Everybody who has ever had any acquaintance with the Lord, knows that in accepting Him there is joy. It is always expected that a new convert will have a beaming countenance, and a joyful testimony. So it had been with the Galatians. But now their expressions of thanksgiving had given place to bickering and strife. See Gal. 5:15. Is it not strange that people do not expect that old Christians will have as much enthusiasm as young converts? that it is taken for granted that the first joy, and the warmth of the first love, will gradually die away? So it is, but so it should not be. That which God has against His people is this, that they have left their first love. Rev. 2:4. “The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” Prov. 4:18. Note that this is the path of the just, and the just are they who live by faith. When men turn from the faith, or attempt to substitute works for it, the light goes out. Jesus said, “These things have I spoken unto you, that My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.” John 15:11. He gives the oil of joy—the Holy Spirit—for mourning, and that is abiding. The life is manifested that we might have fulness of joy. 1 John 1:1-4. The fountain of life is never exhausted; the supply is never diminished. If, therefore, our light grows dim, and our joy gives place to a dull, monotonous grind, we may know that we have turned aside out of the way of life. [Sidenote: Desiring to Be under the Law.] “Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?” After what we have already had, there will be no one to come with the objection that to be under the law can not be a very deplorable condition, else the Galatians would not have desired to be under it. “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man; but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Prov. 16:25. How many there are who love ways that everybody except themselves can see are leading them direct to death; yes, there are many who, with their eyes wide open to the consequences of their course, will persist in it, deliberately choosing “the pleasures of sin for a season,” rather than righteousness and length of days. To be “under the law” of God is to be condemned by it as a sinner chained and doomed to death, yet many millions besides the Galatians have loved the condition, and still love it. Ah, if they would only hear what it says! There is no reason why they should not hear it, for it speaks in thunder tones. “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” [Sidenote: “What Saith the Law?”]