Zech. 4:10 – “For who hath despised the Day of small things?”
Men, brethren, and fathers, at sundry times and in diverse manners, God spake to the fathers by the prophets, before he spoke to us in these last days by his Son. And as God is a sovereign agent, and his sacred Spirit bloweth when and where it listeth, surely he may reveal and make known his will to his creatures, when, where, and how he pleaseth; “and who shall say unto him, what doest thou?” Indeed, this seems to be one reason, to display his sovereignty, why he chose, before the canon of scripture was settled, to make known his mind in such various methods, and to such a variety of his servants and messengers.
Hence it is, that we hear, he talked with Abraham as “a man talketh with a friend.” To Moses he spoke “face to face.” To others by “dreams in the night,” or by “visions” impressed strongly on their imaginations. This seems to be frequently the happy lot of the favorite evangelical prophet Zechariah, I call him evangelical prophet, because his predictions, however they pointed at some approaching or immediate event, ultimately terminated in Him, who is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end of all the lively oracles of God. The chapter from which our text is selected, among many other passages, is a striking proof of this: An angel, that had been more than once sent to him on former occasions, appears again to him, and by way of vision, and “waked him, (to use his own words) as a man that is wakened out of his sleep.” Prophets, and the greatest servants of God, need waking sometimes out of their drowsy frames.
Methinks I see this man of God starting out of his sleep, and being all attention: the angle asked him, “what seest thou?” He answers, “I have looked, and behold, a candle-stick all of gold,” an emblem of the church of God, “with a bowl upon the top of it, and seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes to the seven lamps, which were upon the top thereof;” implying, that the church, however reduced to the lowest ebb, should be preserved, be kept supplied, and shining, through the invisible, but not less real, because invisible aids and operations of the blessed Spirit of God. The occasion of such an extraordinary vision, if we compare this passage with the second chapter of the Prophecy of the prophet Haggai, seems to be this: It was now near eighteen years since the Jewish people had been delivered from their long and grievous Babylonian captivity; and being so lone deprived of their temple and its worship, which fabric had been rased even to the ground, one would have imagined, that immediately upon their return, they should have postponed all private works, and with their united strength have first set about rebuilding that once stately and magnificent structure. But they, like too many Christians of a like luke-warm stamp, though all acknowledged that this church-work was a necessary work, yet put themselves and others off, with this godly pretense, “The time is not come, the time that the Lord’s house should be built.” The time is not come! What, not in eighteen years! For so long had they now been returned from their state of bondage: and pray, why was not the time come? The prophet Haggai tells them; their whole time was so taken up building for an habitation for their great and glorious Benefactor, the mighty God of Jacob.
This ingratitude must not be passed by unpunished. Omniscience observes, Omnipotence resents it! And that they might read their sin in their punishment, as they thought it best to get rich, and secure houses and lands and estates for themselves, before they set about unnecessary church-work, the prophet tells them, “You have sown much, but bring in little: ye eat, but ye have not enough: ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink: ye clothe you, but there is none warm: and he that earneth wages, earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.” Still he goes on thundering and lightening, “Ye looked for much, and lo it came to little: wand when ye brought it home, (pleasing yourselves with your fine crops) I did blow upon it: why? Saith the Lord of Hosts; because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house.” A thundering sermon this! delivered not only to the common people, but also unto, and in the presence of “Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua, the son of Josedech the high-priest. The prophet’s report is believed; and the arm of the Lord was revealed. Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua, the son of Josedech (O happy times when church and state are thus combined) with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophets.”
The spirit of Zerubbabel, and of Joshua, and the spirits of all the remnant of the people were stirred up, and they immediately came, disregarding, as it were, their own private buildings, “and did work in the house of the Lord of Hosts their God.” For a while, they proceeded with vigor; the foundation of the house is laid, and the superstructure raised to some considerable height: but whether this fit of hot zeal soon cooled, as is too common, or the people were discouraged by the false representations of their enemies, which perhaps met with too favorable a reception as the court of Darius; it so happened, that the hearts of the magistrates and ministers of the people waxed faint; and an awful chasm intervened, between the finishing and laying the foundation of this promising and glorious work.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
