On Serving God with One Shoulder
Samuel Cox, D. D. Zephaniah 3:9 For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call on the name of the LORD, to serve him with one consent.… "Then!" When? In the day in which God has risen up to pour out all the heat of His fury on the nations and kingdoms of the earth. No question more frequently and deeply frets our hearts than this, — What is the meaning, what the intention of the innumerable miseries by which we are tormented? What is the true function of the sufferings of which the world is full? The best answer is this, — The miseries of men are intended to purify and elevate them, to make them perfect. Springing from their sins, they are designed to correct their sins, and to lead them to the love and pursuit of righteousness. God deals with us as the goldsmith deals with virgin ore. He tempers it with an alloy, and thus makes it hard enough to endure "the file's tooth and the hammer's rap," and the keen edge of the graver. When the work is done, he washes it in "the proper fiery acid," which eats out the base alloy, and leaves the pure gold untouched. No grain of the precious metal is lost; but its value is indefinitely enhanced by the artistic labour bestowed upon it. And thus God deals with us. The miseries and calamities which come upon us are but as the edge of the graving tool, the rap of the hammer, the grating teeth of the file. By these He gradually and patiently carries out His conception of us, His purpose in us. And at last, like the fiery acid which separates the base alloy from the pure gold, death comes to divide the carnal in us from me spiritual, and to reveal the beauty and the value of the character which the Divine Artist has wrought in and upon us. "Cure sin, and you cure sorrow," say the reason and the conscience of man. And "the sorrow comes that the sin may be cured," says the Word of God. The mercy of judgment is the prophet's theme in the verso before us. To the image of the final clause of the text — they shall "serve God with one shoulder" — attention is now directed. The image the prophet had in mind was that of a number of men bearing a single burden. If they are to bear it without strain or distress, they must walk with even or level shoulders, no one of them shirking his part of the task, each of them keeping step with the rest. They must stand and move as if they had but "one shoulder " among them. Only thus can they move freely and happily, and make the burden as little burdensome as possible to each and all. The law of God is a burden which all men haw to bear; it rests on the shoulders of the whole world. Men can only bear it without strain or distress of spirit as each of them freely assumes it, as they all help each other to bear it, as they pace together under it with a happy consent of obedience, I. THE DIVINE LAW IS A BURDEN WHICH MEN ARE RELUCTANT TO ASSUME. Does that need proof? Do we not ourselves find it hard to cross our wills, in order to adopt the pure and steadfast will that rules the universe? The will of God is never so full of grace and attraction for us as when it is incarnated in the life of the man Christ Jesus. And yet even this is hard. To our self-will it is hard, and cannot but be hard, to submit even to the purest and tenderest will. Take any of the most distinctively Christian precepts, and there is that in us which resents and rebels against them. We delight in the law of Christ after the inward man; but we find another law in our members, warring against the law of our mind. We can only find rest as we impose a yoke on the flesh with its passions and lusts, and compel them to bear the burden of obedience to the higher law. In the flesh, or in the spirit, we must suffer. The only option before us is — in which? Of course it is the flesh that ought to be subdued and made to serve. Shall we let these weak wavering wills of ours be the sport of the impulses, now good and now evil, which rise within us, and try to be content with yielding at one time to the flesh, and at another time to the spirit? We must get unity into our life. II. THE TRUE FREEDOM CONSISTS IN A WILLING ASSUMPTION OF THIS BURDEN, A CHEERFUL AND UNFORCED OBEDIENCE TO THE DIVINE LAW. Doing the will of God from the heart. Sooner or later self-will makes us hateful both to ourselves and to our neighbours. It renders us incapable both of social and of spiritual life. Let a man acknowledge no higher will than his own, no law which he is bound to obey, and he becomes a burden to himself and to all about him. We must take up some burden; we must bear some yoke. All we can do is choose the law to which we will yield. The law of God it will be wise for us to accept. This is the law which really rules in human affairs. If we would enter into a true security and an enduring rest, we must make His will our will. It is not enough that we yield to the will of God; we must heartily and cheerfully adopt it if we are to be free. Obedience involves self-denial, self-sacrifice. There is hut one way in which we can make the hard yoke easy, and the heavy burden light. It is the excellent way of charity, of love. When a true and pure affection has been kindled in the soul, the most difficult tasks grow easy. III. THE HAPPINESS OF OBEDIENCE DEPENDS LARGELY ON THE UNANIMITY AND THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE OBEDIENCE. Only when all men serve God with one shoulder that all sense of distress and effort will pass away. And that for two reasons — 1. If we really love God and His law, we must also love men, and yearn that they should keep His law. 2. Till they love Him and do His will, they will put many hindrances in our path, strew in it many stones of stumbling and rocks of offence which cannot fail to make obedience difficult and painful for us. When the Church serves God with one shoulder, and when all "the nations" serve Him with one shoulder, then at last the pain and effort of obedience will be over, and we shall serve God with unbroken gladness because we and all men serve Him with a single and a perfect heart. (Samuel Cox, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the LORD, to serve him with one consent. WEB: For then I will purify the lips of the peoples, that they may all call on the name of Yahweh, to serve him shoulder to shoulder.