GOING TO OUR CROSS

GOING TO OUR CROSS  

"Therefore wait ye for Me, says Jehovah" Zeph. 3:8

That is the sentence in which the theme of the SEVERITY OF GOD merges into that of His GOODNESS. It is most significant, when the force of the "therefore" is considered. Observe the immediately preceding words: "They rose early and corrupted all their doings." Therefore, "because” because there is NO HOPE OF RECOVERY in the people themselves, "wait ye for Me says Jehovah." You desperately need Me. When the case is most hopeless, as to man's corruption, then Jehovah acts, and He does so in "indig­nation," in "fierce anger," in "the fire of His jealousy" which has been building; but all that in order to the ending of corruption and the restoration of the sinning people. From that point the prophetic message is one of HOPE; it becomes a song of LOVE, and there is none more full of exquisite beauty in the Bible. It is a celebration of the MOTHERHOOD OF GOD, in which the prophet described Him rejoicing over His people, silent in His love, and then breaking the silence with a song of LOVE. That victory is the victory of LOVE. That is to say that it can only issue from the action of the GOD OF LOVE. There is no hope in human effort. The only thing that man can do is to wait for God. But that waiting is a responsibility. To wait for God is to be at the end of self, GOING TO THE CROSS and dying as He did; it is to be submissive to His way of judgment; it is to return to Him with complete surrender, the surrender of utter hopelessness in any other than Himself, the surrender of acknowledged and yielding weakness. Wherever there is such waiting, in love He chastises to purification and eventually perfection of character and conduct; and then in love rejoices as His purposes are fulfilled in the restoration of those upon whom His love is set.