[0:00] Now, up to that chapter. The 39th chapter concludes with the Babylonian captivity.
[0:11] Hezekiah the king is told, that his people and all their wealth and possessions should be carried away captive. Now, the 40th chapter opens, well, strictly speaking, with the gospel.
[0:31] For in verses 3 to 5, the voice of him that cries in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God, and so on, is cited in Matthew and apply to John the Baptist.
[0:52] Well, here is Christ and his gospel truth. Now, the first thing to observe this morning is that God has a people.
[1:05] Comfort me, comfort me, my people, say your God. My people. There are that two stores of people in this world.
[1:21] There never have been others. Whatever nations they may belong to, whatever denominations in religion they may belong to, all boils down to either a sheep or a goat, wheat or tares, children of God or as a man.
[1:44] Christ said, children of the devil. There is no halfway house. We are either in one camp or the other.
[1:57] Terribly sadly, but terribly true, we were born in the devil's camp. As far and outward appearances go, children of the devil.
[2:09] And yet not really, though. If, as time may prove, we belong to God. Really, we know he did belong to the devil.
[2:21] He will usurp us. But he had us. He ruled over us, reigned in us. And sadly, we remember. There are some things you'll never forget.
[2:36] Child of God. And you'll never be too sorry for us. As long as you live. Things you said. Things you did.
[2:46] When openly, you belong to the devil. Served in residence. Followed his dictates. Walked in his command.
[2:59] And yet boasted of your liberty and freedom. Ah, don't we remember. Remembering the world and the Lord.
[3:10] My soul has them still in remembrance within. And we are sorry. Ah, we are. And yet the devil says sometimes it's not godly sorrow.
[3:24] You're only sorry out of fear of what hell will mean for you. You wait. Says the devil. At least something says that to us. I think it must come from him.
[3:37] You wait. You're only grieving now. For fear of the punishment. Not because you really love God.
[3:47] And love holiness. Well, I hope he'll be proved alive. That's all. With our experiences. God knows the heart.
[3:59] I'm glad of that. Nobody else does. He knows your heart and mine. And if by his divine teaching your heart and my heart bleeds, smart, breathes over things we can never undo, never make better, never remove, we did them.
[4:25] There they are. They're dead against us. As far as we can see. If these are matters of grief and sorrow, well, we've got a lot to be thanked.
[4:38] Comfort ye. Comfort ye. Comfort ye. My people. For one of the most clear and important marks of God's people is that they are a mourning people.
[4:56] Now let me be very careful here. And you be careful too. You can break a saucer and shed more tears over that than ever you did over your sins.
[5:09] So be careful. You can have things that go very cross in Providence and grieve over it far more than ever you did over your sins.
[5:21] Don't think I'm wrong. I know I'm right. All mourning is not godly mourning by a very long laughing deed.
[5:32] And don't you confound it, friend. If God had made something from your lois, circumstantially, something in your path that bites and hits and makes you grieve, well, I hope you'll bring good out of it.
[5:52] But the main point is, did he ever make your heart grieve over sin? So that you could say, well, let my troubles in Providence be what they may.
[6:09] They're bad enough. But I've got to think of one of the things. Is that you? Is that really you? Or do your Providence outweigh everything about your soul?
[6:23] And you are getting confounded. You are thinking that your providential troubles are a hallmark of divine teaching. They may be.
[6:34] They may not be. But this we know to be a hallmark of divine teaching. The man that mourns over his head.
[6:45] Yes. Blessed are they that mourn. Said Christ. For they shall be company.
[6:57] And let me add this, brethren, that the more you mourn over this, the more you will see to mourn over. The time will come, if it hasn't already come, with some of you, that you'll mourn over your very morning.
[7:14] Your repentance will need to be repented of. You're needing to have more sorrow because you feel you haven't yet gone deep enough.
[7:25] In the bitternesses of soul that you should do, having regard to your greater offenses against a great and a holy God.
[7:37] Ah. And that's not all. As time advances and life increases in your understanding, You will find yourself what the psalmist said he was, and he was not a mean man.
[7:55] The sweet singer of Israel. The man who had had God's salvation sealed in his heart. What did he say?
[8:07] So foolish was I of ignorance. I was a beast before. Do you mind being called a beast?
[8:19] Well, go somewhere else, brother. That's what the word of God called you and me. Beasts. And we act beastly.
[8:31] Where? Where? In the beast of a heart that we've got. That a beast wouldn't do what you do, and what I've done.
[8:43] They wouldn't do it. They couldn't do it. It isn't in them to do it. Do we find fault in the psalmist? When he says, So foolish and ignorant was I that I was a beast before thee.
[9:00] We thank God. It's in the book. And none but a man of grace will love it. None but a man of grace will appreciate it.
[9:12] He'll be thankful to his dying death. There are such words as that to be found in the divine talk. He said, He said, Well, That man was a good man.
[9:25] He went to heaven. There's hope for me. Ah, it boils down to this, friend. Christ came to the world to save sinners.
[9:40] Not little ones. Not imaginary ones. Not professing ones. Real ones. Big ones. So big that they really can't believe that God can ever comfort them.
[10:00] He will. Well, they are a mourning people over sin. They have their other causes of mourning. They have bodily affliction.
[10:12] They have desertions. They have temptations. Oh, they have such circumstances sometimes that they really drive them mad. They don't know what to do with themselves nor their conditions.
[10:27] All this adds to their mourning. Truly. But if God would remove all that, they still have a bigger one.
[10:39] But, what's wrong here? That's the trouble of all troubles. with a real child of God. So that what he or she is looking for is not only the removal of trying circumstances, if you please God to do so.
[10:59] Not only the removal of them, but a plaster of the heart. A cord you'll hear. Something that will say, cheer up men, your sins which you breathe over are all for you.
[11:14] That's the religion we want if we're born again. And no religion less than that will do if we're born again.
[11:25] Now, we proceed. God says to these people or to his ministers, comfort ye, comfort ye my people.
[11:39] Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem. the margin of that word says, speak to the heart. Well, we can't do that.
[11:51] I can't speak to your heart. And no man can speak to your heart. Well, one might say, then what's the good of preachers at all?
[12:01] Well, you will remember, won't you? And that you have an understanding. You have a conscience. You have a will.
[12:12] You have affection. Well, if you go and hear a man God has sent to preach, and we would assume that you are in the morning condition, grieving over sin, wanting it put away, and dealt with by God.
[12:30] And therefore, you go and listen, not with a critic, but to receive, to get something, if so be the will of God. And that man preaches to you what God has bidden him preach, namely, that there is redemption.
[12:50] The point of our text will follow, firstly, your warfare accomplished, iniquity pardon, and received of the Lord's hand, double for all your sins.
[13:01] You hear such messages as that. And it goes through your mind, through your conscience, through your understanding, into your affections.
[13:12] I'm not speaking it to your affections, but God is using your very powers that he has made you with by his blessing.
[13:22] It drops into the heart. Oh, and before you doubt, if you haven't already, you may have some treasured memory of some dear man of God, long since gone home, how God used what he said to go into your heart.
[13:44] You will never forget it. You will never forget the man. Why, his image comes up before you. You can hear his voice. You can see his countenance, though he made him dead for years.
[13:58] The sweet recollection of what God made the man to your heart. That's the way unity is made.
[14:09] That's the way love is made. Well, we can't speak to the heart, yet we are to speak. Remember this too, brethren, before we go any further, that God will have his people comforted.
[14:25] The Lord, he will. He repeats the word, comfort me. Comfort me, my people, set your God. Speak ye comfortably to us.
[14:37] God is set upon him. Now, if the devil could stop it, he would see that no comfort ever reached you, remain. But he would. And I'll tell you more than that.
[14:50] If conscience had to away, you'd never have a moment's comfort to me either. But here is something in the power and mercy of God that can break down the devil's opposition, the devil's enmity, and the testimony of your own conscience to you.
[15:11] and in spite of both, put what he's determined to put comfort in your heart. You can't believe me, but I'm sure I'm speaking the truth.
[15:26] God is delighted to comfort those of born, delighted to do it. You mustn't look upon it as if he's a meager giving God.
[15:39] mean, mean, she's stinging, slow, to whisper cordials to a man that is broken down over his sink. Far from him, like as a mother comforteth her children, so will I comfort you, saith the Lord, and he shall be comforted in Jerusalem.
[16:02] now you know as well as I do how a mother can comfort her children. We can't do it like a mother can.
[16:15] There's everything that is tender, affectionate, kind, forbearing, patient, and so forth, in that affection of a mother, mother.
[16:29] So, says God, think a lot of me like that. Isn't it good, on me, eh? Oh, it is. when you have your eye on his justice, his blading holiness, the threatening in his law, man, it makes you stand away.
[16:51] You say there's no hope there. I'm undone forever, just what Isaiah said in the sixth chapter. But now he's a mother, picking up a little vein, comforting it.
[17:06] It attracts, it draws. You say, if this is true, it's true, then he might even yet put comfort in my broken heart.
[17:19] It isn't a case that he might, it's a case that he will. Have you forgotten that beautiful prophecy of the Redeemer?
[17:31] I think it's in the 61st of this prophecy, the spirit of the Lord God is upon me. And because he's anointed me to release the gospel for poor, to bind up the broken hearted, and so forth, and to comfort all more.
[17:47] Just what Jesus Christ came to do. Think of it morning, sinner. You can't think of it too much. You can't value it too much.
[17:59] It's intended for you is what he came to do. The Holy Ghost especially anointed him to do it. And you see that you are comforted sooner or later.
[18:15] Now, will you notice the very center of the comfort? Cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished.
[18:27] That's one. That her iniquity is pardoned. That's two. For she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins.
[18:40] That's three. may I press it upon you friends. There's not a word here about providence.
[18:53] Don't misunderstand God nor his word nor me. You and I need his providences. Without them we couldn't exist a single day.
[19:05] But they can't comfort a guilty conscience if they could the rich man would never be in hell would he?
[19:16] No fear he could pull down his barns and do greater providence smile upon him right on left bummed him up with everything.
[19:29] And yet and yet I hope you understand you need providence and will while you're here.
[19:41] But don't misinterpret providence for the gracious forgiveness of your sins. There's an infinite contrast between the two.
[19:55] A kindly providence always attends the spiritual morning, always will attend to till his dying day. grace alone can put the comfort that he wants in his hand.
[20:14] Now, cry unto her. Literally that word means accost her by name. Speak personally to her.
[20:25] Like you might be the person in the street who you know and you say, now dear Mr. Jones, I've got something to say to you. It's meant for you, for nobody else but you, you or Mr.
[20:40] Jones. Now I am to cry unto you personally and say your warfare is accomplished, your iniquity is pardoned, you received at the Lord's hand done for all your sins.
[20:55] so, if I am speaking as I think sure I am, to some here that are really broken down because of their own sin, you are the man, you are the woman, I'm to cry to you, nobody else, is concerned about this matter.
[21:17] Only they who have got the sting in their conscience and can't get it out. Never mind what God does for me, probably because they're thankful for that, but the sting remains, sin is felt, they've no hope for eternity yet in their feeling.
[21:36] I say to you, in the strength of this text, your warfare is accomplished, your appointed time, the margin has it, is accomplished, but take the warfare, what a warfare it is.
[22:01] You know you and I, you'll pardon my saying it, won't you, but you know me by now, if not, you never will, we're a lot of dances in the school of grace.
[22:12] We're not sitting on the infant's hall yet, in the school of grace. I say that seriously. Warfare? What are we looking for?
[22:23] I know the man was looking for ease, comfort, peace, rest, joy. No warfare? Don't want it? Are you like me?
[22:36] I reckon you are. You are looking, and I am, for what we shall never have while we are here. It's a warfare, and truly we have opponents bad enough, big enough, bitter enough, are not alluding to outside opponents.
[22:56] Don't get muddled up with that. You can think of Dick and Tom and Harry as being an opponent, and you watch that compared with your own sin. You can deal with Dick, Tom, and Harry any day.
[23:12] You can't deal with your own sin. That's the bugbear. That's the misery. That's the enemy. That's the warfare. Self- intruding.
[23:25] Self-seeking. Self-praising. Position for self. You say that's not me. The very fact that you say proves the other thing.
[23:37] You are. We all are. Guilty of this skill. It works in us when we least imagine. We may think you're doing something exceedingly kind, charitable, good, lovely, but on closer analysis of yourself, you can see an ugly motive behind you all, and it spoils it for you, and you say, when will this warfare be ended?
[24:09] When shall I be done with my deadly salad? That's the trumpet salad in all its very gated form.
[24:22] Satan, well, he wouldn't be able to upset you and me if he hadn't got bad material to work with, and the bad material is here. All he has to do is to inflate.
[24:35] God no even knew that quicker than we are talking about it. And so the warfare will go on. But the text says the warfare is accomplished.
[24:48] Now that means two things, dear friends, you and me. First, it is accomplished already in the personal work of Jesus Christ.
[24:59] He's done it. Done what? done what? He hath made an end of sin, an end of everlasting righteousness.
[25:14] He hath sealed up the vision of prophecy. There's no more to be done. I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do, and that work was to die for the sins of those who are brought to mourn over them.
[25:34] Yes? It's finished. In him, in him, now, that's the gospel I want you to love more than you do.
[25:48] You look for that, the gospel that exalts the finished work of a blessed redeemer. God, you'll never get a gospel to touch your guilty conscience without that.
[26:04] And if you get comfort about your sin without Jesus Christ, you're welcome to it. It's a false one. And when most you need it, friend, you'll find it, which God forbid.
[26:20] We'd rather get more to all our days and have comfort at last than be deceived while we're here to be unreceived when we reach the end of the journey.
[26:34] Now, secondly, the warfare accomplished in him means by virtue of union with him it will one day be finishing you. It will be.
[26:46] And it will not be the smallest degree of the joy and happiness of the next life to come when the child of God takes his last breath here the warfare is Amen.
[27:02] Finished. No more consciousnesses, no more pride, no more self, no more sin of any kind.
[27:13] Oh well. My soul and busy thanks today will stretch her wings and soar away. That will be handed to a tremendous degree to have the warfare completely and eternally finished.
[27:38] Well that's one part of the company. The other is secondly that her iniquity is part. Iniquity means perversity.
[27:51] That's just it. That's just the very thing. If you and I weren't perverse which means perverse against God.
[28:04] I can understand you being perverse against man. That's natural enough. man. But when you and I come without perverse against God it's a miracle that you're allowed to stand up or sit and breathe another minute.
[28:22] the calm minded enmity against God. But it can't have a greater being to be enmity against that.
[28:37] You can be at enmity with me and I with you what that amounts to bad enough in all conscience. We've no right to be but when it comes to our hatred of God what can it happen.
[28:54] Hope is your case says the devil. Ah and conscience says amen to it too. But God says no. Your iniquity your perversity is gone.
[29:12] If there is no miracle of mercy I don't know what is. And if we can get comfort anywhere else besides that we're welcome to it. It's not worth having. This is the comfort and the only comfort that would suit a broken down sin.
[29:31] Psalm is saying in the 51st Psalm and he's not introducing his mother far from it he's speaking the truth. He says behold I was shaken in iniquity.
[29:46] That is a bad star. shaken in perversity. Before I was born into this life I was born with perversity.
[29:59] Perversity against God. And there's you get you get your modern religionist talking about man being able to do this and do the other God with a parcel of life.
[30:15] Absolutely rotten life. No, I am undone before I come into this world. I was shaken for iniquity and in sin my mother conceived me and so right through my life I go a perverse man to God.
[30:38] And yet God says it's part just as it takes some believing it does. Ah, people can say only believe.
[30:48] The preacher worked himself up into a frenzy in what they call evangelical services and said only believe and it's done. How can a man believe a truth like this when his poor soul and conscience is one love of perversity against God and he's dreading hell every moment.
[31:15] How can he believe that God has charged him is what he wants to believe? It suits his case. It's mooched in his ears.
[31:27] He even loves it and prays for it and seeks for it. Oh, can God indeed do it?
[31:38] Then wonders of grace that God belongs. For they do, they do. Who is a God like unto thee who pardoned iniquity, perverseness, put it away.
[31:55] This is comfort. Now, the third thing, she has received double for all her sins of the Lord's hand.
[32:09] That's a very difficult sentence, at least to make. I'd only offer you three thoughts. I think each of them will bear reflection.
[32:21] First, she has received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins, in the way of chastisement for her sins. his people of old is suffering.
[32:35] They're very captivated. And God's new covenant people, they do suffer. The rod comes upon them. Yes, iniquity is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction will drive him far from him.
[32:54] But remember, it's not the rod of the Lord, it's the rod of a kind father. Who is also your father. Think of that.
[33:05] Whom the father loveth, he chastened and your circumstances in life may well be chastisements for your sins. That's the way to look at them.
[33:16] If you meet with some Dick, Tom, and Harry and upsetting you every day, you see God in it and see your own sin in it too. And God's dealing with you through them on account of your sin not in the way of punishment but in the way of chastisement and correction.
[33:36] And even if you have received double the word double means sufficient you will say ah you will say what our judge said by the time he said thou has punished us less than our iniquities deserve and there's not a child of God here and we're in the world but what we say amen to that meaning the second meaning may be that the church has received such copious blessings through Jesus Christ that she has received more than double or a sufficient for all her sins and they are copious blessings ye are fearful conflict like nothing in him but the third thing that I suggest upon which my own mind is the best satisfied and I think is a real meaning of the expression she has received of the
[34:37] Lord's hand double for all her sins meaning that full satisfaction for her sins has been made in the birth of Christ and she received in him in his punishment sufficiency or double for all her sins so it comes back to the precious blood of Jesus Christ the ground the only ground the all sufficient ground of the comfort of a poor mourner inside dear friend let me conclude with this you'll never never find comfort anywhere else never if God were to relieve you of all your circumstances this morning that would be a great blessing perhaps but if he didn't relieve you of your soul trouble what is now that if he clears your conscience with his pardon and breathes comfortable words into your heart that your iniquity is pardon and that
[35:56] Christ has rendered a double satisfaction to God for all your sins and God has received it in him as from you that's the point oh what can you want more nothing now you are good now