The Careful Walk
“Who hath despised the day of small things?”
Zechariah 4:10
“Who hath despised the day of small things?” (Zech. 4:10). Don’t you despise it! And take care not to trifle with these small things in your own souls; dont treat them rashly. I am afraid some of my poor people are very cruel to something very precious in their souls. Take care, child of God, and do not act presumptuously; if you cannot say there is grace, do not say there is absolutely none; though you cannot see His steps of majesty in your souls, do not say they are not, and have never been, there. Remember the words of Jacob. “And Jacob awoke out of his sleep and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not” (Gen. 28:16).
…The people of this land feel no need of the Saviour, and hence, bye and bye, there will be no gospel to be preached to them. You will not find the gospel of the grace of God continuing long, where there are none who want the Saviour.”
Sermon Excerpt Preached on 16 on May, 1852, at John Knox Tabernacle, Glasgow, Scotland
– Jonathan Ranken Anderson
“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God,
by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption”
Ephesians 4:30
The Gospel of Grace through the wantonness and desire of the people for an easier way will become the gospel of compromise and apathy. God gives people over to the desires of their hearts. Israel lusted after meat and God gave them meat and while it was still in their mouths His judgment broke out among them.
“While the meat was yet between their teeth, before it was consumed, the anger of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD struck down the people with a very great plague.”
Therefore the name of that place was called Kibroth-hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had the craving.”
Numbers 11:33-34
The Gospel of believe-ism carries with it a ministration which numbs the heart, bringing in its wake lukewarm living, and hypocrisy. God’s judgment is to allow its propagation in our midst to sift the sheep from the goats, and the wheat from the tares. God allows the false expressions for a season to separate the precious from the impure and the earnest in heart from the insincere.
“Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision! For the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision“
Joel 3:14
The Day is upon us, a day of sifting and of glory and judgment. The Parable of the ten virgins is unfolding in our midst. How we need to find that fellowship of the Spirit in which the exhortations, the admonitions, and the warnings of God flow freely to keep us alive and awake for this evil day.
“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour…”
1 Peter 5:8
See: The Wayfaring Ones
BT
