Let's open our Bibles again to
Isaiah chapter 66. The title of the message this evening
is Spiritual Life in the New Birth. We're going to begin in
verse 5. The prophet says, Hear the word
of the Lord, ye that tremble at his word. Your brethren that
hated you, that cast you out for my name's sake, said, Let
the Lord be glorified. But he shall appear to your joy,
and they shall be ashamed. This verse has a specific message
for God's people. God's people are those who tremble
at God's word. The word tremble, it means to
reverence. God's people reverence His word.
They respect God's word. They want to hear God's word.
And the Lord says, you who reverence God's word, God's given you some
understanding of it. He's given you some heart understanding
of His word. You reverence it. You be sure
you hear it. Hear God's Word and believe it
in your heart. And don't quit listening to it.
Don't quit reverencing God's Word faithfully. Keep coming
faithfully to hear it preached. And that is needful instruction
for us. Because the life of a believer
requires faithfulness and perseverance. It requires faithfulness and
perseverance because we meet so much opposition along the
way. The religious world hates believers. They just hate them. They can't
stand the gospel that you love, the gospel that you just can't
wait to hear again. And I'll tell you why they do. It's because the religious world
hates the sovereign savior that this word, the word you reference,
they hate the sovereign savior that word declares. So the religious
world casts believers out of their accepted circles. Occasionally, usually about this
time of year, there's a, there's a, whatever the national day
of prayer is at some point through the year, I get invitations to
go on the radio and they'll have a, you know, everybody's going
to say a prayer. Everybody's going to join in
this service, some sort of a Christmas service, you know, and I have,
I mean, that would just be utter misery to me, but sometimes I
think, yeah, Wonder if I'd go, but I wouldn't get an invitation
next year. They cast you out. Look at John chapter 16. I'll
show you that. The religious world just will
not allow a believer. They'll accept anything but sovereign
grace. They will accept anything out
of deep left field except sovereign grace. And when they do it, they
think they're pleasing God by being so doctrinally straight
and sound. Look here at John 16 verse 1.
Our Lord says, These things have I spoken unto you that you should
not be offended. Now they shall put you out of
the synagogues. Yea, the time cometh that whosoever
killeth you will think that he doeth God's service. And here's
why they'll do these things. And these things will they do
unto you because they've not known the Father nor me. But
these things have I told you. that when the time shall come,
you may remember that I told you of them. And these things
I said not unto you at the beginning because I was with you. But now,
he said, now I'm telling you these things and soon I won't
be with you. That's what our Lord told his disciples, they're
going to cast you out. They won't let you in their circles.
Well, nothing's changed from then till today, has it? So when
you meet opposition with friends and family and co-workers and
Just don't get too discouraged. It's tough to take. It's tough
to not be discouraged. It's tough to take somebody mocking
you and making fun of what you believe. But now one day, our
Lord says He's coming back. And He's going to come back and
He's going to correct all this. He's going to put the ship right
side up again. When the Lord comes, He'll vindicate
His people. And everyone will see the Lord. Everyone will see who truly believes
Him. His people will be vindicated.
And when He comes, He's going to condemn the unbeliever, those
who are your enemies now. And I tell you, those people
who have faith, who believe God, they're just willing to wait
on the Lord to come back and vindicate. They're willing to
wait on the Lord to come and set things right. Because this
is what we know. We know the Lord's going to come
back and gather his people to himself. We know that. And he's
going to come and he's going to take care of his enemies.
Look here at verse six. A voice of noise from the city,
a voice from the temple, a voice of the Lord that rendereth recompense
to his enemies. See this judgment, sure, because
it's the voice of the Lord that's going to announce the verdict
and he's going to carry out the judgment. So what are we to do
until then? Until that day the Lord returns.
He vindicates His people. He condemns His enemies. What
should we do until then? You know the Lord told us we
ought to pray for one another, didn't He? But He went further
than that, didn't He? He said pray for your enemies.
We ought to pray for them. Could be the Lord have mercy
on us. All of us were enemies of the Lord at one time. Could
be He'll have mercy on them like He did us. We ought to pray for
them. But this is what we know. The Lord's going to take care
of those who refuse to believe on Christ. He's going to take
care of those who insist on being the enemies of Christ. He's going
to take care of them one way or another, either in mercy or
in judgment. He's going to take care of them.
So let's just leave that to him. Just leave it to him. Here's
what the Lord says to his people. Don't you worry about them. I'll
take care of them. This is what you worry about.
He says to his people, you just continue in the faith. You just
keep believing Christ. You just keep preaching the gospel.
You be faithful to follow me and serve me. Look at Luke chapter
18. Now we know the Lord is returning.
He says, he cometh. He's even at this moment coming.
I don't know when he'll get here, but he cometh. Well, when the
Lord returns, I sure would like to be found faithful, wouldn't
you? I'd like to be found waiting for Him, looking for Him like
Simeon was the first time he came. Look here at Luke 18 verse
7. And shall not God avenge His
own elect which cry day and night unto Him, though He bear long
with them? I tell you, He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless,
when the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth? I
hope the Lord, He'll find faith wherever He gave it. And I hope
the Lord gives me faith. He gives me that kind of faith
to be found still believing in Him, still relying upon Him,
still calling upon Him. Whatever else happens, I want
that faith that continually relies upon Christ. That's what Paul
told the church at Galatians in chapter 6, verse 9. He said,
let's not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap
if we faint not. Don't be weary in well-doing.
Don't be weary and give up, you know, trust in Christ. Just keep
believing him. Keep waiting on the Lord. He's
coming back. Just wait on him. But you know, while we wait for
the Lord's return, we're not idle. The believer is not idle
while we wait on the Lord. The Lord has given his church,
he's given his people something to do while we wait on his return.
What is it he's given us to do? It's to preach the gospel. As
our Lord ascended back on high after He rose again from the
dead, what was His commandment to His disciples? You wait on
my return and go into all the world and preach the gospel to
every creature. While we look for His return,
we've got something to do. It's preach the gospel of Christ. Brethren, let's be found faithful
to do just that. To preach the gospel, to worship
the Lord together. You know, the Lord's going to
take care of his people. He's going to provide for them.
He's going to feed them. He's going to comfort them. He's
going to assure their hearts. He'll take care of his people
until he returns. I know he will. He's faithful.
He promised it. He'll do it. But how does he
do that? Is it just magic? You know, you
get up in the morning and, you know, you get a dose of comfort. That's not how it is. The Lord
feeds his sheep and comforts his sheep and gives his sheep
instruction through the preaching of God's word. It's through the
word. Then let's be faithful to do
what the Lord's given us to do. It's to preach his word. As a
church, we're not given anything else to do. We're not here for
social reform or, you know, all the things people want to get
involved in. This is our function, to preach the word of God. That's
how God feeds his sheep. That's how God saves his people.
That's how he gives life and the new birth to his people.
That's how he converts the lost. It's through the preaching of
his word. The seed that God uses to give life and the new birth
is the word. Then let's preach it. Let's preach
it. And I want to give us this evening four points about the
new birth from our text. And I trust these will be four
good reasons that we would faithfully preach God's word. Number one
is I want us to see how spiritual life is accomplished, how it's
accomplished. Verse seven, before she travailed,
she brought forth. Before her pain came, she was
delivered of a man child. Now I'll tell you what that verse
is saying. Life for God's elect doesn't
come from anything we do. Life for God's elect comes from
Christ dying in our place as our substitute. We live because
he died in our place. Spiritual life was accomplished
by Christ's suffering and dying at Calvary. Now look at 1 Peter
1. God gives the spiritual life
by the preaching of the word. This is what I said a minute
ago. This word is the seed that God uses to give spiritual life
to his people. 1 Peter 1 verse 23. Being born
again. not of corruptible seed, but
of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth
forever. For all flesh is his grass, and
all the glory of man is the flower of grass. The grass withereth,
and the flower thereof falleth away. But the word of the Lord
endureth forever. And this is the word which by
the gospel is preached unto you." All right, that's the church's
function, is to preach, and we travail in preaching. But now
here in verse seven, the she is the church, it's God's people.
And the prophet says, before she ever suffered any travail
pains, before she ever suffered any of the effort and the work
and the travail that goes into preaching the gospel, he says
a child was already born. Before her pains came, she was
delivered of a man child. How can that be? Well, what that's
telling us is God's children were already given spiritual
life in Christ before the church ever prevailed in preaching.
Well, how's that possible? Because spiritual life was accomplished
when Christ died at Calvary. That's how life was accomplished,
through his death. And when Christ died, all of
his people were instantaneously given life. Look here at verse
eight. Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall
the earth be made to bring forth in one day? Or shall a nation
be born at once? For as soon as Zion prevailed,
she brought forth her children." Now, who ever heard of such a
thing? Who ever heard of life coming
in a day, in just one day? It takes months for life to develop,
doesn't it? Normally, a seed is planted in
the womb. Nine months later, there's the
birth of a child. We don't see that life until
nine months later. And even during those nine months
before there's an actual live birth, there's the travail of
carrying that child and things. At least that's what I'm told.
But the same thing is true about farming. Normally, a farmer plants
seeds in his field and then months later, you get a harvest. It
never happens in a day. See, that's how things work in
natural life. You plant the seed and months
later you have the harvest. But that's not how things work
in spiritual life. The very moment Christ died, all of his elect
immediately had spiritual life. It didn't take months for it
to develop. They didn't have to do anything to make it happen.
They had to decide to make it effectual. The moment Christ
died, all of God's children had fully formed, mature, perfect,
eternal life given to them. That's how it was accomplished.
All in one day at the cross. The same thing's true about the
nation, spiritual Israel. The very moment Christ died,
the whole nation, spiritual Israel, was formed in one day. Normally,
for a nation to be formed, it takes years. It takes years for
that nation to grow and develop and create infrastructure and
governments and all these things. Not the nation's spiritual history.
They were formed in a day. Because their life comes from
Christ's obedience, not theirs. Their nation is formed by Christ's
work, not theirs. So they have their nation, they
have their life immediately because of what Christ accomplished for
them. Salvation is of the Lord. And this kind of life can only
be given by God, the creator. God gives eternal life to his
people through the death of his son. That's how spiritual life
is accomplished. All right, second, I want us
to see this. The certainty of spiritual life in Christ. Verse
nine. Shall I bring to the birth and
not cause to bring forth, saith the Lord? Shall I cause to bring
forth and shut the womb, saith thy God? Now you know exactly
what the Lord is saying in that verse. If Christ died for someone,
Is He going to let them die? If Christ died for someone, will
He not give them the new birth? Is Christ going to die for someone
and then not save them? Is Christ going to die for someone
and not give them the new birth? Why, that's the craziest thing
I have ever heard. That Christ would die for...
If He loves someone enough to die for them, He doesn't love
them enough to give them the new birth? That's the craziest
thing I've ever heard. Of course God's gonna give spiritual
life to everyone for whom Christ died. Of course He will. God
is the giver of life. He'll give life. He can't fail
in that endeavor. And besides that, God's holy.
God will never do anything unjust. If Christ died for you, it would
be unjust for God to condemn you. Justice demands you have
life. If Christ died for you, then
God's gonna give they'll give it. There can be no stillborn
children in God's family. You know, the only reason a baby
dies, we have a stillborn baby, you know, the only reason that
happens? It's because of sin. But spiritually, that can never
happen. Why? Because Christ died to remove
the sin of his people. sin, if the sin is gone, there
is no way they can be a spiritual stillborn child. All of God's
children have live births. They have live spiritual births
in the new birth. They all live because Christ
lives. Here's another way to look at
that, the stillborn baby. You know why that baby could
be stillborn? Because even in the womb, that
child Even in the womb, that child has a nature that's a sin
nature. That little baby, and sometimes
it's hard for us to conceive of this and really remember this
when we see this little baby. I'm talking even in the womb,
you see these pictures of these babies now, my goodness. But
you know, that baby is a sinner. because it was conceived by the
sinful seed of its father. So because it's a sinner, because
there's sin involved, there is a possibility that baby could
die and be stillborn. But that can never happen to
a child of God, ever. We just read it in 1 Peter, a
child of God is conceived by different seed, incorruptible
seed, sinless seed, so that child could never die. That child must
be born again, must receive full life in Christ. The incorruptible
seed has to always produce a live birth. There's no reason for
it not to. And more than that, Christ lives
to ensure the birth of all of his children. That's what Paul
said there in, I forget where he said it, but it's in, he said,
I'm confident of this very thing. I think it's Philippians. I'm
confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good
work in you, He'll perform it. He'll finish it. He'll perfect
it. So we know all of God's elect shall be saved. There's no possibility
that any of them can ever die. Their life has already been accomplished
because Christ died for them. All right. What's the church's
response to that? We say, well, that's good news. Then there's nothing for us to
do. We're just going to sit here and We don't have to do anything
because no matter what happens, all of God's people are going
to be saved. Is that our attitude? Well, of course not. That's not our attitude, first
of all, because the Lord gave us commandment. Go into all the
world and preach the gospel. And second of all, that's not
our attitude. Well, we're just setting our hands and do nothing
because we care about the lost. We care if the lost come to know
Christ and the only way they're going to come to know Christ
is if somebody preaches the gospel to them. We pray for them. We desire to preach the gospel
to them. That brings me to my third point. I want us to see
this. I want us to see how the new
birth is applied. Now you might have been wondering
about this. But that's what we read. Before the church did anything,
before the church travailed at all, God's elect, their life
was accomplished through the death of Christ. But when we
read that, the church does still travail, doesn't she? She travails
with birth pains. Verse seven, before she travailed,
she brought forth. Before her pain came, she was
delivered of a man child. The travail still came. The pain
still came, didn't it? You see, the new birth is applied
to the hearts of God's elect. The new birth is applied to everyone
that Christ died for when the church travails in birth pains.
Look here at the end of verse 8. For as soon as Zion travailed,
she brought forth her children. See, the church is going to travail. Well, how does the church travail
in birth pains? How do we travail in birth pains
for the lost who will come to know Christ? Now, especially
you ladies, I want you to listen to me very carefully here. I'm
getting ready to talk about something that I don't know about, and
I'm going to openly tell you I don't know anything about this.
I'm a man. And since I'm a man, I don't
know nothing about birthing no babies. I don't know anything
about it. I don't know what pain, what you went through when you
went through the valley of the shadow of death, the pain you
went through to bring your children into this world. Now, I've seen
a little bit of it. And from what I've seen of it,
I tell you, this is my deduction. Young men, remember this. It
makes me glad I'm a man. You all can have it. I'm glad about that. So I don't
know about the pain that you went through to bring your children
into this world. I don't have to fully understand
that pain to understand this analogy. I'll tell you what I
do know something about. I know something. about travail
spiritually, going through the pain and the work, seeking God's
face, seeking God's message, seeking God's instruction. So I can he give me some understanding
of his word. Seeking spiritual life for the
lost. I know something about that.
There is an earnestness. I don't know if it's the right
word is Bearing down, I hear on TV and stuff, women giving
birth, they say, all right, bear down now, you know. I know something
about bearing down. I know something about this travail.
Travail in prayer. Travail begging God for mercy. Begging God for the message.
Begging God he bless his word. I know about the earnestness.
There's a physical bearing down preaching the gospel. It just
leaves you exhausted. You can't understand it. If you've
never done it, I suppose, any more than a man could understand
a woman giving birth to a child. Now, I know this. Believe me,
I'm not exalting a preacher or anything. I know nobody's going
to be saved by how well I preach. I know nobody's going to be saved
how energetically I preach. Sometimes you might feel like
I'm trying to reach in front of your throat Throw it down,
you know. Nobody's going to be saved because
I do that. We are totally dependent on the Lord always to bless His
Word in spite of us. But I'll tell you what, I still
intend to give everything I've got in studying and preaching
God's Word. God's glory deserves that. Now,
I know I can't glorify Him like He ought to, But God's glory
deserves the best effort I've got. The feeding of your souls
deserves the best effort I've got. The comfort and assurance
of your souls. The salvation of the lost deserves
the best effort I've got. And by God's grace, I'm going
to do it. Look at Galatians 4. You ladies can understand that,
don't you? When it came time to give birth,
you knew you had a job that seemed like bigger than you could do.
Boy, you went and given it your all, didn't you? That's what
this is talking about. That's what Paul's talking about
here in Galatians 4 verse 19. He says, my little children.
Now that's a term of love and affection. And look where that
love and affection came from. Of whom I travailed in birth
again until Christ be formed in me. That's how the church
prevails in giving birth, a new birth to God's people. And that
is not restricted to preachers. The whole church is involved
in this. All of us pray. All of us ask the Lord to bless
the messages that we hear, to bless the message to my heart.
Give me an understanding and believing heart. Bless the preacher
as he preaches. We all pray. and ask the Lord
to save the lost. Every person in here, without
exception, knows someone that you love that's lost. How often
do you pray for them? That's this travail I'm talking
about. The whole church travails in that. We all travail by supporting
the work, by our giving, by using the talents that God's given
you to help out. We support the work of preaching. by being here. I heard Brother
Diver say this one time. I thought this was some of the
best advice for preachers. He said, don't make people feel
like they need you. Make sure they understand you
need them. What good would I be standing here preaching if none
of y'all were here? You support this. It's helpful to me. I appreciate it. You show up
and you desire to hear a word from the Lord. It's helpful.
You support that. That's the way you support the
preaching of the gospel. I remember when Holly and Savannah
were being born, it was made abundantly clear to them, we
weren't pregnant. We weren't giving birth. Just
one of us was pregnant. Just one of us was giving birth.
And I really wasn't going to do anything to birth them babies.
But I'm going to tell you what, I sure wanted to be there when
it happened. I don't know if I was helpful
or not, but that's what was my intention. That's the way it
is for the church. We all travail together. Janet
was told me she and Peggy Moore were talking about this this
weekend. I think all women would agree with this. That when the
Lord told him in sorrow, you're going to bring forth children.
I don't think that that means that sorrow just means the actual
giving of birth and being. That sorrow and travails over.
I think, although that is certainly included, but I think it means
a continual sorrow and worry and effort. The job of a mother
is hard, unrelenting work. You with little ones, you'll
find this out. Even when they're not on your
hands anymore, they're on your heart. I think that's a lot of
what the Lord told Eve. In sorrow, you're going to bring
forth your children in difficult erasement. Well, you know, I
see the travail of the church there, too. You know, the work
of the church doesn't end when God saves a sinner. You know,
someone, Lord, save someone. We don't say, all right, fine,
you know, see ya. You know, you're out there on your own now. No,
it's our continual responsibility to feed those sheep. by preaching
the same message to them that the Lord used to save them, is
the same message we keep preaching to them, that the Lord would
feed them. Just like when the Lord gives
us babies. Well, that's not the end of the work. Now the work
starts in, and boy, you gotta feed them and clothe them, all
those things. It's our continual responsibility to feed those
babes the sincere milk of the word, that they may grow thereby,
because they've been given a good diet of good, Good preaching,
good food is fit for God's children. So we're just not going to quit
this thing of preaching until Christ returns, because this
is the only means he's given us until he returns, that he'll
save the lost and he'll feed his children, to comfort and
encourage the hearts of his people. The only way he's going to do
that is by the preaching of this word. All right, here's the fourth
thing I want us to see. I want us to see the nature that's
born in the new birth. Number one, the nature of the
new birth is rejoicing. 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. Now the person that's born
of God rejoices in Christ Jesus and has no confidence in this
place. And we have, we don't have time
to cover all the reasons we have to rejoice We rejoice in God's
undeserved love though. We didn't do anything to make
God's undeserved love. Just the opposite. But it did
anyway. Oh, I can rejoice in that. Can
we rejoice that Christ shed His blood to blot out our sin, to
make our sin not exist anymore? I believe we can rejoice in that. How about rejoicing that the
Holy Spirit came and gave us life? gave us faith, gave us
a heart to believe Christ and revealed Christ to us. We can
rejoice in that. We can rejoice in the sure salvation
that's in our Lord Jesus Christ. We just can't do anything to
lose it. Everything I hear about Christ
makes me rejoice. I like everything I ever hear
about Him. Just rejoice. But the Lord also mentions mourning
Him. He tells everyone who mourns for Jerusalem to rejoice, to
have joy for her. Now, the first thing I thought
of when I read that is, you know, everyone, everyone who mourns
over their sin is gonna rejoice in Christ. If you truly mourn
over your sin, you will rejoice in Christ. But this means, it
means more than that. There are times a believer has
good reason to mourn. Sometimes we mourn just because
we're in a bad mood. We don't look at it right or
something. But there are times a believer has genuine reason
to mourn. We see love growing cold. We see unfaithfulness. It could
be in us. It could be in others. We see
that. And when it happens, I tell you what, we ought to mourn.
I ought to mourn when I see my love growing cold. ought to mourn. If I see unfaithfulness cropping
up in me, but when that time of mourning, I tell you what
our comfort is. God is not going to allow his people to suddenly
be lost in Paris. No, he's not going to do it there.
They will not leave him, but he won't let them. Their salvation
is sure in Christ and we can rejoice in that. And maybe that'll
cause us to go back and it'll warm our love up and cause our
faithfulness to return, couldn't be. But that's the nature of
the new birth. It's nature of rejoicing. Second,
the nature of the new birth is spiritual life that feeds on
Christ. Verse 11, that she may suck and be satisfied with the
breast of her consolations, that she may milk out and be delighted
with the abundance of her glory. This is what we talked about
a minute ago. The role of the church is to preach the sincere
milk of the word. That's the role of the church.
So that God's babes, His people, can grow thereby. So those babes
can come and nurse on Christ. They can grow on Christ and be
fed a steady diet of the milk of the Word of God. It's the
only food fit for them. But I thought about this. A baby. Those newborn babies and they
come to nurse. There's a whole lot more going
on than just eating when a baby nurses. That's a time that baby
is comforted. You watch a baby nursing. I mean
that baby is just loving life. I mean it's just everything is
good for that baby. That baby's being held up close
to mama and as that baby nurses, he draws even closer to mama. He feels that union, that connection
with mama. Holly tells me about babies in
the NICU. One thing that they really want
to do is get it where the mama can hold that baby so that baby
can feel mama's skin, mama's touch. All the medicine that they got,
boy, they notice a change in that baby. When that baby's healthy
enough, mama can start touching that baby. There's a whole lot
more going on than just eating. That baby is being drawn close
to mama. And when we preach the gospel,
the exact same thing's going on. We're not just given facts
and figures here. We're not just given doctrinal
points, you know, to show how smart we are. Worship. And when we preach, God help
us to preach in a heart of worship. Worship is a time of consolation. When God's people are comforted.
When they're drawn closer to the Savior. Worship is a time
of a personal touch from the Savior. I heard this one time,
I don't know if it's true, but I like it. If it's not true,
don't tell me, because I kind of like thinking this. I heard
this one time, a newborn baby, you know where their eyes, there's
a distance that their eyes will focus, and it's about the difference
from their mama's breast to mama's face, so that as they nurse,
their focus is right on their mama's face. It's more than just
eating. If you've ever truly worshiped,
you know exactly what I'm talking about. True worship. You know
where your eyes focus? Right upon the face of the Savior.
That's more than eating it. It's consolation in Christ. It's
a personal touch from Him. Then thirdly, the nature of the
new birth is the nature of peace. 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 you suck. You should be born upon her sides
and be dandled upon her knees. God says, I'm going to give my
people peace, just like the song we just sung, like a deep flowing
river that won't run dry. And I really I love this illustration,
how the Lord uses how he says he comforts his people. This
is illustration of how he'll comfort his people. It's like
that mama taking that baby and she sets that baby on her hip
and goes about doing what she's got, she's got that arm around.
I remember seeing our girls, you know, Janet would scoop them
up and do something. And man, you should see the look
on their face. I mean, all was right with the
world. They're on mama's hip. They got
their arms around her just wherever. They don't care what she's doing.
They're right with her. Lord says, That's how I'm going
to comfort my people. Just put them right up next to
my side. They feel loved and they feel safe. They don't know
everything's going on, but they don't care. When you're up next
to the side of the Savior, you feel loved, safe and secure. And the Lord comforts His people
by being with them in a close, intimate way. He says it's like
a mother takes that baby and bounces that baby on her knees.
You ever watch that? Watch a baby sitting there. Everybody
might be sitting around, you know, and that mama's got the
baby. She's bouncing that baby on her knee. Man, that baby just
thinks all is right with the world. And she's just dangling
that baby on her knee. God says, that's the peace I'm
going to give my people. Just like I'm bouncing you on
my knee. Just because of a close, His close presence. And we have
His presence. And we feel like His attention.
All's right with the world, peace. And then fourthly, the nature
of the new birth is a nature that's comforted by Christ. Verse 13, as one whom his mother
comforted, so will I comfort you and you shall be comforted
in Jerusalem. Again, I like the way the Lord
illustrates this, the illustration of a mother comforting her baby.
And that's the job of God's preachers. You know, don't ever forget that.
The job of God's preachers, our Lord told us Isaiah 40, comfort
ye, comfort ye my people. But you know, a lot of us have
been with a crying baby. And then sometimes you can calm
the baby and do some, but sometimes you can't. I mean, I don't care
what you do. You cannot comfort that baby.
You can't do anything to make that baby feel good and quit
crying. And you just think, where's this
kid getting the energy and the lung power to keep crying like
this, just never stopping? And then Mama strolls in the
room. And she takes the baby. She bounces the baby. She says
something sweet in his ear. And there's silence. And you
think, why couldn't I do that? because you're not mama. It's
the presence of mama that comforts the baby. Mama speaking to the
child that comforts that baby. Look at Isaiah chapter 40. How is it that God's servants
are to comfort God's people? That's the command we've been
given. Isaiah 40 verse 1, Comfort ye my people, saith your God. Well, how are you going to do
that? by telling them about Christ. Verse two, speak ye comfortably. Speak to the heart of Jerusalem
and cry unto her, your warfare's accomplished. Your iniquity is
pardoned. For she hath received of the
Lord's hand double for all her sin. I'll tell you how we comfort
God's people. It's by pointing unto Christ.
By preaching God's word and letting God speak to his people through
the word. Just like it's mama that comforts the baby, it's
God's presence. comforts His people. It's God
speaking to the heart that comforts His people. At the end, if we
have a desire to comfort, what should we do? Preach Christ. Just preach Him. Oh, I hope that's
a lesson to you. Let's bow in prayer. Our Father, how we thank You
for this precious promise and precious picture that You have
given us of our father and his children. How we thank you for
the promise that you'll not leave your children alone. You'll come
to them. And when you come, there's perfect comfort, perfect comfort
in your presence. Father, how we thank you for
your love and your care for your people. Father, I beg of thee
that you speak to the hearts of your people through your word
this evening. Let your people go home. When
we get up tomorrow morning, let this word of comfort and assurance
of our salvation, holy in what our Lord Jesus Christ has done,
and holy in your character, your love and care for your people,
that it's sure and certain because of who you are. Cause this to
comfort our hearts. In a time of mourning and worry,
cause these things to settle us, comfort us, in our Lord Jesus
Christ. It's in his precious name we
pray and give thanks.