I think you've already had about all you could digest. How do you feel about it? Every little dessert would be all right. Once you turn to Second Corinthians chapter one, we've had quite a variety of ministry in this conference. We began with some teaching from the scripture on the matter of revival, and we've had quite a little teaching. And we've had quite a little exhortation. There has been a little comfort, but I felt that maybe a little more might be needed. These are difficult days for some of the Lord's people. I believe that the Lord has allowed men and me to go through some very severe trials in order that we might be a help to the Lord's people. in order that we might be able to understand some of their problems, in order that we might be able to feel with them. The Apostle Paul speaks of this in writing to the Corinthians, the second Corinthians one, beginning at verse one, Paul and the apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God and Timothy, our brother, and the church of God, which is at Corinth, with all the saints which are in all Achaia. Grace be to you in 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. Now, Father of mercies here is in the sense of his being the source of mercies. The God of all comfort is in the sense of his being the source of all comfort. All true comfort has to come from God. There are various kinds of comfort which don't mean very much. I had an occasion to attend the funeral up in near Palisade, Nebraska many years ago. One of the neighbors there had lost a little child. And the man who conducted the funeral just went through a little ritual, and he did it in a very perfunctory way. He could just tell he was, well, he just had a little book, and he was just reading it, you know, and it was just offhanded as could be. It wasn't any feeling in it at all. He was completely detached from the problem. And the poor mother was sitting there brokenhearted. He read no scripture at all. It would be any comfort to her. He gave her nothing at all that would give her any hope seeing her child again. He didn't tell anybody anything about the Lord Jesus or how we could be ready to meet God. Well, when he finished with the thing in a very off-handed way, he put his book back in his pocket and he walked around and took the lady's hand and pumped it and patted it on her shoulder and said, well, buck up, and he turned and went and got in his car and laughed. Well, that's one kind of comfort, but that isn't the kind of comfort we have here. This is the comfort that comes from God, who comforted us in all our tribulation. Now, you may have been through some tribulation, and you didn't know that God was comforting us, but I can assure you that he was. Well, my Bible says that he comforted us in all our tribulation. You may not have recognized it, You may not have gotten a good out of it, but he comforted us in all our tribulations. This word tribulation is an interesting word. I like words. It's a hobby of mine. I like to study words. Their origin. The word tribulation comes from a Latin word, tribuline. A tribuline was a flail. My grandfather used to trash his wheat with a flail. He cut it with a with a side and a cradle. And if you know what those things are, a little rack with fingers fast and long side of this side, a long crooked handle and a big blade. And he cut the grain, and these fingers of wood would hold enough of that grain, and then he could lay it down in a bundle. And the man could come along and with a couple of lengths of straw could tie that into a bundle, and then they They chopped the bundles. And then, of course, Grandpa couldn't afford to have a man come with a thrasher. There were very few thrasherers in the country then. He used to take this grain and lay it on the floor, and he used a flail. And the flail was a long wooden handle, maybe four or five feet long. And then it was passed into a flat board, about four inches wide and an inch thick, and it was about three feet long. The two were fastened together loosely with a leather thong, and he used to swing this thing over your shoulder. I tried it. It's a squad trick. You're not careful of the thing that quapped you in the back of the neck. I used to try to swing this old flail of grandpa's, and he was expert with it. He could bring that down on the wheat just exactly where he wanted to, and when it had hit enough places, when it had struck enough places on that wheat, that it had shaken all the wheat out of the hogs. Then he took a kind of a shovel. It was really a wooden shovel. And he'd scoop it under the grain and toss it into the air when the wind was blowing. And the wind would blow the shaft out of the grain. It would fall over here at the side of the flashing floor in a pile. When he got through, he had clean wheat. That's a pretty slow way to get wheat. You farmers in this area wouldn't want to try to raise wheat like that. But that's the word for... A flail. Tribulin means an instrument for threshing out wheat. Now, when you stand there and beat that wheat, you're not mad at it. Somebody might watch you doing it and say, what are you doing this for? What's that wheat ever done to you? Nothing. Well, why are you whipping it? I'm not whipping it. But you're beating it. No, I'm not beating it at all. I'm just trying to get the chap out. There's an awful lot of chaff in our lives, isn't there? The older I get, the more conscious I am of how much chaff there is. I think it would be a nice thing of all of us that have a good bonfire. And just see if we can't get as much of this burned up as possible. So it won't be necessary for it to be burned up at the judgment seat of Christ. He says then that every man's work shall be tried as by fire. For the fire shall try it, Of what sort every man's work is? A lot of things that I thought I did for the Lord. I'm sure now I didn't. The Lord sends us tribulation, but he comforts us in that tribulation. He says to us all the time, whom the Lord loveth he chastens us. Dear Mr. O'Brien, used to tell about a man who got... kind of out of touch with the Lord. He was a crippled man. It was hard for him to hold a job, and he had a family to support, and he was hunting for work, and he was walking along the streets of the city where he lived, and he had a paddle foot, a foot that was lame. When he walked, he slapped that foot down, you know, and he was going along and saying to himself, whom the Lord loveth he chastened, whom the Lord loveth he chastened. This thought was coming through his mind. He was beating times with whom the Lord loveth he chases. He stopped and he said, I'm out of debt. Whom the Lord loveth he chases. Whom the Lord loveth he chases. Let's don't get the accent on the wrong syllable. Let's don't be taken too much with the tribulation. Let's try to look for a little comfort. The Lord comforted us in all our tribulations. that we may be able to be comfortable. Oh, no, no, no. Don't get that idea until God doesn't want any comfortable Christians. Not on this earth. Comfort, in the sense of being comfortable, is going to come in the next world. The sixteenth of Luke, when Lazarus died and went to be with the Lord, went to Abraham's bosom, then the Lord said, now he is comforted. That's the comfort of comfortable men. You'll be very comfortable in eternity. Some of you suffer from arthritis. Very difficult to get comfortable. You can take a little aspirin for it. You can change positions about nineteen times, then you nearly wear out the bed, and after a while you get a measure of comfort. When you get to heaven, you're going to be completely comfortable because you'll have a new body. Some of you have mental discomfort. Oh, brother and sister, I know what you're going through. The torture, the torture of not being able to forget something which has happened, something which has been done or said, something in your life that just will not leave. You go to bed, but not to sleep. Your mind won't rest. There's a verse that says, The soul knoweth its own bitterness. That's in the book of Proverbs, The soul knows its own bitterness. I don't know what disturbs you. You don't know what disturbs me. But God does. Does He comfort you in that kind of tribulation? Yes, He does. Yes, He does. He gives you thoughts of Himself. He gives you thoughts of His love. He turns your mind away from that thing. And for a while you almost forget that the problem exists. You may have to get up and face it again tomorrow morning, but for a while he can give you relief from that because he knows your bitterness. The Apostle Paul had at least three different kinds of tribulation. He says he comforted us in all our tribulation. He says in Second Corinthians the eleventh chapter, I think it is, That which cometh upon me daily the care of all the churches. Some of you elders who are here, and I thank God for those who are willing to take the leadership and help the flock of God. And I thank God for every assembly that's governed in a scriptural way by elders and not by a town hall meeting. These wretched business meetings have ruined the work of the Lord everywhere. If you're having one of them at your assembly, get rid of the thing right away. And let those who are elders get together and take care of the spiritual matters and let the deacons take care of the temporal matters and do away with a business meeting. There's no place for it in the Word of God. It's something that was carried over a whole by the brethren in a hundred and fifty years. It would go right out of the Church of England. And it still goes on there. They do it regularly. They have what they call a session, once a month. All the men meet and they have a chance, everybody, to blow off what he's got to say. Say his little say. And then it's decided later on by some group as to whether they'll go by this or not. I'm glad for an assembly that has God the elders. I want to say to you men who are elders that God knows the care that rests on your shoulders. He knows the sleepless nights that you've had when you tried your bed. to handle a problem in the assembly, and then you've been criticized for it. He knows what it means when you care about those souls who are wandering away, and when long after they've gone to sleep, you're still praying about their soul's welfare. I tell you, young people, I'd be mighty careful about my actions when I know that godly elders care. because he says the Lord says they must give accounts and this will not be profitable for you. The Apostle Paul knew what it was to have mental anguish. He was misunderstood. He had the right to the Corinthians to defend his apostleship. Think of a man called like the Apostle Paul, suffering all that the Apostle Paul suffered. giving up all that he gave up and then being questioned as to whether he even had any call from God, whether he was really an apostle or not. He knew this mental anguish that comes because you're misunderstood. God knows about that in your case, too. And then Paul suffered physically. Paul said he had a thorn in the flesh. The Lord didn't tell us what it was. Some people think it was his eyes, whatever it was. He had a thorn in the flesh. The flesh there doesn't mean the old nature, but the body. He had something that was troubling him physically. He knew the need for physical comfort. The Apostle Paul was beaten within the niche of his life. Three times he was beaten with forty stripes, they won. One time they beat him with rods. Another time he was stoned and left for dead. They used to just... just hook a rope onto the man's leg after he's been stoned to death, and a horse pulled him out to the city dump. Whether that's what happened to the Apostle Paul, I don't know. But while the brethren stood around him, I suppose, thinking that's the last of our dear brother Paul, he stood up. The Lord brought him back again. In commenting on him, he said, I don't know whether I was in the body or out of the body. He went through some terrible things, and in all of his tribulation, he said, God comforts us. There isn't anything that could happen to you that hasn't happened to somebody else. He plainly tells us that. First Corinthians ten, there is no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man. But God is faithful. Who will lift the temptation, make a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it? He'll help you through it. Now he says the reason why he comforts us in all our tribulation is, verse four, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. You see, God gives you comfort and makes you a steward of it. I was glad for what our brother, Mr. Balsam, just said about our stewardship. We are stewards of the riches of God's grace. Stewards of the gospel. We are stewards of the truths of God's word, of the teaching. We are stewards of comfort. For God has given you a store of comfort, and out of that, he expects that you will pass on to somebody else, the comfort that you can give. And then, of course, we are stewards of temporal faith. If there's anybody here who believes that he owns anything, let me tell you that you're living way behind the time. You're still living back in the Old Testament. It was only the Old Testament saints who possessed anything on this earth. New Testament saints do not own one stick, nor one inch, of this earth. New Testament saints are stewards of it. And our responsibility as stewards is to handle that for its owner. All earthly possessions belong to God. Only... spiritual blessings in the heavenly places are your possession. When you die, you're going to take with you your own possessions. All of your possessions you're going to take with you when you die. Maybe you didn't know that. Maybe you've heard people say you can't take it with you. That's not true. Everything that is really your possession you're going to take with you when you leave this world. Those are your spiritual blessings, the things that you have possessed. There are nine spiritual blessings mentioned in the first chapter of Ephesians alone. Some Christians couldn't even name two of them. They don't even know what's there. They're like a person who's been left a lovely home, completely furnished. And they step in the front door and sit down in the hallway and say, I've got a wonderful home. And there they sit. It comes mealtime when they don't go in the dining room. It comes bedtime when they don't go to the bedroom. They just sit there in the hallway. Well, I'm inside, and the door is shut, and I'm warm, so that's all I want. I see. Well, you're kind of poor, aren't you, after all. Blessed, ever, spiritual blessing in the heavenlies of Christ, and not enjoying anything much. The children of Israel actually possessed about ten percent of all that God said He wanted to give us. You look it up on your map, read what the Lord promised of the children of Israel, and then read the book of Joshua and Judges and see how much of it they got. They got about ten percent of it. That's about par for the course. About where you and I rate, we are not enjoying what God has for us. We are stewards of the things that are here. Don't get interested in the things that are here. Don't spend your life trying to accumulate something here. If you accumulated it, accumulated it for its rightful owner. And go to him every day and say, now, Lord, you have put me in possession of the truth of God. Who do you want me to tell it to today? Can I write a letter or make a telephone call? Will you send somebody to my house that I can speak to about the Lord? Lord, you have put in my hands certain temporal possessions. These aren't mine. I'm a steward. Lord, show me what you want to do with this today. Maybe He wants you to keep it right there in the bank today, so it will be there next week for another purpose that He has in mind. Maybe He wants you to give part of it away. Maybe He wants you to invest part of it so that it will produce something for another time. Let me tell you, the people who say, well, I am going to use all the money that God has given me and build up a fortune so that I will be able to get a whole lot of money later on. He's just kidding himself. He isn't kidding me, because I've watched that kind for fifty years, and I never saw one of them do anything for God. A person who says, I'm going to build up, I'm going to build up to where I can do a great deal for the Lord later on, is already forming his habits. A Christian who is a real steward is a person who says, this is all God's, and Lord, you show me what you want me to do with it. Now we are stewards of comfort. God give you any comfort? All right, he gave it to you so you can comfort somebody else. Are you looking for a chance? You won't have to look very far. Plenty of people who need comfort. Now God himself is the source of all comfort. You can't get it from man. You know what it says about man in the book of Job, the fifth chapter of Job? He says man is born to trouble. as the sparks fly upward. He's not going to get much comfort from a man. Human beings have all got troubles of their own. Mr. Ross used to tell us about a man who couldn't remember people's names. He thought if he could just get them to talk, maybe they'd give him a clue, you know, as to who they were, say something that would make them think, oh, yes, I met him in Minneapolis. Now I know who he is. So he said he tried to think of something that he could say. It would get people talking, and then he found out what was doing. Just one little sentence. As soon as he'd meet a person he didn't know, he'd say to them, how's your old trouble? And that pressed the button. That pressed the button. Right away they started in and told him about their old trouble. You can say this to any person on earth and get him started. For every person, Christians and all, have got some old trouble. they'd like to tell you about. God himself is the only true source of comfort. Don't run around looking for comfort. You go to God and get your comfort, and then you run around looking for somebody to share it with. That'll be the right way for you to do it. Remember that the Lord Jesus said in the Fourteenth of John, verse sixteen, that when he went back to the Father, he said, I'm going to pray to the Father, and he will send you another comforter. Another? Yes, another like himself. So God the Father is the God of all comfort. The Holy Spirit is another comforter like the Lord Jesus, who is a comforter. That word for comforter, by the way, is a word which means one who comes alongside of to help. Now, if I've got the Lord Jesus alongside of me to help and the Holy Spirit along the other side to help, I'll be able to make it, even if I haven't got anything but rubber legs, don't you think? You can't help but make it. I mean, with one to help on each side. And we have two comforters, one in the presence of God and one here living with us, a comforter to help us. Then the source of comfort is the word of God itself. The last verse of First Thessalonians four says, Wherefore comfort one another with these words. You know, I bought a book on comfort one time, and I read it. I bought it for somebody that I thought needed it, and I always read books that I find. That's a... cheap way of getting read the book yourself you know and people can't tell if you've already read it through and I wanted to know what was in it anyway because I wasn't familiar with it and I read that book through and it was full of comfort when I got through I said what's the matter there's something wrong there's something lacking it's like it's like it's like tasting your dish of oatmeal in the morning and somebody left the salt out of it I couldn't think for a minute what's wrong there's something wrong with that book And I was so disturbed about, I went back over and read it again. You know what I discovered? There wasn't one single reference to the coming of the Lord in that whole book. Then I knew what was the matter. Because First Thessalonians chapter four is telling about the return of the Lord. And he says, wherefore comfort one another with these words. The greatest comfort that you can give to any Christian is to turn his eyes toward the return of the Lord. Dear old brother Clemens, who used to help out at the children's home, had to have a leg removed. He got plebitis, and it was in the hospital, and they had disturbed some of the nerves in some way or another, and the doctor said, we don't know whether we can relieve your pain or not. His foot still hurt, the one that was cut off. This nerve has been pinched somewhere in the amputation, and he could feel that foot that was cut off, and it was... Taining his terribly, you know, the nerve was sending the message to the brain, and the doctor said, We don't know what to do. And the poor man suffered, so he couldn't rest. And I went to see him, and I said, How are you today? We always call him Grandpa out at the children's home. He did the maintenance work there. Or he said, John, I don't think I can stay in another day. He started to cry. No, he didn't say that. He said, I don't think I can stand it. He started to cry, and I said, Well, they'll be able to get it fixed. No, he said the doctor says that he's sure that it'll be three months at least before the pain leaves up. He said, I can't stand three months. Well, I said, Grandpa, could you stand one more day? And he looked up the kind of surprise and stopped crying. He said, well, yes, I reckon I'd stand one day. Well, I said, that's all you have to stand. Just one day at a time. I said, the Lord might come before tomorrow. You can stand it one more day, so just stand it today, and maybe the Lord will come tonight and take you home. And he started crying again. I just picked up my hat and left. I saw that was the right kind of cry at that time. And I just left, and I came back the next day, and I said, well, how are you today, Grandpa? Well, he said, I believe all the nickels were better. Well, I said, that's good. What the pains went? No, he said, it hurts just as bad as it did, but I only have to stand as a day at a time now. That's good. God likes to give you the kind of comfort that will help you. Fellow believers can comfort each other. You remember Barnabas? I like to meet Barnabas when I got to heaven. Barnabas' name wasn't Barnabas at all. That was his nickname. You know his real name? Joseph. But the rest of the disciples called him Barnabas, because Barnabas means the son of consolation. Now God's the father of consolation. But Barnabas was the son of consolation. Isn't that nice? You and I have the father who is the father of the God of all mercies and the God of comfort. God of all comfort. Now let's all be like Barnabas. Barnabas must have been a very comforting brother. I want to beat Barnabas when I get to heaven. I've met a few like Barnabas here, and I thank God for them. Now how does God comfort us? Well, we've just read here. Let me read on a little further. He comforts us actually by giving us trouble. Verse five, for as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, So our consolation also abounded by Christ. How much comfort do you need? You need about five pounds of it today? All right, then you have to have about five pounds of suffering. That's where you get the consolation. You say, I don't want the suffering. I just want the consolation. But as the suffering abounds, so the consolation abounds. Tribulation, work of patience. tribulation also work a consolation. Whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same suffering 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. I know that when some Dear sister is left a widow. I know that God is going to give her comfort. How do I know it? Because God said he would. I know when parents have had sorrow over the failure of their youngsters. I know they're going to get comfort. Why? Because God said he would comfort them, that their comfort would equal their tribulation. I know that when somebody has sickness, ill health, accident, any of these physical frailties, or the loss of income, loss of possessions. I know that God is going to comfort that person because He promised that He would. And another means of comfort is the presence of friends. Job's friends were helped in the first seven days. The great pity that they didn't keep their big mouths shut the whole time. They did fine the first seven days. They came and sat down beside him and just sat there and mourned with him. That's fine. If you haven't got something to say, don't say it. They didn't have anything to say. They ceased to be comforters when they began to talk. It's a great comfort to have some people just come and sit by it. There was a man who was away from the Lord. And when he got away from the Lord, he got away from the Lord's people. He hadn't been in the meeting for a month. He had a reputation for a violent temper. And one of his brethren, knowing this, went to see him. And when he knocked on the door, the man said, Come on. And he pulled the door open. No welcome, just come on. And the man came in. He sat down in the chair. It was empty. and the man of the house sat down in another chair and they were facing the fireplace. And the Christians were sitting there, they're both Christians, but the man who came to see him was sitting there praying, what will I say? And then suddenly he got an inspiration and he stepped up to the fireplace and he took the tongs and he lifted the coal from in the blazing part of the fire and he laid it off by itself. And then he coming the tongs up when he sat down. They both sat and watched that coal off by itself get a little less red until finally it turned almost black. And then he got up and picked up the tongs again and he took it and put it back in with the other. And pretty soon it began to glow. He didn't say a word. Then he looked over at his friend and tears were coming down his cheeks. He says, I know, I know. I'll be at meeting next Sunday. You know, if anybody you could go help, that's the work of elders visiting. There were no comforters for the Lord Jesus, but he's given us many of them. He says, Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me in the twenty-third psalms. I understand how the staff will comfort me. I'm not so sure as I know about the rod. But both the rod and the staff can be a comfort in my life. Now the effects of comfort, I must stop. Rest of spirit. Oh, it's so restful to know that God cares. It's so restful just to get into his presence and roll the thing on him. Somebody ask an old colored lady what her favorite scripture was. And she said, Roll, I burden upon the Lord. Well, he said, How did you happen to choose that one? Well, she said, My favorite verse used to be casting all you care upon him, for he careth for you. But she said, My burden got so heavy I couldn't cast it no more. So now I just roll it. That may not be good theology, but it's mighty good practice, brother and sister. Nothing will ever get so heavy you can't roll it. Roll that burden upon the Lord. You'll know rest of spirit. You'll have new strength to accept trouble. Don't fight it. Don't even try to understand it. It's all right to say why if you say it in the voice of a yielded child. Lord, show me why. But if you say, why, like a spoil of bread, don't expect an answer. Don't try to understand these things. Go to God with your problems and your troubles and leave them with it. You'll think of many examples of comfort in the Scriptures. I thought maybe we'd take up some of those today, but you'll think of many of them. The Lord leads you to roll your burden upon the Lord. Sing together, number three hundred twenty-two. O eyes that are weary and hearts that are sore, look off unto Jesus and sorrow no more. The light of his countenance shine is so bright that on earth as in heaven there need be no night. Three hundred twenty-two, the last two stents.