Zechariah 4:10

Zechariah 4:10

Consider the tendency in men to indulge contempt for good things, in the littleness and weakness of their beginnings and early operations.

I. There is much of a disposition to undervalue, "despise," the small beginnings and slow, early stages of a good work. (1) It comes from not duly apprehending the preciousness of what is good, in any, even the smallest portion of it. (2) 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. (3) Another thing is, that we are apt to set far too high a price on our own efforts and services. Our self-importance cannot endure that so much of our agency, ours,should be consumed for so small a result. (4) We over-measure our brief span of mortal existence. We want to contract the Almighty's plan to our own limits of time, and to precipitate the movement, that we may see clearly to the end of it.

II. In the religious and moral department things that as yet are small are to be estimated, not according to their present dimensions, but according to their principle, and according to what they are to become. We are to recognise in them a Divine principle; that God has put in them His will, His power, His Spirit. This includes (1) the progress of education; (2) the progress of Christianity.

III. Pride, sluggishness, and covetousness have all something to do with the temper which leads men to despise small things. But the good cause of God, of Christ, of human improvement, is certain, is destined to advance and triumph. The awful mystery why this triumphant ascendency is so slowly achieved, so long delayed in this world, will, it is reasonable to believe, be one of the subjects for illumination in a higher state of existence, where enlarging faculties will have endless duration for their exercise. It may then 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.

J. Foster, Lectures;2nd series, p. 365.

References: Zechariah 4:10. Spurgeon, Old Testament Outlines,p. 281; E. White, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxxi., p. 187; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening,p. 333; Ibid., My Sermon Notes: Ecclesiastes to Malachi,p. 365.Zechariah 5:1. W. Lindsay Alexander, Homiletic Quarterly,vol. iv., p. 175.Zechariah 5 Expositor,3rd series, vol. iv., p. 119. Zechariah 6:1. Ibid.,vol. v., p. 107.