Open your Bibles, if you would, to Isaiah 49. Isaiah 49, beginning in verse 8 on to verse 16. Our scripture reading for tonight in preparation for the Word of God. You'll find this in your pew Bibles on page 775. Isaiah 49. Shall we stand as we hear the word of the Lord together? Thus says the Lord, in a time of favor I have answered you, in a day of salvation I have helped you. I will keep you and give you as a covenant to the people, to establish the land, to apportion the desolate heritages. Saying to the prisoners, come out. To those who are in darkness, appear. They shall feed along the way. On all bare heights shall be their pasture. They shall not hunger or thirst. Neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them. For he who has pity on them will lead them, and by springs of water will guide them. And I will make all my mountains a road, and my highways shall be raised up. Behold, these shall come from afar. Behold, these from the north and from the west, and these from the land of Syene. Sing for joy, O heavens, and exalt, O earth. Break forth, O mountains, into singing. For the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion on his afflicted. But Zion said, the Lord has forsaken me. My Lord has forgotten me. Can a woman forget her nursing child that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget. Yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. Your walls are continually before me. Amen. Thus saith the Lord. Please be seated. The preaching of the Word of God tonight will find us back in 2 Corinthians 1, if you'd like to open to that place. 2 Corinthians 1, verse 4. Let us pray together and ask the Lord's blessing upon his word. Oh, Father in heaven, how grateful we are this night that you are a God who comforts your people. We are mindful tonight, oh Lord, of this title that you have given to us, this title by which you have made yourself known, for we stand in need of comfort. Many are the burdens which we bear, each of us in our own Christian walk, Many are the struggles which we face, O Lord, in the relationships which we have in this life, whether in our families or in our workplaces, even in our church. Many are the things which have tried us in such ways, O Lord, that we have found ourselves to be very impatient. We have found ourselves at times to be jealous and envious and covetous. We have found ourselves to be bitter and filled with anger. We have found things in our hearts, O Lord, that we loathe. We come before you this night looking to you that you would be our comforter. And we thank you, O Father, that you have revealed yourself as the God of all comfort, as our God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our God of all our comforts. And, O Father, we ask this night that you would make good on your title and you would comfort us, that you who are the God of all comfort would be our comforter. And this night we may know the truth of this title, that we may know it experientially and practically and really and truly in our own lives. And so bless us, O Father. Meet us where we are. We have come, O Lord, unto you. And we desire, O Father, that you would bless us for the sake of Jesus our Savior. And therefore we ask it with confidence tonight in His name. Amen. Let's give our attention to the Word of God in this passage again. 2 Corinthians 1, beginning in verse 1, Paul writes, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy, our brother, to the Church of God that is at Corinth with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. Amen. Well, dear church, this morning we learned together that our God is the God of all comfort. This is who He is. This is one of His many glorious and precious titles. Our Lord, as we learned, is the fountain of all kinds of comfort Our God, our precious God, is a spring of every comfort His church could ever need. But this great title would be as nothing to us. This great title, as full as it is, as we saw together this morning, would be as nothing to us, the afflicted church, if our God were a fountain all sealed up. If he was a son whose warmth and light were never felt or seen by the benighted, if he was a healing cordial locked away from the sick who could not then access it, if he were a bottle of fragrance, the seal of which had never been broken, But the point of verse four before us this evening is to show us very simply that our God makes good on all His titles. He fills up His names by His works. He shows what He is, which means that all of His titles in Scripture are most useful to our faith if we would but believe them. and call upon Him by them, resting in that revelation that He gives us of Himself. So what we need to see together tonight, with the Lord's help, is that our God is the God of all comfort, who actually comforts His people in all their afflictions. We might say that this morning we look together at the noun before us, that our God is the God of all comfort. This evening we want to look at the verb. that He comforts us in all our affliction. There is more in verse four as it goes on to speak of how He does this, using one and another of us that we might share the comfort with one another that we have received from God, but we won't be looking into that. We'll look merely at the first part. So let me, with God's help, break open the seal of this fragrant verse for us by looking at three points together very simply this evening. First of all, that God actually comforts His people, that He actually does what He says. And then secondly, that He comforts us in all our afflictions, that His comforting is as extensive as our suffering. And then thirdly, I'll give you what I pray are some sweet morsels with which God comforts His people in our trials, and I pray you'll tuck these away and keep them for yourselves, that you may use them in a time of need, I might say in every time of need. In Isaiah 51, verse three, we read this promise. For the Lord shall comfort Zion, He will comfort all her waste places, and he will make her wilderness like Eden and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody. And then in verse 12, we have this assurance from the Lord himself. I, I am he who comforts you. And then later in chapter 66, the last chapter of Isaiah, in verse 13, the Lord says to us, as one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you, and you shall be comforted. And so we have the apostle's words confirmed for us then. Our God is a God who actually comforts His people. Whatever our situation, whatever our darkness, whatever our grief, we have a God who comforts us, for we are His people. I want you to notice just briefly that the verse here does not say to us that our God is a God who can comfort his people, as if to say that God has the potential to actually always comfort us, but doesn't always do so. That's not what the verse says. In our unbelief, we imagine sometimes that that's what it says, but that's not what it says. Our God is not a God filled with potential. Our God is a God filled with actuality. And Paul's point is that our God is the God of all comfort, who comforts. In fact, what it says His most encouraging and comforting it says that our God is the God of comfort who always comforts. He's always comforting. It flows from Him so easily and readily. His comfort flows out of Him as naturally and as unceasingly. As light and heat flow out of the sun, God's consoling grace can no more cease in its flow towards his people than his love could cease in its flow towards his own son. Let us therefore bear this in mind, brothers and sisters, that however black things may be in your lives, God's people are never without comfort because God never ceases to comfort them. That's what the verse means. That's what it says. Find a Christian. Find a Christian anywhere in the world. Find a Christian. Find a child of God in the deepest pit of despair a man could possibly know. And you will find that he has enough comfort even there to keep him from sinking. You see, he may be as low as a man could possibly be in this life, and yet still he rests on his Lord's hand. As low as he is, he has not yet sunk. One Puritan once said, if the head of the church is in the heavens, the body cannot well sink. And so it is. Find a Christian in the deepest pit of despair, and you'll find he's still afloat, however low he may be. Why is that? Because when we're at the utter depths, when we are at the utter depths of human misery, we have reached a finite place, a finite depth, and a finite limit. And there is a depth to God's infinite mercy that reaches lower still. Man may stoop, man may fall, man may be crushed, and yet God is lower still to uphold him. This is our God, the God of comfort who comforts. And how does the Father comfort us? How does the Father's comfort come to us? Oh, we learned this morning, didn't we? It's only through His Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, who is our comfort. What were those precious words spoken in prophecy of our Lord Jesus Christ in Isaiah 61? You know the passage. Our Lord used these words Himself. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn. And so our God is the God of comfort, who comforts His people through His Son, Jesus Christ, with the good news of His justifying righteousness and His atoning death. Through Jesus Christ, the condemned are comforted by pardon. The repentant are comforted by forgiveness. The convicted are comforted by justification. and the outcast are comforted by acceptance. Through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, hearts broken with a sense of sin and rent with a dread of God's wrath are bound up and soothed with the balm of His blood and the discovery of the love of God and the removal of all guilt and the forgiveness of all sin. through Him who loved us and gave Himself up for us. But take it one step further, dear church. If the Father comforts us in and through His Son, Jesus Christ, then both the Father and the Son comfort us through the Holy Spirit who is therefore given to the church as her comforter. You know the passage in John 14 verse 16, Jesus promised his church, I will ask the Father and he will give you another comforter to be with you forever, even the spirit of truth. And what are Paul's words here in this passage, and Paul's words elsewhere in the other letters that he writes to the church, that the comforting spirit of God fills the church with comfort. For in all of Paul's many trials, and can we not say the same for ourselves, Paul was ever upheld by the comfort of God who sent his spirit to his church as her comforter. You remember the passage from this morning in 2 Corinthians chapter 7, where Paul spoke later in this very book, I was comforted by the coming of Titus. I'm comforted by the good news. I'm comforted by your love. I'm comforted by God, he says. In all of Paul's trials and was any tried like Paul was. But in all of his trials, he was so greatly comforted by God. And he testified to the same. so that every covenant blessing which is ours from God and every consolation which is ours in Christ is comfortably brought home to our hearts by the indwelling witness and seal of the Holy Spirit. For we have a triune God who is the God of all comfort and who comforts his people. Dear church, our God, I pray tonight your God Our God is not a fountain all sealed up, not at all, nor is our God a sweet cordial locked away from reach, but our God is a fountain, a fountain of comfort which constantly pours consolation into our hearts. Our God is a cordial which ever heals and rejoices all of his church who by faith will drink of it. and testify they can that He is a Comforter. But something must be said here before moving on. Something very important must be said in this place, and that is that there is no comfort for the impenitent and unbelieving What Isaiah chapter 48 verse 22 says of the wicked, that there is no peace for the wicked, says the Lord. This verse by implication says for the wicked, there is no comfort for the wicked, says the Lord. You see, God is the God of comfort. only to those to whom he is as well the father of mercies and as well the God and father of their Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. You remember the order in these verses, do you not? Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies and God of all comfort. God is an ever flowing fountain of consolation for his people and their suffering. But that fountain does not flow to the wicked who have not come through the gate of the Lord Jesus Christ. So that unless a man is in Christ by faith and repentance, unless a man is a member of the covenant of grace, unless a man is a child of God by adoption, he has no right to the comforts that all that only God can give, He has no right at all, and He will never know them. And whatever comforts He enjoys in this life, whatever comforts He may boast of in this life outside of Christ, will be seen to be no comforts at all, but weights upon Him when Christ returns, bitter anchors weighing His soul down. So let everyone here know for certain, according to the passage given to us here by the Spirit of God, that to all those who are outside of Christ, this fountain of eternal comfort, whichever flows, is a fountain all sealed up. And nothing but a believing surrender to the Savior Jesus Christ can roll away that stone and open its mouth to you. But secondly, Paul not only says that our God is a God who comforts us, but notice he says that he comforts us in all our afflictions. Here, Paul reveals the extent of the reach of God's comfort, God's arm of comfort. How far does it reach, beloved? Well, you see it before you. It reaches to all our afflictions. The word for afflictions here is a very strong word. It means tribulation. It means bruising and even persecution. But it carries the idea of a trial that oppresses and literally squeezes a man. pressing upon him so hard. And Paul's point here is that there is no possible affliction or trial or suffering in which we can find ourselves that God doesn't reach us with His comforting grace. He meets us, Paul says, in every single affliction we face. Sometimes our comfort, our sufferings rather, sometimes our trials are so bitter and so painful that we feel like the life is being squeezed out of us. Sometimes we cry out up into the heavens as it were and says, I can't take it anymore. I can't go one more day. I must have relief. And we feel like our lives are being squeezed out of us. We feel like we can hardly breathe. Fears within, pressures from without. The demands and obligations and cryings of all sorts of things are being pulled in all directions. We feel like no one can help us and no one understands us. And the trial is even so great that we dare not ask God, partly because we don't want to be disappointed in him not answering us. We feel the trial is so great that not even God can come help us. But Paul says otherwise. Paul says God is a comforter who comforts us in all our afflictions, no matter the squeezing, the pulling, the twisting, the trying, the testing. In all our afflictions, God comforts us. He actively comforts us. And the church's history, and more and more the church's present, has been marked by martyrs who have suffered affliction so dark that it makes us sick to our stomachs to think of what they have gone through for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ. But I would ask you tonight, dear friends, I would ask you, dear church, what have our brothers and sisters found time and time again? What have they found but that the God of all comfort comforts us in all our afflictions? Their testimonies have borne it out again and again, that in the darkness of the dungeon, in the darkness of the chopping block, and even in the darkness of the stake for burning them alive, the joys and the consolations which God poured into their hearts at that time, the comforts with which God met them at that very hour, rose above their trials and fears. Greater, we have heard them say, greater is the comfort of God in that very hour than all that man could ever do to them. God proved to them as he proved to the Apostle Paul in his own life and as I believe he has proven to every believing heart here today that he comforts us in all our afflictions. Have you not seen it, brothers and sisters? Can you not hear testify to the Lord's faithfulness to you? Have you not found yourselves in trials for which you saw no escape, and even at times gave up hope of deliverance, and yet there did not the Lord meet you? Have you not seen it? I know you have. For our God is not a man that he should lie, nor a son of man that he should repent, and he says here unto us that he comforts us in all our afflictions. I know you have seen it. But how can He do this, I wonder? How can God make such an open-ended promise as this? Is this not an entirely open-ended promise? The Lord has placed no restriction at all, no reservation has been made on the Lord's part. For what does He say? We are comforted by Him, He says, in all our afflictions. How can God make such an open-ended promise unto us? Does He not know? What we're facing? What we will yet face? The answer is because in His own infinite heart, and in the gospel of His love, and in His own precious Son, He has made ample provision for all the sorrows His people will face in their wilderness pilgrimage to heaven. What does this mean, dear church? but that no new trials can spring up in your path, no new grief can shade your spirit, no new calamity can crush you to the ground, that your God of all comfort has not anticipated and already provided for in the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing new will arise, you see. Not one thing will arise in your life or in the life of the church and the lives of the saints until our Savior returns, for which God has not already provided in Jesus Christ. Every comforting resource you need has already been given to Jesus, and He's promised to supply it unto you for the asking. I wonder tonight, are you grieved by bereavement? Where will you find more sympathy in your time and hour of bereavement than in the heart of Him who wept? Are you suffering under the burden of ill health and maybe a weak spirit who can comfort you more than He who bore all your sicknesses and infirmities? And who can make your bed in your sickness better than He who willingly and contentedly drank the bitter cup that the Father had put into His hand for you? Are you grieved tonight by your sin? Jesus Christ can pardon you. Are you downcast over your sinfulness? Jesus and His own righteousness can justify you tonight. Are you being squeezed by some great trial? Are you being emptied by suffering? Are you being broken by your burdens? Christ has strength and fullness and wholeness for you. Are you pressed down even by some temporal need? Christ knows what you need before you ask, and He's promised to sustain you. Dear church, make use of this comfort. God reveals himself to you in this passage today as the God of all comfort, not only that you might believe it, but that you might use it, that you might lean upon it. Whatever your trial is today, go to God at once and lean on Jesus, who is God's comfort poured into the hearts, the broken hearts of his people. Millions of souls, billions of souls, trillions of souls in heaven would testify to you, if they could, that they first met God in an hour of affliction. And I wonder tonight if you will not look to God in your affliction. The Lord delights to draw near to his people in the dark and sad hours of trial. But if God comforts His people in their every affliction, and if God's comforts are so sweet and so precious that they effectively comfort and rejoice God's afflicted people, then I believe we need to know what these comforts are. We need this good news, and we need these tucked away in our hearts. So let me tonight outline several of them for you, because if you can remember these and resort to them in your trials, you will never be without God's comfort. And I encourage you tonight, if you need comfort, write these down. First of all, taking it as a given that the majority of our discomforts are from our sins, the sweetest comfort of God In Jeremiah 8, verse 22, it is that there is balm in Gilead for every sinner who will come for washing. If you're mourning tonight over your sin, if your heart is broken and contrite, then God's word of comfort for you is always that there is balm in Gilead. There is a physician there. There is salve for your wounds. There is cleansing for your pollution. There is a great physician in Jesus Christ to heal all your infirmities. Christ himself makes this abundantly clear when he teaches us in the Lord's Prayer to say every day, Father, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Christ knew that we would have daily sins, and so he gave us, as it were, a daily prayer, forgive us our debts. There is no one here who should be discouraged about his sins, thinking that God cannot or God will not forgive you. Did not Christ come to save sinners? Did not God send Him to bind up the brokenhearted? Did not Christ Himself say that all the sins of men will be forgiven them, and that those who mourn are blessed? Then go to the Father of mercies, go to the God of comfort, and confess your sins, and He will give you His comfort. Though your sins were as red as scarlet, He promises unto you that the atoning blood of Christ is a pool of Siloam. who will make them as white as snow? Will you let your sin and your guilt rob you of God's comfort today? Or will you take God at His word and will you go to Christ in repentance for comfort, the comfort of forgiveness and pardon which only God can give? But there are more grievances, many more grievances than our sin. And these grievances are so varied that no one could list them all. But whatever these grievances are, the comforts with which God refreshes us are all sufficient. So let me tonight, as I close with these, let me give you five of these comforts. And I pray you'll count these as dear and keep them as close as David kept those five stones in his pouch for an hour of need. Number one tonight, comfort yourself with the nature of the covenant of grace. Comfort yourself with the nature of the covenant of grace. According to the covenant of grace that God made with us in Christ, God is and God will forever be our Father in heaven. And so answer me this, can a God who loves you so much that He crushed His own Son on the cross to save you, can He do anything but good to you? The Apostle Paul said, if the Lord has given us His Son, then will He not also with Him give us all things? My dear friends, what is left? In the giving of the Son of God on the cross, God gave His gold bar unto you and for you. Anything else in all the world for which you ask are nothing but pennies. Will God withhold from you pennies when He has laid out His gold bar on the cross for you? This is the nature of the covenant of grace. Because He's your Father, He corrects you and disciplines you. But because He's your Father, He will never harm you, and He will never hurt you. Everything He does with you springs out of His eternal love for you. A love set upon you long before you were born, before the world was created, before there was anything, when there was nothing. But God, and as the Father of mercies, whether He smiles at you or strikes you with His own hand, whatever He does in your life is mercy. Mercy, dear friends, mercy. He never treats you as you deserve. And you ought to bless Him for it. But He ever and always acts towards you in mercy. as the father of mercies. And should this not refresh you in any affliction you face, to remember that you're a child of the covenant, and therefore you suffer nothing more than the necessary wounds of a child of God. This is enough, I believe, to quiet your heart and to teach you contentment in any trial you face. Secondly, tonight, another morsel for your soul is to comfort yourself with the promise of His all-sufficiency for the trial. How precious is the promise of 1 Corinthians 10, 13. I know you know this verse. God is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it. The promise of that verse is this, dear church, that either God will raise your strength to the level of your trial or God will lower the trial to the level of your strength. That's the promise. The fact will always be that you are able to bear, you are able to do, you are able to suffer and do all things through him who strengthens you. That's the promise. And this should be a great comfort to you, dear Christian, that your God will match your trial to your ability, your ability by grace, of course, but your ability nonetheless, that your cross will be cut by God to fit your shoulders. That no trial will be so great in your life, but God will be greater and your supplied strength will be more than sufficient. That's the promise. A third morsel for you tonight is to comfort yourself with the promised presence of God in the trial. Not only is God all sufficient for your trial, but he promises to be with you in it And is there anything more needed than this? This is given to us so beautifully in Isaiah 43, verses 2 to 3. When you pass through the waters, the Lord says, I will be with you. And through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned. And the flame shall not consume you. Why, O Lord? How can it be, O God? For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. Brothers and sisters, is there any trial at all that we cannot face if the God of all comfort is with us in it? And can God not banish all discomforts whatsoever? He is the God of all comfort, is He not? And more than that, God is light. And where he is, he banishes darkness. And is not this enough for us? Is this not enough for you? It was enough for David. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. But what if a great army of men surrounds you, David? David, what if swords are brandished and an army presses upon you, David? Is God still enough for you, David? Many are rising against me. Many are saying of my soul, there's no salvation for him in God. But you, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory and the lifter of my head. I will not be afraid of many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around. For salvation belongs to the Lord. If God before us, who can be against us, dear church? What trial can warrant fear or anxiety when God warrants our trust. For He will be with us, not to keep us out of the trial, but to uphold us in it, to strengthen us for it, to comfort us through it, and to raise our spirits above it. And is this not a great comfort in all our afflictions? A fourth morsel I would give you tonight is this. Comfort yourself with the promised good outcome of the trial. What a panacea Romans 8.28 is. It has, I fear, almost become too common. Let me remind you of its truth, that whatever our affliction, All things work together for good to them that love God. We willingly endure the most painful and bitter remedies because of the good things they promise us, the good outcome that they promise us. We willingly submit ourselves to the surgeon's knives because of the good health that they promise us by it. But will we do this so easily, so willingly? Will we do this in the physical things of life and can we not do it in the spiritual things of life? Will we trust the hands and the theories and the learning of men whose life and breath is in his nostrils? And can we not trust the wisdom and the knowledge of our old wise God, the God of all comfort and the Father of mercies? Whatever your trial, remember that it is from your Father and it is for your good. But then add this as a necessary consequence of those two comforts that it always tends to a good end. Your Father sent it, in other words, for your good. He is with you to make it work for your good, and therefore it cannot but result in your ultimate good. That's what Romans 8, 28 teaches. If we're refreshed with these comforts, can we not trustingly, can we not patiently, can we not contentedly, Can we not joyfully endure any and every suffering? It was said of Christ that He endured the accursed cross because of the joy that was set before Him. And should you not endure your crosses with comfort for the good in God's heart which is set before you in the Scriptures? And lastly tonight, as a fifth morsel to tuck away, comfort yourself with the promise of final deliverance and eternal comfort. If nothing else raises your soul above your grief and sorrow, then this will, that your comforts won't last long, or rather, your afflictions won't last long. In 2 Corinthians 4, 17, Paul speaks of all the sufferings of life as momentary afflictions. And in 1 Peter 1, 6, Peter says, we're grieved by various trials, but only for a little while. However long our trials are, however long our afflictions are, the scriptures tell us they are but short. Maybe you're saying tonight, yeah preacher, but I've always been in a trial. My whole life has been a trial. I've never been outside of suffering. My whole life has been one of affliction and suffering and pain. That's my life and I've never known other. Maybe you feel as though you've never been able to raise your head above the cloud of trial. Brothers and sisters in Christ, let me remind you of the word of the Lord in James chapter 4. that your whole life is but a mist, a vapor, which appears for a little time and then vanishes. Now if life, if your life, compared to the eternal bliss in which the Lord has in store for us, if your life is but a vapor, then even a lifelong grief is short. Even a cloud of trial that never parts from you from the day of your birth to the day of your death, you will one day see more clearly and by the grace of God be able to say, it was short and it did not last long. Such is the good news of God unto you because in contrast to all of your trials One long suffering, a pile and a heap of great numbers of sufferings in contrast to all your trials. Dear Christian, 2 Thessalonians 2.16 says your God has given you eternal comfort in Jesus Christ. And what that means to you is that the day is soon coming. when every tear will be wiped from your eyes and your trials will be no more. And when that day comes, your comfort will flow upon you with such abundance and such sweetness, and it will last forever and ever and ever, as long as the God of all comfort reigns. And should this not comfort you in all of your afflictions, that final deliverance and eternal comfort is at your heels. Dear church, take these five comforts tonight as five morsels. Keep them at the ready in your mind and in your heart so that you can swallow them down in the day of trial as good medicine and a sweet cordial from your God unto you. For no child of God needs to make his journey without God's ample comfort. Because it's by such promises as these that the God of all comfort comforts his people in all their afflictions and brings them home to heaven with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Amen. Let us pray together. O God of all comfort, Father of mercies, God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you tonight for your rich and abundant grace. Thank you, O Lord, for the tenderness with which you have taught our hearts tonight, teaching us tonight as little children must be taught precept upon precept, line upon line. Thank you, O God, that you have been patient with us and you have guided us one step at a time. Bring now these words and truths, bring this truth home to our hearts in such a way, O God, that we may never be without your comfort. It is your comfort that we seek. It is your comfort for which we long. It is your comfort for which we pray tonight. O Lord, we pray that you would be with each and every one. You know our trials and you know how suitable your comforts are unto us. Would you bless us, bless this church, bless these homes, these lives, bless your people, that as we look unto you in faith through the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our comfort, O Lord, may we testify to your compassion and your love and your favor. that you have never forgotten us, you will never leave us nor forsake us, but you will be near to us, with us, with us in grace, and with us in comfort. We give you thanks and ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.