Zechariah 4:10 For who has despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice… No doubt many of the Jews had looked with a sort of contempt on the apparently insignificant beginning which had been made towards restoring the religion of their fathers, and had discouraged one another by insinuating that what commenced with so much feebleness was never likely to reach a successful termination. They might have known better. Just because there seemed to be but little proportion between the agency and the end, they decided at once that success was hardly to be looked for, and that it was useless to persevere in an endeavour so palpably hopeless. These Jews have been imitated by men of every age. Much of the evil that exists in the world may be traced to the despising "the day of small things." I. THE REASONS WHICH LIE AGAINST SUCH DESPISING. God is wont to work through instruments or means, which in human calculation are disproportioned to the ends which He designs to accomplish. He does not always take what appears to us a mighty agency, when a mighty result is to be achieved. There is in us all a tendency to ascribe to second causes what ought to be ascribed directly to the First. It is by the day of small things that God ordinarily interposes those great revolutions and deliverances which alter the whole state, whether of nations or of individuals. God ordinarily commences with what appears inconsiderable. II. CERTAIN CASES IN WHICH THE "DAY OF SMALL THINGS" IS DESPISED, WITH THE CONSEQUENCES THAT ARE THENCE LIKELY TO ENSUE. We are likely to make light of small things. Take the case of the slave of bad habits. Few plunge immediately into evil. Most men begin by deviating from the right in some one small particular. And it is thin small beginning which it is perilous to despise. Observe the ordinary course followed by God in His spiritual operations on unconverted men. They are not for the most part to be distinguished from the operations of their own minds. There is a small beginning of influence which it is perilous to despise. (Henry Melvill, B. D.) 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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