Repentance Preceding Joy – Charles Spurgeon

AS certain fabrics need to be damped before they will take the glowing colors with which they are to be adorned, so our spirits need the bedewing of repentance before they can receive the radiant coloring of delight. The glad news of the gospel can only be printed on wet paper. Have you ever seen clearer shining than that which follows a shower? Then the sun transforms the rain-drops into gems, the flowers look up with fresher smiles and faces glittering from their refreshing bath, and the birds from among the dripping branches sing with notes more rapturous, because they have paused awhile. So, when the soul has been saturated with the rain of penitence, the clear shining of forgiving love makes the flowers of gladness blossom all around. The steps by which we ascend to the palace of delight are usually moist with tears. Grief for sin is the porch of the House Beautiful, where the guests are full of “the joy of the Lord.” I hope, then, that the mourners, to whom these words shall come, will discover and enjoy the meaning of that divine blessing in the sermon on the mount, “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.