Let's open our Bibles again to
Isaiah chapter 51. The title of the message this
evening is, Who Shall Comfort Suffering Saints? If the Lord
has been pleased to reveal himself to you, you already know the
answer to that question. The answer to all my questions
that I ask is Christ. But let's see if the Lord will
be pleased to show us from our text, from his word this evening,
that Christ is our comfort. He's the one who will comfort
his suffering saints. I want to remind you how we looked
at this last week, how the church began its prayer in verse 9. The church prays, Awake, awake,
put on strength, O arm of the Lord. Awake as in the ancient
days and the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut
Rahab and wounded the dragon? The church knows because the
Lord has told them through the prophet that trouble and trial
are coming. It's going to be difficult. So
their prayer is, Lord, awake, reveal yourself and your strength
and save your people like you did in times past. Now I want
you to look here in verse 17, how the Lord answers his suffering
saints. They ask him to awake and he
tells them, now you awake. Verse 17, awake, awake. Stand up, O Jerusalem, which
is drunk at the hand of the Lord, the cup of his fury. Thou hast
drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling and wrung them out. Now the Lord sometimes does have
to awaken his people, doesn't he? Sometimes he wakes his people
out of a spiritual stupor. Remember that happened in the
Song of Solomon. The bride had fallen into that time of spiritual
stupor. And the Lord awoke her by sticking
his hand in the hole of the door, letting her get a sense of him
and that awoke her out of her stupor. But that's not what the
Lord's saying here. Lord's telling his people to
awake out of your despair. And believers need that sometimes,
too, don't we? To be awakened out of our despair,
because oftentimes we're in a time of suffering that can lead us
to despair. God sent word to Israel at this
time. He's going to punish the nation
Israel. He's going to send them into captivity in Babylon because
of their idolatry. Now the whole nation is going
to suffer. The nation Israel is made up of believers and unbelievers.
It's made up of unbelievers and spiritual Israel. But believers
are going to suffer right along with the unbelievers when this
happens. And doesn't that still happen today? Well, of course
it does. Our government does all the crazy
things that anybody with any sense is going to know. This
is going to bring destruction. This is bad. This is going to
bring God's wrath upon our country. And when it does, both the believer
and unbeliever are going to suffer. Both. And in the suffering of
this flesh that happens. The believer suffers right along
with the unbeliever. Believers suffer sickness, sorrow,
loss, and death the same way an unbeliever does. Look at Hebrews
chapter 12. But on top of that, the child
of God is gonna endure correction from our heavenly father, that
an unbeliever does not suffer. Hebrews chapter 12, verse six. For whom the Lord loveth, he
chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye
endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons. For what
son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? He chastens every son. But
if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, whereof
all sons are partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons. And you know what the child of
God thinks when that happens, when our heavenly Father corrects
us? We want to pout and say, that's
not fair. Our children do, you children.
Your parents correct you. You know other children don't
get corrected like you do. The rules might not be, you know,
I know how it is. And you know what you think?
Yeah, I know what you think because I was your age. I know what you
think. That's not fair. Why does my neighbor, you know,
get off easy or not? That's not fair. We grow up and we don't really
get too far from that, do we? Even the child of God thinks
It's not fair. It seems to me like God's children
suffer more than unbelievers do in this life. How is that
fair? Look at Psalm 73. It may encourage you to know
that's wrong to feel that way. But David, the man after God's
own heart, felt the same way. He thought that. Psalm 73 verse one. Truly God is good to Israel,
even to such as are of a clean heart. But as for me, my feet
were almost gone, my steps had well nigh slipped. For I was
envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
For there are no bans in their death, but their strength is
firm. They are not in trouble as other men, neither are they
plagued like other men. Therefore pride compasseth them
about as a chain, violence covereth them as a garment. Their eyes
stand out with fatness. They have more than heart could
wish. They're corrupt and speak wickedly concerning oppression.
They speak loftily. They set their mouth against
the heavens and their tongue walketh through the earth. Therefore,
his people were turned hither and waters of a full cup are
wrung out to them." Now, back in our text. This is the very
people that our Lord is speaking to here. Those that feel like
the full cup, waters of a full cup have been wrung out to them.
They have, haven't they? The child of God does suffer
correction and things that the unbeliever never suffers. You've
drunk at the hand of the Lord, the cup of his fury, and has
drunk in the drags of the cup of trembling and wrung them out.
A full cup has been wrung out to you. And the Lord tells his
people, Now you wake up. You wake up out of this despair. Stand up. He says, stand up. Don't lie down and surrender. Stand up. Stand up in faith. Don't be staggered by this trial
now. You stand in Christ. Don't try
to stand on your own. You stand in Christ. And notice
the Lord's not telling his people, wake up out of your despair because
it's not bad. He's not telling you to wake
up out of your despair because you're not being tried. No, He
says you're trying. You have drunk of the hand of
the Lord, the cup of His fury. You have suffered. You are suffering.
That suffering is real. But now remember this. This is
coming to you from the hand of your Heavenly Father, from your
Father who knows, who knows, who's got too much wisdom to
make a mistake. I corrected my children. And
I look back on it now and think, oh, there were times I made a
mistake. There were times I made a mistake. Never our heavenly
father, never. He's not gonna make a mistake.
He's corrected you. He's the one that's giving you
this cup. But read on here, verse 18. There's none to guide her
among all the sons whom she hath brought forth. Neither is there
any that taketh her by the hand of all the sons that she hath
brought up. Now we go through these dark times, we tend to
think all is lost. And we think that because our
wisdom and understanding is very, very small. And we just don't
see how can God work this for good? How is he going to bring
deliverance out of this? I just don't see it. It seems
like all is lost. And the church is thinking that
because she's described in a situation here that truly frightens me. It's something that I pray about
and I worry about every day. They're staggered by this trial
because they don't have a pastor and elders to guide them to Christ. That's why they're staggered.
They don't have other believers. They don't have brothers and
sisters around them to take them by the hand and comfort them
by taking them to Christ. Now, I would remind you of the
great, great blessing God's given you, given this congregation. He's given us a place where the
gospel is preached. He's given us a place where we
can come together and worship. And that's a blessing. You can't
go to every town and find that blessing. You got to search for
it. Not very many places, but God's
given that to us here. And I'm so thankful. Aren't you
thankful for that? And it's a great blessing when
the Lord gives us a place where the focus and the desire of the
congregation is not to have a place where we can be seen, where we
can get recognition, to not have a place we're trying to carve
out in our little sphere of influence, but where the desire is to worship
and just serve the Lord in whatever way it is he chooses to give
us to serve him. That's a blessing. It's a blessing
when everybody's not trying to clamber around and carve out
something for themselves where they get recognition. That's
a blessing. It's a blessing when the Lord gives us a family of
believers to worship with. And I would encourage all of
you, don't just be friendly and encouraging on Sundays or Wednesdays,
but do it often. Do it as an often part of life
with this people. Because you'd just be surprised
how often our brethren need a hand to steady them. Need a hand to
comfort them. Need a hand to encourage them
and lead them to Christ. Someone to just sit down with
them and talk of the Savior. And like I said, this thought
of being left without a pastor and without a place to worship
in this town, it's one of my great fears. I fear it because
I know There are times the Lord is pleased to remove the candlestick
from a town. The scripture speaks of the candlestick.
Look over Revelations chapter two. This is where he speaks
of it. When the Lord, sometimes He's
pleased to remove the pastor, the candlestick, the one who's
holding forth the light of Christ in that place. Sometimes the
Lord's pleased to remove that. I know the Lord does that in
His time because that's His will. But when he does, when the Lord
removes the candlestick from a place, the visible church,
the congregation that's made up of believers and unbelievers
alike, but the congregation that meets together in a building,
that congregation always bears responsibility when the Lord
does that, removes the candlestick. I'll show you that, Revelation
2 verse 5. Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen and
repent and do the first works. Go back and do your first works
of faith and love in Christ. Go back and do the first works
or else I'll come unto thee quickly and will remove thy candlestick
out of its place. Accept thou repent. You know, if we get resting on
our past glory and all the past blessings of the Lord, and forget
to seek Him now, forget to preach Him now, the Lord's going to
move the candlestick. Now, I know it's His will, but
the congregation bears responsibility when that happens. And that's
exactly what's happened in our text in Isaiah 51. He says here, there are no sons
to come and take you by the hand. Well, there are sons, there are
preachers, there is a congregation, but something's happened. They're
either unwilling or unable to take the church by the hand and
steady her by bringing her to Christ. They're either unable
or unwilling to do it. You know why they're unable and
unwilling to do it? Because the problem is the church
hath brought forth these sons. The church did it. The people
did it. God didn't give them birth. God didn't raise them
up. The church did it. You know, I truly, I can't tell
you how much, truly, I desire to see sinners saved. I pray
for that every single day. I pray that the Lord would save
His sheep. Now listen, I want the Lord to save them. I don't
want us to be guilty of trying to manufacture results. You know,
you can't, we will not, by God's grace, we will not try to pressure
anyone into making a profession. We won't even be guilty of trying
to influence them to do something. As the church, all we're to do
is to preach Christ. That's all we're given to do.
Preach Him. We're to preach Christ clearly,
simply, boldly, and you leave the results to the Lord. You
leave the harvest to Him. But verse 19 in our text shows
us what happens when we try to get results. These two things
are coming to thee. Who shall be sorry for thee?
Desolation and destruction and the famine and the sword. By
whom shall I comfort thee? Now two things happen, he says
here to the church and we try to produce our own results and
the Lord lets us to our way. The land is destroyed. The area
is destroyed. by desolation and destruction.
Desolation means violence. Destruction means breaking. The
land is destroyed. And secondly, individual people.
The land is destroyed and individual people die by the famine and
by the sword. When we as a church try to produce
our own results, we're going to get desolation and destruction.
We'll get violence and breaking. If we try to produce our own
results, we try to get people saved, we try to keep people
saved, we're going to get the violence of the sword. I promise
you we will. We'll spend time arguing doctrine
and position and quit preaching Christ our peace. And secondly,
what will happen is we get the breaking of the church. We'll
break the church by the rod of the law, by the rod of rules
that we lay down. and will quit binding up the
church by binding her together in Christ, in the bond of love,
in the bond of Christ. And when that happens, there'll
be a famine of the word. People are going to quit preaching
the word and people are going to starve to death. And the Lord
says, when that happens, nobody's going to feel sorry for you.
Nobody's going to come try to comfort you because they don't
care about you. All they care about is themselves.
And while all that's going on, It looks to the church like the
leaders have been taken in a net. Verse 20. Thy sons have fainted. They lie at the head of all the
streets as a wild bull in a net. They're full of the fury of the
Lord, the rebuke of thy God. You know, it looks like the leaders
are dead in the streets. You can imagine a strong bull
getting loose in a town. I've been to Mexico and seen
this several times. We'll be going through this little
play below and Cody says, oh, they're getting ready to have
a bullfight. And they got these little old sticks stuck down
in the ground. I wouldn't felt them. The fence
feels a whole lot sturdier than it looks, you know. But they
got these little old sticks and they're going to have a bullfight
in this thing. And I'm thinking, man. Looks like the bull could
just bust through that thing. Cody said, well, sometimes they
do, you know. And then they go to the men, and I'll just go
capture the bull, you know, in the town. And they just kill
it out in the town, I guess, instead of the bull ring. And
I just picture that. In my mind, this strong bull
gets loose. And Cody says, well, you know,
here it's not the strong bulls. You know, they're not very impressive
bulls. But imagine a strong bull. He gets loose in those streets,
and the men are out, and they're chasing it around. They finally
get a net over it to get that bull down on the street. and
he's fighting and he's pulling down the ground, but he's tangled
up in that net and he can't get loose. The picture here, I'll
tell you what this picture is. The church sees their leaders
become tangled in a net. They become tangled in Satan's
net. Something's happened. They've gotten their eye off
Christ. They may become entangled by the law. They may become entangled
in the trap of trying to gain personal fame and notoriety.
And when they do that, they spend time arguing and debating with
other preachers. They're so concerned about what
some other preacher says rather than just preaching Christ. And
they get so entangled in those things. They cannot get free. And when they do, when the leaders
get entangled in these things, I want to tell you who suffers.
It's the church. It's the congregation. The people
suffer. You know, it's bad enough to suffer through a trial But
it's a whole lot worse when you don't have a place where you
can go hear Christ preached, when you can go worship Him and
find some peace for your soul, when you can go be reminded of
the Savior. And if our leaders have gone
off, our preachers have gone off doing something other than
preaching Christ, and the congregation gets caught up doing something
other than seeking Christ, the Lord says, how shall I comfort
you? How are you going to be comforted?
if you've been separated from the means of comfort, which is
Christ, the preaching of Christ. Now, I hope I haven't lost you. I had to say all that to get
here. I've said all this so you see our need of this word of
comfort. Here's our word of comfort. Who
will comfort suffering saints? Christ our Savior will. I look
first at Psalm 32. I was going to just kind of quote
these, but I want you to read this for yourself from God's
Word. You'll be a whole lot more comforted reading what God says
than what I say. You know, we may have taken our
eye off the Lord, but He'll never take His eye off His people.
Psalm 32, verse 8. I will instruct thee and teach
thee in the way which thou shalt go. I will guide thee with mine
eye. What that means is I guide thee
with mine eye, mine eye shall be upon thee. He's not going
to take his eye off his people. Now look at Matthew chapter 28.
You know, there are times, and this
is what makes the trial worst and the darkest, is we may not
be able to sense the presence of the Lord with us. But He's with us. He's with His
people whether we can sense it or not. He promised, I'll be
with you. Matthew 28 verse 19. Go ye therefore
and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe
all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I am with
you always, even unto the end of the world. He's with His people. One last scripture, Hebrews chapter
13. You know, we may have gotten our eye off the ball and we may
have temporarily departed from the Lord, but he has promised
he'll never forsake his people. He'll never leave his people.
Hebrews 13 verse 5. Let your conversation, let your
conduct, your walk be without covetousness, and be content
with such things as you have. For he has said, I will never
leave thee nor forsake thee, so that we may boldly say the
Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto
me. What do I care what material
things I have if the Lord has promised he'll never leave me
nor forsake me? He'll never forsake his people.
You see, our comfort is Christ. And the reason that God will
never forsake his people is he forsook Christ our substitute
at Calvary. The reason God always looks upon
his people with favor is because he turned his wrath for our sin
upon Christ our substitute. So he always looks at his people
with favor. See if that's not what our text
says. Isaiah 51 verse 21. Therefore hear now this thou
afflicted, and drunken but not with wine, Now this is God's
word of comfort to his suffering saints. They're not drunk with
wine. They're drunk with this cup of
trial. This cup of suffering has staggered them. Just like
drinking too much wine will make a man staggered. They're staggered
with this thing. And God has word of comfort to
his suffering saints. Now you listen to God's word
of comfort to his people. Verse 22. Thus saith thy Lord,
the Lord. and thy God that pleaded the
cause of his people. Behold, I have taken out of thine
hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury,
and thou shalt no more drink it again. Now this is God's word
of comfort. Child of God, do you need comfort? Listen to
our God here speak comfort to the hearts of his people. There's somebody pleading for
you. Somebody's pleading for you in
heaven itself. It's not your mama. A whole lot
better than that. It's not a man with his collar
turned around backwards. A whole lot better than that.
It's not Mary, the mother of our Lord. A whole lot better
than that. Who's pleading our case? God Himself. in the person of His Son. Our
Lord Jesus Christ is pleading the case of His people. Mike, if Christ is pleading your
case, you reckon it's alright? It's going to turn out alright,
isn't it? It's Christ Himself pleading our case. At first,
there's comfort here in this. There's comfort in our relationship
with the One who's pleading for us. He says here, thy Lord, thy
God, thy Lord, who is the Lord, thy God, who is the God is pleading
your case. The God of heaven and earth is
your God. He's yours. He's yours because
he made you his in divine election. He chose you. Wayne is never
going to cast you out. Never is he going to un-choose
you. He chose you, made you his. He's never going to cast you
out. God Almighty is your God. Luke, he's your God. Because
he bought you with the blood of his son. Now you write this
down. He's not going to pay the price
and cast you out. Never. He's never going to pay the price
and let you perish. He's your God. Almighty God is
your God because he's joined himself to you in the person
of his spirit. When a believer is born again,
the spirit of Christ dwells in our heart. You're the temple
of God because his spirit dwells in your heart. He doesn't let
you perish. He doesn't let his temple perish.
There's comfort because of our relationship with the one who's
pleading for us. And there's comfort. because
of the sacrifice Christ bleeds. Now it's true, every believer
drinks a cup of suffering. It's a cup of trial, a cup of
affliction, a cup of correction. But that's nothing compared to
what we deserve because of our sin. A believer's corrected,
but a believer's never punished for our sin, ever. Because our
substitute was already punished for us. The cup that we deserve
for our sin is called a cup of trembling. Not only does that
cup cause you and me to tremble, that cup caused the Son of God
to tremble. That cup caused the Son of God
to reel to and fro because God's wrath against sin is so great,
it's a cup of trembling. The cup that we deserve for our
sin is the cup of God's fury, the white hot holy fury of the
Almighty against sin. And you and I can never drink
that cup dry. We can never satisfy that fury. It's a cup that never
ends if we try to drink it dry. So
in order to comfort his suffering saints, Christ our Savior reminds
his people that he has taken that cup of God's fury. He's
taken that cup of trembling against our sin and He Himself drank
it dry. He went down to the very bottom
dregs of that cup, the place where it tastes the worst. He
drank those dregs dry as the Savior of His people. So, when
our Savior pleads the cause of His people before the bar of
God's justice, what does He plead? He pleads for justice. He pleads
that justice be satisfied by his sacrifice. That's what this
table represents. He pleads his body broken for
our sin, the sin of his people. He pleads his blood to be shed
to pay for the sins of his people. He pleads for justice. Well,
if justice is satisfied, the sinner must go free. The prisoner's got to go free
because the debt's been paid. Justice has been satisfied through
the sacrifice of the Savior. But not only does Christ plead
in the court of God's justice, He also pleads with His people
in the court of their conscience. And when Christ pleads with His
people in the court of their conscience, He comforts them
in the same way He pleads before the Father. He pleads His blood. He pleads his sacrifice. He pleads
his righteousness and his obedience. He reminds us of everything that
he is. And then there's peace because
the conscience is clear. If Christ died for me, why would
my conscience ever bother me? If Christ paid the debt I owe,
why would my conscience ever bother me? If Christ has made
me righteous in His obedience, my conscience can never bother
me. Because He took the sin away. The only thing that caused my
conscience to bother me is sin. Well, if Christ died for me,
there's not one thing that caused my conscience not to be clear.
Because Christ took my sin away. He put it away through His sacrifice
that this table represents. And you suffer now. I know. You
suffer now. But if Christ died for you, He
drank that cup of God's wrath dry so that you'll never taste
even a single drop of it. Instead, even though you're suffering
now, He won't tell you what lies ahead for you who believe. Eternal
bliss. And that eternal bliss is not
an eternal vacation. It's the bliss, Bliss we can't
imagine while we're trapped in these bodies. Bliss. Being with our Savior. To see Him face to face. I'm
convinced if there's streets of gold, I'll never know it.
How can you look at the street when you look at the Savior face
to face? Eternal bliss. And in glory. There'll be no
more suffering for God's people. Every enemy that ever made you
suffer on this life, every enemy that ever afflicted you, God's
going to put it away where it will never harm you again. The
enemy of sin will be no more. There's going to be no more sorrow.
There's going to be no more tears. There's going to be no more worry.
There's going to be no more anguish, no more pain, no more sickness,
no more loneliness, no more goodbyes. Sin's gone and everything that
it causes will never cause you to suffer again. And every person
who afflicted God's church, unless God broke them like he did Saul
of Tarsus, unless those who have never bowed to Christ, they're
going to be damned to hell. Well, they'll never harm God's
people again. Verse 23, I'll put it into the
hand, I'll take that cup and I'll put it into the hand of
them that afflict thee, which have said to thy soul, bow down
that we may go over and thou has laid thy body as the ground
and as the street to them that went over. They told you just
bow down, lay down and they've walked all over you. And that
I know. That's troublesome. That's just,
there's no way to say it. It just, it causes pain and torment
now. But one day that's coming to
an end. And God's people are going to enjoy eternal bliss.
And those others that walked all over them are going to be
given an eternal cup of trembling and fury. And God's elect will
be delivered from that for one reason, one reason. the Lord Jesus Christ. He paid
the debt. We're chosen in Him. We're redeemed
by His sacrifice. We're made righteous through
His obedience. We're given life in the new birth by His Spirit.
And we've been kept safe and brought all the way to glory
through every danger, toil, and snare by the power of our Lord
Jesus Christ. And that ought to comfort our
hearts. That comforted my heart as I looked over these verses
this week. I hadn't told you anything I'd
heard before, have I? But we've got to be reminded.
We've got to be comforted again. Come back Sunday, we'll need
to be reminded again. And I'll tell you a reason we
need to be reminded. When these bodies of sin, when
they suffer pain and sorrow and worry, we tend to forget how
temporary these things are. We really do. I'm not saying
the suffering doesn't hurt and it's not real. It is. But when
these bodies sorrow and they're in pain, we tend to forget how
temporary these things are and how eternal redemption in Christ
really is. So when we're reminded of Christ,
that's the preaching of the gospel. It's reminding you what you've
already heard. When we're reminded of Christ, we're comforted, aren't
we? And as I began looking here at
the text Monday, thinking about being reminded again of Him,
and that's our comfort, I thought, well, this would be a good time
to observe the Lord's table. The Lord's table is a special time
of worship for the church, isn't it? Because when we observe this
table, we're reminded. We're reminded again of our Savior. He said, this do in remembrance
of me. And this table's for believers.
It's for those who can remember him. You gotta know him to remember
him. You have to have seen his sacrifice for you in order to
remember him. This table's for believers. And
when we take this bread and this wine, the picture of the broken
body and the shed blood of our Savior, we're reminded of his
great love for his people. Oh, he must love his people.
Look what he suffered to redeem them. Oh, he must love his people.
Does his love comfort your heart? It does mine. We take this bread
and this wine, we're reminded of the sufficiency of His sacrifice. There's absolutely no way I can
perish if Christ died for me. If His body was broken for me,
His blood was shed for me, it's impossible for me to ever perish
because He put my sin away forever. And when I'm reminded of that,
oh, I come from my heart just burst in worship. Thanksgiving
for Christ who shall comfort his people. All right, Wayne,
you men distribute the bread, if you would.