_'So will I also be for Thee._'--Hos. iii. 3.
The typical promise, 'Thou shalt abide for Me many days,' is indeed a marvel of love. For it is given to the most undeserving, described under the strongest possible figure of utter worthlessness and treacherousness,--the woman beloved, yet an adulteress.
The depth of the abyss shows the length of the line that has fathomed it, yet only the length of the line reveals the real depth of the abyss. The sin shows the love, and the love reveals the sin. The Bible has few words more touching, though seldom quoted, than those just preceding this wonderful promise: 'The love of the Lord toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine.' Put that into the personal application which no doubt underlies it, and say, 'The love of the Lord toward _me_, who have looked away from Him, with wandering, faithless eyes, to other helps and hopes, and have loved earthly joys and sought earthly gratifications,--the love of the Lord toward even me!' And then hear Him saying in the next verse, 'So I bought her to Me;' stooping to do _that_ in His unspeakable condescension of love, not with the typical silver and barley, but with the precious blood of Christ. Then, having thus loved us, and rescued us, and bought us with a price indeed, He says, still under the same figure, 'Thou shalt abide for Me many days.'
This is both a command and a pledge. But the very pledge implies our past unfaithfulness, and the proved need of even our own part being undertaken by the ever patient Lord. He Himself has to guarantee our faithfulness, because there is no other hope of our continuing faithful. Well may such love win our full and glad surrender, and such a promise win our happy and confident trust!
But He says more. He says, 'So will I also be for thee!' And this seems an even greater marvel of love, as we observe how He meets every detail of our consecration with this wonderful word.[footnote: The remainder of this chapter is printed in a little penny book, entitled, _I also for Thee_, by F. R. H., published by Caswell, Birmingham, and by Nisbet & Co.]
1. _His Life_ 'for thee!' 'The Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep.' Oh, wonderful gift! not promised, but _given_; not to friends, but to enemies. Given without condition, without reserve, without return. Himself unknown and unloved, His gift unsought and unasked, He gave His life for thee; a more than royal bounty--the greatest gift that Deity could devise. Oh, grandeur of love! 'I lay down My life for the sheep!' And we for whom He gave it have held back, and hesitated to give our lives, not even _for_ Him (He has not asked us to do that), but _to_ Him! But that is past, and He has tenderly pardoned the unloving, ungrateful reserve, and has graciously accepted the poor little fleeting breath and speck of dust which was all we had to offer. And now His precious death and His glorious life are all 'for thee.'
2. _His Eternity_ 'for thee.' All we can ask Him to take are days and moments--the little span given us as it is given, and of this only the present in deed and the future in will. As for the past, in so far as we did not give it to Him, it is too late; we can never give it now! But His past was given to us, though ours was not given to Him. Oh, what a tremendous debt does this show us!
Away back in the dim depths of past eternity, 'or ever the earth and the world were made,' His divine existence in the bosom of His Father was all 'for thee,' purposing and planning 'for thee,' receiving and holding the promise of eternal life 'for thee.'
Then the thirty-three years among sinners on this sinful earth: do we think enough of the slowly-wearing days and nights, the heavy-footed hours, the never-hastening minutes, that went to make up those thirty-three years of trial and humiliation? We all know how slowly time passes when suffering and sorrow are near, and there is no reason to suppose that our Master was exempted from this part of our infirmities.
Then His present is 'for thee.' Even now He 'liveth to make intercession;' even now He 'thinketh upon me;' even now He 'knoweth,' He 'careth,' He 'loveth.'
Then, only to think that His whole eternity will be 'for thee!' Millions of ages of unfoldings of all His love, and of ever new declarings of His Father's name to His brethren. Think of it! and can we ever hesitate to give _all_ our poor little hours to His service?