Isaiah 40:1 Comfort you, comfort you my people, said your God. I. THE SPEAKER. It is the God of comfort, the God of all comfort that here speaks comfortably to His people. There is a danger of our thinking too much of comfort, and one may only value the word preached as it administers comfort; this is a great error, because all Scripture is profitable for doctrine, and reproof, as well as for comfort. One great end which even the Scriptures have in view, is not only to lead us to patience in suffering, but to comfort us under suffering. It is one thing for man to speak comfort, it is another thing for God to speak comfort. II. THE PERSONS THAT ARE HERE SPOKEN TO. "Comfort ye, comfort ye My people." 1. The Lord has a people upon earth — He has never been without a people. 2. The Lord has a people; and if He has a people He will try them, and they shall not be found summer flies just resting on the surface of things, but they shall be found to be those that know the truth in the power of it, and they shall be made to feel and experience the worth of it. It shall not be enough for them to say, I am a sinner, but they shall feel the wretchedness of being a sinner, they shall not only confess that Christ is precious, but they shall be placed where they shall know Him to be precious. 3. The Lord has a people; and it is a most blessed consideration to reflect that while He has a people, He is their God. Talk not of your wretchedness and your poverty and your disease, of your weakness; if God be your God, not only heaven is your home, but you have that without which heaven would not be worth the having. 4. God has a people; no wonder then He comforts them — His eye is upon them from the beginning to the end of the year. They are the salt of the earth to Him, and he that touches them touches the apple of His eye. III. THE LORD'S MESSAGE UNTO HIS MINISTERS. "Comfort ye," etc. The-great cause of comfort to a child of God may be summed up in a little sentence — through eternity he never shall come to the close of it. Let me point out some few of those great mercies that flow to a child of God in consequence of his having Christ as his portion. 1. He has that which made David glad (Psalm 32:1, 2). The great contest Satan has with our consciences is about the pardon of our sins. Well might the people of God then be comforted by this truth, that their sins have all been blotted out as a cloud. 2. Do you ask for another ground of comfort? See it in a covenant, ordered in all things (2 Samuel 23:5). 3. But the Psalmist found another source of comfort. "It is good for me to draw near to God" (Psalm 73.). There is no mercy on earth greater than to have a God in heaven, to have an Intercessor at the right hand; to have the heart of God; to have the promise of God: to have Jehovah Himself as my portion. 4. One comfort more is the bright prospect that is before the child of God. (J. H. Evans, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. |
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