The only true delight!
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From Spurgeon's sermon, "A Bundle of Myrrh"
CHRIST JESUS IS UNUTTERABLY PRECIOUS TO BELIEVERS.
Nothing gives the believer so much joy as fellowship with Christ.
The Christian has joy as other men have in the 'common mercies' of life. For him there are charms in music, excellence in painting, and beauty in sculpture; for him the hills have sermons of majesty, the rocks hymns of sublimity, and the valleys lessons of love. He can look upon all things with an eye as clear and joyous as another man's; he can be glad both in God's gifts and God's works. He is not dead to the happiness of his home: around his hearth he finds happy relationships, without which life would be dreary indeed. His children fill his home with glee, his wife is his solace and delight, his friends are his comfort and refreshment.
He accepts the comforts which soul and body can yield him according as God sees it wise to afford them unto him.
But he will tell you that in all these separately, yes, and in all of them added together, he does not find such substantial delight as he does in the person of his Lord Jesus.
In our esteem, the 'joys of earth' are little better than husks for swine, compared with Jesus the heavenly manna.
I would rather have one mouthful of Christ's love, and a sip of his fellowship, than a whole world full of carnal delights.
What is the chaff to the wheat?
What is the sparkling paste to the true diamond?
What is a dream to the glorious reality?
What is time's mirth in its best trim compared to our Lord Jesus in his most despised estate?
No spring yields such sweet water as that well of God which was digged with the soldier's spear!
As for the house of feasting, the joy of harvest, the mirth of marriage, the sports of youth, the recreations of maturer age-they are all as the small dust of the balance compared with the joy of Immanuel our best beloved.
As the Preacher said, so say we, "I said of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth, What is it?" "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity."
All earthly bliss is of the earth earthy, but the comforts of Christ's presence are like himself heavenly.
We can review our communion with Jesus, and find no regrets of emptiness therein; there are no dregs in this wine; no dead flies in this ointment.
The joy of the Lord is solid and enduring.
Vanity has not looked upon it, but discretion and prudence testify that it abides the test of years, and is in time and in eternity worthy to be called "the only true delight."
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