I. In our text there is a specification of one large class of medicine for spiritual disease; and therefore, by inference, one large class of sickness. "Comfort" is the staple of the prescription, and what was the condition of the patients? "Cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, for she hath received of the Lord's hands double for all her sins." Here evidently the condition of Jerusalem is one of distress, anxiety, and distraction, and this accords most exactly with a passage of the Psalms: "In the multitude of my thoughts within me, Thy comforts delight my soul." We conclude that the case of sickness so emphatically prescribed for in our text is that under which the righteous may be labouring from the difficulties which may encompass him. Our text contains a prescription, but not a prescription which will serve in all cases wherever there is a throng of anxious thoughts, but only in cases in which the party strives to walk according to the precepts of religion, and may therefore be classed among the people of God.
II. Consider the faithfulness and efficacy of the medicine prescribed. The case is that of a righteous man, on whom cares and sorrows press with great weight, and whose mind is torn with anxieties, and thronged by a crowd of restless intruders, distracting him even in his communings with God. Now the very disease under which this man labours incapacitates him in a great measure for any process of argument. The comforts of God are the rich assurances of His forgiving and accepting love; the gracious declarations of His everlasting purpose of preserving to the end those whom He has chosen in Christ; the multiplied promises of spiritual guidance, protection, and victory, which make to the eye of faith the page of Scripture one sheet of burning brightness, always presenting most radiantly what is most suited to the necessity. There are the foretastes of immortality, the glimpses of things within the veil, the communications of the Spirit, the anticipations of glory, which if the cold and the worldly resolve into a dream of enthusiasm, the faithful know by experience belong to the realities of their portion. Here then are comforts, and it is the part of the righteous man in his season of anxiety and distraction to confine himself to these comforts, regarding them as a sick man the cordials which are specially adapted to his state.
III. We make no far-fetched application of the text, if we affirm it as specially appropriate on the approach of the last enemy, death. What has the believer to do when conscious that the time of his departure is at hand, but seize the consolations of Christianity, and give himself meekly over into the Good Shepherd's hands? Let him not argue; let him not debate; let him not sit in judgment, let him simply have recourse to the comforts of God.
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit,No. 1712.
I. With these words Isaiah opens his gospel; God's good word to man. The earlier Chapter s are burdens; in view of the sins and wrongs around him, he lifts up his voice and denounces doom. But mercy rejoices against judgment, so he breaks forth before the burden is ended into the most sublime strains of consolation and hope which God's prophets have ever been commissioned to utter to the world. "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but I am thy Saviour," is the real text of his prophecy. It is the theme of his poem wrought out with consummate art through a hundred suggestive variations. A people self-destroyed, God-redeemed, is the thought which meets us everywhere; and it is this which makes these closing Chapter s the great evangelic poems, not of Israel only, but of the world.
II. The words of this passage (1-11) look on to the captivity. The people, afflicted, chastened, broken in spirit, are called upon to listen to the strains of consolation which God has breathed for them in His Word. These words look on through all the ages of human history. It is comfort throughout and comfort to the end. The mercy of judgment is a subject which we too little study. Yet mercy is the deepest element in every judgment with which God afflicts mankind. Great epidemics are healing ordinances. They purify the vital springs. They leave a purer, stronger health when their dread shadow has passed by. Catastrophes in history are like thunder-storms; they leave a fresher, brighter atmosphere. Reigns of terror are the gates through which man passes out into a wider world.
III. Isaiah had the profoundest right to speak of comfort, because he could speak of the advent of the Redeemer to the world. He not only preaches comfort, but discloses the source from which it springs.
J. Baldwin Brown, The Sunday Afternoon,p. 1.
I. In the first place, let us identify the people spoken of. "Comfort ye, comfort ye Mypeople." There was a first reference to the people of the Jews, who we know all through were a people that shadowed forth other people. The people spoken of in these words who are to be comforted are preeminently the people of God. They are those who have Christ for their righteousness, and the Spirit for their strength, grace for their life, God for their Father, heaven for their home.
II. Notice next those messengers through whom this comfort is to be given. There seems to have been no plurality at first, for this is the writing of the prophet Isaiah; but as it was written it was not done with, and as the secretary of the Holy Spirit entered the minute in this book the All-wise Spirit said, "I shall want it for the future; for Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, and Paul, for all My servants through all ages. I shall be saying through all time through them, 'Comfort ye,comfort yeMy people."
III. Consider the comfort we are to convey. "Comfort ye My people." (1) By reminding them that I am their God. All this chapter is a remembrance that God is the Father of His people. (2) By reminding them that their captivity in this world is nearly over, and that they will soon be home. There is a glorious world beyond this. We know that there is such a world. Let us cherish the thought, and push through the difficulties of this world. We shall not see it until we reach the throne of glory, and see God as He is. (3) The Saviour is coming to this world, and is on His way to show His glory here. Comfort the people who feel amazed and disquieted by the sight of the strong things that are arrayed against Christ. Tell them that Christ will overcome these things. He will come and fill the world with His victories.
C. Stanford, Contemporary Pulpit,vol. v., p. 9.
References: Isaiah 40:1. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. iv., No. 221; Ibid. Old Testament Outlines,p. 197; C. J. Vaughan, Christian World Pulpit,vol. ix., p. 168. Isaiah 40:1; Isaiah 40:2. H. Christopherson, Penny Pulpit,No. 440; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons,p. 110; S. Baring-Gould, One Hundred Sermon Sketches,p. 117. Isaiah 40:3. J. Service, Sermons,p. 1; A. Watson, Sermons for Sundays, Festivals, and Fasts,2nd series, vol. ii., p. 380; J. Baldwin Brown, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xiii., p. 40. Isaiah 40:3; Isaiah 40:4. Homiletic Magazine,vol. viii., p. 129.