Did you ever try to make joy? It is a big business. All the world is trying to learn that trade. The world is richer than it has ever been, that is because we have learned to make money. The world is wiser than it has ever been; that is because we have learned to make many books. The world at heart is sadder than it has ever been; that is because it has never learned how to make JOY.
The joy the world knows is like the desert plant. It fastens its root by the side of a little stream, and drinks in the moisture, and spreads out its leaves of life. The stream is dried up at last by the heat of the desert, and the roots loosen their hold on the soil, and the windstorm rolls the plant over the desert like a dead leaf until another piece of wet ground is found. There it fastens for another short season, and again the sun dries up this spring of life, and hurls the root on in the heart of the desert storm, This is repeated over and over again until at last it tosses it out into the piercing rays of the sun a withered dry old root dead at the heart. So men and women are like this dry root. They absorb this pleasure and another until at last, when old age finds them they are like the old dead root east up by the winds of time. Dead in the inside. They never found any joy to which they could anchor. They never knew where to find real joy.
Look and listen—I will tell you where to find it. Secure three large cardboards and paint on them the word "JOY." One letter on each card, stand them up on a background where they can be seen by all present. These letters spell the word "JOY." This is what all the world is after. The first letter stands for Jesus. The middle letter a cipher or "nothing." The last letter stands for You. Nothing between Jesus and you. This is the way to bring real joy to the soul. Most of our sorrows come from disobedience, and that means that something has come between the J and Y that will never spell JOY.
Paint on a black card the letter S which stands for Sin. Hang this card up in the place of O. J.S.Y. will never spell JOY. Sin keeps the joy from passing from J to Y. Only a short time ago thousands watched the eclipse of the sun. There was darkness at the last. In some of the great cities the street lamps were lit because of the darkness all around. It was because something had come between us and the sun. It was the moon. It looked like a great O. It shut off the sunlight for a little season. There was something between. Let nothing come between you and Jesus and you will find "JOY." The O is a cipher which means nothing. Nothing between J (Jesus) and Y (You). That spells JOY. That is the big shop where joy is made.
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YE LITTLE OLD FOLKS
OBJECT: A Picture of Verse from an Old Illustrated
Bible Used 100 Years Ago
A century ago there were but few books for children. Preachers never thought of a children's sermon, but here is a page which appeared in a rare old book the children used in that day. It is over a century old. It illustrates Deuteronomy 5:29. From some picture-book cut out figures like these to illustrate this Bible verse. Pin them up on some background which they can see. The journals of the day abound in interesting pictures. Cut them out and try to teach the children the Scriptures by pictures they have often seen. It will interest them greatly as it doubtless did Ye Little Olde Folks. This text is one of many that has some words in it for which you can substitute a picture. In fact, the Bible is a picture-book, not simply in the sense that it tells so many interesting stories about men and women and children, and tells them in such a taking way, but even where it is not telling a story, it uses words and sentences that are pictures, not the less effective because drawn or painted in speech. This text is such a sentence.
DEUTERONOMY v. 29.