Isaiah 40:1 Comfort you, comfort you my people, said your God. It was once said by Vinet, that the three great objects of the preacher were the illumination, consolation, and regeneration of men. The work of comforting is surely an important one, but it is God's people .whom we are to comfort. We are not to say, Peace, peace! where there is no peace. Stoical indifference is not real comfort, but peace alone is found in God. I. Notice what a discovery is made in the text of GOD'S NATURE. He has not hidden away from men; He is not asleep or tied down by law, but His tender mercies are over all His works. He is near to every one of us, seeking our love and confidence. II. HUMAN SOULS NEED COMFORT. Constitutional characteristics render us susceptible to consolatory truths. Even those hardened in sin have been melted by a woman's tears, or have yielded to the persuasiveness of a child. III. Look at the GROUNDS ON WHICH THIS COMFORT IS ADMINISTERED. Not those of philosophy. When the Greeks, under Xenophon, caught sight of the Euxine, they jubilantly cried, "The sea, the sea!" The discoveries of Divine grace — a sea without a bottom or a shore — elicit profounder joy. (G. Norcross, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. |
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