Zechariah 4:10 For who has despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice… Contempt for small beginnings is one of the most ordinary displays of the human disposition, in all departments of affairs, but especially in things connected with sacred interests. Divers of the great powers and influential systems, good or evil, that have had a mighty effect, have in their apparently insignificant origin been despised. Individuals appointed to be of the greatest importance in the world have often experienced contempt in the beginning of their career. This is true of David, and it is in a sense true of the Son of Man. The vain world has always been peculiarly disposed to an unhesitating contempt of the small beginnings of Divine operations, to attribute meanness to what had a relation to infinite greatness. The Christian cause itself, in its early stage, was an object of extreme scorn; every ignominious epithet was connected with the name of a Christian. So fared the great Reformation. We comment on the tendency in men to indulge contempt for good things, in the littleness and weakness of their beginnings and early operations. The case with our world is, that man, having lost his original goodness, was to be under an economy of discipline, for his correction and practical restoration; but that the operation for this was not to be sudden, but by various processes, commencing in an apparent littleness of agency, power, and scope, so as to appear, in human judgment, incompetent to a great purpose. Why has the Sovereign Wisdom appointed it so? It is a higher discipline for the servants of God, as agents in a good cause, as it brings their principle of obedience under a more plain, unequivocal proof. It tends to keep them under a direct, pressing conviction that all the power is of God. They will also have a stronger sense of the value of the good that is so hardly and so slowly accomplished. Can we expose the error and injustice of this disposition to despise small beginnings? It comes from not duly apprehending the preciousness of what is good, in any, even the smallest portion of it. Any essential good, in the highest sense, is a thing of inexpressible value: especially so in an evil world, where it is scattered among baser elements. Again, in the indulgence of this disposition, it is left out of sight, how much, in many cases, was requisite to be previously done, to bring the small beginning into existence at all: it did not start into existence of itself. Though small, it may have been the result of a large combination. Another thing is that we are apt to set far too high a price on our own efforts and services. Far enough from small, truly, have been our labours, expenditures, sacrifices, self-denials, inconveniences, pleadings, perhaps prayers. Our self-importance cannot endure that so much of our agency, ours, should be consumed for so small a result. A tenth part of the pains should have done as much. It is not an equivalent; and it is a hard doom to work on such terms. Again, we overmeasure our brief span of mortal existence. We want all that is done for the world to be done in our time. We want to contract the Almighty's plan to our own limits of time, and to precipitate the movement, that we may clearly see the end of it. In all this there is the impiety of not duly recognising the supremacy of God. The grand essential of religion — faith — is wanting; faith in the unerring wisdom of the Divine scheme and determinations: faith in the goodness of God. With such faith let us look on the "day of small things," and remonstrate against the tendency to despise it; whether it be in good men, from impatience, and a very censurable self-importance; or in worldly men, from irreligion. Look into the natural world, as having an analogy emblematical of a higher order of things. In nature we see many instances of present actual littleness containing a powerful principle of enlargement: such as the seed of a plant, the germ of a flower, the acorn of the oak. In fire there is a mysterious principle of tremendous power. Does the parent despise the day of small things in his infant? Turn to the kingdom of God on earth, the promotion of which is the cause of God. There the small things are to be estimated according to what they are to become. But what things, as yet comparatively small, come under this description? We answer all things, judiciously and in good faith, attempted to promote the best cause, that is, to diminish the awful sum of human depravity and misery. Efforts to diminish ignorance. The topic includes the progress of genuine Christianity. Looking abroad, we can but think it a "day of small things" for Christianity. But what is it, that, on this account, shall be despised? Is it Christianity itself, or is it God who sent it? We may be confident that when God makes or causes a beginning of a good work, it is intended for progress and expansion. Now to remonstrate and warn against "despising." To a decidedly irreligious contemner, we might say, "Beware what you do; for if the thing be of God you are daring Him by your contempt." There is also admonition to those who are too apt to fall into something like what the text describes, — not from hostility to religion and general improvement, but from want of faith, — from indolence, cowardice, or mere worldly calculation, — reckoning on things without reckoning on God. To undervalue is in a certain sense to "despise." Shall there not be an admonition to examine whether pride, or sluggishness, or covetousness have not something to do with it? In some cases, it partly proceeds from the less blamable cause of a gloomy, apprehensive, disconsolate constitution of mind, — looking on the dark side, — dismayed by difficulties, — prone to fear the most and hope the least, dwelling on remembered and recorded failures more than on successes. But there may be the interference of pride. A man shall have such a notion of himself, and of a good cause, as to deem it unbefitting his dignity to connect or concern himself with it. It is not of an order, or in a state, to reflect any honour on a man of his high sentiments, refined habits, or consideration in society. With some men a good work or design is of "small" account, when it has not the quality for rousing the sluggish temperament, nothing to excite gaze and wonder. Covetousness is one of the most decided practical "despisings." Most truly does a man treat the good things as contemptibly small, when he deems them not worth his money, that is, money which he could afford. We would rather refer to such as were not positively enemies, whose "despising," in a mitigated sense of the word, was from little faith, self-sparing, false prudence, worldly calculation. They have lived to see that the good cause can do without them, and that there were more generous, liberal, magnanimous spirits to be found in the community. Well, at all events, the good cause of God, of Christ, of human improvement, is certain, is destined to advance and triumph. It may at last be seen that the whole course of the world, from the beginning to the end, was "a day of small things," as compared with the sequel — only as a brief introduction to an immense and endless economy. (John Foster.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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. |
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