Here’s a bit that I cut from the sermon Sunday, but have been pulling on since:
Comfort is not Deliverance.
Deliverance is not Comfort.
Comfort is not Deliverance
Many times when we say, “Lord, comfort me!” We mean, “Lord! Get me out of this!” We say comfort but mean deliverance. But this is not what the Lord offers.
The prophet Isaiah tells Israel, from the Lord, “When you pass through the waters, 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.” (Isaiah 43:2)
In other words, you are going through this. But the word of comfort is: “I will be with you.” He does not promise deliverance; He gives comfort.
The name, "the God of all comfort,” assumes that He is “the God who doesn’t deliver us very often.” Afflictions are going to touch us, and there’s no version of afflictions that is pleasant. But it’s in the season of affliction that we get to know who God is and what it means for Him to be with us. We know all the comforting words of Scripture because God’s people went through afflictions.
Gospel Certainty dawns with blazing clarity on us when we are in dark places. I don’t like dark places; I do like the blazing clarity of the glories of God. Comfort is not deliverance.
Deliverance is not Comfort
As we compare deliverance and comfort, we often feel that we’d prefer deliverance. But here’s the thing about deliverance: what you got delivered out of will likely happen again, at least it certainly could, and something else like it, or different, probably worse, will certainly happen too. You may have ceased from experiencing pain, but now you shall experience increased anxiety. The singular affliction has awoken numerous fears.
For this reason, deliverances give little comfort. Paul describes being delivered out of a dark period in Asia (2Cor 1:8-10). He is thankful for being delivered, but he goes on to say, “and He is going to have to do it again and again!” In other words, God delivered Paul, and then God won’t, and then God will, and then God won’t, and then God will, and then God won’t… And it’s not until “our hope that He will deliver us again,” that is, The Final Deliverance, that real comfort comes out of deliverance—there’s one deliverance coming, after which no further afflictions will touch us. So it's not the deliverance that gives us comfort, but the good news, the certainty of the Word.
The world is full of afflictions, it is full of injustice, it is full of no-real comfort only short-term individual deliverances—out of frying pans and into fires. Which is all maybe nice, but it does not quiet the anxiety of our souls. Only the comfort of God will quiet us.
When we fixate on deliverance, we’ll need deliverance, and then deliverance, and then more deliverance. But when we know the comforts of God we can go into any affliction—every affliction!—without fear, and even with a kind of expectation. For if the Lord is with you, it will get interesting
Comfort is not deliverance: we’re not getting out of anything in this life in this fallen world.
Deliverance is not comfort: short-term deliverances amplify our long-term sense of fragility and fear, and only Good News quiets that.
We need the comfort God has given us in Jesus Christ. And that’s what we have.
Photo by Max Kukurudziak on Unsplash
