Christ, of course, leaves His followers in no doubt that sorrow
Joy | A and they only, who have Christ's joy remaining in them have their joy full. Worldly joys are empty, soon surfeit, but never satisfy. It is only wisdom's joy that will fill the soul (Ps. xxxvi. 8). The design of Christ in His word is to fill the joy of His people (see 1 John i. 4). This and the other He has said that our joy might be fuller and fuller, and perfect at last.
6. SoRROW Is TEMPORARY—JOY Is ETERNAL
Christ, of course, leaves His followers in no doubt that sorrow shall be theirs, but it shall be, as it were, but for a moment, then their sorrow shall be turned into joy (Fohn xvt. 20ff.). He puts this truth in the form of a parable. ""A woman"', we know, "when she is in travail hath sorrow"'; she is in exquisite pain "because her hour is come'', the hour which nature and Providence have fixed, which she has expected and cannot escape; "'but as soon as she is delivered of the child', provided that she be safely delivered, and the child be, though a Jabez (1 Chron. iv. 9), yet not a Benoni (Gen. xxxv. 18), then "she remembers no more the anguish'"'; her groans and complaints are all over and the after-pains are easier borne, ''for joy that a man is born into the world"'.
Divine consolations put gladness znto the heart. Joy in the heart is solid and not flashy. It is secret, and that which a stranger does not intermeddle with. It is sweet, and gives a good man satisfaction in himself. It is sure and not easily broken in upon. The disciples' joy is inalienable. 'Your joy no man taketh from you."' Men will attempt to take their joy from them. They would if they could, but they shall not prevail. Some understand this as of the eternal joy of them that are glorified— they that have entered into the joy of their Lord shall go no more out. We are liable to be robbed of our joys on earth by a thousand accidents, but heavenly joys are everlasting. But I rather understand it of the spiritual joys of those that are sanctified, particularly the apostles' joy in their apostleship. "Thanks be to God"', saith St. Paul in the name of the rest, '"who always causeth us to triumph"? (2 Cor. ii. 14). A malicious world would have taken it from them. If bonds and punishments, tortures and deaths, would have taken it from them, they had lost it. But when they took everything else from them they could not take this. ''As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing." 'They could not rob them of their joy, because they could not separate them