Psalm 4:7 You have put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased. Christianity is a religion of gladness. You cannot have one Divine idea in you without being glad. You cannot have any Divine ideas so long as you are unpardoned. It is the distinction of the gospel to proclaim possible forgiveness, and when forgiveness has taken effect then joy begins; on every bough of every tree there is a singing bird. But until we are pardoned, and pardoned at the Cross, we cannot admit God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost into our hearts to abide with us and sup with us and manifest themselves to us, and therefore we cannot have this simple, pure, celestial, inexhaustible joy. Christianity gives joy unspeakable, joy unutterable. Joy has no words; joy takes up all our little words, and uses them, and then says, I want more, more, another language, and because it has no more articulation it bursts forth into songs without words, it mingles with the melody of the spheres. To that high festival we are called! But is not the religion of Christ a religion of melancholy? No. It has in it the deepest melancholy ever known, but one thing is so often forgotten by Christian evangelists: Christ died only once. They will not think of that — only once. He did die — died as never man died; He was despised and rejected of men, He gave His back to the smiters and His cheeks to them that pluck off the hair; but He died only once. He lives for evermore. Why do we not at our Eastertides remember this? — the death for a moment, the life forever! So we come up out of darkness to sing of light; we leave the desert, one little mile long, and enter upon the boundless paradise of God. Do not condemn yourselves because you have not a continual consciousness of this joy. Much of that want of consciousness may be due to physical infirmity; we are fearfully and wonderfully made; the body may be having the upper hand for a time. Then some men's self lies such a long way within themselves they have to shed off coat after coat, to slough off bad skin after bad skin a thousand in number, before they get at their real Ego, their real I, their real and divinest self. Some of us have a hard fight. Some of you think you are going to lose. Hear me: you are not. "Gad, a troop shall overcome him, but he shall overcome at the last." For the moment he is down, but God is in him, and he will spring from the dust, and at the last even the poor tribe called Gad shall sing of victory, sit down with conquerors! (Joseph Parker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased.WEB: You have put gladness in my heart, more than when their grain and their new wine are increased. |
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