In Luke 10:1–16, the Lord sends out seventy men to tell Israel that He is the King and is offering the kingdom to the nation. If the kingdom were to come to that generation of Jews, they would need to believe in Jesus for eternal life. As a nation, they would then need to turn from their sins. 

But the Lord told these seventy men that they would encounter opposition to their message. Many would not believe. They would certainly not heed the call to repent of their sins so that God would bless them with the kingdom. 

These men would then have to preach a message of judgment upon the nation. They would shake the dust off their feet as a symbol of that coming judgment. Rome, the enemy of Israel, would soon scatter the people among the nations. Instead of receiving the kingdom, that generation of Jews would receive pain and suffering. I would not have liked to preach that message. I am sure it made their audiences angry. 

However, Luke records what these men did after preaching that message and facing that rejection. He says that the seventy “returned with joy” (Luke 10:17). He says they commented that “even the demons” were subject to them on their preaching tour because of the power of Christ that was working in them. 

Being able to cast out demons would certainly give someone a boost. But I wonder if the ability to perform such miracles, by itself, would produce joy. In this case, wouldn’t it be a source of discouragement? Imagine doing miraculous things and then telling the people that you were able to do them because Jesus was the Christ, only to have them reject that message. 

I don’t think these men were saying, “The nation does not believe, but we have joy because we were able to do some spectacular things! We put on quite the show. The people we preached to are going to experience frightening days in the future. Too bad for them, but it was great for us.” 

I take a slightly different angle on why these men had joy. What they did was difficult. The Lord sent them on a challenging mission. I think they were crushed when the nation rejected Jesus as the Christ. But they had joy because they knew they were obeying Him. They mentioned that what they were able to do was done in His name. In other words, they had joy because they were serving the King. 

If we are faithful to the Lord, we, too, can have joy in the midst of trying times. James says so (Jas 1:2). None of us will ever cast out a demon, but if we are in fellowship with the Lord, He is working in us. He is doing things through us “in His name.” James says He is supernaturally producing in us the kind of character He wants us to have. 

Nobody likes the experience of going through a trial. I know the seventy were not masochists who enjoyed the rejection they experienced. I don’t think they were bragging about the show they put on for the Jews to whom they preached. 

I think they had joy because they had the privilege of seeing the Lord at work in that trial. They got to be a part of it. 

The same thing can happen for us during difficult times. If we allow the Lord to accomplish His will, we can come out on the other side with the same attitude the seventy had. We can have joy because we saw the power of the Lord at work in us during that trial.