COMFORT YE, COMFORT YE

COMFORT YE, COMFORT YE

          Isa 40:1  Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. 

      

       God's people often experience hard times and perplexing circumstances.  Sometimes it even seems that God does not care.  This is not true, however, He does care.  Here we see His concern for the comfort of His people.  He commanded was that His people be told that her warfare was accomplished and that her iniquity was pardoned, because she had received from God double for all her sins.

       Then some 700 years before Christ He introduced John the Baptist, the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness.  His message is given here in verses 3, 4.  He was to prepare the way of the Lord.  I believe that also includes his baptizing his converts having them ready for the Lord to establish His church with a prepared people.  The One He here represented is the Lord, the glory of the Lord to be revealed.

       See his message expounded :6-17.  Note the human weakness.  All flesh is as grass.  As the grass withers, so people fail.  This is a picture of the ruin of man.  When Adam took of that forbidden fruit, he plunged the entire family of man into a position of total ruin. 

       This message also told us of the coming of Jesus Christ.  He would come saying, "Behold thy God."  He shall come with strong hand or in great victory.  When He comes, He will rule.  He would also shepherd His people.  Verses 12-17 speak of His power to accomplish His work.

       Often when we speak of prophetical events, we are told it is too scary.  Some of it is if we be not prepared, but God gives it here to comfort His people.  In 1 Thess. 4:13-18 Paul tells of the rapture of the saints of God and closes with the command to comfort one another with these words.  So be comforted, child of God.