Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy, our brother, under the Church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints which are in Achaia. Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. 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. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ. Whether we be afflicted it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. And our hope of you is steadfast, knowing that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, So shall ye be also of the consolation. We would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, inasmuch that we despaired even of life. But we had the sentence of death in ourselves. that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver, in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us. He also helpeth together by prayer for us, that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons, thanks may be given by many on our behalf. For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience that is simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshy wisdom, but by the grace of God we have had our conversation in the world and more abundantly to you would. For we write on other things unto you than what ye read or acknowledge, and I trust ye shall acknowledge even to the end. Thou also have acknowledged us in part, that we are your rejoicing, even as ye also are ours in the day of the Lord Jesus. And in this confidence I was minded to come unto you before that ye might have a second benefit, and to pass by you into Macedonia, and to come again out of Macedonia unto you, and of you to be brought on my way towards you, dear. When I therefore was thus minded, did I use lightness? Are the things that I purpose, do I purpose according to the flesh? That with me there should be yea, and yea, and nay, and nay? But as God is true, our word towards you is not yea and nay. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, was preached among you by us, even by me, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in him was yea. For all the promises of God are in him, yea, and in him, amen, unto the glory of God by us. Now he which establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us is God, who hath also sealed us and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts. Moreover, I call God for a record upon my soul, that to spare you I came not as yet unto Corinth. Not for that we might have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy, for by faith ye stand. Amen. If you'd like now to turn over to Job chapter 2. We looked at the first chapter and the main part of the second chapter and we ended last time on Job chapter 2 and Job's response to his dear lady wife who said to him, why don't you curse God and die? His response to her was, thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil? And all this did not Job sin with his lips. So that's where we finished, and we were challenged, I trust, by Job's response to all these difficult times and so on. And remember, he doesn't know what's going on, whereas we do, we know what's behind the scene. Now for a fairly brief time, I don't want to be overly long tonight, I want to look at the last couple of verses, 11, 12, and 13, in general as these three friends. Now, if you know very little about Joob, you will know something about Joob's comforters. And the world out there who knows very little about Joob at all will say on occasions, you're a proper Joob's comforter. Now, they probably don't know what it means in its history and its Bible connection, but they know something of this phrase that we use in English, you're a Job's comforter, which means you're a comforter, but you're not. All right? You're the type of person that says, I'm sorry, you're having troubles, but there you may get more. kind of thing. They're Job's comforters. They're not really comforting. In fact, they're discomforting. They're adding troubles to troubles. Well, we use that phrase in English, and it comes from, obviously, this book of Job and from his three friends. Now, we probably won't go into what they said from chapter three onwards, but just a few little principles I want to bring out from these three verses. Let me read them to you. Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place, Eliphaz, from T. Manet, Bildad, the Shiite, and Zophar, the Naamathite. I got one of these Bibles, old AVs, which breaks it up, which is very helpful, particularly for someone like me who can't read properly. They made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him. And when they lift up their eyes afar off and knew him not, they lift up their voice and wept and they rent everyone his mantle and sprinkled dust upon their heads towards heaven. So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights and none speak a word unto him for they saw that his grief was very great. Now, thus far, thus good. And we can learn a lot about them and the context and applications to ourselves, although obviously circumstances would be far different. I want to talk about how we react and deal with, particularly brothers and sisters who are going through tough times, and how we should act and react and perhaps how we shouldn't act and react. So let's look first very simply at the need for comfort. Very straightforward, isn't it? The need for comfort. We're told when his three friends heard all this evil, evil circumstances and so forth that came upon him, they came. We need to hear about our brothers and sisters who are going through tough times. One of the saddest things is when you don't hear and then people complain, well, you didn't come to see me, you didn't ring me up, you didn't do anything for me, and we say, well, to be honest, I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know you were going through this time. I didn't know you were going through these difficulties. We might say to them, well, why didn't you tell me? And they might say, well, why didn't you make an effort to find out? And so it goes round and round. But we need to know what's happening to our brothers and sisters. Not in an invasive sense, but out of concern for them. A concern for our brothers and sisters. A concern for what is happening, how are they, our things with them. Because, let's face it, some of us only meet once a week. Really, that's not enough. Now, I'm not going to blame game. Some can't come twice on a Sunday. Some can't come on a Thursday. And there we are. But it's sad that we don't have more fellowship amongst believers. So this is not just a practice to ourselves here at Scotland Road. Most churches suffer something similar. We need to get together and we need to hear how they are. to an end of comforting them, to an end of praying for them. We can't effectively pray for people if we don't know how they are and what is happening and how they're getting on. And I'm finding increasingly, as I talk to folk, there are a lot of folk there who are hurting. I'm talking about Christian folk now. A lot of folk out there were hurting, and they got concerns. Some they would share if there was a listening ear to hear. Others, perhaps they don't want to share. But they are suffering. They're aching. There's these great problems. And we don't know. We don't know. Now, these three friends heard. They heard about Job's afflictions and trials and all that happened to him, to his family, to his livestock, to his possessions, and then to himself. So thank God that I have a concern for him and they come to find out what's going on. These days we've got so many ways of contact and I don't want to belittle them electronically, but it seems to me the best way of contact is still face to face. So I've got the text messages and WhatsApps and I had a funny little experience today because I had a friend ring me up on the phone and I picked it up and there his little face was because he was doing it by WhatsApp. So I was actually talking to him and I said, well, I'd rather talk to you on my laptop because I could sit down and look at your full face as it were. And it was most peculiar. First time it ever happened to me on my phone. There we are. Very clever. But there's nothing that does away with face-to-face looking at people. I saw a lady yesterday and there was a bit of a discussion and because I was there face to face with her, with another lady, I could see the way she was reacting and what we call her body language gave away her feelings that you couldn't get from her print and you might not get on the phone but you could see she was so concerned about this particular subject and it was there, it was hitting me as it were. So these people are concerned and they come and they see him face to face. Thank God for that. How sorry we must be for people who have no friends, no family, nobody to whom they can talk. Thank God for a church family where the church becomes the family of such folk. And we should make more of an effort to be family to them if they haven't got family of their own. It's interesting, isn't it, that when James writes this little letter, which is very practical, you know that, you don't need me to tell you that, and he's going to give you, us, a definition of what he calls pure religion. He's going to give us a definition of what pure religion is. And if you didn't know the verse I'm about to quote you, which you do know, but if you didn't know that, and I said to you, give me a definition of pure religion. And you'd think of all kinds of things. And you'd be right that this is true religion. This is pure religion. This is Christianity. This is Christianity at its best, its highest. You'd tell me a whole host of things. And I'd say, that's true. That's right. And then I'd say, do you know what James actually says? Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this. Wait for it. Some big thing coming. to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world. And there's a kind of, huh, that's a bit of a letdown. I was expecting something big and tremendous and whoa, you know, big stuff. But this is kind of, this is ordinary stuff. This is what I call bread and butter stuff. But for James, it was so important that this is what he writes under the inspiration of the spirit. We have acts, don't we, and we're not far into acts, and there's a big problem in the church. What's this big problem? Is it doctrinal? Is it morality? What's the big problem? It's the problem of looking after the widows. And so Peter and the apostles have to deal with that problem. Now it's a practical problem, but it has implications that could affect the whole church if it's not dealt with properly, sensitively, and scripturally, I would say, biblically. So we have to be concerned about one another, particularly those who are vulnerable. And we need to find out. how folk are, and do what we can to help. Now, what we can do may be limited to how we are ourselves, physically, spiritually, and all other things. What do they do? Well, they hear that there's a problem, and they make an appointment. It's funny, isn't it? They made an appointment to gather, to come to mourn with him and comfort him. It's strange. I mean, I just smiled when I saw that, because where I come from, you can go and knock on the, this is South Wales, knock on the door, and say, oh, hello, Mr. Jones. Oh, hello, Colin. I come for a cuppa. Yeah, that's fine, come on in. And in you go. When you move to England and you say, oh, I'll come for a cuppa, oh, yeah, well, ring me up and make an appointment. I go, what's that about? Why should I make an appointment to come and have a cuppa with you? But that's what you have to do in England, you see, you can't just knock the door. And in fact, some days I wouldn't even knock the door. I'd knock and say, hello, Mr. Jones, it's Colin. Oh, come in, Colin. And I'm ready to go. You couldn't do that. Oh, I couldn't do that. But they made an appointment. They make an appointment and they go and see him. And we have this expression, to mourn with him and to comfort him. The word comfort in Hebrew has this thought of comfort, as we would think in English, but also compassion. And the word compassion has the idea of, now you think this is peculiar, has the thought of the womb. And apparently those who know say it's to do with the tenderness of the womb and a mother who bears the child from the womb. So that's the kind of background. Now in a moment we'll come to the New Testament and we find something similar. But in the Old Testament, this word compassion, it's a lovely word, it's a great word. If I was to say to you, who in the Bible, recorded in the Bible, is the first person to have compassion? I wonder if you'd know. You know the story and you know the answer, but it probably won't come to mind very quickly. Anybody want to go? It's okay. Failed. No, it's okay. I'll tell you who it was. Pharaoh's daughter. Oh, you remember that, don't you? I hope. All right? The pharaoh's daughter is the first person in the scriptures, all right, that the word is, she had compassion. And you know upon whom she had compassion? You know? Marie, Moses. She had compassion on Moses. I won't keep asking these questions, I'm gonna take all the time. Why? Did she have compassion on Moses? Answer. Why did she have compassion on Moses? Nope, nope, nope, nope. First thing. Because it cried, come on, the baby cried, right? Now you see this, this is so small, but it's gigantic in the purposes of God. That's what's so great about it. She went, she was there in the river, and this woman said, and the baby cried, the baby wept, and that's what babies do, they cry. And she cried and the daughter of Pharaoh had compassion on the baby and therefore took and you know the story. And all the rest of the history of Moses and Israel and ultimately the history of redemption started with a baby crying. Isn't that amazing? You and I are here in a sense under the purposes of God and the sovereign providence of God because there was a baby who wept long ago in Egypt of a woman who had compassion on that baby and who saved him. He became Moses and all the rest of it is history. Marvelous. The next person of compassion is, of course, the Lord himself. And most of the references to having compassion are obviously of the Lord himself, the Psalms, and through Galilee will come to them. Eventually, the Psalms are full of, Lord, you are compassionate, full of compassion. That little phrase often in there, full of compassion. Now, one of the problems about computers and supposed knowledge that we think we have, I think I have, is that you know a verse, and you just want to check it, and so you type it into your computer, and it doesn't come up. And you think, hmm, this is funny, what is this? So, I'm checking now on this word compassion in the Old Testament. So I click it in, type it out, compassion, click a button, and all these verses come up, and there's one missing. And I'll tell you the one that's missing because you know it very well. The one that's missing is from Lamentations. All right? And I would have, this is the way I would have read it to you. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed because his compassion fail not. They are new every morning, greatest are faithless. And that didn't come up when I typed in compassion. And do you know why it didn't come up? Because it's plural. See, I typed in compassion and the computer doesn't know any difference, right? So it said, right, if you want compassion, singular, that's what you'll get. If you type in compassions, you get a few extra. And I read it again because his compassions fail not. God is plural in his compassions, all kinds of compassions. God is a compassionate God, hallelujah. And remember, the man who wrote that lamentation was Jeremiah, and he had tough times. But in all his tough times, in all his lamentations, he could say, you know, it is of the Lord's mercies that we're not consumed. Because his compassions fail not, they are new every morning, great is thy faithfulness. Well, these folk come to have compassion and to comfort this poor man. Joke. The reason I read Corinthians, 2 Corinthians chapter 1, because the word comfort is there repeated several times. Just verse 3, blessed be the God and Father of all, Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of all, the God of all comfort. Verse four, who comforts us in all our tribulation that we may be able to comfort those out of any trouble and the comfort with which we are comforted by the comfort with which we are comforted by God and so on. So Paul writes to these Christians saying, you need to be comforted. I know that you need to be comforted and we want to comfort you and the way we're going to comfort you is by the comfort we ourselves have been comforted. Have you got that? You say, there's a lot of comfort in there. Thank God there is. It's come from God to Paul, through Paul, to the Corinthians. That's the way it works. God has compassion on folk through his people. God comforts folk through his people. God does this by means. Thank God he does by means. Now God goes and does sometimes directly to this comfort, directly deal with folk. But normally, often, thank God he does, he uses people like you and people like me to comfort and to encourage others. And we need to be people who comfort one another. I told you that the word in the New Testament is similar in a sense to the thinking of the Old Testament. And I won't try to pronounce it because it's a very funny word and I can't pronounce it anyway. But what I can pronounce is that the origin of the family of the word in English can be translated as spleen. Isn't that a funny thing to say? Well, you remember in ancient days people felt that the feelings were kind of located in the stomach area. So this is why you have an expression, bowels of mercy, right? As if this compassion is kind of there somewhere, different parts of the body have different kind of functions, and the feelings kind of come from down there. And it's a strange thing, because again, in English, we have this expression, I've got this gut feeling. which might sound a bit crude, but that's the way we use it. I've got this gut feeling that this is wrong, and this is right, or whatever. It's my gut feeling. Now, that's almost literally what Paul is saying. There's this feeling. It's a deep thing. It's not superficial. It's not just on the surface, on the skin. It's deep. It's down. And he sought to comfort others by the comfort that God had given him. And he needed comfort. As you read through particularly 2 Corinthians, you see here's a man who is vulnerable. He's not standing up in front saying, you do this and you do that and you be this and you be that. He's a man who's gone through it. And perhaps more in 2 Corinthians than anywhere else in his letters, he talks about the trials and difficulties and the shipwrecks and the beatings and all he went through. He said, listen now, listen you folk, don't think that I'm out here in my theological college working with these little lords for my professor's study. I've been through all these things more than any of you have been through. I'm in prison at the moment. I've been whipped and almost tortured and stoned and all that kind of thing. Paul has experienced these things. and therefore he's able to offer comfort to others. And of course, in a sense, he's only reflecting upon our dear Savior. I think we'll probably end on this little bit tonight. When the writer to the Hebrews wants to contrast the Old Testament with the New and the Old Covenant with the New and the Old Priesthood with the New, he talks about the nature of the office of the high priest. So he says in chapter 5, For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. Who can have compassion on the ignorant and on them that are out of the way? For he himself also is compassed with infirmity. And by reason, therefore, he ought, as for the people, so also for himself, to offer for sins. So he's this high priest, he's a man, and he himself is subject to difficulties and trials and to sins. And when he offers a sacrifice for sin, he's going to offer a sacrifice for himself as well. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ comes along. No man takes his honor for himself, says the writer, but he that is called of God, as was added. Christ glorified not himself to be made a high priest, but he who said to him, thou art my son, today have I begotten thee. And in another place, thou art a priest forever at the order of Melchizedek. So describing the Lord Jesus Christ, he describes him in terms of his humanity, who in the days of his flesh, when he'd offer prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, was heard in that he feared. Though you were a son, he learned obedience by the things which he suffered. and be made perfect, he became an author of eternal salvation and let all of them obey him and so on. Here is a high priest who is totally human and yet totally sinless. He offers a sacrifice for his people, but not for himself because he doesn't need it, but they do. And that's why we have, as I've said to you several times, that's why we have this perfect high priest who can sympathize with us. The writer put it in a kind of double negative, for we do not have a high priest who cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities. We don't have one who can. We do have one that can, he can sympathize with us because he has been tempted at all points as we are yet without sin. Therefore, because we have this great high priest, because we are this perfect man, because we have this one is ended in heaven. Therefore, that has come bold in the throne of grace. We might obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Hallelujah. What better basis can there be for prayer than to know our Savior has paved the way, opened the way, free access in Him, through Him, because of Him, unto the Father? Can there be any greater comfort to the people of God than to know we have such a Savior who prays and pleads for His people? Well, let's stop there for tonight. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for these three friends of Job, at least in the beginning. They came to try to comfort him, to mourn with him, to be as helpful as they could. We know that later on that won't happen, but nevertheless, initially they came. And we pray, Father, that we might be a people in Gordon Road that are concerned about one another. that we might, as far as we're able, comfort and encourage one another, particularly those who are going through tough times, difficult times, hard times, as are some of our folk. We thank you for the privilege of being able to share sometimes with them and perhaps just being with them for a little while and just praying for them. And as we come to prayer, we may remember some by name, but if not by name, then Lord, we pray they will be on our hearts. as we come to you in prayer here tonight and at home. We thank you for the comfort we have and find in our Saviour. We praise you for him. We often quote his words in regard to the Holy Spirit about another comforter he would send. But he would send another comforter because he himself had been a comforter. And he was leaving, but he wouldn't leave them comfortless. He would send another comforter of the same kind to be with his people as he went on to glory. Bless us with these things we pray for Jesus' sake. Amen.