The River of Thy Pleasures
J. H. Jowett, M. A. Psalm 36:8-9 They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of your house; and you shall make them drink of the river of your pleasures.… How much we can learn from a man's pleasures! I think it would be almost true to say that a man's pleasures constitute his measures. We may surely sample a man's character by analyzing the ministry in which he takes his delight. And how greatly our enjoyments vary. "One man's meat is another man's poison." That which gratifies one man is resented by another. One man seeks and finds enjoyment in the channels of the senses, in the outer halls and passages of the life, and never retires to the interior living-rooms of the soul. Another man feasts upon the spiritual essences of all things, and finds that the way of life is provided with rare delights. My text lifts our minds to the superlative plain of pleasure, even the pleasures of our God. And we are told that there are men and women who have been brought to the same refined appreciation, and who are able to enter into the joy of the Lord. Their kinship is so intimate that their delights are one. What God loves they love. "He delighteth in mercy." Here is one of the pleasures of our God. He does not turn to mercy reluctantly, as it were with a resentful palate; He turns to it eagerly, as a hungry man would turn to welcome food. Mercy is pleasant unto the Lord, and He rejoices in its exercise. How different are many of the palates of God's children! We cannot drink of that river with deep and delightful satisfaction. Our diseased palate craves sensations of quite another kind. To many of us "revenge is sweet," and so foul an enjoyment testifies to the depravity of our souls. But we can have our natures changed, and in the renewal of our being our palates will be transformed. We shall delight in mercy. It is needless to analyze the ingredients of a merciful disposition. It is perhaps sufficient to say that the behaviour of a merciful man has always two characteristics. First of all, he is ever seeking for favourable explanations of apparently unfavourable deeds. He does not jump at the first obtrusive explanation of things, and sit upon a throne of summary judgment. He is "slow to anger, and of great mercy." He exhausts all possible alternatives before accepting the worst. And, secondly, even when all alternatives have been tried, and the worst is still obtrusive, the merciful disposition is ready to forgive that which cannot be favourably explained. The merciful man finds his delight in mercy, and in being merciful he leans to his own inclinations. "Rejoice with Me, for I have found My sheep which was lost." Here is another of the Lord's pleasures. Do I share it with Him? Do I drink of this river, and find delight and satisfaction in the draught? Ah! but there is a preparatory condition before such joy can be oars. No man can really take part in a victory unless he has borne some share in the fight. We can never really sing the song of the harvest-home until we have borne something of the labours of the field, "The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear Him." He not only finds delight in the homecoming of the prodigal; the delight is continued in the intimate fellowship of the subsequent life. The Lord loves to be near such people, loves to see them, and hear them, and to accompany them in their goings. Do we drink of the river of this pleasure? Do we find any delight in such people? I am further told, in the words that immediately precede my text, that the satisfactions of these pleasures are not to be partial and transient, but complete and abiding. "They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of Thy house." We cannot say that of many of our enjoyments. We drink of the pleasures of the world, and they neither leave a sweet taste nor a contented rest. It is "as when a hungry man sleepeth, and behold! he eateth; he waketh, and findeth himself hungry." God has set the eternal longing in our spirits, and nothing that is merely temporal can appease the craving. But the pleasures of God bring abundant satisfaction. "Satisfy" is a great biblical word. The Bible uses it very plentifully, because everywhere it proclaims its abiding secret. How can we acquire the Divine appreciation, in order that we may thus drink of the Lord's pleasures, and find our delight in them? Shall we say that the taste is acquired? Let us better say that the taste is communicated. "Thou shalt make them drink of the river of Thy pleasures." He will so re-make our lives that the palate shall be renewed. (J. H. Jowett, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures. WEB: They shall be abundantly satisfied with the abundance of your house. You will make them drink of the river of your pleasures.