Rejoice Always, Part 3

Introduction: Balancing the Command to Rejoice Always

0:03 Now we turn again this morning to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5,

0:10 continuing our studies in this letter of the Apostle to this infant church of the Thessalonians. We are coming to the end of the section bounded by the beginning of chapter 4 and the end of the book, the end of chapter 5, in which the Apostle is giving some very practical instructions concerning the general subject, how to walk so as to please God. Several specific areas have been dealt with in some detail, and then beginning in chapter 5 and verse 12, he groups together a miscellaneous set of instructions for the people of God, some relative to their relationship to each other,

0:54 some relative to their relationship to their overseers and spiritual leaders, some to what we would call general duties of the Christians, and every one of them is to be taken seriously, for in this way the Lord Jesus is exercising his prophetic ministry in his church. He guides his church by his word through his inspired apostles. We have come to the first in this little trilogy of commands, so often put on plaques and set on our walls, but so seldom written upon the tables of our hearts and experienced in our lives, beginning with verse 12, Verse 16,

1:33 Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks. This is the third morning that we're trying to grasp what does the biblical injunction mean, rejoice always. We have sought to define joy as that pleasant affection of the soul that we experience either in the anticipation of or the possession of some suitable good. And I've used some very homey illustrations to illustrate this.

2:07 I cannot go back and re-preach those sermons. Just suffice it to say that joy, that experience of joy of which all of us are familiar, is rooted, if you'll analyze it, whenever there is the possession of or the anticipation of possessing some suitable good, be it a natural good or a spiritual good. Well, of course, Paul is commanding us to rejoice always, to experience. Experience that pleasant affection of the soul as we as believers contemplate all that we presently possess and all that we shall possess in the world to come.

2:45 And we can afford to rejoice always for our spiritual goods are not affected by our environment, they're not affected by the stock market, they're not affected by the sweetness or lack of the same upon hubby or wife's countenance. Rejoice always. For your grounds of rejoicing as a Christian change not. Therefore, the joy should be constant.

3:11 That's the general duty set before us. However, lest we misunderstand what the apostle means and bind our consciences to some thought that we should always be going around with a 32-toothed like this, and forever having this effervescent spirit, we must balance this command with other principles, and this we sought to begin to do last week. And I demonstrated from Scripture that this joy, this rejoicing, which we are admonished to experience at all times, may coexist with other dispositions of the soul or may actually be replaced at times by grief.

Joy Coexisting with Grief: Adversity and Sympathy

3:56 We considered two of them last week. First of all, the grief of sorrow or adversity. There is a legitimate grief brought about by adversity that may exist on the surface of our emotional experience, whereas underneath that very grief feeds this true abiding joy. And we saw in 1 Peter 1 where Peter says, Ye greatly rejoice, though if now for a time you are put to grief.

4:28 They were grieving while rejoicing. There was this grief. Under the present pressures of opposition to the gospel, unbelief and indifference to the truth that they loved, it caused grief. But that grief had a deep substructure of joy in God.

4:47 Then we closed with a study of the grief of sympathy. The sorrows of our brethren are to cause us sorrow. Scripture says, Weep with those who weep, as well as rejoice with those who rejoice. And the picture of our Lord in John 11, in a context of human grief and sorrow, our Lord weeps, showing himself a true man, extending sorrow to his brethren in a context of sorrow.

5:17 And then the state of the church and of the world should cause a Christian true grief while he rejoices in all that he has in Christ. He has pain when he sees those about him out of Christ who know nothing of those joys. And so the same apostle who says rejoice always says in Romans 9, 1, I have continual sorrow and heaviness of heart. And you're not a biblical Christian unless you know both.

5:46 If you know nothing but joy, joy, joy, joy, down in your heart, and don't know pain, pain, pain down in your heart, you're a stranger to a balanced understanding and experience of the grace of God. Amen.

6:03 And this irresponsibility, this impossible giddiness in the present state of evangelicalism is an unscriptural perversion of this rejoice always. And it's turned the church into something just a little bit beyond a social club where people come to get chucked under the cheek to feel a little better. No, no. Rejoice always, yes, but never in such a way to negate the grief of true sympathy, sympathy with our brethren, sympathy, sympathy in the light of the state of the world and of the church.

The Grief of True Repentance Replaces Joy

6:40 Now we come to the third area to complete our studies in this text. Not only is there a legitimate grief of adversity, a grief of sympathy, but there is the grief of true repentance. Now the first two griefs, they coexist with joy. The grief of adversity and the grief of sympathy coexist with a deep substance, a structure of joy in God.

7:08 It's my thesis this morning that the grief of true repentance will actually replace joy at the deepest level of the heart for a period of time. And the only reason it replaces joy at the deepest level is that it might, like a bulldozer, clear the heart at its deepest level for joy in the Holy Ghost. There is the grief of true repentance. The moment I started working on this, this text, Rejoice Always, I could not help but have my mind revert to a text over which I poured much about five years ago and many times since then when I preached through the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5 and verse 4.

7:52 Blessed are they who mourn. And immediately I began to have problems. Rejoice always. Blessed are they who mourn.

8:05 Not who did mourn. Mourned. Past tense, but who mourn. Present tense.

8:12 How do you put them together?

The Path to True Rejoicing is Through Holy Mourning

8:15 May I give you a simple principle and then I'll seek to illustrate it from Scripture. The path to true rejoicing always lies through the crucible of holy mourning.

8:34 Would I attain to a state of true rejoicing? Look at it as a plateau from which I can look out at all my present possessions and look up and be amazed on to my future possessions and rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Would I come to that plateau of true rejoicing? There's only one pathway to it.

8:57 It's through the dark, foreboding valley of holy mourning.

9:03 And nobody gets there except from here. There's the principle. Now I want to illustrate it from several passages of Scripture. Turn please to the fourth chapter of the book of James.

Illustrating False Joy and the Call to Mourning (James 4)

9:16 Here's a people who have all kinds of joy. The only problem is they had no right to it.

9:23 It was the wrong kind of joy.

9:26 And so James tells these people to do exactly the opposite of what Paul told the Thessalonians to do. Notice what he tells them. James chapter 4.

9:38 By the way, I don't hear this often quoted. In fact, I don't believe I've ever heard it even quoted in a sermon by anyone other than myself. I'm sure others have quoted it. But I've not heard them.

9:51 Notice what James says beginning with verse... Number 8.

9:56 James 4, 8. Draw nigh to God and He will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. Be afflicted and mourn and weep.

10:16 Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness. He says, hey, you people, listen to me. You're happy and you're full of joy. You've got no business being happy and you've got no business having joy.

10:33 Let that happiness be turned to mourning. Let that joy be turned to heaviness. Why?

10:39 Well, you see, James recognized that one of the terrible effects of sin is that it so blinds us to things as they are that we rejoice at things that we think are suitable good which indeed, and in reality, are destroyers of our very souls. That's how sin has so perverted us. That we look at that which is our most bitter, destructive enemy as our greatest friend. And so if joy is that delightful affection of the soul in the possession of or the anticipation of some suitable good,

11:21 when sin is interpreting what is good to us, it perverts things. As they really are. And we rejoice and have happiness in things which should not cause happiness.

11:37 And so James is saying, return to a state of moral and spiritual sanity. You people, he says, that are strangers to vital union with Jesus Christ, to a heart that has been brought together as one so that that heart pours out its worship to and devotion to the Lord Jesus and its love for God. And its submission to the Father. You who have double hearts.

12:04 You who have no consciousness that you're here to be holy and to walk in conformity to the law of God. You sinners, he calls them. He says, you have no right to joy.

12:17 None whatsoever.

12:19 And the only way you'll know true joy based upon true and solid and lasting suitable good is to take your condition so seriously that it breaks your heart. Be afflicted and mourn and weep. Let your laughter return to mourning and your joy to heaviness. And as you are humbled in the sight of God, as you go down into that valley of true repentance, mourning over your sin, recognizing the enormity of it in the light of God's holiness, the terribleness of it in the light of the sacrifice of His Son, and that breaks you and you flee in repentance and faith and fear.

13:02 And you find cleansing and renewal through the blood of the Lamb. Then you ascend to that plateau of true rejoicing, clinging to heavenly riches, clinging to spiritual good that cannot be taken away nor altered by any amount of physical or temporal circumstances. And here in this passage, God is actually calling men from false rejoicing to a state of grief in order that they might eventually know and possess true rejoicing. Now, when God calls to such and men do not heed that call, according to Isaiah 22, it is the height of impudence,

The Impudence of Refusing God's Call to Mourning (Isaiah 22)

13:47 spiritual impudence. Notice what God says in a parallel passage in Isaiah 22. One of the great indictments of God to His people. They were in a state of sin and apostasy.

14:03 But they had joy. They were rejoicing, having a great time. And through the prophets, God called them to put aside their joy and let it be turned to mourning to face the reality of sin and its guilt. And here is the terrible, terrible reaction that they showed.

14:22 Isaiah 22, beginning with verse 12. And in that day did the Lord Jehovah of hosts call to weeping and to mourning and to bawling, as an external sign of humiliation before God. A Jew would put the razor to his head and shave off his hair. This is what he's saying, speaking in that context.

14:46 He called you to weeping, to mourning, to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth. And behold, joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine. Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. And the Lord of hosts revealed himself in mine ears, saying, Surely this iniquity shall not be forgiven you till ye die, saith the Lord Jehovah of hosts.

15:19 You see, the prophet indicts them with this terrible impudence that when their true condition was such that they had no right to rejoicing and the only sane course was one of brokenness and humiliation, they went right on in their giddiness. Until they were swallowed up in judgment.

15:40 I'm speaking to some young people this morning.

15:44 Life's a lark to you. Oh, once in a while, mom and dad grind your socks and get to you and make life a little miserable with their don'ts and their do's. But for the most part, life's a lark. The world's your oyster.

15:55 Everything's ahead of you.

15:58 You've never known an hour of true holy mourning for your sin. The fact that made as a creature in the image of God, you've not rendered to him the worship of your heart. The love and devotion of your life. He set his son before you time after time in the gospel.

16:17 Time after time in the entreaties of your pastor and of your parents.

16:24 Life's too light and flitty and enjoyable to get concerned about these things.

16:30 Dear young person, God indicts you with this terrible sin of this impudence. He called you to mourning. God says to you, if you are not found this morning, join to Jesus Christ. Covered beneath the protective canopy of his precious blood.

16:47 Found as one who is in him, accepted in the beloved. You have no right to joy. For what do you possess? You possess the sentence of wrath.

16:57 Did you ever see a criminal when he's sentenced by the judge to the electric chair, dance a jig for joy? Not unless he was demented. The sentence of wrath has gone forth upon you. You have no right to joy.

17:12 You have no right to joy. You have no right to joy. You have no right to joy. You have no right to joy.

17:14 trampling underfoot the Son of God, you have no right to joy. You're counting the blood of the covenant an unholy thing. You have no right to joy. God calls you to mourning, to weeping. It's not only true of some of you young people, but some of you adults.

17:29 You have a great measure of joy. God in His common grace has blessed you with a family and with a nice home and with the benefits of the affluence of our own society. And life is pretty sweet to you and you know a measure of delight and happiness. God calls you from all of that. What do you possess that gives you any grounds for joy? You possess no solid

17:50 biblical hope that you are the Lord's now? You have no solid biblical grounds to believe that there's anything out yonder but the wrath of God and the judgment of hell? What right do you have to rejoice? None whatsoever. And so when the apostle says rejoice always, he

The Nature of True Joy and Repentance for the Unconverted

18:10 is saying, rejoice always. He is saying, rejoice always. He is saying, rejoice always. He is saying, rejoice always. He is saying, rejoice always. He is saying, rejoice always.

18:10 Speaking only to those who have grounds to rejoice, who have present possessions. The blood of Christ to cover the righteousness of Christ imputed to them. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit to make real and vital their relationship to God and to His Son.

18:31 So there is the grief of true repentance to which God calls all the unconverted. May I say to you that if you have efforts to somehow push men over the wall into the Christian profession by trying Jesus, you've tried dope and it didn't give you much joy or gave you some, Jesus will give you a bigger thrill. Disgusting. God doesn't call us to try another thrill. He calls us to face our sin with such seriousness that it breaks our hearts, brings

19:10 us to despair and then drives us to a Savior in whom alone there is forgiveness. Not as a thrill giver. Where do you find anything in the Bible where Jesus says, Come unto me, all ye that want a thrill.

19:25 Yet that talk permeates evangelicalism, permeates our gospel tracts. Why can't you find that in your Bible? I can't. He says of his sheep, I came to give them life and life more abundantly.

19:40 He wasn't speaking that to sinners.

19:45 He's making a statement of the kind of life he gives to his sheep. But now, how does he actually impart that life? He brings those who are his sheep to the acknowledgement, first of all, of the terrible guilt of their sin as being criminal offense against a holy God, exposing them to his wrath and to the miseries and pains of hell forever. Then he shows them those sins in the light of the cross of his dear Son.

20:10 And when they see their sin in the light of his sufferings and agonies, it breaks their hearts. And they know what it is to be afflicted and mourn and weep. But blessed be God, as the same Spirit enables them to embrace the Savior, they know that solitude. Solid joy and lasting pleasure of being accepted in the Beloved and having joy unspeakable and full of glory.

20:36 Know, my dear brethren, if we would see men brought to true joy, we must pray, O God, take them down into that valley of true conviction of sin. And then we must seek under God to use every means possible to see men brought to spiritual and moral sanity, to see they've gotten. No grounds to rejoice if they are strangers to those peculiar blessings of the people of God. We can't bring them there.

21:08 But by God's grace, we can use the means that he may be pleased under the blessing of his Spirit to use to bring them there.

Puritan Wisdom: Mourning for Sin as the Cure for Vain Rejoicing

21:18 One of the old Puritans has said it so beautifully. And by the way, if anyone ever says to you, well, the Puritans, they were all right for another age, but we've got to speak to our age. They've just never read the Puritans, that's all. I've just settled that with my whole heart.

21:32 They're just talking, saying something somebody else has said. See if this speaks to our hearts in mid-20th century. Here we are.

21:42 Christ has pronounced them blessed that mourn for sin. This is his exposition of the same verse I've been expounding and then trying to qualify with these other passages. How do we reconcile Christ's words, blessed are they that mourn, with the words of the Apostle to rejoice evermore? Answer, one.

22:02 Mourning for sin is necessary. To cure our vain rejoicing or delight in carnal vanities. And at our entrance into Christianity, this is a duty highly incumbent upon us because of sin and the curse which we naturally lie under. While we are out of Christ, we have nothing to comfort us, nothing to answer to the terrors of the law or to reply against the accusations of conscience and the fears of approaching misery and judgment.

22:34 And what should we do? What should we do if we be aware of this? But bemoan ourselves. Seek after God with weeping and supplications.

22:42 God's first work in conversion is to put men out of their fool's paradise who are satisfied with the creature without himself. You see, you who have joy because you have a nice home, a nice wife, a nice car, a nice job. He says you're in a fool's paradise to have any joy if you're severed from vital relationships. So God's first work is what?

23:07 Drive us out of that fool's paradise. Therefore, humiliation and a brokenhearted sense of misery is required to deaden the relish and taste of sin and that men may more prize and esteem the healing grace of Christ and to set more by it than all the pleasures, riches, and honors of the world. Can a person see himself lost and in danger of condemnation and not be comforted? Can a man not be grieved?

23:36 But all the while, joy is in the making and we are providing everlasting comfort for ourselves for God is ready to ease us as soon as our need requires and our care will permit. All the while, true grief is working. Joy is in the making. The joy of the kiss of reconciling grace planted upon the cheek that is wept with the soul of the world.

The Child of God and the Restoration of Joy (Psalm 51)

24:04 The joy of the kiss of reconciling grace that is wept with the soul of the world. The joy of the kiss of reconciling grace that is wept with the soul of the world. salty tears of brokenness and repentance oh but now what about the child of god this is true you say for the sinner who's never embraced the gospel but isn't the child of god to rejoice always and if we are accepted in the beloved and you see how our sunday school lesson is as it were laid the foundation for our study here in this hour child of god listen the grief of true repentance ought to replace your joy every time you have sinned against god when joy goes it's because

24:48 sin has come and the only way joy comes back is when sin goes that's pretty simple isn't it isn't that what david teaches us in his prayer in the 51st psalm you see for a christian to have joy while he is consciously hedging you see for a christian to have joy while he is consciously hedging on some issue with god that's a terrible thing that's like the impudence of the unconverted having joy when he has no grounds of joy christian when you've sinned against the lord you have no reason to be joyous you've grieved and quenched the spirit you've grieved your savior

25:27 you've wounded your conscience you've put a burr on the edge of its sensitivity and so joy should rightly go when sin has come but blessed be god when sin goes joy can be restored and so david who has sinned and lost his joy is now experiencing true grief the grief of repentance and in the midst of it what does he pray notice psalm 51 7 and 8 purify me with hyssop and i shall be clean wash me and i shall be whiter than snow make me to hear joy and gladness that the bones which thou hast shed shall be clean and shall be white as snow and shall be white as snow and shall be clean and shall be white as snow and shall be white as snow and shall be white as snow and shall be

26:12 broken may rejoice verse 12 restore unto me the joy of thy salvation listen you can't have the joy of salvation unless you're experiencing the power of salvation and what is the power of salvation but god's grace to cleanse from sin and then to keep from sin and so if we've lost the experience of the power of salvation and it stumbled into sin with the loss of that present experience of its power goes its joy. But blessed be God when we come back into the experience of its power in cleansing and renewing, for that's what he's praying for. Create in me a clean heart.

26:57 Renew a right spirit within me. Then we may know again the presence of holy joy. And David acknowledges that God had to give it. You see, as a Christian, you have the power to forfeit your joy, but you have no power to reclaim it.

27:17 Now, I'm not just playing with words. Just let that sort of filter down. You have the power to forfeit it, but you've got no power to reclaim it. David had the ability to forfeit his joy.

27:26 When he looked and lusted and took, he forfeited his joy. But he had no power to just go pick it up off the shelf and push it back in like a pill in his heart. And so he lies broken before God and says, God, I forfeited, but I can't bring it back. Lord, may the bones that you have, broken, may you cause them to rejoice.

27:48 May you restore the joy of salvation. And he waits before God in brokenness until the Spirit makes real to him afresh the wonderful sense of cleansing and the consciousness of renewed and restored fellowship that he might have solid grounds for joy. Again, you see, this exposes all this idea if the people of God are lying heavy beneath the pressure of sin and the rest, we just chuck them under the chin with a verse and tell them, be happy in Jesus. No, no.

28:26 You see, the giving of joy is not at our disposal.

28:32 David recognizes it. And he waits before his God until he restores that joy. And so I submit to you that there is not only a legitimate coexistence of true rejoicing with the grief, with the grief of adversity, with the grief of sympathy, but there are at times an actual, there is at times an actual replacement of the joy of the Lord, rejoicing always with the grief of true repentance initially as we enter the threshold of the Christian experience and then continue as we go on in the Christian life.

Maintaining Joy: Strength, Commendation, and Avoiding Robbers of Joy

29:13 Having put all these qualifications, may I now round out our three studies by saying in summary and in closing, though there is a place for the grief of adversity, the grief of sympathy, and the grief of repentance, you and I as Christians are to strive for and seek to maintain a life that is characterized by joy in the Lord. For Nehemiah tells us the joy of the Lord is our strength. When you're in the midst of adversity and feel the sting, what sustains you? The joy of the Lord.

29:48 I have possessions that cannot, that cannot be, touched by present adversity. Blessed be God, all I've got now, and that's enough to make me say hallelujah three times over, God says is just a little down payment of what I have yet out there.

30:06 And so the general tenor of the life should be the joy of the Lord, which is our strength. It's this that not only is our strength, but commends the gospel. What would you think of a man who said he was working for a Mr. So-and-so and you never saw the master, but you saw his servant and he was all, he was always heavy, joyless, sour.

30:27 You'd say, man, what kind of a master he got that makes a guy look like that? That's a terrible commendation of the character of his master. And if the people of God, you see, through, and the devil's no dope, he's in this business for a long time. And you see, if he can't keep us from climbing the hill of the truth, he'll let us climb it and then he'll push us over down the other side.

30:50 And in this whole matter, in our reaction against the giddy, flighty shallowness of much of modern evangelicalism and seeing the necessity of holy mourning, of the grief of true sympathy and burden for the church and the world, if we come to the place where we think there's something inherently holy in a somber face and in a heavy heart, ah, watch out. Because our very carriage will be such that the world will look at us and say, boy, God must be a pretty mean taskmaster to make a man go around looking like that. See? And so to bring in the balance of truth, let us remind ourselves that that joy is our strength.

31:32 It commends the gospel and therefore as the children of God we should beware of anything which robs us of our joy. To be robbed of my joy is to be robbed of my strength. It's to be robbed of a true commendation of my master. What a terrible thing.

31:49 Sin will rob your joy. When sin comes, joy goes. And joy doesn't come back till sin goes. Child of God, in the moment of temptation, furnish your mind with this fact.

32:01 Though this sin comes promising present pleasure to the senses, it will strip the soul of its joy.

32:14 That's driving a pretty hard bargain.

32:18 For a moment of sensual gratification to forfeit the abiding joy of the Lord, which is my strength and which commends my master and his gospel. Avoid anything that robs you of joy. Rejoice always. Spear clear of all that robs you of your joy.

32:37 Cling to all that feeds your joy. What is that joy? I come back again to the original definition. It's rooted in the contemplation of present or future possessions.

32:50 Therefore, if I'm to rejoice always, I must feed my mind and spirit with those things that remind me of my present possessions. And I don't know a program on TV that's going to do that for you. Do you? When you find one, let me know.

33:06 I think I'll advertise it from the pulpit.

33:10 And even many of the innocent diversions on the TV, sports or anything else, and I speak as someone who loves sports, listen, it has no power whatsoever to help feed our joy in the Lord. Beware of anything that robs you of your joy. Don't give your time to things that have no power to feed that joy, though innocent in themselves.

33:32 You can't afford it.

33:35 You can't afford it. I'm not preaching against TV, now don't miss the principle simply because of the application. TV may not be your problem. Maybe just lengthy telephone conversations with people.

Perfect Joy Awaits Perfect Holiness in the World to Come

33:46 Here it is. God commands us to rejoice always. Therefore, He's telling us to adhere to all that feeds our joy. And then, dear child of God, be comforted with this blessed realization that perfect, unmixed joy, joy that no longer coexists with sorrow, joy that will no longer be replaced with the grief of repentance.

34:13 Perfect joy awaits perfect holiness in the world to come. And so we read in scripture, it's in that world that God shall pluck away all tears from their eyes. And there, in that place, there shall be no more crying, no more sorrow. You see, one of the tricks of the devil is to get us to try to experience now what will eventually be ours, but there.

34:41 That's the error of the perfectionist. He says, well, God has stamped us to perfection. Christ is a perfect and able Savior who'll make all His people perfect. Yes, but the issue is He's nowhere said He'll do it this side of that world to come.

34:55 The same way with this matter of joy. If the devil can get us striving after some state where joy is never intermitted with sorrow, then we enter a very unrealistic world. And I've seen Christians live in it. They're going to become insensitive.

35:10 They're going to become to their own sin and the need in the world about them. And they say, well, I've got to rejoice all the time.

35:16 What an unrealistic world. Child of God, through the bitterness of the tears of adversity, of sympathy, and of repentance, remember, and now I shall read from a passage in Isaiah, that everlasting joy awaits the bringing in of everlasting righteousness in that world which is to come, Isaiah 35, and in verse 10,

35:42 we have a beautiful picture under the figure of physical things. And as we read through Isaiah, many of us saw this, these passages, many of them are quoted in part or in whole in the book of the Revelation to describe, excuse me, the eternal state to come. And here we read in verse 10, and the ransomed of the Lord shall return and shall come with singing unto Zion and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads. They shall obtain gladness and joy and sorrow and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

36:18 Rejoice always, but in those times when that joy is intermitted with these areas of grief, that's the time to comfort yourself with the glorious prospect that the hour is coming when there will be perfect joy because there will be perfect righteousness and holiness. And to you who are strangers to grace, will you listen as I close on a silver note? If you refuse to mourn and weep for your sin now,

36:54 you better have all the joy you can get from material things because there's not an ounce of joy awaiting you in the world to come. Not an ounce. The legitimate joys you now know in the love of wife and family and the possession of God's good gifts, the rain and sun that He sends upon the head of the just and the unjust that produce this surface kind of joy and contentment if you've set your course and said, I'm not going to get that serious about my sin to weep and mourn. I'm not going to get that serious about a Savior until the sight of Him breaks my proud heart.

37:36 And my friend, remember, you better live your joys to the full now because there's not a one awaiting you in the world to come. Scripture says in that world to come for you there'll be nothing but weeping and wailing and gnashing and that serious business.

37:57 May God grant that we should be sober to the place where we shall seek mercy in His dear Son. The Lord Jesus stands in the midst of His church to give her direction concerning His will and He says through the Apostle, Rejoice always. Child of God, may He write this truth upon your heart and upon mine that we may be a people characterized by that true joy and by our proper understanding of this exhortation and an outworking of it in our own life and experience to the glory of God and to the commendation of the Gospel and of the Savior whom we love. Let us unite in prayer.