Isaiah 40:1 Comfort you, comfort you my people, said your God. There are ministries in the world. 1. There is the Divine ministry of instruction. In this ministry nature, history, and the Bible are constantly employed. 2. There is the Divine ministry of Justice. Nemesis is always and everywhere at work, treading on the heels of wrong, and inflicting penalties. 3. In the text we have the Divine ministry of comfort. The words suggest three thoughts concerning this ministry. I. It implies the existence of DISTRESS. Bright and fair as the material world often appears, a sea of sorrow rolls through human souls The distress is of various kinds. 1. Physical suffering. 2. Social bereavement. 3. Secular anxieties. 4. Moral compunction. II. It implies the existence of SPECIAL MEANS. All this distress is an abnormal state of things. Misery is not an institution of nature, and the creation of God, but the production of the creature. To meet this abnormal state something more than natural instrumentality is required. 1. There must be special provisions. Those provisions are to be found in the Gospel. To the physically afflicted there are presented considerations fitted to energise the soul, endow it with magnanimity, fill it with sentiments and hopes that will raise it, if not above the sense of physical suffering, above its depressing influence. To the socially, bereaved it brings the glorious doctrine of a future life. To the secularly distressed it unfolds the doctrine of eternal providence. In secular disappointments and anxieties it says, "Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of these things." 2. There must be special agency. A physician may know the disease of his patient, but if he does not know the precise mode of application he will not succeed. So it is with the Gospel. A man to give comfort to another requires a special qualification. The comforting elements must be administered — (1) Not officially, but humanly. (2) Not verbosely, but sympathetically. III. It implies a LIMITED SPHERE. "My people." The whole human family is in distress, but there is only a certain class qualified to receive comfort, those who are here called God's "people," and who are they? Those who have surrendered themselves to His will, yielded to His claims, and dedicated themselves to His service. (D. Thomas, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. |
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