The Joy of the Lord

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Sep 21, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 37.

The Joy of the Lord.

“The fruit of the Spirit is love;” and “joy”—gladness, pleasure, delight, happiness, rejoicing, exultation in triumph—follows love. This is true joy.

Joy of the World.

Many rejoice, or have joy, in the lustful things of this life—some in riches, some in fame, some in pleasure, and all in man or some thing or things that man has done or may do. All this, apart from God, we are assured by the wise man, is “folly,” and “folly is joy to him that is destitute of wisdom.” The prophet declares that such “rejoice in a thing of naught;” hence, at the best, “the joy of the godless [is] but for a moment.” And this the children of earth know to be true. “Man that is born of woman is of few days, and full of trouble.” Pleasure is sought and followed as the little child chases the elusive butterfly, or the benighted traveler is led by the treacherous will-o’-the-wisp. The quest ends in weariness, tears, and utter disappointment, if not in the slough of despair and death.

Why?

Why the vain quests? Why the disappointed hearts? Why the sad, the discouraged, the pitifully drawn, the haggard, the sorrowful faces, which one continually sees, faces which rarely or never are lighted by joy? Is this God’s plan?—Nay; the cause is sin. Joy, true joy, is ever absent where sin reigns. In God’s perfect plan there was no place for sorrow, pain, death, disappointment, despair. All these came in with the usurper, sin. And in sin and through sin, which is the perversion of God’s way, we will never find joy; for sin is slavery, and there is never joy in bondage. Sin is death, and in death itself there is never true joy, but sorrow and despair. And yet, despite the sin, God has joy for the children who are subject to sin and sorrow. He has called them to joy.

Joy in God.

Even as love is from God, so is joy. Love comprehends all good things, and we have joy because we love. Whatever, therefore, brings love to our hearts brings joy. And in whatever love finds exercise there joy is found. First of all we joy in God because of His mercy toward us as sinners. Says the psalmist: “My heart shall rejoice in Thy salvation,” and the reason is, “I have trusted in Thy mercy.” “We also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation.” Rom. 5:11, margin. Joy comes, therefore through the mercy of God, which reconciles us to the Father.

How Reconciled.

God does not hate the sinner. He loves him in all his weakness, waywardness, and wickedness. God is not at enmity with us, but “the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” But God in His great mercy and love gave His only-begotten Son to save the sinner, to reconcile the sinner to Himself. Nay, more; He gave Himself in that Son, that He might save man. “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us.” “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.” He took upon Himself in giving His Son, and that Son took upon Himself in giving Himself, the sin, the bruises, the wounds, the death, the misery, the sorrow, that we might have the joy. “He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed.”

It is by such love, such mercy, that God reconciles us to Himself; it is that such love, such mercy, may lead the sinner to renounce the carnal heart, renounce in himself all that is unlike God, and yield himself to the ways of eternal love and joy. For God knows there is no other way by which the sinner may be made to rejoice. The way of sin tends ever to death. God’s way is eternally good and righteous. He has in Christ Jesus forever reconciled all sinners to that way. It is for the sinner to accept the mercy which has thus wrought for him, and rejoice, or reject it and die. O, is it not joy to have sins forgiven? Is it not joy to know that Jesus paid all the debt, bore all the sin? Is it not joy to know that this mercy is “for me, even me?” This is the joy of faith, of simply believing in Jesus, “whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, tho now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.”

Rejoice in What?

In what may the forgiven sinner rejoice?—In the righteousness of God. It is not God’s plan to simply forgive, to make of no account the sins of the past; but to account the believer as righteous, even with the righteousness of God: “He shall pray unto God, and He will be favorable unto him; and he shall see His face with joy; for He will render unto man His righteousness.” Surely to one who comes into God’s presence, knowing that upon him is the righteousness of God, there is reason for joy. Upon him is the beauty of holiness. It is his privilege to say, “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 the robe of righteousness.”

Rejoice in Freedom.

The sinner is a slave. “Every one that committeth sin is the bondservant of sin.” R. V. He is bound or “holden with the cords of his sin.” Of all the dread bondage that earth has known, sin is the greatest. It is the blighting, blasting, blinding bondage of death. It oftentimes deceives as it destroys, and its poor dupe believes himself in freedom when he is in the most hopeless bondage. Yet God in mercy does not suffer sin’s deadly opiate to ever bemumb conscience and heart. The sweet and mighty voice of the Spirit in various ways breaks through the hardness of sin and whispers to the soul of his fearful bondage, and points him to the Deliverer, the Son of God. It says: Poor prisoner of sin, your pardon has been purchased by Jesus Christ. Your eternal freedom has been secured in Him: “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” How the poor slave in many a land has rejoiced to hear at the voice of freedom his fetters break and fall. Shall not we, dear reader, the born bond-slaves of sin, rejoice with joy unspeakable at the freedom which comes through Jesus Christ? We are still mortal, environed by countless limitations, hindrances, difficulties, sickness perhaps, ruled over by tyrants, but the freedom of Jesus Christ lifts us above all these; for “we know that to them that love God, God worketh all things with them for good.” R. V., margin.

Rejoice Always.

“Rejoice in the Lord alway.” “Rejoice evermore.” Reader, in all things rejoice. In common air, in common rain, in common sunshine, in all the blessed common things of life, in the gifts of the great and merciful and kind God of all grace, rejoice. “Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations,” because therein ye may “rejoice in His salvation.” In this, as with Jehoshaphat of old, praise will glorify God, will bring back to you the power of God, and you will find, as has ever been found, that the “joy of the Lord is your strength.” In searching His word you will say with Jeremiah, “Thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart; for I am called by thy name; O Lord.” As you obey that word with all your heart, you will find that “it is joy to the just to do judgment;” and you will find verified the scripture: “Thou meetest Him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that remember Thee in Thy ways.” If persecutions come, therein “rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings.” If you are poor, let meekness and teachableness reign in your heart; for “the meek shall increase their joy in the Lord, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.” The poor, the outcast, the despised of men may rejoice. Yea, “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.” And whatever may come, the Christian may say:—

The Nature of True Joy.

But the truest, highest joy never comes from seeking the joy. God could not have it thus, because the very seeking would develop sin. If we could get joy by seeking it, it would make us selfish. The joy of God comes because we forget self, and labor for others. “Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth.” “The joy that was set before” Christ, which cheered Him in all His labor, was the joy of souls saved in His kingdom, upon which He will then look, and “be satisfied.” This is the joy of the people of God, to turn from self and “declare His works with rejoicing;” for “the voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacles of the righteous.” The righteous will love God’s law; for “Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage forever; for they are the rejoicing of my heart.” John the Baptist saw his own prestige and popularity waning before the presence of Christ, yet he could say as he saw Christ’s glory, “This my joy therefore is fulfilled.” Laboring for Christ’s sake, for the purchase of His blood, laboring in His way, in His truth, this is joy. And yet the servant of God will find cause of weeping. Sorrowing hearts, wounded hearts, cold hearts, hard hearts set against the message that would save, the whelming sin and evil of the world, the backsliding of God’s professed people, are all a cause of sadness and sorrow; yet God is faithful; in Him he can rejoice. “Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” “Poor, yet making many rich.” This is his work, even as it was Christ’s. The child of God can not compel faith on the part of others; for faith is voluntary. He will not, therefore, rejoice in a political or coercive religion. “Not that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy; for by faith ye stand.”

There is joy in God,

joy that man can not give nor take away,—joy unspeakable and full of glory. And so, believing, praying, seeking, trusting, laboring, yea, weeping, in the joy of our Lord, the Christian pursues the path of Christ. He drinks of fountains of joy of which the world never tasted. His heart is lighted with a radiance which the eye of earth-life never knew. He holds a sweeter communion with the King of kings than lover’s most precious tryst. In darkness there is light; in sorrow, joy. And thus he goes on in ever-increasing joy at finding greater and more abundant proofs of God’s wonderful love, until, at last, the work is over, the children all come home, sorrow and pain and death and sin are banished by the presence of the Lord, where is “fulness of joy,” and at whose “right hand are pleasures forevermore.” O reader, this is the joy which God offers you. Will you not be among “the ransomed of the Lord,” who will “come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads”? Thus doing, we may commend you “unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.”