1 Canon Williuk.
NEHEMIAH viii. lo 511
elect, his joy is the joy of the Lord Jesus. When a soul is saved, there is a great harmony of joy. Men, angels, and God Himself rejoice together, so that the joy of the Church and the joy of angels may be justly termed the joy of the Lord. On the other hand, when there is no deep interest in the conversion of souls, when men do not care whether souls are brought to Christ or not, when missionary intelligence gives them no pleasure, and the work of conversion at home excites no thanksgiving, they may have much to make them happy, but their joy cannot be said to be the joy of the Lord.
Our blessedness to see Is even to the Deity A Beatific Vision ! He attains His Ends while we enjoy. In us He reigns.*
11
Our Joy in God.
The main revelation of the text however is this : It is the will of God that we should be happy and strong, inasmuch as it is the joy of the Lord which is our strength.
Let us see (i.) what joy is ; (ii.) how we are to gain it ; and (iii.) where we are to find occasions for it.
i. What is this joy ?
1. There is a broad distinction between mere gladness and spiritual joy. Spiritual joy rises from within the soul, and does not depend on the outward circumstances of life. Men forget this, and fancy that spiritual life is pre-eminently sorrowful, and that joy enervates man. We hear of the cross and the conflict, we are awe-stricken at the sublime demand for the sacrifice of all things, and the noble yet apparently stern picture of the ceaseless struggle of the Christian life. That picture is true, all aspirations begin in sadness, all spiritual aspirations are cradled in tears, all true life is a battle, and the battle of the spiritual man ceases only in heaven. But because this joy springs from the soul and not from circumstances, there is a kind of joy that may deepen
* Thomas Traberue.
512 THE STRENGTH OF JOY
into blessedness by the bearing of the cross and the endurance of the conflicts of life. From forgetfuluess of this truth, there arises the idea that gladness is opposed to the attainment of spiritual power. "We see that when God would make a human soul a harp for Divine song, He often baptizes it, as He did David and Isaiah, with difficulties, and smites it with afflictions. "We know that when God would make a strong man. He frequently sends him disappointments, imprisonments, desolate days of loneliness, grim battle with slander and care, until the soul grows mighty with the shock, and is clothed with celestial armour by the struggle, and stands up in its strength to fling temptation aside. Hence men conclude that great or lasting joy does not bring out the strength of the soul. It is true that mere gladness — the gladness produced by success and friendship — the buoyant bounding of the heart in life's sunshine — is by no means neces- sarily strength-giving. It is a blessed and merciful thing. The man into whose life it never comes, and who cannot sometimes give way to its exultation, is to be pitied. Yet if it is perpetual, this does weaken the soul, hides from it the invisible, and withers high purpose in life. But if spiritual joy springs from within the soul, then, so far from loosening the power of the spirit, it girds it for endurance, and it is the joy in difficulty and struggle that makes men strong.
^ Nehemiah qualifies the statement. He does not say that
every joy will make a man strong; his words are, "The joy of
/ the Lord is your strength." And he is quite right in this limitation.
I The joy which strengthens must be unselfish joy. I do not think
j that joy about personal good fortune is a whit more invigorating
I to the body than grief for personal loss. They are both weakening.
I Pope Clement the Seventh died of sorrow for a defeat ; but his
\ successor, Leo the Tenth, died of exultation for a victory. Personal
• excitement, whether through laughter or through tears, paralyses
the work of the hour. If in the midst of writing an article you
heard that you had come into a great fortune, I do not think you
would write a line more that day. But if you heard the same
news of one whom you loved, and whose poverty had given you
pain, you would be fanned by an inspiration which would make
the pen fly. "What marks the difference ? It is this — the one is
the joy of the flesh ; the other is the joy of the Lord.^
^ G. Matheson.
NEHEMIAH viii. lo 513
2. This spiritual joy is twofold in its nature.
(1) It is the Joy of self-surrender to God. — Until a man has surrendered himself joy is impossible. There may be gleams of happiness, or wild outbursts of pleasure, but true joy can begin only when the self -life has been surrendered. For men know that to live only in themselves is misery, and yet they cannot escape from themselves, because the consciousness of a guilty past hangs like a burden on the heart.