Your
sorrow shall be turned into joy.
— (John 16:20.)
OUR Lord
was very honest with His followers when any enlisted beneath His banner.
He did not profess that they would find an easy service if they took
Him to be their leader. Over and over again He stopped some young enthusiastic
spirits by bidding them count the cost; and, when some said they
would follow Him whithersoever He might go, He reminded them that though
the foxes had holes and the birds of the air had nests, yet He had not
where to lay His head. He never duped any man. He told all the truth
to them, and He could honestly say to them, "If
it were not so, I would have told you."
He kept back nothing which it was needful for them to know
in enlisting under His name.
In this
verse He reminds His people that they will have sorrow. Let no Christian
forget that. Be he old or young, sorrow is an appointed portion for
all mankind. And there is a sorrow which is the especial benediction of
the saints. They shall have that sorrow if none
others do.
Oh, young
spirit, you have just found a Savior, and
your heart is very glad. Be glad whilst you
may, but expect not that the sun will always shine. Reckon for days of
rain and days of frost and days of tempest, for come
they will, and I tell you of them now lest
when they come they should be strange to you and overwhelm
you with confusion.
And oh,
child of God, you have for many years been
prospering; you have walked in the light of God’s countenance, and
the Lord has made a hedge about you and all that you have, till you
have prospered in the land like the Patriarch of Uz.
Remember that evil days will come even to you
as they did to Job, and expect them, for "in
the world ye shall have tribulation."
This part of the inheritance of children, namely,
the rod, will be quite sure to fall to your portion if you be one of
the sacred family.
Our Savior,
in the verse before us, not only tells His disciples that they will
have sorrow, but He warns them that sometimes they
would have a peculiar sorrow. When the world
was rejoicing they would be sorrowing.
"The
world shall rejoice," saith He, "but
ye shall weep and lament." Now this is sometimes hard for
flesh and blood. We cannot read this riddle — God’s people sighing and
God’s enemies laughing — a saint on the dunghill with dogs licking his
sores and a sinner clothed in scarlet and faring sumptuously every day —
a child of God sighing and groaning, chastened every morning, and an heir
of hell making the world ring with his merriment! Can these things be so?
Yes, they are so, and we must expect them so to be; and if we read this
riddle by the eye of faith, we shall understand it. Yet we shall see God
working even in these mysterious circumstances, and dealing out the best
to the best after all, and giving still the worst to the worst in the long
run.
Now, our Lord, in order to
sustain His servants under the ill news of sorrow and of special sorrow,
gave them two thoughts. The first He put into three words — "a
little while." And here is a whole mint of golden
consolation here — "a little while."
When things are only temporary, we put up with them. If we are traveling,
and we come to an uncomfortable inn, we are off to-morrow, and therefore
we make no great noise about it.
A painful operation has to be
performed, but, when the surgeon tells us it will only occupy a second or
two, we submit to it. "A little while
" — it takes off the edge of sorrow. If it be but a minute,
and then afterwards there shall be never-ending blessing coming out of it,
oh, then we glory in the tribulation, and count it not worthy to be
compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. Afflicted child of
God, I commend to you those three words, "a
little while." I beseech you to roll them under your
tongue as a sweet morsel when your mouth is filled with the wormwood of
sorrow. "A little while,"
and after that little while is over then it shall be "for
ever with the Lord."
The other reflection which He
gave them for their comfort is that which is furnished by our text, "Your
sorrow shall be turned into joy." May God the Spirit give
us comfort while we think over these words.
And first, brethren, this
language was strictly true with regard to the remarkable sorrow which was
then coming upon them when our Lord spake. You know the chapter. The Lord
had been telling them of His death. They had been sitting around the
table, and He had revealed to them the fact that He was about to be
delivered into the hands of wicked men and be crucified, and that this
would make them weep and lament; but concerning this He says, "Your
sorrow shall be turned into joy." We have also
another sorrow coming out of that, namely, the sorrow that our risen
Lord has gone away
from us, has risen from Olive and left His Church a widow;
yet that sorrow, too, is turned into joy. Let us speak, then, about
those two things.
You will soon see
before you, brethren, a sacred feast. We are preparing to-night
to come around the table on which we have the bread and wine which
celebrate our Savior’s death. Now, it is a very pleasing thought that
to celebrate the
death of Christ we have not an ordinance that is full of sorrow.
There is no rubric which tells us that we are to come clothed in mourning,
that we are to come together as to a funeral, that dirges are to be
sung, that violet colors, or such as represent sorrow are to be used. On
the contrary, the
ordinance which commemorates and shows the death of Christ
is one of joy, if properly used. We come around a table, and sit there
at our ease and eat
and drink, for the death which was so sorrowful is turned
into joy, and the memorial of it is meant to set it forth not as it was
on the sorrowful
side, but as it is to us on the joyful side. Our sorrow is in the
symbol turned into joy.
Now, let us think
of the sorrow of Christ’s death a moment. It was great sorrow
to see Him suffer, sorrow unspeakable to see Him die. You mothers
who love your sons, what a sword would have gone through your hearts
if it had been your son who was nailed to the tree ! Ye brothers who
love your brothers,
what pangs would have rent your spirit if he had been your
brother who was hanging there. We would, if it had been possible, have
spared Him the thirst, have spared Him the shame and spittle; we would
have spared Him the nails and spared Him the crown of thorns. We can
never think of His sufferings without smiting upon our breast with grief
and saying —
Alas! my sins, my
cruel sins,
His chief tormentors were.
And as we look on His sufferings we ask :-Oh,
why should man offend,
And make the Lord his Savior die?
Bitter ought to
be our regret that ever we should have wandered from the path
of right and made it necessary that our wanderings should be laid upon
the Shepherd’s head. Woe, woe, woe unspeakable, that the elect of
God should thus have
multiplied their transgressions and have compelled their
Savior to be smitten even to death for their sakes!
We sorrow, too, from another
thought that in the death of Christ, sin for a time
appeared to get the mastery over goodness. There He was, the perfect
Man,
upon
the cross, I seem to feel as if Satan, the old serpent, had bitten the
heel of truth and poisoned it. I
begin to tremble for truth and righteousness when
I see thus the pure and perfect One laid low in the dust, but all these
three sorrows put together, for His
sufferings, for our sins and for the temporary
triumph of evil, are at once turned into joy when we know that now
the Savior has finished the atoning work, that He is accepted of His
Father, that He has crushed the old
dragon’s head, that He has given to sin and
death and hell a total defeat.
Brethren, there is nothing to
sorrow for when we look at the cross now, for
Jesus is again alive; He has glory about Him that He had not, and could
not have had, if He had not stooped
to conquer and bowed His head to death.
The man Christ Jesus now sits at the right hand of the Father exalted
far above principalities and powers,
and every name that is named. He sees of
the travail of His soul, and He is satisfied, and instead of mournful
dirges we say, "Bring
forth Miriam’s timbrel yet again, and let us sing unto the
Lord, for He hath triumphed
gloriously! The horse and his rider hath He cast
into the sea. All the host of His enemies hath He drowned in the Red
Sea
of His atoning blood."
Moreover, brethren, we are
gainers now. It is true our sin crucified Him,
but our sin is gone. The last act of
sin was sin’s own destruction. It pulled down
the house upon itself like Samson, and there it died. Our sin is put
away by the death of Christ. He has "finished
transgression, and made an end
of sin." And as for truth and righteousness, they are
gainers, too. Now, on the
cross the crisis of the great battle comes. Now is the prince of this
world cast out. Now do righteousness
and holiness and truth win the day, and
that for ever. Glory be unto God, we come to the memorial of the death
of Christ as to a festival. Our sorrow is turned into joy.
And as to our Lord’s going away
from us into heaven, it does at first sight wear
a very sorrowful aspect. We should be glad if He should occupy that
chair to-night and say, "Take,
eat; this is My body." Oh, what a happy crowd
would you all be who love Him, if He stood in this pulpit to-night and
showed you His hands and His feet. We would stand at the posts of
His doors by the week together to
get a sight of Him. If He had His throne in
Jerusalem this day, what pilgrimages would we make if we might but come
anywhere near His blessed person, and might kiss the very dust He trod
upon! For what a precious Lord was He! Oh, in our times of sorrowing,
if we could but once see His face. those dear lustrous eyes that seem
to say, "I know your sorrows, for I have felt the same,"
that blessed countenance that
would speak consolation, though it said not a word, and would
say to every mourner, "I will help
thee. I have borne thy burden of
old
" — would not it be a joy to see Him? Surely I should be glad
enough to cease my ministry,
and you might be glad enough, however useful you might
be, to give up your work as the stars hide their diminished heads when
the sun rises.
II.
But, brethren, there is no cause
for sorrow. I am talking idly for the moment
now, for our sorrow is turned into joy. It is a great gain to us not
to have the Savior here. And see ye
how it is? He said, "If I go not
away, the
Comforter will not come unto you." Now, it is a nobler
thing to have the Spirit of
God dwelling in us than it would be to have Jesus Christ dwelling
upon earth. For, as I have hinted, if He were on earth we could not
all get at Him; He could only be in one place at a time, and how would
the poor be able to get where He is?
And if He perambulated all the world yet
in the natural order of things, it is only now and then He could come to
one place, and so some of us would
have to be pining all our lives to see Him.
But now the Holy Ghost is here. The Holy Ghost is wherever believers
are. "Know ye not that He dwelleth in
us for ever?" And whereas we
see nothing, this is all the better for us. A life of sight is for babes;
a living by feeling is for
poor puny infants, but the life of faith is for men in Christ
Jesus, and ennobles us by taking away anything that is to be seen and
giving us to walk after the unseen. "Though
we have known Christ after
the flesh," says the apostle, "yet
now after the flesh know we Him no
more."
We have not Christ among us after the flesh, and we are glad of it,
for now our faith is exercised and
God loves faith, and faith makes men into
true men in the sight of God, and ennobles them and makes them friends
of God. For who was "the friend of
God" like Abraham, who believed
God? Faith, then, being so much more for our good than the most delightful
sight, we have reason to thank God that Jesus is gone and that the
Spirit is given.
Besides, beloved, Christ can
serve our turn better where He is than He could
here, What is He doing for us yonder in the unseen land? Why, know ye
not He has gone to take possession for us — gone ahead that He may
say, "This
heaven belongs to My people; I am come here as their legal
representative."
The moment that He put that pierced foot of His upon the golden
streets He said, "These streets
belong to all whom I have redeemed
with My blood, to all whom My Father
gave Me, and they shall possess this,
for lo ! I take possession of it." And inasmuch as
there was something to do to
make heaven fit for us — I do not know what it was — what a joy
it is to hear Him say, "I
go to prepare a place for you." Why, brethren, heaven
was not fit for us any more than we were fit for heaven till He went
there, and He is getting it ready,
so that when we come home we shall find our
house furnished and all prepared.
When God made Adam, He did not
make Adam first and suspend him in the
air till he made Eden for him to live in, but He made the garden, fitted
it for Him, and then He made
the man and put him in it. And so our great Lord
is gone to make heaven fit for us, and He will come again and take us
unto Himself that where He is we may
be also. Now for this cause we are glad
that He is not here. We comfort one another with these words, and we
see how true was this promise of
His, "Your sorrow shall be turned
into joy."
Sorrow at His death, sorrow at His departing out of the world — these
two sorrows are now" turned into joy."
We pause awhile and change the
subject. I see before me still the preparation
for the feast — for the supper, and therefore let me remind you that
in coming to that table we experience a transmutation of spiritual emotions
with regard to Him. I will show you what I mean. Some time ago,
the Lord made us hungry and thirsty after righteousness. We could not
any longer be satisfied with the world. We came to feel ourselves miserable.
Our heart was pining for something. We had once been quite content
with present joys, but, on a sudden, we were dissatisfied and felt
a craving we had never felt
before. Are you not glad of it, because when you come
to the table here you see that there is bread to eat and wine to drink,
emblems of the body and the blood of
Christ? Do you know, when I sit down
at a good table, what I feel thankful for? Two things, if I have got
them.
First, for what is on the table;
but, secondly, for an appetite. For a feast
is a poor thing without an appetite. So, see you, the hunger and thirst
which God has given us after Christ
are turned into joy when we come to see
Christ, for now we say, "How glad I am, how thankful I am that I
could no longer remain content ! How
happy am I that God gave me a distaste
for all the joys of the world, for now I am the man that can enjoy a
crucified Savior. Now I can eat His
flesh, which is meat indeed, and drink His
blood, which is drink indeed !"
Well, at the same time when we
felt our hunger we had
another sorrow, namely, that hungry as we were, we had
not a crust in the house: we could not satisfy our own hunger, do what
we would. We went about the world to
try and find something to satisfy our
need, but we could find nothing whatever. The husks that contended the
swine would not content us. We wanted something more. I know at that
time I had not a pennyworth of merits, though I had a mass of sins. I
tried to pray, but my prayers could
no more fill my soul than wind could. I tried
to be diligent in hearing the word and doing good, but there is nothing
to stay a hungry soul in all that we
can do. But now to-day, to-day in the sight
of that table and remembering this bread and wine, to picture Christ
crucified the food of the soul, I am
glad that I had not got anything to eat, because
now I was driven to feed on Christ. Oh, what a blessed thing is an empty
cupboard when it brings a soul to the Savior ! Our sorrow is turned
into joy, and we call it a blessed
famishing, a blessed emptiness, when we can
have the emptiness and famishing removed by feeding upon an all-sufficient
Savior.
So, you see again, our sorrow is
turned into joy. And on the table of fellowship
to-night we see the wine-cup, and while it represents to us our Savior
as our refreshment, it also reminds us that we were once foul and needed
to be washed in His blood. Now, it was a great sorrow to feel ourselves
foul; it was a horror to discover that we were soiled from head to foot
with scarlet sins. But, for my part, now that I have washed in the fountain
filled with blood, I have forgotten my sorrow about sin. It is turned
into joy. Oh, the blessedness of being made clean in Christ Jesus !
Why, I think if I had been Adam,
and had never sinned, I should always have
had some little fear that perhaps I had come short somewhere if I had
to depend on my own merits, even if
I hoped I was perfect. Now, sinner that
I am, I entertain no fears, for I know Christ’s righteousness is
perfect; I know His death
cleanseth from all sin; and so the sorrow about sin is turned
into joy in the sense of perfect pardon and complete righteousness which
belong to us through the precious blood of our dear Lord and Savior.
Oh, when you come to the’ table, my dear brethren and sisters, lay
aside all your griefs, whatever they
may have been. Feel that if you must bring
them with you they are transformed and transmuted on the road; for your
sorrow since you have believed on Jesus is turned into joy.
III.
Now, for a moment or two, let me
remind you that this truth will hold good
of all believers’ sorrows. Your sorrow shall be turned into joy.. It
shall be good of some of them
to-day. God will make your present sorrows to
be turned into joys. Do I address one person to-night who has been persecuted
for Christ’s sake? Do I speak with one young person whose parents
treat her ill because she follows Jesus? Brother, sister, your sorrow
is turned into joy, even now, for,
if ye be persecuted for righteousness’ sake,
happy are ye. Not, happy shall ye be, but happy are ye. Even now ye
have a great honor put upon you: you
are counted worthy not only to believe
on the Lord Jesus but to suffer for His sake, At the thought of Him,
then, that sorrow is turned into
joy.
Perhaps I address some who are
under very severe
afflictions. Beloved brother, if the Lord shall reveal Himself in your
afflictions, you will be very sorry to be rid of them; you will feel that
they are even now turned into joy.
Constantly, in reading Rutherford’s letters
you meet with the expression of his wonder that his enemies should be
so kind to him as they were. He speaks in a sort of holy sarcasm. They
banished him, sent him away from
where he was wont to preach the Gospel,
but he said, "I find my Lord lives here and they have sent me into
His arms. They would not let me
preach," he says, "and now my Lord doth
make up for my dumb Sabbaths, for, whereas I may not speak, He speaks
to me and cheers my soul," and it seems from his letters that, the
more his enemies persecuted him, the
more deep, the more high his joy became.
I, too, know such a thing as
that, that pain can come upon you and grace can
come with the pain, so that you feel thankful for it. I have heard saints
of God say that they have had great
losses, but that the love of God has flowed
into their soul so that their losses they have reckoned to be their
gains. We have heard of one that
said, "Let me go back to my bed again; let
me go to my pain again, for I had so much of Christ there that I would
fain rather be always sick than lose
the sickness and lose the love of my Lord."
Yes, beloved, He can, at this
moment, turn your sorrows into joys. If you have
a great lump of sorrow, you will have a great lump of joy, for He turns
it all into joy. One touch of His finger can turn the granite stones into
gold; bring them to His feet; ask
Him to do it, and you shall be rich in joy to-night.
Well, if it is not done at once, it will be done ere long. It sometimes
takes a little time for a sorrow to turn into a joy. It is rather an
odd figure of Cowper’s, but it is
a true one: The
bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower.
It takes a little time for our
bitters to bloom out into sweetness, but they will.
If you are praying for your dear child, praying for his conversion but
do not see it, yet pray on, for your
sorrow will be turned into joy. If you are
in great trouble about your husband, or your brother, or your friend,
whose conversion you are seeking,
strive on still, for it will come. One day you
shall have the joy of your heart, and your sorrow shall be turned into
joy. And that trial you are laboring
under just now — don’t faint under it; wait
a little. It is a rough wind, but it is blowing you towards the port. It
is a rough wave, but it is
washing you on to the rock. It is not to-day that you will
see it, nor to-morrow; but afterwards, and by-and-bye it will bring
forth the comfortable fruits of
righteousness, and you will rejoice.
And, mark you, if never in this
world, yet in the blessed country "on
the hither
side of Jordan" your sorrow shall be turned into joy. It
will be among the delights of
heaven, I do not doubt, to look back on the sorrows of
life and to see how they ministered to our meekness for the better land.
There we shall make songs out of
our sighs and music out of our mournings;
only let us wait and be patient. The people of the world have the
laughter to-day and we have the sighing; they shall have the sighing
by-and- bye and we shall have
the laughter.
God is like a certain great man
who had in his house two sets of cups. Those
cups were for his friends, and these were for his enemies; but they
might take which they would. He knew
his friends were wise; his enemies were
fools. Now, these cups which were for his foes were very sweet; they
sparkled on the brim; they flashed.
The wine was red, and it moved itself aright.
But they were warned that whosoever drank these cups would find that
the dregs were full of death. And his foes came in and drank and drank
and laughed, and said the good man
of the house loved them best, for he had
given them the sweetest wines. But on the other table stood the cups
that were ready for his friends, and
his friends were wise, and they went to them,
and the cups were very bitter — very bitter! Ah, how they set their
teeth on edge and filled their
mouths with wormwood ! But they knew that these
were health-cups that would purge them of all disease and fill their
frames with a vitality and force
which magic could not give; and therefore these
friends of his drank the cups with joy and thankfulness, for they knew
that he had prepared them in love;
and while they heard his enemies laughing
at them they bore the laughter with composure, for they knew what
the end would be.
To-day the saints and the sinners
in the world are like two armies on the eve
of battle, You go through yonder tents. On the left side you will hear
the sound of revelry; you shall see
them enjoying the dance. Full bowls they
quaff, merrily. Say they, "We go forth to battle and to
victory to-morrow.!"
That is the camp of sin and of
the enemy. Here you see the other
camp; and the soldiers there make not merry. They are men of sober stuff.
They have a solid joy within them, for they expect to win to-morrow;
but they boast not. Each man is
looking well to his buckler, seeing that his harness
is complete and his sword well-sharpened; and you will hear at intervals
the prayer, the cry to God, "Make strong our arms, and send us
like thunderbolts upon our foes."
Now, by to-morrow’s eve, I wot, ye shall know
what has become of them, for you gay and haughty cavaliers, with all
their mirth, shall strew the field,
and their carcasses shall be given to the dogs
and to the fowls of heaven. But you suppliant hosts there, though they
be reviled as Puritans, shall dash through the hosts of their foes and
shall lead their captivity captive.
In which camp would you wish to
be? I have taken my choice, and I pray my
brethren to take theirs, and may the Spirit of God rule their choice that
they may take the bitter cups that
are full of health and that they may go with
the sober prayerful camp whose song of victory shall turn their sorrows
into joys.
Brethren, if the saints’
sorrows are turned into joys, what are their joys? If their
bitters are sweet, how sweet are their sweets ! And if the finger of
Christ touching the things of life
can make them sweet, how sweet must Christ
Himself be! If He turns the water into wine, how rich must He be!
And if He turns on earth our
sorrows into joy, what can the joys be where there
are no sorrows, but where the joys are unalloyed and undiluted and last
on for ever! Blessed sorrows, blessed joys! Who would not be a believer
when even his sorrows shall be turned into joys ?
IV.
But lastly, this little text is a
Gospel. I think it: is a Gospel for all my hearers
to-night. Your sorrows shall be turned into joys. Whosoever among
you shall come to-night to those dear feet that were pierced by the
nails, and will come and trust in
Jesus Christ to save him, shall have his sorrow
turned into joy. Are you sorrowing for sin? It shall be pardoned, and
in a moment joy shall fill your spirit. Do you sorrow because you are
afraid you are not one of the elect?
Come and trust in Jesus, and you shall make
your election sure, and the doctrine that was so horrible to you shall
be full of consolation. Are you
mourning because you are unfit to come?
Come with all your unfitness, and
you shall thank God that you were saved from
making a fitness and were enabled to come as a sinner to Christ. Do
you mourn because you have a hard
heart? Come and trust Jesus, and He will
give you a heart of flesh and you shall bless His name that you were
another instance of His Almighty
power to change the hearts of men.
I would to-night that you would
try my Lord and Master. I have known Him
now more than two and twenty years. Two and twenty years ago, last Friday,
I avowed my faith in Him in baptism, and I would not give Him a good
character if He did not deserve it. I would not lie even for Him, I
trust. But, oh, there was never such
a Lord as He is! Sorrow He told us we should
have, and we have had it, but He has always turned it into joy, and
up to this moment I can say of Him,
if I had to die like a dog and there were
no hereafter, I would prefer to be a Christian; and if there were no joy
about religion but the present joy
which it gives to a believing heart, let me have
it beyond all the joys of wealth, or fame, or honor. There is none like
Christ. I would that some of you
would come and take Him.
May His Spirit guide you and may
you to-night become His disciples, and your
sorrow shall be turned into joy.. The Lord grant it for His
name’s sake. Amen.
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