We'll read verses one and two.
The title of my message tonight is Purposed Comfort. Purposed Comfort. If you were here on Sunday afternoon
a couple weeks ago, Jonathan preached from this text. Comfort
ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably
to Jerusalem and cry unto her. that her warfare is accomplished,
that her iniquity is pardoned, for she hath received of the
Lord's hand double for all her sins. Let us pray. Our Father,
we bless you and thank you that as we read these words, written
to Jerusalem at the time when they would soon be taken into
captivity by Babylon, that our Lord comforted them concerning
their sins. Comforted them concerning the
warfare that they had. Comforted them concerning their
iniquity. Bless you, Father, as we face this world and our
sins overwhelm us. And as we feel the darkness within
our own hearts, that we need not turn to any
other place than to Jesus Christ. or to know that He has accomplished
our salvation, that He loved us and gave Himself for us, that He loves us yet and orders
our steps and indeed works all things for good. We bless you,
Father, and thank you for that. We pray for those of our congregation
who are sick and going through different trials and tribulations
and sorrows of heart, emotional upheavals. Whatever the case,
we know that you know your children and you've known them since from
all eternity. And what comes their way is according to your
plan and purpose and by your goodwill. And we do bow and thank
you that you would even consider us. that you would be mindful
of us. For we know what we are by nature,
and we're thankful for what we are by grace. Help us, Lord,
tonight to worship you in spirit and in truth. Enable us by your
grace to worship you. Bow us down and cause us to consider
what is before us. We pray in Christ's holy and
precious name. Amen. Now we have in this book of Isaiah that the promise of the coming
of the Messiah, the preaching of the gospel, and the approaching
captivity were all elements of what Isaiah taught to his people.
They're approaching captivity because of their sin and their
idolatry and rebellion against God. Our Lord will send Babylon
to them to take them captive. He will cause Babylon to hold
them until he causes a king of the Medes named Cyrus to deliver
them. This is the Lord's doing from start to finish. This is
not the Lord being caught off guard by the murmuring and disobedience
of Israel, but he knows Israel and he knows you and I as true
Israel, the Israel of God. This is a prevalent theme throughout
Scripture, throughout this teaching, beginning in chapter 1, when
he told Israel that he was going to dispose of them. But he said,
except for that remnant according to the election of grace. In
chapter 2, he talked about the raising up of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Chapter 3, he said, he told them that he was going to
take away the stay and the hope of all they had, and leave with
them a bunch of children to rule them, foolish people, and it
would be a time when the children would not respect their elders,
and their ancestors would be disregarded, and he would have
nothing to do with them. But then he finished those sayings
with saying, but tell the righteous, it shall be well with him. And
that's the way it's been all the way through this book. We
see that Israel has been charged with their sin, and yet we see
the mercy and grace of God over and over again. You see, the
captivity of Israel is a sure result of their idolatry. And
though under the old covenant it was punishment, it pictured
the chastisement of the Lord's people when they go astray. Israel
as a whole was on the road to dissolution. But there was a
remnant, according to the election of grace. That remnant would
hear, that remnant would take heed, that remnant would take
to heart the promise. of the coming of the Messiah,
the Lord Jesus Christ. They indeed believed a virgin
would conceive and bring forth a son who would be God with us. They believed a virgin would
conceive and a child would be born and a son would be given
who would rule the people and his name would be Wonderful Counselor,
the Everlasting Father, the Mighty God, the Prince of Peace. To these people alone, the elect
remnant, the words of the Lord here are true, and they are true
comfort, though they were spoken on the eve of the impending Babylonian
captivity. This, our last chapter, chapter
39, ended with the fact that God told Hezekiah, Babylon's
going to take away everything you showed them. Babylon's coming
in. Chapter 39 and verse 60 says,
Behold, the day has come. that all that is in thy house,
and that which thy fathers have laid up in store till this day,
shall be carried away to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, saith
the Lord." Nothing shall be left. So the words of comfort here
precede the captivity that they're going to be going into. They
precede the impending doom that this nation faces and the struggle
that they're going to have as they spend many, many years in
captivity to Babylon. So God comforts His people before
He sends them into captivity here. It's a wondrous thing. And His words are comfort to
His people, to His people. For the believer who is under
the new covenant, not the old covenant, the believer, these
are the promises of the gospel and they are yea and they are
amen in the Lord Jesus Christ. And every one of us goes astray.
That's not, you know, some people say, well if I sin. Don't say
that, because you will. Just say when. Because you're
going to. You're going to. It's not an excuse. There's no
excuse for it. We're guilty of it when we do
it. When we sin, we're guilty of sinning. But that's going
to happen. All of us are going astray and
each one of us at times will go in our own way. And in our
hearts we know that the Lord wondrously has laid on him the
iniquity of Saul." That is a wondrous thing. It is a wondrous thing. We cannot keep ourselves. We
know that. We are kept by the power of God.
And as soon as our hearts and minds drift from a look at the
Lord Jesus Christ, the process of bringing us home begins. As soon as we look away, God
begins bringing us home. Immediately. And the sure end
of being brought to Christ will be brought to sit at His feet
to learn what we are and who He is. The life of a believer
is one of sin and failure, captivity and rescue, and all by the grace
of God. Nothing happens to you by chance. Nothing has ever occurred to
God. Nothing surprises God. And you will be what you will
be. With your mind you will serve the law of God. With your flesh
you will serve the law of sin and death until the day that
you die. So the command of the Lord to the prophet and spiritually
to the preacher of the gospel, the pastor of the church is sure
and plain and the message is likewise. It is sure and plain.
Don't be deceived. Don't be deceived. The sin of
the believer, the sin against light, is as if not more so deserving
of eternal damnation than the sin of the profligate. Perhaps
it's even more deserving because the Spirit has taught the believer
the just penalty for sin. And all he has to do is to look
to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ to see how God feels about
sin. And it is no wonder that the believer, when his sin is
disclosed, is ashamed and embarrassed about it. Yet when we fail and
falter, the word of the Lord to the pastor is not to beat
us up, not to call us out. The word
to the pastor is this, saying to my people, be comfortable. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,
thus saith the Lord. The law says punish. The law
says rake them over the coals. Legalistic religion will do that.
Legalistic religion will skin the hides and shear the sheep.
That's what they do. They whip them with a stick because
you can't lead a goat, you have to drive a goat. You can only
lead a sheep. But the word of the Lord is this.
Consider this in light of ourselves, in light of our sin against the
light that we have. God says, comfort you, my people. That's my job. My job ain't to
wreck you over the cold. My job ain't to give you a hard
time. Now, my job is not to avoid the fact that we're sinners and
to set it forth as the scripture does and tell the truth about
it. My job is to, in the light of that fact, in the light that
we may yet go into captivity to our own flesh, and probably
will, I'm to comfort you. with the grace of God, with the
word of God. Comfort ye my people, saith your
God. That's the first verse. Now,
if the command is to comfort, then their discomfort is presupposed. God would not tell his prophet
to comfort his people if they were already comfortable. Evidently,
they're uncomfortable, so he tells his prophet to comfort
them, his preacher. There is no indication that in
the throes of their sin and disobedience they were uncomfortable. Read
about Israel. They weren't uncomfortable in
what they were doing when they were falling down and worshiping Baal.
They weren't uncomfortable in that. They weren't uncomfortable
when they went to the groves and the high places. They weren't
uncomfortable when they mocked God. They weren't uncomfortable
when they would not listen to the prophet. They weren't uncomfortable
at all. Life was good. They were in the
throes of their sin. And I'm saying this to you. I
read a thing online the other day. One of my cousins actually
wrote that when believers sin, they don't sin willfully. That's
just a lie. That's just a lie. It's sad that
we can become comfortable in our strayings from God. Human beings. lost or saved. Even those saved by grace do
not often choose to do what is uncomfortable to them. Do you?
Not really. Now you may, under due rest,
choose something that makes you uncomfortable. If you're sick,
you have, like peanut, if you have a cancer, you may choose
to take some medicine that really makes you feel bad. But the goal is out there that
it'll make you feel good on the other end of it. You don't do
that freely. You do it under the duress of
the disease in order to be cured. People don't do what makes them
uncomfortable. People say, leave your comfort
zone. That's the big deal today. Leave your comfort zone. You
never leave your comfort zone. Nobody ever does. Unless you're
forced out of it by some outside force of duress. You simply don't.
If you are in sin, if you are looking away from Christ, I'm
telling you right now, you're comfortable there. or you wouldn't
be doing it. That makes sense? That makes
sense? Of course it does, because it's
true. All our sin is willing. It's willingly done. And while
in pursuit of our desires, our hearts are not discomforted in
that practice. Why then is the instruction of
the Lord to comfort His people? The command comes with their
sin, or rather, the command comes because it is of the Lord, that
has created the discomfort. They were comfortable where they
were. Now they're uncomfortable. Why? The Lord has created the
discomfort. What did he do? I'm going to
put you in captivity. You're going into a land of a
people of you who don't know and don't know me and don't care
about me. Who don't care about your God. You're going to lose
everything you have. He makes them uncomfortable. And then
he cries to his preacher. Comfort them. Comfort you, comfort
you, my people. He has confronted them with their
sin and shown that in the end it brings forth death and they
will become captive to the enemy. And this is every case in the
method of grace. A need is not addressed until
a need exists. Men in pulpits today are trying
their best to convince people that they need God and they simply
don't. They're comfortable where they are. But if God makes them
uncomfortable, you know what they'll do? They'll cry out to
God. But God's going to have to make
them uncomfortable first. I can't do it. I might tell a
sad story. I might get up here and be ugly
and try to call people out and they're saying that. I might
do that, but that's not going to do any good. It ain't going
to change nobody. Nobody's going to change until they're made
uncomfortable where they are. Hunger does not occur where nourishment
is, unless a nourishment is removed. That's when hunger occurs. Thirst
does not occur until refreshment is gone. That's when it occurs. As long as there's a glass of
water, as long as we've got bottled water on our shelves over there,
as long as there's a bottle of water, I don't get thirsty, and that'll
help. But let all the wells dry up,
and all the water go away, and I guarantee y'all won't want
water. And I'll want it at any cost, whatever it takes me to
get it. And these people weren't uncomfortable in all their years
of idolatry and all the falsehood in which they practiced. They
weren't uncomfortable until the Lord made them uncomfortable. It was the Lord who closed Hannah's
womb. You remember that? Hannah prayed
that the Lord would open her womb and give her sons. He said,
if you'll give me a son, I'll give him back to you. He gave
her Samuel. Why did she pray for the Lord
to open her womb? Because the scripture says prior
to that the Lord had closed her womb. Made her uncomfortable in her
barrenness. Also used her husband's other wife who teased her and
mocked her because she didn't have any children. Make her uncomfortable.
What did that uncomfortable do? Made her call out on God. Made
her call on God. And God had a message for her.
You're going to have a baby. He opened up her womb and gave
her Samuel. She became one of the greatest prophets of the
Old Testament. It was the Lord who closed her womb, and that
was the cause of her crying to the God to open it, because she
was uncomfortable in her situation. The threat of sheer captivity
troubles the mind and the heart of the people, even as if they
could hear the boots of the Babylonian army marching against them. And
this picture is the conviction by the Holy Spirit when the believer
is confronted with the manner in which he has dishonored his
Savior. And the darkness enters his bosom
that can be felt and grasp the heart and the mind. What am I
to do with such a war? What's the preacher to do? Comfort you. Well, I don't deserve
to be comforted, I know. Neither do I. But the Lord says, comfort you,
my people. The Lord said, speak comfortably to him, speak to
his heart and cry. Verse two, speak ye comfortably
to Jerusalem and cry unto her, cry unto her. That word cry means
call out, means to recite, it means to proclaim, it means to
preach to him. It means to preach to his heart.
That means his innermost being. Preach the gospel to him. Shall the preacher point out
the sin? I grew up that way. That's what they do. They bring
you before the church, bring you before a disciplinary committee
to straighten you out. Is that what we need to do? Do
I need to stand up here if I find you in fault and say, We're going
to put you up here in front of the church. We're going to have
a court. We're going to judge you. Sometimes preachers are
openly embarrassed and shame the people. I think it was old
Harry Sims one time, there was a lady sitting there, maybe Ralph
Barnard. There was a lady sitting on the front seat of the front
pew of the church. She had on a real short dress
and she was showing her underwear when she crossed her leg. Barnard
said, if you'll just close the gates of hell, I reckon I can
go ahead and preach tonight, you know. Is that what we're to do? We're to call it out. We're to
call you out. We're to have you disciplined.
We're to church you, throw you out. What are we to do? Well, the fact of sin is not
an issue. Not for a discomfited people. They know they're sinners. When
God discovers you, that's how He discovers you, by disclosing
what you've done and what you're doing. The fact of sin is known
by the offender, and it's not even in question. When our Lord
said, come let us reason together, He didn't say, let's reason whether
or not you're a sinner. Did He? In chapter 1, in verse
18, He says, come let us reason together, though you are sins. Well, wait a minute. That's not
an issue. There it is. Though your sins
be as scarlet, though they be red like crimson, that's it,
they die. They shall be like wool, and
they shall be white as snow. Sin's not an issue. If you're
a child of God, your sin will be disclosed, and He will make
you uncomfortable in it, and embarrass you, embarrass you,
and then He'll send His preacher to comfort you, to comfort you. The people are discomforted.
And the Lord is about the business of comforting them. I think of
Simon Peter, who after the Lord was risen from the grave and
Simon was ready to give up religion altogether. He said, I'm going
to fishing. And he didn't mean I was going
to go out to the lake for a few hours and try to catch a bluegill.
Peter was a fisherman by trade. Peter said, I quit this religious
business. I'm going back into the fishing business. And he
did. Went out that night and cast
his nets on Both sides of that boat and nothing was caught.
Come back empty-handed. He said, coming back to shore,
there stands the Lord Jesus Christ. What an opportunity to wreck
this fool over the coals. He said, children, do you have
any meat? Are you hungry? He knew they
hadn't caught nothing. Peter said, I've been fishing
all night and ain't caught a thing. He said, well, cast your net on that side of
the boat. And he did. And they couldn't draw the net
in. It had so many fish in it. And when they got on the shore,
the Lord made them dinner. And he took Peter off by himself
and said, Peter, do you love me? He said, yeah. Feed my sheep. Comfort my people. Do what I've just done for you.
He said that three times. Finally, Peter said, Lord, you
know I love you. He said, well, feed my sheep. Feed my sheep. The wonder of the fact that our
Lord, through the preaching of the gospel, encompasses people
by telling them of things past. Not things in the future, not
things they have to do. Things that have been addressed
and handled and finished by God Himself. The preacher's not to
say, straighten up and fly right, because you won't. The preacher's
not to lay down rules and regulations of how you live, because you
won't live by them. You'll fake it. Sure you will. People fake it all the time.
up in Iowa where the Dutch Calvinists are up there. Boy, they're tough
nuts. They're legalists. And they act like they're holy,
buddy. And you're going to walk the
line with them. You can't have a TV in your house.
Absolutely can't. Every one of them got a TV in
their house. But you can't have a TV in your house. So when the
preachers come around and the deacons come around and check
the house, you know what people do? They hang a towel over their
TV. And you know what's under that towel. The deacons know
what's under that towel. The preacher knows what's under
that towel. But he can't see that TV, so they don't have a TV.
They're all in line. What about you hypocrites? I can give you rules. I can give
you regulations. And you'll be like Paul. Before
the law, I was blameless. But he broke every one of them.
He broke every one because he said, until I learned what the
law meant, I didn't even know what sin was. Preachers not say God helps those
who help themselves. Preachers not say you take the
first step and God will take the next step. No. The preachers say Messiah has
come. Christ has come. The Savior has done his work
in the earth. And the comfort preached and
cried and called out and read and recited and proclaimed is
that God has done a thing. a wondrous thing that's marvelous
in our eyes. He says to people who are about
to go into captivity, you're already forgiven. What? You're already forgiven. I thought that was my punishment. I thought that was my chastisement.
It is, but you're already forgiven. It's not going to be held against
you. It's not going to be held against
you. He's already forgiven the sin
that was yet to be committed. One time, many years ago, I preached
at a fellow's house, and I made that statement, God has forgiven
all our sins. Christ paid for all our sins,
past, present, and future. He called me the next morning
and said, I'll never hear you again. He said, because you give people
a license to sin by saying Christ died for your future sins. If
he didn't die for them, I'm going to hell. If he didn't pay the
sin debt of my future sins, I'm going to hell. That's a fact. He's already forgiven us. Comfort
ye. Comfort ye, my people. Before
the elect remnant had gone headlong into their idolatry and disobedience,
the Lord had already forgiven them by the blood of the substitute,
both in eternal purpose as the lamb slain from the foundation
of the world and at the appointed time on the cross of Calvary.
What is the comfort? What will comfort you? Nothing
will comfort you but the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the
effectual grace of God on your behalf. That's the only thing
that will comfort you. If I give you something to do, you're going
to fail. Then you're going to get mad at me. Cry unto the MEC that their warfare
is accomplished. What? Well, we're getting ready
to go into this strange country. We're getting ready to go into
captivity. We're going to be there for 70 years. Your warfare is finished. Your
warfare is accomplished. Now we know that the believer
is in a constant state of warfare within himself, seeking to bring
all things to the obedience of Jesus Christ. And that warfare
will not end until we die and go to the grave. The warfare
that's spoken of here is the warfare of Satan against the
elect. And that was accomplished when the Lord bruised the serpent's
head. But this comfort is derived when the believer realizes that
he has never been in the battle. The battle has never really been
his, not that battle. You weren't in the battle for
the saving of your soul. You weren't in that battle. Tell
them, crying to them that warfare is accomplished, that her iniquities
pardoned, for she had received in the Lord's hand double for
all our sins. The Lord won this battle for
him, for the believer, when he had no idea that he was being
held captive by Satan. But our Lord said, here's how
Satan is cast out. Here's how the devil is cast
out by the finger of God. When a strong man holds his captives
in peace, and all his goods are his, and
his palace is in peace. A stronger than him, the mighty
God, the everlasting Father. A stronger than him, God, the
man of war. A stronger than him comes into
his palace and binds him up and takes those he holds captive
in all his spoil. That's the work of the Lord.
That's how you're saved. That's how the Lord saved you.
Comfort comes when we hear through the preached word that our iniquity
is pardoned. Does it ever just come home to
you in a sudden, you're driving down the road, all of a sudden
you think, my iniquity is taken care of. I feel so undeserving of such
grace, and I am. Couldn't deserve it. Your iniquity is pardon. We know
the word pardon in the Old Testament is an old covenant word, really.
It's not used in the New Testament. Because something else happened.
Pardon implies guilt. Gerald Ford pardoned Richard
Nixon, but everybody knew that Richard Nixon was guilty. Even
he admitted it, that he was guilty of tinkering with the investigation. He was pardoned. But we have
more than a pardon. We have a propitiation. and an expiation, so much so
that when we stand before God, we're not guilty at all. No record
of our guilt because we've been justified. But our iniquity,
notice the verb, is. State of being, it is part of. Not it can be, if you do something. Not it might be, if you work
really hard and straighten out your life, No. You're getting
ready to go into captivity. The darkness is going to overcome
you, and it will overcome you throughout your life. But your iniquity is pardoned. Sweeter words cannot be found
than that, that in the midst of our realization and disclosure
of our own iniquity, to know that it is pardoned, forgiven,
and put away. David, while his people were at war,
was sitting in the palace. He should have been out there
leading the army, but he wasn't. All the other kings were fighting,
but David was home in his palace. One day he goes up and looks
out the window, and there across the way on the roof is this gorgeous
woman, taking a bath. And he likes her. He's enamored
with her. Her name is Bathsheba. And he's
being the king, said, bring that gal to me. He already had a wife. And she was another man's wife. And he took her. And he laid with her. And he
got her pregnant. She was married to a good man.
named Uriah, the captain in his army. David told Joab, go out
and have Uriah come back. I'm going to give him a little
R&R. Now you people who have been
in the service know what that is. R&R is rest and relaxation. A little R&R from the battle.
He calls Uriah back and says, go spend some time with your
wife. The reason he wanted him to spend time with his wife so
he could blame Uriah for the pregnancy that she'd she had.
But Uriah was an honorable man. He said, no king, I'll go lay
down on my doorstep till you call me to go back into battle
because I'm a warrior and that's what I'm supposed to be. Supposed
to be fighting for the king. So he couldn't get Uriah to lay
with his wife. So he sent Uriah out and had him killed in the
battle. When the word came back that
he was killed, David said, well, you know, war is hell. That happens
in war. People get killed. David was
comfortable. He was comfortable. No indication
until Nathan, the prophet of God, showed up one day. He said, David, something terrible
has happened in your kingdom. David said, what? He said, there
was a man down the road here that had one little lamb. He
loved that lamb. It was his pet. He kept it with
him all the time. He combed it and fed it. Heck, it probably slept in the
bed with him. He loved that lamb. He said that down the road there
was this rich farmer that had thousands of lambs. And this
rich farmer decided he was going to throw a party. And that rich
farmer went and took that one lamb that that man loved. and
killed that lamb for his party rather than using the 10,000
that was already his. And David said, that man ought
not live. He ought to pay fourfold for
everything he's done. Nathan said, it's you, David. You could have had your choice
of any woman in Israel. You're the king. But you chose
the one woman that meant something to one man named Uriah. could add them all. They were
all yours to have taken. Which took her. You're the man.
Thou art the man, he said. Listen to what David said. In
2 Samuel chapter 12 verse 13. And David said unto Nathan. Suddenly
David got uncomfortable. I have sinned against the Lord. I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said to him, What?
And you're going to pay for it, bud. What did he say? Nathan said unto David, The Lord
also hath put away thy seed. Thou shalt not die. That's grace. Grace abounding to the chief
of sinners. Comfort comes when the gospel
reveals that We have received at the Lord's hand double for
all our sins. The debt paid, the sins put away,
our sins expunged and His righteousness imputed in its place. Double
for all our sins at His hand. At His hand. And so we can say,
well, if He puts His hand to it, who can turn it back? Who can turn it back? His accomplishment.
Comfort you. My people, I say unto you a bunch
of ragtag sinners I've had, and this was a ragtag sinner I feared.
You're His. Your sins are forgiven. Your
iniquities pardoned. And the Lord has given you double
for all your sins. Be comforted. Father, bless us to understand
and pray in Christ's name. Amen.