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XII.
JOY

“Rejoice in the Lord alway; and again I say rejoice.” – Philippians iv. 4.

Whatever may be the impression produced by these words, no one can read them attentively, and be indifferent to the admonition they convey. They speak to our most real life, a life of mingled sunshine and shadow; and they speak in the name of a religion which is divinely holy and solemn. They have a marvellous power in awakening feeling, and if we could but know the emotion they excite in each of us, we should find them to constitute a perfect test of our actual experiences, as well as of our religious condition. In any religious assembly, there must of necessity be two widely different states of feeling. Some souls are happy, and others are depressed. To the first class, the words before us come with sweetness, adding joy to joy; to the second, they come with pain, the pain of contrast and of longing. Hence the question might be asked, “To whom are they addressed? Are they spoken to the happy alone? Must they be suppressed when we speak to the sad or to the miserable?” They are addressed neither to the one class alone, nor to the other alone. They were spoken to all hearts in the Philippian church, without distinction of condition; and without distinction they are also spoken to us. If there be any special stress in them at all, it is when they are addressed to the sorrowing, as we shall see by-and-by. The words themselves supply a hint as to how this may be. The joy that is recommended is “joy in the Lord.” It is therefore a Christian joy; and those to whom the apostle recommends it, whatever may be the diversity of their circumstances, are first of all, last of all, anyhow, under any condition, Christians. Paul knows that joy is an inevitable consequence of the possession of true Christianity in the heart, that it is the natural outcome of Christian faith, that it ought to be a pervading experience of the Christian soul through all the forms and circumstances of its life. And so he offers the same exhortation to all. Nor is it a recommendation merely: it is a command, and it strikingly takes its place among the great Pauline precepts. For the proof of this, turn to these precepts as we have them at the close of his first epistle to the Thessalonians. (See chap. v. 14-22.)

No one will suppose for a moment that the exhortation to rejoice can be applied in any sense to unbelieving men, to men of the world, to the ungodly. Granting that they have a joy peculiarly their own, it is of such a nature, and is so conditioned by the life of every day, that it would be cruel to bid them “rejoice evermore.” The worldling has too many disappointments, struggles, and cares, for a permanent and unbroken joy such as that. He may think himself fortunate for rejoicings that come now and then! Besides, how could Paul recommend a rejoicing which is not “in the Lord,” which is the only rejoicing possible to the unbeliever? Paul’s joy is consistent with every duty of the religion he preached; but to that religion the unbeliever is opposed. His rejoicing cannot be acceptable to the Lord. It is spurious. It has no true, substantial source. To such a man the apostle might rather have said, “Weep!” Christian joy is an inheritance closely fenced around; and hard as it seems to enjoy any good things in which others cannot share, we must say, “Unbelieving men and women, it is not for you.” The way here is through the strait gate, and along the narrow road.

No joy can be “joy in the Lord” which does not contain the following elements —

1. Purity. The objects that excite it must be pure. It must be free from all carnality and from all sin; it must spring from the soul’s sympathy with God, with His truth, with His goodness. Holy in its objects, it becomes a sanctifying power.

2. Calmness. It is freedom from turmoil of heart, from disquietude of life. It suffuses our feeling and our conduct with peace – peace that “flows like a river.” Hence, it is the condition of a quiet, steady Christian experience.

3. Seriousness. It does not depend on self-forgetfulness, or on a forced thoughtlessness. It is deepest in the most reflective, and is strengthened in all by an honest and habitual self-examination.

4. Humility. There is a sort of arrogance and self-sufficiency in worldly joy. Christianity puts man in his true place, and teaches him to refer all his peace to God.

5. Love. Love to man and to God; the latter as the natural effect of gratitude, the former from deep pity for his spiritual destitution, or from sympathy in a common experience of happiness.

6. Permanence. It is not a fitful, occasional, moody thing. Secondary sources of joy may fail, but God, the primary Source and Giver of all joy, remains; and the relationship between the believer and Him abides, so that the grounds of peace and of hope are everlasting.

Now it is clear that these are not the elements of a worldly joy. We do not care to reduce all that joy to a common level, and to say that it is invariably and equally destitute of all these qualities of purity, calmness, seriousness, humility, love, permanence. It is enough to say that it is not “joy in the Lord.” It does not consciously or actually spring from Him; it is not maintained by communion with Him; and it does not pay to Him its tribute of love, consecration, and praise.

This exhortation to Christian joy is one of the most common in the writings of Paul. Happy Christians may wonder why it is repeated so often. Why urge it at all? Is it not the first, the necessary, the constant result of faith? Why specially insist upon it as a duty? If faith be weak, give us reasons by which faith may be strengthened; but, once in the conscious possession of eternal life and of peace with God, let the results naturally follow. Are they not sure to come?

One would suppose so; but, alas! Paul knew, and we have reason to know, that we are very inconsistent! There is often a divorce between our professed beliefs and the results that should flow from them. Then, too, our faith is often unconsciously held. It is too merely traditional; it lacks freshness and vitality. We may well, therefore, be thankful that God, who has given us such motives for joy, should still recommend it to us. Even with a very sincere faith may circumstances arise which shall trouble our hearts. Our joy is constantly threatened, and almost unconsciously we sometimes come to feel that we have none. I know many Christians of whom the last thing we could affirm would be that they are joyful Christians. Hence the exhortation. It takes the form of a command. Why?

1. We owe it to the love and mercy of our God. Joy is the sign, the expression, and the ornament of gratitude. A faith without joy is an altar without perfume. God’s abounding grace realised in the heart demands this return. If we be not joyful, what does the fact mean? Do we lightly esteem His great love? Are we afraid it may fail?

2. Joy is a means of testifying our gratitude. Without joy, faith is barren and inefficient, or else its fruits are rare and without savour. The gospel represents good works as the fruits of faith, and fruits grow not on the trunk, but on the branches; and joy is one of these. A worldly joy gives vigour to the heart in the pursuit of worldly objects. Christian joy prompts the heart to devotedness to God.

3. The world is mightily influenced by our joy. The idea that religion is a sad, gloomy thing is widely spread, and is a hindrance in the way. Men know that our beliefs ought to produce joy, and, if they fail to do so, they become themselves discredited. A true Christian is really at the source of all true joy. The world yields him most because he is nearest heaven. Joy is a proselyting power.

4. True joy cannot be imitated. The world’s gaiety is the effect of temperament and circumstances, not of reflection; it repudiates and shrinks from thought. Christian joy deepens the more thoughtful men become. The grounds on which it rests are felt to be the surer the more they are examined.

Let us look at one or two more of the characteristics of Christian joy.

1. It does not avoid contact with men, but it can, if need be, live alone. It can flourish in the heart that is alone with itself and with God, and can find its food in meditation and prayer. It blossoms where other joys fade.

2. It is devout. It loves the places where its Author is worshipped, but it can sing its praises everywhere. The heart in which it resides is a temple. It sings even in the midst of cares and tribulations, like Paul and Silas in the midnight gloom of the prison at Philippi.

3. It is at the furthest remove from frivolity. It rejoices in serious things, even in such serious things as sorrow and death. It looks up and on with hope. It rests in God. It knows that Christ, its Source, can never be separated from it. It thinks itself rich enough in the possession of God’s great love.

4. It triumphs over the hindrances by which all other joy is thwarted. As to remembrances of the past, all that needed to be forgiven is forgiven. As to actual trouble, it can take hold of God. As to forecasts of the future, that, in its truest blessedness, is secure.

Who would not be a Christian? And who, being a Christian, can refuse to be glad?

 
Eternal Source of Life and Light,
From whom my every blessing flows,
How shall my lips extol aright
The bounty that no measure knows?
 
 
Sweet are the gifts Thou dost accord;
Still best when best we love Thy ways:
But one yet add, all bounteous Lord,
And teach me as I would to praise.
 
 
To praise Thee ofttimes with my tongue;
To praise Thee ever with my heart;
And soon, where heavenly praise is sung,
Oh, let me take my blissful part!
 
 
Then, Lord, not one of all the host
That hymn Thy glory round the Throne,
How e’er exalted there, shall boast
A strain more fervent than mine own.
 

XIII.
SICKNESS

“Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick.” – John xi. 4.

Much contact with sickness of late has set me thinking about it; about the place it occupies in the Divine dispensations of our life, and the lessons it may teach. The subject will find an easy entrance into our meditations. Most of us have known what sickness is, and all of us have in prospect that which will prove to be our last.

In all the sorrow that affects the people of God there is more or less of mystery, which deepens in proportion as those who suffer become mature in their Christian life, and advanced in holiness. Yet there are some obvious truths in relation to it which are not hard to discern, and to some of these it will be profitable to turn our thoughts now.

I. Sickness, in common with all our ills, is a solemn witness to the existence of sin. If we trace it back to its first cause, we shall find it to have originated in “the transgression of the law.” It would be contrary both to the letter and to the spirit of the gospel to see in each sickness the direct result of a particular sin. Yet cases of this kind are not so rare as we suppose. Many men, even professing Christians, suffer in consequence of sins known only to God and to themselves; secret luxuries and excesses, or a trifling, perhaps half unconscious, with some of the simplest laws of Nature. Let not this be altogether overlooked. Moreover, whilst we are not at liberty to suppose an immediate connection between some particular sickness and some particular sin, there is a general connection between sin and suffering. There would have been no sickness in the world if there had been no sin. There was none in Eden: there will be none in heaven. Sickness is a witness to the disorder which sin has created. The Christian is a forgiven man, but the secondary consequences of sin remain. In a sinful world, the sins of others react upon him in various ways. He himself, though forgiven, is not yet perfect. There will always be enough of the sense of sin even in the most devout heart, to bend the sufferer in humiliation beneath the thought that in a thousand ways he has deserved the discipline of sorrow.

II. Sickness, however, affords equal testimony to the love of God. The Christian has ample reason for knowing that it is a Father’s hand that smites, and that the blow is tempered with gentle mercy. We suffer less than many have suffered before: less than many are suffering now. The Old Testament gives us some notable examples of suffering – Job, David, etc.; so also does the New Testament – Paul, for instance. And what were the sufferings of these compared with those of Christ, who wept and bled and died, not for Himself, but for us? In all ages better men than we have suffered more. Consider what we have deserved, and what, but for the mercy of God, we must have had to bear. If the sufferings of life are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to follow, neither are they worthy to be compared with the doom which must have followed, if God had not loved us with an infinite and everlasting love. Nor is it beneath the subject to mention the alleviations which are granted to us, and which we must all trace to the Divine Hand – sleep, the suspension of pain, sympathy, and, most of all, the hopes of the gospel. These are common-place considerations, but we must entertain them, if our gratitude and trust are to be strong and simple.

But we must enter into particulars a little further for the sake of evolving truth still more immediate and personal.

III. Sickness is often a special grace from God, and is a providential answer to the secret desires of our own souls. Not, indeed, the answer we ask, or the answer we expect; rather, indeed, the answer we would gladly avoid: but still an answer. The cardinal want of man is salvation. Who does not know that sickness has often been sanctified to that end? The cardinal want of the Christian is sanctification – preparedness for heaven; and every Christian knows how seriously this is impeded by a crowd of difficulties, real enough, but which we have a propensity to exaggerate; generally, the daily occupations and cares of life – a family to be provided for, a competency to gain, favourable opportunities to be looked for and seized, daily mischances, and the like. Meanwhile we are conscious of our spiritual wants, and there is a painful conflict between the claims which are temporal, and those which are spiritual. How many Christians are living a life of absorption in the world, yet harassed with occasional regrets, fears, desires, connected with better things? To these sickness is a Divine reply. It is as though God said: “Dear child, I know thy difficulty. Thou canst not of thine own determination leave the world; come away now. Leave thy labour, thy anxiety, thy dreams. Shut out from the world’s noise, listen to Me, to thy soul, to heaven, to eternity. Not that thou mayest do thy duty less faithfully do I thus check thee, but that thou mayest learn the true subordination of things to one another; not the spiritual to the temporal, but the temporal to the spiritual. That is why I put this affliction upon thee.” Oh, verily, blessed is sickness when viewed from the station where we rest and refresh in the fevered journey of life – a truce after battle, a parenthesis in life’s tale, into which God puts His own deep-meaning and gentle word. Let us remember this for our brethren’s sakes and for our own.

IV. Sickness, as a special proof of God’s love, is charged with a mission to bring to us some special gifts and graces. It is above all things a means of blessing when we associate with it the idea of discipline, however stern. There is not a single Christian virtue that may not acquire strength on a bed of sickness, and there are not a few Christian virtues which probably must be learnt there, if they are ever to be learnt perfectly at all. Among these note the following:

1. Patience. This is specially the fruit of sorrow. No soul can know what patience is until it has learnt what suffering is. To this effect Paul and James both teach, putting suffering before the Christian as a veritable cause of joy because it produces patience. How many elements in sickness would be aggravated by the absence of this beautiful grace! How quickly we come to feel that all worry is useless, and that we must simply wait the good pleasure of the Lord! How commonly too, the existence of this virtue strikes the beholder. It is not apathy, it is not stoicism; it is submission. When the sickness is past there will still remain much in life to try us; but if we have learnt the lesson, we shall know how to apply it.

2. Entire dependence upon God. This is sometimes hard to realize in days of health and vigour, but in days of sickness we feel that the sentiment is impressed upon us with especial weight. We know that it is He who casteth down and lifteth up. We use means for recovery, and this is right; but we learn that without His blessing the best and the most skilfully applied of these are of no avail. This sense of dependence on God should be the habit of the mind; and having acquired it in sorrow we shall not repudiate or forget it in joy.

3. Unworldliness. In a sickness which is protracted, and the issue of which is uncertain, we learn to put the proper estimate on things. We find and we feel that we have here no true home and no true satisfaction, and that we must look above. At such a time we perceive that the real is the spiritual and the eternal. As we groan in this tabernacle, we obtain our true relief in the contemplation of things unseen.

4. The confidence of faith. The possible issues of our sickness are momentous, and the question comes: “Of what quality are my hopes? Is the religion that has given me joy and strength in health able to support me now?” And how often the blessed answer is “Yes!” God gives us strength equal to our day. The Father’s smile, the presence of the Saviour, simple trust in the Cross – these are realized as they never have been before. And if health should return, it will be with the calmly, soberly delightful feeling of a religion in the heart that has stood the test. This is the experience of not a few whom I have known.

All this has a mighty influence on others besides the sufferers themselves. They preach, and preach effectively, through their sorrow and the grace by which they bear it, and get blessing out of it. Thus their sickness becomes an occasion on which, an instrumentality by which, God conveys the blessings of His grace to their brethren.

To all of us, whether in sickness or in health, the subject suggests some important lessons. It suggests thankfulness for such health as we have. Others are suffering: why not we? Multitudes are languishing in pain to-day; most of us are well. Let us bless God, and seek His grace that we may use this gift of health, with all His other gifts, to His glory. It suggests sympathy for those who suffer. How dependent they are on our kindness, our gentleness, our love. Let us give it to them in full measure. Specially, let us give expression to our sympathy for them by prayer on their behalf. It suggests faithfulness to the vows made in the time of our trouble. How much holier would all of us be to-day if none of those vows had been forgotten!

XIV.
JESUS ONLY

“And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only.” – Matthew xvii. 8.

The visible glory has vanished; Moses and Elias have disappeared; the cloud is gone; the Voice has been heard; and Jesus has assumed again the form of His lowliness. A few moments ago Peter, in a half-unconscious ecstasy, was saying: “Lord, it is good for us to be here: if Thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for Thee, one for Moses, and one for Elias.” And now they are coming down from the mountain to the turmoil at its foot, and they who wished to tabernacle so gloriously above must descend again to their fishing-nets below. The change seems sudden and sad. We feel inclined to exclaim, “What a loss!” But though they come down, Jesus is with them. Herein lies the substance of what I want now to develop. Our life has its resting-places, exposed to startling, rude alternations; but it has also, in the midst of all, its grand solace.

I. The first of these truths is one of such common experience, that we have no need to do more in support of it than to point to well-known facts. I shall try to generalize them by referring merely to three points.

1. To our external personal circumstances. Sometimes we are prosperous, cheerful, happy. We say, “The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.” Incidents occur which seem to transform our ordinary life. We succeed in our pursuits. We are in health. Our domestic happiness is undisturbed. We have been delivered from impending ill, and, instead of suffering what we have feared, we realize more than we have hoped for. We are thankful; we are content; and we want to build our tabernacle on the green mount of our prosperity.

May we not indulge this feeling without any suspicion that our prosperity may too much absorb and unspiritualise us? But the time for disenchantment comes, and if we have grace enough in our hearts, we find that a drawback is put in the way of our fancied happiness, the tendency of which is proving a strong temptation to worldliness. And then, though we do not court reverses – for they, too, have their temptations – we begin to feel that this position of fancied happiness is not so perfect as we thought. Besides, the novelty passes away, and the satisfaction becomes less. We had forgotten our higher needs whilst we were absorbed in our external well-being. And so we come to acknowledge once more that this is not our rest. Sometimes, too, a veritable reverse takes place; like the disciples, we have to come down from the mount. The alternations of grief, disappointment, and care follow our joy, and we get a further confirmation of the truth that there is no resting-place to be found in any of the circumstantials of life.

2. To our intercourse with men. We have reason to be thankful for all the blessing which reaches us through this channel, and especially so for all sanctified human relationships. To men of confiding, generous natures, it is natural to repose in their contact with certain of their fellow creatures. Some of our brethren wield a marvellous charm over us. We trust their character; we are not conscious of their defects; we are entirely at home with them.

But here, again, we find that we must come down from the mount. It would be a sad story if we could all tell our surprises and disappointments in this matter. How many apparently beautiful friendships have passed away! How many defects have we discovered in those whom we have implicitly trusted, when we have been brought into a closer acquaintance with them? How many have others discovered in us? Do we not see here one reason why men become cynical and misanthropic? The greater the confidence, the greater the subsequent distrust. The greater the joy, the deeper the grief which has followed it. Let us thank God for the friendships that abide; but let us remember that human love can never be a perfect resting-place for our hearts.

3. To our Christian feeling. In the early days of our Christian life especially, and often afterwards, all seems to be “transfigured” before our eyes. We see a new earth and a new heaven. We breathe a life-giving atmosphere as we ascend the hills from whence cometh our help. Moses and Elias – the law and the prophets – have undergone the same transformation. Desires which are earthly have given place to desires which are spiritual. We seem to be in closest contact with the Saviour, and we pity the small pre-occupations of the world. We say, “Let us build here our tabernacle, and rest.”

But changes await us! First the heights, then the depths! To-day, the unutterable words from heaven; to-morrow, the thorn in the flesh and the messenger of Satan to buffet! The one is not without the other. Hence the lesson comes home to us: “Do not depend too much on your heart-states.” These high joys seldom last long. Jesus, so to speak, loses His splendour, and comes down again from the mount, as a man, to His humiliation.

II. The facts I have adverted to are such as only experience teaches. The prosperous and the immature may suppose that I take too gloomy a view of life. By no means. Life has brought its trials to me; and, like many others, I have been again and again on the mount to come down afterwards into the valley. And, were it not for one crowning consideration, there has been enough of change to some of us to make us sad and gloomy enough. What has prevented it? This, that Jesus has come down from the mount along with us. We have learnt to prize Him in proportion as we have learnt the deceptiveness of all beside!

As Jesus humbled Himself, so He humbles His own. He wants us to walk by faith, not by sight, nor by sentiment. What should we become on our Tabor, if we were allowed to build our tabernacles there? Certainly proud; perhaps foolish; perhaps self-sufficient. Paul was in danger of being exalted above measure by the glory of the revelations which came to him; have we any reason to be more certain of ourselves? The greater the height the more destructive the fall. We might also mistake religious ecstasies for religious firmness or religious growth. Yes, the true discipline is that which makes us come down.

All this looks like the disenchantment of our cherished illusions. What have we to put in their place? Man does not live alone by what is taken away from him, but by what is given to him. Have we taken away all? Have we given nothing? We read that a Voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him… And when the disciples had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only.” What does that teach us?

It teaches that out of these ecstasies, which often hide the reality, there comes a gift of God more precious than all —Jesus Himself. Whatever form He may assume, He is still the same; still the same whether He goes up the mountain with us, or comes down with us from the mountain. Our illusions vanish, but Jesus does not disappear. It is to Him that God directs us when the dreams of life are gone. Events deceive us, men change, the joy of our own hearts subsides; but these things happen that we may lift up our eyes and see Jesus only.

And so the illusions which depart give place to a permanent good. Do not be afraid to descend from the mountain-tops into the low valleys which lie beneath. Neither height nor depth need separate from the love of Christ. A mighty and gracious Hand guides you, whether you see it or not. Lay hold of it with confidence. Though your ecstacies vanish, the great gain of your faith will be a sober, deep repose.

Do not confound this repose with a want of life or of interest. A staid, strong, sober Christian is a man who has learnt in whatsoever state he is therewith to be content. A staid, strong, sober Christian is one who can do all things through Christ, who is ever near and ever strengtheneth.

Is not such a condition a blessed one? It is that which gives to faith its permanence and its calm. Instead of ascending to heaven and descending to the abyss to find Christ, we find Him here, and remain with Him in peace and assurance. Having found Him, and being united to Him, we may, if need be, do without the rest. On the mount and in the plain we have the same Saviour. In any case, our hearts are on a sure foundation.

The tabernacles Peter wanted to erect on Tabor let us erect in the valley. Let us keep near to Jesus; near to His law, near to His promises, but emphatically near to Him. This, too, will be a transfiguration, the transfiguration of our common life. The light of the Divine glory will shine about us; and in the light, and out of the cloud, the Voice will speak. We shall tabernacle with Moses and Elias only above; but we may tabernacle with Jesus below. Let us tabernacle with Him most at the cross; for it is there that we shall find most of our holiness and our hope.