Isaiah 40:1 Comfort, comfort my people,
says your God.

The Bible has many strong words in it, and it doesn’t mince words when dealing with sin. However, it also has passages like this. God is perfectly holy, which means He cannot ignore sin. However, He is also a “compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.” (Exodus 34:6) John goes so far as to say that He is love itself. (1 John 4:8) Anyone who speaks for God will, at times, have to speak strong words, but even then, if they fail to do it in love they have missed God. I recall reading about the circumstan­ces of filming the Video Bible/Matthew. I had already seen the video and been very impressed and moved by it, and then I read about the filming and was even more moved. The actor portraying Jesus was a strong, Spirit-filled believer, and it really shows. After much prayer, he had come to the conclusion that Jesus really delighted in being who He was and doing what He did, and that’s the way he portrayed Him. When someone is healed, it would be hard to say which is more delighted, the person healed, or Jesus. With that attitude, the actor was very troubled by the extended passage in Matthew 23, where Jesus takes the Scribes and Pharisees to task for their hypocrisy. (The Video Bible, with practically no exceptions, simply uses the text of the NIV as a script.) He didn’t know how he could do it and be loving and essentially joyful. They started rather late in the shooting day, not really expecting to finish it all, but once started, the actor went all the way through with no breaks or errors, and the result is an anguished declaration of love. At the end, the actor fell to his knees on the stone pavement of the set, and completely unscripted, the man playing Peter rushed to him to comfort him and try to help him to his feet. That too was caught on film, and the whole is immensely moving. It is as it says in Psalm 85:8, “I will listen to what God the LORD will say; he promises peace to his people, his saints – but let them not return to folly.” God delights to comfort His people, but He still must deal with sin.

As a pastor/teacher I seek to speak the Word of the Lord, and at times that is rather stern. I am not to excuse sin, but I am to comfort the one who has been caught in it, assuring them that God has made a way out. That way includes repentance, which means forsaking the sin, and if someone is unwilling to do that, there is no comfort for them. However, I must be focused on the love of God, just as the actor performing Matthew 23 was. I am to seek to encourage, not in some watered-down, “seeker sensitive” way, but speaking the truth in love, so that all who hear may be built up and not torn down. (2 Corinthians 10:8)

Father, You know that I don’t like to speak strong words, but it seems like my messages tend to be more stern than joyful. I ask for an anointing of joy, that I may bring my hearers into Your joy. May I indeed comfort Your people, binding their wounds and lifting them up, rather than hitting them when they are down. May I be an exten­sion of Your heart even more than Your hand, so that people may know Your love indeed, for their blessing and Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!