The God of All Comfort

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much. And hello again radio friends, how in the world are you? You doing alright today? Well, I trust things are going well at your house. I’m happy in the Lord, thanks for being there on the listening end. Wonderful how the Lord puts us together, isn’t it? I get letters from people who say, “I’ve never seen you but I just sort of feel like I know you.” Well, of course, I give myself away on these broadcasts, don’t I? I like it, I like it that way. I like to feel as though you are my friend, you know you are.

Well, I wanted just to review momentarily what we said the last time we got together, about this matter of helping other people grow up in Christ. He said, “I want to present every person perfect.” That means grown up, mature in Christ Jesus. How do you work at helping another person grow up in Christ? First you pray for him and with him. Pray for him, get under the burden of his or her need, and then spend time with the person in helping your friend to learn how to pray and lay hold of God for himself. Pray for him and with him.

Certainly, you want to love and accept him not as he ought to be, but as he is. I use the masculine pronoun here in the generic sense. When I say “him” I mean him or her or them, you understand me? So you love and accept the person. How many times advice and counsel is wasted because the recipient feels as though he is being talked down to, as we say?

And then another thing was be long on example and short on preaching. People don’t remember your lectures, they remember you. Be long on example, short on preaching. Follow-up on significant problem areas. Jim or Hazel or Mary, whatever the case may be, “You had a problem with this or that or the other the last time we talked and we prayed about it. How is the Lord working in your life in that area?” You follow-up on significant problem areas. Make sure that your own life is full of God’s Spirit because more rubs off from you than you realize.

Now another thing that we didn’t cover, and this is just a new thought, in the same line, how do you work at helping other people grow up in Christ, he said, “I labor striving according to his working which worketh in me mightily.” How do you work at helping another person grow? You get him into the Bible, into the Word. The Navigators system of topical bible memory, and other systems they have of categorizing spiritual truths, is very helpful along this line. There’s so many different things you can find in your Christian bookstore and by correspondence with various publishers that will be helpful in getting a person into Bible study, feeding on the Word for himself.

I asked Stephen Olford, who for many years was the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in New York City, and before that was acquainted with us in the beginning days of Youth For Christ. In the early 1940s he came over from Great Britain and held some meetings here and there, and we became acquainted. And it was in those days that I asked him. I said Stephen, “Tell me how you maintain your own soul? How do you feed on the Word?”

“Oh,” he said, “stay with a given portion of Scripture until it says something to you. Not a sermon outline, not something that you grind out, but stay with the portion and pray over it until it says something to you. Then write that down and then pray it back to God until your own heart is warm with the truth that God has given you, and then share it with someone as soon as you can that very day.” That was his answer to my question.

I incorporated that in my little book, “Now That I Believe”, which God has used across the world for new converts. And it certainly does work, friends. Get your friend into the Word of God, get him or her feeding on the Word. Not just reading it, not just studying it, not just piling loads of… As Vance Havner says, “Loads of learned lumber in their heads.” Not that, but to feed on it until it becomes part of one’s life.

And then introduce your friend to Christian fellowship. It’s amazing how incredibly lonely most people are even in crowds. And we need other people, we need people to care about us, and we need people to be friends with us, and we need people to counsel us as well. And so, introduce this person whom you’re trying to help him grow up in Christ, introduce him to Christian fellowship in church and in other Christian associations.

And then the last thing I’ll mention in this layout of truth is introduce your friend to opportunities for Christian service. Get him with a group that goes to a rescue mission, or get him interested in teaching a Sunday school class or whatever it may be, but get the person to work for the Lord. It’s deadly just to sit around and sing yourself into sanctified bliss, that’s the way to die off spiritually. You need to work. And so, introduce your friend to opportunities for Christian fellowship and Christian service. You have to work at that. Paul says, “I work at it.” You and I can do no less.

Now he said, “I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you.” I got at this momentarily, the last time we got together. The minute you start being interested in somebody else’s spiritual welfare, that moment you’re going to experience the beginning of opposition from Satan. The devil doesn’t want other people blessed, he doesn’t want them to grow in Christ, he doesn’t want them to become effective witnesses, and so you’ll find opposition.

He says, “I have great conflict in prayer for you, and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face.” Make up your mind that you’re in a battle. Paul said, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. So take unto you the whole armor of God.” Get ready for the battle.

You’re in a battle. This is not a picnic. You have an enemy who has sworn to defeat you, and so because that’s true, face the fact and then realize that Jesus, our blessed Lord, has already won the victory. And He triumphed over principalities and powers at the cross, thank God for that. So face the battle, but face it in faith, in the living victorious Lord. Thanks be unto God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Okay?

Then another thing, this is all review, but somebody needs it because you didn’t hear it the last time, right? Paul was specific, he said, “I’m praying for you and for people at Laodicea and even for folk whom I haven’t met about whom I know.” Be specific in your praying. Don’t say, “Lord bless me, but… ” Or, “Bless John or Mary,” or whatever, but be specific about it and God will answer your prayer.

Remember Billy McCarroll’s saying, “You get definite with God, He’ll get definite with you.” Now, what is it that Paul is praying for? We’re going to Colossians 2:2 now. He says, “I’m praying that their hearts might be comforted being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

That’s quite a mouthful, isn’t it? Well, what are we gonna say about it? What does it say to us? Let’s look at it. And he says, “I’m praying that their hearts might be comforted being knit together in love.” What is the source of divine comfort? Well, it’s a person. “As one whom his mother comforteth so will I comfort you,” says the ancient prophet.

Their hearts might be comforted. Not just a doctrine, not just a theological position, but a person who fills a personal need. He’s the God of all comfort. “In that day thou shall say, Oh Lord, I will praise thee thou wast angry thine anger is turned away and though comfortest me. The Lord shall comfort Zion, he will comfort all her waste places. As one whom his mother comforteth so will I comfort you,” says Isaiah.

“Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort who comforteth us in all our tribulations, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.” Oh comforted. What is it? A person, a relationship with a wonderful person is the basis of comfort.

Now, how do you apply that? Well, somebody listening to me today has been through the deep bitter waters of sorrow. And someone who was the light of your life is gone now, and there’s that vast emptiness. It’s a combination of emptiness and hurt and rage and perplexity. “Why did this have to happen?”, and all of that. And all of the words of a well-meaning preacher and all of the sympathy of your friends, though you appreciate it, doesn’t quite reach to the place in your heart where you’re hurting so badly, isn’t it true? What’s the answer to it?

Oh spend a little time in the presence of your loving heavenly Father. Let Him put his arms around you, let Him hold you close to His great heart of love. And let Him say to you as He said through Isaiah, “As one whom his mother comforteth so will I comfort you.” That their hearts might be comforted. The presence and the touch of God in your life will make the difference, beloved. That’s why it’s so important to spend some time with the Lord and to be absolutely honest with Him. Tell Him when you’re hurting and tell Him when you’re down and tell Him when you’re discouraged. And share with Him as well, on the other hand, the times when you’re happy. You have to be honest with God, and get into His presence day-by-day so that He can comfort you.

Oh the delight of knowing the touch of God on your heart right where it hurts. When I was a little boy, it seemed that I couldn’t go outside without falling down. I guess I wasn’t too well coordinated. But how often I would come with a skin knee from having fallen somewhere, or abrasions on my hand where I hit the pavement trying to keep myself from falling too hard, and I’d come crying to my father and he would take me on his knee and he would touch that place that hurts so bad and say, “I know. I understand.” And somehow I felt better because of his touch.

You’ll have the same experience with your loving Heavenly Father, beloved, if you’ll just get alone with Him and let Him comfort you. The next time we get together, we’ll talk about being knit together in love, and so on. Oh I trust that somebody who’s been hurting will turn this very moment to that loving Heavenly Father who wants to comfort you, so that you in turn can comfort other people.

Dear Father, comfort us today with Thy tender touch in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!