Now we're continuing with the
Lord's description of the church as a mother. And the Lord declaring
what He's going to do through His church. He says now in verse
10, Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, the church, and be glad with
her, all ye that love her. Rejoice for joy with her, all
ye that mourn for her, that you may suck and be satisfied with
the breasts of her consolations, that you may milk out and be
delighted with the abundance of her glory. For thus saith
the Lord, Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and
the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream. Then, shall
ye suck, ye shall be born upon her sides, and be dandled upon
her knees. As one whom his mother comforteth,
so will I comfort you. and ye shall be comforted in
Jerusalem. And when you see this, your heart
shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like an herb,
and the hand of the Lord shall be known toward his servants,
and his indignation toward his enemies." Now, to you who believe
on Christ Jesus, to you who are the true spiritual Israel of
God, to you who are God's Jerusalem, His new creation, His heavenly
Jerusalem, His church. He speaks to you, and this is
what He says in verse 13, as one whom his mother comforteth,
so will I comfort you, and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem. Now this is an illustration that
we're all very familiar with. The Lord God promises He will
comfort us with the same tender care as a mother comforts her
little child. That's not difficult to understand,
is it? So will I comfort you. Now, for our divisions, I want
to first look and see who is our comforter. Who is our comforter? And then secondly, with what
care With what care does He comfort His children? And then thirdly,
where does He comfort us? Where does He comfort us? Now
first of all, who is our comforter? God says, so will I comfort you. Our comforter is our triune God. That's the comforter of His people. God our Father is our comforter. In 2 Corinthians 1.3, He's called
the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. In Romans 15.5, He's called the
God of consolation. God our Father is our comforter. And then God the Son is our comforter. He is the consolation of Israel. Remember when Simeon was in the
temple and he was waiting for the consolation of Israel? He
was waiting for our Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, Christ began
to fulfill this prophecy right here. When he stood with the
desolate wife, who appeared to be desolate when he stood there
with his first apostles and his disciples that he had called
out from among the Jews into his fold in Israel, the true
Israel. He told them, I will not leave
you comfortless. I will not leave you comfortless.
I will come to you yet a little while, and the world seeth me
no more, but you see me, because I live, you shall live also.
And at that day you shall know that I am in my Father, and you
in me, and I in you." He promised he would not leave them comfortless.
He was going to do something. And it's what we see right here
in this passage. Christ is our comforter. And
then thirdly, the Holy Spirit is our comforter. He promised
this. Christ said, when the comforter
is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the
Spirit of truth. which proceedeth from the Father,
he shall testify of me." So brethren, it doesn't matter what our trouble
is, it doesn't matter what kind of conflict we come into, we're
going to have comfort. And the reason that's certain
is because our comforter is the triune God. He says, so will
I comfort you. Now, secondly, with what care
does God promise to comfort His people? With what care is He
going to comfort His children? Well, look back in verse 13.
He says, "...as one whom his mother comforteth, so will I
comfort you." That's how He's going to comfort. That's the
care with which God's going to comfort. He says, as one whom
his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you. I remember the
first time Melinda held our children, little infants. And the first
time she held them, I remember that just so clearly. And I remember
the first time their father held them. I held them for a little
while, and when they began to fret, I handed them back to her
because she could comfort them. She knew how to comfort them.
I didn't have that ability. I couldn't comfort them, but
she could. When the Father is speaking of pity, when God our
Father speaks of pity, He says, As a father pitieth his children,
so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. But when He speaks
of comfort, He says, as a mother comforts her little child, that's
how I'll comfort you. Now, a mother comforts with joy. She comforts with joy, she comforts
with gladness, and she comforts with love. Now notice, God gives
this comfort. He's speaking here about the
comfort He's going to give to His little children. And He gives
this comfort through the church, through the mother. He says in
verse 10, Rejoice ye with Jerusalem. Verse 10, Rejoice ye with Jerusalem
and be glad with her, all ye that love her. Rejoice for joy
with her, all ye that mourn for her. What's the rejoicing of
Jerusalem? What is the rejoicing and gladness
of the church with which she comforts God's newborn children. What's the joy? What's the gladness
with which she comforts the children? Well, first of all, it's the
truth of God's sovereign effectual grace. That's what our comfort
is. You remember back there in verse
9, He said, Shall I bring to the birth Remember that, what we saw there?
God saying, I'm going to bring you to travail. He's telling
the church, I'm the one that's going to make you travail for
my children. It's all of His grace. He's going
to use His church, but it's all of His grace. And He will effectually
make us travail. He does that by His sovereign,
effectual grace. And then He said this, He said,
He said, shall I bring to the birth and not cause to bring
forth? Shall I cause you to travail
and then not cause my child to be born? That's the good news. We can't fail because God's promised
when he makes you to labor in the cause of Christ, laboring
with his gospel, laboring for his lost sheep, he's going to
make his children be born again. And this is the rejoicing we
have, and this is the comfort wherewith we comfort God's children. Then the church rejoices that
Christ shall not lose one. By this sovereign effectual grace,
he will not lose one. He said there in verse 9, Shall
I cause to bring forth and shut the womb, saith thy God? Shall
I cause you to have one child and then shut up your womb so
you can't have any more? Now remember, he's speaking to
the church in her very earliest stages when he's talking to the
apostles and he's talking to his disciples with that little
band there was there. And he's telling them, I'm going
to cause you to have children. And I'm not going to just cause
you to bring to the birth and have one child and then shut
the womb. You're going to have a multitude of children. He's
telling us, I'm going to call my children out and make them
to be born again until every last one has been brought to
the birth. Now that's the rejoicing we have
in our Lord. Now you remember in the early
church, they were persecuted and they were cast down and the
majority in Israel rejected the Lord Jesus. Just a remnant, He
said. And so they mourned for the church. They mourned that they were so
few in number and that they had no power. But our Lord tells
them not to mourn. And He says rejoice with her.
Because this is a sure and certain salvation that we have in our
sure and certain God. Our sure and certain Savior is
going to save His people and nobody is going to hinder Him.
Now that same goes for you and me today. We can look at the
church today and we find many causes to mourn in our day. But he's going to save his people.
He's not going to stop until he's finished calling out all
his children. Well, another way that the mother
comforts her little newborn child is with the milk of her breast. This is one way that I didn't
have an ability to comfort our children, but she did. From his
holy hill of Zion, from Christ's holy hill of Zion, where He sits
at God's right hand right now, through His church, God is comforting
all His little ones through the milk of the gospel, through His
Word. Verse 11, He says, Rejoice with
her, don't depart from her, rejoice with her that you may suck and
be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations. Our consolation
is Christ the Word and all the consolations we have in Him,
all the blessings we have in Him. He was made flesh and He
dwelt among us. The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us. We beheld His glory, the glory
as of the only begotten of the Father. The Word purged our sins
by His own blood. This is our rejoicing. This is
the Word we hear every time we come because this is our milk.
This is our milk. He robes us in His righteousness
so that we're complete before God. We're complete before God. Accepted with the very righteousness
of God. Made the righteousness of God.
This is our milk. This is our meat. He preserves
us by His grace. He says there, and this is what
makes you to be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations.
And then in verse 11, He says that you may milk out and be
delighted with the abundance of her glory. That you may milk
out and be delighted with the abundance of her glory. Our milk
is the gospel. It's the word of the gospel.
And the abundance of our glory, that means our brightness. Our
brightness. Our brightness is Christ the
Light. Christ the Light. And he says in verse 12, For
thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will extend peace to her like
a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream,
and then you shall sub. Christ is our peace. He's the
Prince of Peace. And he says here, I'm going to
extend peace to my church. like a river. Now you remember,
if you'll turn back with me to Isaiah 48, the Lord came to His
own in Israel, but they received Him not. Remember, He didn't
fail. They are not all Israel, which
are of Israel. Not all those natural sons of
Abraham were the sons of God. They were not all His spiritual
Israel, but only the chosen elect children of promise were His
chosen seed. But when He came to them, listen
to what He said to them in verse 16, Isaiah 48, 16. Come ye near
unto Me, hear ye this. I have not spoken in secret from
the beginning. This is well known, He said. From the time that it was, there
am I. And now the Lord God and His
Spirit hath sent Me. Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer,
the Holy One of Israel. This is Christ speaking. He says,
I'm the Lord thy God, which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth
thee by the way that thou shouldest go. He's that way. He told them He is the way. But
did they receive Him? Did they believe Him? They rejected
Him. Now listen to this. Oh, that
thou hadst hearken to my commandments. Oh, that thou hadst believed
on me, and rested from all your self-righteous works. That's
what he's telling them. Then had thy peace been as a
river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea. Thy
seed, thy children also, had been as the sand, and the offspring
of thy bowels like the gravel thereof. His name should not
have been cut off, nor destroyed from before me." But now, verse
22, he says, "...but there is no peace, saith the Lord, unto
the wicked." Now look at verse 49. First word, he says, "...now
listen, O Isles." Now you listen, Gentiles. I've turned from those
lost, foul rejecters in Israel. Their house is left desolate.
Now I'm turning to you Gentiles. And that's what he's telling
us in our text. Now back in Isaiah 66 and verse 12, I will extend
peace to my church like a river. He's that peace. He's made peace
between His people and God our Father. And He said, my peace
I leave with you. Not as the world gives you, my
peace I give unto you. It will never be taken from His
people. And He says, and the glory of the Gentiles are going
to come in like a flowing stream. And He told that early church,
He said, and then now you're going to suck. These children
are going to suck because I'm going to do this with the Gentiles. I'm going to call my elect from
among the Gentiles and I'm going to do this work through the Gentiles. You remember when he stood there
on one occasion and he was talking to those disciples he called
out from among the Jews, his elect he called out, giving them
faith to trust him. And he was standing there talking
to them and he said, I am the good shepherd. and I know my
sheep, and I lay down my life for the sheep." And he said,
as the Father knows me, I suspect the Father knows him well, don't
you? He said, as the Father knows me, so know I the Father, and
I lay down my life for the sheep. He's saying just like the Father
knows me and just like I know the Father, that's how I know
my sheep. And I lay down my life for the sheep. And he said, and
other sheep I have which are not of this fold. He was standing
there in Israel talking to those he had called out of Israel who
were his true Israel, who were Jews according to the flesh.
And he said, I've got other sheep that didn't come out of Israel.
They're not the natural sons of Abraham. And he said, them
also I must bring. and they shall hear my voice,
and there shall be one fold and one shepherd." Later here he
says, when you see this happen, he said, your bones are going
to rejoice. We're not going to have time
to see this this time, but next time I think I'm going to look
at this. Remember when that valley of dry bones? He told them, when
I put my spirit in you, he said, your bones are going to come
forth. And then he told them he's going to take those two
sticks, the stick of Judah and the stick of Joseph, and he's
going to bring them together. And they weren't going to be
two tribes anymore. They're going to be one. That's what He's doing between
His elect from among the Jews and His elect from among the
Gentiles. When you see this, your bones are going to flourish
like a newborn child. And you're going to stand up
and my Spirit's going to be in you. And you're going to be one
fold with one shepherd. That's what He's declaring right
here. So God tells us that the comfort and the milk with which
He will nourish us and comfort us through His church is the
Word. Look at 1 Peter 1, 1 Peter 1.25. He's encouraging, commanding,
and effectually working in His people as He speaks this, so
that all those believers He called in the very beginning This is
why they didn't depart. This is why they didn't separate.
This is why they continued together with one mind and one accord
under the preaching of the gospel. Because Christ spoke this affectionately
in their heart. And He fitly framed them together. And that's why He keeps us together.
Because He speaks this Word in our heart. And look what He tells
you now. He's using the metaphor of a mother and a little baby
child. And look what He says here at
the end in verse 25. He says, The Word of the Lord
endures forever. What He's promising us here is
sure and certain and will endure. It shall happen. It is. We've
seen it. And it is happening and it shall
continue. And this is the word which by
the gospel is preached unto you. Wherefore, Because this word
is so enduring and is so needful for our health. Wherefore, lay
aside all malice, and all guile, and all hypocrisy, and envy,
and all evil speaking. And as newborn babies, desire,
desire. You ever seen that newborn baby?
They like a little bird with their mouth open. They desire. The sincere milk of the word. Desire this gospel, he's saying,
that you may grow thereby, if so be you've tasted the Lord
is gracious. Now, have you tasted the Lord's
grace? You know, Linda would just take a little milk, get
it on her finger, on her palm, and she'd let the baby lick that
milk, and that's all it took. And they'd just latch on. Have
you tasted this milk of grace? It makes you desire it. It makes
you desire Him. If you've tasted His grace, it
doesn't matter what you have to lay aside. It doesn't matter
what you have to do without. Do without it. Lay it aside and
desire this sincere milk that you may grow thereby. That's
the Word of God to you and to me. And I tell you this, if you've
tasted it, and He's working His grace in you, that's what you'll
do. Because He doesn't speak in vain.
He brings it to pass. He makes you hunger and thirst
after His righteousness. Now, He says to us, whatever
is written, is written for our learning, so that we might have
comfort of the Scriptures and have hope. And this is His comfort
to us through His Word. Now, how else? Does God comfort
His children like a mother? Well, back in our text, Isaiah
66, a mother comforts very tenderly and very carefully. Well, that's
how God comforts His children through His church. Verse 12,
He says, You shall be born upon her sides and dandled upon her
knees. You get the picture? That little
limpet you carry around You see the woman got her hip cocked
out, carrying that little baby on her hip, and she dandled him
on her knees. He said, that's the tender care
I'm going to take with my people. As one whom his mother comforteth,
so will I comfort you. Now, he's going to do this through
gospel preachers that he sends to minister the word of the gospel
to his people. He's going to do it through all
his witnesses that he's assembled together to bear witness unto
him. Each of us here witnesses of Christ. And do you remember
how Paul said they ministered to the Thessalonians? Listen
to this. We were gentle among you, even
as a nurse cherisheth her children. So being affectionately desirous
of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you not the gospel
of God only, but also our own souls, because you were dear
unto us. A man don't have that kind of
affection for sinners unless God gives him that heart. And
Christ gives us that heart. He says, you shall be dandled
on her knees. You're going to be comforted.
I'm going to comfort you through my people, my church, just like
a little child is comforted by her mother. God makes His preacher
and His church have a sincere affection for those He's drawing
to Christ. And because we have a sincere
affection for them, you're gentle. You don't get in Christ's way. You don't try to make something
happen. Get ahead of Christ. You wait on the Lord. You minister
this word like you would to a newborn baby. milk to a newborn baby,
and you wait on the Lord to grow his child. This is the word of
the Lord unto Zerubbabel. Remember how he said he's going
to build his house, his church? He said, not by might, not by
power, not by your might and not by my might, not by your
power and not by my power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord
of hosts. God's not provided preachers,
His preachers. Now, there's a bunch of preachers
out there. I'm not talking about the whole bunch. I'm talking
about God's preachers. He's provided His preachers not
to whip and yoke His children with the law of Mount Sinai.
That's not what He sends His preachers to do, and that's not
what they do. Either God works effectually
and sends pastors after His own heart, or He just lied to us.
He sends pastors after His own heart which shall feed you with
knowledge and understanding. Not with lies, not with half-truths,
not mixing a little rat poison with the bread. That's just pure
poison. He does it with truth. And this
is the charge. Go back to Isaiah 40. This is
the charge He gives His people and His preachers. Isaiah 40,
verse 1. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,
saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem,
and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished. That's what
we tell, that's what we preach. The warfare of all God's elect
is accomplished by Christ. It's finished. Her iniquity is
pardoned. It's gone. It's pardoned. For
she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins. This is by God the Father's hand,
by Him choosing whom He will. This is by God the Son's hand.
He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace
was laid upon Him, and with His stripes ye are healed. You are healed. That means you've
been made the righteousness of God in Him. I was going to hold
this to the next message, but I'm about to pop. I can't hold
it. How can I be called an antinomian? How can I be called an antinomian?
Through faith in Christ, I have established the entire law of
God. The man who's going back to Mount
Sinai and trying to fulfill it himself, he's the lawless one. He's not obeying the master.
Rest in me. And you fulfilled all the righteousness
of God. That's the only way we establish
it. With his stripes you're healed.
That's what that means. You're righteous. By the Holy
Spirit applied all his blessings to us personally. You've received
of the Lord's hand double for all your sins. For shame you
shall have double. For confusion they shall rejoice
in their portion. Who's our portion? Who's our
inheritance? Christ the Lord. He's our rejoicing. Therefore in their land they
shall possess the double. Everlasting joy shall be unto
them. We've got joy. We've got righteousness
and holiness. But here's the double. Here's
the double. The double joy. It's everlasting. We have eternal redemption, eternal
life, eternal righteousness. We're saved by Him. That's what
He's saying. Now that's the message we comfort
with. That's the message. That's the message He's going
to work this work of grace through. Well, when a mother's comforting
her children, sometimes, no matter what she does, she just can't
comfort the child. That's one way that God our Father
differs from a mother. He says here, verse 13, Isaiah
66, 13, So shall I comfort thee, and ye shall be comforted. You shall be comforted. This
work is not of us. God uses His church, He uses
His preachers, He uses His witnesses, but the work's not of us. It's
of Him. And therefore, it's sure. You
shall be comforted. He shall not fail. You shall
be comforted. The gates of hell won't stop
our captain. Our sin and our unbelief won't
stop Him. The world and all our enemies
won't stop Him. He shall comfort His people. And that comfort is Christ. He's
going to make you see you complete in Him. Alright, now let me give
you one last word. Where does the Lord comfort His
people? Now I want you to be sure to
understand this is God speaking. This is our triune God in the
Lord Jesus Christ speaking. He is fixing to tell us where
we are going to find this comfort. Alright? Verse 13. You shall
be comforted in Jerusalem. You who have sat around here very
long know That's not talking about that little mound of dirt
over there in the Middle East. We're talking about heavenly
Jerusalem. In the church of God, in heavenly
Jerusalem, the house of God where Christ preaches through His preacher. Did you hear what I said? Where
Christ preaches through His preacher. If you don't come here, you're
not missing me, you're missing Christ. Christ preaches through
His preacher. Brethren, when we most need comfort,
when we most need comfort, you know what we tend to do? This
is just the way sin works. It's the way it works in me and
it's the way it works in you. When we need comfort the most,
we neglect coming to God's house where He's assembled His people
and He's preaching His gospel through His church. That's when we need it the most
and we fail to come and assemble with His people. Imagine you
need comfort right now. Somebody here probably does.
Imagine right now you need comfort. Let's just put a scenario before
you. You think you're going to find
the comfort of God in hell or in heaven? Well, if I don't assemble with
Christ at the feet of His throne in heaven, where from His holy
mountain, the laws going forth into His house, where He's assembled
His living stones, where He's preaching to His people and ministering
this milk, the breasts of our consolations to us and comforting
us and nourishing us. If I don't assemble with them,
but instead I try to find comfort in the world, somewhere else,
that's like trying to find comfort in hell rather than trying to
find comfort in heaven. That sort of makes it seem a
little absurd when you look at it like that, doesn't it? That's
just how foolish we are when we don't assemble where Christ
has promised He's going to meet with His people and minister
this comfort to us. God says here in our text, He
shall comfort His people, He shall do it through His gospel,
and the place He's going to do it is in His church, in His house,
His temple amongst His living stones has been built up by Him,
that spiritual house in which Christ dwells. This is where
we read His Word together as brethren. When one of the men
stands up here and reads, he reads it and we all read together.
And you know who we're reading? We're reading Christ's Word. This is where we sing together.
as a family. You know what we're singing?
Praises to Christ. This is where we hear our brethren
pray. And we sit there and pray with
them. And we hear them pray for us. And we hear them pray for
one another. And we hear them pray for God's people all over
this world and His preachers all over this world. And we hear
them ask God to glorify His holy name. This is where we come and we
hear Christ's gospel proclaimed and spirited and true. where
we hear, sometimes you hear it so affectionately in your heart,
you just know Christ is ministering directly to me. He set me down
right here and He's feeding me just like a mother's got her
little baby on her lap and is feeding her just tenderly and
nourishing her. That's what He says He'll do.
This is where we come and we partake of His ordinances rejoicing
in those that are baptized, professing His name, rejoicing in the work
He's done in them. This is where we come and partake
of the unleavened bread and the wine and remember His broken
body and His shed blood. This is where Christ has promised
He's going to make His presence known in our hearts. I didn't
make this up. Can you read it? Can you read
it? It's black and white right there. God says, you're going
to be comforted. My people are going to be comforted. You shall be comforted in Jerusalem. That's where He's going to do
it. That's where He's going to do it. You know, I could get
into a lot of ways that this is so wise. I try to do that
with you from time to time, but it just suffices to say God said
that's how he's going to do it. That's enough. That's enough.
This is how God said he's going to do it. Let's read it, verse
11. That you may suck and be satisfied with the breasts of
her consolations. That you may milk out and be
delighted with the abundance of her glory. Verse 13. As one
whom his mother comforted, so will I comfort you. And you shall
be comforted in Jerusalem. And when you see this, your heart
shall rejoice and your bones shall flourish like an herb.
And the hand of the Lord shall be known toward his servants
and his indignation toward his enemies. You know where we find
this? At Christ's feet. And at Christ's
feet, sin loses all its weight, and death loses its sting, and
sorrow is turned into joy. That's why He says, are you laboring? Are you heavy laden? Do you need
rest? And He says, come to Me and I'll
give you rest. I'll give you rest. As one whom
his mother comforts, so will I comfort you, and you shall
be comforted in Jerusalem. Let's stand together, brethren. Father, we thank you. Thank you
that you're the God of all comfort. Thank you that you've made Christ
the head of your church, and that you've assembled these living
stones and made us your house, your Jerusalem, that you've promised
you'll comfort us through the word of your gospel. Make us
desire that sincere milk. Make us taste and desire. Make
us hunger and thirst. Make us lay aside everything
that would hinder us from being present every time you preach
to us. And make us, Lord, rejoice. Make
us delight in glory in you. Thank you, Lord, for this tremendous
comfort to our hearts. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.