1 Kings 18:44

Little Things

A little cloud. 1 Kings 18:44 (AV).

When I was staying in the Highlands one summer I met a man whose property had been badly damaged by a cloud-burst. He lived in a farmhouse near the bottom of a steep hill, many miles from a town. Below the farmhouse were a few fields, and beyond the fields flowed a river which some people say is the most beautiful in Scotland. Close beside the farmhouse there was the dried-up rocky bed of a mountain stream which once upon a time must have flowed into the river.

Now, that particular summer was a very wet and disagreeable one, and many of us, I'm afraid, grumbled a good deal about the weather. One day a cloud burst over the top of the mountain and the rain descended in torrents. It found its way into the old bed of the stream, and rushed down with such terrific force that in less than an hour it had cut a trench in the mountain-side so deep that you could have hidden the wall of a house in it. It swept on to the fields at the bottom of the hill ruining the crops, and it ended by carrying away one of the bridges that crossed the river.

We don't very often get such torrents of rain in Scotland, bat I think it must have been a storm very much like this that burst upon Mount Carmel when Elijah sent his servant in such a hurry to tell Ahab to get ready his chariot and hasten back to Jezreel lest the rain should stop him.

You remember that there had been a famine in the land of Samaria for three years because of the drought, and that Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel to pray for rain. Six times he sent his servant to a peak overlooking the Mediterranean to search for signs of rain, and six times the young man came back saying that the sky was cloudless. But the seventh time he told Elijah that there was a little cloud away to the west, no bigger than a man's hand. Then the prophet sent him running post haste to tell Ahab to get into his chariot and start for home as quickly as possible lest the floods should stop him. Barely had the king set out when the sky was covered with inky clouds the wind blew a hurricane, and the rain descended in torrents. And this great storm grew out of a little cloud no bigger than a man's hand.

I want you to notice that big things nearly always grow out of little things. Big men and women grow out of little boys and girls, big towns grow out of little villages, big trees grow out of little seeds. Sometimes we are apt to think that little things don't matter. But that is a very silly mistake to make. In a way it is really the little things that matter most because they are the beginning and if it weren't for them the big things would never be there.

1. And first will you notice that big bad things grow out of little bad things.

Once upon a time there was a town in America which was built of wood, and in this town was a certain shed where cows were kept. One night someone left a lighted lamp in the shed, and a cow kicked over the lamp. Very soon the shed was in a blaze, then the next building caught fire, and the next, and the next, until at last the whole town of Chicago was burnt to the ground. If someone had put out the fire when it began nothing worse might have happened than the destruction of a little straw or a board or two; but as it was a whole town was reduced to ashes.

It is just like that with the little bad things the little selfishness, the little tempers, the little bits of deceit. If we check them at the beginning they are very easily stopped, but if we let them go on there is no saying where they will end, and soon it may be beyond our power to stop them.

2. But there is another side to the “little and big things” question, and the other side is the brighter side. It is that big good things grow out of little good things.

Away in far Japan there is a very beautiful place called Nikko, and leading up to this beautiful place there is a wonderful avenue of cedar trees. The avenue is miles in length and some of the trees in it are thirty feet round and two hundred feet high. It is one of the finest sights in Japan, and people come to see it from all parts of the country. Now, how do you think that wonderful avenue came to be there?

Long ago there lived in Nikko a poor man who had lost somebody he loved very much. It was the custom for the rich men of the place to erect beautiful marble monuments in memory of the friends they had lost, but this poor man had no money to buy marble monuments. He thought and thought, and at last he hit upon a plan. He would build a living monument.

So he set about collecting cedar seeds, and when he had got together a great many he planted them on either side of the road leading to Nikko. After a time the seeds began to grow. Year after year the young trees grew taller and stronger, and now these cedars are the wonder of the whole place.

And the little good things are just like those cedars. You never know what they may grow to. A little task well fulfilled, a little kind word spoken, a little kind deed done may have big consequences that we never dream of. So never think that the little good things are of no account.

And in case you are tempted to lose heart I want to remind you of a little thing that became very great and powerful. When Jesus ascended He left His message in the hands of a very few men. In the first chapter of Acts we read that there were just one hundred and twenty of them one hundred and twenty men against the whole big world. And yet these men were faithful. They told their friends the things that Jesus had told them, and these friends told their friends. And some of them went far away into strange countries to tell the news to strange people. Today millions of people have learned to know and to love Jesus, and the time will yet come when His message will be delivered the wide world over.

So never despise the little things, for they are the things that count. Make up your minds that you will fight the little bad things and conquer them when they are small. Resolve that you will range yourselves on the side of the little good things that grow up into the things that are strong, and wise, and noble.