the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Our Daily Homily - Volume 3
Zephaniah 2:3—It may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord’s anger.
The name of this prophet means, "Whom God hides or protects." The hidden man invites others to his hiding-place; and shows how we may be hidden in the day of God’s anger. It is said that in the center of the wildest cyclone there is a point of absolute calm: so amid the wildest storms that have swept the face of the world there have always been some of God’s hidden ones:—
"The secret place, the refuge from the blast,
The glorious Temple, Lamb of God art Thou;
Our feet shall tread the golden courts at last,
Our souls have entered now."
"I cannot deny," writes Tersteegen, "the corruptions of the external Church; but I think my dear friend has more necessary things to attend to. Within! Within! With God alone!" There is truth here, though not all the truth. We must have Elijahs as well as Zephaniahs.
Only those may know the hidden life who fulfill the conditions here described. They must be meek; they must work his judgment; they must seek righteousness and meekness. It is the soul that bends before the blast of the terrible ones; that gives place to wrath, not because of pusillanimity, but because of the fear of the Lord; that hands over its cause of alarm and fear to the Most High, which abides in his secret place, and hides under his shadow.
Let us seek these things, and then there will be no may-be in our being hidden. We shall certainly be hidden in the day of the Lord’s anger; hidden in the wounds of Jesus, hidden in his heart, hidden in God with Christ, hidden in the fiery glory of his intolerable holiness.
"Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee!"
