I've entitled this message, Words
of Comfort for the Afflicted. It's a bit difficult putting
this message together, not because it was one of those portions
of scripture where you got to look real hard to find comforting
words, to find the gospel or anything like that. It's actually
the opposite. I began reading in Isaiah 57 the other morning,
and then kept going, and then thought I'd look back some. And
actually, we're going to kind of be looking broadly at five
chapters. And considering I can preach
for 45 minutes on one verse, but I'll try to avoid that. We'll
just hit the high points, and I think you'll be able to get
the message that I pray the Lord will give. I said I've entitled
it Comfort for the Afflicted. Comfort and afflicted are very
important words in that title, because the business of a preacher,
one sin of God, is to comfort. Maybe I should qualify that a
little bit. The ministry of a man called
to preach the gospel in the context such as myself, a pastor preaching
essentially to the same group week after week. My business
is to bring comfort to the people of God. And I had a fellow, I mentioned
him a couple of times to you before, but he contacted me by
email. And, well, he never put it in
these words. He's of the impression I'm making
it too comfortable for you, because I'm not spending enough time
rebuking you for sin and telling you how you ought to live. I
think that I spend adequate time on that. We cover those points even as
we're declaring Christ. They don't need separate messages
as though we preach on Christ and Him crucified one week and
the next week on how a husband and wife ought to get along and
then the week after that we preach on giving to the church and all
this. You just keep preaching Christ.
All those things get taken care of. It took me a long time to
learn that under the ministry of Brother Henry Mahan after
I got out of Bible school. Was there for six years. Very
thankful to God for those six years, because I came to that
church. I believed God, but most of my
understanding was theological from my school training. Had
a head full of knowledge, but exactly how you're supposed to
take those glorious doctrines of the scripture and turn them
into a message suitable for the people of God to hear and be
strengthened by. That's a different matter altogether.
And I learned that while I was at 13th Street Baptist Church. Now, in order to understand the
things that Isaiah says, you need to understand the historical
context. Under David and Solomon, the
Jewish nation probably reached the pinnacle of its influence,
its glory, but more importantly, it was during the reign of those
two kings that Israel most closely resembled the nation they were
supposed to be, a nation devoted to the Lord. But after Solomon died, There
was instantly a fight over who would be king, and the result
was is that the northern 10 tribes separated themselves from the
southern two tribes, and you had the kingdom of Israel in
the north, and you had the kingdom of Judah in the south. Now the
kingdom of Israel, its very first king, or first notable one for sure, led them directly into idolatry.
though he did it under the name of worshiping Jehovah. The Lord
had told them there was only one place they were to meet for
worship, but he said, of course, he wouldn't want all his people
going back down to Jerusalem there because they might take
their affections down to the kingdom of Judah. And so they
set up, I think, at least two mountains on which there were
altars built. And there, supposedly, the people
could go and worship the Lord. And of course, that eventually
turned into outright idolatry. Those 10 tribes, the kingdom
of Israel, all of their kings were wicked. All of their kings
followed the pattern of that first king of Israel, first king
of the kingdom of Israel. They brought in false gods. They
offered their children in sacrifice to false gods. They debauched
themselves in every way. In the kingdom of Judah, it was
a little bit different. They had bad kings and they had
good kings. They had kings who worshipped the Lord and they
had kings who did not. And while there was some idolatry
there, it wasn't as deeply rooted as what was found in the northern
tribes. But a day did come when you could
hardly find anyone who believed God, who truly worshipped God. It was rare. In response to the
rebellion of these two kingdoms, God sent both of them into captivity. He sent the Northern Ten Tribes
in, and then I'm going to read It may have been as much as 100
years later, but I forget the exact timing. Then later he sent
Nebuchadnezzar's army down and they deported some of the people
of the Kingdom of Judah up to Babylon, but the Kingdom of Judah
kept being in rebellion, so they finally went there and they destroyed
Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, took a bunch more people into
captivity, and along with that they took all the vessels from
the temple and everything of any value. Therefore, that whole
region, the promised land, was no longer a kingdom in and of
itself. It was simply some of the territory
of the kingdom of Assyria, later Babylon. They were not ruled by one of
the descendants of David. The worship of God was not being
properly conducted. In fact, Nebuchadnezzar had people
from other nations deported to that area. And so it wasn't even
a majority of Jews living in the land anymore. Those people
eventually became what was known as Samaritans. Isaiah, before either kingdom
fell, Isaiah prophesied of their fall and their recovery. And so accurate were his predictions,
even giving the name of the king that would write the decree for
the Jews to go back to their land. Isaiah's prophecies are
so accurate, Bible skeptics claim, well, then that had to be written
after the events, not before. Well, Isaiah, he writes of those
issues, he writes of the events of the captivity and the return
of God's people, but it's written in such a way that there is not
a book in the Old Testament that more clearly prophesies of the
coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, telling who he would be and what
he would do. I find it interesting that when
Philip the Evangelist, which the word evangelist just means
gospel preacher, Philip the Evangelist, the Holy Spirit, miraculously
transported him to a location. And when he got there, he saw
this Ethiopian eunuch, an official in the royal palace of Candacy,
and he had been up to Jerusalem. He was a Gentile, but he had
heard about the Jewish God, and he went up there to worship.
And as with many people who are confronted with a new religion,
they decided to get some literature. And so somehow or another, he
got a hold of a copy of the book of Isaiah. Now I think that it's
very interesting that of all the books that God arranged for
this man who was one of his elect, of all the Old Testament books
that he arranged for this man to get a hold of, it wasn't any
of the five books of Moses. It wasn't any book that contained
the law, so to speak. It was the book of Isaiah. which so clearly points to Christ.
And Philip drew near to that chariot or that wagon, run up
beside him and looked at the man and he said, do you understand
what you're reading? And that man showed that a work
of grace had already been done in his heart because he said,
how can I unless somebody explains it to me? And it's written that
beginning at that very place, Philip preached unto him Christ. So as I read this, and this is
why I said there's so much I could preach for a very long time,
there's so much. It is so full of Christ. And
as I read that, it rejoiced my heart and I thought, man, I wish
I had the time to share all of this stuff with you guys. And I suppose, you know, we'll
be meeting more weeks and maybe I can, but can't get it all done
today. But this wonder, this beauty
in the gospel ministry of not only being allowed to, but actually
commanded to bring comfort to God's people. In Isaiah 40, I
believe I've got the right chapter, and it begins with a, comfort
ye, comfort ye my people, says the Lord. Well, comfort them
about what? Well, they're having a hard time.
No, they were having a hard time, but that wasn't what they were
to be comforted about. We all have hard times, don't
we? Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith the Lord. Speak
comfortably. And someone told me that means
from the heart. I'm glad, truly glad. I mean, I study, do the best
I can at it, try to get my P's and Q's together and all that.
But I'm glad that I am not only allowed to, but commanded to
speak to you from the heart. Our Lord said, from the abundance
of the heart, the mouth speaks. And when I do study, yes, I put
down the message the best I can in some notes. and then hope I can ignore them,
but my desire is that the message of scripture, the message of
God, find a place in my own heart so that when I stand up here
to preach, all I've got to do is open my mouth and let my heart
come out. I don't want to preach to you
something that doesn't touch me or hasn't touched me. speak comfortably to Jerusalem
and tell them that her sins are forgiven, her hard service is
completed, and she has received double from the hand of the Lord. So what is the prophet being
commanded to comfort God's people about? Their sin. Now, that's just counterintuitive
to the religious mind, isn't it? They think the preacher should
be up there and rail on the people about their sin, make them feel
uncomfortable about it. Well, I suppose if I were standing
in the presence of those who did not believe, I would have
to deal with the fact that they're sinners. I'd have to show it.
because there's no use presenting a cure until they're aware of
the disease. But even in this, and I wish
all so-called evangelists would take them to heart, even in this,
we don't go out there talking about sin as though we don't
have it. I don't rebuke people about their
sin. You know why? That's not my job.
I can let the Lord do that. I can simply tell them what the
Lord has said, open up this book, show them what the Lord says. And me yelling at them about
it, me holding a poster up, that's not going to convict their hearts. But all the people of God, they
already know their sin, don't they? When David sinned against the
Lord in that matter with Bathsheba, He said, I know my sin, my sin
is ever before me. If you are a believer in the
Lord Jesus Christ, you have no greater affliction than the affliction
of your heart over sin. I know we come into the natural
troubles of life. And I'm glad that even for those
troubles, God provides us comfort. God can give us strength in the
midst of all of that, strength to endure, strength to keep believing. But that which causes us the
most distress is our sin. It argues against
our salvation. In our natural mind it does.
Our sin comes to us and I suppose aided by that one called the
accuser of the brethren. Our sin is brought before our
eyes and we are made to feel condemned in the sight of God.
We may commit our sins flippantly thinking it's no big deal, and
you'll see it so often that way. That's how we're so easily dragged
into it. We look at it at one point, and
it doesn't seem like a big thing. We're going through the book
of Joshua in the adult Bible class, and we're at the point
where Achan has kept some of the spoil from the conquest of
Jericho. I'm sure when he, and he was
not supposed to, the Lord said all the valuable stuff, the gold
and the silver and things like that, they were to be put in
the Lord's treasury. But Achan thought he could keep
some of it. And I'm sure when he did it, he thought, this is
no big deal. There's lots of gold and silver
here in Jericho. If I keep just a little bit of
it, it'll be okay. But he found out it wasn't okay. and eventually was brought to
say, I've sinned against the Lord, and he suffered greatly
for it. But sin just seems so insignificant, or it can be made
to seem that way. But as James says, when sin is
committed, it brings forth death. Sin always does that. Not necessarily
the death of your body, and for the believer, it'll never be
the death of his soul. but it'll bring about the death
of something, the death of peace, the death of fellowship, even
to the point of, and maybe you all have experienced that, the
death of the ability to hear and enjoy the gospel. Even the death of your ability
to communicate with God, David said, you will not hear my prayer
if I regard iniquity in my heart, if I refuse to confess it. Sin's miserable. Sin's awful. It makes the believer as miserable
as anything can make a believer to be. And God says, comfort my people
with regard to their sin and what it has done to them. Comfort the afflicted. Why are
they afflicted? Why were these, the people that
Isaiah was talking to, why were they afflicted? Well, they were
afflicted by the ungodliness around them. Remember there were
not many people alive in Isaiah's day who actually believed God. Now when Ezekiel complained that
there were not many, in fact he said, I alone am remaining
true to God. God said to him, I'll have you
know there are 7,000 that I have reserved for myself
who have not bowed the knee to Baal." Well, 7,000 is a whole
lot more than Ezekiel thought there were. But you know what?
Imagine 7,000 people spread throughout the entire population of Israel. And that was it. Why, you could
go days and never run into one of them. I know people that live in richly
populated cities, and they cannot find anybody with whom they can
worship the Lord in good conscience. You know, from time to time,
our brother and sister, Bernie and Paula, they come down here
from the Twin Cities. Well, in the metropolitan area
of the Twin Cities, I think he told me there's about two million
people. Can you imagine an area that big and they've spent the
last 20 years looking for a place to worship and can't find one. And they drive all the way down
here. Let's pause a moment and give
thanks in our heart. We got some folks we can meet with. Isn't that wonderful? We've got
other people that believe just like us. They aren't a great
big percentage of the population of this area, but we can see
them on a regular basis. What a blessing. But imagine
being alive in the day that Isaiah wrote, and there's so few who
worship the Lord that you might go days, weeks, months, and never
run in to another one of them. All that these would see around
them were people who didn't care about the things of God or who
were wrapped up in a false, as someone once described it,
religion from the teeth out. In other words, it was just in
what they said. They would say, oh, let us worship
the Lord. But you knew good and well they had no interest in
the things of God. They were putting on a religious show for
other people. They would probably go to temple
when they were supposed to and they'd see the things going on
there and notice this is not of the Lord. You know, I've known for a long
time that Christians were going to be in the minority. And. I'm not surprised by that. You
know what grieves me? more than anything, turn on the
TV, turn on the radio, listen to a podcast or whatever, you
can go a long time looking for somebody that's using the name
of Jesus Christ in the way it should be used, who's telling
the truth of God as it's revealed in scriptures. Lots and lots of Christian religiosity Very little Christ. I could deal with not having
a lot of brethren. I mean, we have some, but not
having a lot to associate with on a regular basis if I didn't
always have to hear them disgrace the name of Jesus Christ with
their religion. But that's what these people
had to deal with. They saw that the godly were in the minority
and seemed to be shrinking. As time went by, there were less
of them, at least proportion-wise. You know, there are some who
believe, this is their view of how things are going to come
to the last days, they call it the study of eschatology, they
believe that the gospel is going to be preached and that the that
eventually its power will reach, and there'll be more and more
Christians, and by the time the Lord returns, Christianity will
dominate the entire earth, and nearly the whole earth will be
made up of those who worship God. Which is kind of puzzling to
think that when our Lord said, when the Son of Man returns,
will He find faith on the earth? We who believe God, and I'm not
exalting ourselves, I'm just saying this is the things that
afflict us. It's just difficult. There is
a difficulty in believing God in this world. I can understand the atheist.
don't agree with him, I don't think he's being totally honest,
but I understand where he's coming from. He thinks God is supposed
to be all good and God's all powerful, and so things should
be all good. And they said there's no evidence
of his existence. And you know something? We who
are believers, in a sense, we've got to confess that. You know,
I came here in 87, and I did have visions that, particularly
when we got this building, I thought, well, the Lord's given us this
building so he can fill it up. Notice how all of you got elbow
room if you want it, you know. Didn't work out the way I thought
it would. We say that God's absolutely
sovereign and all-powerful. Then how come the world isn't
full of Christians? It's a burden on the soul. Here's another affliction, no
amount of preaching by the faithful prophets of that day could turn
back the rebellion of the people. Now I realize the United States
of America is not God's country in the sense that the Israelite
nation was, though we've been remarkably blessed by God, and
there have been times when the society was greatly influenced
by what we might call Christian principles, and even there were
many believers. But it is certainly a distress to our minds, is it
not? Particularly those of my age and older, to see the way
it's going. I mean, it's getting more and
more hostile to the truth all along. What comfort is there for those
who see these things going on? Well, he mentions a lot of things,
actually. And I can't, of course, can't get
to all of them. But look at chapter 55 first. The Lord says, come all you who are thirsty. Come to the waters and you that
have no money Come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without
money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not
bread and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen
to me and eat what is good and your soul will delight in the
richest affair. Then skip down to verse 6. Seek the Lord while he may be
found. Call on him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts.
Let him turn to the Lord and he will have mercy on him. And
to our God, for he will freely pardon. For my thoughts are not
your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. Now, there's a
lot of comforting things in there. But the thing that really sticks
out, the thing that really is prominent in all this that shows
or that, at least to me, brings some great comfort in the midst
of things not going the way I think they should go. Not going the
way I think they should go in the world. Not going the way
I think they should go in the church. Not going the way I think
they should go in me. It's this, verse 8, my thoughts
are not your thoughts. My ways are not your ways. Brethren, take comfort in this. Don't ever expect that things
are going to go the way you think looks wise. God has never done things in
the way that humans expect Him to do them. Both the righteous,
and understand by the righteous, I mean those who believe God,
for there are none righteous by their own works, but both
the righteous and the unrighteous are going to be surprised by
what God does. Think about it now. Those in
hell and those in heaven are going to be saying the same thing.
Why am I here? Because those under the judgment
of God don't think they deserve it, and those under the blessing
of God don't think they deserve it. Why? Because God doesn't act like
we think he's going to act. Here's another thing. Our natural expectation, our
natural way of thinking says that God's way of favor is to
do what pleases Him, and in response to our pleasant behavior, He
gives us a pleasant life and a pleasant afterlife. And yet he says, come all you
who are thirsty. Most of the religious world isn't
thirsty. Why? Because they can go to their
church every week and they get a great big drink of what it
is they're seeking. They're seeking a thrilling experience. They
want to be able to put their hands up in the air, or if they're
a different thing, they want to be able to hang their head
like that. But they act religious however it is they think they're
supposed to act religious. They get a big shot of whatever
religious juice it is that their souls run on through the week.
And then they go home, and they're not thirsty. Because they can
get from the world, the religious world, what it is they thirst
for. But there are a people in this
world who cannot in this world find what they're looking for. I don't mean that they can't
find it while they're in this world. I'm just saying when they
find it, they find out it's not a part of this world. After you've done everything
you're supposed to do, after you've done all your religion,
after you've spent yourself pursuing religion as it's popularly displayed,
are you still thirsty? Thank God. Thank God that your
spiritual sense cannot be satisfied by exciting songs or dolorous
songs or flashy clothing and wild sets or very staid or whatever, because that's not what your
soul cries out for. I would rather be thirsty in
this life than in the next. Was it last
week we preached on a rich man and Lazarus? And like I pointed
out, that's not a historical story. taking it kind of that way. That
rich man, that was 2,000 years ago, he is still thirsty. He's still looking for that one
drop of water to cool his tongue in his torment. You and I, who
are believers in the Lord, and may be quite distressed, by the
things we see around us and the things we see within us and all
that. And we're thirsty. We hunger and thirst for righteousness. Well, that's not pleasant, but
it's a blessing. Because there's nothing in this
world that can satisfy that thirst and that hunger. And so he says,
come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters. And you who
have no money, you who've got nothing to give in order to get
what it is your heart seeks, come buy wine and milk without
money and without cost. Now, I used to get a kick out
of, well, you find it in standard retail marketing. But they used
to do this to raise money in churches, and I thought it's
horrible that the churches would be deceptive like this. But they
would say that they had a book, and you could get that book for
free with a gift offer of, in other words, if you sent them
a gift, they'd give you a gift. And somehow or another, that
was free. Well, I go down to Walmart, and I pick up a bunch
of stuff, and I notice this. If I'll give them a gift, they'll
give me all those groceries. But I don't think it was free.
Here is something that's actually free. Everything we're looking
for, everything we hunger for, it is given to us free. In fact, that's the only way
it can be gotten. Charles Spurgeon said that his
job was the opposite of a salesman. He said the salesman, his job
is to get the buyer up to the price. Our job is to get the
buyer down to the price, because people are unwilling to take
the blessing of God absolutely free. They want to pay something
for it so they can brag about it somewhat. Well, without price. Seek the Lord while he may be
found. It may be distressing times, but you know something,
the Lord can be found by the one who wants to find him. Maybe I'd be better to ask,
in religion, what are you seeking? What are you seeking? If you
ask most people, they'll say, well, I'm seeking peace. I'm
seeking some good instruction. I'm seeking some fellowship with
others. God's people are seeking Him. And they will not be satisfied
till they have Him. And here's the glorious truth.
And lay hold of this, folks. He can be found. It says, seek
the Lord while he may be found. You know why people don't find
him? They aren't looking in the right place. I don't care how
much you want something, if you don't look for where it is, you
aren't going to find it. One of my dad's favorite jokes. I even had one of Bonnie's cousins
draw a picture to illustrate it, and I gave it to him for
Christmas, and he got a kick out of it. But this guy comes
up on a, it's nighttime, and he comes up on a couple of guys,
they're right here under a streetlight, and they're looking for something.
And he says, what y'all looking for? Well, I dropped a quarter,
trying to find it. And so the third guy, he joins
him, he's trying to help him find it, He can't find it either,
and those two guys aren't finding it. And he said, well, is this
where you dropped it? And they said, no. We dropped it way back there.
Well, then why aren't you looking back there? Well, the light's
so much better here. I don't care how good the light
is, you aren't going to find it if you don't look for it where
it is. God, the God we seek, is in Christ. And if you don't look for Him
there, you're not going to find Him. You're not going to find Him.
But He may be found. And then I just want to make
another point, and they're not exactly... I said there are eight
or ten things in here that caught my eye. But let me quickly Chapter
57, things to comfort us in the troubles of life of a believer
in this world. Chapter 57, verse one, the righteous
perish and no one ponders it in his heart. Devout men are
taken away and no one understands that the righteous are taken
away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly, enter
into peace, they find rest as they lie in death. You know,
one of the things that doubtless distressed the people of God
in that day, like I said, they were dying off. Believers, just like everybody
else, they get old and die. But here's the thing, they were
dying off, and there were no new ones coming in to replace
them. much less was the congregation of the Lord increasing. And some of them were being put
to death. Isaiah was put to death as a
martyr of the truth. And that's distressing to see. You know, even as I look at the
men that I heard preach at the beginning, and they would have
been the World War II generation men, They're gone. And you knew, I knew it was going
to happen, but then you think, you know, I sure miss them. And then I look at my generation
and, you know, my brother preachers, who many of you know, and I was
talking to one the other day, I said, you know, in 10 years,
our churches are going to look a whole lot different, at least up in
the pulpit they are. Because there's not another 10
years left in most of us preachers. But it says the righteous perish.
Yes, they die. Just like everybody else. But why does God take them? Well,
I want you to imagine this. God has already written off the
nations. He knows already what He's going
to do. In particular, what He's going
to do to Jerusalem. What does He do? He takes the
righteous to be with himself so they don't have to stay and
watch what God does. You think of that. We lose someone,
someone who, spiritually speaking, was such a benefit to us. We think, why'd the Lord do that?
Especially if that person goes much earlier than you would expect. And as we see less and less people
in our country, it seems, who believe God, much less influence
of the gospel. What's going on here? Well, maybe the Lord has disaster
in line or in mind for this nation, and he's getting most of his
people out of it. before he lowers the boom. And
I can't say that. I mean, for sure, I'm not a prophet.
Lord could send revival instead, and I'd be glad for that. But
you know, this was kind of pictured in the fact that when God had
Nebuchadnezzar come down to Jerusalem, he did it in two stages. He first
came And all they did was gather the nobles of Israel and take
them out. And I believe among them would
have been Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, you know, some of the
brighter lights in Israel in that day. And they went up there, and I'm sure
that many who were left behind thought, why the Lord have them
taken away? Because, and I can't remember
just how many years later it was, but 10, 12 years later,
I think, Nebuchadnezzar came down with his army, and he laid
waste to Jerusalem, the walls and the temple. And all those
he'd taken away didn't have to watch that. In everything that our Lord does, And if we can lay hold of this,
it'll change our view of life and all its difficulties and
disappointments. In all that our Lord does, He
is working for the good of His people. And even when the day
seems darkest, we have reason for courage. We have reasons
to believe. The Lord has done a work and
he will bring that work of grace to perfection. None of his sheep
shall be left behind. None shall be lost. And if in your lifetime it ever
got whittled down to where you were the only one left in your
community, within your range of friends, you were the only
one that believed God. Know this. That the purpose of
God has not been altered. The work of God is not failing. You are secure. You have everything you really
desire for free. Your sins have been forgiven.
They've been paid for. And when it says in chapter 40,
it said, tell them they've received double. for all their sins. It was an exaggeration, of course,
the Lord never punishes twice for sin, but the point is, in
Christ, the price has been paid so thoroughly and completely,
your sins can never be charged to you again, period. Oh, and
I love a period there. End of sentence, end of paragraph,
end of story. My sins bother my conscience.
They can bring me to tears. I wrestle with them virtually
every week. What in the world am I doing
being a preacher and being a man like this? I want to tell you
something. This is what makes me get back
in the pulpit every week. I'm a mess, but Christ isn't.
I continue to sin, but God continues to be gracious. The world, it's falling apart,
but that's to be expected. God's not falling apart, and
he won't let me or any of his sheep fall apart. My sheep hear my voice, and I
know them, and they follow me, whether it's one of them or whole
flock, they follow me, and I give to them eternal life, and they
shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand. And my Father, who is greater
than all, neither shall any pluck them out of his hand." It is
in our nature to look at the world around us and try to think
that that is somehow an indication of God's favor toward us, it's
not. It's not. The proof of God's
favor toward us is Christ. And not just the reality of Christ,
but the fact that by His grace, He has made Christ real in us. He's caused us to look to Him.