? There are many mountains we face. We have a mountain of sin, a
mountain of rebellion, we see the law of God which teaches
us our sin and teaches us what we should turn from and what
we should do before Almighty God in order to escape His rightful
judgement and fury against our sin. And yet that law that tells
us how to live towers above us as a mountain and when the Spirit
of God takes that law and brings its commandments upon us and
we begin to feel the weight of them and the necessity of keeping
them we're crushed by it this is a mountain and it's a mountain
that you and I cannot move Not one of us, not one man, woman
or child throughout history has ever set themselves to the law
of God and managed to climb to the summit. Not one. The only man faced with that
law that ever fulfilled it in entirety is that man, Christ
Jesus. the Son of God, the one man born
without sin, who never sinned, who ever did the will of his
Father, a man like no other. But you and I are full of sin,
and faced with such a mountain, it crushes us. And not one act
of our strength can fulfil one of that law's demands. We fail
at the very first hurdle, it's a mountain, it towers above us. Just as our sin towers above
us. Just as the coming judgment and
wrath of God against our sins, because of our failure to keep
that law, tower above us as a mountain. and the heart of the awakened
sinner as he perceives these mountains in his path crumbles
and trembles trembles at the power of Almighty God the power
of Almighty God to crush him and to damn him rightly for his
rebellion and sin oh there's a mountain have you faced that
mountain? Well if you have, and if you've
been crushed, and if you've been brought to your knees before
Almighty God saying it's too much for me, I cannot face it,
I cannot overcome it, it's too much for me, I can't stop my
sinful heart from causing me to fall every day, oh Lord it's
too much for me, help Lord, if you've been brought to that place.
if the task of standing for God in this wicked world, if the
task for the believer of preaching and witnessing to the gospel
overwhelms you because of the numbers surrounding you who hate
it and hate you for speaking of it, if the task for you believer
of as it were, like these of old, building the house of God,
gathering with the saints, witnessing to the truth in a fallen and
an evil world, overwhelms you as a mountain you cannot climb. Because the force and the pressure
and the persecution from outside is overwhelming. If that's how
you feel, then God has a word for you. A word in season, a
word of promise, a word of hope, a word of grace. He cries out,
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. God says to that mountain, before
my servant, before my son, you shall become a plain. And my
son shall take the headstone of that mount and bring it forth
shouting victoriously, grace, grace. Grace has overcome this
mountain. Grace has made it a plain. Grace
has taken it out of the way. Oh yes, God says in his gospel
of the mountain of your sin, if you're mine, then I will take
your sin, your mountain, and I will make it a plain. He says
of the mountain of the law which towers ahead of you, if you're
mine my friend, then because of that blood which Christ shed
upon the cross, when the condemnation of the law came down upon him
in your place, I will take that law, that mountain, and make
it a plain. And He says of the judgment and
the wrath of God due to your sins. I've taken that judgment
and I've swallowed it up. The Son of God took that judgment. He took that judgment upon His
own back. He took it to the cross. He took
it. into the grave he took it all
away he drank the cup of God's wrath to the dregs he took that
mountain which stood before you and he made it a plain and he
cried unto it he shouted out grace grace unto that mountain
as he cried out unto the law and as he cried out unto your
sin And as He cried out unto all your enemies, and all those
mountains that stand in your way, all those mountains that
stand before the sinner, between Him and Almighty God, Christ
shouted out unto them all, grace, grace! And made them a plain. He took them out of sight. As He'd taken your mountains,
Has he taken your sin, your rebellion? Has he taken the law which condemned
you? The handwriting of ordinances
which were against you? Has he taken that law? Has he
taken the wrath and the judgment of God to come against you? All
those mountains and cried grace, grace unto them. For you. Has he? because he did here for
Zerubbabel and he did here for his people as pictured by Zerubbabel
as Zerubbabel pictures the servant of the Lord and the Son of God
that went forth for his people to deliver them from the mountains
which stood before them and to take the foundation of God in
his house and build it up and build the church and gather the
people safely back into that temple of God. I was a rubber
bell in these days was faced with a task and to him it was
a mountain. to go back to Jerusalem and with
just a few men to take those stones which they'd taken hundreds
of men in days gone by to build and to arrange them and to build
up that temple. It was a mountain to Him. How
could it be done? How could one so weak and so
feeble and so few and so hated by all around them perform this
great work they couldn't? Not by their might. Not by their
power. But God said unto him and to
that people, it's not by your might, not by power, but by my
spirit, I will build. I will build the church. You'll
be the hands, but I'll build it. I'll build it because I'll
do it through my son. Of whom Zerubbabel here is a
picture. 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 have sent me unto
you. Who have despised the day of
small things? You look at the building of the
church, you look at the preaching of the gospel, you look at the
small gatherings today and you despise them? Don't you know
that it's the same Gospel that ever was? And the same God who
preaches the same Gospel that he preached from the beginning?
And don't you know that it takes the same power in that Gospel
to take the mountains and make them plains before you? Don't
despise that they are small things. Don't look on the outward form. Don't look on the size of the
congregations numerically. Don't look on the outward aspects
and despise them and say it's old-fashioned, it's out of date,
it's so few, nobody cares, nobody comes. There'll be no blessing. Oh, don't be the fool. The blessing
is where the spirit of God moves. The blessing is where the gospel
of Christ is preached. The blessing is where God builds
his house. And he builds it by his spirit,
through his gospel, by those he sends to preach. His hands
also shall finish it, and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts
hath sent me unto you. Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt
become a plain, and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof. He shall bring it forth. He shall
make the mountain a plain. He shall take the headstone,
that which stands above it all, and bring it forth. What will
God do with it? He'll remove it. He'll take it
out of sight. How? By grace. Crying grace, grace unto it. All by grace. There's two great
mountains pictured in the scriptures, one Sinai and one Zion. The law was given by Moses, but
grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. The law was delivered
on Sinai, but Christ on Mount Zion brought forth the gospel. And the mountain of the law is
taken away by that grace which flows down from Zion. that grace,
that gospel, founded upon the work of Christ, who is himself
the chief cornerstone of the foundation of the temple of God,
of the church and the building of God. This is the foundation
upon which God builds his gospel, as preached by the apostles,
the foundation stones. with Christ himself, the chief
cornerstone. The mountain of the law, the
mountain of sin, the mountain of judgment is taken out of sight
because of Christ and Christ alone, what he did. Upon the
tree, outside the city, outside the camp, rejected, despised,
cast out. despised, like the day of small
things that your heart despises. Man's heart despised the Saviour,
the very One who could take the mountains out of sight. Do you
despise? Or have you heard? Because these
mountains are removed one way and one way only by grace. free grace, sovereign grace,
the free unmerited mercy of God, crying grace, grace unto it,
by grace. But do you believe it? Or are
you ever turning back to your own works and your own will?
Are you ever resorting to the arm of the flesh in something
you must do? It's by grace. Do you believe it? This must
be believed. Do you believe that God moves
these mountains by grace and grace alone? Or will you keep
going back to your own works, your own ways, your own might,
your own power? To no avail. Even though you
fail constantly, do you keep on going and striving and trying
and thinking this time? No my friend, it's by grace. Grace, grace alone. We're told elsewhere in the scriptures
that faith can move mountains, but that faith comes by the grace
of God. We must have faith to behold
the Saviour who moves the mountains. We must look on and believe. But that faith can only come
by grace, as Ephesians 2 tells us. Justified by faith, by grace,
through faith. Grace acts through faith. And
faith comes by hearing. And hearing by the Word of God.
Not by any other means. You must hear. Not see, not sing,
not dance. You must hear. You must hear
the Word of God. You must hear the Word of God
preached. And you must hear the Word of
God preached by the Spirit of God. not by might, nor by power,
but by my Spirit. This is the word of the Lord
unto Zerubbabel. And Zerubbabel heard the word
of the Lord. Have you heard the word of the
Lord crying unto you, shouting unto you, that the mountains
which stand between you and him will be removed by grace? Well you'll only hear when you
hear the Gospel and you'll only hear the Gospel when the Spirit
of God moves to open your ears, open your eyes and open your
understanding to receive it. All your might, all your power
will shut it out. All your wisdom, all your knowledge,
all your intellect, all your studying by your might and power
All your glorying in your knowledge, your understanding, your devotedness,
your religion, all your glorying in self and all your despising
of everyone else will result in you shutting your ears to
the gospel, shutting it out. But when the Spirit comes in
His gospel, in power, by His power, then the hard heart that
shuts out the word of truth will be shattered. It's not by might,
nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. Have you heard Him speak? Have you heard Him speak His
gospel? His gospel. His gospel of grace. Have you
heard him in that gospel fly unto that mount shouting out
grace, grace unto it? Grace, grace, do you hear that? Grace isn't uttered just once
but twice because you need to know that salvation comes by
grace. God saves and God alone Not you. Not the church. Not the might
and the power of men. But God. It's by grace. That's why Christ died. Because
we were dead. And the dead can't save themselves. The dead don't have a will. The
dead don't make decisions. The dead don't accept Jesus into
their hearts. The dead don't come to the front. The dead cannot work. They're
dead. You and I are dead. Dead in trespasses
and sins. And the dead can't help themselves. They've got no might. They've
got no power. They're dead. And you and I by
nature are dead. Then salvation. can only be by
grace. It can only be if somebody outside
of ourselves comes and breathes life into our souls. We're like
Lazarus in the tomb and our salvation depends upon Jesus coming outside
the tomb and crying out, come forth Lazarus, Lazarus come forth. He's got to come to the tomb,
to the rock of the tomb, to the mountain which stands between
us and him and he's got to cry grace, grace unto it and the
mountain has to be removed because we're dead. But I praise God
that in grace Christ came into this world. By grace. He came. He was born. He was made man. He grew as a
man. This divine person took human
flesh into union with his divinity. He was born a man. He lived and
he lived for one purpose. That he should go to that place
called Golgotha and offer himself up as a sacrifice for dead sinners. like you and I. He came into
this world of death and was put to death by those who are dead
that the dead might live. He came to bring life unto dead
souls. And when he died the grace of
God burst forth from his side as that blood flowed forth with
water. The grace of God burst forth
and ran forth upon a fallen world to wash all those for whom he
suffered. to cleanse them, to wash away
their sins and to bring them everlasting life. Oh the grace,
the mercy that poured out of the side of Christ, the grace
and the mercy that brought him into this world, the grace and
the mercy that caused him to suffer what he suffered, the
depth he suffered, the duration he suffered for sinners like
you and I, for those that don't deserve it. oh the grace we don't
deserve it we don't deserve that he even thinks of us kindly we
don't deserve that he came and yet he came he came to die he
came to bring in salvation he came to shout unto the mountains
grace grace they are small things Is this a day of small things? Do you despise it as a day of
small things? Well I ask you, is your mountain
of sin, is your mountain of guilt and of unbelief a small thing? If it is, to you, you've yet
to hear the gospel. You've yet to have your ears
opened. You're yet in your sins deluding
yourselves, fooling yourselves that you're okay. But if you
come to see that mountain of sin as for what it is, as a mountain. And if you come to see the law
as what it is, a mountain you cannot climb. And if you come
to see the wrath and judgment of God as they are, as mountains
which will crush you. then you'll know that if God
can take away a mountain like that, this is not a day of small
things. Not for you. Not for you. If He can make your mountains
plains, if He can take the headstones from them and shout out grace,
grace unto them, then you'll know this is a day of wonderful,
great things for you. And if you come to know that
He's taken those mountains and He's cried grace, grace unto
them, and cry grace, grace unto you and to your soul, then you'll
know it's a wonderful day, a wonderful day of grace, a wonderful day
of the gospel, a wonderful day of the preaching of Christ. Well,
have you heard His voice? Have you heard the Lord of hosts,
the word of God from the Lord of hosts? Have you heard His
cry? Have you seen the mountains in
your way disappear? under the power of the gospel,
have you? As Christ shouted out unto you,
grace, grace, is your gospel one which cries, one which shouts
out to all, to all the mountains, to all the men, women and children
around, to the rocks, to the stony hearts, is your gospel
one that shouts out, grace, grace, grace, grace. 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. As he cried, grace, grace, unto
you and your soul. Amen.