“The joy of the Lord is your strength.”–Nehemiah 8:10.
“And the singers sang aloud, with Jezrahiah their overseer. Also that day
they offered great sacrifices, and rejoiced: for God had made them
rejoice with great joy: the wives also and the children rejoiced: so that
the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off.”–Nehemiah 12:42-43.
Last Sabbath day in the morning I spoke of the birth of our Saviour as
being full of joy to the people of God, and, indeed, to all nations. We
then looked at the joy from a distance; we will now in contemplation
draw nearer to it, and perhaps as we consider it, and remark the
multiplied reasons for its existence, some of those reasons may operate
upon our own hearts, and we may go out of this house of prayer
ourselves partakers of the exceeding great joy. We shall count it to have
been a successful morning if the people of God are made to rejoice in
the Lord, and especially if those who have been bowed down and
burdened in soul shall receive the oil of joy for mourning. It is no mean
thing to comfort the Lord’s mourners; it is a work specially dear to the
Spirit of God, and, therefore, not to be lightly esteemed. Holy sorrow is
precious before God, and is no bar to godly joy. Let it be carefully noted
in connection with our first text that abounding mourning is no reason
why there should not speedily be seen an equally abundant joy, for the
very people who were bidden by Nehemiah and Ezra to rejoice were
even then melted with penitential grief, “for all the people wept when
they heard the words of the law.” The vast congregation before the
watergate, under the teaching of Ezra, were awakened and cut to the
heart; they felt the edge of the law of God like a sword opening up their
hearts, tearing, cutting, and killing, and well might they lament: then
was the time to let them feel the gospel’s balm and hear the gospel’s
music, and, therefore, the former sons of thunder changed their note, and
became sons of consolation, saying to them, “This day is holy unto the
Lord your God; mourn not, nor weep. Go your way eat the fat, and drink
the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared:
for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the
Lord is your strength.” Now that they were penitent, and sincerely
turned to their God, they were bidden to rejoice. As certain fabrics need
to be damped before they will take the glowing colours with which they
are to be adorned, so our spirits need the bedewing of repentance before
they can receive the radiant colouring of delight. The glad news of the
gospel can only be printed on wet paper. Have you ever seen clearer
shining than that which follows a shower? Then the sun transforms the
rain-drops into gems, the flowers look up with fresher smiles and faces
glittering from their refreshing bath, and the birds from among the
dripping branches sing with notes more rapturous, because they have
paused awhile. So, when the soul has been saturated with the rain of
penitence, the clear shining of forgiving love makes the flowers of
gladness blossom all around. The steps by which we ascend to the
palace of delight are usually moist with tears. Grief for sin is the porch
of the House Beautiful, where the guests are full of “The joy of the
Lord.” I hope, then, that the mourners, to whom this discourse shall
come, will discover and enjoy the meaning of that divine benediction in
the sermon on the mount, “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be
comforted.”
From our text we shall draw several themes of thought, and shall
remark: first, there is a joy of divine origin,– “The joy of the Lord;” and,
secondly, that joy is to all who partake of it a source of strength– “The
joy of the Lord is your strength.” Then we shall go on to show that such
strength always reveals itself practically–our second text will help us
there: and we shall close by noticing, in the fourth place, that this joy,
and, consequently, this strength, are within our reach today.
I. THERE IS A JOY OF DIVINE ORIGIN–”The joy of the Lord.”
Springing from the Lord as its source, it will necessarily be of a very
elevated character. Since man fell in the garden, he has too often sought
for his enjoyments where the serpent finds his. It is written, “upon thy
belly shalt thou go and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life,” this
was the serpent’s doom; and man, with infatuated ambition, has tried to
find his delight in his sensual appetites, and to content his soul with
earth’s poor dust. But the joys of time cannot satisfy an undying nature,
and when a soul is once quickened by the eternal Spirit, it can no more
fill itself with worldly mirth, or even with the common enjoyments of
life than can a man snuff up wind and feed thereon. But, beloved, we are
not left to search for joy; it is brought to our doors by the love of God
our Father; joy refined and satisfying, befitting immortal spirits. God has
not left us to wander among those unsatisfactory things which mock the
chase which they invite; he has given us appetites which carnal things
cannot content, and he has provided suitable satisfaction for those
appetites; he has stored up at his right hand pleasures for evermore,
which even now he reveals by his Spirit to those chosen ones whom he
has taught to long for them.
Let us endeavour to analyze that special and peculiar pleasure which is
here called “The joy of the Lord.” It springs from God, and has God for
its object. The believer who is in a spiritually healthy state rejoices
mainly in God himself; he is happy because there is a God, and because
God is in his person and character what he is. All the attributes of God
become well-springs of joy to the thoughtful, contemplative believer; for
such a man says within his soul, “All these attributes of my God are
mine: his power, my protection; his wisdom, my guidance; his
faithfulness, my foundation; his grace, my salvation.” He is a God who
cannot lie, faithful and true to his promise; he is all love, and at the same
time infinitely just, supremely holy. Why, the contemplation of God to
one who knows that this God is his God for ever and ever, is enough to
make the eyes overflow with tears, because of the deep, mysterious,
unutterable bliss which fills the heart. There was nothing in the character
of Jupiter, or any of the pretended gods of the heathen, to make glad a
pure and holy spirit, but there is everything in the character of Jehovah
both to purify the heart and to make it thrill with delight. How sweet is it
to think over all the Lord has done; how he has revealed himself of old,
and especially how he has displayed his glory in the covenant of grace,
and in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. How charming is the thought
that he has revealed himself to me personally, and made me to see in
him my Father, my friend, my helper, my God. Oh, if there be one word
out of heaven that cannot be excelled, even by the brightness of heaven
itself, it is this word, “My God, my Father,” and that sweet promise, “I
will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.” There is no
richer consolation to be found: even the Spirit of God can bring nothing
home to the heart of the Christian more fraught with delight than that
blessed consideration. When the child of God, after admiring the
character and wondering at the acts of God, can all the while feel “he is
my God; I have taken him to be mine; he has taken me to be his; he has
grasped me with the hand of his powerful love; having loved me with an
everlasting love, with the bands of lovingkindness has he drawn me to
himself; my beloved is mine and I am his;” why, then, his soul would
fain dance like David before the ark of the Lord, rejoicing in the Lord
with all its might.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
