The Joyful People



“Christ came to take away our sins, to roll off our curse, to unbind our chains, to open our prison house, to cancel our debt; in a word, to give us the oil of joy for mourning and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness [ISAIAH 61:3]. Is not this joy? Where can we find a joy so real, so deep, so pure, and so lasting? There is every element of joy: deep, ecstatic and satisfying joy in the gospel of Christ. The believer in Jesus is essentially a happy man. The child of God is, from necessity, a joyful man. His sins are forgiven, his soul is justified, his person is adopted, his trials are blessings, his conflicts are victories, his death is immortality, his future is a heaven of inconceivable, unthought of, untold and endless blessedness. With such a God, such a Savior and such a hope, is he not, ought he not to be a joyful man?”

-Gospel report by preacher Octavius Winslow

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