Come along. If you open your Bibles, if you
will, to the book of Zechariah. And while you're turning, let
me try to express how very, very thankful Shelby and I are that
God brought us here and that He has already knit our hearts
together in the sweet fellowship of the Gospel. How thankful we
are for what God has done for you here, is doing, and will
do for you. So good to see Lance, Robin,
and Jennifer again. So glad you had this opportunity
to get to know them. We are laborers together in the
cause of Christ. We must never forget that. I
spoke to some of our folks at home this afternoon, well, this
morning. It was just before evening at
home. And they send their greetings to you again, ask you to pray
for us as God enables you. And I wish you could get to know
all the faithful pastors and folks I know in the States and
around the world. I have a few very good friends
who know how to keep me in my place. You've probably heard
Brother Bruce Crabtree preach on occasion. Bruce is just an
outstanding pastor, outstanding preacher from Newcastle, Indiana.
We've been friends for a long time. Last time I was up preaching
for him, he started to introduce me to preach. He said, it's so
good to have one of God's choice servants with us today. And it
started, you know, puffing a lot. Only eternity is going to tell
what we owe to what this servant has done. And then he said, and
it's good that she brought Brother Don along with her, too. The benefits of what you have
from the ministry of Danville, the literature, Shelby sends
it all out. Lance, Robin and Jennifer are
going to have to leave right after the service, right after we get
done with the message, so you say goodbye to them and then
we'll chat a little bit at lunch, but it's been good to have you
here. Thank God for you. Thank God for you. Alright, Zachariah. Let me try to bring you up to
stuff as to what was going on. Zerubbabel, a mighty type of
our Lord Jesus, was a man chosen of God to rebuild the temple
at Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity. This great type of
our Lord Jesus, the builder of his church and his temple, is
Zerubbabel. Shortly after the foundation
of the temple had been laid, The work was begun and the wall
began to go up. Many, however, soon began to
despise the work. They saw the foundation stones
and the walls on the corners just a little bit. Some of the
old men who had been present to see the original temple realized
that this second temple was not going to be as big as Solomon's
Temple. It was not going to be as grand as Solomon's Temple.
And they began to despise the building of the house of the
Lord. They looked upon the work that God had trusted to their
hands as a small, insignificant thing. What a horrible mistake. They
looked upon the work that God had trusted to their hands as
a small, insignificant thing. Remembering the greatness and
the grandeur and the glory of the house that Solomon had built,
many of the old timers looked upon the rebuilding of the temple
as something despicable. Israel's enemies despised them
and the work they were doing. Even Joshua, the high priest,
and Zerubbabel, the prince of the people, seemed to stand in
doubt as to whether or not this was actually going to be accomplished.
Zerubbabel and Joshua, these mighty leaders that God had appointed
to the work, seemed to look upon this as something that's just
impossible for us to do. They had no means to do it. They
looked at themselves and had no ability to do it. And the
people were greatly discouraged. The Jews were small in number
and their enemies were many. They possessed no strength, no
material ability, no physical ability to do the work before
them. And so they quit. The whole thing just seemed impossible. And then the Lord raised up two
prophets, Haggai and Zechariah. I encourage you to read the books
of Haggai and Zechariah together at one sitting. Read them carefully. Haggai was first sent to lift
up the spirit of the people, but at the same time to reprove
and rebuke them sharply, calling them to repentance. Now let me
just give you a brief overview of Haggai's message in Haggai
chapters 1 and 2. His words are scorching to read. You read the book of Haggai,
those two chapters, and as I read that book, I try to picture myself
sitting in a congregation like this, listening to this man speak
the words that are written here. And I wouldn't have wanted to
have been there. I would not have wanted to have
been sitting in a congregation, because I would have known these
burning, piercing, thunderous words like lightning would pierce
my very heart. Haggai's words to these people
were very plain spoken and unmistakable. They considered nothing too costly,
nothing too demanding, nothing too sacrificial in the building
of a house for their own families. What's it going to take to take
care of my wife and children? What's it going to take to build
a shelter for my wife and children, to provide for their security?
And in Haggai chapter 1 verse 4, he says, you consider nothing
too great to spend for yourselves. No labor too demanding, no cost
too sacrificial. And yet, they said in verse 2
of chapter 1, the time is not come that the Lord's house should
be built. Why? Look at chapter 2 verse
3. It was because in their eyes
it was nothing. The time has not come to build
the Lord's house because really this is insignificant. And yet,
scorching as his words were against Israel's unbelief and indolence,
Haggai was sent with a message at the same time to comfort and
encourage God's people. He assures them with this word
from the Lord God. He said in verse 17 of chapter
2, Though I smote you with blasting and with mildew and with hail.
Look at verse 19. The Lord God says, from this
day will I bless thee. What a word! I smitten you, with
milled you, with blasting and with hail, but from this day
I will bless you. And Haggai assured God's servant,
Zerubbabel, that God had chosen him for the work that was put
in his hands, and assured him that he would be successful in
the work. In chapter 2 verse 23, to Zerubbabel, Joshua, and all the people of
Israel, the Lord God, by His servant Haggai, was saying, Be
strong, for I am with you. According to the word that I
covenanted with you, my spirit remaineth among you. Fear ye
not. And that's God's Word to you
and I today. And then the Lord sent Zechariah. He came behind Haggai and essentially
he said, Amen. Brother Haggai is exactly right.
He's given you the very Word of God. He was also a message,
a message calling for Israel and for us to repent before God,
a message assuring us of God's unfailing faithfulness, assuring
us that while we ourselves have no ability, we ourselves have
no strength, nothing that we are about to do can in any way
be accomplished by us, and yet that which God has begun He will
complete. That which God has begun, He
will complete to His glory and His praise. Let's pick up in
Zechariah chapter 4 and verse 6. The whole work of building God's
house, the whole work of God's salvation for his people, which
is but the building of his house. The whole work of the building
of God's church and kingdom is in his hands and his hands alone. Zechariah 4 verse 6, 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. Verse 7. Who art thou,
O great mountain? Oh, what obstacles. What obstacles. What great obstacles. How little
is the likelihood of this obstacle being removed. Who art thou,
O great mountain, before Zerubbabel? Thou shalt become a plane. What obstacle, what obstacle
do you imagine might hinder our might is irrevocable? What obstacle
do you think he cannot or will not remove? What obstacle is
it that will stand before him? Before our mighty Zerubbabel,
this mountain shall become a plain, and he shall bring forth the
headstone thereof, with shoutings crying, Grace, grace unto it. He who laid the foundation of
the house will lay the headstone and shout, 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? 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,
that is, with those seven eyes portrayed in the foundation stone.
They are the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro through
the whole earth. Now I want, if God will enable
me, to speak directly to you, to this congregation, to you
individually, to my own heart, and to you, my dear brother,
about the day of small things. This text, of course, has reference
to the building of the Temple, the Second Temple in Jerusalem.
But the message is altogether spiritual. The Word of our Savior
and the building of His Temple In the saving of his elect, by
the mighty power of his grace, that work often appears to us
to be a small, insignificant thing. But it's not to be despised. It is not to be despised. Now
let me give a reproof to you men. Gentle but firm. You have often, these past four
days, referred to our small church. Don't ever do it again. Don't
ever do it again. This is a huge place. This is
God's work. Nothing insignificant about this
congregation. Nothing insignificant about any
congregation where God has planted his word and God has planted
his grace. This is God's house. This is
God's building. This is God's work. Everything
great began small. For the first time in her life,
my wife this year is without a garden. And I was raised in
the city, she's taught me a few things. And we used to plant
a large garden, enough to feed a bunch of families. And the
corn, we'd go out and plant little graves. Just little kernels of
corn. Three to a hill. If I remember
correctly, the one for the crow, And one for me, and I forgot
what the other one was for. It doesn't matter. One to die,
rather. But we'd get us a stalk of corn. And have a field full
of corn. And put up bushels of corn. All from just a few grains planted
in the earth. The huge old oak. sprang from
one small acorn. Everything that we look at as
great and grand begins small. Everything does. Someone, was
it Isabel Simpson of Bethel, Sahara? I remember a story I
heard a long time ago. A small fella went up into Oregon
and applied for a job as a logger. And the fella looked at him and
said, do you want to be a logger? He said, yeah. He said, you have
any experience? He said, of course I do. He said, what experience
do you have? He said, did you ever hear of
the Sierra Forest? And the fellow said, no, I know
about the Sierra Desert. He said, that's what they called
it then. He said, you mean that was a
forest and you had something to do with clearing it? He said,
yes, I cleared the whole thing. He said, how did you do that? One
tree at a time. One tree at a time. That's how
we do what God's put in our hand to do. Just what He's given you. The means, the opportunity, and
the ability to do. Now what God's given you, the
means, and the opportunity, and the ability to do, that you're
responsible to do. Not what He's given me, the means,
opportunity, and ability to do. Most of you know the name of
the Todd Nyberg. He was raised at 13th Street Church in Ashland,
Brother Mahan's ministry. He's been a dear friend of mine
since he was in high school. And my first couple years in
Danville, he was in college and was attending the church in Danville. He used to eat at our house every
Sunday. And then after he graduated, they started meeting in a little
storefront building on the north side of Lexington on Limestone
Street. In Lexington, it would be considered Skid Row. And he
faithfully preached the gospel of God's grace. And he'd been
there now for, I saw, what, 30 years? No, not 30 years, about
25, 26 years. And God's established a thriving
work there. How's that? Just faithfully laboring
one tree at a time, doing what God's given them the means, the
opportunity, and the ability to do. Do it with all your might. The Protestant Reformation which
has had such profound influence in all of our lives and in the
lives of all of Western civilization, though few have any idea how
much so, began with one man with some conviction who was determined
that somebody ought to know what God says in His Word. And he
wrote out 99 statements and just nailed them to the church door,
which is how Newspapers were done in that time. They'd just
post something and folks would read it. The man's name was Martin
Luther. And God turned the world upside
down. With one man writing out what
he believed and taking a hammer and a nail and sticking it on
the post. The Great Awakening began with a few college students
meeting together at Oxford University for prayer and the reading of
the Bible. The modern missionary movement,
as it's called, began with one man, William Carey, burdened
in his soul to carry the gospel to barbaric heathen in India.
We were talking just a little bit ago about teaching children.
Somebody said, well, I can't have a class that's got one child.
If it's your child, you won't talk, will you? Just one. My wife teaches small children
in our congregation in Bible classes. For years she teaches
one child, sometimes two. Why would you do that? That's
one immortal soul committed to your trust. Just one. Just one. Brother Milton Howard, missionary
in Mexico for 25 years, maybe more. 30 years. 30 years. He went for 30 years, for 30
years, every week, drove several hours to preach to one man in
his house for 30 years. Did it every week. Sometimes
somebody else would come, but that one man. We must not consider
any opportunity to serve our God and proclaim the gospel of
his grace and serve his people as insignificant. It's usually
God's way to begin things small. I think that's how he started
the human race. Just one man from whom sprang
us all. God chose a covenant people named
Israel, the Hebrews, and He sprang the race from one man by the
name of Abraham, God's church. After our Lord's ministry here
for three and a half years, there are 12 faithful men, then 120,
then 3,000, then 5,000 more, and soon the earth is covered
with the people of God. God's chosen to give birth to
great things by insignificant things. Why? He would show us
that the instruments He uses are nothing. The instruments
He uses are nothing. He would show us that the work
that He is doing is His work alone. And He uses such things
as we are for the accomplishing of His purposes to try us and
to prove our faith in Him and to prove to us His faithfulness
to us. And my purpose in preaching this
message, I hope to encourage you as God's people in this place
to put your hands and your hearts wholeheartedly to the work God's
given you and never back up. In all God's works of grace,
that work which is performed and accomplished is not by might,
nor by power, but by God's Spirit. Whatever God does in Danville,
Kentucky, or with his people in Danville, Kentucky, Whatever
God does here or with you around the world is not by your might,
your ingenuity, your ability, or your skill, but by His power
and by His Spirit and that alone. Faith and hope and love and strength,
our knowledge, our usefulness, our comfort, all appear to be
very small things. And that's exactly what our Lord
Jesus tells us in his parable. Hold your hands there in Zachariah
and turn over to the book of Mark. Mark chapter 4. Look at verse 30. The Master says, where unto shall
we liken the kingdom of God? Or with what comparison shall
we compare it? It is like a grain of mustard
seed, which when it is sown in the earth is less than all the
seeds that be in the earth. But when it is sown, it groweth
up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out green
branches, so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow
of it. So it is in all things spiritual. The Lord God takes that which
is useless. That which appears to be totally
useless. That which is insignificant.
That that you would look at and say, ah, throw it away. That
where you look at it and say, that, that'll never come to anything.
And God uses such things as this for the accomplishing of his
work in this world. And what we call conversion. experiences of grace in our own
souls. God's grace in us, especially
in the beginning, is considered what we might call a day of small
things. His mighty operations of grace
He brings night to day and brings us from darkness to light. Translates
us who groped about in darkness into the kingdom of His dear
Son and makes us children of light. And we thank Him for this,
this the day. when the day spring from on high
visits us in His mercy and grace. This is the day which the Lord
has made, the day of His salvation, the day of His espousals, the
day of His joy, the day of His visitation. And yet, it's a day
of small things. The work itself is great, indescribably
great, but the beginnings of grace in the soul is a small
thing. small faith. We like to talk
about great faith, and especially if you have some knowledge of
the influence of Pentecostal nonsense religion in the United
States, we like to talk about great faith and healings and
all this stuff. Let me show you one of the greatest examples
of faith in all the Word of God. One of the greatest examples
of faith in all the world. There was a woman who had an
issue of blood for twelve years. And she'd spent all her substance
on physicians of no value. And she heard about Jesus of
Nazareth, the Son of David, the Son of God. And she heard how
that He had healed many. And she said within herself,
if I could just touch the hem of His garment, I'd be made whole. And she came, stooped and bowed
in the midst of a huge crowd. made her way close to the master, touched his garment, and immediately
was made holy. And the Lord Jesus stood still.
He said, somebody touched me. That woman's faith, small faith,
small, oh how great that faith is. We come to the Savior with
small knowledge, small understanding, small experience, small strength. I remember the Lord Jesus took
that blind man and led him away. He didn't give him his sight
all at once. He first touched him, made some blood and put
it on his eyes and said, do you see anything? And he said, well,
better than it was, I see me in his trees walking. That's
something. That's something. And that's
about the way it is with God's people in the beginnings of faith,
in the beginnings of the knowledge of our God. But who would despise
such beginnings of grace, such a day of small things? These
days the small things are not to be despised. Not in God's
grace and mercy to you. Not in God's grace and mercy
in dealing with your brethren. Not in God's grace and mercy
in using us in the building of his kingdom in the cause of our
Redeemer. They're not to be despised. We
live in a day designed by God specifically for us. Specifically for us. I like to
read history. I have some little knowledge
and understanding of history. But I wouldn't trade places with
anybody at any point in any time in history anywhere in the world. This is the day God's made for
us. There's never been a better day known for you to serve God
than this day. Never been a better society for
you to serve God than this society. Never been a better place for
you to serve God in the place where God's put you. I pastor
a small rural congregation in Danville, Kentucky, by the measure
of this world, small and insignificant. I wouldn't go anywhere else under
any circumstances for any reason. This is where God's put me. This
is what God's gifted me to do. God has opened opportunity for
me and for his people there to serve him where he has, as we
do, for his glory. And every open door set before
us, he has opened. I've tried to open some. And sometimes he lets me push
and push until I pop the door open. And once I do, I say, how
fast can I get this thing closed? Because I'll make a mess of it.
I'll make a mess of it. But every open door of utterance
God's given for the gospel, it is obvious God did this. God just did this. Brother Brad,
who's up here from up somewhere, the other side of Newcastle,
went home this morning by train. Chad joked with me last night.
He'd been listening to messages on iTunes. Now, I know there's
such a thing as iTunes. I don't have any idea what it
does or doesn't do. I have no idea who posts our messages on
iTunes. Don't have any idea how to get there. But suddenly, a
couple of weeks ago, they quit posting them. Because I've been
traveling a lot, so there wasn't anything to post. I don't know
where they come from. And he was concerned. He thought
maybe I was sick or died. So he started looking things
up on the internet and found our webpage and saw an advertisement
about a meeting in Shoalhaven. here at the church this week
and decided to come down here. How come that happened? God did
it. God did it. And so it is with
every open door God puts before us. We commit ourselves to the
cause of Christ and labor faithfully in the cause of Christ and wait
to see what God does. We measure greatness and success,
smallness or failure in terms of numbers, impressive buildings,
dollars, and fame. God measures success or failure
in terms of faithfulness and unfaithfulness. And that's all,
Lance. Nothing else. Nothing else. Although Lance is dead. My mother
had been on mission field 45 years, somewhere thereabouts. 50 years. Faithfully serving
the cause of Christ. You correct me if I misrepresent
anything. If I understand it correctly,
his dad was an engineer too. And he first came to mission
field, he'd come serve the cause of our Redeemer. And he ran out
of money and he'd go home to work for a year. Come back and
serve some more. Is that about right? somewhere
in that vicinity. How come? This is what God's
given me the means, the ability, the opportunity to do. For who
knows fifth heaven? Heaven knows it. Hell knows it. And nothing else
matters. Nothing else matters. God measures
success and failure with faithfulness and unfaithfulness. And whatever
God's put in these hands, I'm responsible for. Be it great
or small in the eyes of men. Whatever God's put in your hands,
you're responsible for. Be it great or small in the eyes
of men. And throughout the book of God,
those who were ignorant of God and the things of God, despised
the work of God, because it lacked the grandeur and the greatness
that the men of the world thought it ought to have. Turn to 1 Corinthians
chapter 1. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Look at verse 18. Paul said, Christ sent me not
to baptize but to preach the gospel. For the preaching of
the cross is to them that perish foolishness. But unto us which
are saved it is the power of God, for it is written, I will
destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the
understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the
scribe? Where is the disputer of this
world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For
after that in wisdom, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased
God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For
the Jews require a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom, but
we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block, unto
the Greeks foolishness. God seal that to our hearts. The science and the wisdom and
the philosophy that men want, don't ever give it to them. Just
preach the gospel. Wait and see what God does. But
unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the
power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness
of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger
than men. For you see your calling, brethren.
Look around you. How that not many wise men after
the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God
hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise. And God hath chosen the weak
things of the world to confound the things which are mighty,
and base things of the world, and things which are despised
hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not to bring to naught
the things that are. Why does God work like that? Why on this earth would God condescend
to use the off-scouring of humanity, the pieces of rotten flesh like
that which stands before you this moment, why would God condescend
to use such things? Why? Why? Anybody be more likely
to accomplish the things that I'm trying to accomplish than
me? Anybody. Anybody. Why would God condescend
to use you, to use me? That no flesh should glory in
his presence. So that nobody can strut and
pop his suspenders and say, look at me, look what I've done, look
how great I am, look how mighty I am. When Sambalat heard that
Nehemiah was building the walls of Jerusalem, he mocked the Jews. But Nehemiah was not deterred.
He said, we're doing a great work. What are you doing, just
laying some brick? We're doing a great work. When
David came out to the valley of Elah, his brother Eliab denounced
him and mocked him and described him as an irresponsible rash
boy. But David was committed to something.
He was committed to something. He was committed to God's glory
and God's people and God's cause. And he said, is there not a cause? And he went out with a stone
and killed Goliath. When the Son of God began to
manifest Himself to Israel, He was denounced by everyone as
a carpenter's son, a glutton, a windbibber, the friend of publicans
and sinners, the lowly Nazarene. But He finished His work and
redeemed His people. He who said, Lo, I come to do
Thy will, O my God, finished the work He came here to do.
And Paul came to Morris Hill. You remember what it said about
it? The Apostle Paul, well, what will this babbler say? What will
this babbler say? Well, just hang on a little while
and watch how he turns the world upside down. How? By simply preaching
the gospel of Christ wherever God gave him opportunity and
means and ability to do it. Even if it means a prison at
Rome, he preaches the gospel of Christ. Now I realize that
in the eyes of the world, especially in the eyes of the religious
world, you here are looked upon as insignificant. A rag-tag band
of fools. There are all kinds of places
around here where folks can go to church. All kinds of fine
buildings folks can attend. Your pastor, as far as I know,
doesn't have any credentials to qualify him. I don't know
of anything extraordinary that men would look at him and say,
now look here, what a man we have before us. You're few in
number. I presume that you have no religious
organization to back you. There's nothing about you to
impress men. But God Almighty has established
you in this place with his word. Did you hear that? God Almighty
has established you in this world of darkness with the light of
his word and his gospel. Not that you could hide it under
a bushel, but that you could set it on the housetop and proclaim
it to the world. Don't be discouraged by the day
of small things, but put your shoulder to the work. I wonder what God's going to
do tomorrow. I'm excited with the prospect. I've watched God work marvelously
in the days of my life. I've seen him do things that
just defy imagination. And I'm anxious to see what he
will do tomorrow. Put your shoulder to the work and wait for God
to reveal his purpose in the accomplishment of his work. Our
text speaks of the plummet in Zerubbabel's hands. Plummet. You fellas know what it is. It's
what masons use to make sure the wall is in proper standing. Straight, exactly according to
purpose. Now understand this. The plummet
is in the hands of our mighty Zerubbabel. The wall is exactly
as he would have it. Exactly measured according to
his purpose. The building, everything is built
exactly according to his purpose without fail. Every day he adds
to the church daily such as he would have to be saved. And when
it's over, the eyes, these seven eyes, The seven eyes in the foundation
stone. Did any of you ever see a foundation
stone with eyes in it? Obviously, he's talking about
something allegorical. Christ is the foundation on which
the church is built. He is the builder of the church.
And the foundation was laid in eternity by God Himself, our
Redeemer, and His work as our mediator, and His eyes, the seven
eyes of infinite perfect wisdom, running to and fro in all the
earth, by which everything is ordered all the time. And when
He's finished, He will say, that's just what
I intended.