THE SECRET OF JOY
1st July 1916
Psalm 90: 1-2; 91: 1-4; Matthew 11: 25-30; Luke 10: 17-22
I want to show you tonight, if I can, the secret of rest and the secret of joy. Those are two points I have on my mind this evening and I am sure the Lord would have us to know rest on the one hand and joy on the other hand. Though it is so, and these are things that we as Christians should be familiar with, yet I am very well convinced we are very much strangers to them - we do not bear the marks of restfulness and joy as we should. I have read these few scriptures to illustrate the spiritual lesson I wish to speak of tonight - the secret of rest and of joy - and as I travel round amidst Christians of all kinds I find sadly enough very few are in these two secrets. The line we generally take is, we shall be happy by and by - we have these things in hope. That is perfectly true, it will be so, it must be so then. When the presence of Christ is reached we shall be in unalloyed joy but we want to know the NOW of these things. We sing of the sweet by-and-by and in many of our hymns anticipate the time of rest and joy to come. I am not finding fault with the hymns - many of them are very beautiful - but the Lord is saying, by the Spirit, ‘I want you to be happy now, I want you to be restful now, I want you to know the joy now’. We need to know the now of it. I hope the few scriptures I have chosen may lead to exercise so that this end may be gained and we may indeed know more of these things in the present.
In the Psalms we have Christ prophetically, in the Gospels He is there in person. The Spirit of Christ was in the prophet David when he wrote and so we see Christ in all the Psalms very largely. I will come to detail presently but first will just rapidly give a brief sketch of the book.
In the Hebrew version the book of the Psalms is divided into five separate books (Psalms 1-41; 42-72; 73-89; 90-106; 107-150). Each ends with “Amen” and the first four books have distinct subjects - the fifth is a recapitulation of the other four. The book of Psalms took a period of, roughly speaking, one thousand years to write. Though they are commonly spoken of as Psalms of David, David wrote only about half of them. Some were written prior to David’s time, others many years after he was dead. The Spirit of God inspired them all, but the one hundred and fifty Psalms cover a period of one thousand years - they go from the time of Moses to that of Ezra - and not only were they indited by the Spirit of God but they are put together with marvellous arrangement and skill. There is a marked spiritual design and nothing gives you a greater sense of the inspiration of the Bible than an insight into the marvellous design of this book.
The 90th, 91st and 92nd Psalms go together and form a preface to the fourth book - that is well to understand, it is full of teaching for us. Psalm 90 is the prayer of Moses the man of God. It is the first Psalm that was written. I give my judgment here, I would not be dogmatic, but my judgment is that the Psalm was written in the circumstances recorded in the 14th of Numbers where God’s earthly people refused to enter into the land and they were told that their carcases should fall in the wilderness. It is a chapter of disaster and failure and they fall under the government of God. In that chapter is says, “as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord”, v 21. God says, as it were, ‘I have to punish you for your failure but your failure cannot thwart me’. God cannot be thwarted. He works out His will in spite of all. That is a great comfort in times of perplexity - in the presence of the disaster and pressure of the present moment God is working. God is behind everything and above everything and can turn the most untoward circumstances for the working of His will and the blessing of His people. Therefore the hearts of God’s dear people can be at rest - I speak now of what is national and of what is world-wide, and as to it all we should be exercised but not under the power of things. Don’t be depressed, be serious but do not get under it. We should not wonder at these things happening. If we were near to God we should only wonder that they had not come before - such sad departure. But God is above all and behind all and He is turning it all to His own glory.
Moses writes this prayer when in the circumstances recorded in the 14th of Numbers, that long chapter of disaster. Listen, what does he say, “Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God”. I am particularly fond of that - I cannot tell you what a comfort it has been to me. He remains the same. Your blessing lies not in what you can be to God, but what in God is unalterability. “From everlasting to everlasting - Thou art the same – “Thou art God”. God is God - He remains the same, and our blessing lies in what He is. When Moses was first told to go to the children of Israel, after his sojourn in the wilderness, he said to God, “Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you, and they shall say to me, What is His name? What shall I say unto them? And God says to Moses, I AM THAT I AM ... I AM hath sent me unto you”, Exod 3: 13-14. God says, ‘I remain the same’. You may not at the moment see the beauty of that word but God may flood your soul with the light of it some day when you want it. God’s earthly people never reached it but they will by-and-by in fulness of blessing on the earth. When the blessed Lord was here He said, “Before Abraham was I am”, John 8: 15. The blessed Lord - the Jehovah of the Old Testament - had come down and was seen in Jesus our Lord. “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever”, Heb 13:8. That is the Rock of Ages.
If I have to learn, as I must, what I am, if Moses was used of God in that way (the law came by Moses) it is to introduce me to Jesus, the I AM THAT I AM. What a magnificent thing to get the power of that in our souls. Don’t reason about it - there is no room for reasoning here - bow to it. You would be as great as God if you could understand it.
I will now sketch Psalm 90 in a little more detail. It proceeds in verses 3-12 with the cry of what man is - it is the cry of Moses - it is the cry of the man who has forfeited his title to live. The law said, Do this and thou shalt live. But man has not done it and he dies. In verse 12 he begins to pray. “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom”. Then he goes higher still, “Let Thy work appear unto Thy servants” (v 16) - higher yet - “and thy glory unto their children. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us”. That prayer is not answered yet. Moses prayed for the future - he prayed for the world to come. Will there be a time in the history of this world when there will be no intrusion of death? If the beauty of the Lord their God is upon them will they die? No - it is not possible. Moses’ prayer stops there but it will one day be answered. What is the bottom of all the confusion in the world today? It is that people love themselves. They do not love the Lord their God with all their soul and their strength and their might - they do not love their neighbour as themselves. That is very evident. Why do you lock your door at night? There are thieves about. Just men do not love God with all their hearts but one day they will. “All the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord” - not the glory of England, nor of France, nor Germany or Russia, but the glory of the Lord will fill the whole earth. Moses’ prayer is going to be answered. The moment you come to Psalm 91 you get the answer to Moses’ prayer in Christ. God has one answer to your sorrows and your tears and your prayers, one absolutely perfect answer, Christ. I should like you to get hold of that thought. On the mountain of transfiguration Moses and Elias saw Him glorified. Moses, you wept many a tear over Israel, you bore the burden of My people on your spirit for many long years - here is the answer to it all. Moses was a wonderful man. On one occasion, you remember, he said to the Lord, “blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book” (Exod 32: 32), but let Thy people go. He said, “I will go up unto the Lord, peradventure; I shall make an atonement for your sin”, Exod 32: 30. No Moses, you are not great enough to make atonement. On the mount of transfiguration Moses was there and Elias was there. They were together - the leader of God’s people and the would-be restorer of God’s people, two blessed men, and as it were the Lord says, ‘Moses, you were shut out of the land of Canaan but you are in the land now with Jesus’. There is the answer to all his prayers. Would that we had hearts to take it in, or that we could get clear of theology and the notions of men. I grieve as I see Christians cheated out of their rightful inheritance by the thought of man.
Psalm 91 is prophetic of Jesus. It starts with a proposal, “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty”. Most High, Almighty - by those two names God was of old pleased to reveal Himself. In verse 2 another voice speaks, it is Jesus. It is Jesus in incarnation. “I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in him will I trust”. Jesus accepts the proposal in verse 1. We must ever remember the Lord never ceased to be what He was because of what He became but He was perfect in what He became. It is the perfection of what He became that I am dwelling on now. Every true Christian would hold that in his heart, and rather than give it up would die for it.
In verse 2 therefore, Jesus steps forward (I speak with reverence) and takes the place. He steps forward in His humanity to that secret place under the shadow of the Almighty and of His God. The three names: Most High (maker of heaven and earth), Almighty and Jehovah are put in this remarkable Psalm.
In verse 1 therefore we get the proposal; in verse 2 the proposal is accepted and in verses 3 and 4 the Spirit speaks and shows us the consequences following the proposal. Put your ear close to it - “Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with his feathers and under his wings shalt thou trust” &c. That brings me to my subject - that is the spirit seen in Matthew 11. In the Gospel the blessed Lord was here in true perfect humanity. The fowler is Satan; his snare has been tried in the temptation in the wilderness. The Lord has been hungering forty days with all the true and proper feelings of a Man. Do not reason about it, do not bring in His divinity to weaken it. Jesus was hungry and Satan came and said to Him, “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread”. Satisfy your hunger. No, He replies. It is recorded man shall not live by bread alone but by every word of God shall he live. If it be God’s will for me to be hungry, I am satisfied. The blessed Lord is in the circumstances which sin had created - He came here to taste it all, the hunger, the weariness, but He was perfect in all. Magnificent words these, “In Thee have I put my trust”, Ps 11: 1. Do you not love Him? He was in the environment of the secret place - absolute dependence and obedience - and though Satan went around he could not touch Him. What a defeat! Spoiler of our race, has he insinuated to you that God is not good? Do you think God is not good in holding something back from you? What is natural to us is to distrust God - all other sins are the result of that. Here was One who trusted God and Satan could not touch Him. Why? Because He was dwelling in the secret place. Magnificent defeat! Unreachable by Satan! The spoiler of our race was foiled by the obedience of a dependent Man.
Verse 4. “He shall cover thee with his feathers and under His wings shalt thou trust”. Let us turn to Matthew 11, and may we know the warmth of the feathers tonight - we need it badly. “At that time Jesus answered ...”. Answered what? The circumstances in which He was found. At that juncture He could answer and say, “I thank Thee, O Father”. And what were the circumstances? He was not successful - His ministry to Israel was refused and He was rejected. In the words of the prophet Isaiah chapter 49 He was saying, “I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought and in vain”, v 4. Yet at that time the blessed Lord gives back the reply from the warmth of the feathers, “I thank thee, O Father”. Does He not stand in contrast to John the Baptist, blessed servant that he was, at the beginning of this chapter. John the Baptist is in prison and he cannot understand why the Lord does not intervene - but supposing it was God’s will for him to be there? He never was set free you remember, his head was the prize given to a dancing girl - she danced for it and she got it. Could the Lord have intervened? Do take this home. Are you in untoward circumstances? Is there much you cannot understand? Is there sorrow? Are you put on a bed of sickness? It is to chasten your spirit and do you good. I have seen some of the happiest Christians I know in a home for incurables in London. As to their bodies, they were in all sorts of pain and misery but in the midst of their bodily afflictions they were glorying in Christ. How God is glorified in them! I thank God for the remembrance of such people. Truly it is better to go to the house of mourning than the house of feasting, Eccl 7: 2.
Jesus answered and said in the midst of all the trouble, “I thank thee, O Father ... Even so, Father for so it seemed good in Thy sight”. We are often found away from home and the storms drive us there. Jesus was always anchored there. He was always at home - He never had to be driven there by trouble. “He shall cover thee with his feathers”. How God loved the Man who trusted Him. Man was not made like the beasts, but put on his feet to look upward and to say, “In thee have I put my trust”, Ps 11: 1. The moral dignity of man is to trust God; his degradation is to distrust Him. Man does not naturally trust God - it is the fruit of the lie of Satan. But why should you not trust Him? What evil has He done for you?
Dear Christians, we are all under the wings of protecting love, but it is another thing to nestle under the feathers. Every Christian is under the wing, so to speak, but how many of us know what it is to be in the warmth of divine love? “Even so, Father” &c. that is the warmth of the feathers. That is it, there is no will there, the only thing to silence your will is the warmth of the feathers. In the warmth of divine love you are content with the approval of God and there is no hankering after the approval of other people. ‘I am content with your knowledge of me’. It is individual communion with God that we want. “No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him”. “Come unto me”. That is the key. “Come unto ME . . . and I will give you rest”. Weary saint? Yes, and weary sinner too. Come into the warmth of the feathers. I will teach you the Father loves you as He loves Me. That is rest. Rest is known in the Father’s love. Does He love me as He loves Jesus? Yes, He has said so - “and hast loved them as thou hast loved me”, John 17: 23. Those are indeed waters to swim in (Ezek 47: 5) that we were speaking of the other day.
“Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls”. Why is the yoke easy? The Father’s love makes it so. The secret of rest is learnt in the Father’s love. Is there anyone here with a peculiar sorrow? Has the voice of death made itself heard in your circle? Hear the voice of Jesus speaking over the wild waste of waters; Come unto ME and keep close to ME and I will teach you the Father’s love and ye shall find rest. How often we are driven home by these things. Never so, the blessed Lord. Circumstances only brought out the perfection of what He was. How the last two years have exposed us - don’t put it aside, do not shrink from the exposure - it is a great thing to know our state before God. We are finding out that we are not so close to Him as we thought we were.
Now turn to Luke 10. Here we get a remarkable contrast. The circumstances are entirely different and yet the Lord uses the same words, “I thank Thee, O Father”. In Matthew the words were uttered in the presence of rebuff and rejection, His mission was unsuccessful. The context here is absolutely different. His mission is successful, prosperity marks it. The Lord had sent the seventy out two by two. (You get in the early verses of the chapter the true marks of a servant and how he is to behave and the spirit in which he is to carry the Gospel - all very helpful and should be studied by anyone wishing to serve the Lord. But I do not dwell on that.) And the seventy return to the Lord rejoicing at the wonderful power which He had conferred on them so that even the devils were subject through His name. They were impressed by that. The Lord diverts them from it - after all it was power of destruction - and turns their attention to the administration of good. “Rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven”. That was to say, your blessing is heavenly. Then He looks forward in spirit to what we get in Revelation 21, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven”. That has not yet come to pass. We must not be governed so much by present things. Christ was looking forward and speaking prophetically and what He saw was this, in the heavens, (there are three distinct heavens, this I need hardly say is not the third heaven, the presence of God) where Satan is influencing the world for evil, God’s dear people are going to be, to influence the world for good. This is a sad war? Yes, but what lies at the root of it all? It is glorification of man, and where does that emanate from? Through pride Satan was turned out of God’s presence - surely the spring is there. Satan and all his power is to be done away with in Revelation 21. The heavenly Jerusalem is seen coming down out of heaven having the glory of God. The prayer of Moses could not be answered without the church.
The blessed Lord looks up and rejoices in spirit. (That is the only place where it says He rejoiced in the Spirit.) And why? He saw His mission would be successful. He saw the triumph of good over evil. He saw there would be a response in happy hearts as to the results of what He would accomplish. If God destroys evil, it is to put something better in its place. The secret of joy is the administration of good. The heavenly city comes down, “having the glory of God: and her light was like to a stone most precious, even like a jasperstone, clear as crystal; And had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which were the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. On the east three gates; on the north three gates; on the south three gates; and on the west three gates”, Rev 11-13. The gates are for the administration of good and from them flows out the goodness of God. The secret of all unhappiness lies in self-occupation - self-love is the root of all unhappiness. It is the story of the Good Samaritan we spoke of on Sunday night. He pours in the oil and the wine. The Good Samaritan brought love from the top to where self-love was at the bottom. The love of God delivers me from self-love and makes me think of others. What is the cure for self-love? He has given us the Spirit. Has He put the love of God in our hearts? Do we love God with all our hearts? I am sure we are defective there. Self-occupation, self-interest, thinking always of self. ‘What will you do for me?’ Oh that we might be set free to minister to others. Oh the blessedness of thinking of others - of loving God with all your heart and your soul and your mind and your strength, and your neighbour as yourself, and there will then be on your “east three gates” and on your “west three gates” nothing but the administration of good flowing from you. It is a practical thing - it is not preaching. Would you like to be like that? The spring of all true service is, “I love”. The Hebrew servant (Exod 21) is the type. He said in his heart, “I love ... I will not go out free”, v 6. That is the picture of Jesus the true servant. The living spring of all that He did was love and that is the secret of joy.
Please consider – ‘You do something for me’. I would like this or that - all that is the product of self-centred love. Would you not like to be free? The Lord rejoices in spirit as He looks forward to this time of administration of good to the myriads of happy hearts. If I think of the future - what delights - I shall never think of myself once. I shall never have a thought for myself. That is unalloyed happiness. I shall be occupied with Christ. I shall be in the presence of God,
Like Him to know that glory beam
Unhindered face to face.
Unfallen angels are those who have never thought of themselves. They were not jealous at Christ’s birth, they suddenly broke forth. They could not help it, they must give the acclamation, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men”, Luke 2: 14.
The spring of happiness and the spring of praise is in forgetfulness of self. It lies in dependence, not in myself but in God. When my mother was alive I did not go about saying, ‘I am trying to love my mother’. That would have thrown discredit upon my mother. If I spoke like that people would have said, What kind of mother can she be? No, I loved my mother, I was a poor helpless babe. Morning, noon and night she tended me. The spring of unwearied service lay in her own bosom. She was the source of it and soon my little heart came to respond to it. My mother loved me into loving her back again. No-one could call my name like my mother. And why? Because she could put affection into her tone like no-one else. “My sheep hear my voice”, John 10: 27. I love you. “Mary” - who could say “Mary” like Jesus? God proposes to love us into our loving Him back again. A grand proposal, would we accept it more readily. “We love him because he first loved us”. You cannot love God by trying. I can no more help loving God than I can help breathing. Would to God I loved Him a thousand times more. Every Christian loves God even though that love may be covered up by a lot of rubbish. The source of it is in Himself.
Now in conclusion I would just say, once again, do not try to remember all that has been said. I would like you, however, to carry away these two thoughts which have engaged us this evening; the secret of rest is in divine love, in the warmth of the feathers, and the secret of joy is in the administration of good. God has been pleased to be good to you that you might be good to other people. “Go, and do thou likewise”, Luke 10: 37. In ‘doing likewise’ is the secret of joy. May the Lord bless the word for His name’s sake. Amen.
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