JUBILEE JOY—OR, BELIEVERS JOYFUL IN THEIR KING – Charles Spurgeon
JUBILEE JOY—OR, BELIEVERS JOYFUL IN THEIR KING
“Let the children of Zion be joyful in their King.” Psalm 149:2
Celebrating the Sovereign
Your streets will ring with joyous acclamations when the Queen and court pass through them to the Abbey—and well they may! The jubilee of a good and great Queen is an event to be celebrated with enthusiasm. Our hearts are fully in accord with those who bless and praise God for His goodness to this country in giving us 50 years of the peaceful reign of Victoria. God save the Queen! None pronounce these words with a more emphatic meaning and fervor than we do this day. We not only do not grudge our fellow countrymen all the joy they have in their Queen, but we share with them to the fullest their loyalty and gratitude. Had we known what some countries have known of tyranny, war, or anarchy, we would have a much more vivid sense of the benefits bestowed upon us through the long and happy reign of our well-beloved Sovereign. Let us take care to blend a holy gratitude to God with our fervent patriotism. Be it ours to praise and bless the God who has sent us these favors! Wishing boundless blessings upon our earthly Queen, we ascribe all her prosperity and ours to that higher King from whom all blessings flow. Religion must always sanctify loyalty. It would be idolatrous to think of the human and forget the Divine. “Why should the heathen say, Where is now their God?”
Rejoicing in Our Heavenly King
But, Brothers and Sisters, let us learn from the citizens of an earthly kingdom to rejoice in our heavenly King. Let us elevate our fervor into the higher sphere. There is another King, one Jesus, and, as believers in Him, we are more truly citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem than of any city or country upon earth. Our Divine Lord has called out Believers from among the sons of men to make them a peculiar people, a nation set apart unto Himself. The text, under the term, “children of Zion,” indicates all who fear God, put their trust in Him, and yield joyful service to His crown. Are we “children of Zion?” Do we glory in the one living and true God? Are we loyal to His Anointed, whom He has set as King upon His holy hill of Zion? This is the question for each man’s heart and conscience. We must be “born again” before we can be the happy subjects of the King of Kings, for He is King of a spiritual nation, and by nature men are not spiritual. The carnal mind is enmity against God, and to become His friends, we must receive new hearts and right spirits. We must be born into His kingdom by a heavenly birth, by the work of the Holy Spirit upon us! And the token of this new birth is a childlike faith in the Lord Jesus.
Loyalty to Our King
Let us ask ourselves whether we have kissed the scepter of Jesus, the Anointed Son of God. Do we believe and trust in Him who is Prophet, Priest, and King to His people? Is He our bosom’s Lord, sole monarch of our hearts? If so, we are called upon by the words of the text to be joyful in our King! There have been kings in whom nobody could be joyful. They have been tyrannical, cruel, selfish—and their rule has oppressed their people. England has no such burden to bear. Under God, our forefathers delivered us from despotism, and our Queen has faithfully observed those covenants which harmonize monarchy with liberty. For this may God be praised!
Looking, however, to the higher sphere, we are joyful that Zion’s King is of such a sort that His government is an unmingled blessing. There are many gods whom the nations have set up over themselves, but in none of them can their votaries rejoice. The worship of these false deities is one of dread and terror—and their adoration is more fitly paid in dirges than in songs. Our God is known as “the blessed God.” He would have His people happy and, by His Grace, He makes them so! We rejoice in our King because our King makes us rejoice! He bids us “come before Him with thanksgiving and show ourselves glad in Him with Psalms.” And we willingly do so because He is “our exceeding joy.” Blessed religion, in which happiness has become a duty! Such is the Character of our God and King, that— “His Nature and His works unite To make His praises our delight.”
I pray that the Holy Spirit may shed abroad the perfume of the “oil of joy” this morning. May the beauties and glories of our King charm us into delightful praise! Away with care and sorrow! Away with doubt and despondency! Let us praise the Lord upon the loud cymbals! Let us praise Him upon the high-sounding cymbals! I pray the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, to produce in us the fragrant spikenard of holy joy—and may that holy joy, like the precious ointment of the woman who loved much—be all poured upon the Person of our Lord and King!
I. Let Us Feel That the Lord Jesus is Our King
In order that we may carry out the exhortation of the text, let us begin by feeling that the Lord Jesus is our King. Alas, many who should be of a better mind are forgetful of this Truth of God—they are not joyful in their King, for they have not yet learned His sovereignty. Brothers and Sisters, Jesus must have the pre-eminence among men, since He is in Person and Character pre-eminent. Who among the sons of the mighty can be compared unto the Lord? When the princes of the earth are gathered in their glory, who among them can be named in the same day with the Prince of Peace? Jesus is the best, therefore is He the Chief—His Person and Character wear about them a superlative majesty—let every hand present a crown to Him. “He is the standard bearer among ten thousand and the altogether lovely.” Since the Lord Jesus has no equal nor even rival, He is a born King—and were not men most blind and foolish, they would all salute Him with loyal homage.
From every corner of the globe, if men were unfallen, there would arise the cry— “Bring forth the royal diadem And crown Him Lord of All.” Our King not merely has the power, but the right to reign—He is, in Himself, royal. As Saul, the first King of Israel, was head and shoulders above all other Israelites, so is our Lord and King higher than all others in an infinitely nobler sense, for in dignity of Nature and glory of Character He surpasses all! Let us distinctly recognize that Christ is infinitely above all others even of the saintliest, wisest and noblest. He is not one among many great teachers—He is, Himself, the Truth of God. He is not one star in a constellation, but the one Light from which all lights are kindled! As the sun, at his appearing, causes the stars to hide themselves for very shame, so does all excellence and honor veil before the superior brightness of our Lord Jesus! He alone can claim universal sovereignty by right of indisputable pre-eminence.
When we have remembered that He is thus the best and noblest, let us remember that to each Believer He is a King to be obeyed. He said, “You call Me, Master and Lord, and you say well, for so I am.” It is easy to think of Christ as a Savior and yet to forget that He is Lord—but the thought is as evil as it is easy. The doctrine of Justification by Faith alone is a most important Truth of God—it is the vital essence of the Gospel—but it must never be dissociated from the fact that He who saves us must reign over us! When His blood cleanses us, His love rules us. He saves us from our sins, thus recovering us from our rebellions and revolts into a happy loyalty which finds its delight in obedience to the Divine will.
II. Study the Royal Character of Christ
Let us study His royal character, that we may be helped to be joyful in Him. Was there ever such a Prince as our Emmanuel, if we think of His Person, His pedigree, His descent, His Nature? This King of ours is not only the flower and crown of manhood, but He is also very God of very God! He is God over all, blessed forever—the Son of the Highest! What a wondrous Nature is that of Jesus, our Lord! Perfect Manhood is, in itself, wonderful—we have never seen it and never shall see it till we are taken up to behold Him as He is. Perfect Humanity, as seen in the glorified Jesus, is the wonder of the skies!
In the Character of Jesus, there is neither deficiency nor redundancy—He is without spot and without lack. In Him is perfect humanity steeped in love! His life is love. He is Love! He lives as the Head of the New Covenant, as the Second Adam, the Father of the new-born race. Think of Him in that light and then link His humanity in your minds with His Godhead, without confusion of idea. In Jesus we do not see humanized Godhead, nor deified manhood, but He is distinctly God and distinctly Man, yet both of these are in one Person and must neither be confounded nor severed. Was there ever such a King? Among the shining ones, the brightest cannot be His comrade.
III. Mark the Benefits of His Reign
Let us mark the benefits of His reign, which entitle Him to our highest regard this day. For, first, remember that the nation over which He reigns He has created. “Let Israel rejoice in Him that made him.” There was no Israel till God made Israel, Israel—and there was no Church over which Christ could reign till He made His own Church. He is the Father of the age in which He is King, the Creator of His own empire! Most kings inherit what other swords have won, but Jesus, Himself, with His own blood, has purchased a Kingdom to Himself! Each one of us must acknowledge for himself—and all of us together unitedly—that He has made us and not we, ourselves. By His Sovereign Grace, He has chosen, redeemed, called, and sanctified us! Therefore will we be joyful in Him.
Brethren, while our King has created His own Kingdom, He has also sanctified and sustained that Kingdom. That there is a Church in the world at all is due to Jesus. We had gone back to chaos and old night if it had not been that His light is never dim. He whose Sovereign Word said, “Let there be light,” still bids the light abide in the Church to lighten those who come into the world. Yes, we each of us live through Him if we live unto God. He says, “Because I live, you shall live also.” The Church as a corporate body would cease to be were He not its continual Life and Strength.
IV. The Continuance of Christ’s Reign
Let us be joyful in the continuance of our Redeemer’s reign. Fifty years is a long time for Her Majesty to have reigned. May her days yet be many! Fifty years, as we measure life, is a long space, but 50 years in the measurement of human history is far less—and 50 years as compared with eternity is nothing! King Jesus has a Kingdom of which there shall be no end! This is our joy, that the ages past have not taken away from the length of His reign. So much the less has any king to reign as he has already reigned, but it is not so with Him, for still is the voice heard, even the same voice that made the Red Sea resound—“The Lord shall reign forever and ever, hallelujah!”
Let us, this day, be right glad concerning our King, since He, only, has immortality and, therefore, He will live forever. He communicates that immortality to all His people and thus He is the undying King of an undying Kingdom! True, we shall pass through that river which is named Death, but it is a misnomer! Like the Jordan when Israel passed into Canaan, the Lord has rebuked it and it is dried up. We shall pass through the Valley of the Shadow of Death and that is all—and thus we shall reach a higher stage of being in which we shall be “forever with the Lord.” Shall not those whom the King has made to live, be joyful that their King lives and reigns world without end?
V. Obeying Our King with Delight
Lastly, being joyful in our King, let us obey Him with delight. Let us weave delights into our duties. When Moses’ mother made the ark in which she placed her darling boy, she worked it in this holy fashion—she took a bulrush and a prayer and plaited them together—every bulrush had a fervent prayer twisted with it. And so the ark was made of the prayers of a mother and the rushes of the Nile. How could the child be otherwise than safe?
Let us take into our hands a duty and a thanksgiving, a precept and a praise! Let us make up our whole life of the intertwisting of duty and delight. Let us be holy and happy! Let us turn obedience into gladness. That which otherwise were drudgery, we will exalt to a priestly sacrificing as we serve the Lord with gladness and rejoice before Him.
What a joy it would be to me if this midsummer morning some of you who have never trusted in this King should begin to do so! This is a high day and a day of glad tidings—the trumpets of jubilee load the air with music. Our King will forgive your former rebellions if now you turn to Him. He proclaims, today, a general amnesty to all rebels! This day He grants a jail delivery to all prisoners of hope. You who have revolted may come back again—He will receive you graciously and love you freely. He sits upon His holy hill in Zion and He cries to you, “If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land.”