Comfort my people

"Comfort, comfort my people," says your God. Isaiah 40:1

"To seek comfort from priests or parsons is the very perfection of religious folly, yet the world is full of it. Look at them as described in Isaiah 56:10,12: they are blind, ignorant, speechless, lazy, greedy, grasping, besotted. Painful descriptions are given of the incompetency of the prophets and pastors of Israel in Jer. 23, and Ezek. 34. The priest and the Levite had no cordial nor consolation for the Zionite who fell among thieves. But where His own ministers fail, God's will is not frustrated nor His purpose of grace defeated, "His compassions fail not," for where men and means fail in comforting His people, He will comfort them Himself, and thus prove the stability of His appointments, the sovereignty of His will, the immutability of His counsel, the power of His hand, and the love of His heart." -- Excerpted from the sermon "Comfort My People" By Thomas Bradbury, Preached in Grove Chapel, Camberwell, Sunday Evening, November 7th, 1897. (Sent by Jerry Mourer, 17 Dec 2007)