"As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem." Isaiah 66:13

Additional Readings: Isaiah 66, Psalm 86, Psalm 87, John 14:15-31

The Lord said, "All power is given unto me in heaven and on earth" (Matthew 28:18). All things are in His hand, and the means for accomplishing all things are in His hand. All nature speaks of the wisdom and power which the Almighty God displays in His control of things material. He holds the stars in their courses; He provides for every created thing. The whole universe is created that it may meet every possible need of man.

There is also the spiritual world. "In the beginning God. created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). The spiritual world is a much vaster realm established by the Lord for man, to meet his higher needs. In the beginning men were in close connection with the Lord and with the heavens, but in process of time they departed from the laws established by the Lord, and so they are not in the condition in which the Lord first created them.

The Lord always provides for all things in His universe. When men departed from the way of life He provided that there should be the means whereby His laws might be reestablished among them. When the first spiritual development—the Adamic Church ¹ —came to its end, a change was made in the mental structure of man and a written Word was given him, that he might again order his life according to Divine laws. This is the forerunner of many provisions that the Lord has made to meet the needs of His children. He continually provides distinct means for salvation, for "comfort" in every possible state in the life of man.

Were man in mental and spiritual integrity, as in the most ancient times, enlightenment and power from the Lord could flow directly into him without restraint, blessing him in every way, both naturally and spiritually. But as it is, man is weakened by evil and is under its influence. So life from the Lord has to come to him hedged in by precautionary measures, lest it slay him. The way to the tree of life is guarded by the letter of the Word, through the marvelous care and mercy of the Lord.

In that wonderful work The Divine Providence the laws by which the Lord secretly operates are revealed to us. We must be led in freedom to learn of the Lord and to follow Him. There is no experience through which we may pass which is not provided for. Belief in God is inseparable from a belief in His providence. But a correct understanding of His nature is needed. For by His providence is meant the influence which He exerts over the affairs of men—His active government of the universe.

To feel that the Lord is merely a Creator, One who originally made the world and then ceased to have anything to do with it, is to deny Him all participation in human affairs and all interest in those whom He has created. Such a denial removes Him so far off as to make any personal relationship with Him impossible. If He does not watch over and provide for us, our prayers and praises amount to nothing and might as well cease altogether. To come into a living relationship with the Lord we need to have a true understanding of Him. We cannot worship one about whom we know nothing, and a wrong idea of God is destructive of any intelligent or helpful relationship with Him.

Our text begins "As one whom his mother comforteth." The picture is one of a child who is sick or in distress. As the child is shielded from responsibilities too heavy for him, so the Lord in His tender mercy adapts His truth to the minds of His children. To those who are not far advanced He gives the lower truths, clothing them with such appearances as they need, while to those who have gone further He gives knowledge of Himself in more definite outlines and in larger measure. So it is in all things.

The latter part of our text reads "Ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem." It is in the New Church, which is here called Jerusalem, that the Lord has gathered together all the means of comfort. It is in the doctrine of the New Church that the Lord comforteth man as a mother comforteth.

Sometimes adversities overtake us, and life seems bitter, and the question arises "What are we living for?" This is an age old question. Philosophers beginning with Socrates have tried to answer it. Stoic and Epicurean have given their answers. Nirvana is the answer of the Hindu. All these, though they have afforded some comfort, are in reality but idle dreams. It is in the doctrines of the New Jerusalem that we find the reality. "What are we living for" is a question which finds its answer in the teachings of the New Church and in them only.

When disaster or bereavement comes, none of the systems of philosophy devised by men, with their glittering phrases and mental gymnastics, give any real comfort. But in Jerusalem ye shall be comforted.

If one has lost a little child the Lord says, "Let the little ones come unto me and forbid them not" (Matthew 19:14) To those who are strong and prosperous He says, "Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain" (Psalms 127:1). To the student the Lord says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Psalm 111:10). Whatever be our state or station, the Lord will comfort us in Jerusalem.

And it is written, "In that day shall Jehovah be one, and his name one in all the earth" (Zechariah 14:9). In Jerusalem we are taught to see the Lord as the center of all things, in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, the center for every variety of character, for the seven candlesticks are the seven churches.

From Divine love through Divine wisdom the universe was made and all that is therein. We live because God loves us and desires objects on whom His love can be bestowed and who can know the happiness of loving Him in return. From and by His love and wisdom he always cares for us, for no event or circumstance can be overlooked by Him. To the merely natural man the world may at times seem harsh and cruel and God a hard taskmaster. But the truth is that "the Lord, is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works." Not a sparrow can fall to the ground without His knowledge. Even the hairs of our heads are numbered. Nothing can take place without Divine permission: "the wrath of man shall praise thee; the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain" (Psalm 76:10).

The Lord looks beyond the things of time to eternity. The one great fact of our existence which no one can deny is that sooner or later the earthly life of every man comes to an end. This is part of the Divine plan. When we know that the Lord is Love and Wisdom itself and trust Him, we are enabled to see that all untoward and unwelcome events come to us only for the purpose of furthering our eternal happiness. Then all sickness, sorrow, and disappointment, from whatever cause they may arise, are fully accounted for by the knowledge that the Lord’s providence in all that it does looks to the infinite and eternal. We may not clearly perceive the reasons for our particular trials and afflictions, but there is comfort in the certainty that we should never have been subjected to them unless our Heavenly Father saw that they could contribute something toward making us better and happier to eternity.

The Divine omnipotence—the power of infinite love and wisdom—is always about us. It can never fail us in least things or greatest. Knowledge and acknowledgment of this fact is a part of genuine belief. And wherever true knowledge of the Lord exists, it serves as the basis for a living trust, bringing us into that vital relation to the Lord which is the purpose of our creation. Of this new light which has been given us for our salvation the prophet writes: "Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem: for the Lord hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem" (Isaiah 52:9).

Bilješke:

"Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the ground." Psalm 104:30

Additional readings: Isaiah 45:11-25, John 1:1-14, Psalm 104

Some today think of the universe as self-created, that its life is from itself, and that man is a product of the forces of nature. This is, in brief, the materialist's explanation of nature and of human life.

If this were true, the knowledge of nature and of its laws should solve all our problems. But there are qualities in man that are not found in nature. There is no morality in nature, nor is altruism to be found there. Nature's first law is the law of self-preservation, but among men—even the lowest of them—there is the feeling that they should not always seek to please themselves, that it is truly manly to try to save another at the risk of one's own life, that it is right to protect the weak, to help the neighbor.

Nature knows of no power above itself nor of any life after death. Likewise the materialists are unable to conceive of anything supernatural; they can acknowledge no supreme Being or Creator; they do not believe that they live after death. It should be obvious that nature cannot reveal anything that lies beyond its realm.

Yet in order that any finite thing may live there must be an infinite and uncreated source of life. If there were nothing to begin with, then plainly nothing could result. The forms of life which we see about us, and which we ourselves are, must derive their existence from One who is life itself. This is the meaning of the name Jehovah—the "I Am"—He who is in and of Himself. Such is the true conception which lies at the foundation of all intelligent thinking concerning Him. "Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Greater of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?" (Isaiah 40:28). Creation is but the effect of the outpouring of life from Him. This life is called in the Scriptures His breath or spirit. Accordingly we have such statements as that of our text: "Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created."

But He who sends forth His life-giving spirit is hidden from our natural sight. Yes, even spirit itself is outwardly invisible. And so those who do not lift up their thoughts above nature are tempted to deny His existence. There are higher things than those that can be seen. The spirit of God and all else that is spiritual lie within and above the plane of the senses. Life flows from within outwards. What we see is its external effects; we do not see life itself. Our own spiritual natures are concealed from outward view. We cannot see the souls of those about us. The soul is within the body but is distinct from it. When it is withdrawn, the body dies. In like manner all life is internal and spiritual. He from whom it proceeds is the inmost fountain of all being. "Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created."

Again it has often been imagined by people who do believe in a personal God that He created the world and then let it go on by itself according to a system of laws provided for its government. This belief is in part due to the fact that God keeps Himself out of sight and in part to the fact that men think that His way of doing things would be like theirs. A man builds a house, and he may go away and never see it again. But we must remember that man does not create; he only makes use of materials at hand, reforming them to serve his immediate purpose. The Lord, because He creates, is never absent from any part of His creation. By His presence He keeps the universe alive, just as He originally called it into being. Were He to separate Himself from the things which He has made, they would all perish. This is what our text declares in saying, "Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created." We are not told that the Lord did send out His spirit at some time many years ago, but that He is sending it out now. The language is not that things were created once upon a time, but that they are created. "Existence is perpetual creation." The present tense transforms the statement into a universal law.

It is so too with the second phrase of the text, "Thou renewest the face of the ground." Allusion is obviously made, in the sense of the letter, to the changes continually going on in nature—the succession of one generation by another and the endless alternation of the seasons. Mother earth is just as fresh and young and productive today as she was in most ancient times. She is in the constant reception of new life. Not a moment passes without the face of the ground being renewed.

There is a lesson for us in this. It should teach us of the nearness of our Heavenly Father and of His constant provision for us. He is present in the heat and light of the sun, in the fields, forests, and mountains, in the rivers, lakes, and seas, in the winds and skies. All tell of His majesty and power, and especially of His constant presence. If we can see this, nature becomes more beautiful and wonderful to us. We see in nature His spirit renewing the face of the ground.

How strange it is that study of nature should lead men to disbelief in God. If the universe did not have order, if its parts were disconnected, without relation or use to one another and to the service and enjoyment of men, we might perhaps believe that it was not designed or created by an intelligent Being. But as the case stands, love and wisdom could not have written themselves more plainly in living characters before our eyes. And what are love and wisdom but the essence of a perfect personality? They cannot possibly exist as mere abstractions: they must be embodied in a person. Love is the inmost vital principle, and wisdom is the means whereby love accomplishes its purposes.

The Lord alone has life in Himself. He needs must be the Source of all creation. "All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made" (John 1:3). And of the creation of the earth it is written, "He created it not in vain; he formed it to be inhabited” (Isaiah 45:18). The purpose of the creation of the world was that there might be people upon it, that we might here be formed into God's own image and likeness and find happiness in heaven to eternity. For this reason, however long our life here may be, we are never completely satisfied with it. There has always been among all people a conviction that there is an afterlife. This conviction is not an idle dream but a perception that the goal of life cannot be reached here—that there is more which the Lord has prepared for us.

And just as the Lord is ever present in His creation, sustaining and controlling it from moment to moment, so He is ever present with us, giving us life, and guiding us if only we will be guided—for it is contrary to the Divine love to compel men—to our heavenly home. The Divine Providence is concerned with our spiritual and eternal life, and with bodily and temporal things only as they affect this. "What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" (Matthew 16:26).

This view of the relationship between God and His creation gives us a concept of God that is both rational and also satisfactory to our affectional nature. The Bible starts with the words "In the beginning God. created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1:1) to teach us that there is a Divine Being with a purpose supremely beneficent, and that there is an Intelligence altogether equal to the attainment of that purpose, and the rest of the Scriptures tell us of the Lord's operation in history to the accomplishment of His purposes. Knowledge of Him and of His purposes enables us to realize that there are better times ahead for us and happier times for the human race upon the earth, to which all lovers of mankind may look forward.

Moreover the Lord Himself came into the world as the Redeemer and Savior of men. In our own struggles we are not alone. The God of Battles is fighting for us. We are not cogs in a universal mechanism. The Lord is present everywhere in the universe. He comes to us outwardly in all the beneficent influences of nature, in the warmth and light of the sun and in all its other bounties. He is present in our souls, seeking to gladden us with the warmth of His love and to enlighten our minds with His wisdom, redeeming us from our iniquities and creating us anew into His own image and likeness.