The Need for Comfort⤒🔗

Comfort is something that every person wants in life. To have peace of mind, to be relieved from misery, to possess contentment and inner calm – certainly everyone desires that! That’s why we use the word quite frequently. For example, in your home you set your thermostat to the comfort zone so that the temperature is pleasant for everyone. If you are out of town, you can stay at the Comfort Inn. When you are cold at night you can snuggle under a comforter! We speak about degrees of comfort: of ultimate and extreme comfort.

Comfort is not only something every human being wants but it is also what every individual need: when sick and dying, when standing in a funeral home or at a grave side but also when healthy and strong. Lamech called his son “Noah” which means “comfort.” He named him Noah saying, “This one will comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD has cursed” (Genesis 5:29). Isaac was still weeping over the death of his mother when the Lord provided him with a beautiful wife, Rebekah. And when he brought her into the tent, “...Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death” (Genesis 24:67).

True consolation can only be found in the Lord by finding our strength, consolation and refuge in Him. He is our ever-present help and strength. Children of God can turn to Him with all their burdens and afflictions, when anguish fills their hearts or when fighting and struggling against sin. In the Lord there is true comfort and quietness for the soul.

“Comfort” in our Reformed Confessions←⤒🔗

The doctrine of comfort is a theme that is found within our Reformed Confessions. The first question of the Heidelberg Catechism is well-known to us, “What is your only comfort in life and death?” The catechism returns to this subject of comfort in its explanation of the Apostles’ Creed. Thus children of the covenant are asked to respond in faith to the question, “What comfort is it to you that Christ will come to judge the living and the dead?” and “What comfort does the resurrection of the body offer you?”

Speaking about the gifts and grace, the Lord signifies and seals to us in baptism, the Belgic Confession makes this wonderful statement,

He washes, purges and cleanses our souls of all filth and unrighteousness, renews our hearts and fills them with all comfort, gives us true assurance of his fatherly goodness, clothes us with the new nature, and takes away the old nature with all its works.(Art 34)

In the following article of the Belgic Confession, we confess the comfort we receive from the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.

This banquet is a spiritual table at which Christ makes us partakers of Himself with all his benefits and gives us the grace to enjoy both Himself and the merit of his suffering and death. He nourishes, strengthens, and comforts our poor, desolate souls by the eating of his flesh, and refreshes and renews them by the drinking of his blood.

Explaining God’s decree of election, which many might consider a comfortless subject, the Canons of Dort say, “Although perverse, impure, and unstable men twist this decree to their own destruction, it provides unspeakable comfort for holy and God-fearing souls” (Chapter I, Article 6). Election is to be taught “for the living comfort of his people” (Chapter I, Article 14). Confessing the perseverance of the saints, we read in the Canons of Dort Chapter V, Article 10, “And if the elect of God did not have in this world the solid comfort of obtaining the victory and this unfailing pledge of eternal glory, they would be of all men the most miserable.”

The Bible and Comfort←⤒🔗

Holy Scripture directs us to the comfort we have in the Lord. Let me provide you with a sampling of several texts that speak beautiful words of the comfort we have in the Lord:

• Psalm 119:49, 50, “Remember the word to Your servant, upon which You have caused me to hope. This is my comfort in my affliction, for Your word has given me life.”

• Isaiah 40:1, “‘Comfort, yes, comfort My people!’ says your God.”

• Isaiah 51:3, “For the Lord will comfort Zion; He will comfort all her waste places, he will make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the LORD...”

• Isaiah 66:13, “As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.”

• 2 Corinthians 1:3-6, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ. Now if we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effective for enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation.”

From all these passages it is clear that our only comfort in life and death is always connected to the work of Jesus Christ – to the salvation the Lord has in store for Zion – for the church. Jesus Christ provides us with comfort as a Shepherd cares for his flock.

Comfort and Repentance←⤒🔗

True comfort is far more than an emotion or a good feeling. Being comforted is an activity. The word which is used for “comfort” in Isaiah 40 (and in other parts of the Old Testament) has the same root as the word used to call people to repentance. God’s comfort is granted to us through repentance from sin; when we seek our safety, refuge and security outside of ourselves in Christ.

Repentance is worked in our hearts through the Comforter sent to us by the Son (John 16:7-11). According to Psalm 23, the disciplinary rod and staff of the Lord comfort the believer. When a passage of Scripture or a sermon rebuke and warns us, that does not mean there is no comfort! There is no comfort when we are not directed to Christ through admonition. Since the Spirit is present in the administration of the Word, we can say today, “For You are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” The Holy Spirit changes the direction of my life.

I am made ready and willing from now on to serve the Lord. The focus is off of ourselves and on to God. The comfort of the Holy Spirit includes consolation and encouragement but also rebuke, exhortation, admonition and training in righteousness.

Comfort for Christ’s Sheep←⤒🔗

Our only refuge is in Christ and his redeeming work. He upholds us so that all things work together for our salvation. He preserves us so securely that not even a hair can fall from our heads without the will of our heavenly Father.

Those things that seem small and of little significance are caught up in the greater plan of God so that all things work together for my salvation. Psalm 23 sings of this so wonderfully. “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want” that is, “I shall not be lacking what I need for body and soul, I shall be utterly content in the Good Shepherd’s care.” Why?

He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside still waters, He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness.” The Lord is always near his sheep.

The Price Paid for Our Comfort←⤒🔗

We have comfort in life and in death because Jesus Christ paid the price which cost Him his life. In a real and vital sense we truly belong to Him because He bought us at the incredible price of his own blood. Personally I belong to Jesus Christ with my whole life because I belong to the great congregation which He bought through his precious blood.

Being the sheep of Christ’s pasture we can be sure that He has equal concern for all the members of the flock, whether we are young or elderly, single or married. Christ has a heart for all his sheep, whether they look preened and pretty or scarred by the troubles of life. We are his because He has paid our debt in full. Our only comfort is found in what happened at Golgotha. He bought us, thereby setting us free from all the power of the devil.

Ultimate and Absolute Comfort←⤒🔗

We have total comfort because Jesus Christ as our Shepherd provides us with total care. He provides us with spiritual shelter, care and daily sustenance. Throughout the day and all through the night He casts his eyes over his flock to make sure everything is well. The Lord keeps watch over his flock, taking care of each individual’s welfare spiritual as well as physical. Thus for a covenant child to pray before he or she goes to bed, “Now I lay me down to sleep and I thank thee for thy keep. Watch this night now over me” is not an empty petition but is built on the unconditional confession of comfort:

The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want.

Let the doctrine of God’s covenant be our strength for every hour and second of our life. Those who rely on the Lord will renew their strength and comfort. They will never be put to shame. The Lord is our only comfort in life and death; He is our refuge and strength because there isn’t anything or anyone who can snatch us out of his hand.