NO. 3406<\/b><\/p>\n
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 14TH, 1914.<\/b><\/p>\n
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,<\/i><\/p>\n
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.<\/b><\/p>\n
\u201cAnd these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full. \u2014 1 John 1:4.<\/i><\/p>\n
VERY closely does the apostle John resemble his Lord in the motive that prompted him to write this epistle! You remember how Christ said, in his last discourse to his disciples on the eve of his passion, \u201cThese things have I spoken unto you that your joy may be full\u201d; and how the counselled them, \u201cAsk and receive that your joy may be full\u201d; and how he prayed the Father for them, \u201cthat they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.\u201d Here, then, the beloved disciple, moved by the Spirit of God, reflects and follows out the same gracious purpose: \u201cThese things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.\u201d What an evidence of our Savior\u2019s deep attachment to his people that he is not content with having made their ultimate salvation sure, but he is anxious concerning their present state of mind! He delights that his people should not only be safe, but happy; not merely saved, but rejoicing in his salvation. It does not please your Savior for you to hang your head as the bulrush, and go mourning all your days. He would have you rejoice in him always; for this end he has made provision, and to this end he has given us precepts. Hence it appears: \u2014 <\/p>\n
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I. <\/b>That The Christian\u2019s Joy Needs Looking After.<\/p>\n
We should not find the apostle John writing to promote that which, in the natural order of things, would be sure to occur. In this object of pastoral anxiety, he seems to include the whole of the Apostolic College with himself when he says, \u201cThese things write we unto you that your joy might be full,\u201d as if your joy would not be full unless inspired apostles should be commissioned of God to further it. Your joy then, I say, wants looking after; I do not doubt but you have very suggestive proofs of this yourselves, in your external circumstances<\/i>. You cannot always rejoice, because, although your treasure is not in this world, your affliction is. Poverty will sometimes be too heavy a cross for you to sing under. Sickness sometimes casts you upon a bed on which you have not, as yet learned to rejoice. Losses befall you in business, failures of hope, forsaking of friends, and cruelty of foes; and any of these may prove like winter nights which nip the green leaves of your joy, and make them fade and fall off from your bough. You cannot always rejoice, but sometimes there is a needs-be that you should be in heaviness through manifold temptations. I suppose none of you are so perfectly happy as to be without some trial. Your joy will need to be looked after then, lest these water-floods should come in and quench it. You will need to cry to him who alone can keep its flame burning, to trim it with fresh oil.<\/p>\n
I suppose, too, that you have moods and susceptibilities<\/i> which make it no easy matter to maintain perpetual joy. If you have not, I have. Sometimes there will be deep depression of spirit; you can scarce tell why or wherefore. That strong wing with which you mounted like an eagle will seem to flap the air in vain. That heart of yours, which once flew upwards like the lark rising from amidst the dew, will lie cold and heavy like a stone upon the earth, and you will find it hard to rejoice.<\/p>\n
Besides, sin<\/i> will stop the beginning of your holy mirth, and when you would dance for joy, like David before the ark, some internal corruption will come to hamper your delight. Ah, beloved! it is not easy to sing while you fight. Christian soldiers ought to do it; they should march to battle with songs of triumph, that their spirits may be nerved to desperate velour against their inbred corruptions; but sometimes the garment rolled in blood, and the dust, and the turmoil, will stay for awhile the looked-for shout of victory. With trials many and manifold; trials from the thorns and briars of this fallen world; trials from Satanic suggestions; trials from the uprisings of black fountains of corruption within your own polluted hearts, you have, indeed, need that your joy, to keep it full and flowing at high tide, should be guarded and supplied by an influence above your own, and fed from a celestial spring.<\/p>\n
I dare say you have learned by this time, my beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, how exceedingly necessary it is that this joy of ours should be abundant. When full of joy, we are more than a match for the adversary of souls, but when our joy is gone, fear slackens our sinews, and, like Peter, we may be vanquished by a little maid. When our joy in the Lord is at its full, we can bear that the fig-tree should not blossom, that the herd should be cut off from the stall, and the flocks from the field, but how heavy our sorrows are to bear, how impatient we become when the chains that link heaven and earth are disarranged, or the communication in any way intercepted. If we can see the Savior\u2019s face without a cloud between, then temptation has no power over us, and all the glittering shams that sin can offer us are eclipsed in their brilliance by the true gold of spiritual joy which we have in our possession Oh! what rapture!<\/p>\n
\u201cI would not change my blest estate
For all that earth calls good or great;
And while my faith call keep her hold
I envy not the sinner\u2019s gold.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Thus the Christian, by his holy joy, outbraves temptation and is strong to endure a martyrdom of vice. Why, you can do anything when the joy of the Lord is within you. Like a roe or a young hart, thou leapest over the mountains of Bether. The mountains cannot appal thee; thou makest thee a stepping-stone across the brook. The heaviest tempests which lower over thee cannot chill nor damp thy courage, for thy song pierces it, and thy soul mounts above it all, into the clear blue of fellowship with thy God. But when this joy is gone, then are we weak, like Samson when his hair was shorn. We become the slaves of temptation, if we do not yield to its treacherous enticements, at any rate, it harasses us, and so enervates the power with which we were wont to glorify our God. The Christian\u2019s joy wants looking to. If any of you have lost the joy of the Lord. I pray you do not think it a small loss. I have heard of a minister who said that a Christian lost nothing by sin \u2014 and then he added \u2014 \u201cexcept his joy\u201d; and one replied, \u201cWell, and what else would you have him lose?\u201d That is quite enough. To lose the light of my Father\u2019s countenance to lose my full assurance of interest in Christ, to lose my heaven below \u2014 oh! this is a loss great enough! Let us walk carefully, let us walk prayerfully, that so we may realize perpetually joy and peace even to the full. Let none of us be content to sit down in misery. There is such a thing as getting habituated to melancholy. My bias is toward that state of mind, but, by the grace of God I resist it. If we begin to give way to this foolishness, we shall soon weave forged chains for ourselves which we cannot readily snap. Take your harp from the willows, believers. Do not let your fingers forget the well-known strings. Come, let us praise him. If we have looked black in the face for awhile, let us brighten up with the thoughts of Christ. At any rate, let us not be easy till we have shaken off this lethargic distemper, and once again come into the normal state of health in which a child of God should be found, that of spiritual joy.<\/p>\n
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II. <\/b>The Christian\u2019s Joy Lies Mainly In Things Revealed, otherwise it would not find its fitting sustenance in words inspired.<\/p>\n
If the Christian\u2019s joy lay in the wine-vat and in the barn, in the landed estate, or the hoarded purse, it would only be necessary that the vineyard should yield plenteous clusters, that the harvest should be crowned with abundance, that peace should prevail, and trade should prosper; forthwith the heritor and the merchant have all that heart could wish. But the Christian\u2019s joy is not touched by these vulgar things. These common-place satisfactions do not suit the noble mind of the believer. He thanks God for all the bounties of the basket and the barn, but he cannot feast his soul upon stocks or fruits that perish with the using. He wants something better. The apostle John seems to tell us this when he says, \u201cAnd these<\/i> things write I unto you\u201d \u2014 nothing about prosperity in this world, but all about fellowship with Christ \u2014 \u201cAnd these<\/i> things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.\u201d From which I infer that everything which is revealed to us in scripture has for its intention the filling up of the Christian\u2019s joy<\/i>.<\/p>\n
What is Scripture all about, then? Is it not, first and foremost, concerning Jesus Christ<\/i>? Take thou this Book, and distil it into one word, and I will tell thee what it is \u2014 it is JESUS. All this is but the body of Christ. I may look upon all these pages as the swaddling-bands of the infant Savior, and if you unroll Scripture, you come to Jesus Christ himself. Now, beloved, is not Jesus Christ the sum and summit of your joy? I hope we do not utter a falsehood when we sing, as it is our want: \u2014 <\/p>\n
\u201cJesus the very thought of thee
with rapture fills my breast,
Tho\u2019 sweeter far thy face to see
And in thy bosom rest.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Jesus \u2014 man yet God; allied to us in ties of blood. Why, here is mirth! Here is Christmas all the year round. In the Nativity of the Savior there is joy for us \u2014 the babe in Bethlehem born; God has taken man into communion with himself. Jesus the Savior: here is release from the groans of sin; here is an end to the means of despair. He comes to break the bars of brass, and to cut the gates of iron in sunder.<\/p>\n
\u201cJesus. the name that charms our fears,
That bids our sorrows cease!
\u2019Tis music in the sinner\u2019s ears,
\u2019Tis life, \u2019tis health, \u2019tis peace.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Scripture, surely, has well taken its cue. Would it make us joyful, it has done well to make Christ its head and front.<\/p>\n
All the doctrines<\/i> of the Bible have a tendency, when properly understood and received, to foster the Christian\u2019s joy. Let us mention one or two of them. There is that ancient, much-abused, but most delightful doctrine of election, that \u201call worlds before\u201d Jesus elected his people, and looked with eyes of infinite love upon them as he saw them in the glass of futurity. What, Christian, canst thou believe thyself \u201cloved with an everlasting love,\u201d and not rejoice? Was it not the doctrine of election that made David dance before the ark? When a Michel sneered at him for dancing, he said, \u201cIt was before the Lord who had chosen me before thy father (Saul), and all his house.\u201d Surely to be chosen of God, to be selected from the mass of mankind, and made favourites of the heart of Deity \u2014 this ought to make us, in our worst moments, sing with joy of heart. Oh! that doctrine of election! I wish some of you would acquaint yourselves with it in the psalmody of the Church, rather than in the wrangling of the schools. It is a tree that puts forth its luxuriance in the tropical climate of divine love; but it looks dwarfed and barren in the arctic regions of human logic. Then there are the doctrines which like living waters, drop from this sacred and hidden fountain. Take, for instance, that of redemption. To be bought with a price \u2014 a price whose efficacy is not questionable; bought so that we are now Jesu\u2019s property, never to be lost; bought, not with that general redemption which holds to the sinner\u2019s eye a precarious contingency, but bought with an effectual ransom which saves every blood-bought sinner because he was redeemed \u2014 his own proper self, of God\u2019s own good will. Oh! here is occasion for song!<\/p>\n
\u201cJesus sought me when a stranger
Wandering from the fold of God
He to rescue me from danger,
Interposed his precious blood.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Canst thou see the blood-mark on thyself, and not rejoice? Oh! Christian, surely thy joy ought to be full! Or turn to the doctrine of justification, and consider how, through faith, every believer is \u201caccepted in the beloved,\u201d and stands, wrapped in Jesu\u2019s righteousness, as lair in God\u2019s sight as if he had never sinned. Why, here is a theme for joy! Know and acknowledge thy union with Christ: \u2014 <\/p>\n
\u201cOne with Jesus,
By eternal union one.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Members of his body, \u201cof his flesh, and of his bones,\u201d and what? \u2014 not a song after this! How sweet the music ought to be where this is the theme! Then, too, to mention no more, there is one doctrine which is like a handful of pearls \u2014 that of eternal preservation unto glory which is to be revealed at the appearing of Jesus Christ. You are \u201ckept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.\u201d You shall be with him where he is. You shall behold his glory. \u201cWhom he justified, them he also glorified.\u201d Oh! canst thou put on this robe of splendor, and go up to the throne where Christ has already made thee sit representatively in his own person, and canst thou not begin to-night thy song which shall never end. Truly we have but to mention the truth and you can think it over for yourselves \u2014 every doctrine of revelation is to the Christian a source of joy.<\/p>\n
Well, and every part of Christian experience is to further our joy<\/i>. \u201cWhy,\u201d says one, \u201call a Christian\u2019s experience is not joyful.\u201d I grant you that, but remember that all a Christian\u2019s experience is not Christian experience. Christians experience a great deal which they do not experience as Christians; but experience it because they are not such Christians as they ought to be. I believe that much of that groaning which some people think such a deal of, is rather of the devil than of the Spirit of God. Certainly that unbelief which some people seem to look Upon as such a precious flower is rank herbage, never sown in us by the hand of God the Holy Spirit. Beloved, there is a mourning which comes from the Spirit of God; that is a joyful mourning, if I may use such a strange expression. Sorrow for sin is sweet sorrow; I would never wish to miss it. I think Rowland Hill was right when he said that it would be his only regret in going to heaven, that he could not repent any more. Oh! repentance, true evangelical repentance, is not that half-bitter thing which comes from the law. It is a sweet genial thing. I do not know, beloved, when I am more perfectly happy than when I am weeping for sin at the foot of the cross. I find that to be one of the safest and best places where I can stand. I have sometimes thought that the raptures of communion, I have known, are not altogether so deep \u2014 though they may be higher \u2014 not, I say, so deep as the pensive joy of weeping over pardoned sin; when: \u2014 <\/p>\n
\u201cDissolved by his goodness, I fall to the ground
And weep to the praise of the mercy I\u2019ve found.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Yes, sorrow for sin is a part of the Christian\u2019s experience which helps to fill his joy. And though your cares and anxieties, dear friends, with regard to the things of this world, may be very distressing, yet remember, in every drop of gall which your Father gives you to drink, there is, if you can find it, a whole seaful of sweetness. God sends you trials to wean you from the world \u2014 a happy result, however grievous the process. Oh! that I might never desire to suck of the breasts of her<\/i> consolation any more! Oh! to come to Christ, and find my all in him! Believe me, beloved, our joy ends where the love of the world begins. If we had no idols on earth \u2014 if we made neither our children, nor our friends, nor our wealth, nor ourselves, our idols \u2014 we should not have half the trials that we have. Foolish loves make rods for foolish backs. God save us from these, and when he does, though the means may seem severe, they are intended to promote our joys by destroying the eggs of our sorrows. But there is much of a Christian\u2019s experience that is all joy, and must be all joy. For instance, to have faith in Christ, to rest in him \u2014 is not that joy? To sing from one\u2019s heart: \u2014 <\/p>\n
I know that safe with him remains,
Protected by his power,
What I\u2019ve committed to his hands
Till the decisive hour.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Is not that joy? And even that humbler note: \u2014 <\/p>\n
\u201cNothing in my hands I bring,
Simply to thy cross I cling,\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
has the germ of heaven in it. Truly, there can be no more delightful place for the soul to stand than close to the cross, covered with the crimson droppings of blood, and clasping Christ himself! And then hope is another part of the Christian\u2019s experience. What a fountain of joy it is! We are saved by hope. Sweetly does the Psalmist express himself, \u201cMy soul fainteth for thy salvation, but I hope in thy Word.\u201d To the followers of Christ there is a full assurance of hope; \u201cwhich hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil.\u201d Above all things, Christian fellowship is the chief auxiliary of Christian joy. Read the verse that immediately precedes our text, \u201cThat which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ.\u201d Ah! now we hit the mark. This is the center of the target. Fellowship with Christ is the summum bonum; it fills up the measure of joy. All other graces and gifts may help to fill our cup of blessedness but fellowship with saints in their fellowship with the Father and the Son \u2014 surely this of itself must suffice to fill our vessels to the very brim. Fulness of joy! Did you ever prove it, my beloved? I think some of you have. Nay, I know you have. You could not have contained more joy \u2014 you were full to overflowing. You know that a little joy is healthful? be it relief from anxiety, pleasure after pain, or even a cheerful thought in breasts to sorrow prone; but to have a fullness of joy, joy that pulsates through our every nerve, and paints the entire universe of God\u2019s goodness before our eyes in a meridian glow this is a myriad of blessings in one. If I held in my hand a glass, and poured water into it till it were full, right to the very brim, till it seemed as if the least touch would make it run over \u2014 well, that is how the Christian sometimes is. \u201cWhy,\u201d says he, \u201cI could not feel more happy! If anyone should make me rich, if I could have all that the worldling craves, I could not be any happier; I am rich to all the intents of bliss since thou, God, art mine.\u201d It is not every man that can go home, and say, \u201cThere is nothing on earth I want, and there is nothing in heaven that I yearn after beyond the endowments my God has already bestowed on me. \u201cWhom have I in heaven but thee, and who is there upon earth I desire beside thee?\u201d Go to, ye that pine for joy, and traverse the wide earth round in fruitless search, my soul sits down at the foot of the cross, and says \u201cI have found it here!\u201d Go, like the swallow, fly across the purple seas to find another summer now that this is over; my soul would stop just where she is. Living at the foot of the cross, my sun is in its solstice, and stands still for ever \u2014 never stirring, never moving; without parallax or shadow of a tropic; evermore the same, bright, and full, and glorious. – Oh! Christian! this is a blessed experience. May you know it all your life long!<\/p>\n
Never doubt, my dear friends, that every precept in the Word of God is intended to further the Christian\u2019s happiness<\/i>. When I read the ten commandments, I understand them to be, just, and salutary directions not to do myself any harm. The spirit of the law seems to be benevolent in its warnings. If I were commanded not to put my finger into the fire, and did not know that fire would burn, I ought to be thankful for the prohibition. If I were commanded not to plunge into the sea, not having known before that the sea would drown, I should be thankful for the Interdict. God\u2019s precepts are designed to enlighten our eyes and preserve our feet from falling. They forbid what is dangerous, hurtful. God never denies his servants anything that is really for their good. His laws are freed-men\u2019s rules; they are never fetters to the Christian. And as for the precepts of our blessed Christianity, they, every one of them, promote our happiness. Let me take one or two of them. \u201cLove one another\u201d; that is the first. Well now, when are you happiest? When you feel spiteful and bitter towards everybody else, or when you feel charity towards the faulty, and love towards your fellow-servants? I know when I feel best. There are some people who seem to have been suckled upon vinegar; wherever they go, always see some defect. Were there to be men on earth again such as Chrysostom, and others of his day, who have been portrayed in history, or like the Nazarites of Jeremiah\u2019s plaintive hymn, \u201cPurer than snow and whiter than milk,\u201d they would say, \u201cAh! well, though their reputation is unsullied, we do not know what they do in secret! \u2014 we cannot scan their motives!\u201d Some people are always in a cynical, suspicious humor, but they who \u201clove one another\u201d can see much to rejoice in everywhere. We are told in Scripture to \u201cserve the Lord with diligence,\u201d and I am sure it is \u201cthe diligent soul\u201d that is made fat. The do-nothing people are generally those who say: \u2014 <\/p>\n
\u201c Lord, what a wretched land is this
That yields us no supplies.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
It ought to be a wretched land to lazy people. Those that will not work, neither shall they eat, neither in spiritual things or in temporal shall they be fed. If, in the winter, you complain of cold, get you to the plough, and you will soon be full of warmth; sit ye down, groan, and complain, and blow your blue fingers, and you shall soon find the cold starve you yet more and more. Holy activity is the mother of holy joy. And growth in grace, again; why, when is a man happier than when he grows in grace? To be at a standstill, to contract one\u2019s self \u2014 why, this is misery! To force one\u2019s understanding, like a Chinese foot into a Chinese shoe, is torture; but to have a mind that is capable of learning, to be able sometimes to say, \u201cThere I was wrong\u201d; to be able to feel that you know a little more today than you did yesterday, because God the Spirit has been teaching you, why, this is joy; this is happiness; this is such as God would have us know!<\/p>\n
All the writings of Scripture, whether they be doctrinal, experimental, or practical, have the drift which John indicates in these words, \u201cThat your joy may be full!\u201d Having thus shown that the Christian\u2019s joy needs looking after and that it is mainly fed upon things revealed in Scripture, the inference clearly must be that: \u2014 <\/p>\n
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III. <\/b>We Should Constantly Read The Scriptures.<\/p>\n
Read the Scriptures in preference to any other book<\/i>. What a deal of reading there is now-a-day! But how large a proportion of what you call popular literature is mere chaff-cutting \u2014 nothing more. Why, I am really ashamed to state the fact that I am bound, as a Christian minister, to denounce. You cannot publish a religious newspaper, or a religious magazine, as a rule, to make it pay, without a religious novel in it, and these religious novels are a disgrace to the Christianity of the nineteenth century. People\u2019s minds must be in a queer state when they can eat nothing but these whipped-creams and syllabubs; for people who would be healthy should sit down to something solid, and their stimulants should be consistent with sobriety. You will never attain the mental growth of men and women by feeding on such stuff as that. You may make lackadaisical people in the shape of men and women, but the thinking soul with something in it the woman who would serve her God as a true helper to the Christian ministry, the young man who would proclaim Christ and win souls, need some better nutriment than the poor stuff that modern literature deals out so plentifully. Oh, my dear friends, read the Bible in preference to all such books! They only deprave your taste. If you want these books, have them. We would not deny pigs their proper food; and I would not deny any person living that, which his taste goes after, provided it does not shock decent morals. I lament the taste rather than the indulgence of it; if you have a soul that can appreciate the pleasures of wisdom, eschew the trifles of folly; and if you have been taught to love verities, and substantial truths, you scarcely need that I should say, \u201cSearch the Scriptures.\u201d Search them diligently, frequently, and statedly.<\/p>\n
Prefer the Scriptures to all religious books<\/i>. In our books and our sermons \u2014 we will say it of all of them \u2014 we do our best to give you the truth, but we are like the gold-beaters, whose brazen arms you can see out over their doors \u2014 we get a little bit of gold, and we hammer it out. Some of my brethren are mighty hands at the craft. They can hammer out a very small piece of gold so as to cover a whole acre of talk. But the best of us, those who would seek to bring out the doctrines of grace in love, are poor, poor things. Read the Bible for yourselves more, and confide less in your glossaries. I would rather see the whole stock of my sermons in a blaze, all burned to ashes, than that they should keep anybody from reading the Bible. If they may act as a finger pointing to certain chapters \u2014 \u201cRead this! read this!\u201d \u2014 I am thankful to have printed them. But if they keep you away from your Bibles \u2014 burn them! burn them! Do not let them lie on the top of the Scriptures; put them somewhere at the bottom, for that is their proper place. So with all sorts of religious books: they are a sort of mixture, their human thinking dilutes divine revelation. Keep you to the revelation of God, pure and simple.<\/p>\n
And, when you read your Bible, do read it in earnest<\/i>. There are several ways of reading the Bible. There is a skimming over the surface of it, content with the letter. There is also diving into it, and praying yourselves down deep into the soul of it: that is the way to read the Bible. Do not always read it one verse at a time. How would Milton\u2019s Paradise Lost<\/i> be understood if read by little snatches, selected at random. You would never scan the purpose or design of the poem. Read one book through. Read John\u2019s Gospel. Do not read a bit of John and then a bit of Mark, but read John through, and get at John\u2019s drift. Remember that Matthew, though he wrote of the same Savior as Luke, is not more various in his style than he is distinct in his aim, and, in a certain sense, independent of the testimony he bears. The four evangelists are four separate witnesses, each giving a special contribution to the doctrine as well as the history of Christ. Matthew, for instance, shows you Jesus as a king. You will notice that most of his parables begin with \u201ca king.\u201d \u201cThen shall the kingdom of heaven be likened.\u201d Mark shows you Christ as the servant. Luke shows you Christ as man, giving sketches of his childhood; and his parables begin with \u201cA certain man\u201d; while John teaches you Christ in his Godhead, with a starting point far different from the three others, which have been styled the Synoptical Gospels. \u201cIn the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.\u201d Try, if you can, to get a hold of what the books mean, and pray God the Holy Spirit to lead you into the drift and aim of the sacred writers in so writing. I would like to see my church-members, all of them, good, hard, solid Bible students. Beloved, I would not be afraid of all the errors of Popery, Infidelity, Socinianism, Plymouth Brethrenism, or any other \u201cism\u201d if you were to read your Bibles. You will thus keep clear of the whole lot. There is no doubt about your standing firm to the good old faith which we seek to teach you, if you do but keep to Scripture. The Book, the one Book, the Book of books, the Bible! That studied, not hurriedly, but with a determination to compare spiritual things with spiritual, and to observe the analogy of faith, you shall find a well-spring of delight and holy joy which men of letters who dabble in the proudest classics might envy, for Isaiah is better than Homer, and David is richer than Horace. But better still, you shall stand while others fall.<\/p>\n
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IV. <\/b>But Are We All Believers? Is This Book Joy To All Of Us?<\/p>\n
That is a significant pronoun in the text, \u201cThese things write we unto you, that your<\/i> joy may be full.\u201d To whom writes he? Is it to you<\/i>? Young, woman, does the Scripture write to you<\/i> that your<\/i> joy may be full? Young man, does the Scripture speak to you to fill you<\/i> with holy joy? You do not know whether it does or not; you do not care about it. Then, it does not<\/i> speak to you. You get plenty of joy elsewhere. Well, it does not<\/i> speak to you. It does not intrude upon you. It lets you alone. It offers you no joy. You have got enough. \u201cThe whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick.\u201d<\/p>\n
But there are some of you here who want a joy, and you have not found it. You are uneasy. You cannot find a tree to build your nest on. You are like the needle, when it is turned away from its pole \u2014 you cannot be quiet. You have got a horse-leech in you, that is ever crying, \u201cGive! give!\u201d You are uneasy. Oh! dear friend, I am glad to hear it! May that uneasiness go on increasing. May you become weary of heart, and heavy-laden of spirit, for I have a whisper for you. Jesus Christ has come into the world to call to himself all those who labor and are heavy-laden, and when you are sick and weary with the world, come to him, come to him. What, you have been turned out, have you? The world has got all it could out of you, and thrust you away? Now, Jesus Christ will have you. Come to him! Come to him! He will receive you. So you are burnt out, are you? All the goodness that was in you is burned up, and you have become now nothing but smoking flax, a stench in the estimation of your once flattering companions? You are nowhere. They do not like you. You are mopish and miserable. Oh! come to him, come to him, come to him! He will not quench you. Your music is all over, is it? You were like a reed, like one of Pan\u2019s pipes. You could give out some music once, but you got bruised, and you cannot make one sound or note of joy. Well, poor soul, come to him! Come to him! He will not break you. He will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax.<\/p>\n
\u201cWeary souls that wander wide
From the central source of bliss,
Turn to Jesu\u2019s wounded side,
Look to that dear blood of his.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Here is peace, here is joy in Christ Jesus. Oh! if you are sick of the world, come ye to my Master! May God the Holy Spirit bless this sickness, and make you come, because you have nowhere else to go! Jesus Christ will receive the devil\u2019s cast-aways. The very sweepings of pleasure, the dregs of the intoxicating cup, those who have gone so far that now their friends reject them, Jesus Christ accepts. May he accept me, and accept you, and then in him our joy shall be full! Amen.<\/p>\n
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON.<\/p>\n
PSALM 66:1-15.<\/b><\/p>\n
Verse 1. Make a joyful noise unto God, all ye lands:<\/i><\/p>\n
Let not Israel alone do it. Take up the strain, ye nations. He is the God of all the nations of the earth. \u201cMake a joyful noise unto God, all ye lands.\u201d<\/p>\n
2-4. Sing forth the honor of his name: make his praise glorious. Say unto God, How terrible art thou in thy works! through the greatness of thy power shall thine enemies submit themselves unto thee. All the earth shall worship thee, and shall sing unto thee; they shall sing to thy name. Selah<\/i>.<\/p>\n
I still must always cling to the belief that this whole world is to be converted to God, and to lie captive at the feet of Christ in glorious liberty. Do not fall into that lethargic, apathetic belief of some that this is never to be accomplished \u2014 that the battle is not to be fought out on the present lines, but that there is to be a defeat, and then Christ is to come. Nay, foot to foot with the old enemy will he stand, till he has worsted him, and until the nations of the earth shall worship and bow before him.<\/p>\n
5, 6. Come and see the works of God: he is terrible in his doing toward the children of men. He turned the sea into dry land: they went through the flood on foot: there did we rejoice in him.<\/i><\/p>\n
Where God is most terrible to his enemies, he is most gracious to his friends. As Pharaoh and his hosts went down beneath the terrible hand of God, the children of Israel lifted up their loudest hallelujahs, and sang unto the Lord, who triumphed gloriously. And so shall it be to the end of the chapter. God will lay bare his terrible arm against his adversaries but his children shall meanwhile make music. \u201cThere did we rejoice in him.\u201d<\/p>\n
7-9. He ruleth by him power: for ever: his eyes behold the nations: let not the rebellious exalt themselves. Selah. O bless our God ye people and make the voice of his praise to be hard. Which holdeth our soul in life and suffereth not our feet to be moved.<\/i><\/p>\n
Loudest among the singers should God\u2019s people be. If others can restrain their praise, yet let the love of Christ so constrain us that we must give it a tongue, and tell forth the majesty of our God. It is he alone who keeps us from perdition \u2014 which holdeth our soul in life. It is he alone who keeps us from falling foully, ay, and falling finally, \u201cand suffereth not our feet to be moved.\u201d<\/p>\n
10. For thou, O God, hast proved us:<\/i><\/p>\n
All God\u2019s people can say this. It is the heritage of the elect of God. \u201cThou has proved us.\u201d<\/p>\n
10-11. Thou hast tried us, as silver is tried. Thou broughtest us into the net.<\/i><\/p>\n
Entangled, surrounded, captive, held fast. Many of God\u2019s people are in this condition.<\/p>\n
11. Thou laidst affliction upon our loins.<\/i><\/p>\n
It was no affliction of hand or foot, but it laid upon our loins \u2014 a heavy, crushing burden.<\/p>\n
12. Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water:<\/i><\/p>\n
It was the full ordeal. One was not enough. Fire destroys some, but water is the test for others, but God\u2019s people must be tried both ways. \u201cWe went through fire and through water; but\u201d \u2014 . Blessed \u201cbut<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n
12. But thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.<\/i><\/p>\n
Out of the fire and out of the water they came, because God brought them, and when he brought them, it was not to a stinted, barren heritage, but into a wealthy place. Oh! beloved, when we think of where the covenant of grace has placed every believer, it is a wealthy place, indeed.<\/p>\n
13-15. I will go into thy house with burnt offerings: I will pay thee my vows Which my lips have uttered, and my mouth have spoken, when I was in trouble I will offer unto thee burnt sacrifices of fatlings, with the incense of rams; I will offer bullocks with goats. Selah.<\/i><\/p>\n
The best, I think. \u201cThe best of the best will I bring thee, O my God. I will bring thee my heart; I will bring thee my tongue; I will bring thee my entire being.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NO. 3406 A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 14TH, 1914. DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. \u201cAnd these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full. \u2014 1 John 1:4. VERY closely does the apostle John resemble his Lord in the motive that prompted him to write this … Continue reading “FULNESS OF JOY OUR PRIVILEGE”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4734\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}