Teaching Resources International

“For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?”—1 John 5:4, 5.

What is this “world” that we have to overcome?  Did not God make the world, and did he not see “every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good?”  Yes, he did; but, after sin entered this world, men came under its power and, now, by “the world” is meant all mankind who remain under the power of sin, and are enemies to God.  “The world” means the whole corrupt mass of human society out of which God has taken a people whom he has chosen for himself, whom he quickens by his Divine Spirit, and whose business it is to overcome the world.  They will find that the world—the power of evil—will war against them, and they also must war against it, and the issue of the battle must not long be doubtful.  There remains for us only one of two courses; either the world must overcome us and we must yield to it; or, else, we must overcome the world and cause it to submit to us.

The apostle helps us to understand what he means by “the world” by what he says in the third verse: “This is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not grievous.”  Now, anything which makes us think that God’s will is grievous is of the spirit of the world, against which we have to fight.  If, for instance, we are tempted to think that the restrictions of God’s law—his commandments and precepts are too stringent, it is the spirit of the world which tempts us so to think; for “his commandments are not grievous” to those who truly love him.  It is only to the rebellious world that the restrictions of God appear to be too stringent or that the commands of Christ become burdensome.  If we are suffering pain or poverty or whatever form of trial we may be called to endure, if we are tempted to say, “God is dealing harshly with us, he is unkind to us,” that also is manifesting the spirit of the world against which we are to contend until we conquer it.  For God’s will is always right; and if we really love him, we shall own that it is right; and though, for a while, we may have to fight against the spirit of rebellion, yet, if we are indeed God’s children, we must get the mastery over that spirit of evil; and, so, the will of God, even when it involves pain, weakness, shame, or death itself, shall still be perfectly agreeable to us because it is the will of God.  We have not completely conquered the spirit of the world until we can truthfully say that the commandments of God, so far from being grievous to us, are acceptable simply because; they come from Him.

Now I propose, as God shall help me, first, to speak of the conquest itself. Then, of the conquering nature: “whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world;” and, thirdly, of the conquering weapon: “this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.”

I. First, then, concerning THE CONQUEST ITSELF.

What is it to overcome the world?  Certainly, it is not to go about the world blustering and bullying everybody until they all lie prostrate at our feet; because, if we could accomplish such a feat as that, the world would, in such a case, have overcome us, and we should not have conquered it.  We should have displayed a spirit and temper betokening the pride of power, the desire to rule over others—and this love would have mastered us.  Alexander the Great, when he was master of the whole world, was the greatest slave within it, for he was discontented even with his victories; the pride of conquest held him in captivity by its iron chain.  No; he who aims at the highest greatness in this world may only be more greatly selfish than the rest of mankind, and what is that but to be really little?  He is truly great who is the most unselfish and he is the least of all who lives for himself alone.

Neither is it overcoming the world if you try to get out of it, and to live by yourself, so as never to be tempted to sin.  I have seen a man on his knees by the hour together, reading some pious Latin book, living in a monastery where he never spoke—he had evidently conquered his tongue, because he gave no answer to anybody who ever spoke to him.  He was reckoned, by his brother-monks, to have overcome the world; but had he really done so?  Ask any soldier whether a man who slinks away in the day of battle and hides among the baggage and does not fight at all, is a conqueror.  That would be a very easy way of winning a victory—just to escape from the fight—to be of no service in the battle between good and evil, but just to hide away in your own little snuggery over there, in the monastery, or the convent, or the hermitage; it might be an easy way of believing that you had conquered because you had ceased to fight, but that delusion would not make the victory yours.  No, brethren; you and I have to roll up our shirt-sleeves, and go into the world, and work like other people; we have to mingle with our fellow-men, and, as the Lord God said to Adam, in the sweat of our face have we to eat our bread.  It may be our occupation to have to add up those long columns of figures, or to measure up those bales of goods, or to talk to our fellow-men on various matters; but, whatever our employment may be; we have to be in the world, and we have to conquer it; to be in the world, yet not of it—as much separated from the rest of mankind as if we belonged to an alien race—conquerors of it wherever we go, not by getting out of it, but by mingling with the men and women in it—doing all that is lawful and right, and all that is expected that a man should do to his fellow-men; yet, all the while, being conquerors over the evil spirit of the world.

Now, having shown you what this conquest of the world is not, let; us turn to the positive side of the question, and see what it is.  The first thing that is necessary with many who are seeking to overcome the world is, to cut themselves loose from the world’s customs. They were born into the world; one man has his own little world and another man has another little world; but every man, sooner or later, finds himself in a world of sin.  There are ungodly companions with whom he is linked—evil associations to which he is bound.  There are some men who, in their unconverted state, give themselves up entirely to the pleasures of the world, the amusements and frivolities of what is called “Society.”  Now, if such men ever expect to overcome the world, the very first thing they must do is to cut their old connections altogether, to sever all the bonds which unite them to those who lead them into sin.

Such a thing has often happened as for a man, who has been the best of company, and the choicest of good fellows among worldlings, to sit down in quietness for half an hour, and God the Holy Ghost has wrought so mightily upon his heart that he has said to himself, “What have I been doing but playing the fool to make other fools laugh?  How am I spending my time?  I must honestly say that I am doing no real good with it.  What am I making of my manhood?  Here it is—well-nigh six feet of it, and it will soon lie in six feet of earth—what am I doing that is really worth the doing?  Am I not really wasting my time?  This style of living will not do.” Ah! the blessed Spirit has begun working in the man, and he has wept before his God as he has thought over his wasted life.  Further, he has, by faith, looked to Jesus on the cross, and he has said, “Thou, blessed Savior, hast redeemed me; so, henceforth, I will be thine.  As I live by thee, I will live for thee, and for my fellow-men.”

After arriving, by God’s grace, at that decision, he has become a different man from what he used to be.  His old companions could not get him back to his former haunts, however much they might try to do so.  Even if he should go there, they would not long want him with them, for he would not be any longer of their way of thinking or their way of acting, for he would be a changed man altogether.  There are many of you who would like to come to that decision, but you never appear willing actually to decide to serve the Lord; you are always going to do it, yet you never do it.  You hesitating people are the most unhappy folk in the whole world, for you neither get comfort out of your present condition, nor out of that better condition after which you sometimes aspire, but which you have not the courage resolutely to seek after until you find it.  Some men have just enough conscience to make them miserable, but they have not enough force in it to make them determine that things shall be altered.  Their religion is very much like the experience of certain boys who, professedly, go out to bathe in the early morning.  They put their toes into the water, and shiver all over with the cold; but the brave swimmer takes a header, plunges right in, is soon in a fine glow and comes out praising the delightful bath he has had.  I would urge every man who is just now upon the point of deciding—and I pray God the Holy Spirit, with his almighty energy, to back up my urging—that he may now say-

“‘Tis done,—the great transaction’s done,

I am my Lord’s, and he is mine.”

I pray that he may henceforth be, a changed man, that he may forsake his former evil ways, and live wholly unto God.  That is the first part of overcoming the world—breaking loose from its bonds, so that one can say, “I am not tied down by it any longer; by God’s grace, I am a free man in Christ Jesus.”

But that emancipation is merely a beginning.  Overcoming the world further consists in maintaining that freedom. Oh, what a work is this!  It is no child’s play for a man to say, “No, I will never again be the slave that I used to be.  By God’s eternal grace, I have broken off this fetter and that, and never again shall those chains be fastened upon me.  Great God, by thine almighty love, thou hast loosed my bonds; I am thy free man; I am free indeed, and I will fight for my freedom, and under no possible circumstances will I go back again to my old slavery.”  Ay, but that fight is the difficulty; and I shall have to show you that nobody can be victorious in that fight unless he is one of a peculiar race—-those who are born of God, born from above.  This is a stern battle—when the world surrounds us everywhere,—when pleasure tempts us,—when gain tries to corrupt us,—when poverty assails us,—when evil company seeks to sway us,—it is hard for us to come right straight, out of all our former associations, and then to keep out—remaining conquerors over the world throughout the whole of the rest of our life; and being conquerors even in death, having vanquished the world even on our dying bed.

Part of the overcoming of the world consists in our being raised above circumstances. Remember how the apostle Paul had conquered the world.  He sat in prison shivering with the cold; but he said, “I know how to be abased.”  He went, by-and-by, into the houses of some of his friends, where they gave him all that he could desire; and he said, “I know how to abound.”  It is not an easy thing to be such a master of the world that the utmost poverty cannot make you miserable; yet God can give you grace to say, “I can be poor, but I will be upright. I can lose every stick that I have, but I will stand fast by Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior; and while I have him, I cannot be cast down.”

I say that; the fight against poverty is a very stern one; but the battle against the seductions of wealth is a far sterner one.  Perhaps some of you think that you would like to fight that battle; I daresay you would, but you do not know what you are wishing.  I see many men who are very gracious under all sorts of want; and I see many other men who, in proportion as they grow rich in worldly things, grow poor as to spiritual things.  Very often, just in proportion as men get high in earthly position, in that proportion they cease to do any thing that is of any particular service to anybody.  I do not know what would become of any of us if we were made peers of the realm.  It is, I have no doubt, a great trial to anybody to be so exalted; but there is scarcely a person here who could wear a coronet and yet faithfully serve the Lord; and probably there is not a man or a woman among us who could endure the trial of being made a king or a queen.  It needs more than a world of grace to overcome the world when the world makes much of you.  When God does give us piety in high places, as, blessed be his holy name, he sometimes does, we ought to be most grateful for it, for it is a plant that does not grow well in such a situation as that.  The old couplet is still true,—

“Gold and the gospel seldom do agree,

Religion always sides with poverty.”

It has been so from the first, and I suppose, it will be so to the last.  But the true conquest of the world is, to be indifferent about all such things—to be grateful for abounding mercies, and to be grateful even for straitened circumstances.  They used to say, “Philosophers can be merry without music,” and, certainly, Christians can be happy without having their cup perpetually full.  “I have learned,” said the apostle Paul, “in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.”  Happy are all they who have learned the same lesson, for this is overcoming the world.

Once more, dear friends, to overcome the world is to be above its threats and above its bribes. You working-men, who are Christians, often have a hard time of it; but when your work-mates mock and jeer at you, and call you ill names, never mind them.  Overcome the world by patiently enduring all the persecution that falls to your lot.  Do not get angry and do not become downhearted.  Jests break no bones; and if you had any bone broken for Christ’s sake, it would be the most honored one in your whole body.  Still, you need not wish to have the friendship of this world, and you must not expect to have it, for the world loves not God’s people.  Look how it served them in ages gone by; hanging was thought to be too good for them, so it roasted them alive.  The world would have exterminated the saints if it could have done so; and, today, what does the world say of Christians?  “Oh! they are either fools or fanatics, or else they are a set of canting hypocrites.”  If a man preaches the gospel, and many are drawn to hear him, cavillers cry, “Oh! He is a mountebank.”  If any Christian man is very precise, and particular, they say, “Ugh! He is one of the sniveling Puritans.”  They never know anything bad enough to say of genuine Christians.  They do not like us; it were a pity that they should, for they did not like our Master, and they do not like our Father.  If we will consent to hide our doctrines or to daub them over with the philosophical luminous paint of the present period, they will put up with us; but if we bring out pure gospel truth, straightway they will be down upon us.

Yet there are some of God’s people that the world does love, when they do the world a good turn.  If their love to man leads them to a high philanthropy, and if the world can get anything out of them, it does not mind loving them.  It has a cupboard love even to saints; and if there is any profit to be made out of them, the world will love them, though not their saintship.  They like Mr. So-and-So as a politician; but when it, comes to his religion, they say, “That is his weak point.”  They do not care to interfere with that.  They admire another man because of his care for the poor—the widow and the fatherless; but they have the doctrine of the cross which he delights to preach and which is to him the very joy of his heart.

On the other hand, when the world cannot frighten us by frowns, it often tries to woo us by smiles.  “Oh!” it cries to us, “you really are righteous overmuch, you are too good.  You need not be so precise; come just a little way with us, yield only an inch, that is all we ask.”  No, brethren, yield no inches for all the smiles on this Jezebel’s painted face; but stand out just as boldly against her blandishments as against her thunderbolts.  Care nothing for her opinion or hear action either way; for, if you do, you will not have overcome the world.  God help us, by his gracious Spirit, to be conquerors in that sense!

To overcome the world, further, means to be above the influence of the world’s example. As I said before, we have, each one of us, our own little world; and we all are, to a certain degree, subject to the influences of those who surround us.  The young man, in business, who begins as a Christian, is too often influenced by the pernicious maxims and customs of the trade with which he is connected.  Men mingle in society and each one to some extent affects the others.  How often is a pious child grievously affected by an ungodly parent!  How frequently a gracious servant is ill-affected by an ungodly master or mistress!  But if you really overcome the world, you will live above its influence.  You will be like one, who is obliged to go where the air is foul and disease is rife, but who has such a healthy constitution that he does not catch the disease and is not polluted by the impurity.  There is no seed-plot within him for the disease to grow upon.  Blessed is that man who is himself an example to his fellows—who does not so much come under the influence of others as cast his own influence over others.  God make all of you, beloved, such true leaders of mankind in the right direction because you have yourselves overcome the world!

If you want to see, the portrait of a man who overcame the world, look at Abraham.  He was at home with his father in Haran, and God said to him, “Come forth;” and away he went, with Sarah, and Lot, and their flocks and herds.  The well-watered plain of Jordan lay before him, and he might have settled in it, as Lot did; but it did not tempt him, he dwelt alone, with his flocks and his herds, where God had bidden him go.  The king of Sodom, and Abraham’s nephew, Lot, were carried away captive; and, for the sake of Lot, Abraham went with a band of men, smote the allied kings and delivered the prisoners.  The king of Sodom said to him, “Give me the persons and take the goods to thyself.”  Now, according to the rules of war, the spoil were all Abraham’s; but, oh, how grandly did he behave!  He was not going to be conquered by the world, so he said to the king of Sodom, “I will not take from a thread even to a shoe latchet, I will not take anything that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich;”— which was as much as saying, “I have a right to it if I like to take it, but I waive my rights, I act from higher motives than the ordinary rules of men can supply; the Lord Jehovah is my Helper and Provider, and I live upon what he gives me.  He can make me rich without the help of the king of Sodom, so take your goods, and go.”

See also how nobly he overcame the world on that memorable day when God said, “I will now see whether Abraham really does love me best of all.  He has one boy—the child of his old age—and I will tell him to offer him up in sacrifice.”  And grandly did the patriarch, in that fiery trial, overcome the world; for Isaac was, practically, all the world to him on that day when he unsheathed the knife and proved that his love to God was superior to everything else; and this is the kind of conquest to which you, beloved, are also called.  May God grant that you may be well equipped for it and be truly victorious in it!

II. Now, secondly, I think you will be prepared, after my giving this explanation of what it is to overcome, the world, to hear about THE CONQUERING NATURE: “Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world.”

Do you all know what it is to be born of God?  I do not think I can tell you, in so many words, exactly what it is, though I know for myself.  It is not simply to be improved and reformed.  It is a grand thing when a man, who has been degraded, lives in a better fashion; but a cobbler might take an old shoe, and mend it, yet that would not make it a new one.  Being born of God is also more than being made anew.  It includes that, but that is not all that it includes.  For God, Who makes all things, can new-make them when he pleases; yet that does not make them to be born of him.  We all know what it is for one person to be born of another; you were all born of your father, and of your mother, and so you became partakers of your parents’ nature.  In like manner, only in a far higher sense, regeneration is more than creation, for there is in it a kinship with God.  So, being born again makes us something more than God’s creatures; we are God’s children.  You know that blessed truth of adoption, by which God takes men and adopts them into his family; but regeneration is a great deal more than adoption.  A man may have an adopted child, but yet it is really no child of his; there is nothing of himself in it, and he cannot put his nature into it.  But we are not only God’s adopted children; if we are indeed born from above, we are God’s newborn children.  The divine nature is actually put into us when we are born of God; is not that a wonderful thing?  And that miracle of mercy must be wrought in all of us who are ever to overcome the world.

For notice this, no nature but the divine nature will ever try to overcome the world. By nature, we are of the world; and that which is of the world will not fight against the world, it will not even think of doing so.  “That which is born of the flesh is flesh;” and flesh will not fight against flesh.  Our Lord Jesus said to the Jews, “Ye are of your father the devil;” but the devil will not fight against the world or try to overcome it, for his course is the course of this world, he is the prince of it.  But where the divine nature comes, it comes to fight against the world.  The holy nature of God never enters into a man but what that man cries, “Now will I be wholly free from sin; now will I shake off every fetter of it.”  “Now,” saith he, under the power of this divine inner life, “I do scorn the thought that I, who am born of God, should be a slave to sin—that I, who bear within me something of the Deity—I, who am a twice-born man, begotten again by God the everlasting Father, of whom I here become a child—I loathe the very idea of yielding to sin.”  That is the kind of man to overcome the world because of the divine nature within him.

For, see, the regenerated man is sure to overcome the world, when he goes to fight against it, because, first, he has the Spirit of the Father in him. Now, God the Father is the world’s Creator; so the world can never be a match for its Creator.  He made it, and he can destroy it whenever he pleases to do so.  It is not possible that sin should overcome God, for, as the apostle James tells us, “God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.”   He is by nature perfectly holy and when this divine nature is put into a man, it is still holy, and it cannot sin, because it is born of God.

This new nature is also akin to the nature of Christ; and you know how the second Person of the blessed Trinity—the Christ of God, dwelt here among men, and the world could never overcome him.  Men could kill him, and they did; but they could not make him sin.  They could drive him from place to place; but they could not make him angry, they could not provoke him to speak any word that he might afterwards regret.  They could never get anything from him which, was worthy of reproach or of rebuke.  They called all the witnesses they could to testify against him; but even the false witnesses could not agree together, for he was “holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.”  And even on the cross of Calvary, when they hung him up to die, his dying pangs could extort from him nothing but a prayer, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  And thus he conquered the world, for the human nature in him, blended with the divine, could not be conquered by the world, it was not possible.

Further, we become akin to the Divine Spirit by being born of God, and the Holy Spirit cannot be conquered by the world.  It is he that doth convince the world of sin.  It is he that shall yet win this world for Christ.  He is omnipotent; so, when the Spirit of God dwelleth within us, as he does when we receive the divine nature, it is not possible that he should be conquered, or that we should be conquered by the world.

Now, men and brethren, harken to these words.  Do you not see that you must overcome the world, or else you will perish?  But you cannot overcome the world as you are.  You must, therefore, be born again.  Your only hope lies in your being born of God; and this, if it is even to take place, must be God’s work.  It is God alone who can do it; so you are like ships on their beam-ends, you cannot “right” yourselves.  Cry, therefore, with your whole heart unto God, and ask him to work this miracle in you.”

Salvation is of the Lord.”  He can save you.  He can take away the heart of stone out of your flesh, and give you a heart of flesh.  He can breathe upon the dry bones, and make them live.  Ay, he, the mysterious Father of our spirits can create in us a new spirit that shall be begotten of himself and be like unto himself; and this we must have, or we can never overcome the world.

III. Now, thirdly, and lastly, I have to speak of THE CONQUERING WEAPON WHICH IS USED BY THIS NEW NATURE: “This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.”

It never entered into my head that most professing Christians would ever overcome the world.  I do not think they ever will, for the world has, to a large extent, overcome them.  You may hear some of them asking, “How far may we go in worldly amusements?”  You really want to go, do you not?  Then go; for it does not matter much where such people as you are to go.  “Oh, but we should like to go as far into the world as we might!”  Would, you?  Then, my Lord’s message to you is, “Ye must be born again.”  It is quite evident that you have not the nature of God in you, for the divine nature in the soul makes it start back, and say, “How far can I get away from anything that looks like wrong?  I hate the very appearance of evil.”  The Christian man does not deny himself this or that, merely because he feels under an obligation to do so, or because he dreads the lash of God’s whip.  No; if he could indulge his new nature to the full, he would continually swim in the sea of perfection.  If he could be what he wishes to be, he would never think a wrong thought, much less speak an evil word.  Now, the divine nature that is in him fights against sin, it cannot help doing so; and it clings to that which is good, and craves after that which is right.  Just as the ox longs to drink water, and stands in a pool of it on a hot day, and drinks and drinks again, so does the Christian seek to drink in the life and purity of God—not because he is told to do so, or because some outside force operates upon him; but because the new nature is within him, and he longs, therefore, to indulge it to the full:; and that new nature, being the nature of God, longeth after that which is pure, and lovely, and of good report.

The instrument with which this new nature fights against the world is faith; and faith conquers, first, by regarding the unseen reward which awaits us. The world comes and offers pleasure as the reward of sin; but faith says, “There are greater pleasures to be had by abstaining from sin.”  The world says, “Take this gain today;” but faith says, “No, I will put what I have out at interest; there is something infinitely better to be had hereafter.”  In its beginning, faith generally works in that way; it despises all the treasures of Egypt and values far more the eternal rewards that Christ has laid up for it in heaven.  But do you not see that there is a measure of selfishness there in both cases?  The sinner sins in order to be happy, as he thinks; and the newborn man abstains from sin in order to be happy.  Well, that is a good thing to do, though the motive be not the most commendable; and there is a measure of faith about it, for faith is looking for the future rewards, and believes in the heaven which God hath prepared for them that love him.

But as faith grows, it attains to something better than that; for it recognizes the unseen Presence which is with us. The world says, “Come with us, and go our way.  We will pat you on the back and say that you are a good fellow; and you will have a fine time if you come with us.”  But faith says, “I do not trouble about how I appear to your eye, for there is another eye which I can see, but which you cannot see, for God is looking at me, and I am most of all concerned to be right in his sight.”  Faith realizes that the newborn nature is in the divine presence, and thus makes God’s presence to be just as real, and just as vivid as the presence of men; and that presence of God altogether outweighs the presence of men, and the believing soul says to the world, “To please you, I dare not do that which is wrong in the sight of God; for who are you, compared with the Most High God?  I will not do wrong in order to escape your frown; for, by so doing, I should receive the frown of God, and I must maintain my integrity before him.”

That, you see, is a higher position than the one I first mentioned; for faith not only regards the unseen reward which awaits the believer but faith recognizes the unseen presence of God, and is moved by an all-constraining desire to please him.

That was a very striking incident in the life of our dear brother Oncken, of Germany, when the burgomaster of Hamburg said to him, “I hear sir, that you have been baptizing at night.”  “I have, sir,” he replied, “because the law will not permit me to do it by day.”  “How dare you immerse these persons?” asked the burgomaster.  “I dare to do it,” answered Mr. Oncken, “because it is the law of God”  “And you have done it in defiance of the law of the land!  Now, sir, do you see that little finger of mine?”  “Yes,” replied Mr. Oncken, “I see it.”  “Well, sir, as long as that little finger lives, I will keep you down, for I am determined to put an end to this movement.”  “But, Mr. Burgomaster,” said Mr. Oncken, “not only can I see your little finger, but I can also see a great arm, which you do not see.  That is the arm of the eternal God; and as long as that arm can move, you will not be able to put me down, for I am only doing the will of Jehovah.”  Years after that stormy scene, I went to Drench in Hamburg in connection with the opening of my brother Oncken’s chapel; and among the notable gentlemen who helped to honor that occasion by their presence was that very burgomaster.  He still had his little finger, but he was not there to put Mr. Oncken down.  He came to contribute to Mr. Oncken’s work, and to show that the great arm of God had beaten the little finger of the burgomaster.  That kind of experience has been many times repeated in the world.  The men of the world resolve to put us down, but it cannot be done.  If we were simply of men, we might be put down; but we are of God, and the divine nature in us must conquer in the long run.

When faith rises still further, it feels that the soul so loves God: and so wishes to delight in him, and becomes so closely united to God, that it takes treasure in all that in which God takes pleasure. It is true faith that believes that God takes pleasure in the humble actions of poor creatures such as we are; but our faith has that confidence.  It believes God to be a kind and tender Father, delighting in what his children do; and, therefore, faith says, “I cannot grieve him; so, begone from me, sinful world!  Away with your gold, and your silver, and your smiles, and your frowns; I dare not be influenced by any of these things, and so grieve my God.”  And, daily, as faith grows stronger and stronger, it tramples the world more and more under its feet, and altogether abhors it.

To the genuine Christian, Christ is life’s one aim.  He sets that mark before him, and shoots at it. I once saw a colonel shooting at a target.  There were two targets near each other, and he made a center at one of them.  The attendant called out, “Which target was that gentleman shooting at?”  “The one on the left,” was the answer.  “I thought so,” said the man, “for he hit the one on the right.”  There are some people who are always shooting at the world, and it seems to be their great aim to hit it; but the Christian man is ever aiming at Christ; and if he has not made the center yet, he will shoot again and again until he does for his great desire is that he may live for Christ alone, and be found in him, not having his own righteousness “which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith,”

So, I hope you see that, if faith be the conquering weapon, and we intend to be conquerors, we must become believers in the invisible God; and in order to exercise faith in the invisible God in Christ Jesus, we must be born again; for, until that new nature comes into us, we never do believe in Christ.  We may believe a great deal in ourselves, we may believe in worldly society, in its threats, or in its bribes; but we do not believe in Christ.  But how blessed is that man who, at the last, will be able to say, “I have faithfully served my God.  I have turned neither to the right hand nor to the left.  I have not considered myself; I have courted no man’s praise, I have not sought self or gain.  What I had to spare, I gave to God’s cause and to the poor.  What I could gather, I distributed according to the necessities of my fellow-men.  I have lived for God, and for Christ, and for the truth; but I have not lived for myself.”  The man who can truthfully say that is a saved man.  Whether you know it or not, my friend, that is salvation—to be saved from sin and from self; and there is no getting salvation from the groveling meanness of selfishness except by being born again; for self clings to every man until he is born again, and it is not always gone even then.  Satan spoke the truth when he said to the Lord, “Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.”  He will not be ready to part with life itself until he gets a higher life, and a better one imparted to him by the Spirit of God.

Again I say that this truth throws us on our beam-ends.  If we are to be saved, we must look to God; we must seek salvation at his hands, we must ask him for faith; and what a mercy it is that he waits to give it!  You be nothing and God will be everything to you. Get to the end of yourself, and that will be a proof that God has already begun with you.  Cease to believe in your own merits, or your own virtues; put away all trust in yourself; and come and trust in God as he is revealed in his Son Jesus Christ; and you have received that salvation, which will keep on progressing until all sin shall be driven out of you, and you shall dwell for ever where Jesus is—as unselfish as Jesus is,—as pure, as blessed, as glorious as he is.  God grant this to us all, for Christ’s sake!  Amen.

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“Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.” — Philippians 4:4

There is a marvelous medicinal power in joy.  Most medicines are distasteful; but this, which is the best of all medicines, is sweet to the taste and comforting to the heart.  We noticed, in our reading, that there had been a little tiff between two sisters in the church at Philippi — I am glad that we do not know what the quarrel was about; I am usually thankful for ignorance on such subjects — but, as a cure for disagreements, the apostle says, “Rejoice in the Lord always.”  People who are very happy, especially those who are very happy in the Lord, are not apt either to give offense or to take offense.  Their minds are so sweetly occupied with higher things, that they are not easily distracted by the little troubles which naturally arise among such imperfect creatures as we are.

Joy in the Lord is the cure for all discord.  Should it not be so?  What is this joy but the concord of the soul, the accord of the heart, with the joy of heaven?  Joy in the Lord, then, drives away the discords of earth.

Further, brethren, notice that the apostle, after he had said, “Rejoice in the Lord always,” commanded the Philippians to be careful for nothing, thus implying that joy in the Lord is one of the best preparations for the trials of this life.  The cure for care is joy in the Lord.  No, my brother, you will not be able to keep on with your fretfulness; no, my sister, you will not be able to weary yourself any longer with your anxieties, if the Lord will but fill you with his joy.  Then, being satisfied with your God, yea, more than satisfied, overflowing with delight in him, you will say to yourself, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.”  What is there on earth that is worth fretting for even for five minutes?  If one could gain an imperial crown by a day of care, it would be too great an expense for a thing which would bring more care with it.  Therefore, let us be thankful; let us be joyful in the Lord.  I count it one of the wisest things that, by rejoicing in the Lord, we commence our heaven here below.  It is possible so to do, it is profitable so to do, and we are commanded so to do.

Now I come to the text itself, “Rejoice in the Lord always; and again I say, Rejoice.”

I. First, consider THE GRACE COMMANDED, this grace of joy; “Rejoice in the Lord,” says the apostle.

In the first place, this is a very delightful thing. What a gracious God we serve, who makes delight to be a duty, and who commands us to rejoice!  Should we not at once be obedient to such a command as this?  It is intended that we should be happy.  That is the meaning of the precept that we should be cheerful; more than that, that we should be thankful; more than that, that we should rejoice.  I think this word “rejoice” is almost a French word; it is not only joy, but it is joy over again, rejoice.  You know re usually signifies the re-duplication of a thing, the taking it over again.  We are to joy, and then we are to re-joy.  We are to chew the cud of delight; we are to roll the dainty morsel under our tongue till we get the very essence out of it.  “Rejoice.”  Joy is a delightful thing.  You cannot be too happy, brother.  Nay, do not suspect yourself of being wrong because you are full of delight.  You know it is said of the divine wisdom, “Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.”  Provided that it is joy in the Lord, you cannot have too much of it.  The fly is drowned in the honey, or the sweet syrup into which he plunges himself; but this heavenly syrup of delight will not drown your soul or intoxicate your heart.  It will do you good, and not evil, all the days of your life.  God never commanded us to do a thing which would really harm us; and when he bids us rejoice, we may be sure that this is as delightful as it is safe, and as safe as it is delightful.  Come, brothers and sisters, I am inviting you now to no distasteful duty when, in the name of my Master, I say to you, as Paul said to the Philippians under the teaching of the Holy Spirit, “Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.”

But, next, this is a demonstrative duty: “Rejoice in the Lord.”  There may be such a thing as a dumb joy, but I hardly think that it can keep dumb long.  Joy! Joy!  Why, it speaks for itself!  It is like a candle lighted in a chamber; you need not sound a trumpet, and say, “Now light has come.”  The candle proclaims itself by its own brilliance; and when joy comes into a man, it shines out of his eyes, it sparkles in his countenance.  There is a something about every limb of the man that betokens that his body, like a well-tuned harp, has had its strings put in order.  Joy — it refreshes the marrow of the bones; it quickens the flowing of the blood in the veins; it is a healthy thing in all respects.  It is a speaking thing, a demonstrative thing; and I am sure that joy in the Lord ought to have a tongue.

When the Lord sends you affliction, sister, you generally grumble loudly enough; when the Lord tries you, my dear brother, you generally speak fast enough about that.  Now when, on the other hand, the Lord multiplies his mercies to you, speak about it, sing about it! I cannot recollect, since I was a boy, ever seeing in the newspaper columns of thankfulness and expressions of delight about the prosperity of business in England.  It is a long, long time since I was first able to read newspapers — a great many years now; but I do not recollect the paragraphs in which it was said that everybody was getting on in the world and growing rich; but as soon as there was any depression in business, what lugubrious articles appeared concerning the dreadful times which had fallen upon the agricultural interest and every other interest!  Oh, my dear brethren, from the way some of you grumble, I might imagine you were all ruined if I did not know better!  I knew some of you when you were not worth two pence, and you are pretty well-to-do now; you have got on uncommonly well for men who are being ruined!

From the way some people talk, you might imagine that everybody is bankrupt, and that we are all going to the dogs together; but it is not so, and what a pity it is that we do not give the Lord some of our praises when we have better times!  If we are so loud and so eloquent over our present woes, why could we not have been as eloquent and as loud in thanksgiving for the blessings that God formerly vouchsafed to us?  Perhaps the mercies buried in oblivion have been to heaven and accused us to the Lord, and therefore he has sent us the sorrows of today.  True joy, when it is joy in the Lord, must speak; it cannot hold its tongue, it must praise the name of the Lord.

Further, this blessed grace of joy is very contagious. It is a great privilege, I think, to meet a truly happy man, a graciously happy man.  My mind goes back at this moment to that dear man of God who used to be with us, years ago, whom we called “Old Father Dransfield.”  What a lump of sunshine that man was!  I think that I never came into this place with a heavy heart, but the very sight of him seemed to fill me with exhilaration, for his joy was wholly in his God!  An old man and full of years, but as full of happiness as he was full of days; always having something to tell you to encourage you.  He constantly made a discovery of some fresh mercy for which we were again to praise God.  O dear brethren, let us rejoice in the Lord, that we may set others rejoicing! One dolorous spirit brings a kind of plague into the house; one person who is always wretched seems to stop all the birds singing wherever he goes; but, as the birds pipe to each other, and one morning songster quickens all the rest, and sets the groves ringing with harmony, so will it be with the happy cheerful spirit of a man who obeys the command of the text, “Rejoice in the Lord always.”  This grace of joy is contagious.

Besides, dear brethren, joy in the Lord is influential for good. I am sure that there is a mighty influence wielded by a consistently joyous spirit.  See how little children are affected by the presence of a happy person.  There is much more in the tone of the life than there is in the particular fashion of the life.  It may be the life of one who is very poor, but oh, how poverty is gilded by a cheerful spirit!  It may be the life of one who is well read and deeply instructed; but, oh, if there be a beauty of holiness and a beauty of happiness added to the learning, nobody talks about “the blue stocking” or “the book-worm” being dull and heavy.  Oh, no, there is a charm about holy joy!  I wish we had more of it!  There are many more flies caught with honey than with vinegar; and there are many more sinners brought to Christ by happy Christians than by doleful Christians.  Let us sing unto the Lord as long as we live; and, mayhap, some weary sinner, who has discovered the emptiness of sinful pleasure, will say to himself, “Why, after all, there must be something real about the joy of these Christians; let me go and learn how I may have it.”  And when he comes and sees it in the light of your gladsome countenance, he will be likely to learn it, God helping him, so as never to forget it.  “Rejoice in the Lord always,” says the apostle, for joy is a most influential grace, and every child of God ought to possess it in a high degree.

I want you to notice, dear friends, that this rejoicing is commanded. It is not a matter that is left to your option; it is not set before you as a desirable thing which you can do without, but it is a positive precept of the Holy Spirit to all who are in the Lord: “Rejoice in the Lord always.”  We ought to obey this precept because joy in the Lord makes us like God.  He is the happy God; ineffable bliss is the atmosphere in which he lives, and he would have his people to be happy.  Let the devotees of Baal cut themselves with knives and lancets and make hideous outcries if they will; but the servants of Jehovah must not even mar the corners of their beard.  Even if they fast, they shall anoint their head and wash their face, that they appear not unto men to fast, for a joyous God desires a joyous people.

You are commanded to rejoice, brethren, because this is for your profit.  Holy joy will oil the wheels of your life’s machinery.  Holy joy will strengthen you for your daily labor.  Holy joy will beautify you, and, as I have already said, give you an influence over the lives of others.  It is upon this point that I would most of all insist, we are commanded to rejoice in the Lord.  If you cannot speak the gospel, live the gospel by your cheerfulness; for what is the gospel?  Glad tidings of great joy; and you who believe it must show by its effect upon you that it is glad tidings of great joy to you I do believe that a man of God — under trial and difficulty and affliction, bearing up, and patiently submitting with holy acquiescence, and still rejoicing in God — is a real preacher of the gospel, preaching with an eloquence which is mightier than words can ever be, and which will find its secret and silent way into the hearts of those who might have resisted other arguments.  Oh, do, then, listen to the text, for it is a command from God, “Rejoice in the Lord always!”

May I just pause here, and hand this commandment round to all of you who are members of this church and to all of you who are truly members of Christ?  You are bidden to rejoice in the Lord always; you are not allowed to sit there, and fret, and fume; you are not permitted to complain and groan.  Mourner, you are commanded to put on beauty for ashes and the oil of joy for mourning.  For this purpose your Savior came, the Spirit of the Lord is upon him for this very end, that he might make you to rejoice.  Therefore, sing with the prophet, “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with a robe of  righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.”

II. Now we come to the second head, THE JOY DISCRIMINATED: “Rejoice in the Lord.”

Notice the sphere of this joy: “Rejoice in the Lord.”  We read in Scripture that children are to obey their parents “in the Lord.”  We read of men and women marrying “only in the Lord.”  Now, dear friends, no child of God must go outside that ring, “in the Lord.”  There is where you are, where you ought to be, where you must be.  You cannot truly rejoice if you get outside that ring; therefore, see that you do nothing which you cannot do “in the Lord.”  Mind that you seek no joy which is not joy in the Lord; if you go after the poisonous sweets of this world, woe be to you.  Never rejoice in that which is sinful, for all such rejoicing is evil.  Flee from it; it can do you no good.  That joy which you cannot share with God is not a right joy for you.  No; “in the Lord” is the sphere of your joy.

But I think that the apostle also means that God is to be the great object of your joy: “Rejoice in the Lord.”  Rejoice in the Father, your Father who is in heaven, your loving, tender, unchangeable God.  Rejoice, too, in the Son, your Redeemer, your Brother, the Husband of your soul, your Prophet, Priest, and King. Rejoice also in the Holy Ghost, your Quickener, your Comforter, in him who shall abide with you forever.  Rejoice in the one God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob; in him delight yourselves, as it is written, “Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.”  We cannot have too much of this joy in the Lord, for the great Jehovah is our exceeding joy.

Or if, by “the Lord” is meant the Lord Jesus, then let me invite, persuade, command you to delight in the Lord Jesus, incarnate in your flesh, dead for your sins, risen for your justification, gone into the glory claiming victory for you, sitting at the right hand of God interceding for you, reigning over all worlds on your behalf, and soon to come to take you up into his glory that you may be with him forever.  Rejoice in the Lord Jesus.  This is a sea of delight; blessed are they that dive into its utmost depths.

Sometimes, brethren and sisters, you cannot rejoice in anything else, but you can rejoice in the Lord; then, rejoice in him to the full.  Do not rejoice in your temporal prosperity, for riches take to themselves wings and fly away.  Do not rejoice even in your great successes in the work of God.  Remember how the seventy disciples came back to Jesus, and said, “Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name,” and he answered, “Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.”  Do not rejoice in your privileges; I mean, do not make the great joy of your life to be the fact that you are favored with this and that external privilege or ordinance, but rejoice in God.  He changes not.  If the Lord be your joy, your joy will never dry up.  All other things are but for a season; but God is forever and ever.  Make him your joy, the whole of your joy, and then let this joy absorb your every thought.  Be baptized into this joy; plunge into the deeps of this unutterable bliss of joy in God.

III. Thirdly, let us think of THE TIME APPOINTED for this rejoicing: “Rejoice in the Lord always.”

“Always.”  Well, then, that begins at once, certainly; so let us now begin to rejoice in the Lord.  If any of you have taken a gloomy view of religion, I beseech you to throw that gloomy view away at once.  “Rejoice in the Lord always,” therefore, rejoice in the Lord now.  I recollect what a damper I had, as a young Christian, when I had but lately believed in Jesus Christ.  I felt that, as the Lord had said, “He that believeth in me hath everlasting life,” I, having believed in him, had everlasting life, and I said so with the greatest joy and delight and enthusiasm to an old Christian man; and he said to me, “Beware of presumption!  There are a great many who think they have eternal life, but who have not got it.”  Which was quite true; but, for all that, is there not more presumption in doubting God’s promise than there is in believing it? Is there any presumption in taking God at his word?  Is there not gross presumption in hesitating and questioning as to whether these things are so or not?  If God says that they are so, then they are so, whether I feel that they are so or not; and it is my place, as a believer, to accept God’s bare word, and rest on it.

“We count checks as cash,” said one who was making up accounts.  Good checks are to be counted as cash, and the promises of God, though as yet unfulfilled, are as good as the blessings themselves, for God cannot lie or make a promise that he will not perform.  Let us, therefore, not be afraid of being glad, but begin to be glad at once if we have hitherto taken a gloomy view of true religion and have been afraid to rejoice.

When are we to be glad?  “Rejoice in the Lord always;” that is, when you cannot rejoice in anything or anyone but God. When the fig-tree does not blossom, when there is no fruit on the vine and no herd in the stall, when everything withers and decays and perishes, when the worm at the root of the gourd has made it to die, then rejoice in the Lord.  When the day darkens into evening, and the evening into midnight, and the midnight into a sevenfold horror of great darkness, rejoice in the Lord; and when that darkness does not clear, but becomes more dense and Egyptian, when night succeedeth night, and neither sun nor moon nor stars appear, still rejoice in the Lord always.  He who uttered these words had been a night and a day in the deep, he had been stoned, he had suffered from false brethren, he had been in peril of his life, and yet most fittingly do those lips cry out to us, “Rejoice in the Lord always.”  Ay, at the stake itself have martyrs fulfilled this word; they clapped their hands amid the fire that was consuming them.  Therefore, rejoice in the Lord when you cannot rejoice in any other.

But also take care that you rejoice in the Lord when you have other things to rejoice in. When he loads your table with good things and your cup is overflowing with blessings, rejoice in him more than in them. Forget not that the Lord your Shepherd is better than the green pastures and the still waters and rejoice not in the pastures or in the waters in comparison with your joy in the Shepherd who gives you all.  Let us never make gods out of our goods; let us never allow what God gives us to supplant the Giver.  Shall the wife love the jewels that her husband gave her better than she loves him who gave them to her?  That were an evil love, or no love at all.  So, let us love God first and rejoice in the Lord always when the day is brightest and multiplied are the other joys that he permits us to have.

“Rejoice in the Lord always.”  That is, if you have not rejoiced before, begin to do so at once; and when you have long rejoiced, keep on at it. I have known, sometimes, that things have gone so smoothly that I have said, “There will be a check to this prosperity; I know that there will.  Things cannot go on quite so pleasantly always.”

“More the treacherous calm I dread

Than tempests lowering overhead.”

One is apt to spoil his joy by the apprehension that there is some evil coming.  Now listen to this: “He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord.”  “Rejoice in the Lord always.”  Do not anticipate trouble.  “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”  Take the good that God provides thee and rejoice not merely in it, but in him who provided it.  So mayest thou enjoy it without fear, for there is good salt with that food which is eaten as coming from the hand of God.

“Rejoice in the Lord always.”  That is, when you get into company, then rejoice in the Lord. Do not be ashamed to let others see that you are glad.  Rejoice in the Lord also when you are alone; I know what happens to some of you on Sunday night.  You have had such a blessed Sabbath, and you have gone away from the Lord’s table with the very flavor of heaven in your mouths; and then some of you have had to go home where everything is against you.  The husband does not receive you with any sympathy with your joy, or the father does not welcome you with any fellowship in your delight.  Well, but still, “Rejoice in the Lord always.” When you cannot get anybody else to rejoice with you, still continue to rejoice.  There is a way of looking at everything which will show you that the blackest cloud has a silver lining.  There is a way of looking at all things in the light of God, which will turn into sweetness that which otherwise had been bitter as gall.

I do not know whether any of you keep a quassia [a South American tree] cup at home.  If you do, you know that it is made of wood, and you pour water into the bowl, and the water turns bitter directly before you drink it.  You may keep this cup as long as you like, but it always embitters the water that is put into it.  I think that I know some dear brethren and sisters who always seem to have one of these cups handy.  Now, instead of that, I want you to buy a cup of another kind that shall make everything sweet, whatever it is.  Whatever God pleases to pour out of the bowl of providence shall come into your cup, and your contentment, your delight in God, shall sweeten it all.  God bless you, dear friends, with much of this holy joy!

IV. So now I finish with the fourth head, which is this, THE EMPHASIS LAID ON THE COMMAND: “Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say Rejoice.”

What does that mean, “Again I say, Rejoice?”  This was, first, to show Paul’s love for the Philippians. He wanted them to be happy.  They had been so kind to him, and they had made him so happy, that he said, “Oh, dear brethren, do rejoice; dear sisters, do rejoice.  I say it twice over to you, ‘Be happy, be happy,’ because I love you so well that I am anxious to have you beyond all things else to rejoice in the Lord always.”

I also think that, perhaps, he said it twice over to suggest the difficulty of continual joy. It is not so easy as some think always to rejoice.  It may be for you young people, who are yet strong in limb, who have few aches and pains, and none of the infirmities of life.  It may be an easy thing to those placed in easy circumstances, with few cares and difficulties; but there are some of God’s people who need great grace if they are to rejoice in the Lord always; and the apostle knew that, so he said, “Again I say, Rejoice.”  He repeats the precept, as much as to say, “I know it is a difficult thing, and so I the more earnestly press it upon you.  Again I say, Rejoice.”

I think, too, that he said it twice over, to assert the possibility of it. This was as much as if he had said, “I told you to rejoice in the Lord always.  You opened your eyes, and looked with astonishment upon me; but, ‘Again I say, Rejoice.’  It is possible, it is practicable; I have not spoken unwisely.  I have not told you to do what you never can do; but with deliberation I write it down, ‘Again I say, Rejoice.’  You can be happy.  God the Holy Ghost can lift you above the down-draggings of the flesh, and of the world, and of the devil; and you may be enabled to live upon the mount of God beneath the shinings of his face.  ‘Again I say, Rejoice.’”

Do you not think that this was intended also to impress upon them the importance of the duty?  “Again I say, Rejoice.”  Some of you will go and say, “I do not think that it matters much whether I am happy or not, I shall get to heaven, however gloomy I am, if I am sincere.”  “No,” says Paul, “that kind of talk will not do; I cannot have you speak like that.  Come, I must have you rejoice, I do really conceive it to be a Christian’s bounden duty, and so, ‘Again, I say, Rejoice.’”

But do you not think, also, that Paul repeated the command to allow of special personal testimony?  “Again, I say, Rejoice!  I, Paul, a sufferer to the utmost extent for Christ’s sake, even now an ambassador in bonds, shut up in a dungeon, I say to you, Rejoice.”  Paul was a greatly-tried man, but he was a blessedly happy man.  There is not one of us but would gladly change conditions with Paul, if that were possible, now that we see the whole of his life written out; and tonight, looking across the ages, over all the scenes of trouble which he encountered, he says to us, “Brethren, rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.”

Did you ever notice how full of joy this Epistle to the Philippians is?  Will you spare me just a minute while I get you to run your eye through it, to observe what a joyful letter it is?  You notice that, in the first chapter, Paul gets only as far as the fourth verse when he says, “Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy.”  Now he is in his right vein; he is so glad because of what God has done for the Philippians that, when he prays for them, he mixes joy with his prayer.  In the eighteenth verse, he declares that he found joy even in the opposition of those who preached Christ in order to rival him.  Hear what he says: “The one preaches Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds: but the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defense of the gospel.  What then?  Notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.”  And he does not finish the chapter till, in the twenty-fifth verse, he declares that he had joy even in the expectation of not going to heaven just yet, but living a little longer to do good to these people: “And having this confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with you all for your furtherance and joy of faith; that your rejoicing may be more abundant in Jesus Christ for me by my coming to you again.”  You see it is joy, joy, joy, joy.  Paul seems to go from stave to stave of the ladder of light, as if he were climbing up from Nero’s dungeon into heaven itself by way of continual joy.

So he writes, in the second verse of the second chapter, “Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.”  When he gets to the sixteenth verse, he says, “That I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain.”  But I am afraid that I should weary you if I went through the Epistle thus, slowly, verse by verse.  Just notice how he begins the third chapter: “Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord.”  The word is sometimes rendered “farewell.”  When he says, “Rejoice,” it is the counterpart of “welcome.”  We say to a man who comes to our house, “Salve,” “Welcome.”  When he goes away, it is our duty to “speed the parting guest,” and say, “Farewell.”  This is what Paul meant to say here. “Finally, my brethren, fare you well in the Lord.  Be happy in the Lord.  Rejoice in the Lord.”

And I do not think that I can finish up my sermon better than by saying on this Sabbath night, “Finally, my brethren, fare you well, be happy in the Lord.”

“Fare thee well! and if forever,

Still forever, fare thee well.”

May that be your position, so to walk with God that your fare shall be that of angels!  May you eat angels’ food, the manna of God’s love!  May your drink be from the rock that flows with a pure stream!  So may you feed and so may you drink until you come unto the mount of God, where you shall see his face unveiled, and standing in his exceeding brightness, shall know his glory, being glorified with the saved.  Till then, be happy.  Why, even —

“The thought of such amazing bliss,

Should constant joys create.”

Be happy.  If the present be dreary, it will soon be over.  Oh, but a little while, and we shall be transferred from these seats below to the thrones above!  We shall go from the place of aching brows to the place where they all wear crowns, from the place of weary hands to where they bear the palm branch of victory, from the place of mistake and error and sin, and consequent grief, to the place where they are without fault before the throne of God, for they have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.  Come, then, let us make a solemn league and covenant together in the name of God, and let it be called, “The Guild of the Happy;” for the–

“Favorites of the Heavenly King

May speak their joys abroad;”

nay, they must speak their joys abroad; let us endeavor to do so always, by the help of the Holy Spirit.  Amen and Amen.

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“But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them: let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee.” — Psalm 5:11

“The Lord doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel.”  There is an ancient difference which he has made in his eternal purpose; and this is seen in every item of the covenant of grace.  “The Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself;” but it is also written, “The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity.”  You that have believed are of the house of Israel, and heirs according to promise; for they that are of faith are the two seed of faithful Abraham.  See that ye make manifest this difference by the holiness of your lives.  “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing.”  Evermore display this difference by the joyfulness of your spirits.  Let not noisome cares invade you; for we read, “I will sever in that day the land of Goshen, in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there.”  Fear not that the wrathful judgment of God will fall indiscriminately; for we read, “Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, was there no hail.”  The servants of the Lord should wear the royal livery: that livery is made of the fine cloth of holiness, trimmed with the lace of joy.  Take care that you exhibit both holiness of character and joyfulness of spirit; for where these two things are in us, and abound, they make us that we be not barren nor unfruitful.  To us there should be joy, strikingly to contrast with the unrest of the unbeliever.  Over all the land of Egypt there was darkness which might be felt, even thick darkness, for three days: “They saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days: but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.”  If it be so with you, that the Lord has given you the light of joy, let your faces shine with it.  If you walk in the light as God is in the light, go forth and let men see the brightness of your countenances, and take knowledge of you that you have been with Jesus, and have learned of him his gracious calm, as well as his holiness. “Rejoice in the Lord always.”  Your Lord desires that your joy may be full.  He gives you a joy which no man taketh from you: it is his legacy.  “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.”

The subject for this morning is joy, the joy of faith, the joy which is the fruit of the Spirit from the root of trust in God.  May we not only talk about it at this hour, but enjoy it now and evermore!  It is pleasant to read, and hear, and think about joy; but to be filled with joy and peace through believing is a far more satisfying thing.  I want you to see not only the sparkling fountain of joy, but to drink deep draughts of it; yes, and drink all the week, and all the month, and all the year, and all the rest of your lives, both in time and in eternity. “Let the children of Zion be joyful in their King.”

I. First, let us speak a little upon THE KIND OF JOY WHICH IS ALLOTTED TO BELIEVERS: “Let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them: let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee.”

Note, first, concerning this joy, that it is to be universal to all who trust: “Let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice.”  This is not only for the healthy, but for the sickly; not only for the successful, but for the disappointed; not only for those who have the bird in the hand, but for those who only see it in the bush.  Let all rejoice!  If you have but a little faith, yet if you are trusting in the Lord, you have a right to joy.  It may be, your joy will not rise so high as it might do if your faith were greater; but still, where faith is true, it gives sure ground for joy.  O ye babes in grace, ye little children, you that have been newly converted, and sadly feel your feebleness, yet rejoice; for the Lord will bless them that fear him, “both small and great!”  “Fear not, thou worm Jacob.”  “Fear not, little flock.”  There is a joy which is as milk to nourish babes — a joy which is not as meat with bones in it; for the Lord addeth no sorrow therewith.  The little ones of the flock need not vex themselves concerning the deep things of God; for there is joy in those shallows of simple truth where lambs may safely wade.  The joy of the Lord is softened down to feeble constitutions, lest it overpower them.  The same great sea which floods the vast bays also flows into the tiny creeks.  “Let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice.”

You, Miss Much-afraid, over yonder, you are to rejoice! You, Mr. Despondency, hardly daring to look up, you must yet learn to sing.  As for Mr. Ready-to-halt, he must dance on his crutches, and Feeble-mind must play the music for him.  It is the mind of the Holy Ghost that those who trust in the Lord should rejoice before him.

This joy, in the next place, is to be as constant as to time as it is universal as to persons. “Let them ever shout for joy.”  Do not be content that a good time in the morning should be followed by dreariness in the afternoon.  Do not cultivate an occasional delight, but aim at perpetual joy.  To be happy at a revival meeting, and then go home to groan, is a poor business.  We should “feel like singing all the time.”  The believer has abiding arguments for abiding consolation.  There is never a time when the saint of God has not great cause for gladness; and if he never doubts and worries till he has a justifiable reason for distrust, he will never doubt nor worry.  “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again” — what? “always,” and yet does the apostle say, “and again?”  Yes, he would have us rejoice, and keep on rejoicing, and then rejoice more and more.  Brethren go on piling up your delights.  You are the blessed of the Lord, and his blessing reaches “unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills.”

Next, let your joy be manifested.  “Let them ever shout for joy.”  Shouting is an enthusiastic utterance, a method which men use when they have won a victory, when they divide the spoil, when they bear home the harvest, when they tread the vintage, when they drain the goblet.  Believers, you may shout for joy with unreserved delight.  Some religionists shout, and we would not wish to stop them; but we wish certain of them knew better what they are shouting for.  Brethren, since you know whom you have believed, and what you have believed, and what are the deep sources of your joy, do not be so sobered by your knowledge as to become dumb; but the rather imitate the children in the temple, who, if they knew little, loved much, and so shouted in praise of him they loved.  “Let them shout for joy.”  A touch of enthusiasm would be the salvation of many a man’s religion.

Some Christians are good enough people: they are like wax candles, but they are not lighted.  Oh, for a touch of flame!  Then would they scatter light, and thus become of service to their families.  “Let them shout for joy.”  Why not?  Let not orderly folks object.  One said to me the other day, “When I hear you preach I feel as if I must have a shout!”  My friend, shout if you feel forced to do so.  (Here a hearer cried, “Glory!”)  Our brother cries, “Glory!” and I say so too, “Glory!”  The shouting need not always be done in a public service, or it might hinder devout hearing; but there are times and places where a glorious outburst of enthusiastic joy would quicken life in all around.

The ungodly are not half so restrained in their blasphemy as we are in our praise.  How is this?  They go home making night hideous with their yells: are we never to have an outbreak of consecrated delight?  Yes, we will have our high days and holidays, and we will sing and shout for joy till even the heathen say, “The Lord hath done great things for them.”

This joy is to be repeated with variations. One likes, in music, to hear the same tune played in different ways.  So here you have it.  “Let them rejoice. Let them ever shout for joy.  Let them be joyful in thee.”  There is no monotony in real joy.  In the presence of mirth, one grows dull; but in living joy there is exhilaration.  Commend me to the springing well of heavenly joy: its waters are always fresh, clear, sparkling, springing up unto everlasting life.  Joy blends many colors in its one ray of light.  At times, it is quiet and sits still beneath a weight of glory.  I have known it weep, not salt drops, but sweet showers.  Have you never cried because of your joy in the Lord?  Sometimes joy labors for expression till it is ready to faint; and anon it sings till it rivals the angels.  Singing is the natural language of joy; but oftentimes silence suits it even better.  Our joy abides in Christ, whether we are quiet or shouting, whether we fall at our Lord’s feet as dead, or lean on his bosom in calm delight.

This joy is logical. When I was a child, and went to school, I remember learning out of a book called “Why and Because.”  Things one learns as a child stick in the memory; and therefore I like a text which has a “because” in it.  Here it is: “Let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them.”  Emotions are not fired by logic; and yet reasons furnish fuel for the flame.  A man may be sad, though he cannot explain his sadness, or he may be greatly glad, though he cannot set forth the reasons for his joy.  The joy of a believer in God has a firm foundation: it is not the baseless fabric of a vision.  The joy of faith burns like coals of juniper, and yet it can be calmly explained and justified.  The joyful believer is no lunatic, carried away by a delusion: he has a “because” with which to account for all his joy — a reason which he can consider on his bed in the night-watches, or defend against a scoffing world.  We have a satisfactory reason for our most exuberant joy: “The Lord hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad.”  Philosophers can be happy without music, and saints can be happy despite circumstances.  With joy we draw water out of deeper and fuller wells than such as father Jacob digged.  Our mirth is as soberly reasonable as the worldling’s fears.

Once more, the happiness is a thing of the heart; for the text runs thus — “Let them that love thy name be joyful in thee.”  We love God.  I trust I am speaking to many who could say, “Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee.”  Is it not a very happy emotion?  What is sweeter than to say, with the tears in one’s eyes — “My God, I love thee!”  To sit down and have nothing to ask for, no words to utter, but only for the soul to love — is not this heavenly?  Measureless depths of unutterable love are in the soul and, in those depths, we find the pearl of joy.  When the heart is taken up with so delightful an object as the ever-blessed God, it feels an intensity of joy which cannot be rivaled.  When our whole being is steeped in adoring love, then heaven comes streaming down, and we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.  I feel I am talking in a poor way about the richest things which are enjoyed by saintly men.  Many of you know as much about these matters as I do, perhaps more.  But my soul doth even now magnify the Lord, and my spirit doth rejoice in God my Savior.  Although I feel unworthy and unfit to speak to this vast throng, yet I have a great sympathy with my text, for I am “glad in the Lord.”

“Oh, what immortal joys I feel,

And raptures all divine

For Jesus tells me I am his,

And my Beloved mine!”

If you sit before the Lord at this time, and indulge your souls with an outflow of love to God and his Son Jesus Christ, and at the same time perceive an inflowing of heavenly joy, it will not much matter how the poor preacher speaks to your ear, for the Lord himself will be heard in your soul, and heaven will flood your being.

II. Now I come to the second head, wherein we will consider THE GROUND AND REASON OF HOLY JOY. I am bound to speak upon this matter; for I have told you that the joy of the believer is logical, and can be defended by facts; and so indeed it is.

For, first, the believer’s joy arises from the God in whom he trusts. “Let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice.”  When, after many a weary wandering, the dove of your soul has at last come back to the ark, and Noah has put out his hand and “pulled her in unto him,” the poor, weary creature is happy.  Taken into Noah’s hand and made to nestle in his bosom, she feels so safe, so peaceful!  The weary leagues of the wild waste of waters are all forgotten, or only remembered to give zest to the repose.

So, when you trust in God, your soul has found a quiet resting-place, a pavilion of repose!  The little chick runs to and fro in fear.  The mother hen calls it home.  She spreads her soft wings over the brood.  Have you never seen the little chicks when they are housed under the hen, how they put out their little heads through the feathers and peep and twitter so prettily?  It is a chick’s heaven to hide under its mother’s bosom.  It is perfectly happy; it could not be more content; its little chick nature is brimful of delight.  Be this thy joy also, “He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.”  My nature gets all its wants supplied, all its desires gratified, when it rests in God.  Oh, you that have never trusted God in Christ Jesus, you do not know what real happiness means!  You may search all the theatres in London, and ransack all the music-halls, and clubs, and public-houses, but you will find no happiness in any of their mirth, or show, or wine.  True joy dwells where dwells the living God dwells and nowhere else.  In your own home with God, even though that home be only a single room, and your meal be very scanty, you will see more of heaven than in the palaces of kings!  Have God for your sole trust, and you shall never lack for joy.

Our joy arises next from what the Lord does for us. “Let them shout for joy, because thou defended them.”  God always guards his people, whoever may attack them.  “The Lord is thy keeper.”  Angels are our guardians, providence is our protector; but God himself is the preserver of his chosen.  “Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that dieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.”  No fortress guards the soldier so well as God guards his redeemed.  The God of our salvation will defend us from all evil, he will defend our souls.  “Though a host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident.”

Further, our joy arises out of the love we have towards our God. “Let them that love thy name be joyful in thee.”  The more you love God, the more you will delight in him.  It is the profusion of a mother’s love to her child which makes her take such delight in it.  Her boy is her joy because of her love.  If we loved Jesus better, we should be happier in him.  You do not, perhaps, see the connection between the two things; but there is a connection so intimate, that little love to Christ brings little joy in Christ, and great love to Christ brings great joy in Christ.  God grant that in a full Christ we may have a full joy!  Do you see what I mean?  When a man comes to God in Christ and says, “This Savior is my Savior, this Father is my Father, this God is my God forever and ever;” then he has everything, and he must be joyful.  He has no fear about the past — God has forgiven him; he has no distress about the present — the Lord is with him; he is not afraid about the future — for the Lord hath said, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”  If you understand my text and put it in practice, you possess the quintessence of happiness, the essential oil of joy.  He that hath joy in his barn floor may see it bare; he that hath joy in his wine vats may see them dry; he that hath joy in his children may bury that joy in the grave; he that hath joy in himself will find his beauty consume away; but he that hath joy in God drinketh from “the deep which lieth under;” his springs shall ever flow, “in summer and in winter shall it be.”

I have pointed to the deep sources from which the joy of the believer wells up; but I must also add, it is by faith that this joy comes to us.  Faith makes joyful discoveries. I speak to those of you who have faith.  When you first believed in Christ you found that you were saved, and knew that you were forgiven.  Some little while after, you discovered that you were chosen of God from before the foundation of the world.  Oh, the rapture of your soul, when the Lord appeared of old unto you, saying, “Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee!”

The glorious doctrine of election is as wines on the lees well refined to those who by faith receive it; and it brings with it a new, intense, and refined joy, such as the world knows nothing of.  Having discovered your election of God, you looked further into your justification; “for whom he called, them he also justified.”  What a pearl is justification!  In Christ, the believer is as just in the sight of God as if he had never sinned: he is covered with a perfect righteousness, and is accepted in the Beloved.  What a joy is justification by faith, when it is well understood!  What bliss also to learn our union to Christ!  Believers are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.  Because he lives, we shall live also.  One with Jesus!  Wonderful discovery this! Equally full of joy is our adoption!  “Beloved, now are we the sons of God;” “And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.”  Faith thus heaps fuel on the fire of our joy; for it keeps on making discoveries out of the Word of the Lord.  The more you search the Scriptures, and the nearer you live to God, the more you will enjoy of that great goodness which the Lord has laid up in store for them that fear him.  Though “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him;” yet “he hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit;” and thereby he puts gladness into our hearts more than increasing corn and wine could bring.

Furthermore, faith gives cheering interpretations. Faith is a prophet who can charmingly interpret a fearsome dream.  Faith sees a gain in every loss a joy in every grief.  Read aright, and you will see that a child of God in trouble is on the way to greater blessing.  Faith views affliction hopefully.  Sorrow may come to us, as it did to David, as a chastisement for sin.  Faith reads — “Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.”  Better to be chastened with God’s children here than to be condemned with the world hereafter.  Faith also sees that affliction may be sent by way of discovery, to make the man know himself, his God and the promises better.  Faith perceives that affliction may be most precious as a test, acting, as doth the fire, when it shows what is pure gold and what is base metal.  Faith joys in a test so valuable.  Faith spies out the truth, that affliction is sent to develop and mature the Christian life.  “Ah, well!” saith Faith, “then, thank God for it.  No trial for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless, afterwards it worketh out the peaceable fruit of righteousness in those that are exercised thereby.”

Faith sees sweet love in every bitter cup.  Faith knows that whenever she gets a black envelope from the heavenly post-office, there is treasure in it.  When the Lord’s black horses call at our door, they bring us double loads of blessing.  Up to this moment, I, God’s servant, beg to bear my unreserved testimony to the fact that it is good for me to have been afflicted.  In spiritual life and knowledge and power, I have grown but little except when under the hand of trouble.  I set my door open and am half-inclined to say to pain and sickness and sadness, “Turn in hither; for I know that you will leave a blessing behind.  Come, crosses, if you will; for you always turn to crowns.”  Thus faith glories in tribulations also, and in the lion of adversity finds the honey of joy.  I have said that trial comes to us as chastisement, as we see in the case of David; as a discoverer of grace, as we see in Abraham; or as a test, as we see in Job; or as a preventive, as in the case of Paul, who wrote, “Lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me.”  In every tribulation, God is moved by love to his people and by nothing else.  If he cuts the vine with a sharp knife, it is because he would have fruit of it.  If he whips his child till he cries like David, “All the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning,” it is for his profit, that he may learn obedience by the things which he suffers.  All things work together for the believer’s good, and so faith interprets sorrow itself into joy.

Moreover, faith believes great promises. This opens other wells of joy.  I cannot stop to quote them to you this morning: the Book of the Lord is full of them.  What more can the Lord say than he hath said?  The promises of God are full, and as varied as they are full, and as sure as they are varied, and as rich as they are sure. “Exceeding great and precious promises.”

When I wrote “The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith,” I was at no loss to find a promise for every day in the year; the difficulty was which to leave out.  The promises are like the bells on the garments of our Great High-priest forever ringing out holy melodies.  When a man gets a promise fairly into the hand of faith and goes to God with it, he must rejoice.  The children of the promise are all of them worthy to be called Isaac, that is, “Laughter;” for God hath made him to laugh who lives according to promise.  To live on the promises of man would be starvation; but to live on the promises of God is to feed on fat things full of marrow.

Above all, faith has an eye to the eternal reward. She rejoices in her prospects.  She takes into her hand the birds which to others are in the bush.  To be with Christ in the glory-land is the joy of hope, the hope which maketh not ashamed.  Our hope is no dream: as sure as we are here today, we who are trusting in Christ will be in heaven before long; for he prays that we may be with him where he is, and may behold his glory.  Let us not wish to postpone the happy day.  Shall our bridal day be kept back?  Nay, let the Bridegroom speedily come, and take us to himself.  What a joy to know that this head shall wear a crown of glory, and these hands shall wave the palm branch of victory!  I speak not of myself alone, my brethren, but of you also, and of all them that love his appearing.  There is a crown of life laid up for you, which the righteous Judge will give you.  Wherefore, have patience a little while.  Bear still your cross.  Put up with the difficulties of the way, for the end is almost within sight.

“The way may be rough, but it cannot be long:

So we’ll smooth it with hope, and cheer it with song.”

May the Lord give us the ears of faith wherewith to hear the bells of heaven ringing out from afar over the waters of time!

Faith has always reason for joy, since God is always the same, his promises are the same, and his power and will to fulfill are the same.  In an unchanging God, we find unchanging reasons for joy.  If we draw water from the well of God, we may draw one day as well as another, and never find the water abated; but if we make our joy to depend in part upon creatures and circumstances, we may find our joy leak out through the cracks in the cistern.  Last Sunday morning, I cried out to you, “Both feet on the rock!  Both feet on the rock!” and the words led one poor heart to try the power of undivided faith in God.  This is the road to joy, and there is no other.  Drink waters from thine own fountain, and do not gad abroad after others.  Is not the Lord enough for thee?  Is it not sufficient to say, “All my fresh springs are in thee”?  Neither life, nor death, nor poverty, nor sickness, nor bereavement, nor slander, nor death itself, shall quench thy joy if it be founded in God alone.

III. We will look, for a minute or two, into a third matter, which is THE FAILURES REPORTED CONCERNING THIS JOY.

I think I hear somebody say, “It is all very well for you to tell us that believers are joyful, and have logical reasons for gladness; but some of them are about as dull as can be, and create dullness in others.”  I am obliged to speak very carefully here, for I am afraid that certain Christians give cause for this objection.

Let me say to some of you who love to raise objections, What do you know about this joy? Are you unbelievers?  Well, then, you are out of court: you are not competent to judge.  The griefs of believers you do not know, and with their joy you cannot intermeddle.  You have no spiritual taste or discernment, and what judgment can you form?  A genuine believer may be as happy as the angels, and yet you may not know his joy, because you are not in the secret.  You have not a spiritual mind, and the carnal mind cannot discern spiritual things.  I would have you speak with bated breath when you talk on this matter.  When a blind man goes to the Royal Academy, his criticisms on the pictures are not worth much; but they are quite equal in value to yours when you speak of spiritual things.  You cannot know what joy in the Lord may mean; for, alas! you a stranger to such heavenly things.

Alas! some professors of religion are mere pretenders, these have no joy of the Lord.  To carry out their presence, these persons even imagine that it is necessary to pull a long face and to talk very solemnly, not to say dismally.  Their idea of religion is, that black is the color of heaven.  But, dear friends, we cannot prevent hypocrites arising; it is only a proof that true religion is worth having.  You took a bad half sovereign the other night, did you?  Did you say, “All half sovereigns are worthless, I will never take another”?  Not so: you became more careful, but you were quite sure that there were good half sovereigns in currency; for else people would not make counterfeit ones.  It would not pay anybody to be a hypocrite unless there were enough genuine Christians to make the hypocrites pass current.  Therefore, do not say too much about hypocritical weepers, lest you slander true men.

Next, remember that some persons are constitutionally sad. They cried as soon as they were born; they cried when they cut their teeth; and they have cried ever since.  Their spirits are very low down and, when the grace of God gets into their hearts, it lifts them a great deal to bring them up to a decent level of joy.  Think of what they would have been without it.  Many would have died in despair, if it had not been for faith.  The grace of God has kept them up, or they would have lost their reason.  I am sorry there should be persons who have bad livers, feeble digestions, or irritated brains; but there are such.  Pity them, even if you blame them.  They must not so pity themselves as to make an excuse for their unbelief; but we must remember that often the spirit truly is willing, but the flesh is weak.

When you have met with Christians who are not happy, did it never strike you that their depression might only be for a time under very severe trial?  You may go to the South of France, where the days are so sunny, and you may happen to be there for a couple of days only, and it may rain all the time: it would be unfair on that account to say that it is a gloomy place.  So it may be that the Christian is under extreme pressure for the time, and when that is moderated he will be very joyful.  I do not excuse his loss of joy; but, still, there is a November of fogs in the year of most men.  Judge no man by the day, but watch his spirit on a larger scale, and see whether he does not usually delight himself in God.

Moreover, I would like to say a very pointed thing to some people who charge the saints with undue sadness.  May you not be guilty of making them so? There is an unkind, morose, wicked, drinking husband, and he says, “My wife’s religion makes her miserable.”  No.  It is not her religion,but her husband.  You are enough to make twenty people unhappy: you know you are; and therefore do not blame the poor woman, if, when she sees you, the tear is in her eye.  Alas! when she thinks of your going downto hell, and knows that she will be parted from you forever, the more she loves you the more sad she is to think of you.  “Oh,” says some wild boy here, “my mother is wretched!”  I do not wonder; I should be wretched too, if you were my son.  If any of you are living ungodly lives, it makes your parents’ hearts ache to see you going headlong to perdition.  Is it not abominable that a man should make another miserable, and then blame him for being so?  If you were but saved, how your mother’s face would brighten up!  If your father saw his boy turn to the Lord, he would be as happy as the birds in spring.  Speak tenderly on this matter lest you accuse yourself.

If you say that some Christians are unhappy, must you not also admit that many of them are very happy? I was once waited upon by an enthusiast who had a new religion to publish.  Numbers of people have a crack which lets in new light, and this man was going to convert me to his new ideas.  After I had heard him, I said, “I have heard your story, will you hear mine?  “When I talked to him of my lot and portion in the love of a covenant God, and the safety of the believer in Christ, he said, “Now, sir, if you believe all this, you ought to be the happiest man in the world.”  I admitted that his inference was true; but then I said to him, what rather surprised him, “So I am; and I am going to be more so all the rest of my life.”  If a man is chosen of God from before the foundation of the world is redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, is quickened by the Holy Ghost, and renewed in the spirit of his mind, is one with Christ, and on his way to heaven; if he is not happy, he ought to be.  Surely, we ought to rejoice abundantly, dear friends, for ours is a happy lot.  “Happy are the people whose God is the Lord.”

If God’s people are not happy at times, it is not their faith which makes them unhappy — ask them.  It is not what you believe that makes you unhappy, it is your want of faith, is it not?  If a man begins to doubt, he begins to sorrow: so far as his faith goes, he has joy.  Oh, for more faith!  Faith does create joy.  We can answer all objections by the fact that “we that have believed do enter into rest.”

IV. I close by mentioning THE ARGUMENTS FOR ABOUNDING IN JOY. You cannot argue a man into gladness, but you may possibly stir him up to see that which will make him happy.

First, you see in my text a permit to be glad: “Let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice.”  You have here a ticket to the banquets of joy.  You may be as happy as ever you like.  You have divine permission to shout for joy.  Yonder is the inner sanctuary of happiness.  You cry, “May I come in?”  Yes, if by faith you can grasp the text, “Let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice.”  “But may I be happy?” asks one. “May I be glad? May I?  Is there joy for me?”  Do you trust in the Lord?  Then you have your passport; travel in the land of light.

But the text is not only a permit, it is a precept. When it says, “Let them shout for joy,” it means that they are commanded to do so.  Blessed is that religion wherein it is a duty to be happy.  Come, ye mournful ones, be glad.  Ye discontented grumblers, come out of that dog-hole!  Enter the palace of the King! Quit your dunghills; ascend your thrones.  The precept commands it: “Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.”

We have here more than a permit and a precept, it is a prayer. David prays it, the Lord Jesus prays it by David.  Let them rejoice, let them be joyful in thee!  Will he not grant the prayer which he has inspired by causing us to rejoice through lifting upon us the light of his countenance?  Pray for joy yourself, saying with David, “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation.”

The text might be read as a promise: “All those that put their trust in thee shall rejoice.”  God promises joy and gladness to believers.  Light is sown for them: the Lord will turn their night into day.  Listen to the following line of argument, which shall be very brief.  You only act reasonably when you rejoice.  If you are chosen of God, and redeemed by blood, and have been made an heir of heaven, you ought to rejoice.  We pray you, act not contrary to nature and reason.  Do not fly in the face of great and precious truths.  From what you profess, you are bound to be joyful.

You will best baffle your adversaries by being happy.  David talks about them in both these psalms; but he does not fret, he simply goes on rejoicing in God.  “They say; they say:” let them say!  “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him.”  But the attack is cruel.  No doubt it is, but the Lord knows all about it.  Do not cease to rest in him.  If your heart is full of God’s love, you can easily bear all that the enemy may cast upon you.  Abound in joy, for then you will behave best to those who are round about you.  When a man is unhappy, he usually makes other people so; and a person that is miserable is generally unkind, and frequently unjust.  It is often dyspepsia that makes a man find fault with his servants and wife and children.  If a man is at peace with himself, he is peaceful with others.  Get right within, and you will be right without.  One of the best specifics for good temper is communion with God, and consequent joy of heart.  You yourself also, if you are happy, will be strong: “The joy of the Lord is your strength.”  If you lose your joy in your religion, you will be a poor worker: you cannot bear strong testimony, you cannot bear stern trial, you cannot lead a powerful life.  In proportion as you maintain your joy, you will be strong in the Lord, and for the Lord.

Do you not know that if you are full of joy you will be turning the charming side of religion where men can see it?  I should not like to wear my coat with the seamy side out: some religionists always do that.  It was said of one great professor, that he looked as if his religion did not agree with him.  Godliness is not a rack or a thumbscrew.  Behave not to religion as if you felt that you must take it, like so much physic, but you had rather not.  If it tastes like nauseous physic to you, I should fear you have got the wrong sort and are poisoning yourself.  Believe not that true godliness is akin to sourness.  Cheerfulness is next to godliness.  “When thou fastest,

anoint thine head, and wash thy face, that thou appear not unto men to fast.”  Weed out levity, but cultivate joy.  Thus will you win other hearts to follow Jesus.

Remember, that if you are always joyful, you are rehearsing the music of the skies.  We are going there very soon, let us not be ignorant of the music of its choirs.  I should not like to crowd into my seat, and hear the choirmaster say, “Do you know your part?” and then have to answer, “Oh, no, I have never sung while I was on earth; for I had no joy in the Lord.”  I think I shall answer to the choirmaster, and say, “Yes; I have long since sung, ‘Worthy is the Lamb,’”

“I would begin the music here.

And so my soul shall rise:

Oh, for some heavenly notes, to bear

My passions to the skies!”

With joy we rehearse the song of songs.  We pay glad homage now before Jehovah’s throne.  We sing unto the Lord our gladsome harmonies, and we will do so as long as we have any being.  Pass me that score, O chief musician of the skies, for I can take it up and sing my part in bass, or tenor, or treble, or alto, or soprano, as my voice may be.  The key is joy in God.  Whatever the part assigned us, the music is all for Jesus.  May some of you that have never joyed in Jesus Christ learn how to praise him to-day by being washed in his precious blood!  You that have praised him long, may you learn your score yet more fully, and sing in better tune henceforth, and forevermore! Amen.

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“And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.” — John 16:22

Joy is the normal condition of a believer.  His proper state, his healthy state, is that of happiness and gladness.  As I have often reminded you, it has become a Christian duty for believers to be glad.  “Rejoice in the Lord,” is a precept given to us over and over again, and I believe that, broadly speaking, the general condition of God’s people is one of joy.  It is not a falsehood if we say, “Happy art thou, O Israel!”  True Christians are the happiest people under heaven.  They have many sorrows, but there is a text which says, “As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing;” and old Master Brooks has a good note upon the passage.  He says that, it does not say, “As sorrowful, yet as always rejoicing.”  The “quasi” — the “as” relates only to the sorrow, but the joy is real, without any “quasi.” Christians have quasi sorrow, but they have real rejoicing.  They are oftentimes as if they were sad — yea, as if they were of all men most miserable; but in the very depths of their soul they have “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding” to keep their heart and mind through Christ Jesus.

I will venture to assert that Christians, at least, always have matter for joy.  They are never short of material out of which they may make melody unto the Lord.  If they will, they may rejoice for they have plenty of causes for joy.  The Lord hath done great things for them and they ought to add “whereof we are glad.”  And, as they have plenty of matter for joy, so they have ample motive for joy; for when they joy and rejoice, they glorify God, they prove the reality of their faith, and they make their religion attractive to others.

The joy of the Lord is their strength, their beauty, their charm.  There are always reasons why a Christian should be happy, and as he has matter for joy, and motive for joy, so he always has a measure of joy.  He may seem to be overwhelmed with trouble, but his bark still floats.  He may seem to run short of joy, as the widow in Elijah’s day ran short of meal and oil; but there shall always be a cake for him to eat and a little oil shall still remain in the cruse.  His joy shall never utterly fail him; he shall always have a sufficient measure of hope to enable him to keep his lamp alight in the darkest night.

Above and beyond all this, the Christian always has a remainder of joy which shall be his in due time.  What he has not yet in his own hand, is in the pierced hand of Jesus, held there fast and safe against all comers; and he may and he should always sing —

“Glory to thee for all the grace

I have not tasted yet.”

Some people have but little in possession at present, but they have a reversionary interest in a large estate; and it is so with us.  We have a heritage of joy that as yet we have not entered upon; but it is ours by a covenant of salt, and none can break the sacred entail.  So let us again take up the language of the hymn we sang at the beginning of the service, —

“The hill of Zion yields

A thousand sacred sweets,

Before we reach the heavenly fields,

Or walk the golden streets.”

Thus you see, dear friends, that believers have matter for joy, and motive for joy, a measure of joy already possessed, and a greater remainder of joy yet to be realized.  God’s people are a happy people, a blessed people.  May my soul always be numbered among them!

Now coming to the text, which is intended to promote our joy, I gather two observations — first, that the Lord Jesus enters into our sorrows.  He does not overlook them, but he says, “Ye now therefore have sorrow.”  Secondly, the Lord Jesus creates our joy: “but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.”

I. First, then, dear friends, you who are sorrowful, listen to this former part of the discourse.  THE LORD JESUS CHRIST ENTERS INTO OUR SORROWS.

One point in which he enters into them is this — He sees our quickness in sorrowing. Perhaps you did not notice that in the text, but it is there.  You observe, in the 20th verse, that Jesus said to his disciples, “Ye shall be sorrowful,” and he compared them to a woman in travail; but then he did not say what we might have thought he would have said, “Ye will therefore have sorrow,” but he said,” Ye now therefore have sorrow.”  He saw their faces begin to pale before the sorrow had really come.  He had not gone away from them, for there he stood in their midst; but in the expectation that he would go, their eyes began to grow dim, and the tears commenced to roll down their cheeks, so he said as he looked at them, “Ye now therefore have sorrow.”  And, beloved, you and I also are very quick at this work of sorrowing.  I wish that we anticipated our joys with half the readiness that we anticipate our sorrows.  We should be much happier if we did so; but there is many a child of God who cries long before he is hurt and sorrows long before his troubles actually come to him.  We often run to meet our troubles; we seem as if we were hungry to have our mouth full of bitterness and eager to drink the waters of Marah.  It is a pity that it should be so with us.  These disciples had not yet lost their Master, he was still with them; and a child-like spirit might have said, “Ah, well, blessed Master, if you are only going to be with us five minutes, we may as well be happy for that five minutes!  If you are going away in half-an-hour, at any rate you are here as yet.  Let us not begin to be cast down until the parting moment really comes.”  “Ah!” say you, “but it was very natural that they should begin to sorrow.”  Yes, and that is exactly what I say.  It is very natural, it is so wonderfully natural that it is pretty nearly universal with us; but it is not any the better for being natural, is it?  You take your physic when the proper time comes for taking it; but do not be taking it all day long.  There are many Christian people who chew their pills instead of swallowing them.  If they took their sorrows, when they came and accepted them as having been sent straight from God, there would not be half the bitterness in their mouths that there now is when they begin to think concerning some future trial, “Oh, it is coming! I know it is coming; I can see that it is coming.”  The shadow of the sorrow is often worse than the sorrow itself; and as Young speaks of him who “feels a thousands deaths in fearing one,” so I doubt not that we often feel a thousand sorrows in anticipating one.  They will come soon enough, brother; do not go to meet them.  Go forth to meet the Bridegroom; but there cannot be any particular need to meet your troubles.  Let them come when they must come, and welcome them then; but wherefore should you conjure up those which, perhaps, have no existence at all?

Notice, next that our Lord has a very quick eye to observe our sorrows which relate to himself. He says, “Ye now therefore have sorrow;” that is, “sorrow because I am going away from you; sorrow because I am about to die.”  I think that the Lord loves his people to have that kind of sorrow.  While the Bridegroom is with the children of the bride-chamber, it is fit and comely that they should rejoice; but when the Bridegroom is gone, it is loyalty to him, and it is a fit and comely thing that they should sorrow.

Now, brothers and sisters, whenever your heart gets heavy because you have lost your Lord’s company, it is a proper sorrow.  Whenever you hear His name blasphemed, whenever you find false doctrine preached instead of the truth, whenever you see men undermining the blessed gospel, when you notice apostates turning this way and that, and forsaking the paths of Christ, you should sorrow; and, if you do, I believe that your Lord looks upon such sorrow as a token of your loyal affection to him; and, so far from condemning it, he justifies it, and he says, “Ye now therefore have sorrow.”  He looks at the reason of it, and he says, “This is not a causeless grief.”  He did not blame the disciples for sorrowing when he was gone; nay, he expected that they would do so; and he saw the reason for their grief, and spoke tenderly of it.  If there can be found a reason for the sorrow of a child of God, Christ will find it.  I know that, often, worldlings are unable to understand our sorrow; they say, “Why does this man fret and worry?  He has everything that heart can wish.”  But the Savior knows the secrets of the soul, and he puts his finger on the source of our grief, and says, “Ye now therefore have sorrow;” and if that “therefore” is because of something touching himself, and his kingdom, and his work in the world, he justifies the sorrow, and he will help us to bear it, and in due time he will remove it.  Let us, then, bless our Lord Jesus Christ that, while he knows how quick we are to sorrow before we need, yet he does approve of our sorrowing when there is a need for it, and specially when it concerns his own dear self.

Observe, further, that our blessed Master is quick to notice the limit of our sorrow. Take your pencil, if you will, and put a black mark under that third word in our text, “And ye now therefore have sorrow.”  I feel as if I could almost kiss that word, “Ye now therefore have sorrow.”  What does that word “now” mean?  Well, sometimes, it only means just the next few minutes: “Ye now therefore have sorrow.”  But “now” cannot mean long; if “ye now therefore have sorrow,” it does not mean that you will have sorrow forever.  Listen: “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”  “Many are the afflictions of the righteous.”  Did you ever read that in the Psalms?  Sing it in deep bass tones; growl it out if you will: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous.”  Up rises another singer and sends up the soprano note higher than my voice can go — “ But the Lord delivereth him out of them all;” and that glorious note seems to kill the other.  “Ye now therefore have sorrow.”  Ah, but what is that little “now?”  It is a mere drop that trembles on my finger’s tip.  It is “an inch of time, a moment’s space.”  “Ye now therefore have sorrow.”  Perhaps tomorrow morning, all that sorrow will be over; and if not, that “now” is driving away on red-hot axles and will soon be gone; and there shall come the hereafter of endless joy and boundless bliss.  Our Lord Jesus Christ recollects this fact when you do not.  You say, “I am so sorrowful, so broken down;” and the Savior puts his dear pierced hand on you, and he says, “Yes, you are so now, that is all.  It is only now, and it will all soon be ended; and then you will take your harp down from the willows and sing and rejoice with the happiest and the merriest of the saints of God.”

Notice, also, that the Lord Jesus Christ so enters into our sorrow that he has an eye to the outcome of it all. He says to each believer, “Yes, dear child, you have sorrow, you have great sorrow; but you know what it is to produce.  A woman, when she is in travail, has great sorrow, but in a short time her sorrow is turned into joy when her child is born into the world.”  So, every sorrow of a child of God is the birthpang of a joy.  I do not know whether you have noticed, but I have, that most of our joys, if they are of an earthly kind, are very expensive before long.  You cannot delight in the creature without sorrow coming of it.  You cannot love your wife, your child, with a most lawful and laudable love, but one of these days it will be most expensive love, when the loved ones are taken away, or they sicken and suffer.  The more we love them, the more they cost us; but our sorrows are fishes that come to us with money in their mouths.  Whenever they come, they always bring us joy.  If you dig round the roots of a deep sorrow, you shall find tubers of joy with stores of heavenly bliss laid up therein.  They who sorrow for Christ shall soon have Christ to make them forget their sorrow.  They who sorrow for his kingdom, or sorrow for more of his righteousness, or sorrow for more of his likeness, or sorrow for closer communion with him shall before long find to the delight of their soul that their sorrow is turned into joy.

Is not that a wonderful promise?  “Your sorrow shall be turned into joy.”  If any man here were greatly in debt, and someone were to say, “All your debts shall be transformed into assets.”  Well, it is clear that then the richest man here would be the man that had the biggest debts.  So is it with our sorrows; the more of them that we have, the more joys we shall have, because they are to be turned into joy.  If, as believers, we have much sorrow, we shall have much joy coming out of it, wherefore, with the apostle, “we glory in tribulations also,” and triumph in the afflictions and trials of this mortal life, seeing that they shall work our lasting good.

Once more, upon this first point, our Lord Jesus Christ sees that our sorrows will come to an end, for he says, “Ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice.”  The Lord knows that his people are not hopelessly locked up in prison; they are not to be eternally in the shade.  They shall soon come out of their sorrows and the darkness shall be turned into the brightness of the day.  Our Lord can see this, and he would have us see it, too, so he points it out to us.  O sons and daughters of sorrow, I pray the Comforter to apply this word with power to your souls!

II. Now I have to play on a higher string; let me have your most earnest attention while I dwell for a little while on the latter part of our subject — the Lord Jesus creates our joy.

He says, in the second half of the text, “I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.”

Observe, first, that when the Lord Jesus Christ comes to make his people glad, He always touches the very center of their grief. The disciples’ grief was that Jesus would soon be gone from them.  “Well,” said he, “I will see you again.”  So, beloved, when the Lord Jesus shall come to you in your hour of sorrow, he will touch the center of your grief, whatever it is.  There is a wonderful adaptation in the Word of God to the peculiarities of all his people.  There are some very odd texts in the Bible and do you know why they are there?  It is because there are so many odd people about, and those texts are meant specially for them.  You may see upon a whitesmith’s ring a number of queerly-shaped keys; it is because there are so many strangely-made locks; and in God’s Word there is a key to fit every lock.  There is a key for the queer lock that is inside your bosom, my brother or my sister; and the Lord knows how to meet your case exactly, and to touch your out-of-the-way, singular, special, peculiar, idiosyncrasy of sorrow.  He can get at it, and put it right away from you.

Notice, next, that the Good Physician makes the plaster wider than the wound. He says, not what we might have thought that he would say, “You will sorrow because you cannot see me, but you shall see me again;” — that plaster would have just fitted the sore; but he says, “I will see you again.” That is a great deal better: that covers the sorrow and covers all the wounds of all God’s people right down to this day; for though we do not see him again just yet, yet he is still seeing us again as much as ever he saw those disciples when he stood in the midst of them, and said, “Peace be unto you.”  Oh, I love this characteristic of my Master that, when he meets a poor believer who asks him for a penny, he says, “There, take seven.”  When we knock at his door, and say, “A friend, who is on a journey, has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him; lend me three loaves;” he says, “Take as many as you need.”  His liberality far outruns our need and our desire, and he is both able and willing “to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.”  So that our Lord Jesus Christ creates our joy by touching the very center of our grief and then by covering it with that which is greater than the grief itself.

Note further, whenever the Lord Jesus Christ comes to one of his sorrowing people to give him joy, He gives it most effectually. What does he say to his disciples?  “I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice.”  That is more than any mere man could say.  When I get talking with God’s downcast people, I can say to them, “I will see you again, and talk with you again, and I shall be glad if I can make your heart rejoice;” but I can never be sure that I shall succeed in cheering them.  You and I, dear friends, are very poor comforters, and we often fail; but when the Good Physician comes to any one of his patients, he knows how to make the medicine effectual to him. “I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice.”  See how the Lord Jesus Christ handles human hearts.  This morning we had a grand subject in which we showed how the Lord, in his omnipotence, by his authority and power, cast out devils with a word.  But here we have another instance of his omnipotence; he does not say, “I will try to cheer your heart;” but he says, “Your heart shall rejoice,” just as if he had our hearts in his hand, and could do with them as he pleased, which is really the case.  His Divine Spirit can now so effectually apply the comforts of the Word that it shall not be said, “You ought to rejoice,” but, “You shall rejoice.”  The Lord can lift up the light of his countenance upon us till we are glad in him.

I want you also to notice that, while the Lord’s application of joy to the heart is very effectual, it is very deep and very full: “I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice.”  When the worldling is glad, you hear him laughing from his teeth outwards.  He puts on a merry look, yet all the while there is heaviness in his heart.  His wine vats are full to bursting and the sound of the buyer is in his ears; but there is a fear in his conscience and his soul is disquieted.  But when the Lord Jesus Christ comes to deal with his people, he deals with their hearts, with the inmost core of their being, with the very center of their soul: “Your heart shall rejoice.”  Do you not know what this experience is, beloved brothers and sisters?  I think you do.  Sometimes, you could not tell your joy, it is too deep; it is so excessive that words and noise of any kind seem quite out of place.  You want to get alone, and in the silence of your soul to sit still, like David before the Lord, and there to drink in full draughts of his love.  “I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice.”

True Christians need never covet the poor joy of worldlings.  We cannot fall into the insanity of living with such miserable ends and objects as those which are compassed within the short pale of our existence here below.  It has become slavery to us; and I bear witness for myself and for you also, that we do not forsake the pleasures of the world because we think that we are denying ourselves.  It is no self-denial to us for they would not please us.  I have gone by a whole line of sties, and seen the pigs feeding greedily; but I never thought that I was denying myself because I did not feed with them.  I never wished to have a law passed that the unclean beasts should not have their swill.  No, let them have it, and as much as they can eat; and we say just the same of the pleasures of the carnal man.  We do not envy him that which is so great a relish, it is no self-denial to us to go without it; we have come out of that style of living, and we do not want to go back to it.  When the man says that he is perfectly happy and satisfied, we think, “Just so; no doubt you are, and we have seen many a fat bullock in the field look perfectly content.”  But Christians have different pleasures and higher joys; and we cannot be bullocks, we cannot be swine.  We have been brought out of that kind of merely animal life, we have been lifted up into another and a higher style of living; and it is nothing short of a miracle of the divine hand which has brought us right out of it, so that we have done with it forever, and loathe it, and could not go back to it under any circumstances whatever.  Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.  The Lord has brought us out of the region of darkness into his marvelous light and delivered us forever from the power and dominion of Satan.

I saw, the other day, a blind fish that had been accustomed to live in a dark cave; it had not any eyes, and it did not need any eyes, because it lived where light never came.  There are some people who are just like that fish, they are perfectly satisfied to be blind; and, what is more, there are some blind persons who declare that there is no such thing as light, for they say that they never saw it.  Just so; they have not any eyes with which to see it.  The carnal mind cannot understand the things of God; there is not the faculty in it by which it can understand them.  The carnal mind has not the Spirit of God, but spiritual things must be spiritually discerned; and until God the Holy Ghost comes and creates in us the eye-faculty called the spirit, by which we become body, soul, and spirit, we are like the blind fish which has no eyes.  We are just mere men, but not men of God; we have not passed into the new world of spiritual perceptions.  But, by the grace of God, many of us have been made partakers of the divine nature and so have been permitted to share the joy of which our text speaks.

But I must get to the end of my discourse by reminding you that the glory of the Christian’s joy lies in the fact that it is permanent.  “Your joy no man taketh from you.”  “Well,” says one, “I wonder what that joy is?”  Let me just tell you and then I will close.  The sorrow about which Christ spoke to his disciples was that he was going away from them; therefore the joy of which he spoke is that now he sees us again.  I want you, dear friends, specially to notice, as I have already told you, that it does not say that you see him, but that he sees you, and therefore to you Peter’s words may be applied, “Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet, believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.”

What, then, is our joy?  It is, first, that Christ is not dead; he is alive, he is risen from the dead.  Next, he reigns as well as lives, and he reigns for us; he is ruling all things on our behalf, and as he sees us with his royal eyes, he also pleads for us before the eternal throne.  And he is coming again; we know not when, but we know that he is coming quickly, and that he is already on the road.  He shall descend in like manner as they saw him go up into heaven.

All this is the joy of the Christian which no man taketh from him.  No man shall ever take from me the joy that Christ rose from the dead.  I know that he did; there is no historical fact that is so certainly attested as this, that Christ died, and was buried, and, on the third day, rose again from the dead, and therein I do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.  If he rose not from the dead, then my preaching is vain, and your faith is also vain; but as he surely rose from the dead, then every trouble has gone.  I do not think that those poor disciples had any joy while Christ was in the grave.  They could not rejoice then; their big sorrow swallowed up all joy.  And I do not think that, if you and I were what we ought to be, we should have any sorrow now that Christ is out of the grave, the joy because he has risen ought to swallow up every sorrow that we have; it should be a joy that no man can take from us.

There is this further joy that no man can take from me, that Jesus Christ reigns, King of kings and Lord of lords.  I have often told you how, many years ago, that doctrine saved my reason, and I am alive and here to preach because of that glorious truth.  After the terrible accident in the Surrey Gardens Music Hall, my mind seemed to fail me, and my reason reeled; I had to get away, and be alone; and I walked about a friend’s garden.  Someone watched me, for they did not know what might happen to me; I was so unmanned that I did not seem able to pray or to read the Scriptures; but as I was walking in the garden, there came to me this passage, “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name.”  And I said to myself, “I am a poor soldier, wounded in the battle, and lying in the ditch; but there rides the King, and all is well with him, for he is King of kings and Lord of lords.”  I seemed to rouse myself up out of the ditch, and cry, “Hallelujah be to his blessed name!” and in that moment all my faculties returned to me, I walked into the house, and said, “I am perfectly well; I can preach next Sunday,” and I did preach, the following Sabbath from the text that had been so blessed to my own heart and mind.  What matters it what becomes of me?  Whether I live or whether I die, no man can take this joy from me, that Jesus Christ lives, and reigns, and triumphs, and that he shall surely come to judge the quick and the dead according to my gospel.

I preach to you, beloved, a joy that no man taketh from you.  If you begin to live by your own feelings, you will sometimes be up and sometimes down and be ever unsettled.  Now live on this truth, first, that Jesus died; then if you believe on him, you died in him.  Next, that he was buried, and that your sins were buried with him.  Then, that he rose again, and you rose in him; and now that he lives and reigns forever and ever, your cause is safe in his hands; and apart from your cause altogether, your spirit may rejoice that the cause of right, the cause of truth, the cause of God, is secure beyond all hazard, because he who went away from us for a little while, though we have not seen him, yet sees us, and our hearts do and will rejoice in him.  Blessed be his holy name!

I wish that all of you shared in this joy, but those who do not believe in Jesus cannot.  Dear young people, I have a great longing that, very early in life, you should be reconciled to God by the death of his Son.  It is such a joy to know the Lord early that I cannot understand why so many seem to wish to put it off.  There is a young man who wants to be married, and he wrote to me to ask whether, on a certain day, I could marry him.  I could not, for I should not be here, so I proposed to him to wait a week till I came back; instead of which, he proposed that it should be a week earlier, as he says, to accommodate me.  I notice that there is no wish to put off a wedding, and I do not wonder that it is so; but I do marvel that, in the far higher joy of being married to Christ, the greater and truer delight of becoming one with him forever, so many want it to be a week later, or a month later, or even a year later.  Oh, did you know that happy day, when Jesus puts our sins away — if there were a time fixed, and you knew it — I think you would grow almost impatient to have it even earlier.  Do not postpone this heavenly marriage.  I pray you, who have been at enmity against God, do not put off being reconciled to him, for he who fights with God had better quickly end the battle; so be you silent, and end all your discussions with God without a word unless it be such a word as this, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief:” God grant that you may be led to believe in Jesus now, for his name’s sake!  Amen.

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“But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them: let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee.” — Psalm 5:11

The subject for this morning is joy, the joy of faith, the joy which is the fruit of the Spirit from the root of trust in God.  May we not only talk about it at this hour, but enjoy it now and evermore!  It is pleasant to read, and hear, and think about joy; but to be filled with joy and peace through believing is a far more satisfying thing.  I want you to see not only the sparkling fountain of joy, but to drink deep draughts of it; yes, and drink all the week, and all the month, and all the year, and all the rest of your lives, both in time and in eternity. “Let the children of Zion be joyful in their King.”

I. First, let us speak a little upon THE KIND OF JOY WHICH IS ALLOTTED TO BELIEVERS: “Let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them: let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee.”

Note, first, concerning this joy, that it is to be universal to all who trust: “Let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice.”  This is not only for the healthy, but for the sickly; not only for the successful, but for the disappointed; not only for those who have the bird in the hand, but for those who only see it in the bush.  Let all rejoice!  If you have but a little faith, yet if you are trusting in the Lord, you have a right to joy.  It may be, your joy will not rise so high as it might do if your faith were greater; but still, where faith is true, it gives sure ground for joy.  O ye babes in grace, ye little children, you that have been newly converted, and sadly feel your feebleness, yet rejoice; for the Lord will bless them that fear him, “both small and great!”  “Fear not, thou worm Jacob.”  “Fear not, little flock.”  There is a joy which is as milk to nourish babes — a joy which is not as meat with bones in it; for the Lord addeth no sorrow therewith.  The little ones of the flock need not vex themselves concerning the deep things of God; for there is joy in those shallows of simple truth where lambs may safely wade.  The joy of the Lord is softened down to feeble constitutions, lest it overpower them.  The same great sea which floods the vast bays also flows into the tiny creeks.  “Let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice.”

You, Miss Much-afraid, over yonder, you are to rejoice! You, Mr. Despondency, hardly daring to look up, you must yet learn to sing.  As for Mr. Ready-to-halt, he must dance on his crutches, and Feeble-mind must play the music for him.  It is the mind of the Holy Ghost that those who trust in the Lord should rejoice before him.

This joy, in the next place, is to be as constant as to time as it is universal as to persons.  “Let them ever shout for joy.”  Do not be content that a good time in the morning should be followed by dreariness in the afternoon.  Do not cultivate an occasional delight, but aim at perpetual joy.  To be happy at a revival meeting, and then go home to groan, is a poor business.  We should “feel like singing all the time.”  The believer has abiding arguments for abiding consolation.  There is never a time when the saint of God has not great cause for gladness; and if he never doubts and worries till he has a justifiable reason for distrust, he will never doubt nor worry.  “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again” — what? “always,” and yet does the apostle say, “and again?”  Yes, he would have us rejoice, and keep on rejoicing, and then rejoice more and more.  Brethren go on piling up your delights.  You are the blessed of the Lord, and his blessing reaches “unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills.”

Next, let your joy be manifested.  “Let them ever shout for joy.”  Shouting is an enthusiastic utterance, a method which men use when they have won a victory, when they divide the spoil, when they bear home the harvest, when they tread the vintage, when they drain the goblet.  Believers, you may shout for joy with unreserved delight.  Some religionists shout, and we would not wish to stop them; but we wish certain of them knew better what they are shouting for.  Brethren, since you know whom you have believed, and what you have believed, and what are the deep sources of your joy, do not be so sobered by your knowledge as to become dumb; but the rather imitate the children in the temple, who, if they knew little, loved much, and so shouted in praise of him they loved.  “Let them shout for joy.”  A touch of enthusiasm would be the salvation of many a man’s religion.

Some Christians are good enough people: they are like wax candles, but they are not lighted.  Oh, for a touch of flame!  Then would they scatter light, and thus become of service to their families.  “Let them shout for joy.”  Why not?  Let not orderly folks object.  One said to me the other day, “When I hear you preach I feel as if I must have a shout!”  My friend, shout if you feel forced to do so.  (Here a hearer cried, “Glory!”)  Our brother cries, “Glory!” and I say so too, “Glory!”  The shouting need not always be done in a public service, or it might hinder devout hearing; but there are times and places where a glorious outburst of enthusiastic joy would quicken life in all around.

The ungodly are not half so restrained in their blasphemy as we are in our praise.  How is this?  They go home making night hideous with their yells: are we never to have an outbreak of consecrated delight?  Yes, we will have our high days and holidays, and we will sing and shout for joy till even the heathen say, “The Lord hath done great things for them.”

This joy is to be repeated with variations. One likes, in music, to hear the same tune played in different ways.  So here you have it.  “Let them rejoice. Let them ever shout for joy.  Let them be joyful in thee.”  There is no monotony in real joy.  In the presence of mirth, one grows dull; but in living joy there is exhilaration.  Commend me to the springing well of heavenly joy: its waters are always fresh, clear, sparkling, springing up unto everlasting life.  Joy blends many colors in its one ray of light.  At times, it is quiet and sits still beneath a weight of glory.  I have known it weep, not salt drops, but sweet showers.  Have you never cried because of your joy in the Lord?  Sometimes joy labors for expression till it is ready to faint; and anon it sings till it rivals the angels.  Singing is the natural language of joy; but oftentimes silence suits it even better.  Our joy abides in Christ, whether we are quiet or shouting, whether we fall at our Lord’s feet as dead, or lean on his bosom in calm delight.

This joy is logical. When I was a child, and went to school, I remember learning out of a book called “Why and Because.”  Things one learns as a child stick in the memory; and therefore I like a text which has a “because” in it.  Here it is: “Let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them.”  Emotions are not fired by logic; and yet reasons furnish fuel for the flame.  A man may be sad, though he cannot explain his sadness, or he may be greatly glad, though he cannot set forth the reasons for his joy.  The joy of a believer in God has a firm foundation: it is not the baseless fabric of a vision.  The joy of faith burns like coals of juniper, and yet it can be calmly explained and justified.  The joyful believer is no lunatic, carried away by a delusion: he has a “because” with which to account for all his joy — a reason which he can consider on his bed in the night-watches, or defend against a scoffing world.  We have a satisfactory reason for our most exuberant joy: “The Lord hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad.”  Philosophers can be happy without music, and saints can be happy despite circumstances.  With joy we draw water out of deeper and fuller wells than such as father Jacob digged.  Our mirth is as soberly reasonable as the worldling’s fears.

Once more, the happiness is a thing of the heart; for the text runs thus — “Let them that love thy name be joyful in thee.”  We love God.  I trust I am speaking to many who could say, “Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee.”  Is it not a very happy emotion?  What is sweeter than to say, with the tears in one’s eyes — “My God, I love thee!”  To sit down and have nothing to ask for, no words to utter, but only for the soul to love — is not this heavenly?  Measureless depths of unutterable love are in the soul and, in those depths, we find the pearl of joy.  When the heart is taken up with so delightful an object as the ever-blessed God, it feels an intensity of joy which cannot be rivaled.  When our whole being is steeped in adoring love, then heaven comes streaming down, and we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.  I feel I am talking in a poor way about the richest things which are enjoyed by saintly men.  Many of you know as much about these matters as I do, perhaps more.  But my soul doth even now magnify the Lord, and my spirit doth rejoice in God my Savior.  Although I feel unworthy and unfit to speak to this vast throng, yet I have a great sympathy with my text, for I am “glad in the Lord.”

“Oh, what immortal joys I feel,

And raptures all divine

For Jesus tells me I am his,

And my Beloved mine!”

If you sit before the Lord at this time, and indulge your souls with an outflow of love to God and his Son Jesus Christ, and at the same time perceive an inflowing of heavenly joy, it will not much matter how the poor preacher speaks to your ear, for the Lord himself will be heard in your soul, and heaven will flood your being.

II. Now I come to the second head, wherein we will consider THE GROUND AND REASON OF HOLY JOY. I am bound to speak upon this matter; for I have told you that the joy of the believer is logical, and can be defended by facts; and so indeed it is.

For, first, the believer’s joy arises from the God in whom he trusts. “Let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice.”  When, after many a weary wandering, the dove of your soul has at last come back to the ark, and Noah has put out his hand and “pulled her in unto him,” the poor, weary creature is happy.  Taken into Noah’s hand and made to nestle in his bosom, she feels so safe, so peaceful!  The weary leagues of the wild waste of waters are all forgotten, or only remembered to give zest to the repose.

So, when you trust in God, your soul has found a quiet resting-place, a pavilion of repose!  The little chick runs to and fro in fear.  The mother hen calls it home.  She spreads her soft wings over the brood.  Have you never seen the little chicks when they are housed under the hen, how they put out their little heads through the feathers and peep and twitter so prettily?  It is a chick’s heaven to hide under its mother’s bosom.  It is perfectly happy; it could not be more content; its little chick nature is brimful of delight.  Be this thy joy also, “He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.”  My nature gets all its wants supplied, all its desires gratified, when it rests in God.  Oh, you that have never trusted God in Christ Jesus, you do not know what real happiness means!  You may search all the theatres in London, and ransack all the music-halls, and clubs, and public-houses, but you will find no happiness in any of their mirth, or show, or wine.  True joy dwells where dwells the living God dwells and nowhere else.  In your own home with God, even though that home be only a single room, and your meal be very scanty, you will see more of heaven than in the palaces of kings!  Have God for your sole trust, and you shall never lack for joy.

Our joy arises next from what the Lord does for us. “Let them shout for joy, because thou defended them.”  God always guards his people, whoever may attack them.  “The Lord is thy keeper.”  Angels are our guardians, providence is our protector; but God himself is the preserver of his chosen.  “Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that dieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.”  No fortress guards the soldier so well as God guards his redeemed.  The God of our salvation will defend us from all evil, he will defend our souls.  “Though a host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident.”

Further, our joy arises out of the love we have towards our God. “Let them that love thy name be joyful in thee.”  The more you love God, the more you will delight in him.  It is the profusion of a mother’s love to her child which makes her take such delight in it.  Her boy is her joy because of her love.  If we loved Jesus better, we should be happier in him.  You do not, perhaps, see the connection between the two things; but there is a connection so intimate, that little love to Christ brings little joy in Christ, and great love to Christ brings great joy in Christ.  God grant that in a full Christ we may have a full joy!  Do you see what I mean?  When a man comes to God in Christ and says, “This Savior is my Savior, this Father is my Father, this God is my God forever and ever;” then he has everything, and he must be joyful.  He has no fear about the past — God has forgiven him; he has no distress about the present — the Lord is with him; he is not afraid about the future — for the Lord hath said, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”  If you understand my text and put it in practice, you possess the quintessence of happiness, the essential oil of joy.  He that hath joy in his barn floor may see it bare; he that hath joy in his wine vats may see them dry; he that hath joy in his children may bury that joy in the grave; he that hath joy in himself will find his beauty consume away; but he that hath joy in God drinketh from “the deep which lieth under;” his springs shall ever flow, “in summer and in winter shall it be.”

I have pointed to the deep sources from which the joy of the believer wells up; but I must also add, it is by faith that this joy comes to us.  Faith makes joyful discoveries. I speak to those of you who have faith.  When you first believed in Christ you found that you were saved, and knew that you were forgiven.  Some little while after, you discovered that you were chosen of God from before the foundation of the world.  Oh, the rapture of your soul, when the Lord appeared of old unto you, saying, “Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee!”

The glorious doctrine of election is as wines on the lees well refined to those who by faith receive it; and it brings with it a new, intense, and refined joy, such as the world knows nothing of.  Having discovered your election of God, you looked further into your justification; “for whom he called, them he also justified.”  What a pearl is justification!  In Christ, the believer is as just in the sight of God as if he had never sinned: he is covered with a perfect righteousness, and is accepted in the Beloved.  What a joy is justification by faith, when it is well understood!  What bliss also to learn our union to Christ!  Believers are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.  Because he lives, we shall live also.  One with Jesus!  Wonderful discovery this! Equally full of joy is our adoption!  “Beloved, now are we the sons of God;” “And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.”  Faith thus heaps fuel on the fire of our joy; for it keeps on making discoveries out of the Word of the Lord.  The more you search the Scriptures, and the nearer you live to God, the more you will enjoy of that great goodness which the Lord has laid up in store for them that fear him.  Though “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him;” yet “he hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit;” and thereby he puts gladness into our hearts more than increasing corn and wine could bring.

Furthermore, faith gives cheering interpretations. Faith is a prophet who can charmingly interpret a fearsome dream.  Faith sees a gain in every loss a joy in every grief.  Read aright, and you will see that a child of God in trouble is on the way to greater blessing.  Faith views affliction hopefully.  Sorrow may come to us, as it did to David, as a chastisement for sin.  Faith reads — “Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.”  Better to be chastened with God’s children here than to be condemned with the world hereafter.  Faith also sees that affliction may be sent by way of discovery, to make the man know himself, his God and the promises better.  Faith perceives that affliction may be most precious as a test, acting, as doth the fire, when it shows what is pure gold and what is base metal.  Faith joys in a test so valuable.  Faith spies out the truth, that affliction is sent to develop and mature the Christian life.  “Ah, well!” saith Faith, “then, thank God for it.  No trial for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless, afterwards it worketh out the peaceable fruit of righteousness in those that are exercised thereby.”

Faith sees sweet love in every bitter cup.  Faith knows that whenever she gets a black envelope from the heavenly post-office, there is treasure in it.  When the Lord’s black horses call at our door, they bring us double loads of blessing.  Up to this moment, I, God’s servant, beg to bear my unreserved testimony to the fact that it is good for me to have been afflicted.  In spiritual life and knowledge and power, I have grown but little except when under the hand of trouble.  I set my door open and am half-inclined to say to pain and sickness and sadness, “Turn in hither; for I know that you will leave a blessing behind.  Come, crosses, if you will; for you always turn to crowns.”  Thus faith glories in tribulations also, and in the lion of adversity finds the honey of joy.  I have said that trial comes to us as chastisement, as we see in the case of David; as a discoverer of grace, as we see in Abraham; or as a test, as we see in Job; or as a preventive, as in the case of Paul, who wrote, “Lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me.”  In every tribulation, God is moved by love to his people and by nothing else.  If he cuts the vine with a sharp knife, it is because he would have fruit of it.  If he whips his child till he cries like David, “All the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning,” it is for his profit, that he may learn obedience by the things which he suffers.  All things work together for the believer’s good, and so faith interprets sorrow itself into joy.

Moreover, faith believes great promises. This opens other wells of joy.  I cannot stop to quote them to you this morning: the Book of the Lord is full of them.  What more can the Lord say than he hath said?  The promises of God are full, and as varied as they are full, and as sure as they are varied, and as rich as they are sure. “Exceeding great and precious promises.”

When I wrote “The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith,” I was at no loss to find a promise for every day in the year; the difficulty was which to leave out.  The promises are like the bells on the garments of our Great High-priest forever ringing out holy melodies.  When a man gets a promise fairly into the hand of faith and goes to God with it, he must rejoice.  The children of the promise are all of them worthy to be called Isaac, that is, “Laughter;” for God hath made him to laugh who lives according to promise.  To live on the promises of man would be starvation; but to live on the promises of God is to feed on fat things full of marrow.

Above all, faith has an eye to the eternal reward. She rejoices in her prospects.  She takes into her hand the birds which to others are in the bush.  To be with Christ in the glory-land is the joy of hope, the hope which maketh not ashamed.  Our hope is no dream: as sure as we are here today, we who are trusting in Christ will be in heaven before long; for he prays that we may be with him where he is, and may behold his glory.  Let us not wish to postpone the happy day.  Shall our bridal day be kept back?  Nay, let the Bridegroom speedily come, and take us to himself.  What a joy to know that this head shall wear a crown of glory, and these hands shall wave the palm branch of victory!  I speak not of myself alone, my brethren, but of you also, and of all them that love his appearing.  There is a crown of life laid up for you, which the righteous Judge will give you.  Wherefore, have patience a little while.  Bear still your cross.  Put up with the difficulties of the way, for the end is almost within sight.

“The way may be rough, but it cannot be long:

So we’ll smooth it with hope, and cheer it with song.”

May the Lord give us the ears of faith wherewith to hear the bells of heaven ringing out from afar over the waters of time!

Faith has always reason for joy, since God is always the same, his promises are the same, and his power and will to fulfill are the same.  In an unchanging God, we find unchanging reasons for joy.  If we draw water from the well of God, we may draw one day as well as another, and never find the water abated; but if we make our joy to depend in part upon creatures and circumstances, we may find our joy leak out through the cracks in the cistern.  Last Sunday morning, I cried out to you, “Both feet on the rock!  Both feet on the rock!” and the words led one poor heart to try the power of undivided faith in God.  This is the road to joy, and there is no other.  Drink waters from thine own fountain, and do not gad abroad after others.  Is not the Lord enough for thee?  Is it not sufficient to say, “All my fresh springs are in thee”?  Neither life, nor death, nor poverty, nor sickness, nor bereavement, nor slander, nor death itself, shall quench thy joy if it be founded in God alone.

III. I close by mentioning THE ARGUMENTS FOR ABOUNDING IN JOY. You cannot argue a man into gladness, but you may possibly stir him up to see that which will make him happy.

First, you see in my text a permit to be glad: “Let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice.”  You have here a ticket to the banquets of joy.  You may be as happy as ever you like.  You have divine permission to shout for joy.  Yonder is the inner sanctuary of happiness.  You cry, “May I come in?”  Yes, if by faith you can grasp the text, “Let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice.”  “But may I be happy?” asks one. “May I be glad? May I?  Is there joy for me?”  Do you trust in the Lord?  Then you have your passport; travel in the land of light.

But the text is not only a permit, it is a precept. When it says, “Let them shout for joy,” it means that they are commanded to do so.  Blessed is that religion wherein it is a duty to be happy.  Come, ye mournful ones, be glad.  Ye discontented grumblers, come out of that dog-hole!  Enter the palace of the King! Quit your dunghills; ascend your thrones.  The precept commands it: “Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.”

We have here more than a permit and a precept, it is a prayer. David prays it, the Lord Jesus prays it by David.  Let them rejoice, let them be joyful in thee!  Will he not grant the prayer which he has inspired by causing us to rejoice through lifting upon us the light of his countenance?  Pray for joy yourself, saying with David, “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation.”

The text might be read as a promise: “All those that put their trust in thee shall rejoice.”  God promises joy and gladness to believers.  Light is sown for them: the Lord will turn their night into day.  Listen to the following line of argument, which shall be very brief.  You only act reasonably when you rejoice.  If you are chosen of God, and redeemed by blood, and have been made an heir of heaven, you ought to rejoice.  We pray you, act not contrary to nature and reason.  Do not fly in the face of great and precious truths.  From what you profess, you are bound to be joyful.

You will best baffle your adversaries by being happy.  David talks about them in both these psalms; but he does not fret, he simply goes on rejoicing in God.  “They say; they say:” let them say!  “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him.”  But the attack is cruel.  No doubt it is, but the Lord knows all about it.  Do not cease to rest in him.  If your heart is full of God’s love, you can easily bear all that the enemy may cast upon you.  Abound in joy, for then you will behave best to those who are round about you.  When a man is unhappy, he usually makes other people so; and a person that is miserable is generally unkind, and frequently unjust.  It is often dyspepsia that makes a man find fault with his servants and wife and children.  If a man is at peace with himself, he is peaceful with others.  Get right within, and you will be right without.  One of the best specifics for good temper is communion with God, and consequent joy of heart.  You yourself also, if you are happy, will be strong: “The joy of the Lord is your strength.”  If you lose your joy in your religion, you will be a poor worker: you cannot bear strong testimony, you cannot bear stern trial, you cannot lead a powerful life.  In proportion as you maintain your joy, you will be strong in the Lord, and for the Lord.

Do you not know that if you are full of joy you will be turning the charming side of religion where men can see it?  I should not like to wear my coat with the seamy side out: some religionists always do that.  It was said of one great professor, that he looked as if his religion did not agree with him.  Godliness is not a rack or a thumbscrew.  Behave not to religion as if you felt that you must take it, like so much physic, but you had rather not.  If it tastes like nauseous physic to you, I should fear you have got the wrong sort and are poisoning yourself.  Believe not that true godliness is akin to sourness.  Cheerfulness is next to godliness.  “When thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face, that thou appear not unto men to fast.”  Weed out levity, but cultivate joy.  Thus will you win other hearts to follow Jesus.

Remember, that if you are always joyful, you are rehearsing the music of the skies.  We are going there very soon, let us not be ignorant of the music of its choirs.  I should not like to crowd into my seat, and hear the choirmaster say, “Do you know your part?” and then have to answer, “Oh, no, I have never sung while I was on earth; for I had no joy in the Lord.”  I think I shall answer to the choirmaster, and say, “Yes; I have long since sung, ‘Worthy is the Lamb,’”

“I would begin the music here.

And so my soul shall rise:

Oh, for some heavenly notes, to bear

My passions to the skies!”

With joy we rehearse the song of songs.  We pay glad homage now before Jehovah’s throne.  We sing unto the Lord our gladsome harmonies, and we will do so as long as we have any being.  Pass me that score, O chief musician of the skies, for I can take it up and sing my part in bass, or tenor, or treble, or alto, or soprano, as my voice may be.  The key is joy in God.  Whatever the part assigned us, the music is all for Jesus.  May some of you that have never joyed in Jesus Christ learn how to praise him to-day by being washed in his precious blood!  You that have praised him long, may you learn your score yet more fully, and sing in better tune henceforth, and forevermore! Amen.

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