The Joy Of Jesus

DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 5, 1880,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit and said, I thank You, O Father,
Lord of Heaven and earth, that You have hid these things from the wise
and prudent and have revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so
it seemed good in Your sight. All things are delivered to Me of My
Father: and no man knows who the Son is, but the Father; and who the
Father is, but the Son and He to whom the Son will reveal Him." Luke
10:21,22.

LAST Lord's-Day morning we considered the lamentations of Jesus. [#1570
– The Lamentations of Jesus.] We will now turn our thoughts to the joys
of Jesus. It is remarkable that this is the only instance on record in
the Gospels in which our Lord is said to have rejoiced. It stands alone
and is, therefore, the more to be prized–"In that hour Jesus rejoiced
in spirit." He was the "Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief for
our sakes and, therefore, we are not astonished to find few indications
of joy in the story of His life. Yet I do not think it would be fair to
infer from the fact of a solitary mention of His rejoicing that He did
not rejoice at other times. On the contrary, our Lord must, despite His
sorrow, have possessed a peaceful, happy spirit.

He was infinitely benevolent and went about doing good–and benevolence
always finds a quiet delight in blessing others. The joy of the lame
when they leaped and of the blind when they saw must have gladdened the
soul of Jesus. To cause happiness to others must bring home to a
sympathetic bosom some degree of pleasure. Sir Philip Sydney was known
to say, "Doing good is the only certainly happy action of a man's
life," and assuredly it is hard to see how the love of Jesus could
refrain from rejoicing in blessing those around Him. Moreover, our Lord
was so pure that He had a well of joy within which could not fail Him.
If it is, indeed, true that virtue is true happiness, then Jesus of
Nazareth was happy. The poet said–

"What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy, The soul's calm sunshine
and the heartfelt joy, Is virtue's prize."

Such calm and joy must have been the Savior's, though, for our sake, He
bowed beneath the heavy load of sorrow.

The perfectly holy God is the perfectly happy God and the perfectly
holy Christ, had it not been that He had taken upon Himself our griefs
and sicknesses, would have been perfectly happy. And even with our
griefs and sicknesses there must have been a deep peace of soul within
Him which sustained Him in His deepest woe. Did not the Father,
Himself, say of His beloved Son, "You love righteousness and hate
wickedness: therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of
gladness above Your fellows"? Nor is this all, for our blessed Lord
lived in unbroken fellowship with the Father and fellowship with God
will not permit a soul to abide in darkness for, walking with God, He
walks in the Light as God is in the Light. Such a mind may, for certain
purposes, come under clouds and glooms, but the Light of God is sown
for the righteous and it will speedily break forth as the dawn of day.

Those nights of prayer and days of perfect service must have brought
their own calm to the tried heart of the Son of God. Besides, Christ
Jesus was a Man of faith–He was faith's highest exposition and
example. He is "the Author and the Finisher of faith," in whom we see
its life, walk and triumph. Our Lord was the Incarnation of perfect
confidence in the Father–in His life all the histories of great
Believers are summed up. Read the 11th chapter of Hebrews and see the
great cloud of witnesses and then mark how, in the 12th chapter, Paul
bids us look to Jesus as though in His Person the whole multitude of
the witnesses could be seen!

He it was, who, "for the joy that was set before Him endured the Cross,
despising the shame." His faith must, therefore, have anticipated the
reward of His passion and have brought the joy there home to Him even
while He sorrowed

here. His joy was a light from the lamps of the future which were to be
kindled by His death and victory! He had meat to eat that His disciples
knew not of for His long-sighted eyes saw further than they and while
they mourned His departure, He saw the expediency of it and told them
that if they loved Him they would rejoice because He was going to the
Father! Be sure of this, that our Lord felt, beneath the great floods
of outward affliction, an under-current of joy, for He said, "These
things have I spoken unto you, that My joy might remain in you and that
your joy might be full."

What did He mean by this if He had no joy in His people? Could He have
spoken so many happy words and so often have said to His disciples, "Be
of good cheer," if He had been always downcast? But it is still
remarkable that our text should be the only recorded instance of His
joy, so far as the Evangelists are concerned. It is clear that joy was
not a distinguishing feature in our Lord's life so as to strike the
beholder. Peace may have sat serenely on His brow, but nothing of the
exuberant spirits which are seen in some men, for His countenance was
marred with lines of care and grief.

We do not hear that He laughed, though it is thrice recorded that He
wept and here, for once, as quite unique, we find the Inspired
assurance that He rejoiced. Because of its singularity, the record
deserves to be looked into with care that we may see the cause of
delight so unusual. The words here used are very emphatic. "He
rejoiced." The Greek word is much stronger than the English
rendering–it signifies "to leap for joy." It is the word of the
blessed Virgin's song, "My spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior."
Strong emotions of delight were visible upon our Lord's face and were
expressed by the tones of His voice as well as by His Words.

It is clear that He was greatly glad. The text also says, He "rejoiced
in spirit," that is, deep down in the very center of His Nature–in
that largest and most capacious part of His human being, the Redeemer
rejoiced! Man is body, soul and spirit, but the spirit is the nobler
and most vital part and it was with a spiritual, inward and most living
joy that the Lord Jesus Christ rejoiced. It was joy of the truest and
fullest sort which made the Savior's heart dance! Let us come, then,
near to this rejoicing Savior who wraps the garments of praise about
Him, perfumed with delight! Let us see if we cannot learn something
from His joys, since, I trust, we gathered something from His griefs.

I. First, let us look at our Lord and note that His joy was JOY IN THE
FATHER'S REVELATION OF THE GOSPEL. "I thank You, O Father, that You
have hid these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them
unto babes." He rejoices in His Father's revelation of the Gospel! It
was not joy in the fame which had gathered about His name insomuch that
John heard of it in prison. It was not joy in the manifest tokens of
power that went forth with His commissioners, though they rejoiced that
devils were subject unto them. No, it was joy in God's revealing the
Gospel to the sons of men!

I call your attention to the fact that He ascribed all that was done to
the Father and rejoiced that the Father was working with Him. His
disciples came back to Him and said, "Even the devils are subject unto
us through Your name." And they spoke not amiss, for the name of Jesus
was their strength and deserved honor. But the Lord, with that sacred
self-abnegation which was so natural to Him, replies, "I thank You, O
Father, that You have revealed these things." He takes no honor unto
Himself, but ascribes the Glory unto the Father who worked with Him.
Imitate Him, O you who call Him Lord! Let the work of the Father be
your joy!

If God gives us any success in the preaching of the Gospel, let our joy
be that the Father's power is going forth with His Word! We are not so
much to joy in our instrumentality as in the hand which uses the
instrument and works by it. Oh, misery! Misery! To be attempting Gospel
ministry without God! But oh, bliss, unspeakable bliss to feel that
when we lift our hand, God's hand is lifted, too, and when we speak the
Word, the voice of God is ringing through our feeble speech and
reaching the hearts of men! It is to true Believers a great joy that
the Father is bringing home His wandering children and receiving
penitents into His bosom!

The Savior's joy was that through the Father's Grace men were being
enlightened. The 70 disciples had been from city to city, working
miracles and preaching the Gospel and their Master was glad when they
returned with tidings of success–"In that hour Jesus rejoiced in
spirit." It pleases Jesus when the Gospel has free course and God is
glorified thereby. Then, in a measure, He sees of the travail of His
soul and is filled with satisfaction. Shall we not find our joy where
He finds His? Shall we not enter into the joy of our Lord? Whenever we
hear good news of a village evangelized, of a township moved by the
glad tidings, of a country long shut up from the Gospel at last opened
to the Word of God, let us feel our highest and deepest joy!

Rather let us rejoice in this than in business prosperity or personal
advantage. What if we can find no joy in our own circumstances? What if
even spiritual affairs within our soul are full of difficulty? Let us
joy and rejoice that God the Father is revealing the Light of His
Gospel among the sons of men! Be this our highest wish, "Your kingdom
come," and in that coming kingdom let us find our utmost happiness! Be
sure that the joy which warmed the heart of Christ can do us no
harm–it must be a pure, sacred and ennobling joy and, therefore, let
us indulge in it very largely! Christ's joy lay in the Father's sending
forth His Light and His Truth–making men to see things which Prophets
and kings had desired to behold, but had not been favored to see. Jesus
rejoiced in this, that the blessings of Divine Grace were being
revealed by the Father!

Further, our Savior's joy lay very much in this, that this revelation
to men was being made through such humble instruments. We read that,
"He lifted up His eyes on His disciples and said, Blessed be you poor:
for yours is the kingdom of God." There was not among the 12 or the 70,
one person of any social status. They were the common people of the
field and the sea. In later years Paul was raised up–a man richly
endowed in learning, whose great abilities were used by the Lord–but
the first ministers of Christ were a band of fishermen and countrymen,
altogether unknown in the schools of learning and regarded as
"unlearned and ignorant men."

The grandest era in the world's history was ushered in by nobodies! By
persons who, like their Leader, were despised and rejected of men! To
any one of them it might have been said, "For you see your calling,
brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty,
not many noble, are called: but God has chosen the foolish things of
the world to confound the wise and God has chosen the weak things of
the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of
the world and things which are despised, has God chosen, yes, and
things which are not, to bring to nothing things that are: that no
flesh should glory in His Presence."

Observe carefully that the persons whom our Lord had been employing
were not only obscure in origin, but they were of a low degree of
spiritual understanding. They were, in fact, babes in Grace as well as
worldly wisdom! Their joy, when they came back to tell what had been
done, was evidently childish as well as gracious. They rejoiced in
their success as children do in their little achievements. But their
Lord was thankful because He saw the open-heartedness and the
simplicity of their characters in the gladsome way in which they cried,
"Lord, even the devils are subject to us through Your name." And He
thanked God that by such babes as these, such children, such
true-hearted children and yet such mere children, He was pleased to
make known His Word among the sons of men!

Rest you sure that our Lord, even at this day, finds a delight in the
weakness of the instruments He uses–

"He takes the fool and makes him know The mysteries of His Grace; To
bring aspiring wisdom low, And all its pride abase."

Not you, you scribes who have counted every letter of the Old
Testament, does He elect to be filled with the Spirit! Not you, you
Pharisees who so abound in outward religion, does He choose to spread
the inward Life and Light! Not you, you Sadducees who are versed in
skeptical philosophy and boast your cleverness, does He call to preach
His Gospel to the poor! He has taken to be the heralds of His Glory men
from the sea of Galilee whom you despise–simple-hearted men ready to
learn–and then as ready to proclaim, again, the message of salvation!
Our Lord was by no means displeased with the absence of culture and
learning in His followers, for the culture and learning of the period
were utter vanity!

He was glad to see that they did not pretend to wisdom or astuteness,
but came to Him in all simplicity to accept His teaching because they
believed Him to be the Son of God. Jesus rejoiced in spirit about this.
And yet, further, His great joy was that the converts were of such a
character as they were. "You have hid these things from the wise and
prudent and have revealed them unto babes." It is true that certain
persons sneeringly asked, "Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees
believed in Him?" There were some who thought little of Jesus because
those whom they imagined to be learned men had not expressed their
approval of His cause. Our Lord, Himself, had no concern in that
direction, but called the Pharisees blind and the scribes hypocrites,
as they assuredly were!

Other voices may have inquired, "Who are these that follow Jesus? Of
what class are His converts?" The answer would have been, "They are
rustics, fishermen and common people with, here and there, a woman of
substance and a man of means. The bulk of them are the poor to whom,
for the first time, the Gospel is preached. Such have gathered to
Christ and received His Word." Some even said that a parcel of boys and
girls were in the streets crying, "Hosanna," and this

showed how commonplace the Preacher was. At this day I have heard the
Lord's people spoken of as a poor set of people of no position–a lot
of persons whose names will never be known–a mere assembly of Jack,
Tom, Harry, Mary, Susan and the rest.

This was the very thing to which Jesus refers with thankfulness! He was
glad that He was surrounded by unsophisticated, childlike natures,
rather than by Pharisees and scribes who, even if they are converted,
are sure to bring some of their old manners with them. He was glad that
the Father had revealed His Light and His salvation to those who were
lowly and humble, who, though poor in this world, were "rich in faith,
giving glory to God." Thus you see that the very fact which certain
very superior people fling in our teeth as a disgrace, was to our
Savior a subject of joy! I have heard foolish ones sneer at certain
Churches which are earnest for the Truth of God by affectedly asking,
"Who are they? A mob of common people, tradesmen or working men and the
like. Are there any of the aristocracy among them? Do you find any of
the highly intellectual in their ranks?"

What if we do not? We shall not, therefore, sorrow, but join with Jesus
in saying, "We thank You, O Father, that You have hid these things from
the wise and prudent and have revealed them unto babes." Christ found
Himself at home among those open-hearted folks that gathered around
Him, for He was, Himself, a Child-Man, who wore His heart upon His
sleeve, boasting of no wisdom though He was Wisdom itself! Our Lord
never sought Himself, as the wise and prudent of His age did. He was
meek and lowly in heart and, therefore, found Himself at home among a
people who were willing to receive His teaching and eager to proclaim
it, again, to their countrymen. And so He blessed and praised God that
such were chosen.

Oh, Friends, it is not that Christ would not have the greatest come to
Him! It is not that Christ would not have the learned come to Him! But
so it is that His greatest joy is that those come who, whatever the
greatness or the littleness of their learning, are childlike in spirit
and, like babes, are willing to learn and prepared to receive what He
shall teach them! He was glad to receive persons with lowly notions of
their own intelligence and a supreme belief in the veracity of their
great Teacher. If those who are reckoned to be learned, profess to come
to Christ, they are generally a trial to the Church. All the merely
human learning that has ever come unto the Church has, as a rule, been
mischievous to it–and it always needs great Grace to keep it in its
right place.

At first came the Gnostics with their philosophy and into what perils
they dragged the Church of God, I cannot stop to tell you! Then arose
others out of whose wisdom grew Arianism and the Church was well-near
withered to her very heart by that deadly form of heresy! The schoolmen
did for her much the same and to this day whenever any of the
would-be-thought-wise men meddle with religion, they tell us that the
plain Word of God, as we read it, must be interpreted by modern thought
and that it bears another meaning which only the cultured can possibly
comprehend. When philosophy invades the domain of Revelation, it ends
in perverting the Gospel and in bringing in "another gospel which is
not another."

It is with human wisdom as it is with human riches–how difficult shall
they that have it enter into the Kingdom of God! True wisdom is another
thing–that is a gift which comes from above and causes no puffing up
of the heart, for it adores the God from whom it came! The wisdom which
is true and real, the Lord is prepared to give to those who confess
their ignorance–to those who will be babes in His sight. It is not
ignorance which God loves, but conceit that He hates! Knowledge is
good, but the affectation of it is evil! O for more true wisdom! May
God give us much of it and may those who are babes, as yet, come to be
men of full stature in Christ Jesus! Yet forget not your Lord's joy in
the character of His converts, but remember the lines in which the poet
of the sanctuary paraphrases our text–

"Jesus, the man of constant grief,

A mourner all His days,

His Spirit once rejoiced aloud,

And turned His joy to praise.

Father, I thank Your wondrous love,

That has revealed Your Son

To men unlearned and to babes

Has made Your Gospel known.

The mysteries of redeeming Grace

Are hidden from the wise,

While pride and carnal reasoning join To swell and blind their eyes."

Our Lord's joy sprang from one other source, namely, His view of the
manner in which God was pleased to save His people. It was by revealing
these things to them. There is, then, to every man who is saved, a
revelation, not of anything over and above what is given us in the Word
of God, but of that same Truth of God to himself, personally, and with
power. In the Word of God is the Light of God, but what is needed is
that each man's eyes should be opened by the finger of God to see it!
Truth in the Scriptures will never save till it becomes the Truth of
God in the heart–it must be "revealed" unto the most unprejudiced and
true-hearted.

Even men of childlike spirits and receptive natures will not see the
Truth unless it is especially revealed to them. There must be a work of
the Father through the Holy Spirit upon each intellect and mind before
it can perceive the Truth of God as it is in Jesus. Therefore, when
unregenerate men tell us that they cannot see the beauty of the Gospel,
we are not at all astonished–we never thought they could! And likewise
with boastful men of "culture, for we knew that they would say so!
Blind men are little pleased with color and deaf men care little for
music. Human wisdom cannot make a man without eyes see the Light of
God!

What do you know about the Gospel, oh you blinded wise men? What judges
can you be of the Light of Revelation who seal up your eyes with the
mud of your own cleverness and then say you cannot see? Christ never
intended that you should! He will only reveal Himself as He pleases and
He has pleased to do this to another kind of persons from what you are.
Oh, you that are wise in your own conceit, the gate of true Wisdom is
barred against you! You cannot, by searching, discover God and when He
graciously reveals Himself you refuse to see Him and, therefore, it is
just that you should perish in the dark! Well do you deserve this
judgment. Let justice be done!

That God had been pleased to reveal Himself to many through the
preaching of the 70 was a great joy to Jesus and let us also rejoice
whenever God reveals Himself to men! Let us be glad when one who is
simple in heart is made a child by Divine Grace through being born
again. Let us, furthermore, rejoice whenever conversion is worked by
instruments that cannot possibly claim the glory of it. Let us praise
and bless God that salvation is His own work from first to last! Come,
all you who love the Father and say, with the great Firstborn, "I thank
You, O Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, that You have hid these things
from the wise and prudent and have revealed them unto babes. Even so,
Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight."

II. I have thus tried, as far as I am able, to explain the cause of the
Savior's joy. I would now call your attention to HIS MODE OF EXPRESSING
THAT JOY. I have noticed some kind ofjoy in conversions which has not
been wise in its expression, but has savored of glorying in the flesh.
"Oh, we have had a wonderful time, we have had a blessed season! We
have been visited by those dear men and we have exerted ourselves in
downright earnest to get up a revival. We have done wonders." Such talk
will not do! Hear how the Savior speaks. His joy finds tongue in
thanksgiving–"I thank You, O Father." He ascribes the work to the
Father and then renders all the praise to Him. This is the eloquence of
joy–"I thank You, O Father."

Brothers and Sisters, whenever you are happy sing hymns of
thanksgiving! "Is any merry? Let him sing Psalms." The most fit
language for joy, whether it is on earth or in Heaven, is adoration and
thanksgiving to God! Blessed be the name of the Lord that we are
gladdened in the harvest field of Christian work, for it is He that
gives Seed to the sower and causes the Word to spring up and bring
forth fruit a hundred-fold. Our Lord found expression for His joy in
declaring the Father's sovereignty. "I thank You, O Father, Lord of
Heaven and earth." Some shrink back from the idea of God as Lord of all
things above and below. To them the free will of man seems the greatest
of all facts and, lest there should be the slightest intrusion upon
man's domain, they would have God limited as to His absolute power.

To magnify man they would minimize God! You will hear them talking
against those of us who magnify Divine Sovereignty and imputing to us
the notion of a certain arbitrariness in God, although such a thought
has never entered our minds! Jehovah, who gives no account of His
matters, but orders all things according to the good pleasure of His
will, is never arbitrary, unjust, or tyrannical–and yet He is absolute
and uncontrolled–a Sovereign who reigns by His own self-existent
power. He is, Himself, the source and origin of all law. He can be
trusted with absolute Sovereignty because He is Infinite Love and
Infinite Goodness. I will go the utmost length as to the absolute
supremacy of God and His right to do as He wills and especially to do
as He wills with His own, which Gospel Grace most certainly is.

He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy and He will have
compassion on whom He will have compassion and none can stay His hand
or say unto Him, "What are You doing?" When Christ was most glad He
expressed that gladness by ascribing unto God an Infinite Sovereignty
and shall that Truth of God be gloomy to us? No, rather we will, each
one, view the work of the Father's Grace and cry, "I thank You, O
Father and I thank You all the more because I know that You are Lord of
Heaven and earth!" If I am addressing any who quarrel with the doctrine
of the Sovereignty of God, I would advise them to cease their
rebellion, for "the Lord reigns." Let them at least go as far as the
Psalm, "Let the people tremble" even if they cannot go a little further
and sing, "The Lord reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of
isles be glad thereof."

Power and rule are best in the hands of the great Jehovah who always
links together, in His own single Character both Fatherhood and
Sovereignty. "I thank You, O Father, Lord of Heaven and earth." Dismiss
from your minds all caricatures of the doctrine and receive it in its
purest form–"the Lord is king forever and ever. Hallelujah!" Your joy,
if it is deeply spiritual and very great, will never find room enough
for the sweep of its Atlantic waves till you delight yourself in the
absolute supremacy of God. The deep groundswell of delight within the
Redeemer's soul could find no grander space over which it could expand
its force than the unlimited power and dominion of the Lord of Heaven
and earth– whose key it is which opens or shuts the kingdom of
Heaven–whose Word it is which hides or reveals the things of eternity!

Our Lord delighted in the special act of Sovereignty which was before
Him, that the Lord had "hid these things from the wise and prudent and
had revealed them unto babes." He communed with God in it! He took
pleasure in it and said, "Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in
Your sight." His voice, as it were, went with the Father's voice. He
agreed with the Father's choice, He rejoiced in it, He triumphed in it!
The will of the Father was the will of Christ and He had fellowship
with the Father in every act of His Sovereign choice, yes, He magnified
God for it in His inmost spirit! He says, "Even so, Father, for so it
seemed good in Your sight," for He knew that what seems good to God
must be good. Some things seem good to us which are evil–but that
which seems good to God is good!

Jesus praises God about it for no other reason than it is God's good
pleasure that it should be so. Oh, what a state of heart it will be for
you and me to get into when we can express our highest joy by a perfect
acquiescence in the will of God, whatever that will may be! See here,
Brothers and Sisters, the road to contentment, to peace, to happiness,
yes, heavenly life this side of the grave! If you ever come to feel
that what pleases God pleases you, you will be glad, even, in
affliction and tribulation!

If your heart is ever schooled down to accept as your will that which
is God's will and to believe anything to be good because God thinks it
good, then you may go through the rest of your days singing and waiting
till your Lord takes you to His bosom! Soon will you rise to the place
where all the singers meet and sing forever unto God and the Lamb–all
self and rebellion being forever banished. Herein, then, Christ found a
channel for His joy–in thanksgiving, in magnifying the Divine
Sovereignty, in having communion with it and in delighting in it!

III. Thirdly and briefly, I want you to see OUR LORD'S EXPLANATION OF
THE FATHER'S ACT. The Father had been pleased to hide these things from
the wise and prudent and to reveal them unto babes. And Jesus Christ is
perfectly satisfied with that order of things, quite content with the
kind of converts He has and the kind of preachers that God had given
Him. For, first, the Lord Jesus does not need prestige. Read the 22nd
verse–"All things are delivered to Me of My Father." A mere pretender,
when he begins to prophesy and set himself up for a religious
leader–how pleased he is when some learned doctor endorses his claims!
If some man of wealth and station comes to his side, how he plumes
himself!

The Savior of our souls sought no such aids. The verdict of the world's
literary intelligentsia could not make His Word more truthful than it
is, nor more convincing, for its power lies in the Spirit which reveals
it. If great men say "Yes," they will not make His doctrine more sure!
Nor will they make it less truthful if they all say, "No." Prestige for
Christ? It is blasphemy to think of such a thing! "All things," He
says, "are delivered to Me of My Father." High Priests and leaders of
religion denounce Him, but all things are delivered to Him of His
Father! The Sanhedrim determines to put Him down, but all things are
delivered to Him of the Father! The learned deride His claims to be the
Messiah! What does it matter to Christ? The Father has committed all
things into His hands! He stands alone and asks for no allies. His own
power, unborrowed and unaided, is quite sufficient for His purposes.

Do you think, Brothers and Sisters, that we are going to stop our
preaching of the Gospel until we shall have the so-called "culture and
intellect" of the age upon our side to say, "It is even so"? Not we!
But rather do we believe God in the teeth of the wiseacres and say,
"Let God be true and every man a liar!" Jesus needs no imprimatur from
scholars, no patronage from princes, no apologies from orators! The
pomp and power and wisdom and cunning of the world were not with Him
and He thanks God that He is not encumbered with such doubtful gain,
but that this Truth has been revealed to those who are not wise in
their own eyes, nor intelligent in their own esteem, but, like
children, willing to learn from God and glad to believe all that He
reveals!

See how the Lord explains it further, by showing that human wisdom
cannot discover God. "No man knows who the Son is but the Father and
who the Father is but the Son." No man though he is a master in Israel!
Men of science may puzzle their brains and with great ingenuity they
may try to thread the intricacies of the unknown, but they must err
from the truth if they refuse the Revelation of God! Such a thing as
natural religion, spontaneously born of man's intellect, does not
exist. "Oh," you say, "surely there is much of it!" I say that whatever
is truly religious in it was borrowed from Revelation and has been
handed down by tradition! Talk of comparative religions–there is but
one and the other pretenders have stolen certain of its clothes.

Men see, no doubt, much of God in Nature, but they would not have done
so had there been no Revelation. First came the Light through
Revelation and then, afterwards, when men saw it reflected from various
objects, they dreamed that the Light came out of the reflectors! Men
hear something of revealed Truth and when their thoughts run in that
line, that which they have heard is awakened in their minds and they
think themselves the inventors. God is not known except as He reveals
Himself, nor can He be discovered by human ingenuity! Carnal wit and
thought tend not that way, but tend from God unto blackest darkness.
God is ONLY to be known THROUGH CHRIST, so the text says–"No man knows
who the Father is but the Son and He to whom the Son will reveal Him."

As the light, after God had created it, was lodged in the sun, so is
all knowledge of God treasured up in Christ as the Sun of
Righteousness. He it is that in Himself has Light, the Light that
lightens every man that comes into the world, if he is lightened at
all. We must receive Christ or abide in darkness! Yes, and the Light
which is in Christ is not perceptible by any man except by revelation.
What does the text say?–"No man knows who the Son is, but the Father;
and who the Father is, but the Son and He to whom the Son will reveal
Him." There must be a special and distinct revelation of Christ and of
the Father by Christ to each man, or else he will remain in blindness
to the day of his death. The power, then, which lies in merely human
wisdom is a force which often hinders men from coming under the
influence of revelation. Only by revelation can they know and by a
revelation personally receive.

But the man is so wise that he does not want to be taught–he can find
it out for himself. Yield himself to an Infallible Book or an
Infallible Spirit? Not he! Well, then, because of his very wisdom, he
becomes incapable of learning! Truth to tell, what is human wisdom? The
supposed wisdom of man is folly–that is the short for it all. They
write a history, sometimes, of religious thought and of the various
phases through which Christianity has gone and on this they ground
remarks! But I should like somebody to write a truthful history of
philosophy. The history of philosophy is a record of the insanities of
mankind–a catalog of lunacies! You shall see one generation of
philosophers busily engaged in refuting those that went before them and
doing it very well, indeed!

But what will the next generation do? Why, refute this one! The
philosophies that were current 100 years ago are all exploded, now, and
all the teachings of today, except such as are clear matters of fact,
will be exploded before I go down to my grave if I live to be
gray-headed! There is not a philosopher now living that can be sure but
what there is some other fact to yet be discovered which will upset
every hypothesis that he has sent forth into the world! Philosophers
who conceitedly glory over believers in Revelation are fools, for they
know nothing with certainty and absolute certainty appertains only to
Divine Revelation! In those who pretend to wisdom apart from God, folly
abounds. There is no light in them, nor in any man except that which
comes from the Spirit of God.

That wisdom which sets itself up apart from God is atheism, because God
knows and He says to man, "I will teach you. I will reveal Myself to
you by My Son." But that wisdom says, "We do not want to be taught–we
know by ourselves." Then you are a rival to God! You pretend to be
superior to God since you are not willing to learn of Him, but will
rather trust yourself. This folly and this atheism are the reasons why
God hides His mind from the wise and the

clever–they reject Him and, therefore, He gives them over to a
judicial blindness and Christ thanks Him that He does, for it is but
justice that He should do so.

When the Lord is pleased to give to any man a childlike spirit, then is
he on the road to knowledge. This is true even in science, itself. The
secrets of Nature will never be revealed to the man who believes that
he already knows them. Nature herself does not teach the man who comes
to her with prejudice. A man who thinks he knows beforehand, sits down
to study Nature and what does he generally discover? Well, he learnedly
dreams of a universal solvent, or that the baser metals can be
transmuted into gold, or that there is a perpetual motion. Those, you
say, are things philosophers believed years ago. Yes, but their
theories of today are just as stupid and the science of today will be
the jest of the next century!

The greatest absurdities have been the pets of philosophy for hundreds
of years and why was it that men did not know better? Because they did
not go to Nature and ask her to teach them what was fact–they made an
hypothesis and then they went to Nature to force her to prove it, as
they do now. They start with a prejudgment of what they would like to
be and then take facts and twist them round into their system and so
they blind themselves by their own wisdom! Well, if it is so in Nature
and I am sure it is, it is certainly more so in Grace, for when a man
comes to the Word of God and says, "Now, I know theology beforehand. I
do not come here to find my creed in the Bible and learn it like a
child, but I come to turn texts about and make them fit into my
system." Well, he will blind himself and will be a fool and it is right
he should be blinded, for has he not done that willfully which must of
necessity lead to such an end?

Brethren, simple teachableness is the first essential for the reception
of a Revelation from God and if you have it today, if you are seeking
after the Truth of God, if you are crying after her and if you are
willing that God should reveal her to you–if you are anxious that He
should reveal His Truth to you in Christ–you are the sort of person
upon whom God in Sovereignty looks with Divine favor and unto such as
you will He reveal Himself. What is needed is faith, a childlike,
receptive faith–not faith in a pope, not faith in a man, not faith in
an old established creed, but faith in God! Oh, my Hearer, if you are
willing to learn of Him, you shall not be left uninstructed!

Now a lesson or two and I have done. The first lesson to be learned is
this. If great men, if eminent men, if so-called learned men are not
converted, do not be cast down about it–it is not likely they will be.
In the next place, if many converts are obscure persons, persons
without note or name, do not be at all disgusted with that fact. Who
are you that you should be? Who are you that you should despise any
upon whom God has looked in favor? Rather rejoice exceedingly with your
Lord that God has chosen the despised and you with them!

Next, learn that the Sovereignty of God is always exercised in such a
way that the pure in heart may always rejoice in it. God never did a
Sovereign act that the loving Christ, Himself, could not rejoice in. Be
you content, therefore, to leave everything in the hands of God that
you do not understand and when His way is in the sea, be quite as glad
as when His way is in the sanctuary! When His footsteps are not known,
feel that they are quite as righteous and quite as holy as when you can
perceive the path in which He moves. The ultimate honor of the Gospel
is secured unto God alone–let that be our last lesson.

When the wind-up of all things shall come, there shall be no honor to
any of us, nor would we desire it. But out of it all, out of the choice
of each one and out of the Revelation made to each one, will come up,
multiplied into a thousand thunders, the voice as of Christ in His
whole mystical body, "I thank You, O Father." This shall be the song of
Heaven concerning the whole matter–as well concerning the lost as the
saved. "I thank You, O Father, Lord of Heaven and earth." There shall
be no quibbling among the pure in heart, nor questions among the
perfected spirits, but the whole family reviewing the whole of the
Father's government–the hiding as well as the revealing, shall at the
last say, Christ leading the utterance–"I thank You, O Father, Lord of
Heaven and earth, that You have hid these things from the wise and
prudent and have revealed them unto babes."

Brothers and Sisters, let us learn our need of a personal revelation!
Let us seek it if we have not yet received it! With a childlike spirit
let us seek it in Christ, for only He can reveal the Father to us! And
when we have it, let it be our joy that we see Him revealing it to
others and let this be our prayer, that the God of Jacob would yet
bring others unto Christ who shall rejoice in the Light of God that has
made glad our eyes! The Lord be with you. Amen.
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