Zechariah 4:10:
For who hath despised the day of small things?
Haggai 2:3:
Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory?
And how do ye see it now?
Is it not in your eyes as nothing?
Malachi 3:16-17:
Then they that feared the Lord spake one with another; and the Lord hearkened, and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before Him, for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon His name.
And they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, even Mine own possession, in the day that I make; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.
Who hath despised the day of small things?
This is among many matters which it is very necessary for us to have made clear in our hearts and in our minds: to have a mentality adjusted, just as a ship, after a long voyage, spends some time in having its compass adjusted because of interferences and variation.
So it is with us on our way. It does become necessary from time to time to stop and think again, get our minds corrected, and be freed from those influences that upset the balance and the right appreciation.
This matter, then, of greatness and smallness is an important matter. There is a good deal of confusion about this, and that confusion can result in our missing the way entirely, being found, you know, in an altogether false position.
We need to know what we mean by greatness, and also what we mean by smallness. It is quite evident from the Scriptures which we have read that a certain kind of appraisal, a certain kind of observation, resulted in a false judgment which brought the people perilously near to calamity.
The Lord, reading their hearts, used this word as to their attitude and their reaction: “despise”—despise the day of small things.
And if you look carefully into these prophecies, you will see that from God’s standpoint it was not as small as they thought—an altogether different point of view about the matter.
You see, we have a way of confusing bigness with greatness, and they are two entirely different things.
Bigness may be in outward dimensions and bulk, and the impression that a thing makes upon your senses. Greatness may have none of those characteristics at all. You may not even be able to take its measure or see any measure in it from a human standpoint; yet in God’s sight it may be very great.
There is a lot of difference between bigness and greatness from God’s standpoint, just as there is a great deal of difference between littleness and smallness. I know that is going to give our friends who are not familiar with the English language a good deal of trouble.
You know, you can see a little person. Things can be so little, so petty, so paltry, so mean, so despicably little. But they can be quite small and yet tremendous in worth.
You would sooner have an ounce of gold than a ton of iron, in intrinsic value.
Some of you may have read the life story of Madame Curie, the discoverer of radium. If you have, you remember the tons and tons and tons of by-products from the gasworks unloaded in her backyard, working upon this mountain of stuff, and out of it the smallest particle of radium.
There is your comparison: big and great. In that almost imperceptible speck of radium—the immense qualities, value, potentiality—all extracted from this great mass of stuff.
The difference between bigness and greatness, is it not? Well, you see what I mean. And I say it is so necessary for us to get adjusted in our mentality about things, lest we go astray concerning smallness.
We may judge merely in an objective, an outward way, say, “Oh, it is so small,” and despise it. And yet here this day of small things may be a tremendously potential day.
Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
—Luke 12:32
There is something little that is immensely potential. And you have only to run your eyes through the Bible to see again and again what God made of apparently little things that would have been despised, set aside, overlooked, and scorned by those who always had this mentality of bigness.
Now look at these passages, and you will see that there was something here that is very precious to God, although in their natural judgment the people were calling it so small.
The last passage which we read, at the end of the Old Testament, finds God saying, in another translation and version, “They shall be Mine, saith the Lord, in the day that I do make a peculiar treasure.”
They that feared the Lord—just that little company who feared the Lord, thought upon His name, were occupied with Him—something so precious.
The translation does not convey how valuable it was to the Lord. You know those two words, “the Lord hearkened and heard.” That is not just a repetition of the same words in two different forms.
The first word simply means that the Lord bent, inclined. The Lord—here is something to take note of; here is something to which to listen; here is something to hold God’s attention. The Lord inclines to listen.
And the picture is the Lord saying, “Here, get the book—the great book, a book of lives—and put this down. Put the names of these people in.” A book was kept, a book of remembrance: those who fear the Lord and thought upon His name. “They shall be Mine, saith the Lord, in that day that I do make, even a peculiar treasure.”
And that was right in this same setting, as you know—this section of the Bible, including Haggai and Zechariah.
What was it that made for this greatness over against what people were calling so little and despising as such? What does the Lord look for?
Well, here it is quite clear. This little company, comparatively, was a disciplined and chastened company. They had come out of the fires of Babylon.
They had been through all the discipline of those years in exile. They were among those who had hung their harps upon the willows and said, “How can we sing the songs of Zion in a strange land?” See where their hearts were.
And then the day came when the proclamation was made: “You can go back. You can all go back to Zion.” The vast majority decided that their position was much more comfortable than it would be back there in Zion, and decided to stay.
And this little company, with all the hardships, the difficulties, the sufferings, the toils, and much more involved in going back, went back because their hearts were in Zion and Zion was in their hearts.
See, the heart relationship to the Lord and to that which is dearest to His heart. So they were always thinking upon His name, talking together about Him.
They were a little company comparatively, a despised people. I expect all those who stayed behind thought they were fools. Well, be that so. What did the Lord say? That was the matter.
A chastened, a disciplined people, whose hearts were for the Lord.
Small? If you like. Read the prophecies of Jeremiah—what a book that is! Oh, what a time it takes, and what patience it takes, to work your way through the whole of Jeremiah’s prophecy. What a big book! And what little books these are—Malachi, and what we call the minor prophets.
What have you got for the Lord in Jeremiah? A major prophet, if you like, but there is nothing for the Lord in it. Little minor prophets, but something very precious to the Lord. The discipline has taken place, the chastening has been carried out, the heart has been searched, and the Lord has got something.
You say, “Small?” Oh, no, not in the eyes of the Lord. Something very great. That is what is precious to the Lord. That is what He is looking for, and that is what He calls great.
Though looking at it with natural eyes, and the eyes of man always judging by outward size and appearance, men may despise it, from the Lord’s standpoint there is much intrinsic value. And with Him everything is a matter of intrinsic value, not bulk.
The Lord Jesus has put His finger upon that principle in another connection. If the salt has lost its savor, what is the good of it? Well, tons of it—useless. You had better throw it out into the street; it is useless.
A teaspoonful of salt with its savor in it is of more value than tons of savorless salt. It is intrinsic value. It is the divine element, the thing of God, the vital quality.
And unto that there has to be something: there has to be chastening, there has to be discipline, the heart has to be searched, the work has to go very deep.
A people in line with God’s abiding intentions.
God was there, in figure and in type, in the temple, representing God’s heavenly and abiding, age-long thought: the place of His dwelling amongst His people. It is an eternal thought. Before the world was, that was in God’s mind—to dwell with men.
All the way through the Bible it is just that: God with us. Right on to the end of the Bible, “the tabernacle of God is with men, and He shall dwell with them, and be their God.” God’s everlasting thought concerning His house, His dwelling place in the midst of people.
There is the figure; there is the type. We know the reality, the spiritual reality. And here are people in line with God’s thought. In Babylon, God’s thought is not operative at all; that was not His place. Here it is.
And the Lord always calls that spiritually great when you are wholly centred upon the thing that He has ever had in mind: a people right in line with God’s eternal thought, and people right in touch with Himself as to what it is that He ever desires to have.
He has got that. Let that people be small from outward standards, and despised by men of distorted judgment; God says, “That is great, and do not you despise them.”
“Who hath despised? Who hath despised the day of small things?” It is a rebuke that is in that interrogation; it is a correction. Oh, not just your judgment—your standards.
People still, still with the vision in their hearts of what God intended and would have, may have been greatly discouraged, greatly disheartened, perplexed about it all as to the possibility of it, very, very tried as to the realization of it. Nevertheless, it was in their hearts.
They wept. Look at the context: they wept over this situation. They were distressed that what was, was so much less than what they knew the Lord wanted—a troubled people about this.
And their perplexity and their distress even led them sometimes to drop their hands in despair and, for the time being, suspend operations. Plenty, plenty there as a ground for discouragement; plenty there to give point to saying, “It is hopeless.”
But, you know, you cannot feel hopeless if you have never had hope. A person who has never known what hope is does not know quite what hopelessness is. They are just dead things.
These people were troubled, heartbroken, distressed; and even if they did despair for a time and say, “It is no use, no use,” that was simply because they were in their hearts troubled about it—if you like, disappointed. And you cannot be disappointed unless you have had a kind of appointment.
Deep in their hearts was the vision, and they were suffering in relation to the vision. And that is what God is looking for: people who in their hearts, through all trial and testing, still have the vision of what God desires and are suffering in their hearts concerning it.
That is something precious. He lights upon that. “Take note of that. Put that down in the book. Do not let that be forgotten. Have that in remembrance. It is going to come up in the day that I make. I will have that,” says the Lord.
So we must revise, must we not, and get away from these temporal ways of viewing things to the eternal standards and standpoints.
Yes, for all this leads us to what? To the Lord Jesus. To the Lord Jesus.
Here in this very fourth chapter of the prophecies of Zechariah is a recurrence in the book of Revelation: the two olive trees standing before the Lord of all the earth. You know where that comes in the book of Revelation. There is something here of eternal significance.
The Lord Jesus is brought into view in these prophecies. It is here in Haggai that the prophecy is first uttered:
Yet once more, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land;
And I will shake all nations; and the precious things of all nations shall come; and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts.
—Haggai 2:6-7
That is quoted in Hebrews, is it not? Things which can be shaken—the temporal things, the things according to man’s mind—are shaken to their foundations, that the things which cannot be shaken may stand.
And you know that the letter to the Hebrews is all centred upon the Lord Jesus and His heavenly kingdom: “receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.” That comes out of Haggai.
As for Malachi, Malachi dwells much upon the Lord Jesus, the very Messenger of the covenant and His forerunner. Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, introduces the Lord Jesus in a very real way. It is all focused upon Him.
And you notice that when God sees things focused upon His Son, He is all alert and alive, listening and watching and recording.
It amounts to this: value from God’s standpoint is always a matter of how much of His Son is in a matter. It was not much of Christ in the major prophets as they looked on toward the captivity. Anything of Christ in the major prophets…