July 22

The Lord thy God. - Zephaniah 3:17.

HERE we may observe the relation in which Jehovah stands to his people. He is our Maker, the Creator of our bodies, and the Former of our spirits within us; in him “we live, and move, and have our being.” And this would seem to authorize us to hope in him, for surely he will have respect unto the work of his own hands. But as far as we are sinners, we are not the work of his hands, but the workmanship and the offspring of Satan. And therefore we must observe, that the relationship here spoken of comprehends much more than his relation to us as our Creator and Preserver and Benefactor. These relations do not secure us from the wrath to come. He has expressly told us this, and said, “Because they are a people of no understanding-, therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he that formed them will show them no favour.” But the other relation is the source of our eternal safety and happiness; and, therefore, “happy are that people that are in such a case; yea, happy are the people whose God is the Lord.”

Hear the testimony of God by Zechariah:-“I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them; I will say, It is my people, and they shall say, The Lord is my God.” Now, here we have mutual acknowledgment, founded on mutual dedication. They give themselves to him and avouch they are his people, and he gives himself to them and avouches that he is their God, for, every thing is mutual between them; they choose him and he chooses them, they love him and he loves them, and he says, “I love them that love me.”

But here, to prevent mistake, we must observe, that, though this love is mutual, we are not to suppose their love to him is the cause of his love to them, for “we love him because he first loved us.” But then it is the consequence, and, therefore, becomes the evidence. So, therefore, he is the Lord their God; and he is so really. There is nothing, indeed, in which they have such a proprietary as they have in God; indeed, they have a proprietary in nothing else. Their time is not their own, their wealth is not their own, their children are not their own, their bodies are not their own, their souls are not their own; but God is their own, and they may say, with the Church, “God, even our God, shall bless us.” And he is the Lord their God, wholly and entirely; and what the king said of Ben-hadad,-“I am thine, and all that I have,”-and what the father of the prodigal said to the elder brother,-“Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine,”-God says to every believer, however poor and however afflicted. And he is the Lord their God eternally:-“This God is our God forever and ever; he will be our Guide even unto death.”