Isaiah chapter 40. We are sort of in the middle
or actually toward the end of a series, just a brief series
of words from the prophets about the Savior, about Messiah, We've
studied, God said, behold my servant. Our Lord Jesus is Jehovah's
servant. He came to do the will of God. He came willingly. He came lovingly
to do the work that God called him to do. A work he was delighted
to do. The work of saving his people
from their sins. And then we studied not only
behold God's servant, but behold the man, the man Christ Jesus. That's the reality of his humanity. There was a man 2,000 years ago
before whom the Savior stood. The man's name was Pontius Pilate. He said to the Jews who insisted
that Jesus of Nazareth die, Pilate said, behold the man. And I would say to you this morning,
behold the reality of our Savior being the man, Christ Jesus. As man, he could suffer, he could
bleed, and he could die. Being God over all, blessed forever,
God can't die in the purity of himself. In the infinity of himself,
God is invisible. God can't suffer, God can't bleed,
God can't die. But the God-man suffered, and
he bled, and he died to justify people. And then we're instructed
in the scriptures to behold the King. He is the King of kings
and the Lord of lords. He doesn't want to rule, he does
rule. He does rule. And he has a kingdom. He is not a king without a kingdom. His is the kingdom of salvation. And John chapter 3, the Savior
said to Nicodemus, you're born into this kingdom. Into this
kingdom. It's a kingdom of grace. It's
a kingdom of mercy. It's a kingdom of salvation.
It's the kingdom of God. And then in Isaiah chapter 40
we read, Behold your God. Behold your God. This one who
is God's servant. This one who is the man. This
one who is the king. Isaiah tells us to behold your
God. That will be our subject this
evening. I thought to actually bring a
message on that this morning. But as I got to looking at this
passage, I thought, well, I really can't deal with that till I deal
with the first few verses of Isaiah chapter 40. And so we'll
deal with this this morning. The subject is comfortable words. And then this evening, we'll
deal with this subject, behold your God. You'll notice in the
first verse of Isaiah chapter 40, the prophet of God says,
or God says, quoting the Lord, he says, by divine inspiration,
comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Notice who the
speaker is, the speaker is God. It would be, it still would be
accurate if Isaiah said to comfort, the Lord's people. We would seek
to comfort the Lord's people. We would seek to speak comfortable
words, words of tenderness, words of loving kindness to the people
of God. And we want to do that. But the
issue, the ultimatum or the edict, it doesn't come from man. It
doesn't even come from Isaiah. It comes from God. This is God's
word to His servants. This is God's Word to His preachers.
This is God's Word to His angels. This is God's Word to all of
us concerning others who are members of the family of God.
God says to comfort ye my people. This is my job this morning to
comfort the people of God. Now, I'm not here to comfort
people in a false refuge. Those, if there's anybody listening
to me today who's building your hopes of salvation on your worth,
or on your works, or on your will, I'm not here to comfort
you. I hope that by the grace of God,
I can disturb you. Because your worth, and your
works, and your will, If God leaves you as you are trusting
yourself, trusting your worth and your works and your will,
they'll just wind you up in hell. You must learn about the grace
of God, and the will of God, and the works of God, and the
worth of God, the worth of His salvation, and the work of redemption,
the work of righteousness wrought out by Jesus Christ Himself. And you must learn that salvation
is not by the will of man, it's by the will of God. We're born
again of God. We're not born of the flesh.
We're not born of the will of the flesh. We're not born of
the will of somebody wanting us to be born into the Kingdom
of God. We're born of God Himself. I'm delivering the message of
God to His people. I want to comfort God's people,
but I'm not going to give any kind of comfort to anybody who
rests in anyone other than Jesus Christ and His blood and His
righteousness. I don't want to give you any
comfort. Because you lay on a bed that is too narrow for you. You
lay on a bed that's too short for you. You have covers that
won't cover you up. You're not washed in the blood
of the Lamb. You're not robed in the righteousness
of Jesus Christ. And you're not saved by His grace.
Those who rest in something other than Christ and His work of redemption,
I pray that God will disturb you greatly. That He will loosen you from
your anchor into your worth and your works and your will. And
that He will absolutely pry you out. That He will bring you out
from the dungeon of sin and of darkness. And bring you into
the light of the glory of God as it's seen in the face of the
Lord Jesus Christ. That He'll bring you to see salvation
by grace alone in the Lord Jesus alone. So I give no comfort,
I don't want to comfort anybody who rests in anything you've
done. Even resting in your faith. Because your faith is not the
Savior. Even resting in your repentance,
your repentance is not the Savior. There is but one Savior, and
that's the Lord Jesus. And He saves by His free grace. And He saves by His work alone. So let it be understood, we're
only here to comfort. God only tells us to comfort. His people. And He is the speaker. And God says this to all of His
preachers. He says this to all of the hosts
of heaven, all of the angels. And really He says this to all
of us. What are we to be doing? Comforting
God's people. Am I a comforter to God's people? Are you a comforter to God's
people? Now, I'll get into this, that the Lord Himself is the
Comforter. There's no question about that.
The Savior said to His disciples, I give you another Comforter,
one likened to Myself, and He will comfort you. He will speak
words of comfort. That is, He will teach you the
Gospel, which is the only comforting message there is. But we also have a responsibility
to comfort one another. Are you a consolation to folks,
to the folks in the body of Christ Jesus? Are you one who can speak
to somebody and soothe them in their agony, in their hurt? We
know this, there are always people around us who are hurting. And
I'm sure that I'm speaking to somebody. There are some people
in this congregation this morning. You bear some burdens that are
very heavy and you hurt. And maybe you don't show it outwardly.
Maybe you put on a good face before us, but inside there are
some people here this morning who've got heavy hearts. I know
that. I know that. There are people who ache inside. And God says, comfort my people. Don't whip them with your words.
I've been in lots of services. Let me say this, there is a time
for rebuke, but we rebuke in love. Don't we? Don't we rebuke
in love? I tell you, the people of God
in this world, this world is a cruel place. You work out in
the workforce, you deal with people out in the world, it's
a rough world. The language is rough. The lifestyle
is perverted. And we enter into this building,
we need to be comforted from God's Word. And the only message
that can give us any comfort is the Word of God. And I've
heard preachers that just lash out at the congregation. Just
whip them. Just whip them. Spare nothing. God help us not
to do that. The Lord says, Comfort ye, comfort
ye my people. The Lord says, I have a people.
God says, I want you to comfort them. I want you to comfort them. You see, our God is a God of
consolation. He is a God who comforts His
people. He knows our feebleness. He knows our frailty. He knows
our weaknesses. And knowing that, He issues this
command, Comfort my people. If we didn't need comforting,
God wouldn't say, comfort ye, comfort ye, my people. Would
He? He would never say. God is not
going to say something that is useless or something that is
needless, something that is unnecessary. He would never do that. He says,
here is His command, comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith
your God. Speak ye comfortably. Speak ye
in tenderness. Speak ye in kindness to Jerusalem,
to the city of peace. Give them comforting words. God speaks. God speaks. May he give us ears to hear what
he has to say. I know this from the scriptures
that the hearing ear and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made
even both of them. Proverbs 20 verse 12 says that. May we hear what he has to say?
You say, well, this is only your job, preacher, to comfort God's
people. No, this is your job as well. It is our responsibility as members
of the body of Christ Jesus to be an encouragement to one another. You've heard the expression,
no man is an island. Well, no man is an island in
this building. There are people here who need
a warm embrace. There are people here who need
to have an encouraging word spoken to them. And you can speak it.
You can issue the hug and the embrace. Be a comfort to God's
people. This is what the Lord says. My
people hurt. My people are bruised. My people
are put down by the world. My people are kicked by false
religion. My people are mocked. My people,
my people love grace. My people love me. My people
have been redeemed. My people lean on me. And the
world persecutes them. You comfort my people. Are you
a comfort to God's people? I want to be a comfort to you
today. Because I know some of you are hurting. Who says this? God says this. God says this. He is the God of comfort. He's
a God of consolation. And what does He say? He says,
comfort my people. Now ultimately, nobody can comfort
us in our hearts but the Lord. That's right. I know that. When
a child of God is distressed, maybe from spiritual infirmities,
maybe you've fallen victim to one of the vicious temptations
of the evil one? Or maybe you have family issues? You have job issues? You have
health issues? We know nobody is able to really
speak peace to your heart but the Lord Himself. Look at what the Lord says. Look
at Isaiah chapter 51. And we are so thankful God deals
in such tenderness with His people. Look at Isaiah chapter 51 and
verse 3. In fact, go back to verse 1.
Hearken to Me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that
seek the Lord. Look unto the rock which ye are
hewn, and to the hole of the pit which ye are digged. Look
unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you, for
I called him alone and blessed him and increased him. For the
Lord shall comfort Zion." Isn't that encouraging? The Lord shall
comfort Zion. He will comfort all her waste
places. And He will make her wilderness
like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness
shall be found there if thanksgiving in the voice of melody. Instead
of sadness, joy. Instead of sorrow, gladness.
And that will be found in us when the God of comfort comforts
Zion. And I would say to you, if you're
looking for comfort, if you're looking for consolation anywhere
else except in the Lord, you'll never find it. We read in Romans chapter 15,
He is the God of patience and the God of comfort. And if you
need comfort, if you've got a broken heart, if you've got a heavy
heart, if you're sorrowing, if you're hurting, if something
is troubling you, if you feel a heavy weight upon you, look
to the God of comfort, for only He can comfort. And that which
He uses to comfort is His Word of the Gospel. You see, it's only the good news
of the substitutionary death of the Lord Jesus that will lift
up the fallen, that will cheer the faint. That's another reason
we preach the gospel. To give a strong consolation
to the people of God. Look at Isaiah chapter 61. Isaiah
chapter 61. And our Lord used these very
words over in Luke chapter 4 when He went to Nazareth preaching
the gospel. Isaiah chapter 61, look at verse
1. He says, "...the Spirit of the
Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to
preach good tidings unto the meek. He hath sent me to bind
up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and
the opening of the prison to them that are bound, to proclaim
the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our
God, to comfort all that mourn, All that mourn. All that mourn
over their sin. All that mourn over their guilt. All that mourn over their iniquities. All that mourn over their transgressions. And oh how we mourned over those
things. But He comforts us through the
gospel. Through the gospel. He tells
us your sins which are many are all washed away. He tells us
that though your sins be as red as crimson, they shall be as
wool. That's what He tells us. And
look at verse 3, "...to appoint to them that mourn in Zion, to
give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning,
the garment of praise for the Spirit of heaviness, that they
might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that
He might be glorified." Where is our comfort to be found? It
is found in the God of comfort who comforts His people through
the gospel of His grace. That is what soothes the heart.
That is what helps us. Look at Isaiah chapter 66. Isaiah
chapter 66. Look at verse number 12. Isaiah
66 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. Then shall ye suck, ye shall
be born upon her sides, and be dangled upon her knees. As one
whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you, and ye shall
be comforted in Jerusalem. Oh, our God is unto us like a
mother is to a small troubled child. And she takes the child
up in her arms, and she embraces the child, and she whispers in
the ear, everything's okay. Mama's here. Mama's here. Just hug Mama. Mama will take
care of you. That's what our God says. I'll
be a mother to you. Just go into the arms of God
and feel the warm embrace of His everlasting grace and His
love and hear Him whisper in your ear, everything's alright. Your God is here. Your God is
near. Your God is upholding you. Your
God has said, I will never leave you and I will never forsake
you. Your God says, where two or three
are gathered together, there will I be in the midst. Your
God says, be comforted, my child. And we are comforted. Oh, doesn't
that give peace deep down in the soul? And that's a peace
the world can't give. It's a peace the world doesn't
know anything about. It's a peace that nobody else
can give us save God alone, the God of our consolation and the
God of peace. I know that we need to try to
comfort one another and be kind and loving to one another, but
nobody can speak words of consolation to the troubled soul like God
can. like God can. Look at 2 Thessalonians
chapter 2. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. I often wonder when I feel that
God has led me to a particular passage of Scripture, to a particular
subject, like the subject that I'm dealing with this morning.
I often wonder, who is this for? Who is this message for? It's
got to be for somebody. It's got to be somebody here
that has a heavy heart, a drooping spirit. And then I thought, well,
if we don't need this now, because maybe right now we are encouraged
in the Lord, and we ought to be all the time, but we're not
like that all the time. And maybe then, when you have
a time of deep spiritual depression, your spirits are low, you can
come back and draw from this well. Look at 2 Thessalonians
chapter 2. Look at verse 13. 2 Thessalonians
2 verse 13. But we are bound to give thanks always to God
for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning
chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the spirit
and belief of the truth, whereunto he called you by our gospel to
the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore,
brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you have
been taught, whether by word or our epistle, Now, our Lord
Jesus Christ himself and God, even our Father, which hath loved
us and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through
grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word
and work. He's a God who comforts our hearts. His spirit is called the Comforter. Our Lord Jesus said to His disciples,
I will send you another Comforter, that is, another liken to myself. I love that passage and I go
to it quite frequently for my benefit. In John chapter 14,
and you don't have to turn there, you know it well, but our Lord
was with His disciples, His 11 disciples, Judas had left. And
they were a troubled bunch of people. And they were anxious for several
reasons. Number one, because he had said
that one of them would betray him. And that caused great agitation
within the heart. They were troubled. one of you
will betray me and Judas did. Judas sold him out and of course
Judas by the time we get to John chapter 14 he's gone. And then
the Lord also said one of you is going to deny me. One is going
to deny me. One of you is going to say I
don't even know him. One of you will refuse to be
associated with me. And that troubled him. But mainly
That which troubled them was the fact that he said, I'm going
away. That is, I'm going to die. Death
is a troubling subject to us. It's a very troubling subject.
And the Savior said to these men, I'm going to die. I'm going
away. Now, they didn't listen to all
that he said. They were kind of like us. They were slow learners.
He talked about His death, but He talked about His resurrection
as well. But you know, somehow or another we tend not to hear
the good things, we hear the negative. We don't hear the positive,
we hear the negative. And that's what they dwelt on.
And our Lord gathers these eleven unto Himself and He said, let
not your heart be troubled. Wouldn't it be wonderful to take
that passage and speak to your heart this morning and to my
heart with those words, let not your heart be troubled. And he
knows if you got a troubled heart. He says, you believe in God?
You rest in God? Do you rely on God? You believe
in me also. You trust in me. Rely on me.
Rely that I know what I am doing. Rely on my love that will never
fail. Rely on my grace. My grace that
will never run out. Let not your heart be troubled.
You believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father's
house. Let's talk about the Father's
house. There are many mansions. There are many dwelling places
in God's house. At God's house, that's where
we're going. We're going to God's house. Isn't that wonderful? We're going to God's house. In
my Father's house are many mansions. If it weren't so, I wouldn't
have told you. Because everything that came
out of His mouth was the truth. This is not make-believe, this
is not fantasy, this is not a myth, this is the truth! In the Father's
house, there are many mansions, many dwelling places, and He's
gone to prepare a place for us. How did He do that? By His death! By His death, that's how He prepared
a place for us! You see, the natural place we
got coming to us is hell! That's right, death, judgment,
and hell. That's what we got coming to
us. But Christ Jesus went to the cross to prepare a place
for us in glory. And now the justice of God along
with the mercy of God says, Oh God, save them. They've got to
be saved. They've got to be saved. See,
justice has been satisfied by the substitutionary death of
our Lord Jesus. He's paid the full sin debt of
all of His people, and heaven above is open for all of God's
people. Be comforted, children of God.
One of these days, because of Jesus Christ and His work of
redemption, we're going to the Father's house. Our brother Jim
Eccles, he's gone to the Father's house. to the Father's house. I'm sad to lose Him. I won't
be looking at Him sitting here in that pew anymore, but oh,
I'm so happy for Him. I'm sad for us because we lose
such a sweet brother in Christ Jesus, but while I'm sad for
us, I'm so delighted and thrilled and happy for Him. He's at the
Father's house. Does that help some troubled
soul this morning? The Lord says, don't be troubled. Don't be troubled. You know,
for a people, and I'll just kind of stop preaching and start meddling
now. But for a people that profess
to believe sovereign grace and God's eternal purpose that He
does all things, we sure do bellyache a lot, don't we? It's just something
not right about that. Just something not right about
that. We say, I believe God reigns in all things. And then something
happens that is disturbing to the flesh. We say, oh my God,
ah. You can just go kick a can or
something. Take my frustrations out. What kind of people are we? I'll
tell you what kind of people we are. Sinful people, that's
the kind of people we are. But that's the kind of people
that God saves. He saves sinful people. Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I'm chief. Listen, our Lord Jesus, He speaks
peace to the troubled soul, to the troubled heart. And He uses
His word to do it. But you know, in comforting God's
people, the Lord also, and He often uses others to console
us. Turn to 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians chapter 1. Look
at 2 Corinthians chapter 1. You know, many times the Lord uses
people to be a comfort to us who have gone through a similar
experience that we're going through currently. And I would say to
you, who are the people of God, some of the trials and the difficulties
that you've gone through, that you've experienced, or maybe
that you're going through right now, it will better prepare you
to be a help, to teach somebody else in the days and weeks and
months, and maybe even years to come, who will need words
of consolation. You can say, I went through a
similar difficulty and I found that the grace of God was sufficient
for all of my needs. You see, as God comforts you,
so you'll be able to say to some troubled, distressed soul, listen,
the Lord's strength is made perfect in weakness. He supported me. He nourished me. He held me up
by His almighty arms. He encouraged me from His Word
and He'll do the same for you. 2 Corinthians 1, look at verse
3. Blessed be God, even the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God
of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that
we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the
comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God." The Apostle Paul, though he had
been through great tribulation, though he had experienced great
persecution for the gospel's sake, yet he was never left destitute
of God's help and God's support. This man and the preachers who
accompanied him, they had much consolation. They had sweet refreshment
administered to them by the very presence of God with them. And
God the Spirit made the promises of the Word real to their hearts. And they could comfort others
then. When my dad died, My dad was
51 when he died. In fact, he had just turned 51,
died from pancreatic cancer. And it was my first funeral. And I had somebody came to me
and said, you need to take a half of Valium. I'd never taken a Valium at all. I wasn't even sure what it'd
do. They said, this will kind of calm you down. And I said,
I don't want it. Because whatever it is I need
to feel, I want to feel it. Whatever I need to experience,
I want to experience it. Otherwise, how can I be a help
to somebody else down the line in their time of sorrow? What
am I going to tell them to do? Take a half of iodine. No, here's just what I'll say
to them. Look to the God of grace. Look to the God who's sufficient
to get us through every trial. Rely upon God. I know you're
not up to this task like I wasn't up to that task. But I'll tell
you what, it's amazing how His strength is made perfect in weakness. And God brings us through these
things. And we say, I don't know how I'll ever get through this.
Well, by yourself you wouldn't, but you're not by yourself. You
see, that's what we're talking about. You're never alone. He
said, I'll never leave you, I'll never forsake you. You're not
by yourself. You're not even walking through
this world. You've been carried. The Great Shepherd has sought
and found you, the One who died for you, the One who had bled
for you, the One who justified you by His blood, by His grace,
the One who intercedes for you. He has found you through His
gospel that was preached to you, and He picked you up, His tender
lamb, and He's carrying you on His shoulders. You're not walking
through this world alone. You're not even walking yourself.
You're being carried. And He is going to carry you
all the way to glory. All the way to glory! Does that
comfort you, Annie? If that does not comfort you,
I might as well just quit. Well, I reckon I will. I will
just quit. Be comforted in the Lord. Comfort
ye, comfort ye, my people, saith the Lord. Speak comfortably to
my people. I've tried to do that today.
Well, let's sing the song. What do we got?