A tract by Pas Connors, on the occasion of the 2019 floods in Malawi & Mozambique
Comfort ye, Comfort Ye My People (Isaiah 40:1)
Dearly beloved, suffering, children of God of the EPCM,
Praise God, you have been gathered into a true church of Jesus Christ and are among those who profess faith in the living and true God, and in Jesus Christ his Son as your Saviour. God has given you the Reformed faith and with it the heritage of the God fearing. This is a blessing indeed.
God has given you also much trial and affliction. May God now grant you his grace and comfort in your trials, and so establish, strengthen and settle you in your faith and hope.
Brethren, let us be wise and deeply honest before God who searches the hearts of men.
If your profession of faith is true and genuine and you are a converted believer and of the number of the invisible church and body of Christ, then there is great comfort to minister unto you.
If, however, you are one of those within the visible church who are saying that you believe, when in fact you have not repented of your sins nor fled as a sinner to Christ by faith alone to be saved then there is something else for you. While you remain in your sins there is no comfort for you. All that belongs to you is “the certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries,” (Heb 10:27). Before you may take to yourself even the smallest particle of comfort, you must first become a Christian. You must first be convinced of your own sinfulness and need of the Saviour. You must repent and believe. This is God’s way of salvation. There is no other. So you too must acknowledge yourself to be a sinner indeed, you must turn from your own personal and particular sins in honest hearted repentance, and you must flee by faith alone to Jesus Christ alone for a complete salvation. You do not deserve to be saved. But God is merciful and delights in the salvation of sinners. You are invited to come in this way of repentance and faith to cast yourself upon the mercy of God, pleading only his promise that whosoever truly believes upon His Son shall be saved. Then, and only then will this comfort belong to you personally.
But, for all who have believed Jesus Christ alone for salvation, and are in very fact living and walking with God in repentance and faith, then all that follows is for you.
Be encouraged. You are very imperfect, that is true. You are struggling with many sins and failures in your life and you don’t deserve God’s love and comfort; yes. that is true as well. But, is it not also true, thank God, that you are trusting in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation? Does not every sin drive you in repentance to Jesus Christ again and again to be washed in his blood? Do you not cry to him for more grace to do better tomorrow? This is the necessary thing – you are living by faith! So, believer, the comfort is for you.
Please, beloved brother or sister, open your heart to receive this comfort. May the God of all comfort heal the broken in heart, and bind up their wounds (Psalm 147:3).
Dearly beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, your heavenly Father has gathered you out of sin and death and the curse by his electing love and his saving grace into eternal life. That you have this gift of faith is itself proof that God has loved, and always will love you (Jeremiah 31:3). He it was who called you by the Holy Spirit through the gospel to come as a repenting and believing sinner to Jesus Christ for salvation, promising that “whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life” (2 Timothy 1:9, John 3:16), He called you by your spiritual name – “sinner.” You heard his voice when others didn’t. And you followed him when others would not. Unless God himself had regenerated and effectually called you, you could not, would not, do that. Your calling and faith proves that you are one of the sheep for whom the good Shepherd lay down his life, and to whom he gives eternal life. To you he says: “I give unto you eternal life; and you shall never perish, neither shall anything pluck you from my hand. My father which gave you to me is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck you from my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one” (John 10:27-30). You are safe in the hand of your heavenly Father. This is very great. Wonderful indeed!
Do remember with thankfulness what God has made you and given to you. You are a much loved child of God! When God saved you he adopted you and gave you an eternal inheritance in heaven with Jesus Christ. That inheritance is laid up in store for you. It is “incorruptible, undefiled and never fades away, reserved in heaven for you.” You are also being “kept by the power of God through faith” so that you will most certainly enter into it at the end of your pilgrimage, (1 Peter 1:4-5). When God saved you, he not only forgave your sins, he adopted you into his family and gave you all the privileges and blessings that belong to the children of God. You are a joint-heir together with Jesus Christ of God’s infinite, eternal, unchangeable love and blessing. This blessing rests upon you always – ALWAYS – even now while you are passing through trials and suffering (Rom.8:14-18). This is who you are and that is what belongs to you.
Think what this means for you in your present trials. The moment God united you to Jesus by faith he set you on a journey… a pilgrimage into your inheritance. God made you like Abraham, a stranger and pilgrim in this world, looking for a heavenly home, a city whose builder and maker is God (Hebrews 11:8-10).
Believer, that is the way to view yourself and your life and your sufferings. You can humbly say: “I am a pilgrim and a stranger on the earth… I seek a better country, that is an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called my God: fort he has prepared for me a city.” (Hebrews 11:13-16). This being true something else is also true about you and your life.
It is also true that God orders and maps out the particular path – the experiences and trials – that each of his pilgrims must pass through on their way to heaven. Every single pilgrim must pass through sufferings. There is no other way to heaven for God’s pilgrims. Suffering is going to test, and prove, their faith. For you as one of God’s pilgrims it may feel like the way is too hard… those trials seem too much to bear. Distress and suffering are even stirring up the mud of fear and doubts and unbelief that remain in your soul this side of heaven. You will be tempted to turn back or turn aside from the way of faith and obedience. Other people, the Devil, and even your own deceitful heart tell you that it isn’t possible or right to keep believing and following God’s ways. In times of such trial you will need to be very careful to walk by faith and not by what seems to be the case or how you are feeling in your distress. You will need to remember that God has mapped out your journey, God brought these circumstances into your life, and you into this place of trial. You will need to hold fast with determination to his word to you in that trial… by faith. “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. (1 Corinthians 10:13).
To escape does not mean that you will always be delivered from the trial that is causing us to suffer. Of course, God could do that if it was actually for your ultimate good and his own glory. As you think on that, be reminded that is good to pray that God might help you and keep you safe and give you daily bread to keep you alive in his world to serve him.. But with that sort of thing you are to pray: “Father, if it be your will… because I know that you will only give me this if it is for my eternal good and your greater glory, but if it is more for our good and your glory that we be taken to heaven by these things, then that is good and even better.” In this you can pray with Paul and the saints in all ages: “For me to live is Christ, but to die is gain”, (Philippians 1:20-24)… “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. Wherefore, we labour, that, whether present or absent we may be accepted of him” (2 Corinthians 5:6-9).
To escape does mean – always – that you can find escape and relief for your soul. In every circumstance you can run into the mighty arms of your Father in heaven by prayer, and into the grace of Jesus Christ by faith, especially in deepest distress and trial. You can escape into the blessed assurance that God still loves you and is still gracious and mercifully disposed toward you for Christ’s sake. That is so important. What is happening in your life is NOT a sign that you are under some sort of curse in your life. God blesses you in Christ, no curse can come near you. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” (Romans 8:1)
Yes, you are always reminded by floods and famines and the judgment-warnings that God brings upon your nation by his providence, that God is preparing judgment for sinners and that men need to repent and turn to God for mercy, but as believers you experience these differently to unbelievers. You experience the same floods and famines and suffering along with unbelievers, but God has a very different purpose toward his elect in these things. For elect believers God is chastening them as a Father chastens children he loves – always for their profit. He wants them to more and more partake of his holiness, (Hebrews 12:10). His purpose is that his children might “yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness when their faith is exercised” in this way (Hebrews 12:11). Even while the wicked are being punished for their sins, God’s children are being chastened for their profit. This is a very, very important difference. It explains “why” God’s children suffer along with the wicked, and it explains how you can know that God still loves you even when it hurts.
You are justified by faith, and have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and have entered into this state of grace in which you stand with God’s blessing over your whole life, and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God (Romans 5:1-5).
In the midst of flood and famine, hunger, despair and death you live now, tomorrow, always every moment of every day, in the blessing and love of God toward you because of what Jesus Christ did for you. This is part of your inheritance. It is what Jesus Christ provided for you when he paid for your sins on the cross and carried you with him through his resurrection and ascension into the inheritance of heaven! He made it so that God is always with you to bless you, and is always looking on you in your suffering with compassion, seeing someone he loves with that very same love he has for his own beloved Son, Jesus Christ (Ephesians 3:14-21). God is with you in it all… listen to his encouraging words:
“Fear not: for I have redeemed you, I have called you by your name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon you, for I am the Lord your God, the holy one of Israel, your Saviour,” (Isaiah 43:1-3).
God’s love is with you and upon you in your suffering. That is amazing, but it is true; and it remains true, even while you are suffering and in greatest trials and hardship. Just like God was fully loving Jesus as he submitted, obeyed and suffered perfectly for you… so also God is fully loving you as you submit, obey and suffer imperfectly as a sinner saved by grace.
And one last thing that you may receive for your comfort. You may be assured that almighty God is even now working through these very trials and distresses for your greatest possible good and blessing. Has he not taught us to say with assured confidence: “We KNOW that all things work together for good to them that love God and are the called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28)? God’s sovereign, special providence is working through flood and famine for your good. Even when you can’t see that or understand just how it can be so and when it feels like it is not good at all. God is working it all together with such wisdom and love that it will prove in the end to have been the very best thing and the way to bring you most blessing. That may be in this life, but it will certainly be in heaven then you get there. That is something you can rest in… like a child in its father’s loving arms. As you suffer according to the will of God, you may commit the keeping of your souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator (1 Peter 4:19).
God has a special place for each of his saints in heaven. They are being prepared for it by their experiences in this present life of trial and suffering. That is true for you, beloved brothers and sisters. God is using the things you suffer to prove the genuineness of your faith and prepare you for your special place and portion in glory. Peter explains this when he writes: “though now for a season, if need be, you are in heaviness through manifold trials: that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 1:6-7). It is your proved faith that is so precious. The apostle Paul, who suffered so much himself, explains this also, in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18: “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18). Don’t think that what you are experiencing is unnecessary or pointless. No indeed, it is preparing you for your particular place in glory and has an eternal weight of glory in view. He will most certainly deliver you fully and finally, just as soon as he has worked that eternal weight of glory that he has in store for you, by means of your trials.
Thank God, brethren, that God has united you together with all his pilgrims in these trials and in the blessings that they produce. Say with the saints, as you suffer: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? … No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life … nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord?” (Romans 8:35-39).
But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. (1Peter 5:6-11.)
Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort (2Corinthians 1:3)