02.B18. Religious Joy

Chapter 33

RELIGIOUS JOY. In the Scriptures we are told that "the joy of the Lord is our strength," that "the fruit of righteousness shall be. peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever." Religious joy is also positively required of us in the Word of God. "Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice." We are required and admonished by our Saviour to "ask and receive, until our joy is full." One of His special petitions to "His Father and our Father," to "His God and our God," was that we "might have His joy fulfilled in ourselves." What He promises to all that come unto Him, however burdened they may be, is that He "will give them rest," and that "they shall find rest unto their souls." "Peace," says our Lord, "I leave with you; my peace I give unto you." "These things," says the inspired writer, "write I unto you, that your joy may be full." The angels of God heralded the advent of Christ on earth as "glad tidings of great joy." While all the world "weep for sorrow of heart," all believers in Jesus are expected to "sing for joy of heart." Among the revealed "fruits of the Spirit" are "joy, peace." All the promises come to us ’’ heavily laden" with "the peace of God which passeth all understanding," "joy unspeakable and full of glory," and everlasting consolations and good hope through grace."

Peace and joy, ever full and eternally enduring, are also represented as one of the special and peculiar characteristics of the new dispensation, that under which we now live. "And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." "Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be their everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended." Such being the revealed facts of the case, we should not undervalue or avoid to seek religious joy as a supreme good of our immortal natures. Every believer owes it to his God and Saviour, to himself, to the Church, and to the world, to verify in his inward experience and visible life the truth that "the fruit of righteousness is peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever," and that "whosoever believeth in Christ, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly do flow rivers of living water," "the Spirit now being given, because Jesus has been glorified."

If you, reader, affirm yourself "a believer in Jesus," and your experience and life do not accord with the above revelations, then your testimony and influence before the Church and the world are not for the truth, but against the truth. How and why the ministry and the churches do and can expect "that the Gentiles shall come to the light of Zion, and kings to the brightness of her rising," while the sacramental host is moving on very much as a funeral procession, singing their dirge songs, and testifying one to another of the loss of the blessedness each knew "when first he saw the Lord," of his utter impotence to "fly or go to reach eternal joys," is a mystery to me. Neither you nor I have a right to testify before the Church and world that you have found Christ, unless you can also testify that in Christ you have found God as "the everlasting light" of your soul. If you have not yet thus found Christ, He is yet to be found by you, and "you will seek Him and find Him" when, and only when, "you shall search for Him with all your heart." Be assured of this, reader, that if "your peace is not as a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea," and "the peace of God" and "joy of the Holy Ghost" do not abide in your heart, your "heart is not right with God," and your relations to Him must be newly and rightly adjusted, or your immortal interests are imperilled. When I, for example, became conscious that my primal Christian joy had faded out, leaving "an aching void" within, that God was not "my everlasting light," nor "the days of my mourning ended," and that my faith in Christ did not induce in my heart "joy unspeakable and full of glory," and that "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, did not keep my heart and mind through Christ Jesus," I said to myself, as I have before stated, "I know that I have missed my way, and that my inner life is not rightly adjusted relatively to Christ and His salvation. I know that I have essentially erred somewhere, and I will never rest, and will give my God no rest, until the error is discovered and corrected. I will never rest, nor faint in prayer, until I am conscious in myself of all the forms of moral purification, ’ fruits of the Spirit,’ ’rest of faith,’ ’ fulness of joy,’ arid immortal fruitions revealed in the Scriptures as the blood bought privileges and immunities of the sons of God." It was because I thus reasoned and acted, and did not, as most believers do, content myself to "walk in darkness and have no light," that I was, at length, "led out of darkness into light," the marvellous light of God; and for these forty years, have had such divine fellowships, such endurances, such victories of faith, such enduring peace, quietness, assurance, and fulness of joy. All this, reader, is in reserve for you. You will become possessed of it, however, on this condition, that, with all sincerity, earnestness, and tireless perseverance, "God shall for this be inquired of by you to do it for you." If you do not value "the joy of the Lord" sufficiently to induce you to "search for it as for hid treasures," to inquire after it, pray for it, and rest not until you possess it, you, in all probability, will never find it in this world or the next. Nothing but the love and joy of the Lord in your heart, and filling it, will keep the world and "its affections and lusts" out of your heart. If the "peace of God, which passeth all understanding, does not keep your heart and mind by Christ Jesus," care and trouble, and discontent and worldly vexations, and fearful lookings for what may come upon you, will occupy them. You must "obtain joy and gladness," or "sorrow and sighing will not flee away." When you are told not to make any efforts to banish your cares or sorrows, or to induce religious peace and joy, you receive wise and healthful advice. The tempest of trouble and care and discontent dies within us, and the calmness of peace and holy joy reigns in our hearts, not at the bidding of our wills, but at the bidding of Christ. The rest which we cannot induce in ourselves, Christ gives us when we come unto Him for it. "God," and not we ourselves, "keeps us in perfect peace when we stay ourselves upon Him, because we trust in Him." Pardon, sanctification, and peace are all in common and alike "gifts of God through Jesus Christ our Lord," and are available to us, each on the same condition, namely, that "God for this be inquired of by us to do it for us." When inquirers are told, however, as they frequently are, not to think anything about their feelings, nor to give themselves any concern about them one way or the other, then advice is given which divine wisdom admonishes us not to heed. Moses prayed not unwisely, nor undirected by the Spirit of God, when he sent up the following petition: "Oh, satisfy us early with Thy mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad according to the days wherein Thou has afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil." Nor was David undirected by the Spirit when he thus prayed, "Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which Thou hast broken may rejoice. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with Thy free Spirit. Then will I teach transgressors Thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto Thee."

If Christ has been anointed to "bind up the broken-hearted," and to "set at liberty them that are bruised," broken hearts and bruised spirits should be taken to Him for healing. When He says to us, "Ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full," He specifically directs us to make religious joy a special object of thought and prayer. When the presence and love of Christ, and the power of His Spirit, fail to move and to melt our sensibilities, kindle emotion, and to stir up the great deep of the soul, then is a time for special heart-searching and prayer. "Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of His servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay himself upon his God." When I was once sitting in a circle of Christian friends, prayer was proposed, in which all were to lead in succession, one after the other. The prayer of a lady in that circle I shall never forget. It was to this effect, and nearly in these words: "Lord, when Thou didst take from me my only child, and all hope of its place being supplied by another, I said to Thee that Thou hadst made a great vacancy in my soul, a void which nothing but Thyself could fill, and that I trusted Thee so to fill that void with Thine own fulness, that I should never more feel the absence of that child. I told Thee that I must now have far more of Thyself than I had ever had before. I bless Thee that that prayer was heard, and that Thou didst so occupy my whole being with Thy manifested presence and love, that the absence of that dear one occasions no sense of loneliness at all. I joy to think of it now as in Thine everlasting arms, where I expect myself soon to be." The special form of the prayer was occasioned, I doubt not, by the peculiar tone of the conversation immediately preceding, the burden of which was the power of Christ to take away our sorrows as well as our sins, to perfect our joys as well as our virtues and graces, and to meet fully every want of our being as it arises. The lesson which we learn from such examples, as well as from the express teachings of the Word of God, is the great truth that our emotions, as well as our moral states, should be the objects of reflection, faith, and prayer. The divine direction is this: -- "Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds by Christ Jesus." The promises pertaining to our peace are as really the objects of faith and prayer as those pertaining to our justification or sanctification. We should not, of course, expect that our emotive states shall be always of an ecstatic character, heaven having its seasons of silence as well as of singing and shouting. We should expect, however, to be "kept in perfect peace," and should trust God to render our "peace as a river, as well our "righteousness as the waves of the sea." When "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding," does not "keep our hearts and minds by Christ Jesus," and "our joy is not full," we should conclude that our faith, prayer, or obedience "has been hindered."

Paul considered religious joy as an immutable condition of his "making full proof of his ministry." Let us carefully weigh his words: -- "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ." When God shall become "the everlasting light" of His people, and "the days of their mourning shall be ended," then, as inspiration informs us, "will the Gentiles come to their light, and kings to the brightness of their rising." That which peculiarises the gospel, and distinguishes it from all other religions and forms of belief; is its sovereign power to "take away sin," and to bring in its stead "everlasting righteousness," on the one hand, and, on the other, to "take away" sorrow in all its forms, and to induce in its place "everlasting consolations and good hope through grace." You must know this gospel, reader, not only in theory, but in full experience, as possessed of these two forms of sovereign power, or you fail essentially in fundamental qualifications to serve Christ effectively in any department of your divine and holy calling as a believer in Jesus.