"Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart for the abundance of all things:therefore thou shalt serve thine enemies which the Lord shall send against thee, in hunger and in thirst, and in nakedness and in want of all things." (Deut. 28:47, 48.)
In Thy presence is fullness of joy," and all true service is done in God's presence; therefore in all service there is joy. Such, at least, is God's thought. It is not meant by this that there are no sorrows connected with it, no pain for nature. Paul wrote to the church at Corinth in the carrying out of the service committed to him "out of much affliction and anguish of heart . . . with many tears." (2 Cor. 2:4.) But there was the rejoicing of a good conscience, and the comfortable assurance of God's good pleasure. Such service as that to which he alludes, too, is rather the exception. The main work in the Church of God, as in the family, is not discipline, but edification; and in our personal life the same is true. The morbid person may look within, and seek to bring a clean thing out of an unclean; the child of God, on the contrary, looks up at Christ, and at the things which are above, and in the joy of the possession of those things he can freely turn from other attractions.
God's mind for Israel was to enter upon their inheritance, and possess it, to eat of the fruit of it, and to rejoice before Him for all the good He had given them. The enemy was to be driven out, but they were not to be always fighting. And so with ourselves. Fight we must, but only that we may thrust out the enemy who would hinder our enjoyment of those things which are ours. Then we lay aside the sword for the plowshare, and in the development of our inheritance, in the gathering of its varied products, we will find ample employment and abundant joy.
Is joy low ? Something must be the matter, for this is not "the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning" us. "Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased." (Ps. 4:7.) But there must be a reason for the joy, and it is in the abundance of all that has been given us. Israel failed to enter upon this abundance, and so her joy failed. She did not take in her whole territory, so soon lost what she had. How many of us, in like manner, are content with but a small part of what is ours, find but little joy in that, and so soon lose even that joy. Our service becomes duty. "Ye said also, 'Behold, what a weariness is it!'" (Mal. 1:13.) And in the dull routine of private prayer, Scripture reading, and attendance upon meetings, there has been but little to refresh the heart. We are only speaking of what is possible, each must ask himself in what measure it is true of him.
We sometimes hear a desire expressed for a revival among God's people, and surely that is well. But what is a revival ? Is it not simply the re-possession of what is ours ? The book of Judges is a history of declension and revival, and when the revival came it was shown by the regaining of territory, the enjoyment of fruit which the enemy had taken. So with us, a revival would be shown not necessarily in the first place by increased numbers, or any such supposed accompaniments, but by an enlarged apprehension of the Word of God as for us, and greater joy in that apprehension. This indeed would attract others to us.
Our blessed God does not wish forced service. What joy can be compared with finding that in His Word we have Him speaking to us, that in prayer we are speaking directly to Himself, that in our meeting together we are sharing the precious things which are our common possession, or unitedly praising the "Giver of all good "? If Israel in the feast of harvest, and of ingathering, was to rejoice before the Lord, "because the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thine increase, and in all the works of thine hands, therefore thou shalt surely rejoice" (Deut. 16:15), how much more should we, whose blessings are eternal, rejoice before Him !
It is from such joy that true service springs. The gospel flows forth like cool waters to a thirsty soul, from a full fountain; ministry to saints, in all places, becomes the natural communication of what has refreshed us, taking the place of that idle gossip, that fault-finding, which but too often mars the happiness of God's dear people.
On the other hand, what a sad picture we have of the opposite of this joyful service. God has not been delighted in, and the abundance which He has provided is changed for the hunger and nakedness of captivity. It reminds us of Laodicea, where this state of poverty exists while the unfortunate one is unconscious of it. And what is Laodicea? Self-sufficiency. God is not rejoiced in, the abundance of His things is not known, and the poor blind one, proud in and of his poverty, is of all men most miserable.
Beloved, let us not rest satisfied unless we are rejoicing in the abundance of God's inheritance. If we have lost that joy through worldliness or carelessness let us awake; let not the enemy any longer cheat us into thinking it is all well, but let us begin afresh to apprehend those "unsearchable riches of Christ," which lie all about us in God's Word.