REMNANT CALLED TO GATHER

 REMNANT CALLED TO GATHER THEMSELVES  

"Gather yourselves together" Zeph. 2:1

In this chapter we have the prophet's appeal, on the ground of the approaching day of wrath addressed to the nation of Israel. This opening call might with accuracy is rendered in our colloquialism: "Pull yourselves together." That is the exact idea. The entire Jewish Nation was spiritually and morally relaxed, asleep, and so mentally dulled, and unable to realize the true meaning of its own sin. The prophet stood before the Jewish Nation as a physician, and cried to it sharply, urgently: "Pull yourselves together." The sign of moral paralysis was that the Jews had no shame, and as many nations today. To a sense of sin, and a consequent sense of shame, the prophet sought to bring them, in view of the decree of the Divine judgment which was determined against them. He commenced by describing the judgments which were to fall on the surrounding nations, Phi­listia, Moab, Ammon, Ethiopia, and Assyria; and then proceeded to show how this same fiery destructive force would fall on Jerusalem (Zeph. 3:1-7). In the course of this appeal the prophet specially addressed the REMNANT of elect souls who were loyal to Jehovah. Two things are impressive in this section of the prophecy. The FIRST is that this is the very call that nations constantly need to hear; and that it is difficult for them to obey. Today those nations most highly privileged need to pull themselves together and to face moral and spiritual facts. The SECOND is that the souls within the national life who are loyal to God are those who constitute the only HOPE of the nation or nations being able to do this. He always has a REMNANT with Israel and in the end He has 144,000 males and others that are loyal. May our nation awaken those that are truly loyal to the One in John 13:13.