Zephaniah 3:12 I will also leave in the middle of you an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the LORD. I. God's dealings with His poor Church when He comes to visit the world. "I will leave in the midst of thee." God will have some in the worst time. This is an article of our faith. We believe in the "holy Catholic Church." The world should not stand were it not for a company in the world that are His. Though God's people be but a few, yet hath He a special care of them. Sometimes, indeed, it seems otherwise. God's children are taken away in common judgments. But He deals with HIS children as becometh His infinite wisdom, and so that they shall find most comfort in the hardest times. II. THE STATE AND CONDITION OF THESE PEOPLE. "An afflicted and poor people." This is for the most part the state of God's children and Church in the world. We must not say it is a general rule. Reasons are — 1. It is fit that the body should be conformable to the head. 2. By reason of the remainder of our corruptions it is needful.God sanctifies outward affliction and poverty, to help inward poverty of spirit. It takes away the fuel that feeds pride. And it has a power to bring us to God. Inward and spiritual poverty is not mere want of grace. There IS a poverty of spirit before we are in a state of grace, and after. Where this con Diction and poverty is, a man sees an emptiness and vanity in all things in the world whatsoever, but in Christ. There is a desire for the grace and favour of God above all things. A wondrous earnestness after pardon and mercy, and after grace It is always joined with a wondrous abasing of self. There is a continual frame and disposition of soul which Is a poverty of spirit that accompanies God's children all the days of their life. In justification and in sanctification there must be poverty of spirit. III. THE CARRIAGE OF THESE POOR AND AFFLICTED PEOPLE. Naturally every man will have a trust in himself, or out of himself. God is the trust of the poor man. What he wants in himself he has in God. Learn, then, to know God: in His special attributes, and in His promises. ( Sibbes, Richard.) Parallel Verses KJV: I will also leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the LORD. |
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