“This marks off the Christian as being quite
unlike the man who is not a Christian and who belongs to the world. The one
thing the world tries to shun is mourning; its whole organization is based on
the supposition that that is something to avoid, the philosophy of the world
is, “Forget your troubles, turn your back on them, do everything you can not to
face them.” The whole organization of life, the pleasure mania, the money, the
energy and enthusiasm that are expended in entertaining people, are all just an
expression of the great aim of the world to get away from this idea of mourning
and this spirit of mourning. But the gospel says, "Happy are they that mourn."
Indeed, they are the only ones who are happy! (See also Luke 6).
This is something which is never found in the
world. This is something which is not as evident in the Church today as it once
was and as it is in the New Testament. And idea has gained currency that if we
as Christians are to attract those who are not Christians we must deliberately
affect an appearance of brightness and joviality-not something that arises from
within, but something which is put on.
I cannot help feeling that the final explanation
of the state of the Church today is a defective sense of sin and a defective
doctrine of sin. Coupled with that, of course, is a failure to understand the
true nature of Christian joy. These things, working together, of necessity
produce a superficial kind of person and a very inadequate kind of Christian
life. It is not surprising that the Church is failing in her mission if her
dual conception of sin and joy are thus defective and inadequate. Conviction
must of necessity precede conversion, a real sense of sin must come before
there can be true joy of salvation. So many people spend all their lives trying
to find this Christian joy. They want joy apart from conviction of sin. But
that is impossible; it can never be obtained."
-D. M. Lloyd-Jones from Reflections Published by World Publishing USA 1994
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