“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 rave to be useful to souls, and all the rest may go where it will.”
This is not a prayer most of us are willing to utter, but Charles Spurgeon said it in a sermon. None of us desire meekness, none of us desire infirmity, but it is in the moments when we think we can accomplish nothing that God uses us to flatten mountains.
That was the message God was trying to get over to Zerubbabel about the building of the Temple after the return of the exiles from Babylonia. Work had begun, but it had floundered. The people tended to what they thought were their own needs rather than focusing on God first.
We see in Haggai events happening parallel to what is going on in Zechariah, and things were not going well for the exiles.
“Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: ‘Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house (Temple) remains a ruin?’” — Haggai 1:5-6
The returning Jews were having some trouble — their crops weren’t producing as a drought was strangling the land. The Lord was trying to spur them to action. The Lord was telling them if you step out on faith and rebuild My Temple that they will be given the means to accomplish it — which leads us to this famous verse of encouragement to all who call on the name of the Lord.
“So he answered and said to me: ‘This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts. Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain! And he shall bring forth the capstone with shouts of ‘Grace,grace to it!’” — Zechariah 4:6-7
I love that verse, “Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit.” That’s a powerful promise. So powerful that Zechariah wasn’t bragging on Zerubbabel when he said the mountains are nothing before him, Zechariah was saying with God, nothing can stand before the person filled with his spirit.
Rebuilding the Temple was a great task, but God was telling the people it’s nothing if I am the source of your strength.
God loves us always, but He can do mighty things with us in a weakened state. No, it doesn’t have to be through punishment and trials, but simply a willingness to throw self into the closet and enter into a state of submission before God. Sometimes it takes a thorn in our side to keep us on our knees before God.
We see this going on with Paul, even though he had many reasons to be boastful around others through his personal relationship with Jesus Christ and what was revealed to him, Paul admitted God had a way of keeping him humble and in submission so that Paul’s work could benefit others.
“Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.’” — 2 Corinthians 2:7-10
In essence, that was what God was doing with the exiles in Jerusalem. By the people’s own actions they had come to a weakened state — spiritually and physically — but God was promising to heal them if they would submit.
This is what makes being a follower of Christ so hard. God could have chosen to make us sleep on beds of nails and walk across hot coals in order to gain some kind of status with Him, but that doesn’t work with God.
He’s not interested in what we can do for Him. In fact, there is nothing we can give God or do for Him that He would possibly ever need. But, there is something God desires from us — our undivided love. That was what He struggled to get across to the Israelites for over a thousand years.
God’s love was there for the taking. He had demonstrated that love by delivering them out of the land of Egypt and setting up for them a place among the nations. God would have made them greater than Rome if only they would have made Him the center of their collective affection.
Instead the people spurned the love of God so they could gratify themselves.
Then, God gave us the ultimate gift of love when He allowed himself in Jesus Christ to be nailed upon a cross and spill His lifeblood for us. Through this gift and sacrifice of love we stand before a loving God.
That’s what God was saying to the Israelites through Zechariah. “Love me and come to me and I will move the foundations of the earth for you.”
When we love someone or something else we make ourselves vulnerable. In human terms we are vulnerable to pain, but also joy. In our minds, we try and balance these things before God, we don’t want to be vulnerable, but God wants us that way. He will not hurt us, but He can and will use us for mighty things.
That is the crux of Spurgeon’s plea. The great preacher is saying, “Lord, if you will use me make me as weak as a mouse so that you can make me as strong as the ox.”
It never makes sense in our minds, but God has demonstrated his willingness to use the least among us to accomplish his will.
Through the rest of Zechariah 4, we see God promising to restore and heal the land, as can be seen by the oil flowing from the olive trees. We also see God promising to provide people to provide spiritual light through the darkness, and we also see shadows of the last days in the “two anointed ones,” may the Lord speed his coming to us.
May the Lord give us the strength to make ourselves vulnerable, and then equip us to fight like David against the evil of this world. Use us Lord as you see fit.
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