Back to Bethel by F.B. Meyer

Is your religion somber and dour? Is there no spring and elasticity about it? Do children find you out or shun you? When you enter society, does the laughter and merriment die? Are you an element of perfect gladness at a party? If not, there is something wrong in your inner life, which is choking the spring of joy.

Some years ago my friend Dr. Handley Moule visited the excavations in the Forum at Rome. While there, as the rubbish was being cleared away, suddenly there gushed forth the waters of a spring that had been choked for centuries. Poor little spring! Longing to express itself and flash in the sunlight, but choked by the accumulations of the years!

So, if you are a Christian at all, there is a spring of joy in your soul which has been stopped and silenced. My first mission is to put my hand on what is wrong.

In order to help me lay hold of your conscience, turn to II Chronicles 29:27, where we are told:

“When the burnt offering began, the song of the Lord began also.”

The word “began” indicates that it had ceased. If you look into the preceding chapter you will find that for sixteen years the song of the Lord had never broken from Levite throats, had never floated through the temple courts. Those courts, intended by David to resound with the praises and worship of God, were still. In this they