Comforted and Comforting

“Who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted of God.”

The apostle began with invoking the blessing of God. Verse 1.

He then went on to bless God.

He was much tried, but he was in a grateful and cheerful humor, for he wrote of most comfortable things.

Here we have—

I. THE COMFORTABLE OCCUPATION. Blessing God. “Blessed be God.”

If a man under affliction blesses the Lord—

1. It argues that his heart is not vanquished,

   • So as to gratify Satan by murmuring, or
   • So as to kill his own soul with despair.

2. It prophesies that God will send to him speedy deliverances to call forth new praises. It is natural to lend more to a man when the interest on what he has is duly paid.

   • Never did man bless God but sooner or later God blessed him.

3. It profits the believer above measure.

   • It takes the mind off from present trouble.
   • It lifts the heart to heavenly thoughts and considerations.
   • It gives a taste of Heaven, for Heaven largely consists in adoring and blessing God.
   • It destroys distress by bringing God upon the scene.

4. It is the Lord’s due in whatever state we may be.

II. THE COMFORTABLE TITLES.

1. A name of affinity, “The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

2. A name of gratitude, “The Father of mercies.”

3. A name of hope, “The God of all comfort.”

4. A name of discrimination, “Who comforts us.” The Lord has a special care for those who trust in him.

III. THE COMFORTABLE FACT. “The God of all comfort comforts us in all our tribulation.”

1. God personally condescends to comfort the saints.

2. God habitually does this. He has always been near to comfort us in all past time, never once leaving us alone.

3. God effectually does this. He has always been able to comfort us in all tribulation. No trial has baffled his skill.

4. God everlastingly does this, he will comfort us to the end, for he is “the God of all comfort,” and he cannot change.

   • Should we not be always happy since God always comforts us?

IV. THE COMFORTABLE DESIGN. “That we may be able to comfort.”

1. To make us comforters of others. The Lord aims at this: the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, trains us up to be comforters. There is great need for this holy service in this sin-smitten world.

2. To make us comforters on a large scale. “To comfort them which are in any trouble.” We are to be conversant with all kinds of grief, and ready to sympathize with all sufferers.

3. To make us experts in consolation—“able to comfort”; because of our own experience of divine comfort.

4. To make us willing and sympathetic, so that we may through personal experience instinctively care for the state of others.

Let us now unite in special thanksgiving to the God of all comfort.

Let us drink in comfort from the word of the Lord, and be ourselves happy in Christ Jesus.

Let us be on the watch to minister consolation to all tried ones.

Comfortable Words

Music is sweetest near or over rivers, where the echo thereof is best rebounded by the water. Praise for pensiveness, thanks for tears, and blessing God over the floods of affliction, make the most melodious music in the ear of heaven.—Thomas Fuller.

Many an Alleluia

That rings through the Father’s home,

Sobbed out its first rehearsal

In the shades of a darkened room.

When we try to comfort one another, let it be God’s comfort that we give.—T. T. Lynch.

We have no more religion than what we have in times of trial.

—Andrew Fuller.

Away over in India a poor native woman—like Naomi—“was left of her two sons.” She did not, perhaps, know enough to think about God at all in her grief; but she would take no comfort. To everything that could be said she had one answer: “I had but two, and they are both gone.”

Day after day she pined and fretted, going listlessly about, her life “empty” of all but a blank despair. One morning, as she wandered here and there among the people of the mission, one of them again remonstrated; but the poor thing gave her old reply: “I had but two, and they are both gone.” “Look,” said the worker, turning, and pointing towards a group near by, where a white lady of the mission stood directing some dusky natives; “Do you see her?” The woman looked, and saw a sweet, pale face; patient, gentle, glad, as clear as a sky washed blue with storms, but wearing that unmistakable look which tells that storms have been. “Yes,” she said, “I see her.” “Well,” said the other, “she has lost her sons, too!”

The poor native mother gazed for a minute, spell-bound; then she sprang towards her. “Oh, lady”! she cried, “did you have two sons? and are they both gone?”

And now the white mother on her part turned and looked. “Yes,” she said, “I had two.”

“And are they both gone?” “Both.”

“But they were all I had,” cried the other, “and they are both gone!”

“And mine are both gone,” said the white lady, clasping the hands of her poor sister in sorrow. “But Jesus took them; and they are with Jesus, and Jesus is with me. And by-and-by I shall have them again.”

From that hour the native woman sat at her white sister’s feet, followed her about, hung on her words, and from her would take comfort—“the comfort with which she herself was comforted of God.”—From “What Ails You?”

He would put off a meditated journey, rather than leave a poor parishioner who required his services; and from his knowledge of human nature, he was able, and in a remarkable manner, to throw himself into the circumstances of those who needed his help. No sympathy was like his.—Chambers, on George Crabbe.