When I first began preparation
for these studies in Zechariah chapter 8, I was laying in bed
one night late watching one of the more ridiculous things that
comes on the news about a church down in Florida. They call it
the Laughing Church. Have you seen that stuff? Folks
come to church and the preacher spends an hour with them getting
them to laugh. I'm not talking about chuckle
down there, I'm talking about just laugh, hee-haw, funny, laugh,
and call it worshiping God. Most people with half good sense
look at such a display of utter ignorance and hedonism and think
those poor people, poor, poor fools. But in reality, The Latin
Church is simply practicing what the whole world, religious and
secular, promotes all the time, utter self-indulgence. The religion of the age is built
around self-indulgence, making you feel good. Everything is
designed to make you feel good. so that you'll have a good time
when you come to church, feel good about yourself when you
leave the church. Everyone in this day seems to
think that the only reason the world exists, and God too for
that matter, is to give them pleasure and make them happy. People go to church to feel good
because they want to be happy. As my grandmother used to say,
You're going to go to church and get happy. Go to church and get happy. My
grandmother had to tell you the story, what made me laugh. My
grandmother and great aunt were in one of those Baptist churches
in the mountains of North Carolina. They didn't charge a nickel to
go charismatic. They didn't speak in tongues,
but everything else was there. And I, as a boy, I always observed
things pretty closely. And both of them liked to dip
snuff. These were older women. And before they'd do anything
in the morning, they'd get ready to go to church and they'd go
let that gum and stick a little snuff down in there. Except on
occasion. And whenever I knew, I knew that
whenever they didn't put any snuff in there before they went
to church, we were fixing to have a shouting good time come
Sunday morning. Because they'd go to church and
walk the aisles and shout and carry on because they went to
church to get happy. And they got happy. They went
to get high on Jesus to get a fix for the week. There are multitudes
in this day of charismatic nonsense who content themselves with ever-fizzling
religious euphoria. They go to church week after
week to get whipped up into an emotional religious frenzy to
get high on Jesus, to get happy. that their plastic joy fizzles
before the sun rises on Sunday morning, so they need another
fix and they go back to church. Does that describe you? Really? Or do you have something more,
something better? Do you have what the Holy Spirit
describes as the abiding joy of faith? That's how it's described
in Philippians 125, the joy of faith, not the giddy, hee-hee,
ha-ha, laughing joy that people like to experience on occasion,
but the blessed, abiding joy of faith, the joy that will do
you good when the world is on fire, the joy that will see you
through all the troubled times between now and then. as the
grace of God wrought joy deep in your soul? Do you possess
a deep, abiding, glorious joy in your heart, a joy that brings
peace, passing all understanding? True, abiding joy, a rejoicing
in Christ Jesus that gives light to darkness and lightness to
heaviness, the joy of God's salvation. It's elsewhere called the joy
of the Holy Ghost. Now I want this morning to talk
to you about the joy of God's salvation. The joy of God's salvation. I want to talk to you about it
because I want you to know it in your soul's experience. And
I want you to live in it rejoicing in the Lord. Our text is Zechariah
chapter 8. Verse 19, Zechariah 8, 19. The Lord God here promises to
turn the sad fast of His people into perpetual gladness and feasting. Zechariah 8, verse 19. Thus saith
the Lord of hosts, the fast of the fourth month and the fast
of the fifth and the fast of the seventh and the fast of the
tenth shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness and cheerful
feast. Therefore, love the truth and
peace." One characteristic of Christ's reign of grace in the
hearts of men, one thing that is said clearly to follow, the
Lord Jesus Christ coming into the hearts of chosen sinners
and establishing his throne there is joy and gladness. Wherever
Christ rules in the heart, there is gladness and joy in him. Listen to the book. Grace brings
this perpetual feast of gladness. It's called a feast of fat things,
a feast of wines on the leaves, of fat things full of marrow,
of wines on the leaves well refined. When we're most heavy laden with
difficulties, the consolations of Christ abound still. In fact, as Robert Hawker put
it, the very tear of grace. is a tear of holy joy. The hope of the righteous, Solomon
said, shall be gladness. If you have that good hope through
grace that God gives to his own, it is a hope of gladness. Let's
look at some scripture. Turn to the book of Psalms. Psalm
4. I want you to turn here and look
at these. Psalm 4. David is enduring terrible trouble,
great hardship. He says in verse 7, Thou hast
put gladness in my heart. This man who is Betrayed by his
own son? This man whose own familiar friend
has betrayed him? This man who is hunted like a
wild beast? He says, Thou hast put gladness
in my heart more than in the time that their corn and their
wine increased. Look at Psalm 30, verse 11. David's been through so much.
So very, very, very much. So much to tear his heart out.
So much to make him bitter with mourning. But this is how he
speaks. Thou hast turned for me my mourning
into dancing. Thou hast put off my sackcloth
and girded me with gladness. What a word of grace. Look at
Psalm 45, verse 15. with gladness and rejoicing shall
they be brought. They shall enter into the king's
palace. The 105th Psalm. Psalm 105. Can this be true? Are God's people
all brought into a blessed experience and continual state of joy in
the grace of God? Psalm 105 verse 43. He brought
forth his people with joy, his chosen with gladness. Now turn
to the book of Isaiah. Here we look at some promises.
Promises God gave concerning his covenant people. Things he
would surely do for all his chosen, for all his redeemed. Isaiah
35 verse 10. The ransomed of the Lord shall
return. And they shall come to Zion with songs and everlasting
joy upon their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness,
and sorrow and sighing shall run from them, shall flee away. Chapter 51 of Isaiah, verse 11. Therefore the redeemed of the
Lord shall return. and come with singing undesirable,
and everlasting joy shall be upon their head, and they shall
obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and mourning shall flee
away." Brother Don, that's talking about some other day. No, let's
talk about our day. Isaiah 61, our Lord Jesus quotes
this passage of Scripture, referring to himself, and it is a passage
that refers to every man sent of God to preach the gospel.
Isaiah 61, verse 1. The Spirit of the Lord God is
upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings
unto the meek. He hath sent me to bind up the
brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening
of the prison to them that are bound, to proclaim the acceptable
year of the Lord, and the day of the vengeance of our God.
How can those two things be the same? The day that Jesus Christ
For all the vengeance of God's holy fury, wrath and justice
as our substitute, is the day when He made the acceptable year
of the Lord for us, so that we are made accepted in Him. Read
on. To comfort all that mourn. Verse 3. to appoint unto them
that morning Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil
of joy for morning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness,
that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting
of the Lord, that he might be glorified. Let's look at one
more passage. Jeremiah 31 and 32 speaks of
God's covenant grace. In chapter 33, he's talking about
the same blessed covenant of grace and the benefits of that
covenant. And this covenant that God proclaims
here is the covenant that the Holy Spirit tells us in Hebrews
8 and in Hebrews 12 is God's covenant of grace on our behalf,
made with Christ before the world was. It is that covenant of which
Jesus Christ is the surety. Look at chapter 33, verse 10. Thus saith the Lord, again there
shall be heard in this place, which ye say shall be desolate,
without man and without beast, even the cities of Judah and
the streets of Jerusalem, that are desolate without man, and
without inhabitant, and without beast. The voice of joy and the
voice of gladness. The voice of the bridegroom and
the voice of the bride. What could be more joyful? The
voice of them that shall say, praise the Lord of hosts, for
the Lord is good. for his mercy endureth forever,
and of them that shall bring the sacrifice of praise into
the house of the Lord. For I will cause to return the
captivity of the land as at the first, saith the Lord." Back
in Zechariah chapter 8, God promises gladness to his people, but this
feast of fat is always preceded by fast, sorrowful, bitter fast. You will never know the feast
of gladness until you know the fast of sorrow. The gladness
of faith is always preceded by mourning of guilt. It is only
from fasting that we come to feast it. only from sorrow, the
sorrow of guilt before God, that we are made to experience the
joy of God's salvation, the blessed joy of faith in Christ. Now let
me give you the context in which our text is found. This word
of God spoken by Zechariah, that prophet who was sent of God to
minister to his people, the Jews who had returned from Babylon,
those who had come back from Babylon after 70 years of captivity. Seventy years of lamentation
and sorrow. Seventy years of bitterness. We sometimes get all excited
and bent out of shape and want to run and do something because
a man or woman is brought under conviction and heaviness and
we want to relieve them right now. Let them alone. Let them alone. Your sons or
daughters, begin to have some sense of sin, leave them alone. They want to come to you. Men and women come to me. Young
people come to me. They want me to give them some
reliefs and leave them alone. Leave them alone. God left Israel
in Babylon for 70 years of sorrow before he gave them any joy.
How come? Because that's what it took to
show them themselves. Seventy years had passed. They
were in Babylon. And they said, by the rivers
of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered
Zion. We hanged our hearts upon the
willows in the midst of Babylon. Judah, you see, had been destroyed. The city had been sacked. The temple razed to the ground. All the glory that they had enjoyed
in their former estate was taken away. And Jerusalem, the nation
of Israel, appeared as though they were gone forever. It appeared as though there would
never again be any true worship of God in the house of God. Everything
was destroyed. And all for one reason. Just one reason. In chapter 7,
verse 12, the Scripture tells us plainly that they made their
hearts as an adamant stone. They hardened their hearts against
God. How often God's Word says, harden
not your heart. Harden not your heart. Oh, God
help you now. Harden not your heart. But you
will, unless he stops you. You will. Some of you are sitting
here right now, and this is how you're sitting. Determine not to hear what I've
got to say. And you won't hear it, unless
God takes your fingers out of your ears and gives you ears
to hear. But the Jews, in their obstinate
rebellion, despising the Word of God, because they hardened
their hearts, were sent into Babylon, brought to utter ruin. And now, just as God promised
He would do, seventy years later, He brings back the captivity
of His people. He brings a remnant back to the
holy city. There he brings them and establishes
them that they would rebuild the city, rebuild his house,
and reestablish his kingdom as the nation before God. During
their captivity in Babylon though, the Jews had set up four annual
days of fasting. Now, it's important for me to
remind you, and for you to remember, that these days of fasting, which
they called worshipping God, these days of fasting in which
they afflicted their souls and said they were seeking the Lord,
were all days of fasting that they made themselves. They were
religious appointments established by their own wisdom, which was
nothing but foolishness. They gloried in their shame.
Just as all men do if left to themselves as they seek to worship
God. Let me remind you what those
fasts were. You can read about them in 2
Kings 25. Every fourth month of every year
on the ninth day, they kept a fast. Not a glad feast, a fast. A fast in remembrance of the
destruction of Jerusalem. On the seventeenth day of every
fifth month, they kept another fast. A fast in remembrance of
the Chaldeans coming and destroying the temple of God at Jerusalem.
The very glory of Israel. And they kept the fast. A fast
not celebrating, and yet a fast celebrating in shame the destruction
of their glory. On the seventh month, or in every
seventh month, they held another feast. A feast in remembrance
of the slaughter, the murder of Gedoliah, and the final captivity
of those Jews who had been scattered out in the outskirts around Jerusalem.
And then on the tenth day of every tenth month, they had their
greatest Babylonian fast. A fast of great proportion. A fast of great magnitude. You
know what they did? They were fasting in remembrance
of Nebuchadnezzar's first laying siege on Jerusalem. They gloried
in their shame. These Jews instituted these fast
days, these four annual appointed days of sorrow and mourning,
all the years they were in Babylon. And when they came back to Jerusalem,
they continued to observe those fasts. And there they were, standing
in the land of promise, surrounded by ruins, difficulties on every
side. harassed by foes, mocked by those
who looked at them as they talked about rebuilding the nation and
the city and the temple. Everything they saw was obviously
designed to be an arrow piercing their hearts and casting down
their hope. Finally, they came to the house
of God in chapter 7. And they asked God's prophet,
actually they asked the priest, and Zachariah was standing there,
and he heard the word. They said, should we continue
to keep these facts? Should we go on weeping, separating
ourselves as we have done for so many, many years? Our text
is God's answer. Zachariah 8, verse 19. Thus saith
the Lord of hosts, The fast of the fourth month and the fast
of the fifth and the fast of the seventh and the fast of the
tenth shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness and cheerful
feast. Therefore, love the truth and
peace. Those things that have been bitterness
to you for so long, those things that have caused you to weep
and mourn and fast for so long, shall themselves be turned into
joy." I'm going to cause you to rejoice
before me, even in the remembrance of those days. In chapter 7,
God's prophet reproved Israel and Judah. plainly declaring
that they had been carried into Babylon because of their sin. Their ruin was their own doing.
It was their own making. He had scattered them in his
wrath with a whirlwind of fury and made their land and their
souls desolate. The land produced nothing, but
the land was just an emblem of what was inside them. Nothing
but deprivation and desolation. You see, it is ever the work
and business of God's servants to expose your sin. To expose it. To stick his finger
right in your heart. That's his business. To make you know your guilt,
your corruption. your vileness, your helplessness,
your utter hopelessness in yourself. Guilt must be exposed. Our grace will never be known.
Until we are wounded, we will not be healed. Until justice
slays, mercy will never give life. No man will ever seek pardon
from Christ. until he knows he's a sinner
in need of pardoning. You will never seek a Savior
until you know you must have a Savior. That's exactly what Paul tells
us happened to him. Look at Romans chapter 7 for
a second. Romans 7. Verse 9. Paul said, I was alive without
the law once. Well, this man was a Pharisee.
Ron, he lived by the law from the day he came into this world.
And yet he says he was without the law? He said, I was totally
ignorant concerning God's law. Totally ignorant. I could recite
it frontwards and backwards. I could recite any portion of
it at any time. I kept it meticulously, totally
without the law. I didn't have a clue what the
law said. I was alive and happy and getting
along real good. Oh, I pray God won't let that
happen to you any longer. I was alive and happy. Get along
just fine. But when the commandment came,
when God stuck His finger in my heart and showed me that God
requires righteousness on the inside, that God requires perfection
on the inside, when the commandment came, I said, God, you cannot
demand that of me. Sin revived. And I died. Joseph Hart put it this way.
What comfort can a Savior bring to those who never felt their
woe? A sinner is a sacred thing. The Holy Ghost has made him so. There are not many sinners around.
If you don't believe me, walk in the gates of North Point Prison
sometime. Visit with some of the inmates,
just talk to them, any of them, and find me a center among them.
There's not any out there. Not any out there. Go home. Talk to your family. Find me
a center. They ain't there. You're not
going to find them. No, no, no. Oh, preacher, everybody's centers.
Ask them. Just ask them. Centers. I'm not talking about a complimentary
term that says, well, we know everybody's condescending. You
know, politicians get caught, first thing they do is they,
what about him? I did bad, but wasn't that bad?
Wasn't that bad? We're exactly like them. The
reason we get so mad at them, we're just exactly like them.
We justify ourselves. Sinners are men and women who
have learned that they cannot justify themselves. And men and
women who've learned that there's nothing in them but corruption. And you won't learn that, except
God take his word and pierce your heart. In this eighth chapter,
having exposed Israel's guilt and sin, God's prophet proclaimed
the sure and certain salvation of his chosen nation. He scattered
them in great wrath, he tells us, but he did so that he might
gather them in great mercy to himself. Look at chapter 8, verse
3. Thus saith the Lord, I am returned
to Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. And Jerusalem
shall be called a city of truth, and the mountain of the Lord
of hosts, the holy mountain. Verse 7, Thus saith the Lord
of hosts, Behold, I will save my people from the east country
and from the west country, and I will bring them, and they shall
dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and they shall be my people,
and I will be their God in truth and in righteousness. Over and
over throughout this chapter, over and over again, God makes
promises that seem impossible. He makes promises that you look
at, that can't be. But he precedes them with these
words, thus saith the Lord of hosts. The one who makes this
promise is God who rules everywhere. And the promise is sure, I will
be their God and they shall be my people. As I made preparation to preach
to you this morning, I thought in my heart before
God, Lord, will you gather some here today of whom you said from
eternity, I will be their God. And they shall be my people. Well, what if? No ifs. But, no
buts, I will, they shall, and so it shall be. The Lord promised
to make those who had been desolate, prosperous. Those who had been
a curse among the heathen, a blessing. And then in verse 19, he promises
to turn their fasting into feasting. He doesn't say, I will reduce
your fast from four to three, or two, or even one. No, no. He doesn't say, I will make your
fast less than they presently are. But rather, I will remove
them altogether, turning your fast into feast. Feast of joy
and gladness. Cheerful feast of boundless grace
and rejoicing. In other words, he says, where
sin abounded, grace shall much more abound. He is declaring,
therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things
are passed away, and behold, all things are become new. How
often have you thought to yourself, oh, if I could just push the
rewind button and start all over again. What would you give to
walk out those doors today, start all over again, With no
past. With an entirely clean slate
before God. Oh, brother Don, I'd do anything.
How about nothing? How about nothing? Dude, nothing!
Trust the Son of God right now, right where you sit, and this
is God's Word to you. Darvin Prohet, old things, whatever
that includes, are passed away. All things, and I know what that
includes, are become new. All things. How come? Because God made His Son, who
knew no sin, sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. In Christ our God makes all things
new. This is compared here to Feast
of Gladness. In the Old Testament Scriptures,
fasting is always associated with heaviness, sorrow, bitterness
and fear. There were periods of time, those
fasts were, when men and women refused to eat because of heaviness. They refused refreshing drink
because of great, great heaviness in their souls. Let me give you
a couple of examples. When David's son was dying, he
fasted before God. He fasted. He refused to eat. He refused to eat. Pleading with
God for his son. He was so overwhelmed with heaviness. He had no interest in eating.
He was interested in just one thing. That thing that caused
him such grief. When Nineveh heard God's message
of judgment, And Jonah came to that city declaring that in forty
days God would destroy the city. The whole city put on sackcloth
from the king and his palace to the peasant in the street
and fasted before God in terror. Our Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew
chapter 4, chapter 5, no chapter 4 when he was driven into the
wilderness by the Spirit of God. there to be tempted of the devil
as our substitute. Fasted for 40 days. Oh, what heaviness was on his
soul. He fasted for 40 days. Fasting
was symbolic of sorrow, grief, mourning, always associated with
bitterness. But in the Old Testament, God
only required one fast. One fast. The Jews had many.
They invented many. They were brought in and added
to the law of God and added to the word of God, and they kept
them with meticulous precision, but this one fast is the only
one God required. God required the Jews to fast
only in association with the Day of Atonement. And that fast,
as described in Leviticus 23, was symbolic of the believing
heart confessing sin. Sin that demands atonement and
satisfaction as it looks to Christ who is represented in the Passover
sacrifice. All other religious fasts were
but the evictions of men. But feast. Now, that's another
story. Do you know God required Israel?
to keep seven feasts every year? And the feasts were not fast. The feasts were week-long days
of partying before God. I didn't use that word accidentally.
Week-long periods of partying before God. The very same kind
of thing that we do whenever you get together over at the
house in a few weeks and we have our open house, we'll get together
and we'll just have a few hours of just delights. Just eat and
drink and talk and party. Just have a good time. That's
all. No heaviness, no sorrow. If anything's even said to speak
of someone's care or burden, it kind of just throws a damp
rag on the whole thing doesn't it? It just filled a whole damn
bag on the whole thing. And all of a sudden, the joy
is gone. In the Old Testament, God required
the Jews to keep seven week-long feasts of faith. The Feast of
Passover was a feast celebrating redemption in anticipation of
Christ, our Passover, who would be sacrificed for us. The Feast
of Unleavened Bread began the day after the Day of Atonement.
It was a feast in which the believer's life in Christ, this picture,
this life of faith, living continually as we feed upon the bread and
drink the water of life by faith. The Feast of Firstfruits portrayed
our Lord's resurrection and our resurrection in Him. The children
of Israel would get together as they made preparations. Lamb's
being examined and he's being watched, make sure there's no
fault in him. And the believers among them said, one of these
days, God will provide himself a sacrifice. Can you imagine
the joy? Can you imagine the joy? They
keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread and one of these days the
bread of life is coming. Manna is coming from heaven in
the form of God incarnate. And he will be raised from the
dead, and we with him. The Feast of Weeks, the Feast
of Pentecost, was a feast of in-gathering. It spoke of the
gathering of God's elect, scattered in all the nations of the world
by the power of His grace. The Feast of Trumpets was a feast
observed in anticipation of the glorious triumph of Christ, God's
Passover sacrifice. It was anticipation of that day
when Jehovah's righteous servant would come, who would at last
cry, it is finished. Justice is satisfied. Atonement
is made. Sin is put away. My people are
saved forever. The Feast of Atonement, the Feast
of Expiation, really the Feast of Atonement, plural, expiations,
talks about the reconciliation of God's elect by the blood of
Christ and the power of His grace. Talk about the restitution of
all things to God by Him who restored that which He took not
away. The Feast of Tabernacles proclaimed the incarnation of
Christ. God, one day, as they came and dwelt in booths for
a week every year, dwelt in their little tabernacle. They said,
one of these days, God's going to hang human flesh on himself. And he's going to come down here
and tabernacle among us. His name's Immanuel. God with
us and us with God. These feasts were divinely appointed
times of joy and gladness among the believing Israelites. Exhilaration,
happiness of heart. as they saw the wonders of God's
redeeming grace and Christ's saving mercy in them. And that's
exactly the way the New Testament speaks about the Lord's Supper.
We will gather here and set bread and wine before you, observe
the Lord's table, and Paul says, let us therefore keep the feast. This madness. One of these days
I want to get said what I want to in that regard about the Lord's
Supper. People come to the Lord's Supper, they're taught to, you
know, come in and, ah, I don't know, ah, maybe, ah. No. This is blindness. Christ's That wine represents His blood
that took away my sin. That bread represents His body
broken for me. Let us keep the feast. So when
the Lord God promised to give Israel His elect, joy and gladness
and cheerful feast, this is what He would say. When I save my
people, I will cause them to rejoice in my salvation. The
grace that I give you will make you joyful and glad. In that
place where there was only shame and sorrow, there shall be the
joy of faith. And he that sat upon the throne
said, Behold, I make all things new. And unto me he said, Write,
for these words are true and faithful." Brother Don, does
that mean that Saved sinners no longer experience sorrow, grief, even sorrow for sin? Oh no, that's not what it means.
God gives his people, his mourning sorrowful, penitent people joy. Joy mingled with tears so long
as we are here, but joy. Joy that is undisturbed by anything. It's called the joy of faith. Your
sad feast, your sad fast, he says, will be a cheerful feast.
Grace doesn't lessen our griefs, but grace gives us joy in the
midst of grief. Our Lord Jesus doesn't just give
us fortitude. We have to have some fortitude
to face things. No, that's not it. He doesn't
make us stoics, insensible to things, incapable of feeling,
so we just can bear with things without being bothered by them.
Not at all. But He gives us joy in the midst of pain and sorrow.
It is joy in Christ. Joy given by grace. that outflows in peace. Peace that passes understanding. Look at it. Philippians chapter
four. Philippians four. Verse four. Rejoice in the Lord
always. Again I say rejoice. What's he
talking about? He's not talking about Standing
around with a smile on your face, looks like a possum eating briars
and faking it. Not talking about that. He's
not talking about a put-on joy. And if you've got, if you're
not blind as a bat when you turn your television on Saturday and
see one of those religious hucksters on there begging for your money,
smiling like that, you know it's put-on joy. It's as fake as a
three-dollar bill. That's not what he's talking
about. He's talking about joy. What is he talking about? That
you're moderation. Your gentleness. Be easy now. Be easy now. That's what I'm
saying. Be easy now. No need to fret. No need to bite your nails. No
need to paste the floor. No need to pull your hair out.
No need to cuss one anybody. Let your moderation, your easiness
be known to all men. The Lord's at hand. And that's
joy. That's joy. Be careful for nothing. That's
what we're talking about. But with everything, in everything,
by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests
be made known to God. Tell God what you need. And the
peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your
hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. The joy that Christ gives
is joy that flows from God's grace experienced within. Saving grace turns mourning into
gladness and sorrow into joy. Then are they glad because they
be quiet and he bringeth them into their desired haven. Let
me see if I can Put this in shoe leather for you. Nothing is more bitter than sin in you. And nothing is sweeter than sin
forgiven. I know whereof I speak. Nothing
under God's heaven, nothing this side of hell, is more galling
than guilt felt in your heart. And nothing more glorious than
guilt removed. Nothing more painful than condemnation. Condemned. Condemned. Doomed. Damned. Condemned. and nothing more pleasant than
no condemnation. Nothing more fearful than judgment,
facing God in judgment. Religion uses the fear of judgment
to control folks all the time. Nothing is more delightful than
judgment gone forever. Nothing more demanding than righteousness. God demands righteousness. God doesn't demand that you do
good. He demands you be perfect. God
doesn't demand that you do the right stuff. He demands that
you be perfect, right on the inside, with no sin. And there is nothing on this
earth more pleasant than righteousness bestowed. Nothing's more horrible
than ruin, utter ruin. You ever been there? Utterly
ruined. Just ruined. Nothing more happy than redemption
and restoration. Where once there was only sorrow,
the sorrow of wrath felt deep in my soul, now there's nothing
but the joy of grace. Once, I was absolutely convinced, I
was absolutely convinced, I must be reprobate forever. so utterly
miserable, had it not been for the fear of judgment, I'd have
committed suicide when I was a young boy, just utterly convinced
I must be damned forever. Now, now, I know that there's nothing
awaiting me but grace and glory. Once I was convinced that all
things were against me, what grief and sorrow. I cussed everybody
and everything, including God, because I was convinced everything
was against me. Now I know nothing can be against me, for God is
for me. That's gladness that causes me
to dance before God. in my soul to dance before Him. Once, I thought God had cast
me off forever. Now, I'm convinced that He loved
me with everlasting love that will never change. He's given me feasting. for all those sad fasts, feasting
and joy forever. Thou hast turned for me my mourning
into dancing. Thou hast put off my sackcloth
and girded me with gladness. Amen. in your handbook number four.