The God of Comfort (Octavius Winslow)

2 Corinthians 1:3-4

“Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God."

God's heart speaks to your heart. Its deep love chimes with your deep grief. Do you doubt this? Listen to His command to His servant, the prophet; "Comfort, comfort my people," says your God. "Speak tenderly to Jerusalem. Tell her that her sad days are gone and that her sins are pardoned. Yes, the Lord has punished her in full for all her sins." And mark the tenderness of God's comfort. Still it is the heart, and the heart of a mother! Whose heart so full of love, and tenderness, and sympathy, and yearning, as hers? Listen to the touching words; "As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you." "As one whom his mother comforts." From what source of love so pure, what fountain of sensibility so deep, what spring of tenderness so sweet, does sympathy and comfort flow, in seasons of adversity and sorrow, as hers? A mother's heart is the first home which love enters, and the last it leaves. Born with our birth, it grows with our growth, clings to us through all life's vicissitudes, smiles when time smile, weeps when we weep, and, when hoary hairs have silvered the brow, and age has dimmed the eye, and the snows of many winters bow down the womanly form, the mother's love is as deep, and fresh, and warm, as when first it clasped its new-born treasure to its bosom. Such is the comfort with which God comforts His people. "As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you." 

Add to this beautiful and expressive image, the thought that, God's comforts are infinite and divine, while the tenderest yearnings of a parent's heart are but finite and human, and you have the most perfect idea of the comfort with which God, your Father, is prepared to comfort you, His sad and sorrowful child.

Accept, then, the comfort with which your Heavenly Father seeks to support and soothe you in your present calamity. Refuse not to be comforted. To refuse divine comfort because God's hand has smitten, is to cherish a murmuring and rebellious spirit against God. Your persistent rejection of all the promises, and assurances, and consolations of your Heavenly Father, is as much as to say, "God has deeply, sorely wounded me, and I will not forgive, and cannot forget." Do you do well to be angry? Who caused the sheltering vine to grow? who reared the oak, around which the tendrils of your heart so long and so closely entwined? Who revealed that spring, that refreshed you so often from its clear and sparkling stream? Your Heavenly Father! Then He has but recalled what was His own; and shall not the judge of all the earth do right? Refuse not, then, the comfort which His own hand offers. 

He is the "God of all comfort"- "all comfort," and for "all our tribulations." It is a delightful thought, that in His own infinite heart, in the covenant of grace, in the Gospel of His love, and in our Lord Jesus Christ, He has made provision for all the afflictions, trials, and sorrows of His people. So that no new trial springs up in your path, no new grief shades your spirit, no new calamity crushes you to the earth, but the God of all comfort has anticipated that very need in the comfort He has provided for His Church. "Oh, how great is Your goodness which You have laid up for those who fear You; which You have wrought for those who trust in You before the sons of men!"

Is bereavement- sore, crushing bereavement- your grief? Where will you find such tender sympathy with your sorrow as dwells in His heart, of whom it is recorded, "Jesus wept"? Who can comfort that sorrow, but Christ?- and He can, and He will comfort it. Does some foe menace you, or does some insurmountable difficulty lie in your way? All power is Christ's, and He will defend you from your enemy, and will roll your stone of difficulty from before your feet. Does suffering, and languor, and waning health affect your spirits? He who "bore our sicknesses" is your Consolation now, and will not leave you to suffer and pine alone, but can either heal your malady with a word, or so make all your bed in sickness, by the supports of His grace, and the discoveries of His love, as shall make you willing to lie there patiently so long as it pleases Him. 

What if your home is desolate and your provisions are scanty; what if your heart is lonely and your body is diseased; if God is your God, and Christ is your Savior, and heaven is your home? In the midst of all your trials, sorrows, and discomforts, you have more cause to be happy and to sing than the brightest angel or the sweetest seraph before the throne. They stand in their own righteousness, you in the righteousness of God; they worship at a humble distance from God, you are brought near by the blood of Christ, enter into the holiest, and call Him Father!

And is it no comfort to be assured that Christ is yours, and that you are Christ's? With such a Savior and Friend, with such a Patron and Intercessor in heaven as Jesus, how comforted should you be in all your tribulations! Jesus knows you; others may not. The world assails, the saints judge; friends misinterpret and foes condemn, just because they neither know nor cannot understand you. Jesus knows you! Let this suffice. What a comfort that you can admit Him to every cloister of your soul, to every secret of your heart, with the feeling that He sees all, knows all, and understands all; and, what is more, sympathizes with, and approves all, which must, from the nature of the case, be profoundly veiled and inexplicable to human eye.

2 Thessalonians 2:16-17

“Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, Comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work."