A Joyful People

By Stephen Sharp

    There is enough in the world outlook to foster pessimism.  There is enough in the churches to make us weep, as Paul wept, because of the many who are the enemies of the Cross of Christ, while professing His name.  But the darkness is deepest before the dawn, and the hope of that dawn and all it will bring to the waiting believer should fill us with joyful anticipation.

    For what will it bring?  To the true church of Christ, the end of sorrow and the beginning of a joy that shall know no ending.  We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.  [It will also bring]...the Marriage Supper of the Lamb where, in the full assembly of His own, He will unveil His glory to our raptured vision –

The bride eyes not her garments,

But her dear bridegroom’s face;

We will not gaze on glory,

But on our King of grace;

Not at the crown He giveth,

But on His pierced hand;

The Lamb is all the glory

Of Immanuel’s land.

    And in believing all this we have not followed cunningly devised fables, or a beautiful dream of our own imagining, but we have followed the “sure word of prophecy...as unto a light that shineth in a dark place…” (2 Pet. 1:19).

    “For yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry” (Heb. 10:37).

    – Adapted from the Herald Of Hope.