Who Has Despised The Day of Small Things

We want to look at Zechariah toward the end of the Old Testament, chapter 4, verse 10 starts out with a question, for who hath despised the day of small things? And any time a question comes up in the Bible, we should seek for the answer. As we grow in the Lord and come to know Him and study the Word, we might find the answers right there in the same passage or somewhere else in the Word of God. Our accumulative knowledge and wisdom of God often gives us the answer to questions in the Bible.

Years ago, this question here caught my mind, for who hath despised the day of small things? And basically, the answer that the Holy Spirit has given unto me is those souls who do not know their Creator, God, despise the day of small things. Those who seek to be great in this life often despise the day of small things. God commands us in Jeremiah 45, 5, and seekest thou great things for thyself? He asks us the question.

Then He commands us very clearly, seek them not. And John the Baptist, in the Gospel of John, chapter 3, verse 20, says, He must increase, referring to our wonderful Savior, Jesus Christ, of course. He must increase, but I must decrease.

The Bible teaches much on the wonderful virtues of humility and being a humble servant like Christ, being Christlike in being a humble servant, and He is our perfect example in that. In Micah, in the Old Testament, Micah chapter 6, verse 8, He says that another, that one available here, Micah 6, 8, see what we got here. He has showed thee, O man, what is good, and what doth the Lord require thee, but to do justly, and to have love, mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.

That's something the Lord requires of us. He requires that we be small in our own sight, and that we do live a humble life before men, because this would glorify God, and let Him increase in our life, and make us into wonderful testimony. You might want to turn to John chapter 13, and look at Christ's example as a lowly servant, and look at impetuous Peter.

I often chuckle at Peter in the Bible. He reminds me of me a lot, but in John chapter 13, verse 4, we get to the end of the supper where Jesus has His disciples, and He rises up from supper, and He girds Himself with a towel, and He pours water into a basin, and begins to wash the disciples' feet. And to wash them with a towel, for in He was girded.

In John 13, verse 6, then cometh He to Simon Peter, and Peter saith unto him, Peter's impetuous, boy, he speaks thus, Lord, dost thou wash my feet? Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Peter's made up his mind.

The Lord's not going to ever stoop down low enough to wash his feet. He's got the Lord up on a high pedestal, which is good. His mind's made up, you think.

Jesus answered Peter, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. Jesus showed the example.

We are to follow and to seek the lowly path of a servant, and no matter what small or lowly thing the Lord wants us to do, we should do it most joyfully, never despising the day of small things. On focus on the family, Dr. Dodson had a guest on there one time that I was listening to in Japan on the military radio station. The man had a wonderful testimony.

He was British, living in England, and this was aired maybe about 20-something years ago in the story, maybe 30 years or 40 years old. God blessed this Christian lawyer immensely in the economic realm. His testimony was, he's rearing his children, they're getting grown.

He feels like, I'm living too much for the good things God has blessed me with. And he said, You know, you can only enjoy so many steak dinners. And as his mess starts emptying out, he and his wife take in mainly young people, young adults who don't have the ability really to live on their own, low IQ or a little mentally retarded.

And he told a wonderful story about taking in a young man. I don't know if his age was given or not. I would look at him and think of him as 20 years old or so.

And they had him come live in their home. Nice mansion they had. And the lawyer got him a job hanging on to the back of the garbage truck.

And I'm thankful there's men that do those jobs because we all want somebody to come around and pick up our garbage. We sure don't want it piling up out there. And a lot of people look down on the ones hanging on the back of that garbage truck.

But they all go and strike. You wait a week or two and see how the town looks after that. Thank God for people who do each of those lowly jobs.

But the young man was not able to obtain a driver's license. He didn't have the mental ability, I don't suppose, to get a license and drive a car. So each morning this lawyer would take him to work and drop him off at the place where those workers assembled.

And after several days or a week or so went by, one time the lawyer picked up the young man after work. Sometimes in the afternoon he or his wife would pick him up. And as they start riding home, that young man is chuckling.

And the lawyer asked him, what's going on there? And he said, my buddy's at work this morning. They asked me, who is that that brings you to work every morning? The lawyer drove a Rolls-Royce. And each morning this young man arrived at work chauffeured in a Rolls-Royce.

So you can imagine his co-worker, what's going on here? So the lawyer asked the young man, why'd you tell him? I told him, that's my chauffeur. That's wonderful. I love that story.

That's the place I want to be. And such a thrill it gave the young man that morning. And he told the truth.

That's my chauffeur. May we love to do such small things as that. If you want to look at 2 Corinthians chapter 8, I have one more precious story like that.

These things really lodge in my mind. Such a great blessing to me. I think it would be to you also.

But in 2 Corinthians chapter 8, Paul is, Moreover, brethren, we do you to wit of the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia, how that in a great child of affliction, the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality. I want you to keep in mind that last part of verse 2. And verse 3 goes with it, For to their power I bear record, yea, and beyond their power they were willing of themselves. Now these are Christians who gave out of their poverty.

He calls it deep poverty. And it says they gave beyond their power to give. And it's amazing how God enables us to do that if we have a willing heart to do so.

And he called attention to the widow who put in the two mites and others around her putting in a large amount of money. And I guess two mites, a mite is probably worth less than a penny. I've never studied how much a mite was worth.

They said it was the smallest coin. But she gave her all. And we can't do anything more than that and give her all.

God bless us and he honors us when we will give her all no matter how small it is. People sometimes give me an offering and say this isn't much. I wish they wouldn't say that.

It's a lot. It means a lot to me when they give me a small offering. And when I give someone a small amount of money as an offering, I don't say this isn't much.

I say God be in it to bless it and multiply it. I thank God that we have the privilege of giving little. Most of you are old enough probably that you know Paul Harvey well.

He's not in this life anymore. Paul came from very good stock, both his dad and mom. And we see what an upright man he was.

I'm quite sure Paul was a born-again Christian. He was born in Oklahoma. His dad was a U.S. Marshal or some kind of law officer back in the early 1900s when it was still pretty much the Wild West.

And when Paul was a quite small lad, his dad was killed on the job. Did you know that? Had you heard that? Someone shot his dad dead and left his mother, a widow, with three or four children. I think Paul was the only son and he had two or three sisters.

And she was an upright Christian and just took it on herself to raise her children as a Christian mother. And they attended church, of course. We're talking about the story up to, comes probably around the time of the Great Depression.

And a church in Oklahoma then that they attended, I don't know how many people. You'd think 50 at least back then. Many people went to church.

It might have been well over 100. But along about that time, one day, one Sunday morning in church, the pastor announced, I want you to know that we're going to later on have a special offering for a family in need and come prepared to give. And it was either the following Sunday or two or three Sundays down the road.

He wanted to give everyone plenty of time because in Depression days, you know, nobody was running over with money. And soon the Sunday comes when they give the special offering. But Paul's mother took the children home that day and after church and said, Children, there's a family in need.

And if you think fast, you probably already have concluded that Mrs. Harvey is going to be the recipient of that special offering, a widow with little children. And it didn't cross her mind at all that she would be the recipient. And she takes those children home and, oh, she trained them up in the way they should go.

Children, there's a needy family. We're going to do everything we can to help them. And Paul told this on the radio, how she got down scribbling figures and said, Now, we can live mainly on potatoes until this offering is taken up.

And she listed other ways they could cut back to give beyond their ability, just like it says here in the Bible. And I'll try to make a long story short. That's difficult for me.

So as Sunday approaches that they're going to give the offering, she goes to the bank and asks for three new $20 bills. And along about Depression days, that's a treasure of money. She wanted new bills to put into that envelope.

And that went in there and other smaller bills. And in their envelope that they gave was about $71. He gave the exact amount.

And I heard this story 20 or so years ago. I'm within a dollar or two of the correct figures here. And he said, That morning in church, we were so happy.

Our heart was full of joy. We felt so rich that we were given so much to help a poor family. And it sounded like the children's hearts were just all aglow as the offering plate was passed.

And the mother or maybe one of the children placed the envelope in that offering plate. And they went home to their lunch. It might have been just about potatoes and bread that day.

And they said, We felt so rich. And soon after lunchtime, the pastor comes knocking on the door. So Mrs. Harvey goes to the door.

And she's sort of surprised to see the pastor. And he hands her the total offering. This offering was for you this morning.

And it just really floored her would be a good word for us to use. She had no idea it'd be coming her way. And I can't remember if Paul said she stammered around a little bit.

But I don't think she tried to refuse the offering. She just sort of silently took it in bewilderment. And soon the pastor goes on.

And Paul said, And now we felt so poor. And they opened that envelope. And they had given about $71.

The total in the envelope was, best I remember, $92 or so. The poor family gave about $71. The rest of the entire church gave about $21.

In those days, people would put in a quarter. That's all they had to put in, a half a dollar. And a few people probably put in a dollar.

Apparently there was no one that put in as much as $5. But that is such a precious example of what we're told here in 2 Corinthians chapter 8. I want to be like that. I want to not despise a day of small things.

And when I have a little to give to the Lord in any instance, I thank God that He has given me that to give unto Him. And how that He multiplies it. If you will, look with me to the Song of Solomon.

Just after Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, we have the Song of Solomon. And look at chapter 2 in the Song of Solomon, chapter 2, verse 15. It's sort of a, to me, a strange statement.

It says, take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines. For our vines have tender grapes. Two or three decades ago, three or four decades ago, reading Watchman Nee, he and other people like him study up on local cultures in the Bible.

And he knew exactly what small foxes did. And he said, well, he said grown foxes would go into the vineyard and eat grapes. But he said the foxes that aren't grown, these small foxes, when they go into a vineyard, they do just what it says here.

That spoil the vines. He said they will gnaw the lower vines that they can get to. And gnaw them in two and that whole vine will drop off.

So the man who owns the vineyard, he loses all the produce from the vine. Each of the vines that these small foxes gnaw into and drop off. And if we're not careful about the small things in this life, it brings great loss to us.

Be ye faithful over a few things and I will make you ruler over many. And when we receive Christ, we're a newborn babe. And we start out growing.

A growth process is necessary. The spiritual growth is most necessary, of course. And in our vain pride and such, often, well, now that I'm a Christian, I want to be a great Christian.

Before I wanted to be a great me. And now I want to be the greatest Christian possible. And we despise these small things, the steps of growth that the Lord wants to take us through.

But God commands us, be ye faithful over a few things and I will make you ruler over many. When I think of taking care of these small foxes that spoil the vines, one thing I think of is waste. And us being careful not to waste any of the things that the Lord has blessed us with.

Our own physical and mental abilities, the time he gives us. I think the Lord is so gracious in that he gives me just as many hours each day as he gives President Trump. Isn't that gracious of him that he doesn't shortcut us on time? And Trump has a lot of important things to do, but I've got just as much time to serve the Lord as President Trump has to do all the things that he does.

And we're going to be accountable for the way we use these things. And then when the Lord gives us material resources, we are not to waste those. We're not to be idle and waste our time.

We're to be careful to guard over these small things and not despise any of them, no matter how small they are. You don't have to turn to this probably, but in John chapter 6, the Lord multiplied the loaves and fishes. And when everyone had eaten to the full, in the gospel of John chapter 6, verses 12 and 13, years ago it caught my attention that he said, gather up all the fragments that nothing remains.

And if I'd been the Lord, I'd probably said, I can do it again anytime I want to, just let that stay there for the birds. But gather it up, and I'm sure it was eaten later. That teaches us how thrifty the Son of God wants us to be.

And I turned into concordance recently to the word waste. And I looked and saw in the concordance of the King James Bible, the words waste, wasted, wastes, with an S, wasteth, wasting. And it's a good Bible study to go through what those things teach us.

Proverbs 18, 9 says, He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster. Referring to an individual's action. The Lord has made me so thrifty, I seem freaky in the eyes of most Christians.

And as I talk to you about how thrifty it may be, you'll say, what a weirdo. But I thank the Lord for making me into a weirdo like this. This is Saturday, the 11th of February.

Have I got the date right? And this past Sunday, the 5th of February, I'm right now in Gulf Breeze, Florida, in the balmy, warmer weather down here. And this past Sunday, the 5th of February, I got to drive from Gulf Breeze, Florida, over to Jay, Florida, early on Sunday morning and preaching the Sunday morning service at Pine Level Baptist Church. And we had a blessed service.

And after church, everybody left and nobody said, let's go to a big restaurant where you can pig out with all you want to eat. Nobody invited me. And I was so happy because that's always just a sort of a pain in the neck for me.

And I headed back through the lovely country, countryside there, Ladd, Alabama, and such. And I drove over 30 minutes and stopped in a gas station convenience store and bought me a little snack to eat. And I stood walking around in the parking lot there, eating my snack, getting a little exercise, and patrolling the parking lot for any discount that store would give me.

And they gave me a three cent discount as I picked up the three pennies that the Lord had waiting for me there in the parking lot. And I thank God for those three small things and I want to use them for his glory. Years ago, I saw that the newspapers in each state have what they call a statewide ad scan, which you can place one ad up to 25 words and it goes in several small newspapers statewide.

Uh, mostly weekly papers and in a few small daily ones. And from that time on, from time to time, I have placed the ad in statewide ad scan. And, uh, I looked at the price of the ad and I asked them, what's your circulation? And then I got down on my calculator and I saw that one of those pennies I picked up will place a 25 word ad in about 40 different newspapers.

That's not a small thing to be despised. And probably, I don't know today what the average is of how many people look up on one newspaper, probably 1.5 people at least, maybe close to two people per newspaper. I'm not saying they read my ad, I'm saying they look on that paper.

And I pray that if I place an ad in 40 newspapers for a penny and maybe 60 to 100 people look at that newspaper, I pray, Lord, draw their eyes to that ad. And I have it put in the miscellaneous section. They do accept religious ads.

And I said, put it in miscellaneous because often people will glance at miscellaneous to see what might happen to be there. And I said, Lord, make the ad as meaty as possible. And I would type them on my computer where you can edit very easily and hone them up over a period of time.

Listen to one of my 25 word ads. Lord Jesus Christ, become my all, my God. And then I leave off my after this.

Lord Jesus Christ, become my Lord, become my all, my God. Deliverer, cleansing from sin, redemption, salvation, sanctification, righteousness. I use long words because I don't know what the length of the word is.

Wisdom, strength, exceeding great reward, eternal life. 40 times I can have that printed for a penny. And they let your URL count as one word.

So that was 24 words I just gave you. And then I put my URL at the end and I get the three wonderful Christ is all. I get those three words for the price of one word.

My website being Christisall.us. Folks, we are not to despise the day a small thing. Never, ever despise the day a small thing. God has given me a compassion for lost souls.

I give Him the glory. And I want to, in accordance to His will, do everything I can to win as many lost souls to Him. And with that mindset, I desire to use all of my financial blessings that I can in the Lord's work.

And God helps me to be strict on myself and liberal in the giving of His work. And I spend very little money on things for my own enjoyment, pleasure, amusement, or comfort, or ease. And looking around on Christians in Japan and Christians in the U.S., I estimate that they, on the average, they spend at least $7 more than I do on those things.

And possibly well over $10, $12 more. Probably there's Christians that daily go to Starbucks and get their favorite. And I asked somebody recently, what would the average price be of that favorite concoction that you sit down and order and drink right there? Oh, maybe $5.

And if a Christian does that every work day to or from work or his lunch hour, what he is drinking there is mainly for the pleasure it brings to his flesh and not for nourishment. But if he spends $5 each day, if there's one million Christians in the States that do that daily, that's $5 million daily going to the lust of the flesh. God has led me to find out about Indian sisters of mine, sisters in Christ in India, who are widows and have been turned out of their house after their husband died, as the custom is there.

Years ago, they used to kill the widow. She was worthless. And now they're often, when the husband dies first, the widow's turned out of the family.

And Brother Raju there, he takes them in and ministers to them. And I learned about him and I started sending offerings to him. He's a pastor.

The Lord usually enables me to send $1,000 at a time. I try to send him $1,000 monthly. And after about the first time I sent that, he wrote back with, sent me pictures of the widows, him dishing out rice to them from large 50-pound bags of rice or something.

He said, several of these widows now are able to eat twice a day because you have given this offering. They were on one meal a day. And you know how much we are prone to eat each day and so much of it for our pleasure.

And we don't give one thought about our sisters in Christ there that are going hungry like that. God have mercy on this Laodicean church that he's soon to spew out of his mouth. And Brother Raju sent me pictures and there was one boy there, a lad, 13 or 14 years old, one leg missing at the knee.

And Pastor Raju showed me the wheelchair they bought with money I sent so that he could have a wheelchair to get around in. And it was a very simple affair, that wheelchair, compared to ours. The top of it was just like our white lawn chairs.

You know the white lawn chairs? It was made just like that. Very simple. And his own wheels.

It probably cost one-fifth or one-tenth of what a wheelchair would here, but it got served the purpose well. And how my heart rejoices when I see what my money can go to and things like that, instead of the lust of the flesh and lust of eyes and pride of life. I was here on furlough in early 1986 from Japan.

And I was staying with my dad on the farm I grew up with when I went out on the road. And one day, a young man came and picked me up to take me to his church about 15 miles away to preach on a Wednesday night. He wanted me to drive with him.

And we had wonderful fellowship along the way. I had never met him before then. He was married with a family.

And so he talks about his life as we're driving along. And he said, a few years ago my house burned down. And we lost everything.

And we had to rebuild and start again. And he said, in my house insurance policy, I had $70,000, a policy for $70,000 of household goods. And he said it didn't hardly cover everything we had in the house.

I almost fainted when he said that. I don't think I paid $700 for what was in my house in Japan at that time. And there he is saying $70,000 did not cover what was in their house.

That much was not necessary for food, clothing, and shelter. Much of that was big boys' toys. You know what all we got our houses, our palaces lined with.

And we tend to not even think on how the other half lives, brothers and sisters that are in pain because they're not able to go, financially able to go to a doctor or a dentist or going hungry. Many of them going hungry throughout the world. I save every penny.

About the only disposable product I buy is toilet paper. All these Ziploc bags and plastic forks and spoons and plates and such. I never buy any in Japan.

I use, I got a few plastic containers like Tupperware and I wash them and use them over and over again. Everything I have, I want it to be doing, accomplishing great things for the work of the Lord. I eat basic healthy foods of oatmeal, brown rice, black beans, tofu in Japan and not all that fermented bean that's for sliming such, but boy is it healthy.

And brother Mike and I have eaten sardines lately. They are so rich in nourishment. I eat fresh fruit and veggies and that's about it.

I was reading Hudson Taylor's book lately about how he went for months before he went to China. In England, he was preparing to go. He'd given his heart to go to Mission Field and he wanted to start living thrifty and he said he went for months on brown bread and apples.

You live on a lot less than you eat and be a lot healthier for it. Years ago, I've already mentioned this one time, a news article that said when hospitals were overflowing, was wondering what was going to do, needed more hospital beds and a doctor said 70% of the patients wouldn't be here if they just eat right. Boy, that speaks to me.

I want to eat right and be lean and mean and out on the street and out at the flea market this afternoon singing those songs again, preaching to the people out there. That's enough time. Praise God that he gives us this question.

Who has despised the day of small things? May he, the Holy Spirit, cause each of us to think very seriously on it in accordance to our own lives and see things that we could shape up on in regard to this scripture. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, save us from despising the day of small things.

Give us the heart of a servant that we would just love to be a chauffeur for a young man who doesn't have the ability to drive to work. Give us the heart of a servant that we just love to do the smallest tasks that's needful to be done in your kingdom. God, save us from being a waster.

Many passages in the Bible teach what an awful sin it is to waste, to waste the blessings you've bestowed upon us. And you've warned us in the Bible that those who waste will come to want. Help us to be mindful and have compassion on those around us who have less than we and do everything we can to give unto them to make their life as comfortable as ours.

Help us to truly love our neighbor just as much as we love ourselves. In our Lord's name we pray. Amen.