Bitter and Sweet # 2

Bitter and Sweet # 2

But it is not all bitter, there are also HIDDEN JOYS. "No one else can fully share its joy." No stranger can understand it, share it, or at times even disturb it.

There is the joy of salvation - when after conviction, depression, seeking,sighing, and sorrowing - the Lord appears and says unto the soul, "I am your salvation!"

There is the joy of faith - when we are enabled to claim, appropriate, and plead the promises. Then we see their suitability, taste their sweetness, and feel their power. We draw water with joy out of these wells of salvation.

Then there is the joy produced by a believing view of Jesus - when the Holy Spirit reveals His glory and beauty to us - filling our minds with the sweetest thoughts, and our hearts with the choicest delight. O how glorious is His Person, how excellent is His love, how perfect is His work, how precious is His blood, how sweet is His voice, and how ravishing is the thought of being with Him forever!

Our souls are now full of Christ. We can think of nothing else, speak of nothing else, enjoy nothing else! Jesus is all fair, all lovely, all glorious - and we rejoice in Him with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

If believers know more or less of what the Lord's visits mean, when Jesus comes to manifest Himself unto us as He does not unto the world - when He comes, that He may sup with us, and we with Him. Then we can say with the Spouse, "My Beloved is mine - and I am His!"

These are joys which sanctify and satisfy the soul. They are generally enjoyed in secret - no stranger can intrude or understand them. For the loving Lord, and His beloved child - enjoy themselves alone, and appear to fill each other's hearts.

There are secret joys in religion. Pleasure unknown to all - but believers themselves. Joy that is solid, substantial, and durable. Joy often, in the midst of sorrow, for when all without is dark and dreary - then the candle of the Lord often shines brightest within. Joy, that is more than enough to counter balance all the sorrows we endure.

The joy of hope - looking forward into the future; and the joy of possession - when the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, by the Holy Spirit which is given to us.

Our sorrows and our joys are alike peculiar unto ourselves; but our sorrows all end at death - while our joys will last forever!

Reader, do you know anything of this experience in your own soul? All of the Lord's people do, more or less. All are not alike deeply taught, nor deeply tried - but all know what sorrow for sin is, and what the joy of salvation is. All have some peculiar cause of bitterness - and all hidden sources of joy.

If you are quite a stranger to them - can you be a Christian? What a question is this? Not a Christian! Why if you are not, you are an unbeliever, and Jesus has said, "He who believes not - shall be damned!" If you are not a Christian, you do not believe on the Son of God, and He said, "He who does not believe - is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."

But do not write bitter things against yourself, because you have not passed through all that I have written - but rather bless God that you have escaped the bitter, and look forward to the enjoyment of the sweet - for there is unspeakable joy and endless glory before you!

Boast not, O sons of earth,
Nor look with scornful eyes,
Above your highest mirth,
Our saddest hours we prize. 
For though our cup seems filled with gall,
There's something secret,sweetens all.

~James Smith~

(The End)