“Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord!” Deuteronomy 33:29
He who affirms that Christianity makes men miserable is himself an utter stranger to it. It were strange indeed, if it made us wretched, for see to what a position it exalts us! It makes us sons of God.
Suppose you that God will give all the happiness to his enemies, and reserve all the mourning for his own family? Shall his foes have mirth and joy, and shall his home-born children inherit sorrow and wretchedness? Shall the sinner, who has no part in Christ, call himself rich in happiness, and shall we go mourning as if we were penniless beggars?
No, we will rejoice in the Lord always, and glory in our inheritance, for we “did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but [we] have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’”
The rod of chastisement must rest upon us in our measure, but it works for us the comfortable fruits of righteousness. Therefore by the aid of the divine Comforter, we, the “people saved by the Lord,” will joy in the God of our salvation. We are married unto Christ, and will our great Bridegroom permit his spouse to linger in constant grief? Our hearts are knit unto him: we are his members, and though for awhile we may suffer as our Head once suffered, yet we are even now blessed with heavenly blessings in him. We have the earnest of our inheritance in the comforts of the Spirit, which are neither few nor small.
Inheritors of joy forever, we have foretastes of our portion. There are streaks of the light of joy to herald our eternal sunrising. Our riches are beyond the sea, our city with firm foundations lies on the other side the river, gleams of glory from the spirit-world cheer our hearts and urge us onward. Truly is it said of us, “Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord!”
Adapted from Morning and Evening.
