Sermon #248 Series:
Isaiah
Title: “So Will I Comfort You.”
Text: Isaiah 66:13
Readings: Office:
Bob Poncer Auditorium: Mark
Henson
Subject: The Lord’s Tender Comfort of His People
Date: Sunday Afternoon - September 29, 1996[1]
Tape # S-97
Introduction:
The Apostle Paul tells us that all the
promises of God are in Christ Jesus and that they are “in him yea, and in him
Amen, unto the glory of God by us” (2 Cor. 1:20). That simply means that...
1. Every promise God ever made to fallen men is in Christ. He
made his promise to us in Christ.
2. All the promises God to men in Christ belong to us who
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
3. And the very glory of God is wrapped up in the fulfillment
and accomplishment of those promises in us for Christ’s sake.
Every
promise of God in Holy Scripture, when properly understood, is in some way or
another applicable to every child of God in this world. The promise God
made to Adam and Eve about the coming Redeemer was made for us. The promise God
made to Noah about never again destroying the world with a flood of water, and
the sign of the promise in the rainbow, and the covenant from which the promise
came all have respect to us. God’s promise to Abraham, his promise to Jacob,
all his promises to Israel, his promise to and covenant with David, indeed, all
the promises of God have a direct, spiritual application to us while we make
our pilgrimage through this world of sorrow, trouble, and woe. Do not allow
anyone ever to rob you of the promises of God in Scripture. Wherever you find
them, whenever you read them, take them as being addressed specifically to you.
2 Corinthians
1:20 "For all the promises of God in him are
yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us."
With those things in mind, I want you
to turn with me to Isaiah 66:13 and
read one of God’s great and gracious promises. It is a promise made especially
to you who are the Israel of God, to you who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
to you who are God’s Jerusalem, his church. It is God’s promise to you who are
the circumcision, to you who are born of his Spirit and saved by his grace. To
you the Lord God says,
Isaiah 66:13 "As one whom
his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in
Jerusalem."
“So
Will I Comfort You” - That is the title of my message this afternoon. While
we live here, in this present world, our heavenly Father promises that he will
comfort us, comfort us with all the tenderness of a loving mother. That means, my brother, my sister,
right now, where you live, though for the present time there is a needs be for
your heaviness and sorrow, though your heart breaks within you, divine comfort
is as sure to you as the very Being of God himself. I may not be able to
comfort you. Your family and friends may be altogether useless as they try to
comfort you. Our poor attempts at comfort may even add to your heaviness and
sorrow. But this is God’s promise to you. "As
one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be
comforted in Jerusalem." Let’s look at the promise together. May God
the Holy Spirit write it upon our hearts.
Proposition: The
Lord our God will never leave his people without comfort in this world. Our
Savior says, “I will not leave you comfortless.”
Divisions: As
we consider the implications and blessedness of this promise together, I want
to raise and answer three questions from this text
1. Who is our Comforter?
2. How does the Lord God to comfort his people?
3. Where does the Lord comfort his people?
I. WHO IS OUR COMFORTER?
Our text reads, “As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort
you.” This work of comforting is a work
which God himself takes into his own hands. He may use many and even
strange instruments to perform the work; but our Comforter is God himself. When
your soul is heavy laden, when your heart is utterly broken, shattered like
glass and cutting from within, only the hand of God, the nailed pierced hand of
our crucified and exalted God and Savior can heal the wound.
A. Understand this first - GOD
ALMIGHTY, IN THE TRINITY OF HIS SACRED PERSONS, COMFORTS HIS SAINTS.
Our God is called “The God of
consolation” (Rom. 15:5). God the Father
comforts us. The very privilege of calling God our Father brings cheer to
our souls. Spurgeon said, “As long as
I can call God my Father, I shall not be without a star in my sky.” I may be
pieced with a sharp sword, but it is in my Father’s hand. I may have to drink a
bitter cup, but my Father mixed the drink and put it to my lips. In the midst
of my deepest distresses, I have found a reason to be comforted in this blessed
fact - God himself is my Father! Like
David of old, I find comfort in his covenant, his grace, and his salvation.
2 Samuel 23:5 "Although my
house be not so with God; yet he hath
made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is
all my salvation, and all my desire,
although he make it not to
grow."
God
the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, comforts us too. His name is “The
Consolation of Israel” (Lk. 2:25). Standing at the foot of his cross, we find
consolation there. Sin loses its weight there. Death loses its sting there. And
everything associated with and springing from sin and death, all sorrow and grief,
is slain by the Man of Sorrows.
God
the Holy Spirit was given expressly for this purpose, to be our Comforter.
He dwells in us to bring to our remembrance the things of Christ and to lead us
into all truth, that our joy in Christ may be full.
Whenever trouble comes, remember these
things and be comforted. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit
are devoted to our comfort. In holy co-operation the Persons of the Godhead
made the world. In holy co-operation the divine Persons have accomplished our
salvation. And in that same holy co-operation, the three Persons of the blessed
Trinity work to comfort our souls.
B. GOD HAS MANY WAYS OF
COMFORTING HIS PEOPLE.
1. The Whole Bible has been written for our consolation.
Romans 15:4 "For
whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we
through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope."
2. The preaching of the gospel is specifically designed to
minister comfort to our hearts.
Isaiah 40:1-2 "Comfort ye,
comfort ye my people, saith your God. (2)
Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is
accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the
Lord's hand double for all her sins."
3. All the wheels of God’s providence, as they turn in their
course, are moving and working together for us, to comfort us.
Romans 8:28-31 "And we know
that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are
the called according to his purpose. (29) For whom he did foreknow, he also
did predestinate to be conformed to
the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. (30) Moreover whom he did predestinate,
them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he
justified, them he also glorified. (31) What
shall we then say to these things? If God be
for us, who can be against
us?"
Frequently,
God ministers comfort to us by secretly working, by his omnipotent grace, upon
our hearts. Have you not found that to be so many times? When you have been
greatly burdened, overwhelmed with grief and sorrow, vexed to your wits ends,
have you not experienced this very thing. You go to bed worried, fretting,
troubled, and fall to sleep with your cheeks burning with tears. But in the
morning you wake up different. Your trouble is still there; but your rebellion
is gone, your murmuring is gone, and a blessed calm and peace has engulfed you,
so that you lift your heart to God and say,
“‘Tis sweet to lie passive in Thy hands
And know no will but Thine.”
Like
the skilled watchmaker who made the watch knows how to touch the wheels and
regulate them, so our God knows how to touch the wheels of our hearts and
regulate them. This is his word to us...
Isaiah 43:1-5 " Fear not:
for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. (2) When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and
through the rivers, they shall not
overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the
flame kindle upon thee. (3) For I am the LORD thy God, the Holy One of
Israel, thy Saviour: I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for
thee. (4) Since thou wast precious in
my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I
have loved thee: therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy
life. (5) Fear not: for I am with thee.”
II. HOW DOES THE LORD GOD COMFORT
HIS PEOPLE?
He says, “As one whom his mother
comforteth, so will I comfort you.” As a tender hearted mother comforts her
child, so the Lord God comforts us. This is a peculiarly delightful metaphor. A
father can comfort, but fathers are not usually very good at the work. We are a
bit awkward when we try to comfort. When God speaks of his pity toward us he
says, “As a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear
him.” But when he speaks of comforting us, he says he does it like a mother. A
mother seems instinctively to know how to comfort.
A. A mother comforts very fondly.
If she has to give her child medicine,
she sips it first and then gives it to her child, while holding the child to
her breast, kissing its brow, and sweetly whispering to it. So it is with our
God. He who greets the repenting sinner with kisses of love and forgiveness
does the very same thing for his troubled, afflicted, sorrowing children. With
all the tenderness of a mother God feels for us and comforts us with great
fondness.
B. A mother’s comfort is very
sympathizing comfort.
Mother seems to always feel the pain
of her child. She feels the throbbing headache. She feels the scratched hands
and knees of her fallen child, as she washes the wounds and kisses them.
Illustration:
A little girl who very often
visited a lonely widow on her street was reprimanded by her mother for spending
too much time with the old women. The child said, “But she likes for me to
come. She said so. When she cries I lay my head on her lap and cry with her.
And she says that comforts her.” Even so, in all our afflictions, our God is
afflicted.
C. A mother comforts her child
assiduously.
That is to say, she keeps on comforting until there is no
more need for comfort. Mothers seem to be untirably kind in comforting their
children. Not only that, they stay at it all their lives! So it is with our
God!
When
a mother has one child more afflicted than the others, that child gets her
special attention. Her heart is always upon it. She does everything she can for
it. So God’s afflicted children are the special objects of his consolations. He
grants them his presence. He supplies them with his grace. He holds them in his
everlasting arms. He makes their beds for them.
When
a mother has a fallen child, she runs to it, picks it up, brushes it off,
and speaks comfortably to it. So, too, when we fall into sin and hurt ourselves
by our folly, the Lord God runs to us with his grace, restores us with the
right hand of his righteousness, speaks forgiveness to our hearts, and bids us
be of good cheer, assuring us that our sins are forgiven.
Now look at the next line of our text.
God says, “And ye shall be comforted.” A mother’s comfort, precious as it is,
is sometimes ineffectual, but not God’s!
D. GOD COMFORTS HIS PEOPLE
EFFECTUALLY.
He says, “ye shall be comforted!” That means you shall be
comforted. John Gill wrote, “Nothing shall hinder comfort when God is
resolved to give it: not satan and all his temptations, the world and all its
afflictions, nor all their sins and the sense they have of them, nor their
unbelief by reason of which sometimes they refuse to be comforted. But when it
is the will of God they should, a tide of comforts flow that overpowers all.”
III. WHERE DOES THE LORD GOD
COMFORT HIS PEOPLE?
This is what God himself says, “Ye shall be comforted in
Jerusalem.” That is to say, in the church of God. There is in us all a morbid,
self-destructive tendency when we most need consolation to neglect the very
place where God has promised to comfort his people - in the assembly of his
saints for worship! You can mark this down as a matter of certainty - Those who absent themselves from the house
of God absent themselves from the comfort God gives his people. I promise
you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, when you most need God’s comfort, you
will find it in the place where first he spoke comfort and peace to your soul,
right here in his house, in his family, hearing his Word. Whenever you need comfort, come to the house of God, "That ye
may suck, and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations; that ye may
milk out, and be delighted with the abundance of her glory" (Isaiah
66:11). When my soul has been troubled, either by reason of my own sin or by
reason of other trials and afflictions, this is where I have always found
comfort from my God.
·
In the Reading of his
Word.
·
In the Preaching of
his Gospel.
·
In the Prayers of his
Saints.
·
In the Observance of
his Ordinances.
·
In the Singing of his
Praise.
·
In the Midst of his
People.
·
In the Manifestation
of his Presence.
Application:
Now let me wrap this message up with
the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. No matter what your soul’s trouble is, no
matter what you need, this word applies to us all.
Matthew
11:28-30 "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (29) Take my yoke upon you, and learn
of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your
souls. (30) For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
You who are the Lord’s, I urge you
now, as we eat the bread and drink this wine of the Lord’s Table, “suck and be
satisfied” in this blessed celebration of redemption, remembering Christ and
all that he has done for us.
May God himself now add his own
blessing to his Word. May he be pleased now to draw chosen sinners to Christ
their Redeemer and grant to you his people everlasting consolation through the
gospel for the glory of Christ. Amen.