The Source of Joy

Exactly 50 years ago today, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, they dropped another one on Nagasaki. Faced with this kind of devastating power, the Japanese surrendered the following week and World War Two was finally over.

The race to develop the atomic bomb was one of the most urgent military projects in history. It was called the Manhattan Project and it cost the equivalent of $22 billion dollars in today’s terms. Over 200,000 people were directly involved in the project, but it was so super-secret that only a handful knew exactly what they were working on.

Several hundred of the most brilliant scientists in the world—including many Jews who had fled from Nazi Germany—were brought in to live and work at a secret lab in the remote mountains of New Mexico—a place called Los Alamos. There, over a period of 3 years, they worked out the calculations and experiments that would enable them to release the unbelievable energy bound up in the nucleus of the atom.

With the war on, there was great urgency to develop the bomb before Germany or Japan could, so they worked on several lines of approach simultaneously, on the theory that if one of them didn’t work, they’d still have alternatives. That led in the end, to the development of two entirely different types of atom bombs.

The first one—the one that was dropped on Hiroshima—was the simpler and less powerful of the two. It was a uranium bomb. It was basically a gun that fired a slug of uranium 235 into three target rings of uranium, creating a critical mass which then went into a rapid chain reaction and exploded with the force of 12.5 thousand tons of TNT. They called this bomb the Little Boy.

The bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki was a much more complicated affair. It was a bomb that used the element plutonium as fuel. Plutonium was only discovered in 1940, and it doesn’t exist naturally on planet earth. The only way to make plutonium is to bombard uranium with radiation. That’s the kind of thing that can only happen in a nuclear reactor, and that’s what the scientists set out to do.

The U.S. government built the first primitive, top-secret nuclear reactors in a desolate part of the State of Washington and over the next couple of years they began slowly and painstakingly to harvest plutonium, just a few grams at a time.

By the spring of 1945, they had collected enough plutonium to form the core of two bombs. To make these bombs, they molded the plutonium into a sphere about the size of an orange. Then they surrounded that sphere with another large sphere made up of several hundred pounds of high explosives.

When the explosives were detonated, they would form an incredibly powerful shock wave that would compress that little sphere of plutonium down to the size of an eyeball, jamming its atoms together in such a way that it would form a super-critical mass which would begin to rapidly chain react and explode with a force of 22 thousand tons of TNT. They called the plutonium bomb the Fat Man, because it had a fat, rounded shape and it was almost twice as powerful as the Little Boy.

While the scientists were feverishly working to design these bombs, the Air Force was working on the problem of how to drop them on the enemy. They formed a special unit, called the 509th Composite Bomb Group. It was commanded by one of the best bomber pilots in the Air Force, a Colonel named Paul Tibbets. They flew the best airplane—the B-29—specially modified to carry atomic bombs.

Tibbets and his men honed their bombing skills to a fine edge before shipping out to the Pacific island of Tinian, from which they would bomb Japan. In the last few weeks of July, 1945, they went on several practice missions over the ocean, dropping practice bombs the exact size and the shape of the atomic bomb, which wasn’t quite ready yet.

These practice bombs were painted orange, so the bomber crews called them pumpkins. They looked like atomic bombs; they were the same shape and size as atomic bombs. But at the core, instead there being an incredibly powerful package of plutonium or uranium, there was just a hollow cavity.

And when those practice bombs were dropped, they never exploded. They just dropped into the ocean with a splash and were gone. They made no lasting impact. They were duds because they didn’t have anything at the core.

In a spiritual sense, many people’s lives resemble those pumpkins. They look quite impressive on the outside, but at the core, there is just an empty space. They’re walking around with a spiritual cavity at the center of their souls. And their lives are not making any lasting impact.

It was the French mathematician Blaise Pascal who said “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man.”

One of the tell-tale symptoms of an empty heart is a lack of joy. The best definition of joy is “happiness that lasts”. Happiness that is not temporary; that is not dependent upon what you have, or how people are treating you, or what’s happening to you. Joy is that sense of well-being and zest for life that comes welling up from inside you quite apart from your circumstances.

There was a man named Augustine who became one of the leaders of the early church, and one of the most outstanding Christian theologians who ever lived. But he didn’t start out that way.

His mother’s name was Monica, and she was a devoted follower of Christ. But Augustine turned his back on his mother’s faith and plunged into a life of sin. He ran with the wrong crowd and shacked up with a woman whom he never married although he lived with her for 13 years. He indulged in every pursuit of pleasure he could think of. But he always came up empty.

Augustine was a brilliant man and he became a professional teacher—the modern equivalent of a university professor. He delved into various philosophies in a search for ultimate meaning and truth in life. But he never found answers that would satisfy him; that would fill the emptiness in his heart. So he became a skeptic. But then one day, at the age of 33, in answer to his mother’s prayers, he met Jesus Christ. He became a Christian.

Several years later, as he looked back on those empty years when he could never quite find satisfaction, Augustine said “God has created us for Himself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Him.”

Psalm 97 talks about joy and where to find it.

Psalm 97:1 The Lord reigns, let the earth be glad; let the distant shores rejoice.

There is a cause-effect relationship in this first verse: “the Lord reigns, therefore let the earth be glad and let the distant shores rejoice.” The reason to be glad, the reason to rejoice is that the Lord is on His throne.

The Psalmist is talking here about the sovereignty of God. Now a lot of people get nervous when you talk about the sovereignty of God. They find it to be a rather threatening doctrine—a troublesome doctrine—a concept we have problems with.

The sovereignty of God raises all kinds of troubling questions in our minds: How can God be sovereign and man still have a free will? How can God be sovereign and there be so much wickedness and evil in the world? And if God is sovereign, does that mean that He is ultimately responsible for the existence of evil? And we wrestle and we struggle with these questions.

But the Psalmist saw the sovereignty of God in entirely different terms. He saw it as a comforting doctrine, an encouraging doctrine, a joyful doctrine. How good it is to know that God is on the throne—it’s worth celebrating! Let’s be glad about it!

Why? Because of who God is. Look at verse 2 and following:

Clouds and thick darkness surround him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. Fire goes before him and consumes his foes on every side. His lightning lights up the world; the earth sees and trembles. The mountains melt like wax before the Lord, before the Lord of all the earth. The heavens proclaim his righteousness, and all the peoples see his glory.

Now there are three things we learn about God in these verses:

1. He is a God of perfect holiness.

“Clouds and thick darkness surround him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.” When God came down to Mount Sinai to give the Law, the Bible says that he came in thunder and lightning and a thick cloud. Nobody was allowed near the mountain, only Moses.

Why? What is this describing? It is describing the holiness of God. God is so holy that we cannot look upon him. Unless he veils Himself, we would die in His presence. (By the way, just because you can’t see God doesn’t mean he isn’t there.)

Remember when Moses asked God to show himself to him? God put Moses in a cleft in the rock, then covered him with his hand and then only let Moses see his back as he passed by. And when Moses came down from the mountain, his face still shone from the reflected glory of the Lord—so much so that the people were afraid to come near him!

The God who rules this universe is a God of perfect holiness. And his holiness expresses itself in righteousness and justice. They are the foundation of his throne.

We’re all getting sick and tired of hearing about the O.J. trial. One of the reasons we’re sick and tired of it is that we suspect that when all is said and done, justice may not be served. It’s hard to have a lot of confidence in our legal system any more. We’ve all heard too many stories of how guilty people have been declared innocent on a technicality. It’s not fair, it’s not right, it’s not just.

Well, if we feel that strongly about justice and righteousness—we who are sinful, fallible creatures—think how strongly God, who is perfectly holy, must feel about it! The God who sits on the throne of the universe is a God of justice and righteousness.

2. He is a God who wins in the end.

Psalm 97:3 Fire goes before him and consumes his foes on every side. His lightning lights up the world; the earth sees and trembles.

Fire and lightning are two irresistible forces. Fire consumes everything before it and lightning strikes wherever it wants.

The other day one of my sons asked me why God allows Satan so much leeway to do his evil work in this world. He had a good point. If you had an enemy who was wrecking your property, wouldn’t you want to put a stop to it right away? Yet it seems like God has allowed Satan to have a free hand in so many areas. It almost appears that Satan is winning.

I had to admit to my son that I didn’t have the answer to his question. I don’t know why God waits. But I do know that God will put a stop to Satan in the end. God ultimately wins in the end because he is irresistible. And I sure want to be on the winning side!

3. He is a God who is all-powerful.

This summer we had the opportunity to be in the Rocky Mountains. And I was struck by the vastness, the grandeur, the enormous size of those mountains. And yet, even those mountains will melt like wax before the Lord. There is no stronghold that can stand in his presence.

So in light of all these things, it is sheer insanity to try to put a substitute for God at the center of your life.

Psalm 97:7 All who worship images are put to shame, those who boast in idols— worship him, all you gods!

Someone has defined an idol as something in which we put our hope and trust which cannot bear its weight. Sooner or later, the idol collapses under the weight of our hopes and dreams, and leaves us bitter and disappointed.

But that doesn’t stop people from making idols. People make idols out of things. They say “If I could just get that new dream house, then I’d be happy. Then I’d be satisfied.”

A few weeks ago we were boating on Lake Canandaigua and we saw some absolutely breathtaking homes on the shores of that lake. One of them had just been built for the owner of a large chain of grocery stores in Western New York. The house cost $7 million dollars. It had eighteen bedrooms and five kitchens!

The grounds were immaculately landscaped. Around back of the house was a lighted tennis court with a removable roof. Tied up at the private dock in front of the house was a small navy—ski boats, sailboats, jet skis—you name it.

And yet, when we sailed by, there was no one there. Nobody enjoying that beautiful facility. And I found myself wondering if the owner would ever truly find joy in owning such a dream house. You know the more you own—the more it owns you. Things can become idols when we put them at the center of our life. And they never give us joy.

The Psalmist goes on in the last five verses to say that if you really want to find joy, you can only find it by making God king of your life.

Psalm 97:8ff Zion hears and rejoices and the villages of Judah are glad because of your judgments, O Lord. For you, O Lord, are the Most High over all the earth; you are exalted far above all gods. Let those who love the Lord hate evil, for he guards the lives of his faithful ones and delivers them from the hand of the wicked. Light is shed upon the righteous and joy on the upright in heart. Rejoice in the Lord, you who are righteous, and praise his holy name.

Who are the people who are rejoicing? They are the people who are glad because of the Lord’s judgments. They are those who love righteousness and hate evil, because that reflects God’s character. They are the ones who are upright in heart, and making righteous living a priority in their lives. These are the people who are truly joyful, because they have taken their proper place as subjects of the king.

Most of you have seen the movie The Lion King. It’s the story of a young lion named Simba who is the heir to his father Mustafa’s throne. One day he’ll rule over all the animals who live in the Pridelands. And the Circle of Life will go on unbroken.

But before Simba can come to the throne, his wicked uncle Scar murders King Mustafa and usurps the throne. Simba barely escapes with his life and wanders in a far country.

But meanwhile, under Scar’s evil rule, the Pridelands begin to die. The trees wither, the herds move away, and the hyenas take over. And the Circle of Life is broken. And the lions and all the other animals yearn for the return of the true king.

Finally, just when it appears that there is no hope, Simba reappears and claims his throne. There is a great battle. Scar is defeated and killed. Simba is re-instated on his throne as the rightful ruler. The animals—Poomba, Timon and the rest— rejoice. The trees flower and the desert blooms, and the Circle of Life which had been broken is made whole again.

That is what we are waiting for. We’re waiting for the return of Jesus Christ, the rightful King. We’re waiting for the defeat of the usurper. We’re waiting for the day when all the wrongs will be righted. We’re waiting for the day when all the hurts will be healed. We’re waiting for the day when the Circle of Life will be mended.

But until it happens, the only way to know true joy is to swear allegiance to the coming King and to enthrone Him as King in your heart.