Now we shall use this question at this time for the comfort of
two sorts of people--first, for weak believers, and secondly, for feeble
workers. Our object shall be the strengthening of the hands that hang
down, and the confirming of the feeble knees. We will begin, first of
all, with:--
I. WEAK BELIEVERS
Let us describe them. It is with them a day of small things.
Probably you have only been lately brought into the family of God. A few
months ago you were a stranger to the divine life, and to the things of
God. You have been born again, and you have the weakness of the infant.
You are not strong yet, as you will be when you have grown in grace and
in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It is the early
day with you, and it is also the day of small things. Now your knowledge
is small. My dear brother, you have not been a Bible student long: thank
God that you know yourself a sinner, and Christ your Saviour. That is
precious knowledge; but you feel now what you once would not have
confessed--your own ignorance of the things of God. Especially do the
deep things of God trouble you. There are some doctrines that are very
simple to other believers that appear to be mysterious, and even to be
depressing to you. They are high--you cannot attain to them. They are to
you what hard nuts would be to children, whose teeth have not yet
appeared. Well, be not at all alarmed about this. All the men in God's
family have once been children too. There are some that seem to be born
with knowledge--Christians that come to a height in Christ very rapidly.
But these are only here and there. Israel did not produce a Samson every
day. Most have to go through a long period of spiritual infancy and
youth. And, alas! There are but few in the Church, even now, who might be
called fathers there. Do not marvel, therefore, if you are somewhat small
in your knowledge. Your discernment, too, is small. It is possible that
anybody with a fluent tongue would lead you into error. You have,
however, discernment, if you are a child of God, sufficient to be kept
from deadly errors, for though there are some who would, if it were
possible, deceive even the very elect, yet the elect cannot be deceived,
for, the life of God being in them, they discern between the precious and
the vile--they choose not the things of the world, but they follow after
the things of God. Your discernment, however, seeming so small, need not
afflict you. It is by reason of use, when the senses are exercised, that
we fully discern between all that is good and all that is evil. Thank God
for a little discernment--though you see men as trees walking, and your
eyes are only half opened. A little light is better than none at all. Not
long since you were in total darkness. Now if there be a glimmer, be
thankful, for remember where a glimmer can enter the full noontide can
come, yea, and shall come in due season. Therefore, despise not the time
of small discernment. Of course, you, my dear brother or sister, have
small experience. I trust you will not ape experience, and try to talk
as if you had the experience of the veteran saints when you are as yet
only a raw recruit. You have not yet done business on the great waters.
The more fierce temptations of Satan have not assailed you--the wind has
been tempered as yet to the shorn lamb; God has not hung heavy weights on
slender threads, but hath put a small burden on a weak back. Be thankful
that it is so. Thank him for the experience that you have, and do not be
desponding because you have not more. It will all come in due time.
"Despise not the day of small things." It is always unwise to get down a
biography and say, "Oh! I cannot be right, because I have not felt all
this good man did." If a child of ten years of age were to take down the
diary of his grandfather and were to say, "Because I do not feel my
grandfather's weakness, do not require to use his spectacles, or lean
upon his staff, therefore I am not one of the same family," it would be
very foolish reasoning. Your experience will ripen. As yet it is but
natural that it should be green. Wait a while and bless God for what you
have.
Probably this, however, does not trouble you so much as one other
thing, you have but small faith, and, that faith being small, your
feelings are very variable. I often hear this from young beginners in the
divine life, "I was so happy a month ago, but I have lost that happiness
now." Perhaps tomorrow, after they have been at the house of God, they
will be as cheerful as possible, but the next day their joy is gone.
Beware, my dear Christian friends, of living by feeling. John Bunyan puts
down Mr. Live-by-feeling as one of the worst enemies of the town of
Mansoul. I think he said he was hanged. I am afraid he, somehow or other,
escaped from the executioner, for I very commonly meet him; and there is
no villain that hates the souls of men and causes more sorrow to the
people of God than this Mr. Live-by-feeling. He that lives by feeling
will be happy today, and unhappy tomorrow; and if our salvation depended
upon our feelings, we should be lost one day and saved another, for they
are as fickle as the weather, and go up and down like a barometer. We
live by faith, and if that faith be weak, bless God that weak faith is
faith, and that weak faith is true faith. If thou believest in Christ
Jesus, though thy faith be as a grain of mustard seed, it will save thee,
and it will, by-and-bye, grow into something stronger. A diamond is a
diamond, and the smallest scrap of it is of the same nature as the
Koh-i-noor, and he that hath but little faith hath faith for all that;
and it is not great faith that is essential to salvation, but faith that
links the soul to Christ; and that soul is, therefore, saved. Instead of
mourning so much that thy faith is not strong, bless God that thou hast
any faith at all, for if he sees that thou despisest the faith he has
given thee, it may be long before he gives thee more. Prize that little,
and when he sees that thou art so glad and thankful for that little, then
will he multiply it and increase it, and thy faith shall mount even to
the full assurance of faith.
I think I hear you also add to all this the complaint that your
other graces seem to be small too. "Oh," say you, "my patience is so
little. If I have a little pain I begin to cry out. I was in hopes I
should be able to bear it without murmuring. My courage is so little: the
blush is on my cheek if anybody asks me about Christ--I think I could
hardly confess him before half a dozen, much less before the world. I am
very weak indeed." Ah! I don't wonder. I have known some who have been
strong by reason of years, and have still been lacking in that virtue.
But where faith is weak, of course, the rest will be weak. A plant that
has a weak root will naturally have a weak stem and then will have but
weak fruit. Your weakness of faith sends a weakness through the whole.
But for all this, though you are to seek for more faith, and consequently
for more grace--for stronger graces, yet do not despise what graces you
have. Thank God for them, and pray that the few clusters that are now
upon you, may be multiplied a thousand-fold to the praise of the glory of
his grace. Thus I have tried to describe those who are passing through
the day of small things.
But the text says, "Who hath despised the day of small things?"
Well, some have, but there is a great comfort in this--God the Father has
not. He has looked upon you--you with little grace, and little love, and
little faith, and he has not despised you. No, God is always near the
feeble saint. If I saw a young man crossing a common alone, I should not
be at all astonished, and I should not look round for his father. But I
saw today, as I went home, a very tiny little tot right out on the
Common--a pretty little girl, and I thought, "The father or mother are
near somewhere." And truly there was the father behind a tree, whom I had
not seen. I was as good as sure that the little thing was not there all
alone. And when I see a little weak child of God, I feel sure that God
the Father is near, watching with wakeful eye, and tending with gracious
care the feebleness of his new-born child. He does not despise you if you
are resting on his promise. The humble and contrite have a word all to
themselves in Scripture, that these he will not despise.
It is another sweet and consoling thought that God the Son does
not despise the day of small things. Jesus Christ does not, for you
remember this word, "He shall carry the lambs in his bosom." We put that
which we most prize nearest our heart, and this is what Jesus does. Some
of us, perhaps, have outgrown the state in which we were lambs, but to
ride in that heavenly carriage of the Saviour's bosom--we might well be
content to go back and be lambs again. He does not despise the day of
small things.
And it is equally consolatory to reflect that the Holy Spirit
does not despise the day of small things, for he it is who, having
planted in the heart the grain of mustard seed, watches over it till it
becomes a tree. He it is who, having seen the new-born child of grace,
doth nurse, and feed, and tend it until it comes to the stature of a
perfect man in Christ Jesus. The blessed Godhead despises not the weak
believer. O weak believer, be consoled by this.
Who is it, then, that may despise the day of small things?
Perhaps Satan has told you and whispered in your ear that such little
grace as yours is not worth having, that such an insignificant plant as
you are will surely be rooted up. Now let me tell you that Satan is a
liar, for he himself does not despise the day of small things; and I am
sure of that, because he always makes a dead set upon those who are just
coming to Christ. As soon as ever he sees that the soul is a little
wounded by conviction, as soon as ever he discovers that a heart begins
to pray, he will assault it with fiercer temptations than ever. I have
known him try to drive such a one to suicide, or to lead him into worse
sin than he has ever committed before. He:--
He may tell you that the little grace in you is of no account, but he
knows right well that it is the handful of corn on the top of the
mountain, the fruit whereof shall shake like Lebanon. He knows it is the
little grace in the heart that overthrows his kingdom there. "Ah!" say
you, "but I have been greatly troubled lately because I have many friends
that despise me, because though I can hardly say I am a believer, yet I
have some desire towards God." What sort of friends are these? Are they
worldly friends? Oh! Do not fret about what they say. It would never
trouble me if I were an artist, if a blind man were to utter the sharpest
criticism on my works. What does he know about it? And when an ungodly
person begins to say about your piety that it is deficient and faulty,
poor soul, let him say what he will--it need not affect you. "Ah!" say
you, "the persons that seem to despise me, and to put me out, and tell me
that I am no child of God, are, I believe, Christians." Well then, do two
things: first, lay what they say to you in a measure to heart, because it
may be if God's children do not see in you the mark of a child, perhaps
you are not a child. Let it lead you to examination. Oh! Dear friends, it
is very easy to be self-deceived, and God may employ, perhaps, one of his
servants to enlighten you upon this, and deliver you from a strong
delusion. But, on the other hand, if you really do trust in your Saviour,
if you have begun to pray, if you have some love to God, and any
Christian treats you harshly as if he thought you a hypocrite, forgive
him--bear it. He has made a mistake. He would not do so if he knew you
better. Say within yourself, "After all, if my brother does not know me,
it is enough if my Father does. If my Father loves me, though my brother
gives me the cold shoulder, I will be sorry for it, but it shall not
break my heart. I will cling the closer to my Lord because his servants
seem shy of me." Why, it is not much wonder, is it, that some Christians
should be afraid of some of you converts, for think what you used to be a
little while ago? Why, a mother hears her son say he is converted. A
month or two ago she knew where he spent his evenings, and what were his
habits of sin, and though she hopes it is so, she is afraid lest she
should lead him to presumption, and she rejoices with trembling, and,
perhaps, tells him more about her trembling than she does about her
rejoicing. Why, the saints of old could not think Saul was converted at
first. He was to be brought into the church meeting and received--I will
suppose the case. I should not wonder before he came, when he saw the
elders, one of them would say, "Well, the young man seems to know
something of the grace of God: there is certainly a change in him, but it
is a remarkable thing that he should wish to join the very people he was
persecuting; but, perhaps, it is a mere impulse. It may be, after all,
that he will go back to his old companions." Do you wonder they should
say so? Because I don't. I am not at all surprised. I am sorry when there
are unjust suspicions, I am sorry when a genuine child of God is
questioned; but I would not have you lay it much to heart. As I have said
before, if your Father knows you, you need not be so broken in heart
because your brother does not. Be glad that God does not despise the day
of small things. And now let me say to you who are in this state of small
things, that I earnestly trust that you will not yourselves despise the
day of small things. "How can we do that?" say you. Why, you can do it by
desponding. Why, I think there was a time when you would have been ready
to leap for joy, if you had been told that you would have given you a
little faith, and now you have got a little faith, instead of rejoicing,
you are sighing, and moaning, and mourning. Do not do so. Be thankful for
moonlight, and you shall get sunlight: be thankful for sunlight, and you
shall get that light of heaven which is as the light of seven days. Do
not despond lest you seem to despise the mercy which God has given you. A
poor patient that has been very, very lame and weak, and could not rise
from his bed, is at last able to walk with a stick. "Well," he says to
himself, "I wish I could walk, and run, and leap as other men." Suppose
he sits down and frets because he cannot. His physician might put his
hand on his shoulder and say, "My good fellow, why, you ought to be
thankful you can stand at all. A little while ago you know you could not
stand upright. Be glad for what you have got: don't seem to despise what
has been done for you." I say to every Christian here, while you long
after strength, don't seem to despise the grace that God has bestowed,
but rejoice and bless his name.
You can despise the day of small things, again, by not seeking
after more. "That is strange," say you. Well, a man who has got a little,
and does not want more--it looks as if he despised the little. He who has
a little light, and does not ask for more light, does not care for light
at all. You that have a little faith, and do not want more faith, do not
value faith at all--you are despising it. On the one hand, do not despond
because you have the day of small things, but in the next place, do not
stand still and be satisfied with what you have; but prove your value of
the little by earnestly seeking after more grace. Do not despise the
grace that God has given you, but bless God for it: and do this in the
presence of his people. If you hold your tongue about your grace, and
never let anyone know, surely it must be because you do not think it is
worth saying anything about. Tell your brethren, tell your sisters, and
they of the Lord's household, that the Lord hath done gracious things for
you; and then it will be seen that you do not despise his grace.
And now let us run over a thought or two about these small things
in weak believers. Be it remembered that little faith is saving faith,
and that the day of small things is a day of safe things. Be it
remembered that it is natural that living things should begin small. The
man is first a babe. The daylight is first of all twilight. It is by
little and by little that we come unto the stature of men in Christ
Jesus. The day of small things is not only natural, but promising. Small
things are living things. Let them alone, and they grow. The day of small
things has its beauty and its excellence. I have known some who in after
years would have liked to have gone back to their first days. Oh! well do
some of us remember when we would have gone over hedge and ditch to hear
a sermon. We had not much knowledge, but oh! how we longed to know. We
stood in the aisles then, and we never got tired. Now soft seats we need,
and very comfortable places, and the atmosphere must neither be too hot
nor too cold. We are getting dainty now perhaps; but in those first young
days of spiritual life, what appetites we had for divine truth, and what
zeal, what sacred fire was in our heart! True, some of it was wild fire,
and, perhaps, the energy of the flesh mingled with the power of the
spirit, but, for all that, God remembers the love of our espousals, and
so do we remember it too. The mother loves her grown-up son, but
sometimes she thinks she does not love him as she did when she could
cuddle him in her arms. Oh! the beauty of a little child! Oh! the beauty
of a lamb in the faith! I daresay, the farmer and the butcher like the
sheep better than the lambs, but the lambs are best to look at, at any
rate; and the rosebud--there is a charm about it that there is not in the
full-blown rose. And so in the day of small things there is a special
excellence that we ought not to despise. Besides, small as grace may be
in the heart, it is divine--it is a spark from the ever-blazing sun. He
is a partaker of the divine nature who has even a little living faith in
Christ. And being divine, it is immortal. Not all the devils in hell
could quench the feeblest spark of grace that ever dropped into the heart
of man. If God has given thee faith as a grain of mustard seed, it will
defy all earth and hell, all time and eternity, ever to destroy it. So
there is much reason why we should not despise the day of small things.
One word and I leave this point. You Christians, don't despise
anybody, but specially do not despise any in whom you see even a little
love to Christ. But do more--look after them, look after the little ones.
I think I have heard of a shepherd who had a remarkably fine flock of
sheep, and he had a secret about them. He was often asked how it was that
his flocks seemed so much to excel all others. At last he told the
secret--"I give my principal attention to the lambs." Now you elders of
the church, and you my matronly sisters, you that know the Lord, and have
known him for years, look up the lambs, search them out, and take a
special care of them; and if they are well nurtured in their early days
they will get a strength of spiritual constitution that will make them
the joy of the Good Shepherd during the rest of their days. Now I leave
that point. In the second place, I said that I would address a word or
two to:--
II. FEEBLE WORKERS
Thank God, there are many workers here tonight, and maybe they
will put themselves down as feeble. May the words I utter be an
encouragement to them, and to feeble workers collectively. When a church
begins, it is usually small; and the day of small things is a time of
considerable anxiety and fear. I may be addressing some who are members
of a newly-organised church. Dear brethren, do not despise the day of
small things. Rest assured that God does not save by numbers, and that
results are not in the spiritual kingdom in proportion to numbers. I have
been reading lately with considerable care the life of John Wesley by two
or three different authors in order to get as well as I could a fair idea
of the good man; but one thing I have noticed--that the beginnings of the
work which has become so wonderfully large were very small indeed. Mr.
Wesley and his first brethren were not rich people. Nearly all that
joined him were poor. Here and there, there was a person of some
standing, but the Methodists were the poor of the land. And his first
preachers were not men of education. One or two were so, but the most
were good outdoor preachers--head preachers, magnificent preachers as God
made them by his Spirit; but they were not men who had had the benefit of
college training, or who were remarkable for ability. The Methodists had
neither money nor eminent men at first, and their numbers were very few.
During the whole life of that good man, which was protracted for so many
years, the denomination did not attain any very remarkable size. They
were few, and apparently feeble; but Methodism was never so glorious as
it was at first, and there never were so many conversions, I believe, as
in those early days. Now I speak sorrowfully. It is a great denomination.
It abounds in wealth: I am glad it does. It has mighty orators: I rejoice
it has. But it has no increase, no conversion. This year and other years
it remains stationary. I do not say this because that is an exceptional
denomination, for almost all others have the same tale. Year by year as
the statistics come in, it is just this. "No increase--hardly hold our
ground." I use that as an illustration here. This church will get in
precisely the same condition if we do not look out--just the same state.
When we have not the means we get the blessing, and when we seem to have
the might and power, then the blessing does not come. Oh! may God send us
poverty; may God send us lack of means, and take away our power of speech
if it must be, and help us only to stammer, if we may only thus get the
blessing. Oh! I crave to be useful to souls, and all the rest may go
where it will. And each church must crave the same. "Not by might, nor by
power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord." Instead of despising the day of
small things, we ought to be encouraged. It is by the small things that
God seems to work, but the great things he does not often use. He won't
have Gideon's great host--let them go to their homes--let the mass of
them go. Bring them down to the water: pick out only the men that lap,
and then there is a very few. You can tell them almost on your fingers'
ends--just two or three hundred men. Then Gideon shall go forth against
the Midianites; and as the cake of barley bread smote the tent, and it
lay along, so the sound of the sword of the Lord and of Gideon at the
dead of night shall make the host to tremble, and the Lord God shall get
to himself the victory. Never mind your feebleness, brethren, your
fewness, your poverty, your want of ability. Throw your souls into God's
cause, pray mightily, lay hold on the gates of heaven, stir heaven and
earth, rather than be defeated in winning souls, and you will see results
that will astonish you yet. "Who hath despised the day of small things?"
Now take the case of each Christian individually. Every one of us
ought to be at work for Christ, but the great mass of us cannot do great
things. Don't despise, then, the day of little things. You can only give
a penny. Now then, he that sat over by the treasury did not despise the
widow's two mites that made a farthing. Your little thank-offering, if
given from your heart, is as acceptable as if it had been a hundred times
as much. Don't, therefore, neglect to do the little. Don't despise the
day of small things. You can only give away a tract in the street. Don't
say, "I won't do that." Souls have been saved by the distribution of
tracts and sermons. Scatter them, scatter them--they will be good seed.
You know not where they may fall. You can only write a letter to a friend
sometimes about Christ. Don't neglect to do it: write one tomorrow.
Remember a playmate of yours; you may take liberties with him about his
soul from your intimacy with him. Write to him about his state before
God, and urge him to seek the Saviour. Who knows?--a sermon may miss him,
but a letter from the well-known school companion will reach his heart.
Mother, it is only two or three little children at home that you have an
influence over. Despise not the day of small things. Take them tomorrow;
put your arms around their necks as they kneel by you--pray, "God bless
my boys and girls, and save them"--tell them of Christ now. Oh! How well
can mothers preach to children! I can never forget my mother's teaching.
On the Sunday night, when we were at home, she would have us round the
table and explain the Scriptures as we read, and then pray; and one night
she left an impression upon my mind that never will be erased, when she
said, "I have told you, my dear children, the way of salvation, and if
you perish you will perish justly. I shall have to say 'Amen' to your
condemnation if you are condemned"; and I could not bear that. Anybody
else might say "Amen," but not my mother. Oh! You don't know--you that
have to deal with children--what you may do. Despise not these little
opportunities. Put a word in edgeways for Christ--you that go about in
trains, you that go into workshops and factories. If Christians were men
who were all true to their colours, I think we should soon see a great
change come over our great establishments. Speak up for Jesus--be not
ashamed of him, and because you can say but little, don't refuse,
therefore, to say that, but rather say it over twenty times, and so make
the little into much. Again, and again, and again, repeat the feeble
stroke, and there shall come to be as much result from it as from one
tremendous blow. God accepts your little works if they are done in faith
in his dear Son. God will give success to your little works: God will
educate you by your little works to do greater works; and your little
works may call out others who shall do greater works by far than ever you
shall be able to accomplish. Evangelists, go on preaching at the street
corner--you that visit the low lodging-houses, go on. Get into the room
and talk of Jesus Christ there as you have done. You that go into the
country towns on the Sabbath and speak on the village-greens of Christ,
go on with it. I am glad to see you, but I am glad to miss you when I
know you are about the Master's work. We don't want to keep the salt in
the box: let it be rubbed into the putrid mass to stay the putrification.
We don't want the seed forever in the corn-bin: let it be scattered and
it will give us more. Oh! brethren and sisters, wake up if any of you are
asleep. Don't let an ounce of strength in this church be wasted--not a
single grain of ability, either in the way of doing, or praying, or
giving, or holy living. Spend and be spent, for who hath despised the day
of small things? The Lord encourage weak believers, and the Lord accept
the efforts of feeble workers, and send to both his richest benediction
for Christ's sake. Amen.