{"id":4312,"date":"2009-04-15T22:16:16","date_gmt":"2009-04-16T02:16:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/april2009\/?p=107"},"modified":"2009-04-15T22:16:16","modified_gmt":"2009-04-16T02:16:16","slug":"zechariah-11213","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/2009\/04\/15\/zechariah-11213\/","title":{"rendered":"Zechariah 1:12,13"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>&#8220;O Lord of hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy upon<br \/>\n       Jerusalem? &#8230; And the Lord answered the angel &#8230; with good<br \/>\n       words and comfortable words.&#8221;<br \/>\n              &#8212; Zechariah 1:12,13<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What a sweet answer to an anxious enquiry! This night let us rejoice in<br \/>\nit. O Zion, there are good things in store for thee; thy time of<br \/>\ntravail shall soon be over; thy children shall be brought forth; thy<br \/>\ncaptivity shall end. Bear patiently the rod for a season, and under the<br \/>\ndarkness still trust in God, for his love burneth towards thee. God<br \/>\nloves the church with a love too deep for human imagination: he loves<br \/>\nher with all his infinite heart. Therefore let her sons be of good<br \/>\ncourage; she cannot be far from prosperity to whom God speaketh &#8220;good<br \/>\nwords and comfortable words.&#8221; What these comfortable words are the<br \/>\nprophet goes on to tell us: &#8220;I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion<br \/>\nwith a great jealousy.&#8221; The Lord loves his church so much that he<br \/>\ncannot bear that she should go astray to others; and when she has done<br \/>\nso, he cannot endure that she should suffer too much or too heavily. He<br \/>\nwill not have his enemies afflict her: he is displeased with them<br \/>\nbecause they increase her misery. When God seems most to leave his<br \/>\nchurch, his heart is warm towards her. History shows that whenever God<br \/>\nuses a rod to chasten his servants, he always breaks it afterwards, as<br \/>\nif he loathed the rod which gave his children pain. &#8220;Like as a father<br \/>\npitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.&#8221; God hath<br \/>\nnot forgotten us because he smites-his blows are no evidences of want<br \/>\nof love. If this is true of his church collectively, it is of necessity<br \/>\ntrue also of each individual member. You may fear that the Lord has<br \/>\npassed you by, but it is not so: he who counts the stars, and calls<br \/>\nthem by their names, is in no danger of forgetting his own children. He<br \/>\nknows your case as thoroughly as if you were the only creature he ever<br \/>\nmade, or the only saint he ever loved. Approach him and be at peace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;O Lord of hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy upon Jerusalem? &#8230; And the Lord answered the angel &#8230; with good words and comfortable words.&#8221; &#8212; Zechariah 1:12,13 What a sweet answer to an anxious enquiry! This night let us rejoice in it. O Zion, there are good things in store for thee;&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"twitterCardType":"","cardImageID":0,"cardImage":"","cardTitle":"","cardDesc":"","cardImageAlt":"","cardPlayer":"","cardPlayerWidth":0,"cardPlayerHeight":0,"cardPlayerStream":"","cardPlayerCodec":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4312\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}