Rejoice! We Shall Reign for Ever and Ever

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows. – Psalm 45:7

Did not David say, “Thou anointest mine head with oil; my cup runneth over”? so that we can say of ourselves what we say of our Lord, we are anointed, for He was anointed. We through Jesus Christ, are anointed to an office, “for He hath made us”-whisper it to one another in the joy of delight-“He hath made us kings and priests unto God, and we shall reign for ever and ever.” When the oil went on Aaron’s head, you know how it ran down his beard, even Aaron’s beard, unto the skirts of his garments, and now this day this anointing oil, which made the king and the priest, has fallen upon us too. Blessed be His name! shall we not be glad? It is very inconsistent with our position if we are not. Are you a king and do you not rejoice?

“Why should the children of our King
Go mourning all their days?
Sweet Comforter, descend and bring
Some unction of Thy grace.”

May the gladness now come to you. You are priests to God. Shall the anointed priests serve their Lord with gloomy countenances? No: rejoice in the Lord always, all ye priests of His that are anointed to this blessed work. “Bless the Lord, O house of Israel: bless the Lord, O house of Aaron.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1273.cfm

To Be Perfectly Glad

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows. – Psalm 45:7

“Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness.” The perfect righteousness of Christ has brought to Him this gladness, because perfect holiness there must be before there can be perfect happiness. Sin is the enemy of joy. Let the sinner say what he likes, sin can no more dwell with real joy than the lion will lie down with the lamb. To be perfectly glad you must be perfectly cleansed from sin, for until you are so cleansed you cannot possess the oil of gladness to the measure that Christ possessed it. As the believer is delivered from the power of sin he is brought into a condition in which the joy of the Lord can more and more abide in him. Now, every way Jesus loved righteousness intensely and hated wickedness intensely. He died that He might establish righteousness and that He might destroy wickedness from off the face of the earth; therefore, it is that He has greater gladness, because He had greater holiness. Moreover, you know that in any holy enterprise if the business succeeds the joy of the worker is proportionate to the trial it has cost him. In the great battle of righteousness our Lord has led the van, in the great fight against wickedness our Savior has borne the brunt of the battle, therefore, because He to the death loved righteousness and to the agony and bloody sweat strove against sin, the accomplished conquest brings Him the greatest joy. He has done the most for the good cause, and therefore He is anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows.

To the unrighteous the oil of gladness cannot come, but to the righteous there ariseth light even in darkness. “There is no peace saith my God, unto the wicked.” Therefore, is the Spirit of the Lord God upon Him that He may give the oil of joy to His own chosen, and make them righteous, even as He is righteous, glad as He is glad. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1273.cfm

Gladness in Jesus’ Name

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation Leave a comment

“Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” – Acts 4:12

There is gladness in His very name:

“Exult all hearts with gladness
At sound of Jesus’ name;
What other hath such sweetness,
Or such delight can claim?”

What gladness He created when here below. His birth set the skies ringing with heavenly music and made the hearts of expectant saints to leap for joy. In after days a touch of the hem of His garment made a woman’s heart glad when she felt the issue of her blood staunched, and a word from His lips made the tongue of the dumb to sing. For Him to lay His hand upon the sick was to raise them from their beds of sickness and deliver them from pain and disease. His touch was gladness then, and a spiritual touch is the same now. To-day to preach of Him is gladness, to sing of Him is gladness, to trust Him is gladness, to work for Him is gladness, to have communion with Him is gladness. To come to His table, and there to feast with Him, is gladness; to see His image in the eyes of His saints is gladness; to see that image only as yet begun to form in the heart of a young convert is gladness. Everything about Him is gladness. All His garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia. Nothing comes within a mile of Him but what it makes you glad to think that He has been so near it. The very print of His foot has comfort in it, and the wounds in His hands are windows of hope. I have known some who have had to carry a cross for His dear sake, and they have kissed and hugged that cross, and gloried in their tribulations because they were borne for Him. Fellowship with Him has turned the bitterest potion into generous wine. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1273.cfm

Love and I: A Mystery

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You who are King of kings and Lord of lords, we worship You. Before Jehovah’s awful throne we bow with sacred joy.

Sermon Text

Entering Into the Joy of Our Lord

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

…enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. – Matthew 25:21

My brethren, the joy of our Lord Jesus Christ now that He knows His beloved are securely His, and no longer the slaves of sin and heirs of wrath, is too great to be measured. He has redeemed unto Himself a people in whom His soul delights. For them the price is fully paid, for them the penalty has been completely endured, for them all chains are broken, and for them the prison house is razed to its foundation: for them hath He bruised the serpent’s head, for them hath He by death destroyed death, and led captive him that had the power of death, even the devil.

He now continues to receive into His joy the multitudes whom the Spirit brings to Him, for whom of old He shed His precious blood. You cannot conceive the gladness of Christ. If you have ever brought one soul to Christ you have had a drop of it, but His gladness lies not only in receiving them, but in actually being the author of salvation to every one of them. The Savior looks upon the redeemed with an unspeakable delight, thinks of what they used to be, thinks of what they would have been but for His interposition, thinks of what they now are, think of what He means to make them in that great day when they shall rise from the dead; and as His heart is full of love to them He joys in their joy, and exults in their exultation. Their heavens swell their Mediator’s heaven, and their myriad embodiments of bliss, each one reflects His own felicity, and so (speaking after the manner of men) increases it, for He lives ten thousand lives by living in them, and joys unnumbered joys in their joys. I speak with humblest fear lest in any word I should speak amiss, for He is God as well as man, but this is certain, that there is a joy of our Lord into which He will give His faithful ones to enter, a joy which He has won by passing through the shame and grief by which He has redeemed mankind. The oil of gladness is abundantly poured on that head which once was crowned with thorns. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1273.cfm

Serve the Lord with Gladness

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises Leave a comment

…who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame… – Hebrews 12:2

In His work our great High Priest was anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows, but we also note that those who are His fellows do, in their degree, partake in this oil of gladness, and are enabled to feel joy in the work which is appointed them of the Lord. While our King is anointed with the oil of gladness it is also written of the virgin souls who wait upon His Church, “With gladness and rejoicing shall they be brought, they shall enter into the King’s palace.” …The Lord loves to employ willing workmen. His army is not made up of pressed men, but of those whom grace has made volunteers. “Serve the Lord with gladness.” Our Lord does not set us task work, and treat us like prisoners in gaol, or slaves under the lash. I sometimes hear our life-work called a task. Well, the expression may be tolerated, but I confess I do not like it to be applied to Christian men. It is no task to me at any rate to preach my Master’s gospel, or to serve Him in any way. I thank God every day that “to me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.” …No man wins a race who has no heart in the running. In this respect the joy of the Lord is your strength, and as your Master was anointed with the oil of gladness in His work, so must you be. Yet, beloved fellow laborer, you will never be so glad in your work as He was in His, nor will you ever be able to prove that gladness by such self-denials, by such agonies, and such a death. He has proved how glad He was to save sinners, because “for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame.” Blessed Emanuel, Thou art justly anointed with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1273.cfm

The Lord’s Delight

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father Leave a comment

Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows. – Psalm 45:7

The Son of God delighted in the work which His Father had given Him to do. This delight He declared as God, in the old eternity! “Lo I come; in the volume of the book it is written of Me, I delight to do Thy will, O God.” …We read that when the time came that He should be received up, He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem. His frequent allusions to His own decease by a shameful death, all showed that He viewed with intense satisfaction the great object after which He was reaching. Once, indeed, His joy flowed over so that others could see it, when He said, “I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.” “At that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit.” Let it never be forgotten that we must not expect to see in the life of Christ great ebullitions of manifest exultation, because He was sent on purpose to bear our sicknesses, and to be “stricken of God and afflicted.” …Now, if He had not possessed great stores of secret joy His spirit would have been famished for want of sustenance. You would have found Him constantly sighing and weeping; His words and tones would have become a terror to those around Him, and His whole appearance would have appeared melancholy and depressing to the last degree, whereas His manner was cheerful and attractive. Let the little children who thronged around Him bear witness to that. He was a man of sorrows, but He was not a preacher of sorrows, neither do His life or His discourses leave an unhappy impression upon the mind. The fact, probably, is, that He was both the greatest rejoicer and the greatest mourner that ever lived, and between these two there was an equilibrium of mind kept up, so that wherever you meet Him, with the exception of His agony in the garden, He is peaceful and serene…His peace is like a river, and His heart abides in the Sabbath of God. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1273.cfm