COMFORT FOR GOD'S PEOPLE
By V. S.
“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.” Isa. 40: 1, 2. In this case, as in all other inflictions of calamity, the cause may be traced back to the practice and guilt of sin. This is so, because before “comfort” can be declared, “iniquity” must be pardoned. The comfortable words, “Thy warfare is accomplished,” suggest the severe conflict through which the people of God are called to pass. But the time comes at length when they are all accomplished. Whatever secondary or subsidiary scenes of oppression and rescue this language may refer to, such as the deliverance from Egypt, the restoration from the captivity of Babylon, etc., it certainly reaches over to the end of the last conflict the believer has with the world, the flesh, and the devil, the final blotting out of sin, and the opening of that auspicious hour when he can look back upon the whole host of59his enemies, all vanquished by the blood of the Lamb and the word of his testimony, and he can change the helmet, shield, and breastplate of the Church militant, for the white robes and waving palm plumes of the Church triumphant. So this promise stands a rallying-point of courage and good cheer, all the way along his pilgrimage to the holy city, till the victory is won. Yea, we may even now, to some extent, anticipate the hour of triumph; for our great Captain has ascended a conqueror from the ramparts of death; and this is the word He hands back to us: “Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” The last clause of verse 2 can hardly be taken as a literal declaration, indicating that the Lord has suffered His Church to remain in the furnace of affliction till double the amount of trial necessary for her chastisement and purification had been endured; but rather that this experience had been endured in ample measure to accomplish all its designs, and had been successfully borne, so that nothing more in that line need be expected. Verses 3 and 4 are applied, in the New Testament, to the proclamation of the gospel, and bring to view the influence and agencies made use of by the Church to facilitate the advancement of the work of the Lord in the earth, and by the Lord to prepare the way for the advancements and triumphs of His cause over the obstacles thrown up by men to hinder or overthrow its progress. Verse 5 carries us forward again to the ultimate results of the gospel and its work, when all flesh shall see the glory of the Lord. “The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: the grass withereth, the flower fadeth; because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand forever.” Verses 6-8. These are commonplace truths—that all flesh is grass, and that the grass withereth, and the flower fadeth. Nobody thinks of denying them; and we may wonder why there is such a solemn summons to the proclamation of something that is so well understood, and so readily and universally admitted. But it often happens that what we best know and most readily admit is most apt to be forgotten. If the shortness and uncertainty of life could be, and should be, really and universally felt in our world, a revolution would sweep over society. Vast multitudes would be driven to give attention to their eternal religious interests. But we apprehend that the chief point in the verses is the striking contrast between the frailty, feebleness, and brevity of all human instrumentalities, and the word of God, which abides forever. “Heaven and earth shall pass away,” said Christ; “but my words shall not pass away.” The whole object of this grand gospel discourse by the prophet, is to comfort and encourage the child of God, by setting forth in vivid terms the power, grandeur, glory, and wisdom of Christ, who sets forth these all-infolding promises in his behalf. “O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God.” Verses 9, 10. Here the Church is called upon to bear to other people the good tidings she had received. The time has come for the Church to heed this injunction. It is a present duty, in the present stage of the message. Mark the intensity of the language: “Get thee up into the high mountain!” “Lift up thy voice with strength!” “Be not afraid!” Other scriptures enjoin upon the Church this very thing, at this same time. “Arise, shine; for thy light is come,” says the same prophet. Isa. 60: 1. Again he says: “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.” Chap. 58: 1. Joel takes up the refrain: “Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain.” Joel 2: 1. Passing from the exclamatory to the historical form, setting forth the same movement, we read, in Rev. 14: 9. And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice,” etc. The Lord will come to the help of His people at this time, and work for them with a strong hand, as says verse 10. “He shall feed His flock like a shepherd: He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.” Verse 11. No figure could more beautifully describe the character of the Redeemer than that of a shepherd leading his flock, with the tender care and solicitude adapted to their condition. This is the first application of this figure to the Messiah, so often used in the New Testament. It shows that the Lord feels a particular interest in the young, leading them, and even carrying them in His bosom, to help them along safely and tenderly in the way. Our Lord appropriates the title to himself, saying, not merely, I am a shepherd, or even the shepherd; but, I am the good Shepherd. Having given us a picture of His gentle and beneficent nature, He now enforces it with a declaration of His power: “Who hath measured the water in the hollow of His hand? and meted out heaven with the span? and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure? and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or, being His counselor, hath taught Him?” Verses 12, 13. This sudden transition, couched in such sublime figures, is heart-stirring and impressive. How tender, how wise, and how powerful is this Shepherd, who has promised to take us into His arms, that His care and protection may ever be round about us! The message opens with a charge to “comfort,” and ends with the declaration and promise of strength sufficient to supply all our need. Nothing can exceed the grandeur of the thoughts of holding the waters in the hollow of His hand, comprehending the dust in a measure, and weighing the mountains and the hills in scales and balances. The questions carry with them their own answer. Who can do all these things? The answer tacitly implied is, None but God, the great Shepherd of Israel. It comes with resistless force. What conceptions are presented of the vastness of His power, and the ease with which he governs and controls the material universe! Astronomers have computed that there are no less than seventy-five millions of suns in this universe; for all the fixed stars are well known to be suns, each one supposed to have in its train a system of planets, like those in our own solar system. But Sirius, the nearest fixed star, is twenty-two thousand millions of miles away from our sun. Now if all the fixed stars are as distant from one another as Sirius is from our sun, what mind can form any conception of the extent of the field occupied by these works of the Creator? And if the solar system is to be taken as the average in size, of the seventy-five millions of systems, who would not be lost in any attempt to comprehend the vastness of this work? But such is the mighty power of God that He is represented as meting out the heavens with a span. But more than this, let us take a glimpse of a little of the Creator's work from another side. Professor Faraday is said to have demonstrated that it takes as much electricity to decompose a drop of water, as would be sufficient to charge a thunder cloud. In every drop of water, then, there is a constant striving of the elements to escape. The power they exert can be measured only by the power of concentrated thunderbolts. And yet this force is kept in check, and so evenly balanced by an equal force, that not the slightest disturbance can occur. Well may man be overwhelmed by the mystery of nature. But here, as elsewhere, it ever points upward to the infinite, and thus silently teaches that the mighty influence that binds the atoms of the raindrop together is merely the manifestation of the Creator's power, who holds the water “in the hollow of His hand.” Inasmuch as a consideration of the whole chapter (Isaiah 40) would extend this paper to a greater length than would be suitable, remarks on the concluding portion are deferred to next week. V. S.