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rouble; joy flows on through the dark; joy flows in the night as well as in the day; joy flows all through persecution and opposition; it flows right along, for it is an unceasing fountain bubbling up in the heart; a secret spring which the world can't see and don't know anything about; but the Lord gives His people perpetual joy when they walk in obedience to Him. This joy is fed by the Divine Word. Jeremiah says in chapter xv, 16: "Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and Thy Word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; for I am called by Thy name, O Lord." He ate the words, and what was the result? He said they were the joy and rejoicing of his heart. Now people should look for joy in the Word, and not in the world; they should look for the joy which the Scriptures furnish, and then go work in the vineyard; because a joy that don't send me out to some one else, a joy that don't impel me to go and help the poor drunkard, a joy that don't prompt me to visit the widow and the fatherless, a joy that don't cause me to go into the Mission Sunday-school or other Christian work, is not worth having, and is not from above; a joy that does not constrain me to go and work for the Master, is purely sentiment and not real joy. JOY IN PERSECUTION. Then it says in Luke vi, 22: "Blessed are ye when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of Man's sake. Rejoice ye in that day and leap for joy, for behold your reward is great in heaven for in like manner did their fathers unto the prophets." Christians do not receive their reward down here. We have to go right against the current of the world. We may be unpopular, and we may go right against many of our personal friends if we live godly in Christ Jesus; and at the same time, if we are persecuted for the Master's sake, We will have this joy bubbling up; it just comes right up in our hearts all the while--a joy that is unceasing--that flows right on. The world can not choke that fountain. If we have Christ in the heart, by and by the reward will come. The longer I live the more I am convinced that godly men and women are not appreciated in our day. But their work will live after them, and there will be a greater work done after they are gone, by the influence of their lives, than when they were living. Daniel is doing a thousand times more than when he was livi
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