My part of the conference has been to try to help you to learn God's ways of comfort. I want to say again that I have no ambition whatever to make you comfortable. I think that would be one of the most dangerous things could possibly happen to you. You should get so comfortable to settle down and do nothing. Comfort is not for the purpose of making us comfortable at all. comfort is for the purpose of drawing us closer to the Lord. Make us appreciate it. Now we need comfort for many different reasons, and God has many different ways of bringing his comfort. I've already been trying to tell you a little bit about the comfort of his love and the comfort of his grace. This morning I want to talk to you a little bit about how he comforts us through his words. The Word of God itself is a comfort to us, but it is the source of comfort. Somebody has said that the Bible is not only food for our souls, it's a pantry full of all kinds of food. And if you know how to feed yourself, and not very many Christians do, you should be able to go into the Word of God and get what you need, including comfort. I feel sorry for husbands who have never learned to do anything more complicated than boil water. They don't seem to be able to get themselves a meal at all. They don't seem to be able to do anything about getting food together. I can't just quite understand it because having a mother who is not too well when I was young, I even learned to bake bread when I was only nine years of age. And some of these adult males couldn't keep themselves from starving to death. Their wives weren't there to help them. That may be an excuse for that physically, but there's no excuse for it spiritually. A lady said to me at one time, you know, I just nearly starved between conferences. Think she would. If you depend on being fed, you're going to be a very poorly fed Christian. But if you learn to feed yourself, many years ago a lady said about Mrs. Ann O'Brien, who used to live at Duluth, some of you old times will remember the O'Brien's, she said about Mrs. O'Brien, Dear Mrs. O'Brien, taught me to feed. She taught me to feed. Now if you've learned how to feed on the Scriptures, If you've learned what the Word of God really means to a Christian, then you'll get a great deal of comfort, and you can get it anytime, day or night. In Colorado, we have what we call one minute with the Bible. We use a machine that's attached to a telephone, and we put a different message on it each day. We have one in Denver and one in Colorado Springs. And since both cities have... an area telephone, that is, we can reach all the surrounding towns without a toll charge now. This means that we can reach over half of the people in the state of Colorado on these two telephone answering devices. And I've been furnishing the messages for them, a different one each day. I make up ahead of time so that I can do this while I'm away from home as well. We're getting between four and five hundred calls a day on those two machines. People who call up and listen to a message for a minute or a little over. And several have professed to be saved. But one of the things that we notice especially because they're able to speak back to us after they listen to the message, there's a beat tone in the minute they want to say anything or leave an address so that we can contact them. It records this as well. And one of the things that we've been struck with is the number of people who say, it's two o'clock in the morning and I can't sleep, and I just felt I had to have something from the Bible. Now, what do people do who can't call up a machine like that? What do you do? There are going to be times when you just have to have something. Do you know how to get it? Can you go to the Word of God and get the comfort? and health that you need. Look at First Corinthians chapter fourteen with me please. First Corinthians, this section, twelve, thirteen and fourteen, takes up the gifts, including the charismatic gifts, which are causing such a stir today. Many people, because they're living in the spiritual vacuum, they're not enjoying Christ, They're reaching out for something else. They think if I could just get the gift of tongues or the gift of healing, well, then maybe this would satisfy my poor vacant heart. Whenever anybody reaches for something of this kind, they're signifying that there is a vacuum within them. You don't need anything more than Christ. And the charismatic gifts, the signed gifts, were given strictly for the childhood of the church, and they belong in that era completely. And no intelligent Christian goes reaching after things like this. In fact, that's what this section is about. He shows us very clearly that these sign gifts are temporary, that they are secondary, that they are limited in their scope, and that God has something so much better for us. Not only in the love of chapter thirteen, but in the teaching of the word in chapter fourteen. And he tells us that we ought to go in for the better things of the Word of God itself. Verse one, chapter fourteen, follow after charity or love and desire spiritual gifts, but rather make this your number one choice rather that you may prophesy. And here prophesy simply includes all of the teaching of Scripture. If you really want to help God's people, covet this gift, the gift of being able to teach other people what you have gotten out of the Word of God yourself. Now this is essential to being an elder. An elder must be apt to teach. That doesn't mean that he's any great teacher, but it means that he must be apt to teach. He must be able to transmit to others what he himself has enjoyed and gotten. Now telling is not teaching. Some people can bore you silly. by telling you things, but they are not transmitting anything to you. They're not getting anything across to you. You should ask God that you should be able to help other people to get what you get. It said of Harry Ironside, who was a good friend of mine, and great help to me, it said of Harry Ironside that he prayed when he was a young man that God would give him the ability to teach deep things in simple language. If you know anything about his writing, you know this is exactly what he was able to do. To teach deep things in simple language. He asked for this, and you might well ask for the same thing. For he says in verse two, He that speaketh in a tongue, unknown is in italics, there are no unknown tongues, a language, speaketh not unto men, but unto God. That is, if I speak a foreign language, You're not getting any help from it. God understands me, but you don't. For no man understandeth him. How be it in the Spirit, he speaketh mysteries. But he that prophesies speaketh unto men, and he produces three things, to edification and exhortation and comfort. Edification builds up. Exhortation stirs up. And comfort cheers up. And these are the things that come through the Word of God. This is how you get these things. The channel for receiving edification and exhortation and comfort is the Scriptures themselves. Many years ago, when Charles Fuller was less known than he is now, I had the privilege of being in a small group with him, about thirty-five people in a little Bible study. And Someone said to him, how did you ever get started in radio? And he told us a story, which I don't need to go into, about a lady who was concerned about him and his usefulness and prayed that God would open doors of the radio for him, which eventually led to the old-fashioned revival hour and worldwide broadcast. The thing that stuck with me was what this dear old sister said to him. She said, Charlie, there's one thing I want you to always remember. God never promised to bless anything that you said, but he did promise to bless his word. And she said, if you'll just get the word of God across to people, the Spirit of God will bless it too. And he said, if you've ever heard me preach, you know that this is one thing I do try to do. I try to quote all of the word of God I can. Now, in contrast to that, what's going on today, and this is not an old man's... disgruntled criticism of younger men. It's an attempt to help you, younger men. The thing that strikes me about listening to young men preach in our day is that they are approaching it from the philosophical point of view. They get together all of the species arguments that they can. They figure, now, if I just say it this way, I'll be able to squeeze them where I want them to go. And they are not relying on the Word of God. Now, if you're guilty of that, you confess it as a sin. And get back to the preaching of the Word of God. God will not bless your arguments. God will not bless your psychological trickery. He will bless his Word. The Word of God will carry the comfort that the people need. So let's put our dependence in the Word of God. Now look at verse thirty-one of this same chapter while we're here, where he says, For ye may all prophesy one by one that all may learn and all may be comforted. So the process of learning and also the process of comfort is through the Word of God. It's wonderful to have something we can depend on these days. The old song says, in times like these, we have an anchor. You won't get any anchor in college today. A college professor would be ashamed to get up and make any statement, any categorical statement. He'd be ashamed to do this. He's been brainwashed, too. He's been led to believe that nobody ever says anything, definite. And this is going on in some of the schools that are called Christian schools. They started a new school in Vancouver. I don't hesitate at all to tell you that the men who are teaching in that school are not going to help young people at all. One of these men made a statement in public. that we are going to present all sides of the question and let the students take their choice. How do you teach baptism from this basis? Well, some people say that baptism is part of your salvation and some say it isn't. Some say that you ought to be dipped in the water and some say that it ought to be poured on your head and others say that it should be sprinkled and some say it three times face downer. Take your choice. That's teaching. That's confusion multiplied. God has given us some categorical answers. There are some definite things in the Word of God, and we ought to teach what the Scriptures teach. And this is how we get comfort. It's the rock versus the sand, isn't it? The Lord Jesus said, He who hears these sayings of mine is like a man who built his house on a rock, not on the sand. Men's opinions are like sayings. I took my two grandsons to a lake recently. They were visiting us for a couple of weeks, and they wanted to go swimming in Prospect Lake in Colorado Springs, so I took them over there. My wife and I were sitting on a bench watching them, and they were gathering up the sand and building it up, and then when the speedboats would go around and the waves would come in with these waves and come in and get their little sandcastles, you know, And then they helped it by throwing a little water on it. You just watch that castle just melt down like that. Just melt right down. Pretty soon there's nothing there. That's sand. That's what we've got in men's opinions. But in the Word of God, we've got the invincible rock. I love to visit the Oregon coast, a very beautiful part of the country. Every time I go to the Oregon coast, I see the same rocks and look just like they did last time, no matter if it's been five years or ten years. They look just like they did then. I suppose there may have been some change. It's imperceptible to me, but they look just the same. The Word of God is like this. I've known the Lord since nineteen hundred and eleven, and I began to study the Word of God very soon after I accepted Christ, because my father was a student of the Word, and he got us started studying the Word for ourselves. And I've been trying to study the Word of God for over a half a century, and I'll tell you, it's a great pleasure to turn to the Scriptures and find they're just like they were fifty years ago, to find that they're just as dependable and solid as they ever were. Everything else is changing, everything else is undependable, that the Scriptures are there for us. The problem is we're not studying. I'm not a... I'm not a hymnologist, so I shouldn't be critical. But I am not skilled to understand what God has willed, what God has planned could be wrong. Maybe you ought to be skilled. Maybe the reason you're not skilled to understand God's will and plan is because you aren't studying. Just could be. Now, it's true that we'll never understand all of his ways and his will. But we ought to be understanding a little more now than we did last week and last year. You ought to be taking up claims in God's real estate. When dear Mr. O'Brien passed away, I had spent eight and a half years with him and he was like a father to me. When I got word that he was gone, you know the first thought that hit me? What a shame that that man has gone to heaven and taken with him all his vast knowledge of the word of God. And he did, if you're remembering, you know he had a wonderful knowledge of the scriptures. He was preaching one time, and he had just started to read a chapter from the Bible. And in the reading of the first verse, the lights went out. And he never missed a word. He went ahead and read the whole chapter by memory. And as he was reading the close of the chapter, the lights came back on. And there was a minister in the audience, and he came up to him afterward, and he said, that was one of the most dramatic things I ever saw done. He thought he did it on purpose. He wasn't showing off. That's just the way he was. We were together one time at a conference in Manchester, Iowa. And this was toward the end of his life, and I felt a concern for him, because I knew he wasn't well. And... In the morning, I said to him, How did you rest last night? He said, Not too well. I didn't sleep very much. But he said, It wasn't wasted because I went through the book of Ephesians verse by verse. I said, Well, I didn't see your light on. I was awake to every time. He said, Who needs the light to go through Ephesians? Who does? I didn't answer that one. Most of us do. Why do we? When August Van Ryn... heard that he was losing his eyesight. He committed to memory the entire New Testament. And then the book of the Psalms and then the book of Proverbs and then began on the rest of the Old Testament. Said, if I'm going to lose my eyesight, I'm going to have it where I can get at it. He didn't lose his eyesight. What a shame that he went to all that trouble. No, no, no loss there. I tell you, if you and I really went into the Word of God, We would know the comfort of the Scriptures. Don't ask me about methods. It makes no difference what methods you use. When I first became a Christian, I asked an old brother how you study the Bible. And he looked kind of bewildered. He was a simple old brother. And he said, well, there's only one way to study the Bible. You just get a concordance and you look up all the verses with the word salvation in it and all the verses with this word in it. You see, he knew nothing but topical study. So I knew nothing but topical study for several years. I don't regret that at all. That's a good way to start. Later on, I found there were other ways of studying the Word of God. At present, I get more good, I think, out of word studies. I get more good out of consecutive study. I feel that God gave the Bible to us in books, and we ought to study it by books. But I don't feel that I lost anything by studying topically. I learned a great deal about different topics. by that simple expedient. I don't think there's any wrong way to study the Word of God. I think you ought to find a way to study for yourself, because it is God's Word. Now it is logical that God should reveal himself to us, because God is an intelligent being, not a creature. He's the Creator. But God has personality. God is not an abstraction. God is not an it. God is a person. And God is intelligent. And God seeks to reveal himself, as all intelligent beings do. We know what God is like to some extent, because we know what we're like. And although sin has spoiled the image of God in us, there is a great deal about us yet, which is a reflection of what God is like. And we're able to hold converse with God. We're able to have fellowship with God after being restored by the new birth because we have spirit and he has spirit and his spirit and our spirit has communion together. God tells us and then invites us to tell him. And it's perfectly logical that God should reveal himself to us. Now he has revealed himself in a number of ways. The Nineteenth Psalm tells us very plainly that God has revealed himself in creation. A friend of mine speaks on the Nineteenth Psalm. I've heard him two or three times on the Psalm, and he says, This book tells us about God's outdoor book and God's indoor book. His outdoor book is creation. His indoor book is the Bible. And the Nineteenth Psalm tells us about both of them. And God does reveal himself in creation. Now, that doesn't give you any license. to spend your Sundays on the golf course, communing with nature. You're doing nothing of the kind. You're looking for that pill that you swatted down the fairway, and you know you are. And don't kid anybody about it. It may have physical value, but it's not a place to worship. You do not worship because you're in the outdoors. But the outdoors can lead men to a knowledge of God. The first chapter of Romans says that the heathen is without excuse because he can know from creation enough about God to keep him from idolatry. A friend of mine who was a missionary in Africa many years ago said that he said to a man who has been a witch doctor, been converted, he said to him, Did you sincerely believe that you were right in worshiping those idols? And the man threw back his head and laughed. It was a big joke to him. He said, Do you remember those idols that I gave to you and I got saved, that you burned? Well, no, not particularly. He said, Well, did you notice that when I carved them out, I made them with their eyes shut, and I didn't bore any holes for their ears? He said, I wanted a God different from the true God. I knew there was a true God who had ears and eyes, and it made me uncomfortable. So I made a God with his eyes shut and no ear holes. So I could do anything I could leave. You feel sorry for the poor heathen? The poor heathen know exactly what they're doing. They know that there is a God who is back of all of this. And the first chapter of Romans tells us so. And they're responsible for what they can know, what they may know. But not only does God reveal himself through the creation, he reveals himself through the sun. You don't have to visit the Sistine Chapel and look at that big fat grandfather painted on the ceiling to find out what God is like. He isn't like that at all, of course. What is God like? No man has seen God at any time, John one, eighteen says, the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has told him out. If you want to know what God is like, you look at the Lord Jesus. What does God think about people? Watch the Lord Jesus and his life here on this earth. You know exactly what God thinks about people. What does God think about material things? Watch our Lord's absolute indifference to material things. Then you know what God thinks about material things. How does God feel about sin? Watch the Lord Jesus. In His love for sinners and His detest for sin itself and His willingness to die, that sin might be put out of God's universe. See, you can know exactly what God is like because He's given us His Son. Then you can know what God is like and you can have a revelation of God through the Scriptures. Now, I would like to state my faith for you. I believe in the verbal... inspiration of the Word of God. I believe the Bible, as the old brother said down in the hills, from kibber to kibber. And he said, I even believe the kibbers. Because it says, Holy Bible on the outside. I have no hesitation whatever in saying that, but I didn't always. When I was a young Christian, I had a job in a library. part-time job, trying to help support my father's family. My father is not well. And I discovered a shelf of books written by atheists. And I read Tom Paine's Age of Reason. I read the writings of Voltaire, the rest of these wicked men. And I was shaken to my root. Thank God I didn't throw out the baby with the bathwater. I waited long enough to get answers to these things. But I was so determined that I must have answers. I must know if the Bible is God's word. I must know that I even studied the languages in which the scriptures were written to satisfy myself. I said I have to know. And thank God I do know. I haven't the slightest shadow of doubt. of the truth of any part of God's Word. It'll bear investigation. I was skeptical, and it convinced me, and it'll convince you too. The Word of God is absolutely reliable. Furthermore, I believe that the Bible is absolutely complete. I don't believe in new revelations. I don't believe that God had to give somebody a vision of some plates that he dug up and give him a couple of things to put in his hat for spectacles so he could read these plates and give us a book of Mormon. I don't believe it at all. I don't believe there's any need for buying a key to the Scriptures. Science and health and a lock on the Scriptures would be a better name for it, not a key. I don't believe that it is necessary at all to get any new revelations through dreams, through visions, Through any of these methods, I believe that the Bible is complete. I believe that when Paul said that he was chosen to complete the scriptures, that he did give us, the complete revelation. Therefore, I believe that it is pertinent to the twentieth century. Now, maybe you don't know that anybody ever questions this, but I was in an assembly recently where some of the young men were arguing with me that the Bible will not satisfy all the needs of the twentieth century they said it was perfectly all right for early days but you've got to find new methods and new ways and new things for the twentieth century the bible will not meet all of our needs for this day why they said when the bible was written there's no such thing as the space age we didn't have all of these problems we got today and i said did god know we were going to have them well And did he know we were going to be here for the twentieth century? Well, yes. Then he didn't provide for the twentieth century Christians. The Lord Jesus prayed in the seventeenth of John not only for these, but for all who have believed on me through their word. I believe that the word of God is sufficient for this present day. Now, if you believe this, you can turn to the word of God and you can get untold comfort from it. Now, God's ways of comforting us are not like the ways of the false teachers. You remember in Zechariah, well, maybe you don't remember. Zechariah chapter ten in verse two. He criticizes these people for bringing dreams and all kinds of false comfort to the people of God. I told you that I looked up some of the things. I still have that in my Bible here. If you want to put these verses down, you can look them up at your leisure. I looked up seven things in the Bible. There may be more, but I'm always satisfied when I find seven of anything. I found seven things in the Word of God that have been used in an attempt to comfort people and they never work. The first one is in Job chapter seven, verse thirteen. And Job said that he hoped that his bed would comfort him, but it didn't. Have you ever tried to get comfort? by going to bed. You take a couple of pills and you hope that you will be able to forget all your troubles and you'll be better in the morning. But the trouble is you wake up in the morning and your troubles are still all there and in addition to that you have a headache and somehow or other your bed just didn't give you the comfort that you hope. Physical rest will not rest the soul. And then in Judges nineteen and five, you read about a prophet who said to another one, comfort yourself with a good meal. Now they tell us that there are all kinds of reasons for obesity. And I certainly would not want to say a word to hurt anyone's feelings who has problems with overweight, which are caused by glandular disturbance. This is a real problem. But I'll tell you what causes most people overweight. They eat to make up for something else. I find myself inclined to do this. I come from a family that could very well run in that direction. I have to fight all the time to keep myself down under two hundred pounds. I weigh a hundred and ninety-eight now, just me. And that's still too much. But I have to fight to keep it down to that. My family runs to beef. And I know that when I get disturbed, the easiest thing for me to do is to eat for comfort. A child does this. A baby cries and mother feeds it. That's its comfort. But you're not a baby. And you'll not find comfort that way. And in Jeremiah sixteen and seven, we read about giving the cup of mourning, M-O-U-R-N-I-M-G. And this was a custom among the people that when someone died, they gave to them the bread which they broke in memory of the dead one, and they gave them a cup which they drank in memory of the dead one. Now sometimes the cup had pretty strong stuff in it. The idea was, very much as today, you can drown your sorrows in drink. Does it work? No, it doesn't work. Our country is rapidly being filled up with alcoholics. We're finding out that these things do not really comfort. Now, if the doctor has told you that you need some kind of tranquilizers, some kind of special medicine, I have no quarrel whatever with him. I think you ought to go by the doctor's orders. But you need to be also careful, brother and sister, that you don't try to get away from your troubles by tranquilizers. We're eating them like peanuts in the United States. They call this a tranquilizer age. There's a great danger that you will turn for comfort, something like this. This is why so many of our young people are going for drugs. They don't want to face life as it really is. And then in Genesis five and verse twenty nine, you read about a man who called his little boy comfort. You'd say Noah, but then that's just the Hebrew word for comfort. He called his little boy comfort. It didn't exactly turn out that way. The world went right on to destruction anyway. And Noah was used to bring comfort to at least some in the preparation of the ark. My point is, some of us have looked for comfort in our children, and we've been very disappointed. Your children are small now, and they step on your feet. But one of these days, they'll be like mine, and they'll step on your heart. I'm not bitter about it. I'm just telling you this is the way life is. You're not going to be particularly comforted because you have children and grandchildren. They may or may not bring you comfort. And then in the book of Job, you have the story of a man who looked for comfort to his friends. His friends came to comfort him, Job two and eleven says. But in Job sixteen and two, Job said, miserable comforters you are. Your friends don't understand. And you're just wasting your time. You go to these people and you tell them your troubles, and if you'll look at their eye, you'll see that they're bored silly. They're really hoping you'll let up so they can get away. They're looking around to see if there isn't something that they can say, I have to take care of. Don't torment your friends by going over your troubles with them. There's an old hymn that I'm sorry isn't in any of our books now. It was in the old Alexander hymn, though, when I was a boy. Tell it to Jesus. Tell it to Jesus alone. He understands. And then in the book of Zechariah, I just mentioned chapter ten and verse two, you have the false comfort of religion. Now religion is not enough, and I don't care whether it's Buddhist religion, Confucian religion, Mohammedan religion, Catholic religion, or your own brand of religion. It just won't comfort you. You've got to get beyond mere religion to the person, to the person. And last of all, Colossians two and eight tells us of the futility of philosophy to comfort it. A philosophy is merely a concoction of ideas that you can take comfort from, that you can rest upon, that will explain something to you, and many Christians have their own little philosophy about life. Brother Cole brought this out in one of our Bible studies. There are many Christians who have their own little philosophy. They don't realize it. Some of them might think that they're going by the Scriptures. but it's really their own little philosophy, and it just doesn't work. Trouble is going to happen to you that will blow your philosophy higher than a kite. And you might as well get away from it right now and get to the Word of God itself. Now the Lord comforts us through His Word in a number of ways. I want to say a word about the Old Testament, the comfort of the Old Testament. I believe in the use of the Psalms. Not exclusively. I don't think that a Christian who lives in the Psalms will be a well-fed Christian. I don't think a Christian who does all of his reading in the Psalms will be as intelligent a Christian as he ought to be. But I love the Psalms, don't you? They touch our hearts. They're given for that purpose. A friend of mine used to call the Psalms God's quick lunch counter. If you don't have very much time to read, you can always turn to the Psalms and get some little thing that will be a help to your soul. and what comfort God's people have had from the twenty-third saw alone. The Old Testament is filled with different kinds of comfort like this. In the New Testament especially, the Word of God comforts us in a number of ways. First of all, by the assurance of salvation. Now, if you're not sure of your salvation, don't waste another day until you get this thing set up, because assurance is for every believer. If you're not a believer, you won't get any assurance. If you are a believer, the Word of God will give you assurance. Now, assurance is absolutely essential to our comfort. When I was a boy, I got the idea that I was adopted, and I had good reason for this. First of all, I was born after my parents were married for ten years. Now, you just figured that out for yourself. Well, undoubtedly, they waited that long, and then they just went to an orphanage and got me. And the second thing was that I didn't look like anybody in the family. I didn't have any chin. That's why I had to grow one. And the rest of my family have very prominent chin. My father had one that reached way out here, just jutted out in front of him. And my mother had a prominent chin. And if you saw my brothers and sisters, this is the one thing that would stand out. I didn't have any. So it's very evident that I was found on a doorstep. And somehow, rather, as a child, this bugged me. I was really bothered by this thing. And I didn't say a word to anybody because I didn't want to hurt my parents' feelings. If they had adopted me, it was very kind of them. But you know, this feeling I just don't belong to anybody, really. And this thing went on for years. And one day I happened to make the remark, in front of my mother's sister, just sort of facetiously, I said, well, I don't belong to this family anyway. I was a founding. I was just an orphan. She said, where'd you get that idea? Oh, I said, I think that's the way it is. She said, Johnny, I was there when you were born and gave you your first bath. Oh, what a relief came over. I really do belong. Now, you need that spiritually. The devil will torment you. Before you were saved, he's an inveterate liar. Before you were saved, he said, you're saved. It's all right, go back to sleep. You're all right. And then you got saved, and right away he started telling you, you're not saved. You're just not saved. You wouldn't do that if you were saved. And so you suffered. You suffer because you're not sure, and you could be sure anytime you turn to the Scriptures. First John five and thirteen would be enough if you didn't have anything else and you've got plenty else beside that. But then the comfort of the Scripture comes through the promises. Not only has God told us what he has done, but he's told us what he's going to do. Can you count on God? Yes, you can. But you don't know what's ahead. You don't need to. You just can count on God. Someone said that he heard that there were three hundred and sixty-five times in the Bible that God said, Fear not. And he got thinking about this. I wonder why God just gave one for each day of the regular year, but no extra one for leap year. And it sort of bothered him, and he counted them, and he found there were actually three hundred and sixty-six. Isn't that nice? Isn't that nice? One for every day in the year, including leap year. The Word of God is filled with exceeding great and precious promises, Peter called for. And through these you are partakers of the divine nature. Now partaker means more than having a divine nature. Partaker, you partake at the meal. You partake in the family affairs. You partake of the divine nature when you enjoy all of the things that God has for you. This is the comfort of the promises of the Word of God. You ought to be claiming them. And then the Word of God comforts us by giving us understanding. We read this in Colossians chapter two the other day, but let's read it again just so that we will have this clear in our minds. God not only wants you to feel happy, he wants you to understand because you have a mind as well as a heart. and the mind has to be filled. If the mind isn't satisfied, all the comfort in the world for your heart is not going to really do you much good. Colossians two, verse two, that their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding. I was thinking about this when I thought about I'm not skilled to understand. It's true I don't understand Many things that God is doing and will do. But it's also true that I do understand the great many things that God is doing and is going to do. I know what God's doing, do you? This is one of the spiritual blessings in the first chapter of Ephesians, that he has revealed his will to us. Now, this doesn't mean his will for my particular pathway today and tomorrow and what I should do next week, but it means his whole plan. I know what God is doing because I have his word. And this gives us great comfort and consolation. And then we read yesterday from Philippians two and one about the consolation of Christ. The attachment that we have to Christ. Do you know what really comforts my heart? It's to know that I belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't we love to belong? Most of the kids who come to our homes are distressed because they feel unwanted. They heard their parents say, I remember one little girl that came to us at the age of nine, she had run away from home and was picked up by the authorities at two o'clock in the morning and brought to our home. And she told the authorities, you take me back to my mother, I won't stay. And they asked her why. And she said, I heard my mother telling the neighbor that she and daddy adopted me, and now daddy is left, and she said, I'm stuck with this kid. and she said I don't want anybody to be stuck with me she said if you take me back there I'll run away again so they brought her over to our home and it took us the longest time to convince that child that somebody really wanted it somebody really loved it we need this we have to have a feeling of belonging this to me was one of the most wonderful things about getting married I I really had I've given up I wasn't a kid anymore and I just didn't think that I would ever find anybody that would really want me. And when I did, the warmth that came over my soul to know I am loved and wanted. There is somebody in this world who has a place for me I belong. To me, that's been one of the wonderful things about marriage.