God to be only joy to the one who comes to Him, only a fountain of unlimited blessing, how we should give up all for Him!  Has not joy a far stronger attraction than anything in the world?  Is it not in every beauty, or in every virtue, in every pursuit, the joy that is set before us that draws?  And if we believe that God is a fountain of joy, and sweetness, and power to bless, how our hearts will turn aside from everything, and say:  “Oh, the beauty of my God!  I rejoice in Him alone.”  But, alas! the Kingdom of God looks to many as a burden, and as something unnatural.  It looks like a strain, and we seek some relaxation in the world, and God is not our chief joy.  I come to you with a message.  It is right, on account of what God is as Infinite Love, as Infinite Blessing; it is right and more, it is our highest privilege to listen to Christ’s words, and to seek God and His Kingdom first and above everything.

And then look at man again; man’s nature.  What was man created for?  To live in the likeness of God, and as His image.  Now, if we have been created in the image and likeness of God, we can find our happiness in nothing except that in which God finds His happiness.  The more like Him we are the happier.  And in what does God find His happiness?  In two things:  Everlasting righteousness and everlasting beneficence.  God is righteousness everlasting.  “He is Light, and in Him is no darkness.”  The Kingdom, the domination, the rule of God will bring us nothing but righteousness.  “Seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.”  If men but knew what sin is, and if men really longed to be free from everything like sin, what a grand message this would be!  Jesus comes to lead me to God and His righteousness.  We were created to be like God, in His perfect righteousness and holiness.  What a prospect!  And in His love too.  The Kingdom of God means this:  that there is in God a rule of universal love.  He loves, and loves, and never ceases to love; and He longs to bless all who will yield to His pleadings.  God is Light, and God is Love.  And now the message comes to man.  Can you think of a higher nobility; can you think of anything grander than to take the position that God takes, and to be one with God in His Kingdom; i.e., to have His Kingdom fill your heart; to have God Himself as your King and portion?  Yes, my friends, let us remember that we must not just try to get here and there one and another of the blessings of the Kingdom.  But the glory of the Kingdom is this:  that it is the Kingdom of God where God is all in all.  The French Empire, when Napoleon lived, had military glory as the ideal.  Every Frenchman’s heart thrilled at the name of Napoleon as the man who had given the empire its glory.  If we realized what it means,—­our God takes us up into His Kingdom and puts His Kingdom into us and with the Kingdom we have God Himself, that blessed One, possessing us—­surely there would be nothing that could move our hearts to enthusiasm like