"Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said"--
"Your sorrow shall be turned into joy."--John xvi. 20.
The Joyful Transformation.
Christ's people are a sorrowing people! Chastisement is their
badge--"great tribulation" is their appointed discipline. When they
enter the gates of glory, He is represented as wiping away tears from
their eyes. But, weeping ones, be comforted! Your Lord's special mission
to earth--the great errand He came from heaven to fulfil, was "to bind
up the broken-hearted." Your trials are meted out by a tender hand. He
_knows_ you too well--He _loves_ you too well--to make this world
tearless and sorrowless! "There must be rain, and hail, and storm," says
Rutherford, "in the saint's cloud." Were your earthy course strewed
with flowers, and nothing but sunbeams played around your dwelling, it
would lead you to forget your _nomadic_ life,--that you are but a
sojourner here. The tent must at times be struck, pin by pin of the
moveable tabernacle taken down, to enable you to say and to feel in the
spirit of a pilgrim, "I desire a better country." Meantime, while sorrow
is your portion, think of Him who says, "I know your sorrows." Angels
cannot say so--they cannot sympathise with you, for trial is a strange
word to them. But there is a mightier than they who _can_. All He sends
you and appoints you is in love. There is a provision and condition
wrapt up in the bosom of every affliction, "_if need be_;" coming from
His hand, sorrows and riches are to His people convertible terms. If
tempted to murmur at their trials, they are often murmuring at disguised
mercies. "Why do you ask me," said Simeon, on his deathbed, "what I
_like_? I am the Lord's patient--I cannot but like _everything_."
And _then_--"your sorrow shall be turned into joy." "The morning
cometh"--that bright morning when the dew-drops collected during earth's
night of weeping shall sparkle in its beams; when in one blessed
_moment_ a life-long experience of trial will be effaced and forgotten,
or remembered only by contrast, to enhance the fulness of the joys of
immortality. What a revelation of gladness! The map of time disclosed,
and every little rill of sorrow, every river will be seen to have been
flowing heavenwards,--every rough blast to have been sending the bark
nearer the haven! In that joy, God Himself will participate. In the last
"words of Jesus" to His people when they are standing by the triumphal
archway of Glory, ready to enter on their thrones and crowns, He speaks
of their joy as if it were all _His own_. "Enter ye into the joy _of
your Lord_."
Reader, may this joy be yours! Sit loose to the world's joys. Have a
feeling of chastened gratitude and thankfulness when you have them; but
beware of resting in them, or investing them with a permanency they
cannot have. Jesus had his eye on _heaven_ when he added--
"YOUR JOY NO MAN TAKETH FROM YOU."