Returning With Mercies
"Therefore, thus saith the LORD, I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies." - Zechariah 1:16 [KJV] My soul, think what a sad state that land, that church, that family, that heart is in, where God withdraws but for a moment! This will be one way of rightly appreciating His presence. What a mercy, what an unspeakable mercy is it when God returns! For until He returns in grace, there will be no return to Him in a way of seeking mercy. Pause, my soul, over the thought. Though a child of God loseth not the interest and favour of God in His covenant, because what unworthiness soever, as in ourselves, we must appear in before God, yet in Christ there is an everlasting worthiness, in which His people are accepted and beloved: yet if the Lord suspends His gracious influences on the soul; if Jesus speaks neither by Urim nor Thummim; if the Holy Ghost, though at home in the heart, manifests not Himself to the heart; what shall the soul do? Ordinances are nothing if the God of ordin